Chocolate salty Jesus

Please please please PLEASE someone tell me this guy does not speak for the majority of Christians out there (I'm referring to Bill Donohue, of course). I almost feel sorry for Donohue in the clip of him on Anderson Cooper--he can't seem to get the artist, Cosmo Cavallaro, to sink to his level. "You're talking like a 5-year old."

The artist has a right to create art as he sees fit, and Donohue has a right to make an ass of himself. I have a right to wonder why on earth someone would want to make a Jesus out of chocolate and why someone would think it is somehow blasphemous. I mean, leaving aside issues of free speech and such, what is the big deal here? Is it the chocolate? What's wrong with chocolate? Is it that he's nude and anatomically correct? I can't quite figure it out (I also haven't been to church lately, so maybe they've changed some things.) I know that we're supposed to be ashamed of our genitalia, so it could stand to reason that we should pretend Jesus didn't have any. I don't recall a Biblical proscription on chocolate--had it even been invented when Leviticus was written? Anyway, Donohue is a dick.

While you're at it, lay off of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

The latest from the United Nations:

Islamic countries pushed through a resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Council on Friday urging a global prohibition on the public defamation of religion _ a response largely to the furor last year over caricatures published in a Danish newspaper of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.

That's a great idea. I assume, of course, that the final global prohibition will prevent anyone from defaming any religious belief. Will Muslims be encouraged to stop calling non-Muslims "infidels"? Will Christians be encouraged to stop using the word "crusade"? Will everyone be encouraged to stop using "godless" as a synonym for "evil"? If the whole world is required to respect (or at least not defame) all other religions, the same must apply to the lack thereof. I'd better not hear anyone making fun of Zeus and Apollo. No more calling Thor a "homo" either.

This really is a great idea. How will the UN enforce this--economic sanctions? Canadian peacekeeping forces to prevent further insult-hurling? Perhaps a joint Malaysian and Ghanaian peacekeeping force could be deployed to Copenhagen to prevent further newspaper cartoons. Could a UN-backed global prohibition be all we really need to put an end to sectarian violence once and for all? And would it mean and end to quality programming like this:

At last, some good news

And a great headline:

Dear Bush: Suck It. Love, Senate Republicans

Live action anime!!!

I know it's not nice to pick on kids, but I think there's an exception if they are also Paris runway models (and yes, I realize this is my second post today about fashion models--it's not becoming a trend.) Anyway, I found this here, via Cruel.com. Apparently these are really her eyes:



Check out the original site. It's disquieting. Just thought I'd share.

No they didn't...

Truth be told, I have never seen a single episode of America's Next Top Model, and before reading about this today, I already would have said I never will. Now I'm too dumbfounded to even find the TV remote.

Ain’t nothin’ hotter than a dead girl. That’s the take-away message from this week’s episode of America’s Next Top Model, in which Tyra “I care so much about my girls” Banks & co. created the most brazen bit of ad-industry misogyny ever to grace the reality TV genre: an entire episode presenting a gaggle of underfed model wannabes as the mutilated, mangled and murdered epitome of beauty.

The story has a link to the pictures, along with comments from the show's judges about how beautiful the girls look pretending to be dead and mutilated (several also have fake bruises--in the sense that the bruising probably caused the death.)

As I have stated before, I do not have a problem with people doing what they want, so long as there is informed consent all around and no one gets hurt. I will assume, for the sake of argument, that all models depicted herein consented to have fake blood and brain matter splashed on the wall behind them and so forth. I'm more troubled by the fact that this is considered "beautiful" or "entertaining" at all. I have my doubts that this little presentation is any more likely to lead to more violence against women than the average episode of CSI (dead showgirl of the week). This is more like a slightly-higher-concept Friday the 13th--array a bunch of hotties, provide little emotinal connection, then knock them off in a series of unoriginal and dramatically unsatisfying ways. How many people genuinely find this entertaining?

I am somewhat reminded of the Coliseum scenes in Gladiator ("Are you not entertained?")--after the film I recall remarking to a friend that our culture is still in decent shape, at least compared to what Romans found entertaining. I'm less sure now.

I guess this is one right we do have! - UPDATED

At least this person still believes in some part of the Constitution:

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' liaison with the White House will refuse to answer questions at upcoming Senate hearings about the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, citing her Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, her lawyer said Monday.

"I have decided to follow my lawyer's advice and respectfully invoke my constitutional right," Monica Goodling, Gonzales' counsel and White House liaison, said in a statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Of course she has that right, and of course Congress is not supposed to draw any directly negative inference from her refusal to testify.

Still, I have to wonder...if, in Alberto-world, there is no express grant of the right of habeas corpus despite this language in the Constitution...

The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

...then how do we really know that this grants us the right to protection from self-incrimination?

No person shall be...compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.

Of course, I'm being sarcastic, and I wholeheartedly disagree with the Alberto-world way of seeing things. I suppose I should be grateful that his peeps occasionally do see rights inherent in the Constitution.

UPDATE: Here's a pretty good analysis of the Fifth Amendment and the circumstances under which a witness is permitted to refuse to testify--in short, you can't take the Fifth to protect someone else from incrimination, and you can't do it to avoid committing perjury (which is a pretty lame excuse anyway).

Ewwwwww

Here's an urban hazard few saw coming:

TAIPEI - Residents of Tainan learned a lesson in whale biology after the decomposing remains of a 60-ton sperm whale exploded on a busy street, showering nearby cars and shops with blood and organs and stopping traffic for hours.

The 56-foot-long whale had been on a truck headed for a necropsy by researchers, when gases from internal decay caused its entrails to explode in the southern city of Tainan.

Damn.