Monthly Archives: March 2007

Not sure I should even go here…

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Fair warning, this post deals with some prurient stuff.

As I was perusing ABC’s tabloidesque “Primetime” earlier this evening (okay, fine, I Tivo’d it after seeing a promo last night), I couldn’t help but wonder if the show was being a bit unfair. See, they interviewed a woman by the name of Sunny Lane, who I will pretend to have never heard of before today, and discussed how her parents work as her business managers…for her career in adult entertainment. If you watch the whole episode (not available on ABC’s website, near as I can tell), the interviewer almost seems frustrated that he can’t get her to seem more tortured or ambivalent about the whole thing, thereby defying the axiom that adult entertainment deadens the soul. Maybe she just hasn’t been doing it long enough, but she comes across as too cute and bubbly to be all that depressing:

I’m somewhat fascinated by the psychology of the whole business–i.e. what gets people to do this sort of thing, are said people really as screwed up as their stereotypes, and so forth. The whole thing with the parents on the ABC show is a bit strange (or a whole hell of a lot strange, who knows). I do think porn should stay out of the spotlight, if for no other reason than because it might otherwise lose its cachet–I think the market will keep it around for a long time, even if no one can agree on how much money the industry makes. Anyway, it’s very late at night.

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I was wrong to meddle with the forces of darkness, and I realize that now…

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This is too good to be made up:

Deceased Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, who died in captivity in Haag last year standing on trial for War Crimes in a UN War Crimes tribunal, still seem to haunt the Serbian nation.

Recently his grave in the eastern Serbian town of Pozarevac was desecrated in a bizarre incident, when Serbian vampire hunters in accordance with old folklore and tradition wanted to make sure the late president remained dead, and drove a three-foot wooden stake into the grave and through his heart.

Those crazy Serbs!

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Oh, snap!

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Max Cleland on Dick Cheney:

“Where the hell were you in the Vietnam War? If you had gone to Vietnam like the rest of us, maybe you would have learned something about war. You can’t keep troops on the ground forever. You gotta have a mission. You gotta have a purpose.”

If this is the only way to get a message to the VP, so be it, I guess. The only way it would have been better is if he could have said it to Cheney’s face. But I doubt that will ever happen. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I long for the day when those who still wholeheartedly support the war will actually explain themselves face-to-face with someone who disagrees.

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Thank you, South By Southwest conference attendees

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There are few things in this world I love more than the fair city of Austin, my home for the better part of the last eight years. This time of year, though, a feeling always comes over me…a feeling that maybe the price of hipness is too high. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the many SXSW conference attendees who have descended on my town this week.

Thank you for allegedly bringing $38 million to the local economy.

Thank you for helping to put Austin on the map of important venues for the entertainment industry.

Thank you for demonstrating how crippling body odor and hair colors that do not occur anywhere in nature can actually be a mark of overbearing hipness.

Thank you for reminding me, several times each day, that the conference badge you are wearing really does mean that those “walk/don’t walk” lights all over downtown do not apply to you.

Thank you for affording me the opportunity to reflect on my home state by frequently beginning questions with “Why is it that in Texas…”

Thank you for comparing everything to how it is back in LA or New York, so I’ll know what we need to do to be more like you.

Thank you for helping to create such a paradoxical love/hate relationship with the whole SXSW shindig.

And finally, thank you for leaving at the end of the week.

It’s been real. See you next year. Remember, some of us may be armed.

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86%!!!

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I am 86% religiously literate, according to this USA Today test. Interesting stuff:

Sometimes dumb sounds cute: Sixty percent of Americans can’t name five of the Ten Commandments, and 50% of high school seniors think Sodom and Gomorrah were married.

Stephen Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University, isn’t laughing. Americans’ deep ignorance of world religions — their own, their neighbors’ or the combatants in Iraq, Darfur or Kashmir — is dangerous, he says.

His new book, Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know — and Doesn’t, argues that everyone needs to grasp Bible basics, as well as the core beliefs, stories, symbols and heroes of other faiths.

Belief is not his business, says Prothero, who grew up Episcopalian and now says he’s a spiritually “confused Christian.” He says his argument is for empowered citizenship.

“More and more of our national and international questions are religiously inflected,” he says, citing President Bush’s speeches laden with biblical references and the furor when the first Muslim member of Congress chose to be sworn in with his right hand on Thomas Jefferson’s Quran.

“If you think Sunni and Shia are the same because they’re both Muslim, and you’ve been told Islam is about peace, you won’t understand what’s happening in Iraq. If you get into an argument about gay rights or capital punishment and someone claims to quote the Bible or the Quran, do you know it’s so?

“If you want to be involved, you need to know what they’re saying. We’re doomed if we don’t understand what motivates the beliefs and behaviors of the rest of the world. We can’t outsource this to demagogues, pundits and preachers with a political agenda.”

Scholars and theologians who agree with him say Americans’ woeful level of religious illiteracy damages more than democracy.

“You’re going to make assumptions about people out of ignorance, and they’re going to make assumptions about you,” says Philip Goff of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University in Indianapolis.

Goff cites a widely circulated claim on the Internet that the Quran foretold American intervention in the Middle East, based on a supposed passage “that simply isn’t there. It’s an entire argument for war based on religious ignorance.”

“We’re impoverished by ignorance,” says the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, former general secretary of the National Council of Churches. “You can’t draw on the resources of faith if you only have an emotional understanding, not a sense of the texts and teachings.”

There’s more, but that gives you an idea.

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Somebody please explain this to me in small words…

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I have a nagging questions about a quote from “conservative comedian” Evan Sayet at CNS News, which I found on Cruel.com:

Liberals are wrong about everything and have the mentality of kindergarteners, in the view of conservative comedian and commentator Evan Sayet.

“The Democrats are wrong on quite literally every issue,” Sayet said at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., on Monday. “They are not just wrong. They are as wrong as wrong can be.

“It’s not just domestic policy. It’s foreign policy. It’s every policy,” he said, adding that liberals are “diametrically opposed to that which is good, right and successful.”

“The modern liberal will invariably side with evil over good, wrong over right, and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success,” Sayet said.

“How could you possibly live in the freest nation in the history of the world and only see oppression? How could you live in the least imperialist power in human history and see us as the ultimate in imperialism? How can you live in the least bigoted nation in human history … and see racism lurking in every dark shadow?” he asked.

The comedian attributed the trend to a “rejection of all fact, reason, evidence, logic, truth, morality, and decency.”
Sayet also argued that liberals “have the mentality of five-year-olds.”

He said the 1986 Robert Fulghum book, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” “reads like the bible of modern liberalism and the playbook of Democratic Party policy.”

“‘Don’t hit’ has just become ‘War is not the answer,'” Sayet said.

“If we’re going to save America, we must take back the schools, the universities, the media, [and] the entertainment industry,” he said.

Maybe it’s selective quoting by CNS News, but I don’t get, from this at least, why he gets to be called a “comedian.” The article continues:

The Democratic National Committee did not respond to invitations to comment for this article, but Toby Chaudhuri, communications director for the liberal Campaign for America’s Future, told Cybercast News Service that “Sayet is a comedian with a cross to bear.”

“He hasn’t been able to think of any new jokes for over 30 years. Maybe that’s why he gets laughs even before he opens his mouth,” Chaudhuri said.

“Even a kindergartner knows that the right is wrong,” he said.

“Conservatives have had their way, and they failed,” Chaudhuri added. “The catastrophic conservatism of George Bush and the DeLay Congress has collapsed, [and] the GOP coalition is splintering.”

Maybe I’ve been watching The Daily Show too much, but the humor is lost on me. It just sounds like a set of observations. I may not agree with Dennis Miller on everything, but at least he’s witty.

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Not all Christians are scary…

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In fact, the vast majority of Christians don’t scare, bother, annoy, or irk me. In fact, they’re generally great people. If this sounds strangely backhanded, I honestly don’t mean for it to be. Perhaps it is unfair that I pick on an entire belief system because a small handful of nutbars keep getting a national stage–I could also blame that on a market-driven infotainment system that generally finds putting nutjobs on screen to spew crap gets better ratings than an actual reasoned discussion of faith (sad but true, and I’d rather be watching the Sci Fi Channel, anyway). Perhaps it is my own rather unpleasant history with the faith that makes me get a bit of a thrill from being mildly provocative (not sure who I’m provoking, but a guy can dream).

Anyway, my point is that this guy scares the crap out of me. And he works out of my hometown. And I sure hope he does not represent the mainstream of Christian (or any) thought.

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Why is this a religious hot-button issue???

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From the Washington Post:

Focus on the Family founder James C. Dobson and other conservative Christian leaders are calling for the National Association of Evangelicals to silence or fire an official who has urged evangelicals to take global warming seriously.

In a letter this week to the board of the NAE, which claims 30 million members, Dobson and his two dozen co-signers said the Rev. Richard Cizik, the NAE’s vice president for government relations, has waged a “relentless campaign” that is “dividing and demoralizing” evangelicals.

Cizik has been a leader in efforts to broaden evangelicals’ political agenda beyond abortion and same-sex marriage. He says Christians have a biblical imperative to protect the environment, which he calls “creation care.”

Is there a Biblical basis for doubting global warming? Is it scientific? (That would raise more questions, potentially.) Is it political? Seriously, I’m curious.

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Give Audhumbla her due, seriously

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Interesting bit from the Washington Times:

A Tennessee lawmaker is demanding answers about the creation of the universe from the state education commissioner.

State Sen. Raymond Finney sponsored a resolution to ask Education Commissioner Lana Seivers whether the universe “has been created or has merely happened by random, unplanned and purposeless occurrences.”

Mr. Finney, a Republican, said he wants the department to say there’s no scientific proof for the theory of evolution and to let schools teach creationism or intelligent design.

“Is there a creator? If yes, why are we afraid to teach creationism?” Mr. Finney said Tuesday. “And if the answer is ‘well, we can’t tell,’ then why are we prohibiting an alternative theory?”

Excellent, excellent point. Let us teach our children the alternative theories of how life has come to be. There are, after all, quite a few conceptions of the Demiurge. Now, explain to me why all of the following theories shouldn’t be given equal weight:

Intelligent design: Life has aspects that possess irreducible complexity. Therefore, they cannot have originated naturally. Therefore there must have been a Creator, but let’s not actually call said creator God. Now, what’s on TV?

Creationism (also here): God created the world in seven days. Genesis says so, in two different chapters with quite a few differences between them. They’re both true. If you disagree, you will go to hell. (Yes, I know I’m paraphrasing with liberal bias.)

Flying Spaghetti Monsterism (or Pastafarianism, also here): The world was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. Honestly, it’s not any more inherently ridiculous than most other creation stories.

Norse creation (but not here):

According to the Scandinavians, the beginning of life starts out with only fire and ice. It began with the existence of only two worlds: Muspellheim and Niflheim. When the warm air of Muspellheim hit the cold ice of Niflheim, the outline of the Thurses Ymir and the icy cow Audhumbla were created. Ymir’s foot bred a son with the other and a man and a woman emerged from his armpits. Thus he would be the father of an entire host of the cruel creatures known as giants. As Ymir slept, the continuing heat from Muspellheim made him sweat. He sweat out Surt, a flaming giant who went to Muspellheim, whose fire made him feel welcome. Later Ymir woke and drank Audhumla’s milk. And while he drank the cow licked on a salt stone. The first day a mans hair appeared, on the second day the head and on the third day the entire man emerged from the stone. His name was Bure and with an unknown giant he fathered the three gods Odin, Vili and Ve.

Anyway, they went on to somehow create Yggdrasill, the giant tree where we all live.

Greek creation (also not here):

The most widely accepted account of beginning of things as reported by Hesiod’s Theogony, starts with Chaos, a yawning nothingness. Out of the void emerged Ge or Gaia (the Earth) and some other primary divine beings: Eros (Love), the Abyss (the Tartarus), and the Erebus. Without male assistance Gaia gave birth to Uranus (the Sky) who then fertilised her. From that union were born, first, the Titans: six males and six females (Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne, Phoebe and Tethys, and Cronus); then the one-eyed Cyclopes and the Hecatonchires or Hundred-Handers. Cronus (“the wily, youngest and most terrible of [Gaia’s] children”)castrated his father and became the ruler of the gods with his sister-wife Rhea as his consort and the other Titans became his court. This motif of father/son conflict was repeated when Cronus was confronted by his son, Zeus. Zeus challenged him to war for the kingship of the gods. At last, with the help of the Cyclopes,(whom Zeus freed from Tarturus), Zeus and his siblings were victorious, while Cronus and the Titans were hurled down to imprisonment in Tartarus.

I think Tartarus was also home to the God of Fried Seafood, but I may be mixing my theologies.

Anyway, if we don’t know who the “creator” in intelligent design is, how do we know we don’t actually live on Yggdrasill and may wind up spending eternity hanging with Sisyphus?

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