HD doesn't mean anything to me. It's a technical thing. It's like demographics. A lot of people know about it.
Gawker thrived on embarrassment and shame, seeking to demolish not just celebrities or politicians but average random people whose sins it would expose for traffic and commenters who gloried in its actions.
People think that buildings are permanent, but in China, this isn't true; we can always demolish and remake it better.
My family and I survived Hurricane Katrina in 2005; we left my grandmother's flooding house, were refused shelter by a white family, and took refuge in trucks in an open field during a Category Five hurricane. I saw an entire town demolished, people fighting over water, breaking open caskets searching for something that could help them survive.
Why do we feel jealousy? Therapists often regard the demon as a scar of childhood trauma or a symptom of a psychological problem. And it's true that people who feel inadequate, insecure, or overly dependent tend to be more jealous than others.
I grew up on Stephen King, reading the books. I love the small town, 1950s feel to it, that nostalgia, and that old America. What happens when something weird starts happening to all these people, something other-worldly, something demonic?
I felt impelled to write. It felt demonic, and I wanted to improve, the way some people habitually pick up a guitar and get better at playing it and making up songs.
'Evil' is quite a blanket term. People aren't the demonic characters we would like them to be sometimes.
One of the most fun characters I played on a television series, which didn't last long... was a show called 'American Gothic' that Shaun Cassidy created. I would have loved to have done that show forever. That character was so funny yet demonic. It was really good writing and a really good idea. I loved all the people on the show.
I have seen how leaders rule by intimidation. Leaders who demonize and dehumanize entire groups of people often do so because they have nothing else to offer. And I have seen how places that stifle the voices and dismiss the potential of their citizens are diminished: how they are less vital, less hopeful, less free.
If you aren't just brought up in your tribe but interact with other people either directly or vicariously, through journalism and literature, you see what life is like from other points of view and are less likely to demonize them or dehumanize others and more likely to empathize with them.
I think people have to set up little battles. They have to demonize people whom they disagree with or feel threatened by. But it's the ideological framing of the debate that scares me.
I think the idea of trying to demonize Governor Romney's going to backfire. Their attempts so far have failed pretty outstandingly and I think at the end of the day, people are going to say, 'what was Obama's record?' Governor Romney's got pro-growth Reaganesque proposals on the table.
Throughout my life I have always been amazed that people couldn't listen to other people, that they couldn't hear their best intent, that there seemed to be an enormous need to demonize.
When you demonize Muslims as a community, as an entire group of people based on the crimes or actions of a tiny minority within that community, you have very worrying, real world effects.
People are so quick to demonize and stereotype those on the other side that they often say that it's impossible to work with people on the other side.
There's something strange about theater. My characters consistently demonize elitism, but of course it's taking place in a theater where only so many people can see it. I've been in silly popcorn movies - the kind of thing that as an actor you might feel embarrassed about - but those movies reach many more people.
We can't go to people who have lost their job at GM and say, 'Oh, by the way, we are going to pay money to build a road here or inoculate children there,' unless we can demonstrate that it is in America's interest. I happen to think it is.
We believe that human rights always applies to the majority, who should have its rights protected. When people demonstrate and go to the streets, they deprive the majority from earning a living.
When you're young, you wonder what all these old people are droning on about, trying to impart their wisdom. It's not relevant to you because being young is such a specific thing. Thank God for that. Thank God for the young people who go out and demonstrate against rampant capitalism or whatever.
