Issue 200

There will be four parts to this piece. The first part will be a response to something I've recently discovered, the second part of this will be the latest installment of my list of favourite books, and, as a breather, I will include a review of Jack Chick's latest tract, and the next 25 in my list of life lessons

Part 1: William Lane Craig.
You may not know this guy's name, but apparently, he's considered a leading evangelical theologian. Granted, he's not responsible for any bestsellers on the order of Rick Warren's Purpose-driven life, people have recommended his writings to me in the hopes that I would believe in God again. From what I've heard, he's as well-respected as C.S. Lewis. I recently discovered that he wrote an Op-Ed piece on the morality of the accounts of genocide that are described in Exodus. He actually defended the genocide of neighboring tribes because, in his words, "the death of these children was actually their salvation." This is not a paraphrase. This was not taken out of some crucial context where Lane Craig almost immediately shoots down this strawman. If you copy those words into Google, and click "I'm feeling lucky," you will get the article in question, and there's a very good chance that you will be as shocked by this as I was. Even the Lutherans who made my formative years a living Hell at least had enough sense to know that there's something very wrong with that argument. And it gets better. In his view, it was okay to kill the Caananites because they were guilty of disobeying God's laws, and were basically bad people. When you kill innocent people (like babies or other children), they go to Heaven. From this, I must ask: when isn't it morally right to kill people? I must reiterate that William Lane Craig is not just some wild-eyed Fred Phelps wannabe who goes around the country spreading a gospel of hate, shouting down everyone he sees as being hell-bound reprobate just because they're not him or his extended family. This man is a well-read, well-published, sophisticated modern theologian that people accuse atheists of ignoring because it's more fun to pick on the whackos. Given the fact that he's fond of claiming that the existence of "objective moral values" proves the existence of God, I must ask where are the objective moral values in his own values system? He says that, if there is no God, everything is permitted, but with God, at least murder is permitted. I'd like to close this with a link to a song by John Lennon. It's not Imagine, but it's from the same album and it expresses my views of this man's moral system.

Part 2: The  best books of (the many I read in the first half of) 2011.
I tried, a few weeks ago to try to see if I could get a shortlist of books I could use to create my annual list of "The best books (of the many I read in) 20XX." Including the audiobooks I've been listening to, I must have been reading no less than 100 books over the course of the year. But the shortlist had no less than 40 books as I was starting it. As of right now, there's 47 books on it, including the book I'm reading right now, World War Z. So, I decided to divide the list into two parts divided at a rather convenient point: July 1, 2011. Granted, the first part of the shortlist was still rather ungainly (28 books), but I've still been able to whittle that down to a managable number. So, without further ado, here are the top 11 books I've read in the first half of 2011.
11. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
While the book's pacing is quite glacial, especially in comparison to the many film versions that have been obstensively based on this book, what really struck me about the book was the fact that it had a very different tone from the movies. The fact was that the book really has a great sense of tragedy that seems to be missing from the film version. Viktor Frankenstein tampers in God's domain by reanimating dead tissue and escapes responsibility by fleeing from his creation, and his monster, named Adam being the well-read (seriously; he reads Plutarch, Milton, and Goethe) monstrosity that he is, cannot be expected to be able to fit in society. Given how well-known the character of Adam is, the sheer amount that got lost in the sands of time is simply staggering. Since I've frequently mentioned the films, I should probably recommend the original 1931 James Whale film for its fame, the 1957 Hammer film for its thrills, the 1974 Mel Brooks film for its humor, the 1994 Ken Branaugh film for its fidelity (and its unintentional humor), and the Andy Warhol version for its utter insanity.
10. Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
I have not bothered to read Seth Grahame-Smith's other works in the Pride and Prejudice with Zombies series. As a man who has a lot of stuff he'd like to read, and as a man who thinks that Mark Twain's assessment of Jane Austen was too nice (her wit is nonexistent; all praise of her character-building ability are rendered pointless when one reads Dostoevsky, whose novels routinely contain almost the entire spectrum of thought and behaviour; and everything else about her works is insufferable to the point where playing Russian Roulette seems like a be a valid, sanity-preserving alternative whenever my mother drags me to an adaptation of her works), reading those books just hasn't been that high a priority. With this book, however, I knew I had to read it, especially after Linkara gave a shout-out to the book in one of his reviews. I've been interested in Lincoln most of my life, especially after all the times I went to Springfield with my family and toured Lincoln's world. What's really impressive is how, not only is the plot interesting, the supernatural events are linked to the events of the real world in such a way that it's almost likely that there was a big coverup to hide the fact that vampires walked the Earth, but the fact is that Seth Grahame-Smith gets so much of the history correct. Granted, he may get the dynamics of slavery a little over-simplified, but in this regard, he's almost as good at historical fiction as George MacDonald Fraser was.
9. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
When I was a member of Newspeak Dictionary, I had somehow managed to get through several years on a board devoted to politics and dystopian literature without having read Brave New World, and only having read 1984 once. For whatever reason, in February, I decided to give it a look. It was really much better than I thought it would be, and Aldous Huxley is brilliant in the way he not only builds this world where humans are born through cloning, humans are conditioned to be sex-crazed from preschool age on, and art is limited to interactive pornography, he is also brilliant in the way he is able to link those with contemporary culture. Of course, on occasion, the book shows its age: Huxley refers to the interactive skin flicks as "feelies", no doubt as an analogue to "talkies," a term that was still in parlance when the book was written, in 1931, and even the music that Huxley talks about seems to be an extension of the big band music that was popular when the book was being written. He does, however, manage to pull off the "false protagonist" device pretty effectively, even if it's not as clear as it could be when Bernard stops becoming the main character and John does.
8. Barney Ross by Douglas Century.
When the Borders stores were closing, I decided to pick this book up. I was impressed with it. I wouldn't think that I would be interested in this story of a real-life boxer, but there was really a lot to be interested in: this nice Jewish boy from Chicago starts a career as a boxer, retires after a particularly bad loss, joins the War effort, fights in Guadalcanal, gets addicted to morphine, recovers with the help of Hashem, and even tries to advocate a relatively sane drug policy. For what it's worth, his grave is in the Rosemont Park Cemetery. I'll be sure to find a good pebble for his grave before I visit.
7. Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.
Unlike every other item on this list, I had to read this play for an Intro to Drama class in Oakton. I'm now in the process of writing a big essay about it in another class at Columbia. Despite the fact that I read it for class, I really loved it to the extent that I had to include it on my list. Why? Because this play is composed in such a way that it's almost perfect. Why? Just read it.
6. The Visit by Freidrich Durrenmatt
All right, I must admit that, after calling one play "almost perfect," it does seem odd putting another play immediately above it, but just hear me out. Another book I bought when the Borders stores were closing, this play is really just one that really appeals to my sensibilities even more than Tennessee Williams' does; the play is a meditation on the nature of capitalism: a small town is in the throes of poverty when a favourite daughter comes back and offers the town $1 billion on the condition that they kill a man who wronged her in her childhood. How long does it take before the town finally kills them? How much is it possible for us to laugh at the way the townspeople try to deal with the offer? Durrenmatt is one of my favourite authors for two reason: one is that he's that rarest of creatures, a postwar German novelist who doesn't talk about the Nazis, and the second is that he's basically German's Kurt Vonnegut.
5. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
It's very hard for me to explain just why I love this book. The fact is that it covers a lot of subjects, and does all of it in this very wry sensibility. All I can ask is why do I not read more Vonnegut?
4. Popular Crime by Bill James.
I first read about this book in an issue of Wired that was lying about my workplace. What really struck me was the fact that not only was this guy attempting a truly far-reaching history of man's fascination with crime, but the fact that he had decided to create a scale of evidences that could establish guilt. I have had no interest in his previous work, since I don't care about sports (at least I don't care about the ones that involve balls), but this book I just had to get. I wasn't disappointed. His book covers 200 years, and, although he does often gloss over serial killers, he's only got 400 pages to cover. One thing that really did disappoint me was that he didn't include a full version of his checklist of the evidence that he kept talking about and applying to criminals. Perhaps the reason this was done was because he was a little uneasy about the consequences that applying the list to the modern justice system would be. After all, he created a scale where 100 points was guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and that was sort of like the old, medieval system, where one or two well-chosen pieces of evidence was incontrovertible proof of guilt. However, according to Bill James, even the most glaring smoking gun, DNA Evidence was only worth 80 points on a possible 100.
3. J.D. Salinger by Kenneth Slawenski.
I heard about this book soon after it came out. My parents checked it out of the college library for me, and I only got around to reading it by the time we took the train ride to New York. It's rather fitting that I spend much of the time going to New York reading about one of my favourite New York authors. With regards to the biography itself, it really does put a lot of Salinger's writings into their proper context. He even manages to summarise stories that were either unpublished, or stories that Salinger never bothered to put into book form. And, furthermore, it even puts what I did know of Salinger's life into an even better context. His habit of seclusion really made a lot of sense when you realised how much his life was ruined by paparazzi trying to intrude on it, much to the point where he actually gave out a red herring on the jacket cover of Franny and Zooey. Slawenski even made clear just why Salinger stopped publishing; after his Glass family stories were met with a collective cry of "They changed it, so now it sucks," he just got tired of it all and stopped publishing.
2. Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
I read this in audiobook form (mainly as a result of some speculation that one section of Thirty H's was a shoutout to the book) during the big blizzard that happened in February. Even without Jules Feiffer's illustrations, I loved this book. On the one hand, it's a book that's rather heavy-handed with its "learning can be fun" message, but, unlike a lot of pieces that are this heavy-handed, Norton Juster really does make this book really fun to read; its characters are zany personifications of different concepts, and words and numbers are things you can eat. And now there's going to be a 50th Anniversary edition published in hardcover and that's definitely something I'd like for Christmas or my birthday.
1. Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

This is just the single best novel I've read all year. You're probably aware of the novel's plot, you probably know how much wit is packed into it. Just go out and get it. I've already got two copies; one in paperback with an introduction by Jeffrey Eugenides, and one in hardcover that I got in a Barnes and Noble Leatherbound Classics edition.

Part 3: The Awful Truth (Tract Review)
And, once again, Jack Chick puts out his conspiracy theory of everything, and it's funny as all hell. From unintentional shout-outs to Pinky and the Brain, a scoffing Dudley Moore, he quickly goes into blaming Catholicism for all the world's woes (seriously; he believes that Islam, Communism, and Naziism were created by the Catholic Church to enslave the world). Perhaps most insanely, the Catholic Church apparently ordered the death of JFK because he chose the Constitution over Canon Law. I should probably do my own dissection of this tract, but I've currently got too much work at Columbia to try it.

Part 4:

1. Myxomatosis is not funny, except when it is.
2. Bruno Mars' “The Lazy Song” does not contain Insane Clown Posse levels of sex and violence.
3. Queering doesn't make the world work.
4. Catholic Priesting doesn't make the world work.
5. “Queer” is not a verb.
6. If not for prison rape, some people would never get laid.
7. Rape is never funny, except when males are the target.
8. If you are only attracted to men when they're unwilling, that still makes you bisexual.
9. U2 is the most overrated band on Earth.
10. The Zombie Apocalypse is the most viable political system known to man.
11. The Zombie Apocalypse will only work if the dead first rise in Colma, CA.
12. Calling yourself a lesbian trapped in a man's body does not entitle you to any of the benefits afforded to either gays or transsexuals.
13. This still applies no matter how many times you will admit to seeing D.E.B.S., But I'm a Cheerleader, or Heavenly Creatures, or how many times you've read Annie on My Mind.
14. Deutsche Kultur ist durch Amerikaner sehr interessant und unterschätzt.
15. Sam Shepherd once killed a man with his butt cheek power.
16. Some people really are that stupid.
17. Speaking with all the gentility that can be expected of an OxBridge professor can still be construed as rabid radicalism if the other guy disagrees with you.
18. “Fagpoles” is not recognised as a word by any reputable source.
19. Nobody who is easily offended or in any way surprised by the presence of the word “nigger” has any right to be reading novels about The South.
20. Cali is not short for Caligula.
21. Getting strung out on Heroin, listening to Joy Division, and throwing machetes at nothing in particular is no way to spend a Tuesday.
22. Even if you regularly get intimate with strippers of the same sex, flirt with same-sex coworkers and offer to marry a particularly butch one when Illinois legalises gay marriage, you can still consider yourself completely heterosexual if you occasionally go out with a boy you never look in the eye and align yourself with Team Jacob.
23. Sex and Death are both two things which happen only once in a lifetime.
24. Nothing improves the quality of one's music like dying.
25. Don't trust the judgment of anyone who seriously believes that the addition of an infant to one's life will solve any of their problems, with the possible exception of fertility.

Issue 192

News: This is probably old news, but...
Once again, I'm sorry I haven't been updating. I've been working on a short story, college applications, getting my service hours squared for my Criminology class, reacquainting myself with Arthur Miller, Samuel Beckett, and King Lear, and spending Easter at my grandparents' house (for the last time, since they're apparently selling it), so, between all of that, there hasn't been much time to write for the blog. That said, I have had a few ideas for blog entries, and here's one of them.
On March 20th, Not The Terry Jones, Fundamentalist nutjob who has been condemned from all sides for threatening to burn the Koran in September (for the record, I have mixed feelings about the act itself, ultimately resolving in a Voltairean "I disagree with what you say, but I agree with your right to say it," aided by the fact that, if a Koran is to be disposed of, technically, burning it is the recommended method), finally managed to do so. But he decided to first put the book on trial for six hours. What I'm wondering is: if he feels justified to do so for the Koran, what's to prevent someone from doing the same for The Bible? I can almost imagine it; Getting a man to prosecute the Bible (ideally a Gideon Bible, since they're pretty much free in any hotel room), and a priest to defend it in a court of law (I'd especially like to see it if we could get at least one of the lawyers to say something like "now, I'm just a simple country lawyer," like Jimmy Stewart), against charges of Crimes Against Humanity (what I have in mind would ultimately be something like Judgment at Nuremberg), and seeing how far it goes, especially if we can see it streaming online or after the fact on sites like Youtube. If the Bible is found guilty, it would be burnt while some fitting tunes (all of which should involve fire-related imagery), definitely beginning with Arthur Brown's Fire.

Film Review of the Week: Mildred Pierce (2011 version). For a while, the 1945 film version of James M. Cain's Mildred Pierce has been one of my favourite films noir. However, until recently, I hadn't read the original novel, and now that Todd Haynes adapted it into an HBO miniseries, I think that it's a worthy successor, so let me go over some of the most important elements:
*Mildred: Honestly, after looking into Joan Crawford's real-life motherhood, it's ultimately hard to take her seriously as a woman who would take a bullet for her daughters like she does in this film. However, in the film, it comes close to almost disintegrating any lingering doubts, but there's still the occasional thought in the back of my mind that wants to make a snarky reference to wire hangers. Kate Winslet, to the best of my knowledge, appears to have no such parenting problems, and it is much easier for me to take her seriously as a doormat of a mother. And, what's more, in the novel and the miniseries, her character arc becomes more dramatic: She goes from doting on Veda to saying (albeit at Bert's promting) "to hell with her."
*Veda: To be honest, it's very hard for me to say whether Evan Rachel Wood or Ann Blyth is a better actress in this role. They both seem to nail down the "Bratty-bordering-on-sociopathic Teenaged Daughter" role, and both look like they could very well be the daughter of the women playing their mothers, even if, in the case of Wood and Winslet, their ages are too close together for it to be realistic. However, to break the tie, I will note the climactic scene in the new version: When Mildred discovers that Veda is dating Monte, she strangles her, but she manages to get away. After this, Evan Rachel Wood curb-stomps willing suspension of disbelief by running around the house and then sputtering, repeating this for several minutes. Unless I can find some sort of evidence of this sort of thing being feasible after being strangled, I will use this as an example of how Ann Blyth's acting is better.
*Ray/Kay: I definitely have a favourite here: Jo Anne Marlowe's Kay is a much more interesting character than the Ray that Quinn McColgan played in the miniseries. The main reason for this is that I cannot help but find it satisfying that, in the 1945 film, the younger daughter, of all people, is something of a voice of reason for the family, and we see that a change occurs in the family dynamics when she dies, sometimes calling Veda out on her greed and ego. However, in the miniseries, she's just a little kid who just tries too hard to be cute, and when she dies, it feels more like the author is himself trying to get the audience to think that Ray was "too good for this sinful earth."
*Pacing/The Second Half: After reading the book, you really come to see how much the plot came to feel rushed in the film version; in fact, major plot points are completely glossed over in the film, like the fact that Veda is taking music lessons: these are mentioned enough times that they can be counted on one hand. In the miniseries and original novel, much of the novel's second half, and the last two episodes of the miniseries revolve around Veda's getting a career as a singer (a coloratura soprano, to be precise). Of course, the plot in the film still makes sense as a whole, and thus, it works, even though the miniseries allows the plot to breathe more.
*Mise-en-Scene: Michael Curtiz made it into a film noir. Todd Haynes filmed it to look like a lot like Douglas Sirk's "Women's pictures." They both worked extremely well for what they are. The choice between the two styles boils down to one's own personal preference, and mine leans strongly towards noir.

Issue 175

News: How not to do a Jesus biopic: Another long-term essay.
A few weeks ago, I saw the movie, The Passion of the Christ. My mother heard about it, and she said that she never wanted to see it (and she's the most religious member of my immediate family, although for her, it means self-identifying as Lutheran, and occasionally going to Church on Christmas or Easter, depending on her health), especially since she heard that it was little more than a glorified snuff film. Well, I ended up renting it from the library, and, it turns out, she was right. The fact is that it was almost entirely devoted to the torture and execution of Jesus, with surprisingly little focus on any other aspect of his life. And, even though they went through the trouble of translating the script into the languages that would have actually been spoken at the time, they even manage to get that wrong, especially since the Roman soldiers were speaking in ECCLESIASTICAL LATIN. Honestly, if you're going to translate your dialogue into a foreign, dead, language, make sure it's the right one. I like a bit of the old ultraviolence now and again, but really, when the entire point of the movie is devoted to one man's execution, it is not good. Even Funny Games took time out of showing the two men torturing the Yuppie family to break the fourth wall and play Naked City music. To keep the contrast to other religious movies, The Passion of Joan of Arc devoted itself to the last few hours of the life of a saint, but C.T. Dreyer focused the movie not only on the suffering itself, but also at least gave Joan some character development. However, Mel Gibson gives his Jesus very little room for such character development, and gives us no real reason to care about his suffering except that we're supposed to care about Jesus being crucified. Indeed, I think there can be, and actually have been, some great interpretations of Jesus' life on film, like Pasolini's Gospel According to Matthew (although a lot of my admiration can be due to its eclectic sountrack), Nicholas Ray's King of Kings, or, in terms of sheer comprehensiveness, Zefferelli's Jesus of Nazareth. I'd even recommend Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ, even if its casting choices are suspect, to say the least, and it isn't even based on the Gospels. While we're on adaptations of the Bible done by unusual people, I recently read R. Crumb's adaptation of the Book of Genesis, and, as it turns out, the man who created Mr. Natural and wrote the source material for the first X-rated cartoon film actually does a pretty good job of adapting the first book of the Bible. He even manages to make the "begats" interesting by actually giving the people being "begotten" a face, and it's actually surprisingly reverent for R. Crumb, and quite possibly the most oddly reverent adaptation of the Bible since Aphrodite's Child's rock opera of Revelation: "666."

Relevant Quote: "The New Testament tells two stories for two different sorts of readers. One is the old story of the achievement of our salvation by the sacrifice and atonement of a divine personage who was barbarously slain and rose again on the third day: the story as it was accepted by the apostles. And in this story the political, economic, and moral views of the Christ have no importance: the atonement is everything; and we are saved by our faith in it, and not by works or opinions (other than that particular opinion) bearing on practical affairs.

The other is the story of a prophet who, after expressing several very interesting opinions as to practical conduct, both personal and political, which are now of pressing importance, and instructing his disciples to carry them out in their daily life, lost his head; believed himself to be a crude legendary form of god; and under that delusion courted and suffered a cruel execution in the belief that he would rise from the dead and come in glory to reign over a regenerated world. In this form, the political, economic and moral opinions of Jesus, as guides to conduct, are interesting and important: the rest is mere psychopathy and superstition."
_______________________George Bernard Shaw, Preface to Androcles and the Lion.

Tract Reviews: The Little Sneak: a kid hides his parents' life savings and a preacher coerces him to giving up the money's location. For his trouble he is killed.
Is Allah Like You: A muslim father reads the Quran and finds out how much of an A-hole Allah is, and converts to Christianity. Jack is completely oblivious that many of these criticisms he makes of Islam can be made of Christianity, and can even be given scriptural citations.

Issue 170

News: To Beat Up A Child.
Recently, I came upon the news that a couple had beaten their seven-year-old daughter to death for mispronouncing a word. Incidentally, the daughter was adopted and from Libya. As it turns out, they were influenced by a book called To Train Up a Child, written by two evangelical Christians which claims to use "simple, Biblical principles" for child-rearing, and by "simple, Biblical principles," I mean whipping the devil out of your kids. Needless to say, they have no credentials in either theology or child development, and are well known to Child Protective Services. If children act in ways that you'd expect for their age, then the parents have failed. If they don't want to fail, they should do everything in their power to break their will. If a baby crawls out of his father's lap, according to the book, they should spank him for about 45 minutes. Yes, I kid you not. In essence, they compare childrearing to two things: Breaking a horse (even though I'm not entirely sure that horses are even treated like this when broken anymore), and warfare. At this point I have to say this: Look, if you hate kids, I understand. I admit that I tend to dislike being around children, especially loud-mouth children. But if you do, then simply spend as little time around them as possible. Don't have them yourself and don't tell others how to raise them.

Film Review and Idea of the Day: M. I recently looked into this classic of Wiemar cinema and I have to say that it was really impressive, especially in the climactic trial scene, Especially with the fact that criminals are the ones judging Peter Lorre (partly out of disgust for his actions, and partially for hurting their business by increasing police presence on the street), and that, as a result, the self-confessed child-killer actually becomes the most sympathetic character in the whole movie. In fact, in the days where Nancy Grace demands blood for every missing white girl that comes to her attention, this movie is probably more relevant than ever. Maybe, if the message would reach more people, there should even be a remake. Probably with Jackie Earle Haley in Peter Lorre's Role.

Quote of the Day: "I will tell you a pleasant tale which has in it a touch of pathos. A man got religion, and asked the priest what he must do to be worthy of his new estate. The priest said, "Imitate our Father in Heaven, learn to be like him." The man studied his Bible diligently and thoroughly and understandingly, and then with prayers for heavenly guidance instituted his imitations. He tricked his wife into falling downstairs, and she broke her back and became a paralytic for life; he betrayed his brother into the hands of a sharper, who robbed him of his all and landed him in the almshouse; he inoculated one son with hookworms, another with the sleeping sickness, another with gonorrhea; he furnished one daughter with scarlet fever and ushered her into her teens deaf, dumb, and blind for life; and after helping a rascal seduce the remaining one, he closed his doors against her and she died in a brothel cursing him. Then he reported to the priest, who said that that was no way to imitate his Father in Heaven. The convert asked wherein he had failed, but the priest changed the subject and inquired what kind of weather he was having, up his way. "
______________MArk Twain.

Link of the Day: An ally of That Guy With The Glasses. He even Has his own review of Death Bed.

Issue 159

News: Kirk Cameron/Ray Comfort's "Origin of Species."
In roughly a week, apparently on the 19th, Ray Comfort (a New Zealand evangelist so laughably absurd that it's hard for me to believe that he actually expects people to believe him), and Kirk Cameron (actor) are sponsoring a book handout of Darwin's "Origin of Species," in a special edition published by Ray Comfort's publishing company Living Waters. What makes this edition different from the many other editions published by Imprints like Signet, Dover, Penguin, Vintage Classics, and even Barnes and Noble Classics? Or the many etexts of the book? Well, it turns out that this is an abridged version (all other versions are unabridged), and in the place of the missing chapters, is a 50-page introduction by Ray Comfort. In the introduction, according to Kirk Cameron, is information on Darwin's dated views on women and race (please remember he was living in Victorian times, and not in the 2000s, and that even by those standards, his views were pretty advanced), the "undeniable link between Hitler and Darwin" (Jesus, where to begin: First of all, there is no evidence that Darwin had much of a significant direct influence on Hitler, second of all, even if there were, it should be clear to anybody who took the time to look into the theory that Hitler would have understood Darwin no better than he understood Nietzsche, Third: Are you really telling me that you can divorce the Antisemitism of Adolf Hitler from the Antisemitism of Christian Europe?, and Finally: None of this actually negates the truth value of the theory), and scientists who believed in God (it should be noted that of all the scientists Kirk Cameron mentioned in his video, only two were alive to read Darwin's book, and even those two likely had more nuanced views than Kirk implies, and even then all those scientists just had their names listed; no quote mining, just listing.) And, according to Kirk Cameron it presents a clear Gospel message; and they say that Intelligent Design isn't religious. And on Thursday, it will apparently be given to students in the top 50 colleges, and it seems likely that a lot of these copies will likely be discarded because "our future doctors, lawyers, and politicians" they hope to reach will likely realize that these editions (since they're abridged and the introduction is little more than drivel) are worthless. They seem to think that this will change the minds of people who have (apparently to them) never heard of intelligent design. Of course, the fact is that they have most likely heard of it, and if not from people like them, from shows like Family Guy or the Simpsons, which ridicule it. And apparently, Kirk Cameron appears to be hoping to see Darwin's works being banned. The fact is that book banning does not work that way. If a book is banned in a college, it really only means that their library has removed it from circulation. And, of course, there is no way that one of the libraries of a top college will accept it as a book in the first place, so there is no way it will be banned.

Band Name of the Day: The New Earth Army.

Film Idea of the Day: Already Written: a couple celebrating their 25th anniversary go to a diner and confront their inner demons.

Film Review of the Day: The Men Who Stare At Goats. This is one of the most quirky films of the year. It concerns a journalist who meets a soldier who claims to be telekinetic, and a soldier in a special Hippie division of the Army. He can allegedly kill a goat with a thought. Believe me, the movie finds a way for the premise to make sense. Incredibly, much of it is actually true. Go see it. I would think that the sheer oddness of the premise is enough to recommend it.

Quote of the Day: -Lieutenant Colonel Django used funds from the project's black budget to procure prostitutes...
-That's a lie!
-...and to get drugs for himself and his men.
-That... well, the hooker thing is definitely a lie.
_____________________________My favorite part of "The Men Who Stare At Goats"


Link: Here is the full text of Ray Comfort's version of Origin of Species (complete with introduction and missing chapters)

Issue 142

News: The Problem of Hell.
One of the biggest problems that led me to leave Christianity is the big contradiction between the idea of the all-good and loving God and the idea that he sends people to eternal punishment in Hell. The biggest problem lies in the fact that the whole point behind hell is eternal and infinite punishment of people. However, people can only commit a finite amount of sin. Even the evils of the Holocaust and other significant genocides were finite, and were supposed to be finite, however large they were. James Joyce explained exactly the implications of infinite punishment in the sermon Father Arnall gives in Section 2 of Chapter 3 of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man where he states that if one counts the grains of a seashore and counts each as a million years, not even an instant of that eternity would have passed (the protagonist Stephen Dedalus ends up leaving the church later). And this gets even more disturbing when, as a Protestant, it was explained to me that ultimately it wasn't even a matter of Good and Evil that led to God deciding who went to where, but ultimately, whether one believed in Jesus the right way. The only way this could possibly be right would be if all those who believed lived Good lives, and if all those who lived good lives ended up believing by their deaths. Of course, taking two case studies shows exactly how wrong this is: Bertrand Russell, an agnostic/atheist who was campaigning for peace and against racism since before Martin Luther King was born, or at least, was a small child; and John List (a Missourah Synod Lutheran, like I was) who killed his family and originally claimed that he did so because he wanted them to send them to heaven. You should see the problem. One particular reply to this problem by a Catholic apologist interested me, as the argument itself, as, before it went into a spiel about how great it is to have a personal God who is willing to mete out infinite punishment for finite sin, the reply boiled down to simply (to quote Woody Harrelson in Natural Born Killers) "Who's innocent? Are You innocent?" OF course, the Catholic view of hell has evolved since the days of Fr. Arnall. At the Catholic High school I went to, it was stated that it was believed that Hell was just a place which was ultimately just grim and joyless, and I actually once decided to ask one teacher, "so, basically, it's just like life on Earth?" And, shockingly enough, he actually noted that C.S. Lewis states as such in one of his books. The implication seemed to be that life sucked so much that God couldn't think of any worse punishment than living through it over again. That ultimately life is a negative experience can be understood in a Buddhist context, as they don't have any all-powerful and all-good beings who should be able to stop it completely. However, in a religion which prides itself on having an all-powerful and all-good being in charge, the existence of evil and certainly Hell would be inexcusable. Then one thing led to another, particularly in the department of critical thinking, and I left the church.

Band Name of the Day: Nothing this week.

Film Idea of the Day: Hrafnkel's saga. If I can somehow adapt this to be redone in modern-day America, I think it could be very well done. There's a link to this saga below in several languages (English is, fortunately one of them). A Freya-worshipping warrior ends up losing everything, including his faith, but ends up as a better person, especially after rebuilding his power base and achieving revenge.

Film Review of the Day: 27 Dresses. Once again, I break from reviewing a film I watched recently which I liked to reviewing one which I hate. When watching the trailers before the DVD for Juno, I saw one for this movie, and I thought, by the awkward dialogue, that this could possibly be a cheesy movie that I could laugh at solely for being a crappy movie (like Teen Witch or Princess Diaries or Bratz). However, I recently decided to watch it, and I found I could not even really find it good in a cheesy sense. From dialogue like that would make even Ed Wood cringe, like "Love is patient, love is kind, love is slowly going out of your mind", or "I feel like I just found out my favorite love song was written about a sandwich," to unrealistic plot developments like the protagonist humiliating her sister and making up in less than five minutes' (screen) time, a Gone With the Wind themed wedding, and getting married with 27 bridesmaids, I could only find one line which could pass for funny in this "comedy" (it is quoted below). Please avoid this movie at all costs, especially if you're sober.

Quote of the Day: "She Likes Caulk."
______________James Marsden.

Link of the Day: I have recently gotten interested in Norse Sagas. I'm not quite sure how.

Issue 135

News: Ray Comfort has no idea about atheism.
I first discovered Ray Comfort through his claim that the Banana is evidence of God's design, failing to notice that it was more likely "designed" by New Guineans over generations. Later, I stumbled upon a blog he uses to try to convert atheists. Here is a list of 10 things he thinks atheists do, with annotations by me (in italics).

1. Whenever you are presented with credible evidence for God's existence, call it a "straw man argument," or "circular reasoning." This, of course, depends on the proposition that there really is credible evidence for his existence. If something is quoted from somewhere, label it "quote mining." It's only Quote mining if you take a small quote out of context, like claiming that Darwin thought that the evolution of the eye seemed improbable without noting that he went into a three-page spiel about how it could be done.

2. When a Christian says that creation proves that there is a Creator, dismiss such common sense by saying "That's just the old watchmaker argument." The Design argument only implies a powerful creator, not with all of the qualities we assign God. Indeed, why can natural processes count as a Creator?

3. When you hear that you have everything to gain and nothing to lose by obeying the Gospel, say "That's just the old 'Pascal wager.'" Pascal's Wager is quite possibly the most debunkable argument for God's existence. For instance, suppose you get another God than YHVH in the afterlife and he's just as jealous?

4. You can also deal with the "whoever looks on a woman to lust for her, has committed adultery with her already in his heart," by saying that there is no evidence that Jesus existed. The existence of Jesus and questions of the morality of his teachings are two totally different issues.

5. Believe that the Bible is full of mistakes, and actually says things like the world is flat. Do not read it for yourself. That is a big mistake. Many Atheists have read the Bible cover to cover, and some (such as Julia Sweeney) have lost their faith as a direct result of reading it.

6. Say that you were once a genuine Christian, and that you found it to be false. Additionally, if a Christian points out that this is impossible (simply due to the very definition of Christianity as one who knows the Lord), just reply "That's the 'no true Scotsman fallacy.'" According to What dictionary does the definition of Christian mean "somebody who knows the lord?"

7. Believe that nothing is 100% certain, except the theory of Darwinian evolution. Indeed, few things are 100% certain to most educated people (except math). A lot are 99.99999999999% certain, and Evolution is most likely one of them.

8. Deal with the threat of eternal punishment by saying that you don't believe in the existence of Hell. The mere denial of something does not make it false. It is the absurdity of the fact that a just God would give infinite punishment for finite sin. Even the Holocaust was supposed to end.

9. Blame Christianity for the atrocities of the Roman Catholic church. Christianity is a mixed bag, with people whose aims range from world peace to perpetual war claiming inspiration from the Bible. The sheer malleability of the Word seems to be another thing that takes away from the crebility of Christianity.

10. Finally, keep in fellowship with other like-minded atheists who believe as you believe, and encourage each other in your beliefs. This tends to be true. Of course, a lot of atheists have theist friends who are willing to agree to disagree. Indeed, I tend to be willing to do that as long as they don't push Jesus on people like they're dealing Jesus heroin to unsuspecting youth, or if they can admit that they can't prove it, like Kierkegaard.

Band Name of the Day: The J-Men. From an interesting mash-up of many old movies that I've seen recently, J-Men Forever (perhaps a review will come in a later issue).

Film Idea of the Day: Don Giovanni. I've come up with the idea, from Ken Branaugh's doing a similar film, to create a modernized and translated version of Mozart 's Don Giovanni, whose dark comedy tends to fit in better with my style than The Magic Flute's Enlightenment Optimism. Translation is certainly a must, and Perhaps I could turn the recitatives into standard dialogue, among other things, most likely including a modernization of the plot, maybe with Leporello reading the catalogue of his master's conquests not from a scroll, but from a PDA.

Film Review of the Day: S.F.W. I recently discovered this film in a DVD bargain bin, and found that it was certainly quite interesting and not at all deserving of the obscurity it's gotten. It's about how Steven Dorff managed to get kidnapped by terrorists and held in a quick stop, only to shoot his way out, and become a celebrity, only to get shot himself by an honors student screaming "Everything Matters!" who would eventually usurp his stardom. Perhaps the aforementioned climax was what turned off a lot of critics upon its release, but as a satire of the media, it certainly works.

Quote of the Day: "I heard, I heard what you were saying. You, you know nothing of my work. How you ever got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing."
____________________Marshall McLuhan, Annie Hall.

Link of the Day: Some funny and concise articles and stories explaining atheism. Anything with a paper icon next to is highly recommended by me.

Issue 129

News: Aquinas' Quinquae Viae.
When my second Latin teacher learned about my attitudes towards religion, his suggestion was that I check out Thomas Aquinas' proofs of God from his Summa Theologica. Eventually, I looked in the Aquinas in the Great Books of the Western World set downstairs. In case you want to look, it is in the First Part, Section: Treatise on the One God, Question 2: The Existence of God, Article Three- whether God exists. One would think that there would be strength in numbers, but as I will show you, there isn't much in this case. For instance, the first three arguments are essentially the same argument at their core, with only differing initial premises. starting from the statement that there had to be a source for all movements and causes , and that since an infinite regress is impossible (at least to Aquinas), there must have been something to have set it off, and that this is supposed to be God. Of course, the biggest problem with that argument is that with the causes given, there is no reason to believe that said source has to have any of the properties that we as humans identify with God. Interestingly enough, the initial premise is also arguable. The motion of gas molecules is often not spurred at all by anything internal or external, and there are many other examples of unmoved motion that effectively undermine the validity of these arguments. With the first three arguments down, the fourth argument states that since there are degrees in things, there must be a being that has the highest degrees of certain properties, and that this must be God. However, the premises Aquinas gives are flawed, particularly in his statement that if an property can be conceived of as being in a greater degree, it must exist, which is often not the case. The last argument is the Argument from design. It is one of the few arguments still in modern use by most Christians, although the people at my Catholic grade school were fond of this argument. According to the argument, if something seems too orderly to have occurred by random chance, and had to be designed. However, even if one were to reject evolutionary theory, there are many cases of poor design which would most likely cast doubt upon the idea of their being created by a loving and all-powerful creator. For instance, the fact that most animals and plants can synthesize Vitamin C for themselves, but human beings, and a few other animals cannot, or a more familiar problem, the appendix, which serves no purpose in humans and is likely to end up almost killing them when it ruptures.

Band name of the Day: The devil's Mouthpiece, from J.C. Webster's nickname for radio personality Art Bell.

Play Idea of the Day: A musical about a youth with extreme involvement in crime (from thievery to sexual assault to video hacking) is given a choice between going to jail and putting on a show. Guess which one he chooses. It will be done in a big way, and quite possibly end up, for a while anyway, being in a venue created exclusively for it. Don't worry, I'm sure that it will be much better than it may seem at the moment.

Film Review of the Day: Hamlet 2. This film was the thing which helped inspire the play idea above. Of course, putting that aside, this movie was actually pretty good. It was probably one of the funniest all year, except possibly Expelled. Steve Coogan plays a Tiny Tim-lookalike rollerblading drama teacher who, shocked at his job being cut from the roster at his school after not being able to get any other work, manages to end up creating a sequel to Hamlet. After many obstacles, including the objections of the star's parents, a cease and desist order from the school, and his wife leaving him, he finally puts on the play, and it becomes a resounding success. I thought it was hilarious, and even my mother, whose overlap in sense of humour is often quite small, was laughing throughout much of the movie.

Quote of the Day: "My father molested me as a child; Maybe that’s why I’m so mean."
_____________The Principal from Hamlet 2.

Link of the Day: The Cynic's Sanctuary.

Issue 120

News: Lewis' Trilemma: Mad, Bad, or Flawed?
On Newspeak Dictionary, I am currently debating a person who is arguing about my views on religion. One of the arguments he has made (in addition to the Pascal's Wager I dissected earlier) is a famous argument which, far from being the supplementary argument that Pascal's Wager was, is said to be the major foundation of Christian Apologetics itself. As the argument goes, since Jesus claimed to be God, he must have either been on the level, insane, or one of the biggest cons in history. However, the argument is flawed on many levels. First, the fact is that Jesus himself does not seem to advertise his divinity to the same degree as his biographers. Indeed, the term "son of God" inextricably linked to him never, in its original form, implied Divine Paternity, but was a term for an especially holy man (as people like Billy Graham or the Pope may be to many Christians). Second, the Gospel accounts may not be entirely accurate. This is the most obvious of the counter-claims to me, since, as Bart Ehrman showed in his book, even if there was a divinely inspired text, what we've got by now has been messed up so that the original would most likely be unrecognizable. Third, even if we do accept Lewis' claim but conclude that Jesus was insane (indeed, in Mark, one of Jesus' relatives excuses his behavior by claiming him to be crazy), it should be obvious that mental illness and mental ability are not mutually exclusive by any means. One need only look at Glenn Gould, Kurt Godel, Howard Hughes, or Albert Einstein to see what I mean. Fourth, even if Jesus is to be disregarded as a con, many of his teachings were not originally his; even the Golden Rule dated back three millenia before Jesus' birth.

Band Name of the Day: The Black Dahlia Avengers, from the book to be reviewed below.

Review and Movie Idea of the Day: The Black Dahlia Avenger. An ex-cop, after going through his father's possessions, discovers that he was, in fact, the Black Dahlia murderer. He even manages to compile his case to an LA DA, who admits that his case is solid. Of course, his theory has yet to be accepted, but I still believe that his story is pretty solid, as opposed to many other theories (including those who claimed that Woody Guthrie and Orson Welles did it). I am planning to make a film version of the father's life story in the visual tradition of Love is the Devil and Natural Born Killers and the narrative tradition of Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence.

Quote of the Day: "I'm not a paranoid deranged millionaire. Damnit, I'm a billionaire."
_______________Howard Hughes.

Link of the Day: Turn Yourself into a South Park Character

Issue 116

News: Was Bayside Hell? : an Experiment in Pop Theology.
You may have heard of the legend that the seven castaways of Gilligan's Island were all created to correspond to one of the seven deadly sins. However, I may have found a more interesting analogue of the Seven Deadly Sins in the main characters of the show Saved by the Bell.
I'll start with the most obvious one.
The sin of Lust is personified by Kelly. While Zack did have more romantic partners on the show, for the most part, except in the shows with Tori or Leah Remini, these girls were usually secondary girls whom he dated primarily because Kelly was out of reach, and even when she seemed to be on the verge of being steady with Zack, she usually ended up dumping him for some other guy. If the show had continued after their wedding, I'm sure that Kelly would have, at the very least, cheated on him after a few episodes where their relationship is going well. In an amazing coincidence, a scene from Dante involving the sin of lust (penitents walk through fire) echoes, to an extent, a scene with Kelly, being accused in a dream of killing Slater's chameleon, is sentenced to walk upon a frying pan.
Jessie, however, personifies two sins. The more obvious sin is the sin of Pride, which she exhibits in her extreme pride in being one of the, if not the, top students at Bayside, and the fact that she often gets on the verge of a nervous breakdown when this is threatened even to a small extent, often being exhibited in the second sin, Gluttony. This sin is most obvious in the episode where she is rejected by most of her college choices and copes by eating copius amounts of Junk food, to the point where her locker is filled with it by the time only one choice remains.
Zack personifies most obviously the sin of Greed, as is evidenced by his constant scheming to get money, often sacrificing his friendships and sometimes what he doesn't even have in an attempt to get what he wants, especially in the episode where he shoots the video dating tape, and, albeit accidentally, manages to include every girl in Bayside (Kelly and Jessie included).
Lisa is another obvious one (although this may simply be stretching). Her sin is sloth, typified in her borderline slacker attitude, a result of being a child of bourgeoisie parents, most often shown in her refusal to work (except reluctantly to pay off a credit card debt), and cook (in her words, "All I know how to make are reservations", although, like many things in SBTB continuity, this is contradicted in another episode where she claims that she chooses to not cook), undoubtedly a result of her upbringing.
Slater typifies the sin of Wrath. This goes hand-in-hand with his being a wrestler in the show, and a military brat who somehow managed to stay in one place after being assigned to several places throughout his life. This is showcased most often in the aforementioned dating tape episode, wherein he shows in graphic (for the show) detail, what he will do to the person who created the tape (and specifically, who put Jessie in it), although he knew full well who was responsible, and it is somewhat unclear how much of this is part of the act that was formulated to teach Zack his lesson.
Finally, Screech personifies Envy, although this is much less obvious than the six other sins, this is apparent to a small degree in some episodes, most visibly in the episode where Zack enlists most of the gang in an extracurricular Marine Corps program, and after Zack deserted, Screech speaks of how much he idolized Zack up until that point.
Perhaps, with this in mind, perhaps the comparatively benign Belding was, in reality, Satan himself, and that Bayside was meant to be Hell (or at least a part of it). Perhaps Brandon Tartikoff (who created the show) had this in mind when he created the show. Perhaps I may be putting way too much thought into this.

Band Name of the Day: Bad Baby Names. This came from a strange book I read about in the paper and managed to get recently. This would work best if the members all used pseudonyms based on the names in that book, or improve on them, resulting in a name like Marquis Marq de Sade.

Film Idea of the Day: The Princess and the Powder. I can only describe it as being Roman Holiday meets Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. As you may have guessed, Cocaine and the conspicuous consumption thereof is involved very much in the book.

Film Review of the Day: Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story. I remember it playing down the street from the theater where I saw Arlo Guthrie at Woodstock a few years back (specifically, Woodstock "Fauz Punxsutawney", IL and 2006, not the 1969 festival), and I must say that I just saw it for the first time last week. Surprisingly, they managed to get some of the famously unfilmable novel into the movie, although they did focus primarily on the making of said movie and how impossible it was to make. This movie gets points for simply trying to film this book.

Quote of the Day: "If a man smiles all the time, he's probably selling something that doesn't work."
__________George Carlin.

Link of the Day: A site explaining the legend inspiring today's entry.

Issue 104

News: The Bible Literacy Project
There is a group bent on bringing the Bible back to schools in another form. The group is the Bible Literacy Project, whose new textbook for public schools is gaining a lot of controversy. The book, The Bible and its Influence, has been written for the Bible-studying electives in Public Schools. These electives are allowed only if they do not promote religion itself, but knowledge thereof. However, the textbook straddles the line between promoting Christianity, and being neutral. Although the textbook claims that the book was written with the help of scholars from many different religions, The Bible Literacy Project is helmed primarily by people active in the Religious Right, including their president, Chuck Stetson, a campaign donor to President Bush, and head to many organizations dedicated to knocking down the wall of Church and State. As you might have inferred, the book pays lip service to not openly advocating religion within its pages, but the glaring thing noticed is that while it is supposed to cover the influence of the Bible, which is the most influential book of all time, it does not mention misuses of the Bible in any of its 392 pages. Sure, there have been many positive things which have been facilitated through men whose arguments came from the Bible, but there have also been just as many bad things. One major example can be found in the Civil Rights struggles of the 50s and 60s. Martin Luther King Jr used metaphors from the Bible to justify Black freedom, but most if not all supporters of Segregation used the Bible to justify their injustice. Of course, there are more important things which need to be taught in schools. The Bible is not one of them, and if you want to learn about it, you can always go to your church or read it at home.

Band Names: The Dirt Gods. Watch this.

Film Ideas: A man walks into his 10-year high school reunion and feels he has to choose between his fiancee, the popular girl whom he lusted after in high school, and her neurotic Persona-obsessed best friend who lusts after him.

Film Review: The Last Temptation of Christ. This movie may actually be a somewhat accurate version of the events of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, including several redone versions of several of the classic naturalistic (not involving miracles) stories of the Gospels, despite denying that it is supposed to be an actual adaptation of the Gospels. Surpsisingly, the film has become less controversial in the past 2 decades in its "life."

Quote of the Day: " If the entire human species were a single individual, that person would long ago have been declared mad."
___________Jeffrey Kluger, "What Makes us Good?"
Better Yet, "If the entire human species were a single individual, his name would be Hannibal Lecter."
_______Me.

Link of the Day: Jodie Foster finally acknowledges her lesbian lover and the Apocalypse begins.

Issue 82

News: Jack T. Chick v. Bart D. Ehrman
As you may know, I am a big fan of Jack T. Chick's insane works. One of them is a tract entitled "The Attack" about the events leading up to the King James Bible's publication. Recently, I also read Bart D. Ehrman's book Misquoting Jesus. In the book, Ehrman recounts the story of how one cannot truly tell what the originals of the Bible are anymore due to there being more derivations from the texts of the New Testament than there are words in it. He mainly writes about the New Testament. The main point of Jack's arguments is that the Catholic church actively tried to destroy the original texts of the Bible in the Textus Receptus (more on this later). I will compare Jack's claims with Ehrman's. Jack begins with a bad start by claiming that Puritans translated the KJV (it was, ironically created to supplant another Bible which supposedly had Puritanical undertones, since King James decided that they were heretics.) In the tract, there were claims that there were corrupt manuscripts in Alexandria, although while there were many manuscripts there, they were not the only ones, because there were many others in Byzantine and the west, although the Alexandian texts are in fact considered the closest to what may have actually happened due to their age being the oldest. Jack claims that St. Jerome used them for the Vulgate, although it is believed that he compared pre-existing translations with whatever Greek manuscripts he could find. Later, he mentions a "Council of Toulouse", where the Bible (presumably the "Textus Receptus") which outside of a few Fundie websites who are most likely either parroting what Jack says or improvising on what Jack says, I have been able to find no information. On this "Textus Receptus", it is claimed by Jack that this was the true word of God that The Church would destroy. The real Textus Receptus was the first publication of a complete edition of the Greek text of the New Testament, cobbled by Desiderius Erasmus from one or two greek manuscripts (and for Revelation, he translated parts of it back into Greek from the Vulgate). Jack claims that as a reaction to the publication of the Textus Receptus, the Church created the Jesuits to destroy all copies. This is, of course, ridiculous. Immediately after this panel, Jack shows the King of England (most likely Henry VIII, even if Jack's portrait looks nothing like him) rebelling against the Church's authority, obstensively due to his distrust of the Pope's authority, but in reality, he rebelled because the Pope wouldn't let him divorce his wife, and so he created his own church (The Church of England, which ironically, now forbids divorce), and after several more decades, the King James Bible was created from the Textus Receptus. Eventually, people resorted to diminishing its credibility with the Alexandrian texts. In the end, Jack admonishes the reader to check 1 John 5:7 to see if it makes the Trinity explicitly mentioned, as a litmus test to see if it is a "true version". Ironically, according to Ehrman, the first edition of the Textus Receptus itself did not contain it (because Erasmus found no manuscript with it), and was widely criticized for this reason. It was instated when a manuscript (created specifically for the occasion) was found with it. This concludes my rant.

Band Name of the Day: The Anglican Fundamentalists. From a routine by Eddie Izzard on "Church of England Fundamentalism".

Film Idea of the Day: A road movie about an early-tewnty-something member of the Illinois State legislature and a political journalism student learning about politics journeying to Springfield to go see the legislature in session, with the former going on his first time, and the student learning from him. A more political Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Review of the Day: It's been a while since I've appraised a television series.
Black Books. A british series about a misanthropic bookstore owner named Bernard Black infamous for his hygeine and rudeness towards customers and his assistant Manny. This has to be the funniest British series I have stumbled upon in a while, even if only two of the three seasons (or series, as the Brits say) are currently on DVD.
Azumanga Daioh. As one can infer from the seemingly incomprehensible title, it is an anime and Manga series. It is, unlike most anime series, set in a Japanese public school, and centered around the personalities of 7 female students and 3 teachers in the school. Even among those who don't normally consider themselves otaku (Japanese for "anime geeks"), it is very funny, if you can get the references to Japanese culture that are explained in the fansubs of the anime and, to a lesser extent, in the manga.

Quote of the Day: "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I did an original sin. I poked a badger with a spoon."
"Say five Hail Mary's and six Hello Dolly's!"
__________________Eddie Izzard.

Link of the Day: Type in the words and let the singers (everybody from Bobby Hatfield to Nick Drake to Jim Morrison to Chris Isaak) sing them.

Issue 65

News: What Does the Bible Say about ______? Whatever you want.
Once, when I was at the Library, I found a book called What Does the Bible Say About: The Ultimate A-Z resource. I was curious, so I glanced at it and read the paragraph about what they believed the Bible said about abortion and found the standard Christian Pro-life ideas encapsulated in a single paragraph. Of course, the Bible does not really cover the subject of abortion very well at all, and one of the few, if not probably the only explicit references it makes to termination of pregnancies (in exodus 21), says something to the effect of "if a man induces a miscarriage, and the woman survives, he will pay a fine of whatever the Judge wants him to pay, but if she dies, he must be killed." And if God indeed does view the life of fetuses as being on par with those of actual human beings, that may not really be saying much, because, after all, he managed to disown his annointed after failing (I would say he refused, but I may be overestimating the convictions of a character who used to throw things at musicians) to do a full My Lai on a neighboring tribe (1 Samuel 15). Another point to make is that one thing most Christians (indeed most enlightened people) today find morally repugnant, Slavery, is something fully sanctioned by the Bible, so long as as the masters do not beat their slaves to death. Upon further inspection, the Bible contradicts itself so many times that it is likely for two sides on an issue to use the Bible to support their claims. To put this in another way: Both The Klan and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used the same book to justify their diometrically opposed ideologies. So, until next time, remember that people who say that the Bible says only one thing about issues tend to not even really know what they're talking about.

Band Name of the Day: The Traumatic Breasts. In the movie But I'm a Cheerleader, when the characters talk about what made them gay, one guy said "Traumatic... breasts."

Film Idea of the Day: None.

Film Review of the Day: But I'm a Cheerleader. It's a film about a cheerleader named Megan suspected of "deviant Tendencies" (read: Homosexuality) which she only becomes aware of around 20 minutes in (even when she is seen making out with her boyfriend, but concentrating on the chests of her fellow cheerleaders.) She is sent to an ex-gay camp (which, in real life, don't work at all) where her parents (and later, she) try to get her to become heterosexual. Ultimately, she develops a friendship with another campmate, named Graham, which eventually blossoms into a romance, which leads to Megan's expulsion from the camp.

Quote of the Day: "It's your choice; you can run off with Megan and turn into a raging bull-dyke or, you can do the simulation and graduate and lead a normal life."
______Mary Brown (Cathy Moriarty of Raging Bull) to Megan (Natasha Lyonne) in But I'm a Cheerleader

Link of the Day: Why did the Chicken Cross the Road? See various celebrities say why in this website.

issue 64

News: A one-man bible show.
I just recently came up with the idea of a one-man show of the Bible as a companion piece to my annotation to the King James Bible (see Issue 56) , which consists not only of the stories that everybody seems to remember (like the ones that are ubiquitous in Children's picture book bibles [ie David and Goliath, The creation, Noah's flood, the gospels], so that the sex and violence in the regular bible doesn't alienate them from Christianity too soon), but also some parts of the Bible which tend to be obscure to people who haven't read the Bible (ie the times [all three] where Abraham [Isaac in the third one] saves his and his wife's life by claiming that she is his sister), and with my commentary from the original annotated Bible interspersed with the Narration and even the Characters' dialogue, although the dialogue will for the most part, not be taken verbatim from the King James Bible (though some exceptions will be taken when I do the poetic sections of the Old Testament and make light of the Elizabethan language and its absurdities to the modern day reader). The idea was inspired by the Reduced Shakespeare Company's own condensation of the Bible called: The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged). In their show the three members of the troupe act out sections of the Bible and often including jabs at the religious right (one of the top 10 rejected Commandments in the show was "The Christian Right is Neither Christian nor Right.")

Band Name of the Day: Frenglish. It comes from a line in the Movie D.E.B.S.: "You need to speak French or English. Frenglish is not a language."

Film Idea of the Day: See above.

Film Review of the Day: DEBS. In this film there is a secret test in the SAT which recruits teenaged girls (in Schoolgirl uniforms, no less) for a secret spying agency called D.E.B.S., and the plot consists of a major conflict of interest when one DEB (ironically, the only DEB in history to ace the secret test) falls in love with a supervillain named Lucy Diamond. When I saw the DVD, I mainly rented it for the apparent kitsch value of the film (Schoolgirls in uniform as secret agents), but I wound up enjoying it not just as a kitsch film, but as a film in general.

Quote of the Day: "Well, I believe in the soul. The c*ck. The p*ss*. The small of a woman's back. The hanging curveball. High fiber. Good scotch. That the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a Constitution Amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas eve. And I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days...Goodnight.
___________Kevin Costner, Bull Durham

Link of the Day: Here's a site of movie monologues, including the above quote.

Tract Review: Heart Trouble?: A doctor diagnoses a man with a heart problem. He uses this to get off on a tangent on other "Heart Problems" (read: sin), and that the cure for the "Heart Problems" is Jesus.
Fame: No relation to the film/TV series or the David Bowie/John Lennon Collaboration, but it is a predominantly-black version of the recent tract The Star.

Issue 56

News: My republishing of the King James Bible.
A few Issues back, I announced my intention to read the entire King James Bible and I got as far as Leviticus, but then I realized that instead of writing an essay about what I found in the Bible, It would make more sense to make a version of the Bible which incorporates my views in footnotes for short remarks and boxes of text for longer rants, as most youth study bibles do. This may be similar to the online Skeptics Annotated Bible, which I admire as a religious website, but unlike them, and indeed most other copies of the KJV, I intend to add the apocrypha, the dedication to King James himself (which is usually only in the British editions), and the Introduction by the translators about the translation (Which has rarely been republished since 1611), as well as an introduction by me about why I had written what I had written and why I had used the King James Bible as opposed to, say, the NIV (Because among other reasons, the KJV isn't still copywrighted [except in the UK] and the NIV is, and that people tend not to believe that the NIV is the literal word of God as the fine folks at Chick Publications do to the KJV). Of course, while the KJV is in the Public Domain in 99% of the world (The USA included), it is still protected by copywright after 400 years in Britain, so people there will most likely have to rely on imports unless I can somehow make the Cambridge University Press (The KJV's only royally sanctioned printer in the UK) relent into publishing.

Band Name: Servant David. It comes from Chapter 33 of Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge where the titular character forces a choir in the church he is in to sing Psalm 109:10-15 (One of the best-kept secrets of the normally docile Poetry segments of the Bible) and one of the members of the choir says "Twasn’t made for singing. We chose it once when the gypsy stole the parson’s mare, thinking to please him, but parson were quite upset. Whatever Servant David were thinking about when he made a Psalm that nobody can sing without disgracing himself, I can’t fathom."

Film Idea of the Day: No real film Idea today, but if somebody actually intends to make a film version of The Scarlet Letter and actually wants to get it right this time, here is my prospective cast list of three of the four main characters (Pearl should be played by one [or several, as the novel covers 7 years of their lives] unknown):
Hester- Eva Amurri (Saved!)
Chillingworth-Robbie Coltrane (Harry Potter)
Dimmesdale- Brad Dourif (Lord of the Rings, but for a better film see Wise Blood if you can.)

Film Review: A Man Called Peter. I recently saw this film about the scottish presbyterian minister-turned US Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall and was impressed by its touching portrayal of the minister, especially for a film where the main character gives a 5-minute sermon for every 10 minutes of film. Also of note, Ann B. Davis (aka Alice from The Brady Bunch) makes a brief appearance in the film and I was amazed that she had done other work outside the franchise. Anyway, for a film about a Mainline minister, it is very impressive.

Quote of the Day: "Fooled you, didn't I? You really thought I had it."
_______Charlie Bucket, Willy Wonka. This also comes from a recurring dream where I re-enact the "Tongues" scene from Saved! on a taping of The 700 Club.

Link of the Day: Crossroads of Booger County: A Webcomic about life, and love in a small Arkansas Town.

Issue 54

News: Scientific Errors in the Bible.
Before I get to this week's spiel, I have two things to mention which have nothing to do with the things : 1) Today marks the one-year anniversary of the first time I posted one of my articles on this blog. 2)I went to see Roger Waters of Pink Floyd on his solo tour at Tinley Park last friday. It was an excellent concert and I should try to post a review of it in Issue 55. With these things said, let us talk about the subject at hand.
I was recently cruising Chick.com to see if Jack and Co. had released some new wacked out comics since my last visit and I noticed this article . If you don't have time to read it, it's about how the fine people at Chick.com claimed to have torn the Koran to shreds due to it having one scientific error. What the authors seem not to notice is that the Bible contains more scientific errors than one can shake a stick at. I won't go on at length about the veracity of Adam and Eve or the Deluge, as I have spoke about that issues ago. The only problem with the deluge which I haven't mentioned was that the Ark was over 450 feet long. One major problem was that this is approximately 120 feet longer than the longest wooden ship ever verified to be built, the schooner Wyoming. Even at the length of 330 feet, it had steel girders supporting it, and it had to be pumped from the first minute it went to water to the minute it finally sank. Judging by the results of that, if it really did exist, it was most likely impressive on land, but would sink like a stone the minute it came into water. Two other innacuracies can be studied in a legend where NASA scientists (in a legend that predates even NASA) notice that there was a missing 24 hours in the universe which were accounted for with two biblical passages (Joshua 10:12-3, and 2 Kings 20:8-11, both KJV, since it's the only Bible the people at Chick Publications trust) which either mention the Sun staying still or the sun moving back a few degrees. Unfortunately, the prevailing scientific knowledge is that the Earth revolves around the sun, and not vice versa. Naturally, there's Leviticus 11, which has a whole mess fo scientific inaccuracies (like rabbits chewing their cud, bats being birds, and insects having four legs.) Another strange scientific error, in Job 39:13-7 and Lamentations 4:3, God claims that Ostriches leave their eggs to die after laying them. In reality, they're more careful with their eggs than most animals, caring for their chicks until they are one month old and can keep up with the adults. Even if they were as bad parents as God says they are, whose fault would it be then? There's seven errors mentioned and even more to be found.

Band Name of the Day: Kafka rules ok. It was on the pig at the Roger Waters concert which has yet to be reviewed.

Film idea of the Day: It is not as much of a film idea as it is for a rifftrax (link below) style site for commentary for Brady Bunch episodes. The commentaries have all the jokes you've always (most likely) been tempted to make about the series, and a reference to Absinthe is guaranteed in every commentary or your money back.

Film Review of the Day: No film review this time, although I must say that I have gotten into Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado recently. I reccomend listening to any recording of the opera, as long as it's unabridged, and its discs are evenly divided by act (DVDs are exempt from this qualification), while following the dialogue with a copy of the libretto (which I bought in Door County a few months ago), and if your copy has no dialogue (which most audio recordings don't), pause in between tracks to read the dialogue.

Quote of the Day: A lot of people say to me, "Why did you kill Christ?" I dunno... it was one of those parties that got out of hand, you know?
__________Lenny Bruce.

Link of the Day: The link that inspired my film idea section.

Issue 53

News: The ten Commandments.
A Few articles back, I wrote an article about Biblical Law criticizing most of it, except for the naturally utilitarian laws which do make sense. I even started to criticize the Ten Commandments. In this article, provoked further by me listening to a routine of George Carlin (whom I have been a lifelong fan) dissecting the ten commandments. He slimmed them down to two with an additional one:
1) Thou shalt always be honest and faithful to the provider of thy nookie.
2) Thou shalt try real hard not to kill anyone, unless of course they pray to a different invisible man than you.
2.5) Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself.
This prompted me to write my own independent dissection of them as I learned them.
1) You shall have no other gods.
Most people forget to add the last two words: "Before Me." These two words are crucial because they allow one to praise Buddha or some other God as long as the other God is relegated to #2. Naturally, Luther Closed this loophole.
2) You Shall not Misuse the name of the Lord Your God.
This is very misleading, as I have mentioned before. Case in Point: Many people know the person I am linking to here, especially Brits. And they should: He's the Prince of Wales. Naturally, that's just his title. His real name is Charles Philip Arthur George Windsor. In the same way, God's name is not God, but is approximated by Hebrew symbols which approximate YHVH, YHWH, JHVH, JHWH. Naturally, this cannot be pronounced without vowels, which the symbols lack due to written Hebrew's lack of vowels, and nobody has truly heard the name with vowels since 70 AD, when the Jewish temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. In other words: "God" is a title, not a name. His real name cannot even be pronounced anymore.
3) Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it Holy.
Whatever floats your boat, Moses.
4) Honor your father and your mother.
This is the first commandment I agree with, even if a lot of parents may not necessarily deserve it. (Dave "Child Called It" Pelzer's Mom, anyone?) (OKC: .5)
5) You Shall not Murder.
Once again, another Good Commandment, provided that it is recognized that "murder" strictly applies to living breathing human beings, not fetuses and vegetables like Terri Schiavo, or even animals like PeTA says, and not to real living human beings, like unjustly convicted murderers and infidels. (OKC:1.5)
6) You shall not commit Adultery.
Commonly interpreted as justification for living Victorian Puritanical lives and pushing said lives on others, but I say, as long as the two (or more) parties consent to the acts, do it, within reason, as Bertrand Russell said in his book Marriage and Morals. Just don't get any Stds, and By the way, in the immortal words of the Flying Spaghetti Monster: "Purity Is For Drinking Water Not People."
7) You Shall Not Steal.
Another commandment which I approve of. (OKC:2.5)
8) You Shall Not Give False Testimony Against Your Neighbor.
If it is interpreted as meaning "If you are knowingly libelous against somebody else, I do Not approve", I also approve. However, since Luther's interpretation was that "We shouldn't speak ill of others, even if the statement is in fact true", (Where is John Peter Zenger when we need him?) I must not approve.
9) You Shall Not Covet Your Neighbor's House.
If it actually occurs, it is redundant because it falls under the category of the Seventh Commandment. If thought about but not carried out, it is mindless to consider it wrong.
10) You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant, or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
It is redundant completely because it completely should be covered by number 9. I should note the fact that YHVH/YHWH/JHVH/JHWH seems to think that a person's wife is part of his property, as he lists them as property.
Finally, as an an addenum, God states "I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments" (Exodus 20:5-6). Luther says this justifies the keeping of these commandments. I say this shows an undesirable side of God which Christianity alone rarely brings out.
USABLE COMMANDMENTS: 2.5 (5, 7, and possibly 4.)

Band Name of the Day: Whale Cancer. Watch the video.

Film Idea of the Day: Guitar Musical. It is a combination Rock opera/Broadway Musical (songs recycled from previous sources a la Moulin Rouge and Singin in the Rain) with all the major characters playing guitar, except for three minor characters who play keyboard, bass, and drums, respectively. The play is about the guitarists from two rival bands who meet up and decide to create a rock duel. Other characters include a guitar shopkeep, the emcee who is dismayed by the fact that nobody recognizes the fact that he played on one Zappa album in the 1970s, and a guitar-playing groupie who plays "Classical Gas" in one scene.

Film Review of the day: Welcome to the Dollhouse. This movie about a preteen girl who is victimized by her classmates, Teachers, and Family, is for the most part,very similar to my life at that stage, except that my parents were good to me, and that I am an only child, so the subplots involving the siblings would be moot and the bullying was limited completely to the (Christian Private, not Public) school. The Similarities to my life aside, It had a quirky script and an excellent soundtrack.

Quote of the Day: "I will make him pay out the @$. No Ifs ands or Buts. I'm going to be really Anal about this. ... Sphincter."
______Peter Griffin, Stewie Loves Lois.

Link of the Day: Theocracy watch: People just as concerned about the rising theocratic right-wing control of America as I am.

Issue 48

News: DOn't Read That Book! Don't Worry, I will.
I have a confession to make. I am no stranger to making myself read long books as a bet. In fact, in Freshman year, my English teacher mentioned the Book "Ulysses" offhand in one lesson as being notorious for being difficult. Drawing on his words, I read it cover to cover twice. Recently, I read a review for Jack Chick's tract "Don't Read that Book", which states that Christians should read 10 chapters of the Bible per day, using a KJV bible (after all, he does believe all others are the work of Satan), colored pencils to underline key passages, a Notebook, and this Tract as well as using a certain lesson plan (Gospels, Acts, Pentateuch, The Rest of the New Testament, The Poems, The Historical Books, The Prophets) ad infinitum until you die, or until you don't have access to your bible in Prison, so you won't feel stupid when talking to Habbakuk in the great beyond. I have created my own lesson plan to read the Bible, which is somewhat based on Chick's plan evenly divided into a single 115-day span, and to give you an idea as to how it should look, you should be done with the Pentateuch in 19 days, The "Histories" in 23 days, The Poems in 24 days, The Major Prophets in 18 days, The Minor Prophets in 5 days, The Gospels in 8 days, Acts in 3 days, The Epistles in 13 days, and finally, Revelation in 2 days.) After you decide how to set the reading schedules, you should keep your thoughts on what you read today in a document which will act as a diary.

Band Name: The Cannery-birds. Coming from a translation of Buchner's Woyczek, written as a pun on Canary bird.

Film Idea: A play about a homicide detective who learns that the murder he has been assigned to investigate has the clues getting even more bizarre until the shocking twist.

Review: You Can Get Arrested For that. Two englishmen set out on a cross-country crime spree, breaking laws that many people don't even know existed, including fishing in one's pajamas in Chicago, offering smokes and whickey to zoo animals in New Jersey, Cursing on a golf course in Long Beach, California, Flying a kite in Washington DC, Driving more than 100 times around town Square in Oxford, Michigan, and many others.

Quote: "I'm in a constant process of thinking about things. I'll think about things for thirty or forty years before I'll write it. "
___________Richard Brautigan.

Link of the day: A Daily Webcomic starring Abraham Lincoln.

Issue 42

News: Biblical law.
Recently, I read that one of the columnists in one of my favorite magazines, Mental Floss, named A.J. Jacobs, is writing a book wherein he is supposed to live by the laws of the Bible. At this point, I got interested in what exactly that entailed, and so, I researched it more on wikipedia. I found out one major thing; At this point in life, while there are several laws that are justified (albeit mostly written down in other cultures independant from the Israelites, Like Thou Shalt not Kill), many biblical laws make little sense and would make other countries hate us even more than they do now if America follows these laws. Some examples of these laws include Death to homosexuals (Lv. 20:13, as said by friend of Fred Phelps and Christian Identity preacher Peter J. Peters), Condonement of slavery (Ex. 21:7, Lev 25:44), death for working on Saturday (Ex. 35:2), Shellfish being an abomination (L. 11:11), and Death for shaving (Lev. 19:27). One major example of the shocking nature of Biblical law is in Deutoronomy 22:23-7, If a married/engaged woman is raped in a city, she and the rapist must die. If it happens in the Country, The rapist must die. If the girl isn't engaged or married and is raped anywhere, the rapist must pay a fine equivalent to $350 to the girl's father and they must marry and not divorce (even when moses says that people married in different circumstances may divorce). One more thing is the fact that one commandment (The Second or third, depending on the version you learned), technically, is impossible to break and has been so for 2 millenia, since all we have at this point is 4 Letters in the Judeo-Christian God's name: YHVH (The first and third letters we aren't even sure of; they could be J and W instead of Y and V.)

Band name of the day: DCLXVI. Actually it's more of an abbreviation than an actual band name, per se, but at least if you make up a name around those 6 letters, you get to be put on a list of people who famously correspond to 666, including Nero and Ronald Reagan.

Film Idea of the Day: A group of short anime films based around the plot of my The Fighting 79th idea, like The Animatrix, including several which follow the formative years of several of the main characters.

Film Review of the day: Running on Empty. This 1988 film stars River Phoenix as the son of two terrorists (not entirely far off from his PeTA membership), who has lived on the run and wants to go to Juilliard. It is a surprisingly one of Lumet's best films (right up there with 12 Angry Men and Stranger among us) and also includes a Catcher mention near the end in a classroom.

Quote of the Day: You're certifiable. You're welcome!
______________Martha Plympton, as Lorna in Running on Empty.

Link of the Day: A site with a surprising number of Videos shot by members, and a staggering number of music videos also.