Wednesday, January 07, 2004

From the "It's Not Like He's OBSESSED Or Anything" File   The Corner's John Derbyshire read a NY Times magazine piece that he actually liked.  It's about the changes in the Episcopal Church, and. . . .you know.  Of course, because the article IS from the NY Times, while reading it one has to "discount the occasional New Class sneer breaking through the facade of impartial reporting."  Derb provides an example of this: "On all sides these devout Christians felt assaulted by the lurid offerings of consumerist America -- half-dressed teen idols, gore-filled video games, Internet porn a click away -- and, seeking a lifeline, they had grasped hold of the Bible. Gay rights seemed especially threatening, for they saw it as challenging the sacrament of marriage, the foundation of their moral universe. At the same time, the intensity of their feelings about Gene Robinson indicated that something more profound was at work, that the issue of homosexuality touched them in a very visceral and vulnerable spot." Translation: "These rubes can't cope with modernity and so take refuge in crackpot fundamentalism. They have mental problems, or weaknesses, that cause them to panic when faced with the reality of homosexuality." Translation: the issue of homosexuality DID touch Derb in a very vulnerable spot -- probably one further south of the viscera, though. He provides another example of why the NY Times is wrong about stuff: Or how about this egregious bit of nonsense: "In sermons, forums and Bible-study groups, parishioners have been discussing, arguing and educating themselves about the rightful place of gays and lesbians in a church that for two millennia has shunned them." In the first place, the Episcopal Church only existed for 467 years, not "two millennia." In the second place, it has never "shunned" homosexuals. It has only told them that their acts are sinful and they ought to (a) stop doing them, and (b) repent them. It's really pretty straightforward, and if you don't like it, you don't have to be an Episcopalian. I think the church the Times was referring was the CHRISTIAN Church, Derb.  But lets move on to a later post on the same subject: RE: EPISCOPAL CRISIS [John Derbyshire] Good point from a reader: "Something the [NY Times] article doesn't touch on is how when conservatives/traditionalist compromise, their position is later outlawed. In 1973 (approx), when the first female priests were consecrated, there was an agreement that you didn't have to believe one way or the other about it, just let the other guy believe what he wants. ... Come 1995 or 1996, the house of bishops/general convention made it against canon law for someone who did not believe that women should be ordained could be elected to any position in the church, or, I think, ordained. I know that parishes are ignoring this, since I know folks like this who are new priests, vestry, etc. "So, it's not optional what to believe about women's ordination, but it is to disbelieve in the trinity (1960's), or the divinity of Jesus (Bp. Spong)." I agree, that's the way it's going. Divinity of Christ?---Some say yes, some say no. Trinity?---Make up your own mind. The Resurrection?---(Yawn) Whatever. Nicene Creed---Take it or leave it, just as you like. Homosex a "sacrament"?---Believe, or leave! Posted at 04:13 PM Yeah, "homosex a 'sacrament" -- that's what the whole discussion boils down to.  And just how WOULD one make a gay sex act a sacrament?  I bet Derb has thought about it for a while, and has some ideas about this disgusting, depraved, oddly fascinating subject. And anyway, the Episcopal Church has never shunned those who won't follow church doctrine.  It has only told them that their acts are sinful and they ought to (a) stop doing them, and (b) repent them. It's really pretty straightforward, and if you don't like it, you don't have to be an Episcopalian.   Don't you hate it when what goes around, comes around? 4:04:01 AM     comment [] trackback [] The Final Stage: Accepting That Arnold Really is Governor   I thought today would be a good day to share with you the last portion of the Subliminal Cinema chapter on "Coping With Grief: The Five Stages of Bad Sequels".  Today's stage is acceptance!   If you've already read the Batman and Robin movie summary, you can skip ahead to grief lesson at the end.  But since it is one of the best summaries in the book, so should probably read it again anyway, just to remind you of why we don't let Joel Schumacher make movies anymore.  (And if we actually DO still let him still make movies, don't tell me about it, because I don't want to have to go through all those stages of grieving again.) Batman & Robin (1997) Directed by Joel Schumacher Written by Akiva Goldsman Batman & Robin is the most homoerotic thing you are likely to see without actually taking in a screening of Brothers Should Do It at the Tomkat Theater on Santa Monica Boulevard. Not a criticism, mind you, I’m just saying; it makes Frankie Goes to Hollywood look like an Orrin Hatch family barbecue. It makes Queer as Folk look like a monster truck rally. Boy George would likely dismiss it as hopelessly fey. Our movie begins with rapid shots of polyurethane codpieces and bun-hugging rubber bondage pants with built-in butt cracks. This sequence represents our heroes suiting up as they prepare for a grueling night spent righting wrongs, combating evil, and doing a bunch of amyl nitrate poppers in the parking lot behind the Pleasure Chest. Before climbing into the Batmobile (which now has a rotating disco ball behind the radiator), Batman (George Clooney) and Robin (Chris O’Donnell) pause to contemplate the rubber nipples attached to each other’s costume. Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwartzenegger) has commandeered the Gotham Museum and is, well, freezing things, as he goes about stealing an enormous diamond. Batman and Robin arrive to foil his plan, and Arnold commands his minions to "Kill the heroes. Yes, kill them. Kill them. Yeah. Destroy everything." But he says it in such a bored, detached way, that he sounds less like a supervillain ordering a massacre, and more like a gas station attendant giving a motorist directions to the Interstate. Nonetheless, the Caped Crusaders find themselves under attack by the Mighty Ducks, and suddenly–it’s Batman on Ice! You half expect to see our two heroes get the living crap beaten out of them by a giant figure-skating Snoopy. The sequence ends much as it began–stupidly. Batman hops into Arnold’s tank, which morphs into the elevator from the end of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and blasts through the skylight. With Batman trapped inside, and the capsule headed for space, Arnold jumps out into the night sky and turns into a butterfly. Apparently, Batman loved Mr. Freeze, so he set him free. Mr. Freeze doesn’t come back, however, so evidently he was never Batman’s to begin with. Anyway, it turns out Robin was clinging to the outside of the capsule, despite the ice and wind shear and G-forces. He frees Batman, and they both escape by kicking out the doors and using them to sky-surf 30,000 feet down to earth, in what some might call the ultimate use of extreme sports as an idiotic deus ex machina, but which I prefer to think of as a pretty nice Mountain Dew ad. Meanwhile, botanist Uma Thurman is attempting to crossbreed a rattlesnake with an orchid, while next door, geneticist John Glover is attempting to splice an Australian skinhead with a Mexican wrestler. John catches Uma peeping, and dumps so much acid on her that it eats a hole through the floor, and straight down through the crust of the earth, although the effect on Uma seems to consist largely of tightening her pores and giving her a henna rinse. Cut to the Bat Cave, where George narrates home movies of Mr. Freeze’s origin. It basically involves Arnold falling into some ice water, causing the viewer to reflect that Bedford Falls narrowly escaped being plagued by a supervillain when Harry Bailey fell through the ice in It’s a Wonderful Life. Anyway, it turns out that Arnold, who requires sub-zero temperatures to survive, needs diamonds because he uses lasers to keep his costume cold. Got that? Or should we just move on? Let’s move on. Alfred, who has been with Batman since the first movie in 1989, can’t stand what the franchise is turning into, and starts pretending to die. Meanwhile, Uma pops out of the acid-eaten hole in the ground. She’s now got bright red hair, vines wrapped around her arms, and a campy delivery, having mutated into a combination of Bette Midler and Swamp Thing. Oh, and her lips are poisonous (especially when she uses them to speak dialogue.) Cut back to Arnold, who plans to hold Gotham City for billions in ransom. But the truly evil part of his scheme involves wearing fuzzy slippers like your grandma, and making his henchmen watch a lousy Rankin-Bass animated holiday special. Then he pays a tender visit to his beloved wife, whom he keeps in an aquarium. Back at Wayne Manor, Alicia Silverstone appears on the doorstep. She’s Alfred’s niece, and is freshly arrived from an English boarding school, judging by her knee socks, pleated skirt, starched white blouse, and charcoal blazer. Or perhaps she’d just appeared in a Japanese porn video. Later, Batman and Robin act as celebrity sponsors for a slave auction. Uma, now billing herself as Poison Ivy, shows up in a gorilla costume covered with shiny pink acrylic fur, making her look like the toilet seat cover in Mary Kay’s bathroom. Then she strips down, and the crowd instantly finds her irresistible, because she’s dressed in a provocative costume like the Jolly Green Giant’s mascot, Sprout. Oh, and also because she drugged everybody to like her. The Dynamic Duo are both trying to hump her when Arnold arrives to steal some more diamonds. Uma tries her pheromone drug on him, but since Arnold is completely blue, including his balls, he’s gotten used to the sensation, and doesn’t fall for her. Meanwhile, Alicia is coping with the grief over her parents’ death in an auto accident by engaging in unsanctioned motocross events. "I guess all the speed and danger help take me out of myself," she tells Chris. If only it would take her out of this movie. But with all the money she’s won racing, Alicia plans to whisk Alfred away from his "life of dismal servitude" and free him from the "master-servant" relationship in which he’s trapped. At last, Chris realizes her true identity: She’s Emma Goldman Girl! Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy now team up to inflict tedium on the audience, with Arnold vying to blanket the city in endless winter. "First Gotham," he shouts, "And then the world!" Which is not generally a phrase I enjoy hearing out of the mouth of an archconservative with a heavy Austrian accent. Anyway, after mankind has been turned into Otter Pops, Uma plans to populate the Earth with her genetically spliced reptilian plants, which resemble a sort of goth Kukla. Meanwhile, Alfred is dying of the same disease that killed Arnold’s wife, so he programs his "brain algorithms" into the Bat Computer, and becomes Alfred Headroom. He also creates some fetish gear for Alicia, so we get to watch the whole crotch/ass/nipple suiting-up sequence again. Robin tracks Poison Ivy to Busch Gardens, where she kisses him with her poisoned lips, but Robin foils her with the use of a dental dam he borrowed from Lesbo Lass. Unfortunately, he then falls in Uma’s koi pond and gets his ass kicked by the little bubbling diver. Batman arrives to save him, but is immediately attacked by the man-eating vine from The Addams Family. Then Alicia (now Bat Girl) crashes through the skylight, and she and Uma trade savage blows while engaging in a spirited exchange of ideas about Naomi Wolf’s "The Beauty Myth," and the early works of Germaine Greer. Finally, Alicia’s stunt double puts us out of our misery by kicking Uma’s stunt double into the maw of Audrey II, the giant plant from Little Shop of Horrors. Arnold freezes the city, but Batman pulls some rock salt out of his utility belt, and that’s pretty much that. Oh, and it turns out Arnold had a couple test tubes in his sleeve full of some blue liquid (Vanish, I think, or maybe 2000 Flushes) which cures Alfred, thus foiling his escape from the franchise. The end. Stage of grief: Acceptance. At last, we have achieved closure. Feels good, doesn’t it? After a long struggle, the psychological and emotional issues are finally resolved as the affected person puts on bun-hugging bondage pants and rubber nipples and says, Hey, This is Who I Am. Our hypothetical filmmaker now understands that Bob—the original film—is dead, and he no longer feels compelled to take Bob’s body parts to the baseball game with him. He is released from the grim burden of loss that has anchored him to the past, and is now free to make movies that have nothing to do with Bob. He can finally accept the Biblical advice of "Let the dead bury their dead," and start a fresh new project: maybe another 3:10:33 AM     comment [] trackback [] TownHall All-Stars   Yes, it's Wednesday, our favorite day of the week because it's when all the best TownHall columnists come out to play.  The common threads this time are that Howard Dean is the enemy of all that is good and decent in this world; and that George Bush and Karl Rove are on the side of the illegal aliens, proving they hate America.  And check out the bonus column by Pat Boone, who is apparently, like Paul Harvey, still alive. Michelle Malkin Michelle's 8-week-old baby just got his social security card (which includes a standard warning about improper use).  Michelle is outraged that the government would threaten Michelle's innocent baby when Mexican illegal aliens who pay into pension plans will get money when they retire, all thanks to "Mr. Brilliant, Karl Rove." This opens the way for Osama to get a pension, thus proving that Karl Rove in the pay of al Qaeda. Giving money to scam artists will simply result in more fraud -- not only by Mexican agricultural workers, but also by Middle Easterners such as Youssef Hmimssa, who provided fake Social Security numbers and fraudulent drivers' licenses to members of an accused terrorist cell in Detroit. "If you have the right connection, you can get anything," he testified before the Senate last fall. The door is now open for all illegal aliens to collect retirement benefits using bogus Social Security cards. What's next: survivors' benefits for the families of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers?  Terrence Jeffrey  Howard Dean SAYS he's on the side of farmers, but he supports the inheritance tax, which forces the sale of family farms when hard working farmers like Richard Mellon Scaife die; it also spells an end to family owned media empires.  So, Dean is actually NOT for the little guy. The death tax is a one-way ticket for private property. It drives it away from individuals and families and into the hands of big government and large, publicly traded companies. By opposing repeal of the death tax, Dean puts the interests of big business over family business.  Jonah Goldberg The people of Iowa and New Hampshire are like John Belushi in Animal House.  If John Kerry got the presidency, he'd probably just sit in the Oval Office shooting TVs, like Elvis.  But Jonah wants Dean to get the nomination, probably because then the election would like when Homer Simpson ran against Steve Martin for garbage collector.  And, most significant, at a moment when national security is of monumental importance, Dean has adopted a "do the opposite of George" foreign policy.  If Bush is for it, Dean must be against it. It's almost like Dean's the anti-matter universe version of George Bush - like in the "Star Trek" where Captain Kirk is evil and Spock wears a goatee.  [Note: Jonah must have read our TH recap from a few of weeks ago in which we claimed that he was from the evil Star Trek universe, for not only did he steal our dorky analogy, but he has also shaved his goatee.]  Kathleen Parker Because Kathleen has lived in the Bible Belt for most of her life, she can knowledgeably insult Southerners for their tackiness and lack of deep religious convictions.  She excoriates Howard Dean for being a phony who is trying to pander to trailer trash and lowlifes, when he should just admit that rich, tasteful people are the only ones who matter. From the boys in pickup trucks with Confederate flag stickers to the Bible-thumping Jesus bloc, one wonders what's next? Beauty queens, golfers and deer hunters? Look for Dean in camo, teeing off at Myrtle Beach with Miss South Carolina while tailgating on venison stew. Better make it an SUV, Bubba.  Walter Williams As alert WOC Tim Lambert reader pointed out, Walter's story from last week about the guy who left his Winnebago on cruise control, crashed, and then won a big time law suit, is just an urban legend.  But the fact that Walter fell for it just proves that he was right about people lacking a sense of personal responsibility. None of these cases, and many others, differs in principle from the Merv Grazinski urban legend. What's common to all of them is the absolution or the attempt at absolution from personal responsibility. Are people to be held responsible for their actions?   So, should Walter be fired for his lack of fact-checking?  Um, no.  Because that's not the point he was trying to make. Ben Shapiro Ben heard that the Dean meet-ups were a good place to meet chicks, but even they wouldn't sleep with him, which means they're all lesbos.  So, he's going to blame Dean for the entries in the Moveon.org ad contest, since Dean probably submitted them all himself under various fake names, while hogging all the chicks for himself.  Ben also wishes you to note that he can make just as many pop culture references as Jonah. The Dean voter is a new breed. He/she/both/none of the above combines the leftism of Lisa Simpson with the paranoia of Elliot Carlin. The Dean supporter mixes the pacifism of Jeannette Rankin with the smoldering hatred of Ted Kaczynski.  Tony Blankley Canadians can't contribute to American presidential campaigns, but they ARE probably donating money to MoveOn.org, which is anti-Bush.  So in effect, Wesley Clark is being bankrolled by al Qaeda. Americans, of course, have the right to contribute to an election effort to defeat an American president during wartime. But if it is not yet against the law, then it should be made soon to bar even a single foreign dollar from influencing an American presidential election -- whether directly or indirectly. Should Osama bin Laden be permitted to buy television advertising intended to defeat President Bush in the election?   And of course, it should be against Canadian law for an American president to influence their country.  We hope that their legislators and Tony can get together and brainstorm some ideas of how to make this all work. If Congress can limit or bar Americans from contributing to presidential election campaigns, surely it has the authority to bar foreigners -- particularly supporters of the enemy in time of war. Keep in mind, last year's campaign finance law also barred issue advertising by Americans 60 days before an election. What would be an appropriate cut-off date for permitting terrorism supporting Saudi Princes or multi-billionaire international currency manipulators from buying advertising intended to manipulate American public opinion and bring down a president?  Well, it is wartime, as Tony keeps reminding us, so I think we should play it safe and just shut down the media completely until after the election, to prevent the evil foreigners from influencing us.  Because I heard a rumor the other day that even FOX NEWS might have foreign money behind it! Joel Mowbray Bush wants to grant amnesty to Mexican illegal aliens who have jobs.  This proves that he and Karl Rove are in the pay of Osama bin Laden, just like Michelle Malkin said. After 3,000 Americans were murdered on a single day, common sense should have dictated that political pandering would finally take a back seat—if only marginally—to the most serious of security concerns.    Bill Murchison Afghanistan has a constitution now, and so Howard Dean is wrong about everything, and is a big baby who sticks his head in gravy.   (Thanks to Elizabeth for reminding me of that fine, old taunt.) What Dean wants, he wants now, this very minute, and if that thing is ironclad guarantees of safety, and if President Bush doesn't deliver said guarantees, waaaaah! Now, here's a TownHall bonus! It's Pat Boone, writing for the allied "60-Plus Association." Pat tells us stories from the golden age of white people, such as that when HE was a skinny young pop idol, they added "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance, and they liked it that way!  And since 86% of Americans say that God is a VIP, then the people who worry that it might not be constitutional for public school teachers to lead children in a pledge that acknowledges God, should just move back to the USSR, because the Constitution is not about inalienable rights, it's about majority rule! While they’re certainly entitled to their views, maybe it’s time to tell the 14 percent to “shut up” and get over it.  While the Constitution guarantees their right to hold and express whatever views they wish, the Constitution also guarantees majority rule.  We have rights too, even if a minority of Americans objects. And that concludes today's TownHall Recap.  Yes, TownHall -- where the village idiot is king!  2:54:04 AM     comment [] trackback []

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