But is it art?


The latest cryptotheographical news item comes to us from ABC News, the most trusted source in news. A couple in Toledo, Ohio has been blessed twice: first with a baby daughter, and second by an image of Jesus in the baby's ultrasound. This story comes at a propitious moment, as the nation is tired of the runaway bride story, and we certainly don't want to hear any more about Iraq.

Stories like these always fascinate me, because they point to larger truths, one being that things aren't always what they seem. For example, I was at the art museum just the other day, looking at a 17th century masterpiece "The Virgin and Child with St Elizabeth and the Child Baptist", by the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens. To the untrained, skeptical eye, this might look like just another fusion of the realistic tradition of Flemish painting with the imaginative freedom and classical themes of the Italian Renaissance. But as I looked closer, I saw the unmistakable image of an overcooked Tater Tot!



I'm sure Fox News will be calling any minute.


Pack animals

We liberals are a pathetic lot. Not only are we too non-judgemental, we are also clueless about the sexual proclivities of certain Red State youth:

Last night, anti-abortion extremist Neal Horsley was a guest on The Alan Colmes Show, a FOX News radio program. The topic was an interesting one - whether or not an internet service provider should allow Horsley to post the names of abortion doctors on his website. Horsley does that as a way of targeting them and one doctor has been killed. In the course of the interview, however, Colmes asked Horsley about his background, including a statement that he had admitted to engaging in homosexual and bestiality sex.

At first, Horsley laughed and said, "Just because it's printed in the media, people jump to believe it."

"Is it true?" Colmes asked.

"Hey, Alan, if you want to accuse me of having sex when I was a fool, I did everything that crossed my mind that looked like I..."

AC: "You had sex with animals?"

NH: "Absolutely. I was a fool. When you grow up on a farm in Georgia, your first girlfriend is a mule."

AC: "I'm not so sure that that is so."

NH: "You didn't grow up on a farm in Georgia, did you?"

AC: "Are you suggesting that everybody who grows up on a farm in Georgia has a mule as a girlfriend?"

NH: It has historically been the case. You people are so far removed from the reality... Welcome to domestic life on the farm..."
I'm sure they were female mules, cause Neal Horsley don't swing any other way.
10.5.05 17:00


And then the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor




I can understand why Bush said this: he was trying to suck up to the Latvians, while reminding the world what a great war leader he is. But I don't understand why the mainstream press isn't all over him like ugly on a gorilla for saying it:
As we mark a victory of six days ago -- six decades ago, we are mindful of a paradox. For much of Germany, defeat led to freedom. For much of Eastern and Central Europe, victory brought the iron rule of another empire. V-E Day marked the end of fascism, but it did not end oppression. The agreement at Yalta followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable. Yet this attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability left a continent divided and unstable. The captivity of millions in Central and Eastern Europe will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs of history.
This version of history is wrong on so many levels I don't know where to start. Perhaps a little history lesson.

Churchill, Stalin and FDR met at the Crimean resort of Yalta in February, 1945, to plan for the end of the war against Hitler, which at that point was eminent. The three leaders agreed they would call for Germany's unconditional surrender, which pissed Hitler off to no end, and drew up plans for the United Nations, which pisses off John Bolton to no end. They also decided to carve up occupied Germany into four zones, to be administered by the US, England, France and the USSR.

What FDR did not do was to tell Stalin to pull his troops out of Eastern Europe at war's end. Roosevelt did extract a vague promise to allow free elections in Poland, but Stalin never followed through. Big surprise. As David Greenberg writes in Slate:
By far the knottiest problem?and the source of lingering rage among the far right afterwards?was the fate of Poland and other liberated Eastern European countries. Over several months, the Allies had been divvying up Europe according to on-the-ground military realities and their own individual national interests. The United States and Britain had denied Stalin any role in postwar Italy. Churchill and Stalin had agreed (without Roosevelt's participation) that Britain would essentially control Greece, and Russia would essentially control Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary.
The GOP wingnut analog spin machine (this was way before digital, don't forget) went crazy. FDR is a communist! He gave eastern Europe to Stalin! Never mind that the Soviet army was already in Eastern Europe, and the only way to drive them out was to a) use one of our two atomic bombs to level Moscow or b) charge across western Germany, then meet the blood-crazed Red Army head on somewhere east of the Elbe River. Both options would put our little war with Japan on hold, and necessitate drafting every American from the age of 12 on up.

Make no mistake, Joseph Stalin was every bit as evil and duplicitous as Adolf Hitler. He killed at least as many people, and was just as ruthless with his political enemies. In 1940, Stalin ordered the massacre of tens of thousands of Polish army officers to prevent them from challenging communist rule. But he was our homicidal megalomaniac. War makes strange bedfellows - witness George W. Bush's suck up to Pervez Muscharef in Pakistan, or Crown Prince Cockroach in Saudi Arabia. "It is permitted in time of grave danger to walk with the devil until you have crossed the bridge," FDR said at the time.

So why is this all relevant to today, and why is George Bush talking about Yalta? Wars are messy, and seldom go as planned. Alliances shift, strategies change. In World War Two, the world's greatest democracies found common cause with the world's second worst dictatorship. Alliances shifted, strategies changed. And as a result, eastern Europe succombed to two generations of dictatorship.

Today, Bush is walking with his own devils, in his self-described war against terrorism. Deviil Musharef of Pakistan is holding down spelunking Islamofascists on permanent sabbatical in his neck of the woods. The Devil Islamofascist Saudis are helping us to round up Islamofascist Saudis in the Islamofascist kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Syrian Baathists help us fight the Iraqi Baathists by torturing the Islamofascists that we air freight to them every now and then.

Forget for a moment that the Iraq War was totally unnecessary and probably illegal, or that The War Against Terror is badly managed, and probably plays to bin Laden's strengths as a recruiter. Imagine for a moment that one day this ill-defined war will be over. The US President and his allies will meet at their own Yalta, to decide the fate of the newly terror-free world.

What sacrifices will that President have to make? Will there be lands to cede? Noxious ideologies to accommodate? Will we better off aprés la guerre than we are now?


Oil and gas drilling in the Great Lakes



Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, who takes thousands of dollars of oil and gas industry money, wants to block a bipartisan House effort to ban oil and gas drilling in the Great Lakes. The reason? Protecting something is the same as controlling it, and the Michigan congressman doesn't want the federal government controlling the Great Lakes.

From Dave's Blog:
In an e-mail to constituents, Rogers said he opposed the bill because he wanted to keep Washington from ?controlling? the Great Lakes. He recently introduced a House Resolution asserting states control over the Great Lakes. But his action, which conflicts with his support of federal restoration funding for the Great Lakes, instead leaves open the possibility of Washington trumping state laws that bar or restrict drilling. ?A federal ban on oil and gas drilling would no more ?control? the Great Lakes than the Clean Water Act controls them. It would actually protect them. We need both state and national policies of protection for the Great Lakes," said Cyndi Roper, Clean Water Action?s Great Lakes Policy Director.
I live about about a ten minute walk from Lake Michigan, and I can safely sayt that the lake has enough problems as it is without poisonous gasses, widespread use of toxic chemicals, massive landscape alterations and oily sea gulls.


Queer eye for the Fascist guy



In 1938, the British magazine Homes and Gardens had this to say about the softer side of Adolf Hitler:
At this altitude the Bavarian sun is at its most genial. Even at Christmastime when deep snows are out, Haus Wachenfield basks in warmth like the Engadine's. The effect of light and air in the house is heightened by the rolling and trilling of many Hartz mountain canaries in gilded cages which hang or stand in most of the rooms.

The curtains are of printed linen, or fine damask in the softer shades. The Führer is his own decorator, designer, and furnisher, as well as architect. He is constantly enlarging the place, building on new guest-annexes, and arranging in these his favourite antiques -- chiefly German furniture of the eighteenth century, for which agents in Munich are on the look out.

It is a mistake to suppose that week-end guests are all, or even mainly, State officials. Hitler delights in the society of brilliant foreigners, especially painters, singers, and musicians. As host he is a droll raconteur; we all know how surprised were Mr. Lloyd George and his party when they accepted an invitation to Haus Wachenfield.
A fellow can never have enough lebensraum!
11.5.05 02:31


Simple minds, simple life


I like this:
If it wasn't enough that giant chimneys belch out sulphur and smoke, making our landscape look like a post apocalyptic nightmare world or that we've become so amoral that we pay companies to slowly kill us then I hold up The Simple Life as final and unquestionable proof that we are living in the 9th Circle of Hell.
Sadly, we don't have demons force feeding us our own flesh. No, those people look like kings compared to us, we are the poor bastards who live in a world that glorifies the idiot. We herd idiots onto TV to gawk at them in a never ending Festival of Fools and guess who are the Kings of Fools? Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie. If you're not familiar with these loathesome creatures then allow me to explain; they're two leeches, suckers firmly attatched to their parents' veins, growing bloated and drunk on their wealth.

FOX, never one to miss a trick as far as trashy TV is concerned, had a eureka! moment when they realised why should they hire script writers when they can put real people in contrived situations? Thus The Simple Life was born. The show exploits the fact neither Hilton nor Ritchie have done a days work in their life by sending them to Texas to live with a family of slow-witted Southerners who won the Darwin Award for Most Inbred last year.

Surprisingly Hilton and Ritchie's squeels of "OMG! No Gucci?!" isn't the most irritating thing about the show. Putting rich morons on TV is awful but what's unforgiveable is the way they show patronisingly tried to portray the lazy, slow witted Southerners as the pinacle of American family values that we should all be trying to emulate. They even try romanticising the scenes in which Hilton and Ritchie sit down for a "family meal" (basically a trough of fried chicken and a bucket of coke each) by using a soft focus as if to imply Hilton and Ritchie are thinking "screw the easy route I've had through life, I'd exchange it all for the quality family time I've missed out on". Utter bullshit in ever possible sense.

It's a testament to the fact 99% of TV is geared towards the lowest common denominator of humanity when witty and intelligent shows like Family Guy, Freaks and Geeks and Futurama are cancelled yet The Simple Life can defy all logic and justice by limping forward into a second series. So sit back, take another bite out of your Big Mac and enjoy another mind numbing series of The Simple Life, dumb dumbs. Long live the idiot box.
That says it all.
13.5.05 19:54


Germ theory and religion




I hope someone is tracking all the instances of religious influence on science education in this country. This story seems to have slipped under the secular science radar:
In one closely fought duel, the Minnesota House last year agreed to place a benchmark in the life science section of the state standards saying that students must understand how new evidence and technology "can challenge portions or entire accepted theories and models, including but not limited to cell theory, theory of evolution and germ theory of disease."
Fortunately, opponents had the language removed from the life sciences curriculum, and included it under history of science, where it belongs. Right next to the chapter on bloodletting and humors.


Here's another one

A New York State assemblyman has introduced legislation to assure that Intelligent Design Theory be taught along with Evolution Theory. I like this quote:
Richard Firenze, who teaches biology at Broome Community College, remarked, "This bill is completely absurd. Those of us in New York who are concerned about our children's science education should sit up and take notice: it's not just in places like Georgia and Kansas that creationists are trying to sabotage biology education."
Hat tip to A Pondering of Fools.


And now a word for faith-based math

Everybody knows that '666' is the mark of the beast, right? It's in the Bible.

Well, those pesky, secular scientists with their fancy diplomas and high-falutin' theories have gone and ruined that story, too. Using a technique called multi-spectral imaging, researchers, I mean, lab-coated satanists, have recovered previously unreadable texts in papyrus scrolls that were recovered about 100 years ago from ancient Egyptian rubbish dumps.
So far 65 volumes of transcripts and translations have been published by the London-based Egypt Exploration Society, which owns the collection.

The latest volume includes details of fragments showing third- and fourth-century versions of the Book of Revelations. Intriguingly, the number assigned to "the Beast" of Revelations isn't the usual 666, but 616.
Hat tip to Blogging Through the Bible.




Hat tip to ThomasMc.com


Good Gawd, how embarrassing

From The Independent in the UK:
The chair of the Board of Education, Steve Abrams, is a Young Earth creationist, which is to say he believes the world was created by the Almighty no more than 6,000 years ago. The two other board members selected to attend the hearings are also Christian conservatives, who won election to their posts by pledging to insert prayer and religious principles into America's ruggedly secular public education system.

Together, the threesome is charged with approving a new set of science standards for Kansas schools. To call it a contentious issue would be a vast understatement. As far as secular groups like Kansas Citizens for Science are concerned, it is like handing control of a blood bank over to a cabal of vampires.
Maybe while the Brits are all laughing hysterically at what a bunch of boobs Americans are, we can sneak over there and steal all the Guiness. Thinking big, here.

Hat tip to Holowach
14.5.05 17:42


Kingdom of Heaven


I saw Ridley Scott's epic Kingdom of Heaven last weekend and came away disappointed. I've always liked Scott's work, but was a little skeptical of this last film before I bought the ticket. The reviews that I read beforehand were tepid at best, and that biased me somewhat against the film. But what really had me convinced the film would probably blow goats was the subject matter: The Christian Crusades of the 12th Century. How to bring a "fair and balanced" perspective to a 850-year-old historical event that is still fresh in the hearts of a billion Muslims? How to introduce millions of misty-eyed American evangelicals to the story of slaughter in the name of Christ?

Hollywood has always done a notoriously horrid job of depicting historical events, ever since Birth of a Nation introduced us to heroic, patriotic Klansmen who struggled selflessly to keep the darkies down. Throughout most of the century, American Indians served as props for strong, silent white guys to prove how good they were with a shootin' iron. It was practically scandalous when Dustin Hoffman starred in Little Big Man, a movie that dared to show General George Armstrong Custer as a vain buffoon.

I don't know that Hollywood is capable of giving us the nuance and background necessary to appreciate historical events. So far it's only given us narrative, usually from the perspective of the side that wins. As a result, you get Hollywood jingoism, which translates into ticket sales.

So maybe it's a good thing that Ridley Scott's crusaders bombed at the box office. To make his movie a financial success, Scott would have to give us "good" Christians and "bad" Muslims, or vice versa. Instead, he gave us a mushy stew of situational ethics, secular yearning, and chivalrous knights and Saracens. Which is probably as close to the historical truth than the moviegoing public will ever get.


New mascot for Marquette

I think Marquette University should call its sports teams "The Fighting Saviors". The mascot could be a dude dressed up like Jesus, only wearing a track suit and high top Nikes. He could slam dunk basketballs off a trampoline, and throw loaves of bread to the fans. At half time, he could drag a giant cross to the middle of the court, and then nail an effigy of the opposing team's mascot to it. His disciples would be 12 hot college chicks in short skirts. They could form a "mount-shaped" pyramid from which "Fighting Savior" could deliver his sermon of victory.

I think this idea has a couple things going for it. First of all, Marquette is a Jesuit University, which already uses Jesus for inspiration. Second, anybody who attacks the new mascot as being somehow culturally insensitive could simply be shouted down as being too "politically correct". As long as Jesus is being used in a reverential way, critics would have nothing to complain about.


Hiatus

Heraldblog will be in Florida for the next few days on personal business.
15.5.05 02:06


This is how we lose the war


From CNN:
In another incident, just two days later, Yancey's platoon found a man and his sons taking metal from an ammunition factory. A sergeant in the platoon detained the bunch and asked the man to choose which son should die.

Witnesses in the platoon said the sergeant took one of the sons around the corner of a building and fired a shot to scare the father into believing his son had been shot.

Army officials were unable to confirm what, if any, punishment was delivered to the unnamed sergeant.
Freedom is on the march.

And this from the NY Times:
Some of the same M.P.'s took a particular interest in an emotionally disturbed Afghan detainee who was known to eat his feces and mutilate himself with concertina wire. The soldiers kneed the man repeatedly in the legs and, at one point, chained him with his arms straight up in the air, Specialist Callaway told investigators. They also nicknamed him "Timmy," after a disabled child in the animated television series "South Park." One of the guards who beat the prisoner also taught him to screech like the cartoon character, Specialist Callaway said.

Eventually, the man was sent home.


This is how we win

I've been waiting for the right time to post this. It's from Awblogger, and written by an American woman (I'm presuming, anyway), who teaches English in Bahrain.
I'm currently teaching my students how to write an opinion essay. You know - don't just say, "This class is boring." Instead, explain why - try to persuade me. Anyhow, I thought I'd rock the boat a little and I had them read part of this opinion essay.

This is an outrageous article about Islamophobia. Before handing out the article, I stated over and over that it was not my opinion but the author's (I could lose my job over this!).

Anyway, after the students read, I had several questions for them to respond to. The first question was: What did you learn about the author of this article?

I received some of the answers I was looking for like: he's American, he's trying to persuade me to agree with his idea.

The answer I wasn't prepared for (but should have expected) was: he's a racist Jew. The student who wrote this is from Palestine. (I must mention that nowhere in the article does the author mention his faith.)

Anyway, I then had to take the bull by the horns and have a class discussion on racism. I simply wrote 'Racist Jew' on the board and asked them to define both of the words. They explained to me what racism is and how unfair it is. Then they told me what being Jewish meant. So, we agreed on the terms. I asked them to show me where the author was being racist (and in their opinion there were many places). Then I had them show me where he was Jewish. Of course there was no written indication that the author was Jewish. I asked them why they had made such an assumption. They said because all Jews are wrong and the article is wrong. - 'And that's not a racist statement?' I asked. Suddenly 18 little lightbulbs went off. 'Haram [sinful] Miss. We were wrong.'

Al hamdill'Allah!

After class, a few of the ladies stayed after to say thank you for bringing in the article.
When will President Bush's little lightbulb go off?


Bush in town

I was driving down Layton Ave. this morning, which runs along the northern edge of the Milwaukee airport. There were cops everywhere. I guessed that the President was in town.

Sure enough, there was Dubya on the evening news, chatting up social security with a handpicked audience of wealthy white people. We've heard the spiel.

Before the speech, however, he visited the offices of OnMilwaukee.com, an online magazine that, the story goes, has survived, and thrived, against all odds. The staffers were naturally giddy over the special recognition, and gooey with praise for the Prez.

Except for the guy who owned OnMilwaukee.com. He told the local news station that although he was excited about Bush's visit, he did not vote for the man. "I don't like his politics," he said.

Heh.
20.5.05 00:25


More cutting-edge journalism from the NY Times


You'd think that any reporter lucky enough to grill the Secretary of Education would ask questions with substance. But no.
What do you make of the current controversy in Kansas over whether creationism should be taught along with evolution?

I can tell you that in Texas we did go through this issue, when Bush was governor and I was working for him. We ended up -- the curriculum says basically that both points of view are taught from a factual basis.

How can creationism be taught from a factual basis? Are you implying that events in the Bible should be taught in the public schools as literal history?

I'm not implying anything. I'm just saying that my recollection from my Texas days is that both points of view were presented.

You've been called an earth-mother Republican.

I'm from Austin, Tex. There are a lot more earth mothers per capita in Austin, Tex., than there are in Washington, D.C., or Alexandria, Va.
WTF? How can creationism be taught on a "factual basis", and how do we get some "factual basis" in the New York Times?
22.5.05 23:07


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