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Funnyfarm Fancies
Tuesday, 22 July 2003
Dave Sim's alternative to funding Indian reservations
In the latest issue of Cerebus (#291, which I bought last week), Dave Sim mentions his alternative to the Canadian government's problem of financially supporting Indian reservations. He says that "In a country whose annual military budget is $11 billion, we are spending $7 billion a year subsidizing life on Indian reserves. That works out to approximately $70,000 a year per reserve-resident household."

He goes on to quote a May 9th National Post editorial which states, "But because many Indian reserves are geographically isolated, bereft of significant economic activity, mismanaged and corrupt, this massive investment does little to improve the lives of ordinary Indians. Meanwhile, the only option that will lead to progress in the long term -- a policy that encourages Indians to leave reserves and integrate into urban Canadian society -- is rejected out of hand as culturally insensitive."

Sim proposes the following solution to the problem:

"I think the only sensible approach to the problem is to offer each individual of the native population a choice: a) he or she can join Canadian society, such as it is, and start working his or her butt off like the rest of us to make ends meet or b) he or she can move onto a vast tract of primordial wilderness (of which this country has no shortage whatsoever) which will be left in its pristine original form which it had hundreds and hundreds of years ago before Europeans came to this country and he or she can return to living just the way his or her ancestors did five hundred years ago. BY LAW no modern convenience of any kind will be allowed to sully the immaculate perfection of the eco-balance of that pristine wilderness. BY LAW no hunting rifle, ammunition, fishing rod and/or tackle, toilet paper, Coleman stove, cigarette, packaged or canned food, tampon, Kleenex, television set, electricity, toilet (chemical or standard), telephone, penicillin, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrush, comb, knife, fork, spoon, plate, pan, bottle, thermos, knapsack, blanket (electric or standard), radio, walkman, VCR, DVD player, satellite dish, beer, wine, spirits nor any other modern convenience with which we Europeans have been steadily eroding the exalted standard of life on this continent for, lo, these many centuries will be permitted AT ANY TIME anywhere in, on or near Firstnationsland. The citizens of Firstnationsland would, of course, be entitled to hunt and fish and farm in whatever proportions they chose to do so and to make any and all of what they deem for themselves to be their basic human necessities out of birch bark, beaver guts and moose antlers. It is my considered opinion that, were such an offer to (be) made, it is very likely that each aboriginal individual electing to choose option b) could probably be given something in excess of five or ten thousand acres to call his or her own since I can't imagine more than ten or twenty people would actually go for it and not one of them would survive the first snowfall anyway."

Posted by rimes12 at 2:44 PM EDT
Tuesday, 28 January 2003
Would Bush victory in Iraq discredit his critics?
The loud volume of voices critical to Bush's policies toward regime change in Iraq means that there is a lot at stake here. The people who are against Bush's plans for removal of Saddam are putting their reputations on the line by taking that stand. Bush is putting his own political career on the line.

So, the outcome of events in Iraq, the way history judges these times, will reveal who was right and who was wrong. If Bush's plan succeeds and regime change in Iraq leads to democracy there and a more friendly Middle East, will Bush's current critics admit that they were terribly wrong about his plan? If Bush wins this war and achieves this goal, won't his stature only rise as a result, assuring his re-election and making his critics look like frightened fools?

Or, is it more likely that even if Bush wins, his critics will then find something else to complain about, and (since memories are short) the public will forget that Bush's critics were wrong about Iraq?

I think there should be consequences for one's stand.

If Bush is wrong on Iraq and things end up as bad as his critics warn they will, then he should not be re-elected. If he ends up starting WW3 in the gulf, he ought to be impeached and removed from office. (They could impeach and remove Dick Cheney, too, so we're not stuck with him as President, which would be even worse.)

However, if Bush's plan goes ahead as he predicts, and it turns out to be a beneficial thing, then there ought to be consequences for those people who said he shouldn't do it. They should be forced to acknowledge that they were wrong, and so then people will remember next time they open their mouths to protest something.

For the record, I'm against going to war in Iraq, but I have a hunch that Bush's plan, risky as it sounds, could result in a democratic Iraq (without Saddam around) and ultimately be a better situation than the one we've had for the past ten years, particularly for the suffering Iraqi people. And if that's what Bush achieves, then I'll admit that I was wrong about opposing the war. But I get the feeling that a lot of his critics won't similarly own up to being wrong if they turn out to have been on the wrong side in the end.

Posted by rimes12 at 2:25 PM EST
Saturday, 7 December 2002
I bought my first DVD on Wednesday...
...and I don't even own a DVD player. But they were too cheap to pass up.

Actually I bought two DVDs, not just one.

I had noticed on Tuesday that the local K-Mart store had some DVDs priced at $2.50, including two from an apparent "Golden Years of Classic Television" series. One of them was "The Adventures of Sir Lancelot, Vol. 1" starring William Russell (whom Doctor Who fans may remember as the first male companion of the good Doctor, back in the early 1960s). The other was "The Adventures of Kit Carson," a western series. Both were from the 1950s and both DVDs contained 4 episodes each. The company is listed prominently as "Cascadia Entertainment," but no other info is given (like an address), other than "Made in Canada."

Anyway, a couple months ago, I had been lamenting the fact that I hadn't been running across videotapes of old TV shows and stuff like that lately at stores. For example, in the past, I'd run across a cheap videotape containing two episodes of the 1950s "Captain Midnight" TV series among the kiddie tapes at a drugstore, and another time I'd found a Green Hornet movie serial for real cheap at a store, simply by chance. Where were the cool, neat discoveries now?

So, this was the first cool discovery I'd made at a store in a long while. I hope that I run across more of such obscure TV shows on DVD for dirt-cheap. The only other $2.50 DVD that looked intriguing to me at the K-Mart was one that contained two Red Ryder western B-movies on it. I may end up getting that one if these ones look OK. (I haven't watched them yet. I'll have to use my nephew's DVD player for the nonce to check them out, and right now he's got me in the middle of watching the extended 4-disc version of "Fellowship of the Ring.")

Who knows, maybe these $2.50 Sir Lancelot and Kit Carson DVDs are available at stores in your area. Check 'em out, and let me know if you see any other cool ones like 'em there.

Posted by rimes12 at 1:01 AM EST
Friday, 24 May 2002
Black and White and Read All Over
Happened to stop at a local used record store today and noticed they had around 4 or 5 boxes of comics and other magazines, with a sign saying "Buy 1, Get 1 Free." Most of the stuff was 99 cents each. They had some oddball stuff in there, like issues of "Battlestar Galactica" and "The Krofft Supershow."

I ended up getting 4 mags (one of them a recent issue of Entertainment Weekly for 99 cents), the comics-related ones being:

 

  • DOC SAVAGE #3 (Marvel; Jan. 1976 B&W magazine) = 50 cents
  • SPACE:1999 #4 (Charlton; May 1976 B&W magazine) = 50 cents
  • THE WORLD OF SHERLOCK HOLMES Mystery Magazine #1 (Myron Fass; Dec. 1977 B&W magazine) = 99 cents

    So, the 4 mags together cost me only $1.49. Pretty cool, huh?

    The Sherlock Holmes mag is not a comic, but a text magazine with lots of illustrations, many of them by Luis Dominguez who did many horror covers for DC in the 1970s (often signing them with his initials). There are 8 full color, full page illustrations (paintings?) by Luis (including the front & back cover), and 4 full page B&W illustrations, accompanying a new Sherlock Holmes prose adventure in the issue. It also reprints some items from The Strand Magazine from 1892.

    It seems to me that these type of B&W magazines are often overlooked by fandom simply because of their different format. Also, it seems to me that they were a good way to reach beyond the regular comics-reading audience, perhaps to an older audience who was embarrassed to be seen reading a color comicbook. They also avoided the (supposed) stigma of the comics spinner, since they would be placed next to regular magazines on the magazine shelf, not next to the superhero & Archie comics. A publication like the aforementioned Sherlock Holmes mag is nearly like a modern-day (or 1970s, anyway) equivalent of an old pulp magazine like The Shadow.

    I wonder why companies (or anyone) no longer publish magazines like this today. The last B&W comics magazine I remember seeing on the magazine shelves was DC's "100% Weird" which contained reprinted "strange but true" short stories from their "Big Book of..." trade paperbacks. There must be some reason that the format is no longer being done because even Love & Rockets, which was revived last year, is now the size of a comic instead of a magazine as it used to be.

    Of course, MAD and Cracked magazine are still being published, although both titles now use a lot more color pages than before. Cracked was on hiatus the past several months, but a new issue finally appeared on the magazine shelves this week. (For background on Cracked's problems, click here.) The current issue of MAD contains a Spider-Man parody, with a Mort Drucker illustration of Alfred E. Newman as Spidey on the cover.


  • Posted by rimes12 at 7:40 PM EDT
    A Beginning
    As you can see, I'm doing a complete overhaul of my website. Taking stuff down and putting stuff up. Trying to make it simpler, easier to figure out, and maybe a little more stylish than it has been. Also, I'm going to try and make it easier for me to keep a journal of sorts (probably a lot shorter entries than I normally write) right here on the main page, in the style of Andrew Sullivan's website (which I check out a few times per week). Check in later tonight for some more writing by me.

    Posted by rimes12 at 6:00 PM EDT
    Thursday, 21 March 2002
    My Latest Rant about Christian Music
    I posted two posts today on a Christian music board and thought I'd share them here because I felt like it...

    I started off responding to a comment that a Christian music exec had made in an article appearing in Christianity Today about the CCM (contemporary Christian music) biz. He had been quoted as saying, "The dirty little secret is [the corporate parent] could [not] care less what your content is -- if it's a hit, they could [not] care less. Whether you're talking about Christ or Satan, doesn't matter to them. Does it sell, and not just does it sell -- does it make the [PNL] number? Making the number is the only guiding force in corporate Christian music making today."

    My response:

    Well, my answer to that would be -- that's in the Christian music industry. Of course they don't care how Christian artists talk to Christian audiences in the Christian market. The more they sing about Christ the better. That's probably how the secular parent company looks at it, since they see the Christian label which they own as serving a certain niche market. Just like if a magazine publisher bought up a line of skin mags, they'd want the skin mags to continue showing lots of skin.

    But I think the gatekeepers of mainstream culture DO care if it comes to allowing Christian artists access to the wider culture. I recall hearing or reading where a mainstream source said that they never would have accepted Sixpence None the Richer if they had known from the start that they were CCM. John Cooper of Skillet has talked about playing showcases for secular labels and finding resistance to getting signed. dc Talk has talked about some secular stations being unwilling to play their songs, telling them "we don't play Christian music." So, I'd say there is definitely resistance if a CCM artist wants to impact the wider culture. But within the CCM market itself, secular companies don't care what is being said, as long as it sells good in that market.

    As I said in another thread here, in the mainstream market, it's more than just good sales that get you coverage, there's also the "cool" factor to be considered. I don't think that "coolness" is a factor in the CCM industry, so that's why sales are the main concern. But in the secular mainstream industry, MTV, Spin, Rolling Stone, etc. would rather give coverage to an artist who seems cool, hip, or buzzworthy even if that artist sells less than a CCM artist does. (For example, see the coverage that bands like Phantom Planet and The White Stripes are getting currently.) Why? Probably because it makes MTV, Spin, Rolling Stone, etc. look cool and hip if they are always talking about these cool and hip artists. If they covered easy listening, country, or CCM, that might go against their attempts to be seen as hipper than thou.

    Unfortunately for CCM, the cooler artists in CCM don't usually sell as much as the duller CCM artists do. So, high-selling CCM artists who would deserve mainstream coverage because of their high sales are often too unhip to be covered (e.g., MWS, SCC, Point of Grace, Avalon, etc.) and lower-selling CCM artists like Skillet, and even RSJ in my opinion, are cool but don't have enough sales action to make mainstream coverage inevitable at some point. And it's a Catch-22: the more coverage you get, the better sales often get. That's why so many CCM albums do well the first week but then drop off, because there's no coverage by the secular mainstream that would educate a potential buyer who the artist is, what their music is like, etc. which would sustain sales better as new customers find out about the artist.

    By the way, has anyone else noticed how well MercyMe's album is doing on the Billboard top album charts? It's actually moving up the charts instead of down. It's at like #67 or something this week -- a little higher than Jars of Clay's new album (only in its 2nd week, too), I think! The funny thing is that I'm a fan of Christian music, but I've never even heard that band. (I don't listen much to Christian radio at all. I pay attention to Christian videos on TV, but haven't seen one by them yet.) I would guess that most of their sales are probably from the Christian marketplace, which must be slowly learning about the group and driving them up the chart. Now if only the secular gatekeepers will notice this and actually do a profile of them. But will they? If not, why not?


    In response to my post, another poster said that if I agree that CCM is denied mainstream exposure, "would it not follow that the "Christian" music label and ghetto/subculture actually IS a hinderance to artists who want to make an impact in the world at large?" Evidently he was implying that Christian artists should abandon the CCM genre if they want to be heard on secular radio. Problem solved, right?

    My response:

    Yes the "Christian" label is a hindrance, but why? Only because of the prejudice that the world at large has for the Christian music label. So, I think we ought to fight that prejudice not surrender to it.

    If you ever want to know my opinion about anything in CCM, just compare it to my favorite medium, comicbooks. Comics writers would get a lot more respect if they wrote novels instead of comics and reach a wider audience as well. Does it then naturally follow that they should leave comics and write novels instead? Not if they want to help comics. Rather they should continue creating literate comics and hope that eventually the stigma against comics will erode, as it has been doing considering that publications like Entertainment Weekly and Salon.com have reviewed new comics on occasion. (Probably more than they review CCM...)

    I had mentioned mainstream coverage of The White Stripes in my previous post. I picked them out of the air as an example because I'd happened to see their video on MTV, had seen a profile of them in an alternative rock music mag a couple days ago, and had noticed that they hadn't yet broken into Billboard's Top 100 albums list. In other words, I was being exposed to this band without even trying to be, whereas I hadn't even heard a song by a much better-selling CCM band (MercyMe) and I'm actually a Christian music fan. Sounds a bit odd, huh? Maybe that's why I'd like more CCM exposure in the mainstream -- not just so non-fans can be exposed to it, but so CCM fans like MYSELF can get more exposure to CCM! (Religious outlets don't do a good job of this.)

    Anyway, I decided to do a search on Yahoo to see if I was being unfair to secular bands like The White Stripes. Were they really getting a lot of exposure despite their low sales, compared to the lack of exposure that better-selling CCM artists were getting?

    Yahoo results for The White Stripes include pages about them at the websites of the BBC, MTV, Time magazine, New Musical Express, Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, etc. The Time article notes that the band has been reviewed in the Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, and Rolling Stone. MTV's site has an A to Z list of many artists, and their page for The White Stripes is at
    http://www.mtv.com/bands/az/white_stripes/artist.jhtml
    where you can see a photo of the band, download their song and video, read their bio, and read MTV news items about them. The most recent news item was from yesterday, in MTV's overview of this week's Billboard album chart. MTV's overview doesn't mention any of the CCM albums that charted well this week, such as the albums of Kirk Franklin (#21 both this week & last week), MercyMe (#67 this week, #75 last week), Jars of Clay (#70 this week, debuted at #28 last week), Michael W. Smith (#73 this week, #67 last week), or Plus One (#86 this week, #62 last week, debuted at #29 three weeks ago).

    But MTV's overview DOES note, "The White Stripes will spend their second week on the chart 28 spots higher than their first, with [their album] White Blood Cells coming in at #157 with almost 8,500 more copies sold." You can read their slanted overview yourself at
    http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1452989/20020320/story.jhtml

    Most Christian artists do not have their own entry in the A to Z band list at MTV's site. Kirk Franklin isn't even listed there (though Aretha Franklin is). Plus One are not listed. Jars of Clay are listed, but the only thing on MTV's page for them is a single news item from 1997. Third Day have a page on MTV's site, too, but the only thing on it is a news item about them beating P.O.D. in the Dove Awards last year. Meanwhile, secular bands which have yet to enter Billboard's top 100 albums chart, like The White Stripes and Phantom Planet, ARE included on MTV's band list however.

    I wonder where the Newsboys' new album will chart when it comes out next week. (It will appear on the Billboard chart that comes out April 4th.) Why bother caring, if even great sales won't garner mainstream coverage?

    The other poster had offered as a reason why MercyMe would not garner secular coverage the following: "Again, relevance. Mercy Me has nothing of value to say to a person who is not a believer (and musically they are not a risk-taking group, either). Their music is all mostly vertical -- man to God. Most non-Christians aren't going to be interested in that and, unlike other 'spiritual' type music, the Christian message largely will get ignored because it is deemed more exclusive and 'judgemental.'"

    But we keep hearing about how groups like P.O.D. and Lifehouse and Creed are really giving the same message as Christian music, and yet they are accepted by the mainstream. Aren't the lyrics to "Hanging by a Moment" and "Alive" vertical? And yet nobody ever accused them of having lyrics which weren't relevant to a mainstream audience. It seems to me that the only difference is the Christian record label. If it's considered Christian music, the mainstream gatekeepers don't give it coverage for the most part, even if it sells well. That's not right, and we should criticize injustice, not accept it as normal or acceptable.

    Posted by rimes12 at 6:27 PM EST
    Tuesday, 29 January 2002
    Should parents let their kids play in the (Arab) street?
    I found this paragraph in a Yahoo news story about the latest Israeli-Palestinian clashes.

    "Elsewhere, Israeli troops met with resistance, especially in the adjacent Tulkarem refugee camp to which many gunmen had fled. Tanks had difficulty entering some of the camp's alleys and groups of children followed the gunmen around as they fired at armored vehicles."

    (Emphasis mine.)

    Why are these children allowed to follow gunmen around while they are shooting their weapons? Would you allow your child to mill around in the street while it is being attacked? I question whether some of the parents of these kids care about their children's safety.

    If the parents don't care about keeping their kids off the street when gunfire is being exchanged, then maybe the soldiers ought to take the kids into custody, just like children would be removed from a home if they were being abused by their parents.

    I suspect that these children are being allowed to be in harms way to make the Israeli soldiers' job more difficult, so they have to worry about accidentally hurting a child. (And if they do, then they look like the villains. Never mind that their parents let the kid follow the pursued gunmen around, getting in the Israeli soldiers' way, etc.) If the parents are letting their children roam freely through a warzone with no supervision, then they don't have the child's best interests at heart.

    Agree or disagree? What do you think? Are these kids being used by their parents in a bad way?

    Posted by rimes12 at 6:39 PM EST
    Monday, 14 January 2002
    Some more interesting poll numbers...
    In the thread below about "liberal bias in the media," I posted some Gallup poll numbers that I thought were interesting because they showed how Americans have some views that are not really reflected in media coverage, IMO anyway. I used the example of how 48% of Americans believe in the theory of Creationism and 28% believe in the theory of Evolution, which I found surprising given the way the subject is treated in the media (where Creationists seem to be fringe types). More Americans stated that Darwin's theory of Evolution "has not been well supported by evidence" than those who were willing to say that it "has been well supported by evidence."

    I thought I'd share some other interesting poll numbers I found.

    On some subjects, there has been a reversal of what Americans think in just a few decades' time. On some other subjects, the percentages have remained largely unchanged over time.

    For example, when Gallup asked Americans the question, "Do you think homosexual relations between consenting adults should or should not be legal?" in a poll conducted on May 2001, 42% of Americans thought that it should not be legal. That percentage has remained largely unchanged (except for a rise in the 1980s) since Gallup first asked the question in 1977, when 43% of Americans thought homosexual relations should not be legal.

    In 2001, 54% of Americans thought homosexuality should be legal. That is only 11 points higher than the percentage who thought it should be legal when Gallup asked in 1977.

    Despite the inclusion of sexual orientation in many anti-discrimination laws today, 40% of Americans in 2001 said that gays should not be hired to be elementary school teachers, and one-third of Americans in 2001 felt that gays shouldn't be hired as high school teachers.

    When Gallup asked Americans in 2001, "What is your impression of how most Americans feel about homosexual behavior -- do most Americans think it is acceptable or not acceptable?" 74% said "not acceptable" and 21% said "acceptable." I would have guessed that the numbers would have been reversed (considering that homosexuality seems more accepted today, or at least that is the impression I get).

    Sometimes these perceptions that we have can shown to be wrong because of polling data. For example, for many decades Gallup has asked Americans "At the present time, do you think religion as a whole is increasing its influence on American life or losing its influence?" From 1965 until September 11, more Americans usually responded that religion was losing its influence. (The exception is during the mid-1980s, when more people believed religion was increasing its influence, and in 1998 when opinion was evenly split.) And yet, when Americans were asked during the same period to rate the importance of religion in their own life, the number who said it was "very important" was higher in the 1990s than it was in the 1980s. During the 1980s, the percentage of Americans who considered religion "very important" in their life was between 53% and 56%. During the 1990s, the percentage was between 55% and 63%.

    Another example of where perception may be inaccurate is the notion that Americans are less likely (at least before September 11) to attend church or synagogue than they did in the good old days. But Gallup's polls find that the percentages of those who did (41%) or didn't (59%) "attend church or synagogue in the last seven days" was identical in February 2001, May 2001, December 2001, in 1995, in 1991, in 1982, and in 1937. While the highest numbers (47 to 49%), who said they attended in the last seven days, had occured during the mid-1950s, the next highest number (48%) was in March 1994. The week after September 11th had the number at 47%. Thus, it appears that church and synagogue attendance has remained fairly stable among Americans from 1937 to 2001, despite perceptions that we have become more secular.

    Here's another odd one about perceptions. Gallup asked Americans to rate race relations between blacks and whites, whether they were "Very
    good," "Somewhat good," "Somewhat bad," or "Very bad." Ironically, black respondents felt that the race relations were "Very good" or "Somewhat good" more than whites did. 30% of whites felt relations were "somewhat bad" while only 17% of blacks felt that way. However, 11% of blacks felt relations were "Very bad" compared to 6% of whites. This seems to suggest that whites realize that there is a problem but don't seem to realize the extreme seriousness of the problem, or how deep the problems are. 2% of people of both color had no opinion.

    Similarly, when Gallup asked whether respondents were satisfied with the way Hispanics were treated in this country, 15% of Hispanics were "very satisfied," whereas only 6% of blacks were "very satisfied" with how Hispanics were treated. And non-Hispanic whites responded that they were "somewhat dissatisfied" at the treatment of Hispanics at almost the same percentage that Hispanics themsleves gave. But again, when it came to the last category, more Hispanics felt "very dissatisfied" than whites or blacks felt about them. In other words, both whites and blacks were willing to feel some degree of dissatisfaction for how Hispanics were treated, but more reluctant to place relations in the worst possible light. It also suggests a big split among Hispanics about how they are treated, with 45% of them feeling satisfied overall, and 54% not. Blacks are not as closely split, with 60% of blacks being dissatisfied and only 39% of blacks satisfied with how blacks are treated in this country.

    Gallup asked whether Americans favor or oppose "Setting quotas for the number of racial minorities hired or accepted even if it means lowering the standards in order to make up for past discrimination". The majority of Americans (including a majority of blacks) opposed this, except for Hispanics who favored it by 52%.

    In 2001, Gallup asked Americans "Would you favor or oppose a law that would allow homosexual couples to legally form civil unions, giving them some of the legal rights of married couples?" Remember, this is not asking them whether they support allowing gays to be married exactly as heterosexuals are, but simply whether gays should be allowed some legally-recognized union that wouldn't be called "marriage." Still, 52% of Americans opposed this while 44% favored it.

    An example of how American attitudes have reversed can be found when Gallup asked the question, "Do you think it is wrong for a man and a woman to have sexual relations before marriage, or not?" In 2001, 38% said it was "wrong" and 60% said it was "not wrong." When Gallup asked that question back in 1969, the numbers were practically reversed, with 68% calling it "wrong" and 21% "not wrong." When Gallup asked in 1987, the two sides were more evenly split (46% to 48%).

    In May 2001, Gallup asked Americans to rate certain topics according to whether they felt they were morally acceptable or unacceptable. (It was phrased in the poll this way: "Regardless of whether or not you think it should be legal, for each one, please tell me whether you personally believe that in general it is morally acceptable or morally wrong.") Here were the results, grouped in order of "moral acceptability":

    Medical testing on animals:
    65% "morally acceptable"
    26% "morally wrong"

    The death penalty:
    63% "morally acceptable"
    27% "morally wrong"

    Buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur:
    60% "morally acceptable"
    32% "morally wrong"

    Divorce:
    59% "morally acceptable"
    28% "morally wrong"

    Sex between an unmarried man and woman:
    53% "morally acceptable"
    42% "morally wrong"

    Doctor assisted suicide:
    49% "morally acceptable"
    40% "morally wrong"

    Abortion:
    42% "morally acceptable"
    45% "morally wrong"
    (pretty much evenly split)

    Homosexual behavior:
    40% "morally acceptable"
    53% "morally wrong"

    Cloning animals:
    31% "morally acceptable"
    63% "morally wrong"

    Suicide:
    13% "morally acceptable"
    78% "morally wrong"

    Married men and women having an affair:
    7% "morally acceptable"
    89% "morally wrong"

    Cloning humans:
    7% "morally acceptable"
    88% "morally wrong"

    Interesting to find that more Americans think homosexuality is "morally wrong" (53%) than they do abortion or doctor-assisted suicide. Do you think this majority feeling is represented as such in the media, culture, news coverage, etc.?

    When Gallup asked in August 2001 "whether you favor or oppose a constitutional amendment to allow voluntary prayer in public schools," 78% of Americans favored it, while only 20% opposed it. Do you think this majority feeling is represented as such in the media, culture, news coverage, etc.?

    Posted by rimes12 at 6:19 PM EST
    Liberal bias in the media?
    I haven't come across figures for how many "fundamentalist Christians" there are in America. A Gallup poll conducted in March 2000 found that "about 26% of Americans say they consider themselves members of the Christian right" and "48% of Americans say they have a favorable opinion of 'Christian fundamentalist religions'."

    Another Gallup poll, taken in Feb. 2001, found that 48% of Americans believe in the theory of Creationism, compared to 28% who believe in the theory of Evolution. I was surprised by those numbers, because the way that the news media covers an issue like evolution makes it seem like it's a small minority who is fighting it, whereas in fact those who believe in evolution are the minority.

    A Gallup poll conducted on Sept. 7, 2001 found that 45% of Americans feel the news media is too liberal whereas only 11% thought it was too conservative.

    Posted by rimes12 at 1:19 PM EST

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