The Beacon Of Hope Awards

I tend this post to be an ongoing list, a Hall of Fame of people, films, books and TV shows that consistently shed light on this horrible time period and have never buckled under to the slings and arrows of oppression, choosing reason and truth over money and bullshit.

I plan on updating this list whenever someone comes through in this dark period so if you know somebody or something that deserves mention, please, just leave a comment or, just CONTACT ME with your nomination and why they deserve to be among the honored and I will add them to the list.

THE HALL OF FAME

#1 of all time

THE SIMPSONS
ANIMATED SIT-COM - FOX Network
DATE OF INDUCTION: 5/15/2005
SPECIAL MENTION: The Hall's Founding Member

Simply the best show of all time and the reason why I thought up this award.

After 15 years of insightful cultural observation and biting social satire, you would think the shows creator, MATT GROENING would be out of gas. If this were any other show, Groening, and the rest of the gang, at this point, would be producing tired, unoriginal and inferior material week after week simply to get their hands on a nice check.

Here is some sample dialogue from this year's season finale:

HOMER: Maybe we can send Bart to military school. Then later, he can get caught up in America's next quagmire. Will it be North Korea, Syria or Iran? Nobody knows with Commander Coo-Coo Bananas in charge.

and

BART: Protestants and Catholics, stop fighting! Don't you realize that it is all Christianity. The petty differences are far outweighed by the silly similarities.

Nuff said.

This is what a hero looks like.

THE DAILY SHOW
SATIRIC NEWS SHOW - COMEDY CENTRAL
DATE OF INDUCTION: 5/16/2005
SPECIAL MENTION: JOHN STEWART

While the rest of the news media went "in the tank" for George W Bush and his ridiculous band of ash-holes, THE DAILY SHOW consistently and continuously hammered the administration from the Enron scandal to the lies that convinced a nation that it would be a good idea to send our kids off to die so a few heartless conglomerates can make even more money.

Although THE DAILY SHOW has been the only news source that has kept the word "integrity" in it's reporting, it's place in the Hall of Fame was secured during the Nuremburg Rally held at Madison Square Garden in 2004. It was during this staged decent into madness that host JOHN STEWART:

1) Appeared on the "legitimate" CNN news show "Crossfire" and called the shows bow-tie wearing co-host and Republican lapdog Tucker Carlson an ass hole. The first honest opinion ever expressed on that "political panel/debate show."

and

2) Appeared on the "legitimate" ABC late night news program "Nightline" with an obviously perturbed Ted Koppel. Koppel kept incredulously asking, "Why do young Americans come to You (THE DAILY SHOW)for their news instead of 'real' sources such as Nightline?" In which Stewart replied that is because the so called "news shows" have degenerated into non-sense with partisan hacks spewing out irrelevant and dubious statistics that go unchallenged by the moderator. When old-timer Koppel, obviously offended, said it was his job to allow the two sides to present their case, Stewart curtly replied, "No it isn't."

If American representative democracy still exists in 50 years, JOHN STEWART and the rest of THE DAILY SHOW cast will be hailed as national heroes.

You go girl!

MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL
ACTRESS - "MONA LISA SMILE," "SECRETARY"
DATE OF INDUCTION: 5/18/2005
SPECIAL MENTION: SHE IS AN ARTIST

With her superb acting skills, brazen off beat project choices and sultry good looks, Maggie is fast becoming the new Audrey Hepburn. By showing her intelligence, the native New Yorker is firmly establishing herself as the "Thinking Man's" sex symbol and is capturing the hearts of a jaded generation in the process.

All of that is terrific but what makes her a member of this Most Hallowed Hall is this quote, which she made at the gala opening of her new film, "The Great New Wonderful" which takes place during the September 11 attacks:

I think what's good about the movie is that it deals with 9/11 in such a subtle, open, open way that I think it allows it to be more complicated than just 'Oh, look at these poor New Yorkers and how hard it was for them,' because I think America has done reprehensible things and is responsible in some way and so I think the delicacy with which it's dealt with allows that to sort of creep in.

In the ridiculous times we live, her mature attitude alone puts her on a higher plane than most of the politicians and opinion shapers I have heard put their two cents in regarding that terrible day. But what makes Maggie a Beacon of Hope was her refusal to back down after the "the machine" predictably painted her as a traitor.

Here was Gyllenhaal's response to the thousands of Pavlovian attacks on her character and motives:

9/11 was a terrible tragedy and of course it goes without saying that I grieve along with every American for everyone who suffered and everyone who died in the catastrophe. But for those of us who were spared, it was also an occasion to be brave enough to ask some serious questions about America's role in the world. Because it is always useful, as individuals or nations to ask how we may have knowingly or unknowingly contributed to this conflict. Not to have the courage to ask these questions of ourselves is to betray the victims of 9/11.

Thank God there are people like 27 year old Maggie Gyllenhaal still out there.

Finger on the pulse of America

AMERICAN IDIOT
ROCK/POP ALBUM BY THE U.S. BAND GREEN DAY
DATE OF INDUCTION: 5/19/2005
SPECIAL MENTION: WINNER 2004 BEST ROCK ALBUM GRAMMY

After its dramatic debut in September of 2004, the overtly political album AMERICAN IDIOT by the pseudo pop/punk band Green Day shot to number one on the Billboard charts and stayed in the top twenty till the very day of their induction into our Hall of Honor. The very success of this tome proves the whole "America is behind Bush" theory is a flat out lie.

Interestingly enough, although The Machine immediately characterized this LP as "Blatant Bush Bashing," (Incidentally, wrongly implying that would be a BAD thing.) upon listening to it myself, I only spotted one overtly specific Bush attack when the Commander-in-Chief is referred to as "President Gas Man" in the anti-Congress song "Holiday."

No, this brilliant piece of art is a lot deeper than that. After listening to the album you are moved to question the status-quo. But what makes this record a cut above the usually ignored and systematically stifled belly-aching that has passed for protest in the past few years, Green Day gives you the distinct urge to join a rebellion but never expressly tells you to rebel against anything specific. By using seemingly unrelated lyrics, hard guitar riffs and a singing style reminiscent of Joe Strummer, lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong creates much more than just a simple dated political cheap shot. He paints a grand portrait of an America that has gone completely wrong and, by so doing, creates a mood of dissatisfaction and righteous rage which is the necessary environment for any kind of substantive change.

Here are three examples:

Disillusion and Disenfranchisement

At the center of the Earth In the parking lot
Of the 7-11 were I was taught
The motto was just a lie

I read the graffiti in the bathroom stall
Like the holy scriptures of a shopping mall
And so it seemed to confess

It didn't say much but it only confirmed that
The center of the earth is the end of the world
And I could really care less

Defining One's Self

Maybe I'm the faggot America
I'm not a part of a redneck agenda
Now everybody do the propaganda
And sing along to the age of paranoia

Moral Resignation

Drain the pressure from the swelling
This sensation's overwhelming
Give me a long kiss goodnight
And everything will be alright
Tell me that I won't feel a thing
So give me Novacaine

If, like the last time Green Day tasted national fame and success back in the early 1990s, the band "loses their way" and retreat back into their insular world of physical hedonism and empty materialistic pursuit, their creation, AMERICAN IDIOT, will still stand the test of time, an undeniable representation of the thoughts and feelings of a large portion of the Turn of the Millennium population of the United States. A supreme document of Secular Redemption.

Who knows? In fifty years, the album's release date might be looked on as the turning point of American Culture, when we started our long crawl out of the jingoistic gutter.