Issue 74

News: Devil Worshippers and Satanists are not the same thing.
I'm sure you have heard of devil worshippers, especially around halloween, and if you lived through the mid-eighties, I'm sure you have heard of Satanic Ritual Abuse cases, and how they were slowly shown to be hoaxes. I am also assuming that you don't differentiate between Devil Worship and Satanism. Although I am neither, I have read a lot about them (and I think I may know more about it than most Christian Anti-witchcraft activists), and I will tell you the difference between the two so that there may be no more confusion.
Devil Worshippers actually believe that the devil exists, and that the Christian God does also, but that they "just go to the other shop", unlike Christians. Apparently, he was an angel who left Heaven after an argument with God (as read in Milton's Paradise Lost) , and decided to make an alliance with mankind just to spite God.
Satanism, on the other hand, is basically a belief system which follows the "Best aspects" of Devil Worship, but not worshipping any Gods but onesself. Very few of the popular aspects of Satanism apart from unusual occult rituals remain in this version of Satanism. In short, the Satanists are basically harmless compared to their public perception, since they expressly forbid harming innocent people (expressly forbidding killing of innocent children) and animals, although animals may be killed for food or in self-defense, but under no other circumstances.

Band Name of the Day: Buddy Jesus. From the films of Kevin Smith.

Film Review: All Five of Kevin Smith's Askewniverse films.
Clerks: Dante Hicks is a convenience store clerk, and he is having a busy day, one of his ex-girlfriends is to be married, another is having a wake, he is supposed to be in a hockey game, and he's at work on his day off. Of the five films in the series, it is my least favorite, but it did lead to the creation of the other four films, and one must admire the fact that in the face of $100 million films in multiplexes, that a $23,000 film made in black and white managed to become a huge hit.
Mallrats: The first film in the series I saw, two friends seek refuge in a mall after being dumped by their girlfriends, meeting some interesting people in the process, including a man who is trying to see a sailboat in a Magic Eye poster, a 15-year-old sexologist, and Stan Lee.
Chasing Amy: This is my favorite film in the series for reasons which, and the first one to take place in a timespan of over 24 hours, a comic book writer named Holden MacNeill (an obvious Catcher ref) and a Lesbian-identifying bisexual comic book writer named Alyssa try to come to terms with the fact that they have fallen in love. Silent Bob speaks more in this film than in any other film.
Dogma: My second favorite film in the series due to its religious themes. Two fallen angels come to Earth in a complicated plan to negate the existence of the universe. They were both exiled from heaven and upon learning of the Catholic Church's restarting indulgences, they go to Jersey to get freed from their sins, get killed, and get into heaven, thus proving God wrong, and negating the Universe QED. A lapsed Catholic, the voice of God (played by Allan Rickman) and Jay and Silent Bob try to stop them.
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back: Jay and Silent Bob find out a movie is being made of Bluntman and Chronic, the comic Book characters who were based on them and showcased in Chasing Amy. Upon learning that they will make no money from the film, and that they have been given a restraining order from the quickstop store where they usually hang out (from Clerks), they decide to go to Hollywood and prevent the movie from being made, on the way, falling in love with a Jewel thief posing as an animal rights activist and making friends with an orangutan (a subtle nod to Mallrats.)

Quote of the day: If all you bastards are on the side of Good, then Im glad to belong to the Other Shop
____Alex, from the book version of ACO.

Link of the Day: Where are they now? A listing of all the former child stars whose future you may or may not wonder about.

Issue 73

News: Harry Potter is not satanic.
This year will mark the end of the Harry Potter books franchise with the seventh book: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. One incredible rumour that has been going around about the series is that it was written for the express purpose of converting innocent kids to Satanism. Views like this can be found in the film Jesus Camp, where Becky Fisher rants about Harry Potter, claiming that "In Old Testament times He'd have been Put to DEATH!!" and in the Chick tract "The Nervous Witch", two young women are lured into Wicca (read: Jack's version of the same kind of witchcraft that the 1692 residents of Salem were killing themselves over.) Of course, upon looking at the evidence, it should be obvious that such rumours are totally false. According to Snopes.com, the rumours started with an article from The Onion (which is one of the most obviously satirical news sources on the planet) which stated that Satanism among children was on the rise due to the books, even claiming that High Priest Egan of the First Church of Satan in Salem, MS (the High priest of the FCOS is really named Allee and it is not centered in Massachussets) called Harry a "Godsend for their cause". Of course, the irony of a Satanist calling anything a "godsend" should have clued fundamentalists in even if The Onion's reputation was unknown to them. Instead, they not only believed that the story was true, but also cited it as proof that their claims are true, even adding several fake statistics, including that since 1995, the membership of the church of Satan. Of course, they often include several other statistics, like that 40 thousand children get killed yearly as part of Halloween celebrations every year, and that number is equivalent to how many people in general are murdered in this country in three years. Indeed, I'm not really sure that they know there is a difference between devil worship and Satanism. There is, and I intend to explain it later on. If anything, people should be worried about whether adults can distinguish the fantasy of Rowling's work from reality, because the kids clearly can.

Band Name of the Day: Lady Godiva's Operation: From A severely underrated song by the Velvet Underground.

Film Reviews of the Day: The Two Lolitas. I recently saw the two film versions of Lolita, Kubrick's version from 1962 and Adrian Lyne's 1997 version. I found both enjoyable as films, even though Lyne was more faithful to Nabokov's original story. Of course, this can be blamed on the Production Code, which, while on its last legs, was still in effect and would not let a truly faithful adaptation appear onscreen, consequently the entire incest plotline of the film is muted very much. Naturally, since the 1997 version wasn't tied down by the Code, it could afford to be faithful to the book, but it may have been too faithful for its own good, because it deleted many of the subtleties of the book. However, one can view Kubrick's version as the one Humbert would have casted (as Lolita was saddled with a very attractive [albeit older than specified in the book] actress, and her mother was saddled with Shelly Winters, who is decidedly less so.)

Quote of the Day: "I'm Carl Sagan. Just how old is our planet? Scientists believe that it's four HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS OF YEARS OLD!! Scientists have determined that the universe was created by a GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODbig bang. If you look at the bones of a JAY-ZUZnosaurus rex, it's clear by the use of carbon dating that MOUNTAIN DEW IS THE BEST SODA EVAR (sic) MADE!"
____________Carl Sagan in "Cosmos: Edited for Rednecks" from Family Guy: Airport '07.

Link of the Day: The collected Coast to Coast AM calls of an insane fundamentalist named J.C. Webster.
And here are their transcripts.

Issue 72

News: Anna Nicole Smith: Why do/should I even know her name?
When I first heard of Anna Nicole Smith, one of my father's friends was a junkie for her reality show. I heard about her on and off for the next few years until she finally died last month. Apparently, she married an old billionaire (apparently for his money), and one of his sons (some more than twice Smith's age) got angry at the fact that she got money and that they had been in court battles for more than ten years until her inevitable death. Ultimately, she gave birth to a son at the same time as one of her ex-husband's sons killed himself and months later, she died. Now there has been a lot of attention on who the father of the child may have been, whether it was the frozen remains of her dead husband, or her lawyer. On behalf of all the people who have had to suffer through this media circus, I must say, Why Should I care? The mystery of her child's father is not one which I care about, and if she didn't marry a billionaire, she'd probably only be of note as a Playmate, and her lawyer Howard K. Stern would only be some lawyer who wouldn't be remembered by as many people as know his name now.

Band name of the day: The Philippics. From a work by Demosthenes or Cicero.

Film Reviews of the Day: Taxi Driver- I finally watched the film after years of putting it off and I must say that it was a great film, although not as Salingeresque (read: similar to Catcher) as I had believed it would be from reading about it.
Get on the Bus- Several black men, including a father and son who have been handcuffed together for 3 days, an ex crip and cop, a gay republican couple, and a filmmaker, who happen to be complete strangers go onto a bus to the Million Man March. Interestingly, Farrakhan, despite being "The reason for the season" does not appear in the film except from the back in archival footage.

Quote of the Day: "You're Tellin' me Satan seduces the youth with dark rooms full of shiny stuff and the sound of 'Dook-Dook' repeating over speakers? Since When did Satan get into ferrets?"
_________Fred MAcIntire, something positive, 10/08/06

Link of the day: A strange clip from SNL.

New Tract: Set Free. Apparently Jack's Homage to Waiting for Godot, with Satan pulling people on leashes like Pozzo does to Lucky, and Jesus coming to cut the leash if and only if they accept his story. Why he doesn't just cut everybody's leashes as immediately as he can get to them I have no idea. No dialog except for the Bible verses in every panel.