Don't Blame Britney and Miley

This is my latest at the Partial Observer. Excerpt:

By 1997, some Christians decided to boycott Disney because Disney - which was never anything remotely like a Christian company - started to give out same-sex partner benefits to their gay employees. If your business employs large numbers of animators, make-up artists, costume designers, and dancers, this sounds like a sensible business decision. The new generation of Christians, however, demanded "wholesome" entertainment from a "wholesome" company, when their grandparents would have warned that seeking "entertainment" was itself the problem. The very fact that a Christian boycott of Disney was called for was proof-positive that the Old Time Religion had died and the boycott could never work. The real problem was not Disney, but the fact that conservative Christians watched Disney videos and vacationed at DisneyWorld. The problem was not the symptoms of sex, violence, or profanity in the movies, but the disease that Christians caught when they had fallen into the hypnotic trap of mass media and pop culture. They would watch the same television shows as everyone else and, perhaps to a lesser extent, the same movies. They would watch the same sports and the same news programs. They would be swayed to want something they didn't need through advertising. They would be presented with a narrow range of choices in the ballot box, and be told this was "freedom" and "democracy."

Had the old-time Christians been as vehemently against radio, records, and television as they were against cards, alcohol, and shows, conservative Christianity may actually have become a counter-cultural movement today, rather than a whiny, paranoid subculture within the mainstream culture that it has become.

Child Sex 24/7

Incredible.

First, the Libertarian Party national director smears a Libertarian presidential candidate Mary Ruwart for giving a libertarian answer to the questions of child sex and child porn.

Next thing I hear, the FBI is again pressuring Congress to make ISP's keep record of websites visited for two years - not to go after terrorists, as is the usual justification for invading our privacy, but to go after child porn. The costs of saving that information could wipe out both small and large ISP's alike.

Next piece of news, Roger Clemens allegedly had sex with a 15 year-old girl. One ESPN pundit (I think on Rome is Burning) says this is why Barry Bonds hasn't sued for defamation about steroids as Clemens has: it opens up one's private life to all kinds of allegations, true or false.

And finally, famed photographer Annie Liebowitz turns out to be a child pornographer, and 15 year-old Miley Cyrus the latest "victim" of skin mag Vanity Fair. What's next, censoring old Brooke Shields photoshoots and movies?

Comedian Doug Stanhope and this poster at Third Party Watch both said they've searched the Internet for all kinds of porn and never, ever, came across child porn. They've stumbled upon some pretty weird, gross stuff they couldn't even imagine, but not children having sex. I suspect this stuff is way underground, and child porn sites are probably just sting operations of FBI agents, and the actual risk to children is negligible.

The crusade about child porn and child sex is probably a) led by closet pedophiles who hate themselves for their secret fantasies, and b) is just an excuse to censor the Internet.

But It's Still Hannah

If I understand it, Hannah Montana is a fictional character played by Miley Cyrus on television and on tour. In concert, the first half of the concert is Miley performing as Hannah, and the second half Miley is performing as herself.

There is a transition at the end of the closing song of Hannah's set in which a stand-in dances briefly as Hannah while Miley switches costumes to take the stage to perform as herself. Some fans who figured it out are very upset.

Is this fraud? Are the fans being cheated because it isn't really Miley out there for a minute or two?

Of course not, because it is still Hannah Montana the fictional character who they paid to see, only for this brief period she is being played by someone else. The fans paid to see, for the first half of the show, "Hannah Montana," not Miley, and they're still seeing Hannah Montana, just as it's still Indiana Jones even when he's played by a stunt double instead of Harrison Ford.

If this was pulled off in the portion where Miley, the real person, had a stand-in, that would be different. The fans would have a right to feel cheated. But not when it's a fictional person they're seeing in the first place.

Hannah Montana fans should grow up.

(That last sentence is supposed to be ironic.)