Brutally Honest Rant - 12/05/07

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: Updates on Past Issues
Audio Transcripts
12/05/07

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – “American Idiot Remix” – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

For those of who you don’t yet know, next week will be the last audio rant for 2007. Hopefully by then I should have something memorable to announce, but if not, I’ll still have something good to wrap up the year. This coming Sunday will also be the last Brutally Honest column for the year. Again, this just a little something that I do every year to wrap things up.

Anyway, tonight I’ve got some updates on some of the things that I’ve talked about over the past year. Two of the things are recent, but this first one is something that was brought up back in April and has just come back into the spotlight in the past week or so. Matter of fact, you may have heard about it…

That’s right… DON IMUS is back on the air.

Or… at least a radio personality that LOOKS like Don Imus, and has a voice that SOUNDS like Don Imus, but is it REALLY Don Imus?

There are some folks who say that it isn’t. Or at least not the Don Imus that inspired future shock jocks like Howard Stern, Opie and Anthony, and the Regular Guys.

Now, for those of you who don’t really remember what I was talking about… Don Imus was railroaded out of a job by a cabal of liberal moralists led by the self-righteous Al Sharpton. Sharpton heard Imus echo a comment by his producer describing the Rutgers Women’s Basketball team as “nappy-headed ho’s”. He didn’t like that description, so he got his moralist war machine fired up and he FORCED MSNBC to drop the video simulcast of Imus in the Morning. Then he turned to CBS and FORCED them to cancel his show in a blatant violation of the contract they signed with him. Imus apologized profusely for the comment that he himself didn’t even create, he just echoed from his producer! But that wasn’t enough for Sharpton. Sharpton and his liberal moralist war machine wanted BLOOD… preferably that of Imus or of his career. And it was only AFTER Imus was fired from CBS… again in BLATANT VIOLATION of his contract… did Sharpton consider the apology sufficient.

Now… since Sharpton set the bar on Imus, I wonder if HE would be willing to be held to the SAME STANDARD. Probably not. Most moralists consider themselves to be above reproach anyway. But I digress.

Anyway, Imus sued CBS... and rightly so… then they settled and he got invited to go back on the air. But with some changes of course. A few new diverse people on on-air staff, and of course a softer, kindler, gentler Imus… and with a 30-second censor delay JUST in case the OLD Imus comes back.

Now, I haven’t heard the “new” Imus, and I never really was into hearing the OLD Imus, but in truth, I’m really not surprised that this milquetoast pretender is on the airwaves!

I’ve seen this before! Many of the people who were INSPIRED by the old Imus… Opie and Anthony, the Regular Guys… they ALL faced the wrath of the moralist censors, and when they were ALLOWED back on the air, they were effectively CASTRATED. They were neutered! They SUCKED!

You see, THIS is what happens to free speech when it is put in the hands of moralists. It gets CASTRATED! It gets diluted. And when you have someone who makes his or her career saying things that OFFEND people and SHOCKS them and you take all that away in the name of “decency” or “family values”, you get a very BLAND and BORING program!

Now if Don Imus wants to spend his last remaining years being more or less a cheap carbon copy of Paul Harvey, then that’s his choice. But CBS not only did Imus a disservice when they violated the terms of their contract, but they also did their own LISTENERS a disservice by not backing Imus and by not taking ON the moralists and fighting them as they were OBLIGATED by that contract to do. THEY MADE Imus into radio milquetoast, which of course is what the big radio conglomerates want in the first place. Bland, neutral, plain… BORING.

Listen, free speech is MEANT to offend! It’s MEANT to shock and be obscene and piss people off! That is what it is FOR! It is not for mainstream pabulum. Pabulum doesn’t need protection.

Over on ShockNetRadio.com, my good friend RJ Evans has a certain sound clip that he LOVES to use on his radio show. It is the sound of someone puking their guts out, and it is not a quick sound clip either. And every time he uses it, it pisses off some of his listeners. But what they really don’t understand is that every time THEY get pissed off by it, it just encourages him to use it more and more!

You see, as long as you get OFFENDED by something, you give that thought or that word POWER. This is the power that moralists tap into to control you and to control others! But if you CHOOSE to not get OFFENDED, then you take that power AWAY from the word, and thus you take that power AWAY from the moralists. You want to shut down people like Al Sharpton? THAT’S how you do it!

(Quick Pause)

Okay, next up…

We have an update on the MySpace manipulator. This was from the “Cyberspace Destroyers” rant back on my birthday.

Quick recap: 13-year old Megan Meier suffered from some severe social problems. ADD, depression, a victim of bullying so severe that she was forced to change schools. She meets what she believes to be a male teen friend who really gushes about her and builds up her confidence for about a month or so. Then, suddenly, he turns on her and starts insulting her and degrading her and telling her the world would be better if she wasn’t in it anymore. Public comments get posted about her. Other people start ganging up on her. Shortly after that exchange, she hung herself.

Parents wanted to know who this cruel young man was, but it turned out it was actually the creation of a neighbor’s sick mind. A FEMALE neighbor who created the fictional identity because she wanted to know what Megan was saying about her own daughter.

Well the county prosecutor was ready to wash their hands clean of this, as did everyone else in government, until Megan’s parents went public; then suddenly they wanted to reconsider, especially after the news of this sick, disgusting hoax reached the Internet and bloggers discovered who this neighbor was and started giving HER a taste of her own medicine. Turns out, though, that was just a little delaying tactic. The county prosecutors have once again washed their hands clean of this matter, but not before getting a few more key elements out in the open.

According to the neighbor herself, she didn’t create the fictional profile. She got her 18-year old employee to do that! Yes, that’s right, she didn’t act on her own! She had OTHER PEOPLE doing her bidding!

Oh, and the 18-year old employee in question? Well, he wasn’t available for the prosecutors to provide any kind of information on this matter because he’s being treated for psychological problems caused BY it.

Well isn’t that just CONVENIENT! Blame the manipulated suicide of a young girl with personal problems on someone who conveniently develops psychological problems of his own.

All of this is SUPPOSED to exonerate the woman in question. But in truth what this little revelation does is it further exposes the depths of EVIL surrounding this woman!

Prior to this little nugget of information coming out, it could be easily argued that this woman was simply acting as just another hyperactive and terribly flawed parental caretaker whose zealotry for family protection exceeded common sense. But in truth, what this exposes is a cruel, cold, and calculated master manipulator. A mastermind, to use the City of Villains terminology. Someone who uses other people to do their bidding so that they can come out innocent.

And what a viscous circle was woven here! A whole bunch of people who conspire to bring down a fragile teenager, with the one person connected to all of them somehow guilt-free. Am I the only one that sees something wrong with this picture?

I sincerely hope that Megan Meier’s parents sue that woman in civil court for wrongful death, and go after EVERYONE connected to it, including the company she works for, including the employee she manipulated into doing her bidding, and including everyone else in the area associated with it. I’m sure that once all of the pieces of this puzzle are laid out and all of the players are exposed that the civil court will show to Megan’s parents the kind of justice they have been so far denied by the legal system.

By the way, I got some pretty good feedback from folks who were somewhat surprised by my own admission of similar problems when I was a teenager. Bear in mind that back then I wasn’t the six-foot-three behemoth that I am today. And people suffering from personal problems, never mind depression, don’t usually come out and admit to it. That is especially true when you’re a teenager, and even more so when you’ve been tormented by others long enough to know that even the tiniest flaw can be blown up and magnified into something it isn’t.

(Quick pause)

Okay, finally tonight a follow-up to last week’s rant about the HOLIDAY season.

You know, I rag on the neo-cons about their obsession over the religious aspects of this time of the year, but they didn’t start this so-called “culture war” on their own. Sure they’re arrogant, ego-driven, self-righteous, self-centered, and quick to shove their beliefs down our collective gullets on a whim and for a quick buck. But most of them – with the obvious exception to the Fox News contingent – are not that way normally. Most of the people I talk to that are quick to start impersonating a bible-thumping minister over what is supposedly “THE REASON” for this HOLIDAY season are otherwise NORMAL people. But someone or something pushed their buttons.

Let’s get brutally honest here… we are ALL guilty of seeing this HOLIDAY season through our own exclusive filters, and for many of us, those filters are based on our religious beliefs. If you’re a Christian, you will probably only see Christmas. That’s it! And that’s all some Christians ever WANT to see at this time of the year.

Tonight, as I’m speaking, is the first night of Chanukah, the Jewish celebration of this HOLIDAY season. Of course it doesn’t keep the same date every year… just like a few certain CHRISTIAN celebrations that will go unmentioned… *AHEM* EASTER!… because it’s based on the JEWISH calendar, not on the Anglo-Saxon CHRISTIAN calendar. Yet another reason why this is called the HOLIDAY season. But for bigoted Christians, they will NEVER EVER see this as a part of THEIR celebrations! They’ll fight for the Ten Commandments, but they won’t recognize Chanukah as part of the whole HOLIDAY season. It’s Christmas or NOTHING!

And yeah, neo-cons and other conservatives are guilty of pushing our buttons on this. But they’re not the only ones doing so!

Liberals are also guilty of pushing our Yuletide buttons, and sometimes for no good reason whatsoever!

For instance, okay, keeping the Nativity scene out of Town Hall is a good fight. Practicing the separation of Church and State instead of talking about it is a noble cause. But banning all references to Christmas itself? Barring ALL Christmas carols, even the secular ones? Shutting down Santa and Rudolph and Frosty too? No, that’s not a good cause!

Listen, there has been a very delicate balance built up with Christmas making it both secular AND religious. The LAST thing that liberals need right now is to get rid of the baby along with the bathwater. You’re not going to win trying to get rid of all things Christmas. That just pisses off way too many people.

Let people enjoy Christmas. Keep it secular in the government realm, but otherwise let the people enjoy it amongst themselves within their own religious filters.

Oh, and by the way, LAY OFF THE “HO HO HO” THING! Liberals in Australia told Santas that they couldn’t say “Ho Ho Ho” because it was deemed OFFENSEIVE! For whom? Farmers? The Jolly Green Giant?

Look, let me spell it out for you so that even a certain former Texas governor can understand it… you fight for and keep the secular celebration of Christmas going and you keep many of the masses on your side. Not all of them, but certainly enough to keep the neo-cons in line. But the minute you start going after Christmas in and of itself, then those masses will go RUNNING IN DROVES over to the neo-cons. And then good luck ever getting the support of the masses for anything else you need.

Remember, the name of the game here is BALANCE.

(Computer – some stuff)
(Fade Music In – “Mythodea” by Vangelis)

By the way, something for you to think about… did it ever occur you why Chanukah has gone on pretty much unobserved compared to Christmas?

Think about it! Christmas has all of these songs and images and celebrations and TV specials… and Chanukah has an Adam Sadler movie and only one song. And a rather cheesy song to boot!

Now imagine how the Jewish faith would have looked if they didn’t spend a few hundred years getting persecuted at every turn. They probably would have had the courage to be creative as well and come up with more songs and more celebrations and made it more festive instead of having to keep things amongst themselves.

If they weren’t being hounded out and hunted down and forced to keep their faith secret, they probably could have turned Chanukah into something just as festive as Christmas. And it probably would have been more commercialized as well. After all, Christmas only comes once. Chanukah has eight days of gift-buying.

That, in and of itself, probably would have eliminated the need for the stores to practice Christmas Creep.

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production; all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/“End of Recording”)

[End of program]
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End Of Year Schedule

Hey folk, just wanted to let you know what the schedule is for the Brutally Honest website.

This coming weekend - December 9th - will be the LAST column for the year. Of course it will be the annual Brutally Honest Awards for 2007. No big surprise there.

The following Wednesday - December 12th - will be the LAST audio rant for 2007. And it will sadly also mean the last time I'll be able to post the transcripts of my rants in the blog site, because the things that I have in mind for 2008 will not allow me to post transcripts. Sorry guys, but you'll have to actually LISTEN to hear what I have to say next year!

Mind you, I'll still be doing my part over at Shocknet Radio as the News Pundit every Friday night at 9:15pm Eastern Time, but the rest of the time I'll be pretty much in holiday mode.

So enjoy the last stuff while you can because 2008 will be a whole new game!

Great follow-up on my rant..

Judith Warner posted what I consider to be a GREAT follow-up to my rant from 11/21 called "Cyberspace Destroyers". She really put the whole bad parenting thing right out there for people to see.

Here's a quick peek...

The Meier case got massive play in the national media this past week, coming as it did on the heels of a major new survey showing that up to one in three children in the United States have been harassed or bullied online.

But for me the tragedy highlighted another troubling issue that threatens our homes just as steadily as poisonous online communications. That is the disturbing degree to which today’s parents – and mothers in particular – frequently lose themselves when they get caught up in trying to smooth out, or steamroll over, the social challenges faced by their children.

Anyway, check it out, and let me know what you think about it all.

Brutally Honest Rant - 11/28/07

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: Unacceptable Truths – The REAL Reason For The Season
Audio Transcripts
11/28/07

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – “American Idiot Remix” – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

Well we are OFFICIALLY in the “Holiday Season”. Note that I said HOLIDAY, not “CHRISTMAS”, because the whole HOLIDAY SEASON officially starts on Thanksgiving and it doesn’t end until New Year’s Day. But I’ll get back to that in a minute…

Anyway, since December is right around the corner, I just want to remind my Brutally Honest listeners that we are just a couple of weeks away from the annual end-of-year break. This is where I pretty much shut down the soundboard and take a much-needed break from all of the columns and rants that I do for the rest of the time.

I should point out, of course, that this is the ONLY time of the year that I really take off from doing all of this stuff! You see all of these TV and talk radio commentators taking pretty much every third week off for vacations so they can go write their books or fly off to some exotic location that you and I could never afford to even look at, much less try to visit. But not me! Oh, no, not yours truly! I’m still here. I’m still ranting away even after all of these other overpaid and overhyped yahoos are out partying it up. So this is really the only time I have to relax a bit.

So when will the end-of-year thing happen? Sooner than you would think. You guys need to keep checking the Brutally Honest blog site for that announcement. Now, hopefully at some point before then I should have another announcement for 2008 that will REALLY change how you hear my rants. But more on that when the time comes.

Okay, back to the HOLIDAY season!

There is a reason why I continually remind people that we are talking about the HOLIDAY season and not just Christmas… and it has to do with the self-appointed, self-righteous dickheads who constantly berate people for saying the word HOLIDAY instead of Christmas.

You have Focus on the Family keeping track of all of the retailers who do not give the so-called “acceptable” HOLIDAY reference. You have the Liberty Council, formerly run by the dead-and-rotting-in-hell Jerry Falwell, giving out so-called “friend” and “foe” labels for retailers. And of course we have the con artists at World Net Daily hawking their own “Christmas Defense Kits”.

And let’s not forget that the so-called “War on Christmas” has become the annual crusade of the neo-con commentators on Fox News. And while John Gibson and that waste of oxygen Bill O’Reilly have not yet started in on their favorite money-making crusade, the rest of the bunch have already cranked out their Taliban-style antics and have been going strong since… can you believe it… HALLOWEEN!

Now what bugs me on this matter is that they’re picking fights with businesses for not adhering to THEIR standards for the HOLIDAY season! THEY HAVE become the Taliban in that matter! THEY have taken it upon themselves to judge how much good will and cheer others should display… and HOW it should be displayed.

And that brings us to the first of TWO “Unacceptable Truths” when it comes to the HOLIDAY season.

The first unacceptable truth is this: as much as the Christians REFUSE to accept it, and as much as they scream and cry and throw temper tantrums about it, they really NEED the secular elements!

Here you have this celebration, this one time in the whole year that actually TRANSCENDS boundaries, borders, and even differences in faith! I’ve seen Jewish people celebrate this season. I’ve seen Wiccans celebrate this season. I’ve even seen Muslims celebrate this season! Obviously not the devout extremists, but certainly the ones with an open mind.

Now you can’t DO that if it remains a solidly Christian RELIGIOUS celebration. You can’t tell all of those groups that they’re welcome to celebrate, but only IF they remember that they’re supporting CHRISTIANITY if they do it! In fact, if you take out all of the SECULAR aspects of the season, you actually kill many of the things that make it so festive to begin with.

You take out the decorated trees and the wreaths and the mistletoe… those are actually PAGAN symbol. Martin Luthor didn’t invent them. Talking snowmen and flying reindeer? Plagiarized from the Germanic tales of the Norse god Odin travelling on his flying horse and tweaked here and there.

By the way, one of the tales of the real Saint Nicholas was supposedly the basis of the English story of Sweeney Todd. Not exactly the kind of warm and festive story that you would associate with the season. In fact, you know that verse about “scary ghost stories” and “tales of the glories of Christmases long-long-ago”? Not exactly a child-friendly aspect of the season… nor one that was really designed for Christianity.

Now, do you know what happens when you take away all of the non-Christian elements from the season? You get a whole bunch of boring church services. Just the way that the Puritans forced things to be in the Massachusetts Colony for a brief while when they actually outlawed Christmas for not being Christian. That would certainly not be the kind of celebration that could cause a 1-day break in World War I. Nor would it be one that would pass the Separation of Church and State that waylaid other religious celebrations from federal observances. Anyone remember why EASTER isn’t a federal holiday?

In short, while the Christian Taliban may HATE the secular aspects of the HOLIDAY season, and while they throw temper tantrums when stores use the word HOLIDAY instead of CHRISTMAS, in truth THEY NEED those secular aspects in this season! THEY NEED it to be more than just about Christmas! And more than that, THEY NEED it to be more than just a Christian celebration!

So knock off the horsecrap and embrace the all-encompassing time called the HOLIDAY SEASON! The more you neo-con puritans BITCH about it, the more you remind people that you’re just a bomb and a gun away from being no different than the Taliban over in Afghanistan! And without the bomb and gun, you’re no different from the mullahs in Saudi Arabia that let girls die in burning buildings because they’re not wearing headscarves.

Now… strangely enough… that actually leads me to the SECOND “unacceptable truth” about this time of the year. Because I was originally asking myself why the hell these neo-con puritans are even putting us through all this crap that led me to this realization.

You see, I was wondering why we have all of this holiday DRAMA that goes on every year. EVERY YEAR we have people who are in a full-blown panic mode over various elements of the Holiday Season. Decorating the neighborhood, hosting parties, buying just the RIGHT gifts, getting cards out, travelling... they want it all to be JUST RIGHT.

Every year we hear just how chaotic travelling will be. Every year we hear how much more in debt we will be just buying presents, never mind decorations and cards and parties. Every year we hear about the infamous “IT” gift that people would travel around the world and even strangle their mothers to get.

We trivialize this drama! We actually make movies out of them! “Home Alone”, “Christmas with the Kranks”, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”, and “Jingle All The Way” quickly come to mind.

And yet, even when we see OUR own faults magnified and reenacted on the big screen, we don’t learn from them! We just laugh along with everyone else and then go right on doing them. We’ll cram ourselves into the stores and drive ourselves further and further into debt to get the “IT” gift. We’ll blow our savings on that “perfect” celebration with friends and family, bringing them from all corners of the globe just for the holiday. We’ll light up the street with a Holiday extravaganza that could be seen from Chinese spy satellites.

And we’ll think nothing of it. We’ll chug down aspirin and antacids and Jack Daniels while painting on those plastic smiles of ours as we go through our own private hell just to pull all of this off.

And every year, I keep on asking myself WHY the hell do we do it? Because we’ll do all of this INTENTIONALLY! We’ll complain about the airlines but we’ll continue to fly. We’ll complain about the stores and the parking and the traffic, but we won’t change our schedules. We’ll complain about the “IT” gift, but we’ll still go crazy looking for it. We’ll complain about the high costs of getting gifts, but we’ll still mortgage our futures to get them. We’ll complain about the high cost and bureaucratic hassles of travel, but we’ll still do it each and every year.

Why do we do it?

Well I’ll tell you why… and it is one of our key “unacceptable truths”. As much as we claim that we are doing this all for our family and for the children and for the neighborhood… we’re actually doing this all FOR OURSELVES!

Let’s get brutally honest here… A LOT of the yuletide drama and chaos and crisis points in our lives are INTENTIONALLY created! Some of them are even SELF-INFLICTED!

We NEED the drama! We NEED it to give our lives a sense of accomplishment! And this is the one time of the year where we can do it and go to extremes and get away with it!

Think about it. How many times can you consciously jack up your electricity bill, spend like crazy, go through all sorts of inhuman waiting in traffic, be an absolute and unrepentant a-hole while shopping, and either herd together all sorts of friends and family members from all corners of the globe or else travel like maniacs from all corners of the globe TO those people, and not be either institutionalized or seen as a major Machiavellian villain? I can only think of ONE time in the year when you can do that!

And all for what? A smile. A joy-filled look from your children? The real reward is internal. The real reward is self-gratification.

WE NEED these moments of chaos and holiday drama to remind ourselves that we are still able to get some things done! Sure we can’t balance the checkbook, and we can’t make ends meet, but, hey, at least I can hunt down that “IT” gift for my kids! My job is crap and I may even get laid off in the next few months, but at least I can organize a big holiday party. My family is about a keg away from being guests on the Jerry Springer Show, but at least I can get them all together and not have them kill each other just long enough for them to enjoy a meal.

And I’m not knocking it, per se… but I do want to keep it all in perspective here, because the REAL REASON of the “season” has more to do with ourselves than with keeping up with some socio-religious celebrations. We do all of these crazy things in the name of others, but in fact, they really are for our own self-worth. We want to believe that we can still do something.

(Computer – something festive)
(Fade Music In – “Mythodea” by Vangelis)

By the way, that reasoning also applies to those neo-con puritans who appoint themselves as the Holiday Police. They too are guilty of fabricating their own self-inflicted holiday crisis, and all for their own self-gratification. Because they know that even IF they get ridiculed at every corner, they can still pat themselves on the back and say to themselves “look at what WE did!”

They call it a “culture war”… but in truth, it’s nothing more than a yuletide circle-jerk… done for the benefit of a bunch of pretentious jerks to maintain some unrealistic vision of the season that not even Curier and Ives would want to illustrate.

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production; all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/“End of Recording”)

[End of program]
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Brutally Honest Rant - 11/21/07

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: Cyberspace Destroyers
Audio Transcripts
11/21/07

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – “American Idiot Remix” – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

Well my friends, today is my birthday. And I WAS hoping to give myself a present and make this a really quick rant… but then again birthdays suck for me… not necessarily when other people have their birthdays, but mine always seem to suck, so I’m just going to get into this rant instead.

Now… one of the reasons why my birthdays always seem to suck is that I really never had that many friends growing up. I had a few… and of those maybe one or two that I would REALLY call friends… and still do.

The rest of the time, though, it wasn’t easy for me. To say that I had issues would be an understatement. I had some SERIOUS issues! I had trust issues. I had abandonment issues. I suffered from depression. And I was a frequent victim of bullying. There were plenty of people, boys AND girls, that seemed to make it their collective mission in life to make mine as miserable as possible. They LOVED tormenting me. And part of it was because they KNEW I wouldn’t fight back! Yes, that was that damned Roman Catholic “turn the other cheek” crap that I was force-fed by my parents.

By the way, if you want to effectively deal with bullying, then the first thing that has to go is that “turn the other cheek” philosophy. Stop trying to develop an “intellectual superiority” or foisting the matter onto some government institution to step in, because guess what? It doesn’t work! I know that FROM EXPERIENCE!

But I will say this much… no matter what these little tyrants did, they didn’t have the resources that today’s kids have. They didn’t have the means to push your buttons remotely, continually, at any time, and without a trace.

I’m talking about cyberspace bullying. Now I’ve been involved with the Internet and with Internet issues for well over a decade now, and one of the biggest pitfalls about the Internet has always been how it can be abused. And when it comes to kids and the Internet, cyberspace bullying is one of those things that people really never take into account when they start passing on these really neat “toys” to them. You know… “toys” like a cellphone with a digital camera, and a laptop computer, and their own Internet account.

But with all cyberspace issues involving kids, I have but one mantra that I continually bring out that NOBODY wants to hear, but they need to hear it anyway:

WHERE ARE THE PARENTS?

Because about 99% of these problems with kids and the “new technology” could have been prevented if parents simply DID THEIR FRIGGING JOBS as parents! What the hell are you doing giving kids uncontrolled and unmonitored access to the Internet in the first place? That is the electronic equivalent to giving them your car keys and telling them to have fun.

But unfortunately, tonight’s tale of woe has a new twist to it.

There’s a 13-year old girl by the name of Megan Meier who had some problems… the biggest being, of course, adolescence itself. But she also suffered from some other problems including depression. She meets this kid online named Josh. Same age, supposedly lived not too far from where she lived, had just moved in from Florida and was being home-schooled. They talk for a while, she gets to know him, he gets to know her. This goes on for about a month.

Then, suddenly, he calls the whole thing off. Josh claims that he had heard all of these mean things about her and that she was cruel and he didn’t want anything to do with her.

Next thing she knows, she’s getting harassing messages from Josh. Messages are being publicly posted accusing her of being fat and of being a slut. Remember, she’s 13! Josh sends one final message to Megan telling her that she was bad and that the world would be better off without her.

Megan Meier killed herself that night.

Now here is the sick twist to this story. “Josh” never really existed. “Josh” was a fictional creation of a woman who simply wanted to befriend Megan and find out what she was saying about her own daughter.

Yes, you heard me… the whole twisted and tragic hoax was created by ANOTHER PARENT! AN ADULT!

And not only that, but there were OTHER parents who were in on this! Other parents and other children that KNEW that this “Josh” character was a hoax. And they said nothing about it! They did nothing about it! They watched that charade play out, and it was only the guilt of one of those parents six months afterwards that led to the truth.

Now let’s get brutally honest here… THIS IS EVIL! This is evil at its core!

I mean it’s one thing if “Josh” was a fictional creation of another teenager. Kids are legendary for their cruelty simply because they don’t know any better. They lack the physical brain development to care about anything greater than themselves. They still believe that the world revolves around them.

But we’re talking about an ADULT here! Someone who KNEW precisely what she was doing. Someone who used the same tactics that child molesters use to gain someone’s trust and then maliciously destroy it.

And that’s what we are talking about here. These really ARE the SAME TACTICS that child molesters use when they try to entice children! Never mind that the perpetrator is a woman and that the molestation in this case was purely psychological. The TACTICS are the same.

Maybe that should be something that these other parents… these other ADULTS… that KNEW what was going on should consider. Hey, did you know that you just saw the same thing that CHILD MOLESTERS normally do to children? I wonder how many of them would have stayed silent when it’s seen in THAT light?

You know what makes this even worse? That the whole dammed neighborhood where all of this took place is actually more OFFENDED that Megan’s parents are speaking OUT about this than they are about the actual CRIMINAL ACT that took place! They’re telling Megan’s parents to simply “let it be”.

Let it be?

They LOST their daughter! A 13-year old girl who was intentionally, deliberately, and systematically driven to KILL HERSELF! The police say they can’t do anything about it. The FBI says they can’t do anything about it! The woman responsible for it will essentially get away with this CRIME, and the neighborhood simply wants the dead girl’s parents to simply “let it be”? What the hell kind of “FAMILY VALUES” is being practiced in that neighborhood? We’re not talking about “Wisteria Lane” here, folks. This is not some ABC primetime soap opera. This is for REAL! A REAL live has been lost!

If I were that girl’s father, I sure as hell wouldn’t “let it be!” I’d make it my mission in life to burn every single one of those goddamned houses TO THE GODDAMNED GROUND! And THAT would be just for starters!

Let it be? I sure as hell wouldn’t if I were in their shoes.

And I sure as hell would hope that this isn’t the end of this story, because that unnamed woman – who is supposedly being concealed in the media for the sake of her own daughter – is guilty of causing the death of a young girl! At the very least she should be sued in civil court for everything she ever owned, and anything she ever WILL own! She should be getting regular visits by Child Services investigating how she’s raising a child while driving a neighbor’s child to her death!

And isn’t it CONVENIENT that the prosecutors were ready to wash their hands clean of this case UNTIL Megan’s parents started talking to the media, and THEN suddenly they’re reviewing it all over again? I hope they do more than just talk about it.

By the way, the Internet community is doing more than just taking offense to this. They DID find the woman’s name… and they posted it. And they found her husband’s name, and his workplace, and they posted that too. Now THEY are learning what it’s like to be tormented.

This is what happens when the people in charge of the justice system FAIL to do their jobs! When you have an apparent case of injustice, you are not just INVITING vigilante justice… you are, in fact, making it a NECCESSITY.

Now I’m not saying that Megan’s parents don’t share in some of the blame here, because they certainly do. They supposedly were monitoring the whole thing, and they even supposedly had their suspicions about this “Josh” character. They knew something was wrong. But rather than stepping in and taking away Megan’s computer, even for a brief period of time, they left her to fend for herself. That was wrong. But it still doesn’t excuse or absolve the exchange that happened that led to Megan’s death.

You know, it’s not enough to simply “know” what to look out for when it comes to being a parent. You have to DO the right thing as well. That means stepping in when something happens online. That means not LETTING your child have a MySpace account. It means not GIVING your child a cellphone with text messaging or camera capabilities. This is something that parents don’t just want to comprehend here! Just because a child can text-message doesn’t mean that they SHOULD! That sort of crap was invented by the cellphone companies as an advertising gimmick! PARENTS still need to be parents! No law can EVER take the place of parental responsibility, and that’s the REAL message that needs to be sent out. There wouldn’t ever be a need for justice – vigilante style or otherwise – if parents simply did their damned jobs!

(Computer – something evil)
(Fade Music In – “Who Am I” by Peace Orchestra)

When all is said and done, the Internet is still a TOOL. It’s an instrument. It’s a very effective instrument, but it is still just that! And cyberspace bullying is still just bullying. If our social and legal institutions can’t deal with the bullying in general, how the hell can you expect new laws to deal with the cyberspace variety? The answer to that, of course, is that it can’t… any more than it could deal with the bullying that went on in my time. That’s why parents need to BE parents. They’re the only ones who can do this.

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production; all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/“End of Recording”)

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Drew Carey explains Eminent Domain abuse

Came across this GREAT video from the folks at the Reason Foundation about Eminent Domain. This gives a GREAT history of the government power and how it was traditionally used and how it is being blatantly abused today!

The video is hosted by Drew Carey, formerly of "The Drew Carey Show" and of course the new host of "The Price Is Right". Please take a look at it and see for yourself how this abuse is going on and how it impacts hard-working Americans!

I can't embed it to the blog because it uses different scripting, but click on THIS LINK to view it. Then come back here and let me know what you think about it.

Brutally Honest Rant - 11/14/07

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: Illegalities
Audio Transcripts
11/14/07

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – “American Idiot Remix” – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

Well my friends I’ve been skirting around this issue for a while now, and I guess that it’s time once again for me to speak up about it.

I’m talking about immigration.

We have a SERIOUS problem with immigration, and it is one that we HAVE to deal with immediately and get it out of the way before we can deal with any other aspect of it.

Now as a libertarian, I am in principle…. IN PRINCIPLE… supportive of the idea that there really should be no borders and that people should come and go as they choose. That goes along with the whole bit about a “free society”. I agree to that idea IN PRINCIPLE.

Unfortunately that’s not something that we can apply IN PRACTICE at this time. We’ve got security on our minds right now and that’s not going to go away anytime soon.

Let’s put it this way… if the time should ever come again when I can simply go from my home to the airport and go to the boarding gate WITHOUT having to go through a metal detector, WITHOUT having to be subject to strip-searches, WITHOUT having my personal belongings searched by kleptomaniacs, WITHOUT having to give up my shoes for bomb detection, and WITHOUT possibly being detained while my name goes through some never-before-seen list of 750,000 people who may or may not be a threat to this country… AT THAT POINT, we can then talk about open borders and letting people come in-and-out of this country as they wish. You make THAT happen, THEN we can talk about open borders.

But AS LONG AS we have to deal with TSA airport screeners and all of the other hassles surrounding air travel, then we also have to put some restrictions on the other ways that people come into this country. It sucks, but we have to deal with it.

Now there are three groups of people in this country. There are those who are natural-born Americans. They were BORN either in this country or on US soil (i.e. an American embassy). By definition and by the 14^th Amendment to the US Constitution, they are automatically LEGAL citizens.

There are also those who came here LEGALLY. People who followed whatever rules and procedures our government set up to come here LEGALLY and they stay here LEGALLY.

And then there are those who DID NOT follow the rules. The ones that snuck across the border, or who were smuggled in, or came here legally at first and are now here beyond the time they were supposed to be here for.

These are the people that are breaking the law. They came here ILLEGALLY!

It doesn’t matter who they are, or what nationality they are, or from what country they came from… they could be Ukrainian Muslims, they could be Indian Hindus, they could be Chinese Buddhists, they could be El Salvadoran Catholics… if they were not native-born citizens and they didn’t follow the rules to come here legally, then they are here ILLEGALLY! There is no other way to say it!

And THAT is where we have a problem… because there are plenty of people who refuse to ACKNOWLEDGE that there are people who are here ILLEGALLY! They want to HIDE it. They want to blur the line between LEGAL and ILLEGAL.

They REFUSE to call people who are here illegally for what they are! They want to call them anything BUT ILLEGAL!

They want to call them “undocumented”. Hey, when I leave my home to get the mail and I forget to bring my driver’s license with me, then I’m “undocumented”, but that doesn’t mean that I’m ILLEGAL! Some Canucklehead from Montreal who walks across the border into New York without going through the proper channels and without getting a green card or carrying any kind of identification that says they can be here legally is ILLEGAL. That means they are breaking the law!

Note I said “Canucklehad from Montreal”. Race, ethnicity, and religion means absolutely SQUAT in this discussion. A French-Canadian can be just as much of an ILLEGAL immigrant as someone from Haiti, Mexico, or China!

But, of course, it’s still another way that people – especially liberals – are able to blur the lines, and that needs to END!

You see… what happens is that as soon as those lines between legal and illegal immigration are blurred, the argument then becomes one of civil rights. CERTAIN immigrants aren’t getting the full rights and benefits of being in this country! WHICH immigrants? Well that doesn’t matter now, does it? The fact is that they AREN’T… so what are YOU going to do about this?

Let’s get brutally honest here… THIS is the argument being presented to the American people in the media! This is the spin and the con game being served up to us through protest rallies and marches. It’s not about LEGALITY, it’s about CIVIL RIGHTS! It doesn’t matter HOW they got here, they just want everything that everyone else has! That’s the spin!

So now we have New York Governor Eliot Spitzer demanding that the state issue New York driver’s licenses to people who are here ILLEGALLY! Never mind that a state-issued driver’s license is a legal form of identification recognized in every state in the country! NEVER MIND that a state-issued driver’s license is considered proof that you are here LEGALLY and that you can use it to vote in elections. NEVER MIND that the US Government has been requiring a uniform standard for all drivers licenses as part of their effort to create a NATIONAL ID system. NEVER MIND any of that… because Governor Spitzer sees this as a civil rights issue! CERTAIN immigrants aren’t able to buy cars or take out loans or lease apartments. WHICH immigrants? It doesn’t matter according to Governor Spitzer.

And it’s downright hypocritical when you think about it. When he was that state’s Attorney General, it was hard to find a business that he didn’t want to prosecute! He was the red menace of Wall Street and he was PROUD OF IT! And each and every time that he would get in front of the cameras and announce a new wave of prosecutions at yet another business establishment, he would say “it’s not personal. I’m just doing my job! THE LAW says that these actions are wrong, so I’m going after them because they are BREAKING THE LAW!”

But now that he’s the GOVERNOR of the state, he’s saying “TO HELL WITH THE LAW! I’m going to make up my own law, and it’s going to override the federal law.” And he’s not even going through the proper channels to do it! He didn’t even think about taking this through the state legislature. He’s doing this all through executive order. Well gee… I wonder which government official inspired him to come up with THAT idea!

Let me break this down to you so that even a C-average Yale graduate from Texas can understand it… if you cannot differentiate between those who are here LEGALLY and those who are here ILLEGALLY, then you really have NO BUSINESS WHATSOEVER in this discussion!

YES, I understand the realities of this issue. YES, I understand the sheer numbers that we are talking about! YES, I know that we need more than just a legislative quick fix. AND YES, I can understand the business aspect of this issue and how this is essentially a form of legalized slavery. But all of that STILL DOES NOT ignore the fact that illegal immigrants are still here in violation of the LAW!

The law as it stands right now sucks, and it’s dysfunctional. And, in those situations, you have one of two courses of action. The first is to do what Spitzer and countless others are already doing… which is to IGNORE the law and reduce it to the point to where the argument can be made that ALL laws are ultimately meaningless and worthless… including the laws people really WANT in place!

OR… or… you can do something sort of radical… and you can use the momentum and the popular support to actually CHANGE THAT LAW! Yes, you can actually CHANGE a law to make it work! These things are not written in stone by some metaphysical being and then lovingly carried down from a mountaintop by some ancient fossil with really bad grooming habits. No, they’re actually written and enacted by very corrupt human beings whose lust for power and money are only seconded by their overwhelming survival instinct when either of those things are threatened.

In other words, if you go to those politicians and you make it quite clear to them that you have X-million of actual voters behind you who will either preserve or destroy their political careers based on fixing that flawed immigration system, then you will be honestly surprised how fast that law will get fixed!

And likewise, New York voters, if you REALLY object to Governor Spitzer’s asinine plan to give driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, then you need to start including this word in your public vocabulary: RECALL! Don’t wait until 2010 to get rid of him. Use your ultimate power as voters and RECALL him from office! If it can happen in California, then it can happen in New York if the voters are that pissed off enough.

Now the GOOD news is that as of tonight’s rant, Governor Spitzer has GIVEN UP on his little plan. This commentator is glad to hear that the governor has FINALLY recognized the level of opposition to his grand scheme… but folks, don’t even THINK of calling that kind of an idea a “reform program” like the media is trying to do right now. REAL reform fixes things! Governor Spitzer wasn’t trying to FIX anything… although it could have quite possibly fixed a few elections if he was able to get away with it.

The whole concept of living under the rule of law only works if the law is actually RESPECTED and enforced, and simply saying that the law sucks and ignoring it does not fix the problem. All it does is that it makes the overall problem worse.

(Computer – some timely stuff, but you never listen to it anyway… seriously, I sometimes wonder why I even bother!)
(Fade Music In – “Mythodea” by Vangelis)

One of the things that politicians love to do is to PRETEND to fix problems. They love to come up with pretend reform programs that don’t really work but give the ILLUSION of doing something. They love fabricating new laws and stacking them ON TOP of the old laws instead of reforming old ones and trying to make them work, or simply trying to get rid of them altogether.

And of course it’s all really just a huge CON GAME! They really don’t want to EVER fix a problem, because that means that they can’t use it the next time around. They deal with the problem and it actually gets fixed, then the problem goes away. Then they have to come up with a new cause to pretend to champion.

Dealing with illegal immigration is just another con for these politicians. It’s just how much they can spin it and how murky can they make the whole matter, and the only way that’s EVER going to change is if WE force their hands.

And if you think that it can’t happen, I want you to remember what happened to Governor Spitzer’s so-called “unstoppable idea”. He thought he could get away with it because he was the governor of New York. He was proven to be DEAD WRONG!

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production; all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/“End of Recording”)

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24's Failed Pilot

What if "24" started ten years earlier?

Well SOMEONE had to think of it! Especially since the writer's strike shut down all production of the next season!

A Special Pre-Holiday Message

Just watch this...

AtomFilms.com: Funny Videos | Funny Cartoons | Comedy Central

Brutally Honest Rant - 11/07/07

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: The Ron Paul Mystery
Audio Transcripts
11/07/07

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – “American Idiot Remix” – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

Well all this past month of October I pretty much laid-off the issues of the moment as I looked at “The Worst Fears”. And I’m glad to hear that at least with the last of such stories, I really scared the crap out of some of you. That last one was really something that I was rattling around for a while, and I hope that it shows.

But of course now I gotta get back into current events…

You know what really bugs me about elections? It’s when you have an elite group of people who think that THEY should be the ones to decide who will be elected into government! I don’t care if we’re talking about local elections, state elections, or federal elections, NO group should EVER have the sole power to determine who will be running the government. That is, in fact, the whole basis of the United States Constitution! It was originally set up so that you will have a REPRESENTATIVE system of government that would not be beholden to any one single group!

And yet, unfortunately, we still have those people who feel that they can manipulate and control the system and put in their own “Manchurian Candidate”.

Now there is one sure-fire way to see who is screwing with the system. All you have to do is look at the hype and look at who is the “safe” candidate that is getting the easy pass. That’s the candidate who believes or who acts as if his – OR HER – election is simply a matter of “paying your dues” and “waiting your turn”.

And right now there are TWO candidates who pompously carry themselves that way… Hillary Clinton and Rudy “The Thug” Giuliani.

And as far as the elitists in politics are concerned, THIS is your 2008 presidential battle RIGHT HERE and RIGHT NOW! Forget primaries; forget caucuses; this is it! It’s Clinton versus Giuliani. A transplanted banshee versus the 9/11 thug of New York City. There’s NOBODY else! That’s it! All of these other people can just go home now because THIS IS IT!

Forget Barak Obama. Forget John McCain. Forget John Edwards. Forget Mitt Romney. They can start drafting their Vice-Presidential speeches IF the elitists so deem them worthy, but they had might as well just end the whole thing now and start endorsing either Giuliani or Clinton.

That’s the attitude coming out of the talk radio circuit. That’s the attitude coming from the air-fluffed ego-driven news media. That’s the attitude being reflected in the newspapers. It’s Clinton versus Giuliani and there’s no more need for primaries or caucuses because THESE elitists groups have already made the decision FOR US!

I mean, all you have to do is look at the previous election tickets to see where this is seriously fouled-up beyond repair! 1984: Walter Mondale. 1988: Michael Dukakis. 1996: Bob Dole. 2004: John Kerry. These were all “safe” candidates. These were all the candidates that the elite believed would be “perfect” for the job. These were the “destiny” candidates. These were the people who believed that it was THEIR TURN to run.

They all failed to get elected, because they were also duller than milquetoast.

And where are the firebrands? Where are the people who promise to shake things up and make things right again?

Oh they exist. Some of them even try to run. But then “the elite” tells them not to bother, because they can’t “get elected”.

I hope you can understand why I’m a little bit BOTHERED by this, right?

Well I’m not the only one!

That’s why I’m GLAD that there’s someone like Ron Paul out there running for the Republicans.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: if there is ONE Republican candidate that I would EVER consciously vote FOR… it would have to be for Ron Paul.

Ron Paul is a libertarian. Even though he is running as a Republican, HE IS STILL a libertarian! And as a member of Congress, Ron Paul is one of the few people who has actually voted according to his principles! He’s not someone who says one thing and then votes the other way.

Unfortunately he’s not a PERFECT libertarian. He’s got some flaws. But I will say this much: he has a GREATER understanding and appreciation of the Constitution than every single one of the other candidates put together!

That’s why the political elite doesn’t want him in the running! People like him are a THREAT to their system of graft and corruption! He’s a threat to their very livelihood!

But they also can’t explain why he’s suddenly so popular!

This past Monday, the 5^th of November, Ron Paul’s campaign fired off a special Guy Fawkes Day celebration. Now if there is anyone who is the slightest curious to what I mean by that… either do an online search for Guy Fawkes Day, or pick up the movie “V for Vendetta” and you’ll see a GREAT explanation about what that day means.

But more importantly, Ron Paul’s campaign for that day generated THE MOST campaign dollars to date in this too-damned-early presidential race! $4.3 million dollars in ONE DAY!

Ron Paul is making money. John McCain is LOSING money. But “the elite” would rather we talk about John McCain than about Ron Paul. Actually they would rather we STOP talking about either of them and just accept that Rudy Giuliani will be the GOP nominee, but if they had to pick between Ron Paul and John McCain, they’d rather have us talk about someone who has sold his soul to the Imperium for a campaign slot than about someone who has stuck to his principles and is having to fight every step of the way to stay in that campaign slot.

Ron Paul is a threat to the status quo. John McCain and all of the other GOP wannabes are PART of the status quo.

And by the way, guys, the Democrats have the same problem… only their dark horse candidates can’t generate the campaign cash like Ron Paul did.

But let’s get brutally honest here… the secret behind Ron Paul’s sudden success is really very simple. HE IS the voice of the great political frustration out there right now!

You take a look at what’s going on and you see a HUGE frigging disconnect between the people in Washington and the rest of the country! Democrats are elected on the promise to “shake things up” and they have become the biggest bunch of sell-outs in recent history. The Republicans aren’t any better either. For a bunch of self-righteous anti-gay bigots they just can’t seem to keep their dicks out of trouble, either metaphorically or biblically! They both promise fiscal responsibility and then spend like crazy. They both talk about security at all costs… they want us to essentially strip naked at the airports and have our personal belonging searched and our personal lives tracked for any reason whatsoever, no questions asked… but they somehow forget about BORDER security.

I watch people like Lou Dobbs on CNN, and the one thing I constantly hear from his show is the number of people who change their political affiliations… not to Democrats… but to INDEPENDENTS! Does that sound like a “liberal Democratic agenda” at work? I don’t think so.

THESE are the people that Ron Paul is tapping into! THESE are the people who are pissed off with the political horsecrap games and pissed off with the milquetoast candidates that we’re being forced-fed.

Now I also know my history… and I know a few things about the current “contenders”.

First, we’ve already seen a Clinton versus Giuliani battle back in 2000 when both of them were running for the US Senate. Giuliani caved after his marital problems became an issue, leaving Hillary to trounce a no-name milquetoast stand-in.

Second, history has also shown that populist firebrands get targeted too early. In order for Ron Paul to actually become a REAL force for change in the system, he will have to stick in there through the whole fight right up to the last day of the GOP convention! He can’t drop out just because he lost a few early races! This is the mistake that Howard Dean made in 2004.

Third, I think that ANYONE who pompously declares that a certain candidate “can’t win” before a single primary or caucus vote is cast is nothing more than an arrogant dickhead whose credibility in the media should be immediately flushed down the toilet where it belongs. That kind of arrogance falls under the category of the Chicago Tribune’s 1948 banner headline of “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN”. If you want to play fortune teller, then you should at least be relegated to the 3am time-slot with the rest of the late-night peddlers.

In the meantime, if you’re in the running, then you deserve to let the voters decide whether or not they’re pissed off enough to want you to represent them in the next election. I think that if the voters are pissed off enough that you’re going to be surprised with who makes it to next November.

(Computer – some political stuff)
(Fade Music In – “Mythodea” by Vangelis)

Thinking about Thomas Dewey for a minute… Thomas Dewey was one of those people that “the elites” wanted to be the next president back in the 1940’s. And according to them, he was seen as “unstoppable” against President Harry Truman… a man who was lagging in the polls and having to battle against a third-party spoiler by the name of Strom Thurmond.

The “elites” believed that Thurmond would pull votes away from Truman. The “elites” were dead wrong.

They forgot that Thomas Dewey campaigned as a milquetoast on a level that would make Al Gore look downright animated. After all, he too believed that it was “his turn” to be president.

So much for the so-called “experts”.

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production; all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/“End of Recording”)

[End of program]
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