War and Peace

Anyone recognizing the name Morgan Spurlock might be happy to know that he has his own series on the FX Networks. Anyone not familiar with the name might associate it with some crazy 'Merican who ate nothing but McDonald's food for 30 days. His film "Super Size Me" was a classic. The FX Networks coup, retrieving his corpse from the nearest Michigan Hospital (okay, it wasn't even close), decided that his unique brand would be even more lucrative should they give him a weekly platform to ply his trade.

Well, if FX didn't hit another vein into the American psyche. This little niche show provides inciteful and meaningful documentaries on how it would be if you stepped into someone else's shoes for 30 days. Conveniently called "30 Days" for your brand marketing pleasure, there have been episodes where Spurlock has to survive on a minimum wage salary ($5.15US) for 30 days. There are episodes where they film your average Joe/Jane who they place into situations of unfamiliarity, bias, and prejudice. It's really quite educational.

I recently became aware of this program when following a link from the Capitalist Online Magazine's Blog (h/t ToryBlue...get an RSS Feed, btw) . Someone there pointed out a video clip over at Google Video on Theo Van Gogh's film Submission. [sidenote:I can see why Islamoterrorists murdered him in cold blood. Depictions of a veiled Muslim woman, naked under a diaphonous gown inscribed with Arabic writing, is just asking for it. Didn't he know that freedom of expression is equal to the Islamocrazy's freedom to express their craziness?] After taking a moment to relieve the clip's intense significance by bringing up a random choice of clips, I ran into an entire episode of 30 Days.

This particular clip runs for 45 minutes (some wise person removed the commercial requirements before submitting it. It's about a practising Catholic spending 30 Days with a Muslim couple adopting all their practices and customs throughout his time with them. It's a real eye opener. I assumed it would be more fearful, hate filled propaganda, having just watched the haunting Van Gogh clip, but it turned out to be quite uplifting and hopeful. Amongst all the bigotry, generalities, and misunderstandings 'Merican's have against Muslim people what was presented seemed to be much more accurate than one would see on, let's say some right-wing 'Merican blogs.

If you are not absolutely retarded and beyond the capacity to think for yourself it would do you some good to take this clip in. Not that I believe we have any reactionary 'Merican yahoos up here. Nope, stereotyping what you fear is not exclusive to the US. Let's have a balanced point of view.

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