Why Bill Maher Blows

Bill Maher is a smug, arrogant, douche rag. I don't think I'm saying anything new or earth-shaking. In fact, if that's all I was gonna go on about in this post, I don't think it would be all that interesting. What interests me, is why Bill Maher is a douche rag.

If you believe in a organized religion you are insane. -Bill Maher paraphrased.

Now, if you know me (and if you are reading this right now there is an excellent chance that is the case), you know that my main beef with Mr. Maher comes from his attitude towards religion. I'll get to that a further on down but first I just want to explore the sort of climate Maher creates.

That, of course, is the climate of the ignorant, educated liberal.

Bill Maher loves to talk. I've got nothing against that, I love to talk as well. But I at least try to talk about things that I understand when I do it, especially when it comes to things as complicated as politics and religion, two of Maher's favorite topics.

But Maher never lets complexities get in the way of him championing one of his pet (usually quite left of center) causes.

Just in case you weren't aware, I'm a pretty liberal person. But there are few things that annoy me than to hear other liberal people talk out their ass about something just because they thing a republican might like it.

A great example of this was a time I was watching a presidential debate between Obama and McCain with a former roommate of mine. I said something about Sarah Palin and how she is a crazy bitch to which my roommate added something to the effect of, "Yeah, and McCain too. That guy has got it in for us."

I wasn't about to get into a fight with my roommate over John McCain, but I asked him, "What are you talking about? Because John McCain isn't a terrible guy, or a terrible statesman. In fact, I think that if he had been elected in 2000 he would have a done an alright job." My roommate's response was to simply grunt and quietly concede, which I took to mean he was just talking out of his ass in the first place. Now, I did think McCain was guilty of letting his party push him around and use him as a bit of a puppet during the 08' election. But I'd hardly say "he has it in for us".

It is these kind of no brain comments that Maher makes and encourages. Much like (total nut ball) Glen Beck he uses the extreme as an example of the center and he paints anyone on the other side of the fence from him on an issue as a radical moron. Way to encourage discussion, Bill.

Bill is more sane and (intentionally) funnier than Beck. I'll give him that.

Now as for Bill and his take on religion.



It doesn't really bother me that Maher is averse to organized religion. It does bother me is his relentless assault on organized religion despite the fact that he doesn't even make the slightest ever to understand them.

I don't like NASCAR but I'm not going to go and make a movie about how much it sucks because have the integrity to admit I don't know much about it.

To be honest, I haven't seen Maher's movie Religulous, but I have seen quite a bit of his show and everything I've ever seen with him handling his opinion on religion he only seeks out the most ignorant of extremists and tries to use them as an example of all people of that religion (usually Christianity). Like Maher actually thinks all Christians are exactly like the white baptists in one Mississippi town.

He cares so little about learning anything about these religions that once, while being interviewed by Mike Huckabee (who I am not a fan of, except for this one time), Maher was caught off balance by the clear responses Huckabee was able to produce to Maher's "stumper" questions on religion. Questions that any Christian with a decent understanding of their own religion should be able to answer.

But probably the biggest issue I have with Maher's problem with religion is that he tries to blame it for every instance of violence around the world.

Seriously Bill? It obviously is true that throughout the course of history many a person has suffered in the name of someone else's' religion. But do you honestly believe everyone would simply stop fighting and sing kumbaya if religion went away tomorrow?

It is in human nature to be violent, distrusting, and controlling. As long as there is power to be had there will be violence on this earth, whether the excuse is religion or money or convenience or anything else.

I'm not going to try to argue that many people don't practice perversions of their own religion. I'm not going to try and claim that religion isn't responsible for anything bad that every happens. But I can't condemn religion because when practiced purely it is the most good thing any person can do.

Nearly all government is broken in some way in countries throughout the world, so why don't we jut throw away government? Because we need it. Because when you do it right it is a very very good thing.

There are a lot of people out there that follow faith blindly, and don't understand their own religion. And that is said, but it is important to understand that those people are not a reason to condemn the ideology of faith. Because they are a perversion of that ideology not the realization.

An Epic Beginning

I love to write. It is what I am pretty sure I want to do with the rest of my life (that is, if I could only do one thing). Yet every time I try to sit down and start to write on this ugly little thing I call a blog I find myself with nothing to say, nothing to write, and entirely uninterested in trying to think of anything. In the time that is has taken me to write just this small paragraph I have already twice looked at my news feed on facebook and turned my chair around to check the Yankee game. (Twice now)

Now, to some people, a grand opening to a blog wouldn't really matter. Particular in the case of my blog since this is actually close to the tenth posting. But as I stated in what I believe was my previous post, this would not be just some simple blog. This was to be a great story. A classic tale of life told through the eyes of myself that millions would be able to relate to, yet, never fully realize. (Which of course all would have been just a cog in the magic of the machine).

I just absent-mindedly checked my email and opened a link to ESPN, but I haven't looked at it yet.

As you can imagine, just any opening would not do. Weeks went by and I still had nothing to write for this wretched little monster, and the saddest part was: I really didn't care that much. It was a mild source of frustration and guilt but it stayed mainly in the back of my mind always losing out to short term pleasures and distractions.

I have had a lot of distractions over the past few weeks. A vacation trip with rarely seen friends. An ongoing apartment search. A sibling's wedding. The usual work frustration, with added pains of talk of promotion and raises.

But a time came early on today when I found myself short on excuses and oddly higher on motivation than normal. The vacation had come and gone. The wedding plans were all squared. The work frustration still existed but had subsided. And the most daunting of rain clouds over my life, my desperate search to find an apartment and find someone to take the one I was vacating seemed to be settled.

It was a funny little coincidence involving the departure of one of my current roommates coinciding with the reaching out of a former roommate prospect within 24 hours that left me feeling relaxed in a way I haven't felt in weeks. It finally felt like I had accomplished something and could just sit and take it easy.

And that is when I got the idea to write this first post of my blog.

Nothing epic, nothing grand. Just honest and anti-climactic.

I've always loved a good sarcastic anti-climax.

Of course, none of the ease of my morning would even last to dinner. My frustration with my work could soon be coming to a head. And of course complications involving my former roommate prospect has left me more or less where I started both in psyhical and mental state.

So it may be another few weeks before I really get into the juice that fuels my life. Something that I have long been wanting to shout from the mountain tops is my loathing for the Ignorant Liberal's champion: Bill Maher. But not yet.

No, for now, this will sustain me. I'll be content with this as my great entrance into the bloggosphere as I sit here in the dark of my soon-to-be former bedroom, picking dead skin off my sunburns, listening to nostalgic movie themes.


Clip O' the Post

Salvation!

Back from the dead and does it feel good to be back. I've finally finished my "Subways" article and now I can get on with the rest of my creative life.

So much to say and so little time. I really feel like from this post forward my blog will take a new shape and get a sense of direction that it never had before. From now on I'm not simply going to ramble about nonsense, I am going to ramble about things important in my life that at least make some sense.

I'm not going to do it all here and now. I'm going to put it off just a little longer, as I want to do with most things in my life.

But there will be much to talk about. Bill Maher and other things that generally frustrate me to the point of passing out, my job and search for a new one, my apartment and transition to a new one, adventures out into society, sports, music, movies, and of course, the love of my life: Catalina.

Right now, what is really upsetting me is this magazine article's completion. It is done but now the editor wants to remove what is ultimately my favorite segment of the article! A great piece about the Masstransiscope of the Brooklyn underground. I think I can get him to at least accept an abbreviated acknowledgment of it.

More on this in the future. But until next time, enjoy this clip. And see "Drag Me to Hell!"

Ice Breakers: Part Duex

I guess when I put up "Random thoughts and Ramblings" on the title of this blog I wasn't kidding. Not that I'm hugely unsatisfied with what has been posted thus far, but when your as opinionated as myself you like to try and say something just a little meaningful every once in a while. Over the next few weeks I'm going to make a much stronger effort to cover topics that I really have something to say about. Things that really grind my gears. Things like Bill Maher and public opinion on steroids. People's opinions about the economy and government. In general, just how much I can't stand the approximately 70% of the world's population that is stupid to the point where if someone they trusted told them the wrong thing they could be pretty dangerous.
I'll probably talk a lot about sports and a little about music. If I was talking about me from 4 years ago it would have been a lot more about music.

I'll undoubtedly talk about how I should be doing lots of things like performing stand up comedy and going around asking/begging different people for internships and work. I'll piss and moan and ironically muse about my frustration of being a struggling human being in a competitive world.

I'll probably talk about a lot of this over the next few days, maybe even some of it tonight. So if that stuff sounds like something that might interest you, maybe you should ask to see my pamphlet sometime. For right now I'm going to work on a magazine article for Primer Magazine about riding on the New York City Subway. Until then, I hope this can satisfy your unsatisfiable nature (the human nature, naturally).

Be back soon,

Kevin H. MacLean