Christian "Science"

WHAT?!?

"My goal is to make them think about evolution," he said. "Evolution as a philosophy makes monsters out of all us. It removes all that makes us human - morals, virtue, love, honor, self-sacrifice. All those become illusory. I'm trying to raise some questions. Who is the real monster here? I do it through a monster story."

WHAT?!?

!!! Whoever knew it would come down to this, that a major newspaper would quote a writer on the EVILS OF EVOLUTION without any aside, comment, nothing. What's next, elephants holding up the four corners of the world?

Sure, it's a newspaper from Alabama, but STILL. This is scary stuff!!! Am I alone in being terrified???

Even the Catholic Church officially accepted evolution as a valid scientific theory, compatible with Biblical scripture, in the 1920s! Come on!!!

Yes, Hootie made the list

Stylus assembled a list of failed followup albums to crossover/artistic breakthroughs. The selections are varied yet predictable. I wrote about ABC's Beauty Stab and Crowded House's Temple of Low Men.

My latest review for the Herald.

Duran on the run

A rather funny Duran Duran interview. I got helpful advice from Nick Rhodes:

"We, as a band, have an aversion to regular water put through a filter," says Rhodes. "For all you know, it's gone through a drug addict's liver."

A-pope-calypse Now

Last Wednesday, those ever-popular signs of the apocalypse got prime-time exposure on the premiere of NBC’s "Revelations," where Bill Pullman plays an intellectual of some sort being followed around by a nun who believes God is speaking through a semi-living dead girl. Pullman arrives just as a cabal of heartless men in white coats has gathered in a shadowy x-ray viewing room to discuss pulling the plug. Being the slaves to that ever-seductive false-God "Science," the doctors, in their infinite skepticism, somehow dismiss her random spewing of Latin as "brain spasms." Let's see--a comatose girl is caught in middle of a debate between science and religion. Sound familiar?

Thankfully, Terri Schiavo never randomly broke out in Latin. But for NBC the timing couldn't be any better. Especially since their epic "culture of life" wet dream has coincided with yet more apocalypse talk since the selection of Benedict XVI as the Catholic Church's new Pope. If you believe St. Benedict, who prophesied that the final Pope would come from his Order, then the selection surely marks the end of times. But then, isn't Benedict XVI a Dominican? And isn't the name pretty much arbitrarily chosen (I would have chosen something cool like Andre MMMI, but I digress)? No, it seems the true tragedy is most probably not the end of days, but the Church's missed opportunity to open its arms to new and former Catholics alike, as well as its failure to recognize the one place where their numbers are actually growing. A South American Pope, for instance, might have made more sense.

Amid talk that the Church was seeking to restructure and possibly considering a moderate, some were surprised that the strict Ratzinger was chosen. The process being as secretive as it is, we may never know the actual "rationale" (quotes connote this writer's skepticism that reason played any significant role whatsoever). But here's what we do know: it took the conclave a relatively short while to elect arguably the most powerful man in the Vatican. Given that the Church has hardly abstained from playing politics throughout its history, what's surprising is that we were even surprised at all.

So the Apocalypse is probably not upon us, but perhaps it is better to err on the side of caution. Considering the recent apocalyptic clamors, I've compiled a short list of things to do before either the end of days in general or the end of your days specifically:

1) Finish your living will and/or your novel.

2) Just for fun, free Fiona Apple.

3) Learn Latin to spice up your "brain spasms" should you ever become comatose (learning to spin your head in a 360-degree angle, a plus).

4) Shave your mustache or at least dye it to match your hair color. This means you John Bolton.

And finally,

5) Just for fun, become the Pope.

What to expect from il papa

At best we can hope that Pope Benedict XVI's reign won't outlive his predecessor's policies, which alienated hundreds of thousands of Catholics worldwide. What surprises me is that we thought the conclave would have even considered the election of a moderate. Here's Andrew Sullivan:

He raised the stakes even further by his extraordinarily bold homily at the beginning of the conclave, where he all but declared a war on modernity, liberalism (meaning modern liberal democracy of all stripes) and freedom of thought and conscience. And the speed of the decision must be interpreted as an enthusiastic endoprsement of his views. What this says to American Catholics is quite striking: it's not just a disagreement, it's a full-scale assault. This new Pope has no pastoral experience as such. He is a creature of theological discourse, a man of books and treatises and arguments. He proclaims his version of the truth as God-given and therefore unalterable and undebatable. His theology is indeed distinguished, if somewhat esoteric and at times a little odd. But his response to dialogue within the church is to silence those who disagree with him. He has no experience dealing with people en masse, no hands-on experience of the challenges of the church in the developing world, and complete contempt for dissent in the West. His views on the subordinate role of women in the Church and society, the marginalization of homosexuals (he once argued that violence against them was predictable if they kept pushing for rights), the impermissibility of any sexual act that does not involve the depositing of semen in a fertile uterus, and the inadmissability of any open discourse with other faiths reveal him as even more hardline than the previous pope.

Sounds a bit like Tom DeLay's philosophy

All Hail Darth Benedict XVI!

The new Pope looks like The Emperor from Star Wars. I bet he also jar jars his jabba the hutt and nutes his salacious crumb.

Meanwhile...

Tom DeLay is thinking: "Why can't we be more like Ecuador?"

Prison guard training is hard in Cali

Except, not at all.

I wonder what this qualifies me for in California. I play a mean tick-tack-toe and have been known to win at Connect Four. Maybe I can be the next Ken Jenne.

Or not.

Slave to Love

Me on His Highness Bryan Ferry. Americans make such lousy lovers because they don't own any Roxy Music records.

Ian McEwan on Saturday, happiness, Iraq

Salon ran a nice interview with Ian McEwan (make sure to get the day pass first), promoting his new novel Saturday, an at-times pedantic account of one day in the life of a happy man in 2003, on the eve of the Iraq war. McEwan notes the difficulty in writing about happiness:

There's supposed to be a universality to happiness while there's a distinctly individual quality about misery. I thought, if I'm going to write about an anxious world, it would be more interesting to put a very happy man into it.

George Bush's iPod

This was probably the most discussed item on the boards today. I couldn't leave work without posting it. What does it say that Bush's selections aren't much better (or worse) than Bill "Teach Your Children" Clinton's?

A closer look at the Fascist Feminist

because while reading the transcipt is funny, there is nothing like actually watching her squirm:

http://thiswebsiterules.com/home/album_showpage.php?pic_id=689

GOP consultant marries his male lover

I thank Andrew Sullivan for first reminding us of this story, buried in the Saturday New York Times.

Sin City - the same old story?

In a wonderful review that is a model of clear-eyed discernment, which will no doubt expose him to ridicule, Anthony Lane takes Sin Cityto task for being yet one more bastard descendant of Scorsese and Tarantino, a film that "know[s] everything about violence and nothing about suffering." His style more than ever a cautious mix of camp and moral clarity, Lane delivers a message to comic book enthusiasts who unwittingly fetishize violence in ever-more-stunning tableaux:

A short course in movie history would teach them that graphic novels themselves are soaked to the bone in a style that was brought to refinement by film noir. It might even lead them to a basic triple bill of “The Big Heat,” “Out of the Past,” and “Sweet Smell of Success.” There they would learn that the duel of shadow and glitter did not start life on a computer screen, that not all women are prostitutes with weapons strapped to their thighs, and that the drive to avenge—which is what fuels “Sin City,” to the point of perversion—can bring more pain than satisfaction in its wake.

Gee. I hope Alex doesn't get upset.

Saul Bellow R.I.P.

He's dead. As the sententious obituaries start to pile up, let's remember the best American novelist of the last 60 years by reading Seize the Day, The Adventures of Augie March, and, his masterpiece, Herzog.

Justice William Jefferson Clinton?

Quoting that scowling satyr Bob Novak, James Ridgeway suggests that the GOP's best way to keep Hillary from running for prez in 2008 is to nominate Bill Clinton to the Supreme Court (assuming William Renhquist resigns or dies soon).

Pope John Paul II's legacy

That marvelous old sinner Christopher Hitchens assesses the pope's legacy, which is rather mixed. The intersection of religion, politics, and liberalism is a perilous one; I suppose John Paul II did as much as any product of World War II and Vatican II could have, but was hopeless when we demanded the prosecution of child abusers who found sanctuary in a bureaucracy that hid them in clouds of incense:

A church that has allowed no latitude in its teachings on masturbation, premarital sex, birth control, and divorce suddenly asks for understanding and "wiggle room" for the most revolting crime on the books.

Hitchens errs only when he descends to the snarkiness that comes too easily for him, in a passage in which he can't resist rapping his favorite bugaboo -- the complicity between organized religion and the state -- on the knuckles. He whizzes past his historical analogy so fast that the ironies fail to resonate:

Actually, the Kennedy brothers were part of a Catholic cabal which imposed another Catholic cabal on the luckless people of South Vietnam. It's impossible to read the history of that calamity without noticing the filiation between the detested Diem dynasty in Saigon and the Kennedys, Cardinal Spellman, and various Catholic Cold-War propagandists from Luce to Buckley. However, there's no proof that the Vatican ordered this, and the Kennedys did repent by having Diem murdered, so perhaps we can let that one slide.

Paging Oliver Stone...

Buchanan's Own

It's a shame they didn't have any bacon bits.

It would have been like a modern tar-and-feathering for our diet conscious society.

Free advertising

I just got blogads but I probably won't be getting any real ads for a while. So I'll run ads for free for about a month or so. Let me know if you want to advertise on A Grand Illusion.

Andrew Sullivan on Terri Schiavo

After a few weeks in the wilderness, Andrew Sullivan has returned to the fray, galvanized by the Terri Schiavo case. Like George Will and William F. Buckley, he considers the legislative branch's determination to circumvent the courts a heinous breach of conservative principles:

What this case comes down to is the right of a spouse to determine his or her incapacitated spouse's fate in the absence of a living will. Civil marriage is indeed a unique and special legal bond. The social right believes this. But they only believe it when it suits them. If it can be used to marginalize and stigmatize gay couples, they are insistent. If it is an obstacle to their absolutist views on feeding tubes for human beings who have ceased to be able to feel, think or emote, then they discard it. Here's a Tom DeLay quote that says it all:
"I don't know what transpired between Terri and her husband. All I know is Terri is alive. ... Unless she has specifically written instructions in her hand, with her signature, I don't care what her husband says."
So much for the "sanctity of marriage." With each passing month, the cynicism and power-lust of these people become clearer and clearer. Here's a principle: the government should stay out of living rooms, bedrooms and marital bonds. That used to be called conservatism.

Design Help

I'm trying to redesign the sight and give it something of a more original look--maybe some background color, and so on. Also, I want to create a sidebar on the left side of the screen. But I haven't the time nor the knowledge to do all these things. Can anyone help me with it?

I can't really pay you because I'm poor, but you would have my lifelong sycophancy.

And Now A Word From Our Favorite Fascist Feminist

From Crooksandliars.com:

Coulter: "Canada used to be one of our most loyal friends and vice-versa. I mean Canada sent troops to Vietnam - was Vietnam less containable and more of a threat than Saddam Hussein?"

McKeown interrupts: "Canada didn't send troops to Vietnam."

Coulter: "I don't think that's right."

McKeown: "Canada did not send troops to Vietnam."

Coulter (looking desperate): "Indochina?"

McKeown: "Uh no. Canada ...second World War of course. Korea. Yes. Vietnam No."

Coulter: "I think you're wrong."

McKeown: "No, took a pass on Vietnam."

Coulter: "I think you're wrong."

McKeown: "No, Australia was there, not Canada."

Coulter: "I think Canada sent troops."

McKeown: "No."

Coulter: "Well. I'll get back to you on that."

I think if she ditched her whole uberbitch disposition and ate more sweet potato pie, she would make a great faghag despite having a female hard-on for Hannity.

Antonin Scalia

Anyone with even a passing interest in jurisprudence should read Margaret Talbot's excellent New Yorker profile of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the most conservative, most outspoken, and most intelligent of the justices. Scalia classifies himself as an "originalist" -- one who not believes that judges should adhere to the precise words of the Constitution, but also, according to Talbot, "believes that the meaning of those words was locked into place at the time they were written." Talbot posits that Scalia's literalist interpretation of the Constitution is a product of the New Criticism which dominated English and American critical theory through the end of the 1950's (Scalia's father Eugene earned a Ph.D. at Columbia and worked as a language professor and translator at Brooklyn College) -- a critical approach whose efficacy was whittled, like originalism itself, by the increasing influence minority and gender studies. Talbot questions how Scalia might have voted in the Brown vs Board of Education decision, in which the Court's opinion shaped judicial policy for the next 40 years (for the record, Scalia says that he "would have voted with the majority in Brown"). More importantly, Talbot wonders whether living judges using the Framers' original intention was even the Framers' intention:

The Constitution, it should be noted, does not stipulate th rules for its interpretation -- and the idea that the framers would have welcomed scrutiny of its provisions in the light of changed circumstances is at least as plausible as the notion that the framers intended to freeze, for all time, the meaning of due process or cruel and unusual punishment [two more Court decisions from which Scalia has dissented]

Thomas Jefferson would have agreed.

And Starring Beyonce as Bob Dylan.

Todd Hayne's Bob Dylan biopic is going forth. Considered for the role of Dylan: Beyonce, Venus Williams, and Oprah Winfrey.

Not a joke.

Wall of Shame

Here's the list of House democrats who voted for the Schiavo bill.

Baca, Baird, Barrow, Bean, Berry, Bishop (GA), BorenBrady (PA), Chandler, Costello, Cramer, Cuellar, Cummings, Davis (TN), Edwards, Engel, Etheridge, Fattah, Ford, Green, Al, Herseth, Higgins, Holden, Jackson (IL), Kanjorski, Kildee, Langevin, Lipinski, Lynch, Marshall, Matheson, McIntyre, McNulty, Meek (FL), Melancon, Michaud, Mollohan, Oberstar, Pomeroy, Ross, Scott (GA), Serrano, Skelton, Snyder, Stupak, Tanner, Wynn

Special mention: notice Florida's own Kendrick Meek on the list.

The Diaz-Balart brothers and Ros-Lehtinen also voted for it.

Not that I have any emotional stake in Terri Schiavo...

But this whole debate really underscores why I gave up on the Republican party. One of the fundmental pillars of the Republican "ideology" is state's rights. It was why they, supposedly, opposed states being forced to recognize same-sex marriages (that rationale, of course, was deep-sixed by Dubya's push to pass a constitutional ban). But here they go and once again expose a good heap of hypocrisy by forcing a federal effort to reverse a decision already made (several times) by a state court.

The question everyone is asking (and was asked several times before this morning's vote) is why make this mess over one person? Well, that's pretty simple to answer: Mid-term elections!

If they can appeal to just a few more right-to-lifers and Southern Baptists and gain just a bit more leverage in the legislative branch, it's not asking too much to disregard the core values of their party. Because, afterall, values are very important to the Republican party and their voters....

Did anyone else find it painful watching the party with the most blood on its hands in the United States defend a "Culture of Life"?

It's a good thing Schiavo is brain dead. At least she's not cognizant of the circus they've built around her.

The Rights of Woman

Feministing has a post on the Equal Rights Amendment on which I commented that the provisions of ERA--especially the one being proposed by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (see text below)--are already covered by the 14th amendment.

Text of the Equal Rights Constitutional Amendment

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of
ratification

I was laughed off. This is one of the comments: "Ha ha ha ha ha. Good one. What are you, a first year law student?" Yah, I wish.

My point is that the 14th Amendment, which is probably my favorite amendment, does cover gender equality. Here's the text:

Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section. 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the
provisions of this article.

("No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." If that's not poetry, I don't know what is.)

Okay, I know the amendment has a clause advocating gender inequality--though not explicitly--but that was mended by the 19th Amendment. I also happen to think you need not look further for constitutional support of gay marriage.

So why is the ERA necessary? Thoughts?

Cowboy Up!

So, Blake's not guilty. As one who has seen his old interviews on the Tom Snyder show.... um.... well, I won't be saying anything disparaging about the fella! Matter of fact, I'll venture to say he is, above all, not a SPAZZ (like the Pope or that Dom bloke)!

From CNN:

BLAKE: I'm going to get a job. I'm broke. Right now, I couldn't buy spats for a hummingbird. What did Johnny Carson say? You're innocent until proven broke. Well, by the time Gerry and these troops got here, it was the bottom of the barrel. I was a rich man. I'm broke now. I got to go to work.

But before that, I'm going to go out and do a little cowboying. Do you know what that is? No, you don't know what that is.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.

BLAKE: Cowboying is when you get in a motor home or a van or something like that, and you just let the air blow in your hair, and you wind up in some little bar in Arizona someplace, and you shoot one-handed nine ball with some 90-year-old Portuguese woman that beats the hell out of you.

And the next day, you wind up in a park someplace playing chess with somebody. You go see a high school play where they're doing "West Side Story." And you just roam around and get some revitalization…

He seems like a swell ol' geezer, in his own right. He should be in a David Lynch movie....

Oh, wait! He already was in a David Lynch movie!

John Gibson is an ass. How's that for name-calling?

John Gibson's amusing rant on marriage.

"...Marriage is something men and women do. They don't always do it well — you only have to look at the divorce rate, or the number of pregnant women killed by their spouse to realize that."

Ouch! Take that, Scott! Other than that, I wonder what the number of "pregnant women killed by their spouse" IS.

Another brilliant quote:
"The first knuckle-dragging people recognized they didn't want to raise their kids like the monkeys, so they set up another system."

Is that EVOLUTION you're hinting at, Gibson? Tsk, tsk. What are you, a Godless liberal?