Distaste for the Illogical

Tonight, I arrived home with a buzz in time to watch the last 4 minutes of the Academy Awards. I was sick of it by the 2-minute mark.

What I love/hate/love again about the Academy Awards is that they’re a ridiculous foray into unnecessary vanity , centering too much attention on things that most people already know (not unlike my victory at my fourth grade science fair).

I don’t mind that there’s a TV show and festivious post-show celebration of the accomplishments of a handful of producers, directors, and folks who stand in front of cameras and scream obscenities at photography directors , but I kind of mind that people always buzz about it the following week as if I wasn’t already sick of hearing about it. The implications are irrelevant, and make poor kindling for the fire of an interesting conversation.

At least with an elaborate award ceremony like the “Nobel Peace Prize Award Thingy,” (I couldn’t remember if it was called a ‘Thingy’ or a ‘Shindig’) a monetary prize is given to a person who makes a significant advance in science, technology, or at the very least, makes a new hand-motion that symbolizes the word ‘peace.’

I also believe that everyone (and by ‘everyone’ I mean that guy I overheard this one time two weeks ago) made too big a deal of the concept of a posthumous award for Best Supporting Actor possibly going to Heath Ledger’s estate.

Heath Ledger’s next-of-kin deserve not only an Academy Award, but also a lifetime supply of exploding high-fives for Ledger’s performance in “The Dark Knight,” where he portrayed a deranged, make-up wearing character known as “Brenda Dickson. “

Despite the obvious irrelevance, I don’t actually hate the Academy Awards that much. They’re not so different than my high school prom, really. Only difference is that nobody cool showed up to my prom.

Reading the newspaper is a common tradition among many elderly folk, but will always retain its value for one specific reason or another. My personal reason for reading the paper is for the uncanny local stories which somehow fail to resurface on the web.

Take, for instance, the story of a sole employee at a car-wash, who came face-to-face with her own mortality one fateful evening. Because of her scarf.

As it was told, a local woman working at a car-wash was forcefully detained when her fashion accessory (I’m sorry, I meant “neck-warming apparel”) got caught in an automated turbine. Summarily unconscious and helpless, a customer realized the urgency of the scenario and leapt out to rescue her. Drawing his pocket knife, he severed the deadly yarn and freed Ms. Carpluck (I kid you not) from the contraption.

Despite the fact that a man armed with a pocket knife and his brilliant timing was Ms. Carpluck’s only hope for survival, a Worcester ordinance seeks to condemn the actions of a brave inidividal like himself. You see, my town’s legislature seeks to not only ban, but criminalize the act of carrying a 3+ inch bladefor any reason.

This ordinance would have catalyzed the death of the sole worker at a local car-wash. It seems to defy any semblance of logic, as well–If you pass a law forbidding knives that are long enough to be useful, intuition should tell you that only LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS will concede their actions to the law’s demands. The rest of the people out there who are intent on stabbing each other are facing a much bigger penalty than a $100 dollar fine , and it seems to me that they’ve already weighed their options thoroughly.

Despite the official deliberation that “something is needed to curb the use of knives in assaults,” there is and always has been a legitimate need for bladed objects. Carpenters, chefs, and the occasional benevolent citizen all need knives in order to perform basic functions. Saving lives happens to be the most extreme scenario.

I hope our governing body hasn’t been so audacious to assume that making a law is the most effective way to remedy a legal trouble. After all, if you break one law, who’s to say you’d have a problem with breaking a new one?

So during my post-work evening routine of browsing through Google trying to find the names of obscure cocktails, I stumbled across an interesting piece on AOL News about the world’s youngest transsexual (I have no idea how it happened, believe me).

Taking interest because of my past work in social justice and gender issues, I decided to check out the background of the story. Kim Petras (who was then named Tim Petras), has been taking estrogen hormone therapy since the age of twelve. Always having felt like a woman, she has recently had surgery in Germany at the legal age of 16 in order to live her life comfortably.

The majority of us can’t possibly understand what it is that compels a person to want to have to make such a drastic change to his or her own personality, especially at such a young age. I for one can’t even picture what my life would be like if I had chosen to be a woman. Honestly, it’s hard enough being a man.

Then again, there are people out there who take advantage of the facets of their own gender. Take, for example, Nadya Suleman , who after 6 children went ahead and had octuplets.

Someone who changes his or her gender through hard work and determination (and expensive surgery, of course) has little shame when juxtaposed with someone born a woman, and has fourteen children just for the hell of it–after all, it’s a vagina, not a clown car.

So we’re torn between the wants and needs of each gender. I’m hoping that some sort of Judge Edo can be appointed in order to fix the balance between the crazy and the insane –’cause I can’t possibly hope to make any form of reasonable deliberation.