if you havent read this article.. you need to.

[James Danger]

Body: Please read & repost this everywhere!


below is the artical, the morning call is the local paper from here(allentown pa)
The authors email and phone number are at the bottom. I think we should all let him know how we feel, since he did SUCH a good job researching the article he wrote.











Disfigured skin points where culture is going
You can tell where a culture is headed by examining whom its members seek to emulate.


Just a few centuries ago, there was a culture still mired in the Stone Age, with no written language, no science, no math, no architecture, no nothing requiring thought. Its members had not even managed to invent the wheel.


That culture's only contribution to the world was the decorative ''tatu.'' In most other parts of the ancient world, tattoos were disfigurements used only to identify criminals or slaves.


Now that Polynesians can read, use wheels, count and appreciate musical instruments other than drums, they've advanced to a point where most of them have abandoned tattoos.


As one culture ascends, it seems, another declines.


This week, we learned that 36 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 have tattoos. It was just last year The Morning Call reported that 16 percent of all Americans were thusly self-mutilated.


The sight of Mike Tyson's gorgeous artwork, no doubt, has persuaded millions to flock to tattoo joints. Or maybe it's the growing popularity of ''mixed martial arts'' bloodfests, which put tattooed subhumans into cages to brutalize each other.


''Proud parents bear tattoos honoring their kids,'' said a headline over Monday's story.


''It's super big right now,'' the story quoted Steve Lemak as saying of the mom and dad tattoo trend. He owns The Quillian joint in Allentown.


''You'll never find a more meaningful tattoo than one for your kids,'' said Kiel Ferrari, described as an ''artist'' at the Minds Eye Tattoo in Emmaus. (I also have seen graffiti vandals described as ''artists.

'')
Along with the story, there were photographs of bodies mutilated with hideous ''artwork.'' One was of an arm with a truly unfortunate depiction of a child's face. I am sure the real child is cute; no child could actually be that homely.


On the very same day that our eyes were insulted by those vulgar photos, the paper ran another story elsewhere, plugging the premier showing of a new television program about the joys of prostitution.


The show was imported from England, where, the story said, ''it was aired last September and was blasted in the media for glamorizing prostitution.


'' (We have an MTV show glamorizing pimps, so why not glamorize their pathetic puppets?)
I can't say I'm an expert on prostitution. I'm too parsimonious to gain first-hand knowledge. (Stories on Eliot Spitzer's $4,300 dalliances nearly gave me apoplexy.) Nonetheless, I've said a lot about both prostitution and tattoos, which, come to think of it, always seem to go together.


No one can deny that the heaviest concentrations of tattoos occur in the lowest segments of society -- prostitutes, pimps, pugs, prison inmates, Ku Klux Klansmen and the members of street and motorcycle gangs.


Now, according to this week's story, 36 percent of young people have decided to emulate such lowlifes.


And some news media want to glamorize them.


Do not glamorize accomplishment. Do not glamorize intelligence, insight or integrity. Don't glamorize courage, generosity, leadership, skill or diligence. Such qualities are for nerds. By all means, glamorize pimps, prostitutes and those who emulate them. That is the future of America's culture.


Aware of how some of these devoted self-mutilators are going to react, I am compelled to emphasize that I do not favor any restrictions on personal behavior. If an idiot wants to get a tattoo, he or she should be free to do so. I just think responsible news media organizations should not glamorize them.


What's next? Glamorizing child molesters or kluxers?
In some older cultures, influence traveled from the top down. Early Americans marveled at the intellect of people like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and decided that education was a good thing, so they developed public school systems.


In some modern cultures, influences travel from the septic bottom up. In no time at all, we'll catch up to the Stone Age cannibals of the South Pacific.










paul.carpenter@mcall.com 610-820-6176

[ravensrun65]

I only wish I could see all the emails this ultra conservative is about to receive! He obviously has his head up his ass! And, YES, I WILL be sending him multiple emails as well as calling him, his editor and the "rag's" owner!
Maybe his problem is, he's too afraid that it may hurt to get a tattoo!LOL Shear JEALOUSY!!!LMAO!!!

Wow

I mean really, wow.

How can you support the right of a person to do what they want with their bodies, and then call tattooed people idiots in the same breath.

I have already sent him my 2 cents, and while I did share the pity I feel for him for being so close minded, I kept it very professional, because I see no reason to validate his vision of tattooed people being low class and uneducated. I invited him to check out some of the galleries here before he scoffs at tattooing being considered an art form.

But now I am here instead of being professional and emailing him, so are my real thoughts....

He really seems to have some deep seated issue with tattoos. I wonder if he got ass raped by a heavily tattooed uncle who was a clansman as a child or something.......

[ravensrun65]

Not to worry, I can be quite eloquent when I need to be!LOL I've started about 3 emails already...gotta wait 'til I calm down. They tend to get a bit charged up, so I start over!LOL He reminds me of my brother in law. He had issues with me and my tattooed friends, and yet, last year, took my 15 and 16 yr old nephews to get their first tattoo's!LOL Lacrosse sticks w/ their team numbers. Go figure!

[inkmunky]

i'm not about to give this prick my thoughts on the subject, he doesn't deserve them and i highly doubt he'll even read them or take the content (no matter how professional or eloquent it is) with any heart.

I'm a young buck, only 23 but already heavily tattooed and fully immersed in the life for the past 2 years. I've been working that whole time on changing peoples perceptions of me, i'm college educated, i graduated a year ahead of schedule, i've been working for myself in one form of art or another since i was 15, i don't go out every night and get s&!tfaced, and while i've had my share of trouble with the law i'm keeping my nose clean and to the grindstone to better myself.

So let this man say what he will, i as a professional will not be trying to change his mind. There are some people (and you can tell who they are simply by their speaking about tattoos and tattooing) that you simply cannot change their minds. Let them live in their dark little holes with their ultraconservative views (i'd like to see this guys opinion paper on gay marriage).

[inkmunky]

that was my professional opinion...

here's my personal...



i hope this self loathing prick has a sudden attack of homosexuality and in turn sees it fit to abuse himself by masturbating with sandpaper thus truly disfiguring his skin

[inkmunky]

i'm more pissed off he attacked polynesian culture than anything else, and without any concrete citing or evidence to the conclusions he made...

[inkmunky]

"Do not glamorize accomplishment. Do not glamorize intelligence, insight or integrity. Don't glamorize courage, generosity, leadership, skill or diligence. Such qualities are for nerds."

BRANDON, OH BRANDON WHERE YOU AT???? we definitely need your opinion on this.

[inkmunky]

james, do you have a link to the actual publishing?

ps. sorry for so many posts, this is getting my blood all boiled, i gotta get off the board now or i won't be able to work later.

[ravensrun65]

Originally Posted by inkmunky

james, do you have a link to the actual publishing?

I'm not James, but here's the link to all is recent articles: http://www.mcall.com/news/columnists...3880.columnist