Re-Announcing: Bible Burn!!!

For something this nuts, I'm not going to provide links back to the Temple of Crazy, AKA Dove World Outreach Center. They don't need the publicity.

Pastor Terry Jones (absolutely not to be confused with Monty Python's Terry Jones, a man with great respect for the teachings of Christ) has planned to gather his flock on September 11th of this year, and make a bonfire of Qur'ans on his church's front lawn. He does this "out of love for Jesus" he claims. Also, to prove that we still have freedom of speech in this country.

Hmmm...

Then I recommend we prove to him right back, that freedom of speech is a two-way street. I'd like to see an event where we wrap a whole bunch of bibles in American flags, throw in a couple of apple pies (and anyone's dead Mom who wants to be cremated), and start a fire of our own.

(actually, only licensed crematoria are allowed to burn the bodies of the dead, so I guess we'll have to leave our dead Moms at home for this one)

Survival Research Laboratories had a planned event back in the 1980s called Bible Burn. Everyone was supposed to bring a bible and throw it on a nice big bonfire (in a semi-controlled environment - if you've ever been to an SRL show, you know what I mean). Right before it was set to take place, the organizers called it off, in what I would call a moment of cowardice. They claimed death threats. I say, let's start it up again, and see what happens.

I know, fomenting hatred and fear and making people think stupid thoughts about a dead guy nailed to a cross who professed love of everyone, which has brought about a wave of people who say his name as they prepare to unleash hatred on people who don't think quite like they do.

Some of their reasons for burning the Qur'an? (they have a LOT of them)

• "Islam denies Jesus' divinity" - just like the Jews and George Washington! Let's burn the Talmud and a bunch of dollar bills, too. IDOLATRY!
• The Qur'an is not "recorded in heaven" the way the Bible is. How they know this I'm not sure I get.
• Islam teaches "Arabian" idolatry and rituals. The code word here is "Arabian", i.e., non-white, therefor Satanic.
• They say the Qur'an wasn't written until years after Muhammed's death, and is full of contradictions. Not unlike the Bible, actually.
• "Islamic law is totalitarian in nature", they say. Really? So, the Pope isn't totalitarian? Would they themselves not basically be telling everyone how to live if they had a shot at being in charge?
• "Islam is not about democracy or human rights". Hmmm.. Like Guantanamo or Bagram?
• Muslims cannot change their faith, because it's punishable by death. Interesting, because Pastor Jones says there are a bunch of ex-Muslims that support what he's doing. If they've changed their religion, why aren't they dead? Someone's asleep at the switch! Christians can, of course, change, but not without their pastor telling them they'll burn in hell. What's the big difference there?
• "Deep in the Islamic teaching and culture is the irrational fear and loathing of the West." And deep in Christian teaching (these days) is the irrational fear and loathing of the East.

Yes, I'm an asshole. And an agnostic (at least I'm honest enough to say I'm really not sure about many many things). But I try not to be a hypocrite.

Oh, and a great, non-violent way to see all things Satanic (as far as these twits are concerned), I highly recommend you see this movie: "Unmistaken Child". Makes me think hard about the idea of old souls...

The Post-Modern Corporation (that eats people)

I've been reading a book on my lunch hour called False Dawn by John Gray, formerly the School Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics. And I've come to the conclusion that Republicans really don't know anything, read anything, or care about their own futures. Because what they seem to be arguing for is not just a return to the good old days of the robber-baron capitalists of the 19th century, they seem to want to become the coal that fired the engines.

The Glenn Beck rally on Saturday, in which Beck attempted to resurrect the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. (without actually knowing what it was King was for), had a variety of Tea Party folks, nice old white people (here and there were tiny pockets of nice), and gun nuts who must have felt naked without their concealed-carry pieces. Beck had asked everyone to please leave their guns and signs at home, since this wasn't a political event, but some kind of moral lecture, religious revival, or possibly, The Plan, as Beck had called it a couple of months back when he announced this event.

As it happens, he didn't reveal The Plan, unless you count the folks in the Puritan outfits that are supposed to go out and evangelize for... something or other. He did, however, reveal The Palin, who was her usual incomprehensible self, sounding like a combination of Yoda and Hooked on Phonics played backwards.

Turnout was in the high-seventy- to low-eighty-thousand range. So of course, Fox says half a million showed up. "We report, you decide not to think."

One woman was quoted as saying that if she wanted to buy a gas guzzler, she should be able to, and she wanted to use any kind of damn light bulb she wanted. To which I say, fine, if you can afford the gas it takes to fill up a HumVee, be my guest. If you want to burn lightbulbs that die every six months and cost ten times what a CFL does to power, fine. We won't credit you for much in the way of brains, but go ahead, waste your money.

False Dawn argues that the politicians of the United States, and some in Europe, have decided somewhere along the way that a market-driven economy (what the Right calls Free Markets), now equals a system in which the societal costs of running a factory or driving a car are being absorbed by the society at large, and that big corporations and their owners are not responsible to the society at all. The point of operating a business has nothing to do with enriching the community or benefitting the country in which the business resides - no, it's all about enriching the corporation, making sure that there are as few impediments to the ability of the corporation to do what it needs to do to maximise profits.

If this is the way we're going than I suggest a Swiftian response: if someone is unemployed for too long, and they can no longer get benefits or welfare or food stamps, then I suggest we use them for either fuel for power stations (like coal, only not quite as clean burning), or fertiliser for ethanol corn. If they can't serve any other useful function, let them die and reduce the surplus population.

While I recognize that that was a very mean-spirited paragraph, it wouldn't surprise me if that's what a lot of the Tea Party thinks, simmering just under the surface.

Fred Phelps Hates Superman!

And Aquaman, Spiderman, Batman, and all the other *****men and *****women in the land of the comic book. San Diego ComicCon was the recipient of a Fred Phelps/Westboro Basptist Church visitation to let them know that what they're doing makes God hate them, and America, and everything else out there. Because God is, after all, really about hating your fellow human being for, well - being, I think.

WBC likes to protest a lot of things. They like to protest funerals of AIDS victims because "God Hates Fags." They like to protest the funerals of soldiers, because "God Hates America" apparently for tolerating "fags" in the first place.

But ComicCon? Is it because of all the Thor references? Perhaps because a lot of folks really like the idea of the Force (without, you know, starting a religion about it, but just thinking it's really neat).

Now for the fun part.

ComicCon attendees knew they were coming. A large group of nerds discovered that they were going to be protested by a bunch of drooling idiots, who haven't managed to work up a new sign design in over fifteen years. So they came up with some classics, posted here.

My two faves: "Is this thing on?", and "Magnets: How the %$&* do they work???"

Defusing Hysterical Puffery, or Making Glenn Beck Cry

Glenn Beck (whom I try not to talk about for fear of receiving the wrath of his imbecilic followers - yes, they scare me more than the dittoheads) is planning an event of monumental proportions that (with any luck) will be a flaming ball of self-destruction. He's planning on making a speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech. He's told his followers not to bring signs, but that they should bring their children.

Hmm. I'm thinking. Perhaps we should have something that looks like a child stuck on a pole, so you can get the best of both worlds?

No, truly, here's what I would propose. Get as many people as you can to surround the folks who will no doubt barely fill the steps at the Washington Mall, and laugh your asses off the entire time. Non-stop. Eerily like a bad episode of the Twilight Zone or Outer Limits, but with the appropriate effect. Laugh at him. It's what he deserves. He really is a rodeo clown, who either doesn't read the history books he promotes, or he's a rabid anti-semite. Who can cry on cue, to prove that he "really, really cares about America." Just like all the other crocodiles.

I would also recommend carrying signs that have as little meaning attributable to them as possible. One of the early Rev. Phelps counter-protest signs read "I Have A Sign", which I think is just about the right level of total absurdity. Just so long as we're not calling him names or being mean to his followers. The best way to get them to show their true colors is to be as inane as possible.

Save The Gay Whales!!!

Wow. I think my brain just imploded slightly.

Sir Elton John sang at Rush Limbaugh's fourth wedding.

I'll say that again.

Sir Elton John (gay as all get-out) sang at Rush Limbaugh's fourth wedding.

He's so family values, Rush has gotten married and divorced three times before marrying the latest bit o' crumpet. Of course, he's been married before. And, like Richard Gere's movie partners, they keep gettin' younger 'n' younger with every wedding. And this time, he's being serenaded by an openly gay entertainer.

I don't know how to feel about this one. Is Rush truly that open-minded (or misinformed?) Does he just ignore the fact that his wedding singer is a gay man who is married to another gay man, which is something Rush is (publicly) opposed to? As for Sir Elton, does he not know about the guy who he's singing at? I was under the impression that Rush is a well-known a-list a-hole, even on the far distant shores of our former owners.

Sir Elton, when asked for comment, said something like "oh, leave me effing alone, can't you see I have another million bucks to shove up me Khyber*?" Or "thanks for the bangers**, 'omophobes!"

Ah well, the more things change, the more they stay the same. After all, Rock Hudson was well-known as a pouf in Hollywood in the fifties, but still managed to get work as a leading man all the way through the seventies. And I can't imagine that people didn't know that that other famous piano player, Liberace, wasn't gay. We've never minded that our entertainers were gay, so long as they stayed up there on stage or screen. Even better when they died well out of sight.


*Khyber = Khyber Pass = Ass

**bangers = bangers and mash = cash

Dark Green Future

We make cars, washing machines, clothes, plastic water bottles, houses, concrete. We fabricate the very building blocks of what we do out of what nature created, or out of things nature never imagined. We are rapidly running out of things to create with, and we continuously find new ways to destroy the sources of the things that sustain our lives on this planet.

And this may be a good thing. The planet may not survive us, but hopefully the planet will survive if we don't. Our society can go from status quo to madness in less than forty-eight hours, and no amount of television coverage can make people behave rationally when they think their little slice of heaven is threatened.

But make sure you buy the latest 3D TV, because you'll want to see the latest oil well rupture in the clearest possible detail, or the skin texture of the burned, twisted corpses dragged out of the latest mining disaster.

When will we learn that what we think civilization is supposed to be is wrong?

Yes, dear readers, I have found a new thing to read, a new place to look, and weirdly enough, while what I've just written sounds unbearably depressing, it's actually a look over the edge. If our civilization is actually not meant to succeed, what does the next thing look like? The good people at The Dark Mountain Project are asking that very question, and they're not entirely afraid. I'm with them. Hoping to look, unafraid, at the next turn our species makes, and what might be the result.

Thoughts Or Not

So, with the massive collapse (and nearly intantaneous rebound) of Wall Street last week, many people turned to God to tell them what to do next. Since no one can fathom what the hell happened in the first place.

Ignoring, of course, the evidence that God is pretty much done with us, or at least He certainly doesn't seem to care that we're pretty much as vapid a species that ever plumbed the depths of philosophy. To wit, the Transocean/BP oil rig disaster that they tried to fix by dropping a lid on it (which didn't work because it both iced up and "wouldn't stay still" or some such excuse). Next up: "we're gonna stuff it full of shredded tires and golfballs!"

There's furious activity in no particular direction for ya...

I believe it was the Rude Pundit, speaking as a guest on the Stephanie Miller Show who suggested they stuff a whale into the opening to plug the leak, under the heading of "taking one for the team."

Chris Hedges has a great piece on the failure of religion in TruthDig this week, and it's one of his finer downers. In my mind (admittedly a twisted, rotting place) the best companion piece is here. Read Chris first. Then read the other one. Really. You have to take them in that order or it loses its impact.

To quote Dennis Hopper in Speed, "In two hundred years we've gone from 'I regret but I have one life to give for my country' to 'Fuck you!'?"

It's very important to kneel before the altar of Stuff I Must Have while praying to the Celebrities I Wish I Was.