Death and depravity lurks in local theater. Eek!

Last night (Saturday, August 20, in case you were wondering), I moseyed on over to CBC to see a performance of the musical version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (yes, such a thing does exist), in the orchestra for which my mom was playing violin.





Duuuude--I'm sooo getting this poster for my room!







Anyhoo, as shows go it was fair. The performances were excellent (especially, of course, that of the poor guy who had to play both Jekyll and Hyde). Of course, as I find I often do, I had beefs with the written show, not the performance itself. One would expect the songs of a musical to be its highlights--rarely was that the case here. I would be watching the show, enjoying it, and then a song would fire up and I couldn't help but be like "Ah, man. Another song to sit through" (the solos were especially annoying that way). There were exceptions, of course, but I'd say about half the music could have been chopped out; it often seemed to just get in the way of the plot. Not, once again, that the songs were badly performed, but they were often just boring by nature.

Anyway, that's not what I'm really wanting to post about here. I'll just wrap up my critique by saying this: if this show comes along in your area, it's probably worth seeing, but be prepared for boring bits.

Many of us are familiar with the story of Jekyll and Hyde. It appears to be simply another mad scientist story. But if you think about it, the story is actually quite creepy because, in a sense, it's true. Or it could be. Robert Louis Stevenson's idea was that all people are made of two halves: the good side and the evil side, and both these sides are constantly warring for dominance. Most of the time, the good side of us manages to keep control; we are, essentially, good people. But there are many times in the day when the Hyde in us will break out, just for a moment or two, cause some damage, then slither back under the surface.

You could think of it as a definition of sin. Every sin we commit is a small victory for Hyde; a small hole he manages to punch in our shell of general goodness. The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is speculation about how it would be if Hyde got out--and stayed out.
The Jekyll in us is control, conscience, desire to do good for ourselves and others. Hyde, on the other hand, is the polar opposite: an uncontrolled, uncaring animal that doesn't give a rip for anything but personal pleasure/gain. It has been said that sociopaths, like Jeffrey Dahmer, have no conscience. They no longer care about anything other than satisfying base desires and morbid obsessions. This is why Jeffrey Dahmer enjoyed luring, raping, murdering and mutilating his numerous victims. The Jekyll in him had been defeated, and Hyde was victorious.

Most of us don't let Hyde get extensive control over every aspect of our lives. Some do, however, allow him to control parts. For example, a sixteen-year-old boy keeps Hyde in check at home and at school--mostly--but then, on that party on Friday night, he turns Hyde loose, fills himself up with beer, goes roaring down the street at one in the morning, and then ends up under a pile of smoking rubble. Hyde kills.
The average Joe, however, probably tries to always keep Hyde under control. There are times, though, like I said, when he'll be allowed out for a moment at a time. Sometimes, these brief releases become more common, and Hyde is let out more and more often--oh, but just for a minute or so. But even if it's only for a moment or so, the more often we let Hyde out, the more powerful he becomes, bit by bit, like those small snakes that can slowly stretch their jaws over an ostrich egg and swallow it. Hyde is patient, he is cunning, he will slowly spread his jaws over you if you let him. He doesn't care how long it takes, so long as he gets you, eventually.

Let's not let that happen.

Space Post, part 2

Edit: In one part of this letter, the somewhat-ignorant Kuymrg incorrectly described one of the procedures for surgical abortion. The required edits have been made.
-J.P.
Here, the letter from Most Observant Kuymrg is continued:
2:
Something that would be almost amusing if it wasn't having such serious consequences would be the Humans' curious obsession with their reproductive organs and their functions. This obsession is largely caused by the Media, once again. All over it, in its Advertisements, Shows, Books, Music, and everything else, there is an obsession with stimulating these organs in any way possible. I can only assume they do this because feelings accompanying the sexual act are so pleasant. But paradoxically, the Humans want to use their reproductive organs for practically everything except for their intended purpose: bearing children. They seem to be laboring under the misconception that this part of their bodies, this part of their very being, is meant solely for pleasure, and they take this misconception terribly far, going to ridiculous lengths to have the pleasure without its intended result: children. Devices called Contraceptives are incredibly popular. Contraceptives are used to keep children from being conceived during (or after) the sexual act. These can be as simple as a sheath of rubber that the male places over his organs to prevent the transfer of sperm, to poisons that kill the male's sperm, to poisons that kill newly conceived fetuses, which are taken orally by the would-be mother. How idiotic! The mother ingests poison to kill her would-be child, not only comitting murder, but, obviously, putting herself at considerable risk.
And if you think this is insanity, the Humans have invented something worse. If all previous attempts at preventing conception have failed, there is a last resort, a surgical procedure called Abortion. Basically, the mother will go to a Doctor, who is, ironically, an official meant to preserve the health and well being of his fellow Humans. She will ask the doctor to perform an Abortion on her and thus kill her baby (if he is qualified to do so), supposedly ridding her of her problems.
Different procedures are used to kill the baby in the mother's womb, depending on how old it is. If it is barely gaining the features that make it distinctively Human (in other words, only a few months old), the Doctor will inject salt into the Mother's uterus, salt in such a highly concentrated form that it is poison. Naturally, the baby will ingest the salt. Shortly after, it will go into violent spasms, and then die. The woman will then go into labor and deliver a miniature corpse. If, however, the baby is older, more gruesome procedures are used. For example, the doctor will actually stick a pair of razor-sharp scissors into the female's uterus. He will impale the infant's head with the closed scissors, then open the scissors, along with the baby's head.
Or, if he is feeling particularly creative, he will use a procedure known as vacuum aspiration. This is done with a Human machine called a vacuum, which rapidly sucks air up through a tube and is used to clean, as it sucks up material along with the air. In a vacuum aspiration procedure, however, the tube is inserted into the female's uterus, and the vaccuum is activated. The infant is sucked towards the vacuum tube and through it into a ready receptacle, then disposed of. One can only imagine the effects being sucked through a thin tube can have on a tiny human body. And after the procedure, any remaining parts of the baby's body (though it is often euphemistically referred to as "uterine tissue") are scraped out with a small knife called a curette.
After an Abortion, the woman herself suffers greatly. Obviously, after having had either poison or numerous sharp objects stuck into her, she often develops infections in her uterus or other reproductive organs. Sometimes these infections, or other complications, will lead to her being unable to ever bear children, should she decide she wants to. In some cases, she will die.She will also likely suffer emotionally. Often, women who have had Abortions suffer terrible guilt. The reasons for this are obvious. This guilt may lead to depression or other emotional havoc, and the feelings of guilt or depression may remain with her all her life. However, the feelings won't last too long if she kills herself. And that does happen.
Amazingly, Abortion is a very common practice, and is provided to human females across the planet. The Humans who are foolish enough to support Abortion put up a brilliant facade, making Abortion look like an act of compassion.How can it possibly look compassionate? I'll explain:
As I explained earlier, the Media, and therefore the Humans, are obsessed with sex. Because of this, promiscuity is a common practice. Rarer and rarer is becoming the practice of the Human equivalent of our own Esyr, which they call Marriage. The Humans, afraid of the commitments that come with Marriage, instead vouch to experiment with various fellow Humans who they find attractive. This is, and always was, a common practice with the younger Humans who were trying to familiarize themselves with love and sexuality, and in itself it isn't contrary to Maleldil's laws, (provided the young ones refrain from entering into sexual acts and keep these early relationships chaste). But nowadays, the Humans not only experiment with relationships with members of the opposite sex, but actually enter into the sexual act with these people (without being joined in Marriage), often with many. Sometimes, they will do this when already Married to another, behind their spouse's back! This is gravely contrary to Maleldil's law which states that the sexual act is to be reserved for the perfect love to be found between a male and female joined in Esyr.
The supporters of Abortion have also wormed their way into the young Humans' places of education. Here, they teach the young Humans that the extreme promiscuity being practiced by their fellows is harmless, even (one knows not whether to laugh or shudder at this) that it is healthy. What absurdity! Of course, now that the young Humans have been brainwashed with these idiotic ideas, and since their sexual impulses are begining to develop and are exceptionally strong, they often don't hesitate to enter into the sexual act with each other. Of course, they have been taught to practice the laughably titled "safe sex", which is simply the use of the aforementioned Contraceptives to prevent the conception of a child. However, it is only natural that these contraceptives should fail from time to time (often, in fact).
When the young female Human ends up conceiving a child, she is often in a very difficult situation. For one thing, her mother and father did not likely approve of her having sexual relations at such a young age, and so she almost certainly did it behind their backs. Of course, now that she is pregnant, they will almost certianly find out what she did, and consequences will follow. Even if her parents don't care whether she had sexual relations or not, she still has numerous other problems. For example: How can she finish her educational needs if she is to raise a child (those who support Abortion often leave out the simple fact that upon the child's birth it can just be put up for adoption, a practice in which children without parents are taken in to be raised by others)? Also, if she is exceptionally young, giving birth to a child can be dangerous (rarely, however, as dangerous as having an Abortion--another fact often ignored). Throw in the pressure she is likely receiving from peers and adults to have an abortion, and it seems like her only option. Since this situation makes an Abortion look like the only way out (it isn't), the Abortion supporters can easily make Abortion look like an act of mercy.
So each year, thousands of Human women and girls are tricked every day into risking their health, even their lives, not to mention murdering their children, by having Abortions. Every twenty-three seconds, in fact, the procedure occurs in the U.S.--an abbreviated name for one of Earth's more powerful nations--alone.
Of course, along with this catastrophe of barbaric idiocy, the Humans are paying another price for their so-called "sexual freedom" (as you have seen, Most Honorable Xylylnahn, it is enslaving them more than liberating them): Fairly recently in Human history, a virus has emerged from some place in the Earth. It's origin is, I believe, unknown, but it is having the most devastating effect on the Humans. This virus, known by the Humans as HIV, or AIDS, causes the human immune system to become unusually weak, so that the Human infected with it cannot risk becoming infected with what would otherwise be a fairly harmless disease, one that one could normally be recovered from within days. When a human is infected with AIDS, such a seemingly harmless affliction could spell death. The interesting thing about this virus is that it is not spread terribly easily. It is not airborne, it is not transferred by touch, or even by saliva (while many of the most common ones are). It is transmitted by the exchange of bodily fluids such as blood or semen. So, having sexual relations with a person infected with AIDS could lead to your own infection with the disease. Since Humans all over the vast planet have been taught to accept and practice promiscuity with numerous fellow Humans, the HIV virus is spreading like wildfire. And yet they continue to practice their "sexual freedom", and do so with gusto, even though it could kill them.
This isn't all. Even if the Human has no partner with which to do the sexual act (lawfully or not), there is another atrocity in which they can participate. There is a sort of low-life art form peddled by many Humans for the arousal of others. It is called Pornography, or just Porn for short. Pornography is a recorded medium (usually Video, from which Movies are made, or Photography, which is something like Video except that a single, frozen image is recorded and preserved instead of many together), and this medium will show Humans doing all sorts of strange, perverted sexual acts, from the basic sexual act to removing their clothes and exposing their naked bodies in full view, to other things I can't even describe, for anyone to see. Using Pornography, Humans can stimulate in themselves unlawful desires and pleasures (reserved, once again, for their proper place, Esyr) to ludicrous degrees. Pornography exists in enormous quantities, but it is usually hidden from public view. It is not, however, hidden so carefully that one can't easily find it if one is looking for it, in fact, it is possible to find it even if one isn't looking for it. Because of this (and also because of the fact that Pornography is perfectly legal in many nations), thousands of Humans (usually males, since for some reason their sexual drive is stronger than that of females) are addicted to this twisted medium.
And the Humans' grand legacy continues...

SpongeBob trying to warn us?

A few days ago, over on the Oregon Coast in the small but snazzy little "cottage" we were staying in, the chilluns were watching SpongeBob on the generously supplied satellite T.V. (it was actually pretty irritating. About 10% of the channels could actually be watched, everything else was either Pay Per View or "you have not yet subscribed to this channel". Grrr...anyhoo...)
This particular episode was about the miserly Mr Krabs trying to seduce the children of Bikini Bottom into buying more Krabby Patties, by saying things like "When yer all done playin' why doncha all come inside for a delicious, nutritious, vitamin enriched Krabby Patty! Ararararar!"
and by having SpongeBob abuse himself to amuse the kiddies.
From the kitchen in which we were lurking, my sister and I could see snippets of the disturbing episode, and she made a frightening point. I paraphrase:
"This episode is showing how evil advertising to kids can be, and then right after this episode is over, Nickelodeon's gonna bombard us with commercials for Chef Boyardee and Froot Loops."
Scary.