Which is more unbelievable (or, if you will, scary)?
That some folks actually thought that The Two Towers, the title of the next Lord of the Rings movie (and the title of the second book, published in 1954), was specifically chosen as an insensitive exploitation of the 9-11 WTC tragedy? (I hope it was a joke. I really hope it was a joke. I desperately hope it was a joke.)
That they actually got over 1,200 people to sign their petition to Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema to change the title? (Though it sounds like a lot of the signers were poking fun at the petition, too.)
Or that Peter Jackson actually considered the thought back in September, before quickly coming back to sanity? (Nobody was responsible for what they thought right after that tragedy.)
As one wag at the petition site also suggested,
“I think they should rename New York too, because every time I hear ‘New York’ it makes me think of that day and it makes me cry. That and the words ‘world,’ ‘trade,’ and ‘center’ should be removed from our language as well.”
And people wonder why a true democracy is such a dangerous idea …
(Via Blogatelle)
“It is a besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which masses of men exhibit their tyranny.” ~ James Fenimore Cooper
The best thing about a democracy though is that it’s rarely organized enough to do much damage.
good quote, Blu.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
— Henry Lewis Mencken (1880-1956), _A Book of Burlesques_ (1920)
Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
— Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), _The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness_
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
— George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) (or else Voltaire)
Democracy encourages the majority to decide things about which the majority is blissfully ignorant.
— John A. Simon (1873-1951)
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
— E.B. White (1899-1985) (1944)
Maybe if you live in a country that’s a monarchy, this book’s worth reading, but this is *America*, ok? The whole reason we live in a democracy is so that we the people don’t have to worry about things like this.
— Customer Review of _1984_ on Amazon.com (7 May 2000)