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Photos and text, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003,2004,2005,2006 - Alan M. Pavlik
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Consider:

"It is better to be drunk with loss and to beat the ground, than to let the deeper things gradually escape."

- I. Compton-Burnett, letter to Francis King (1969)

"Cynical realism – it is the intelligent man’s best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation."

- Aldous Huxley, "Time Must Have a Stop"







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Sunday, 25 April 2004

Topic: The Culture

Religion (Christ and the Pythons)


I have sent a note to my friend in Chicago that she should keep an eye out for something at the Shubert Theatre there in December - the stage adaptation of the "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" film, in its pre-Broadway work-out-the-rough-spots run. As it is, Eric Idle of the Monty Python troop lives near me out here in Los Angeles and writes today about his other legendary film, "The Life of Brian," about to be re-released - and of course he comments on Mel Gibson's Jesus film, wishing Mel Brooks had made it, not the odd Gibson fellow.

See Recalling the view, such as it was
Monty Python's messiah relives his days on the cross, as "Life of Brian" returns to the big screen. Call it crucifixion lite.
By Eric Idle - Special to The Los Angeles Times, April 25 2004

Idle opens with this:
I was crucified once and frankly I don't recommend it. It's a scary experience, especially when you find John Cleese next to you, and there's that odd Graham Chapman smoking a pipe, and Terry Gilliam is complaining about the shot and Michael Palin is nattering away to everyone in particular.
Idle goes on to explain that even though he was singing "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" that there was something a bit chilling about turning up first thing in the morning and finding a cross with your name on it.

No doubt.

Idle discusses filming "Life of Brian" in Tunisia and how it came about. It seems George Harrison, hearing that the Monty Python group had been dumped by EMI, mortgaged his home and put up all the money because, he said, "he wanted to see the movie." It was a whim, so to speak.

But the movie is back.
Now, thanks to Mel Gibson and his holy snuff film, you're going to get a chance to see the second coming of "Life of Brian," a movie that was made during the lifetime of three popes. (Two died and two were elected during the eight weeks of location shooting.) I haven't seen Mel's film "The Passion of the Christ" -- I am a lapsed anti-Catholic -- but I gather that Mel doesn't handle the comedy too well, and he seems to totally ignore the singing opportunities of the crucifixion altogether.

... Personally I think that the wrong Mel made it and that it should have been done by Mel Brooks, though I suppose if Mel Gibson had done "The Producers" we would have had to sit through 40 minutes of Nathan Lane being flayed alive. How appropriate that Mel's long and violent film should be replaced at the box office by a horror film ("Dawn of the Dead"). Actually we were planning a rerelease long before the whole Mel thing, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the movie, for which reason Vanity Fair recently photographed us all in our coffins.
And Idle gives more detail of how this Grail of the Pythons movie came about - which is, of course, idle detail. (Sorry.)
Brian began life as a bad joke at the opening of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" in New York. When asked what our next movie would be I ad-libbed glibly "Jesus Christ, Lust for Glory." This struck a chord in the collective unconscious of the Pythons. It was such a naughty idea to even contemplate a comedy about religion that it was virtually irresistible. For a start there was a totally clean palette. No one had done any biblical gags since the Medieval Mystery Plays. Secondly we had all been dragged up in British schools with compulsory attendance in the Church of England and had been subjected to the peculiar tedium and hypocrisy of that church, founded by an adulterous king to escape a tedious wife. This would be a wonderful way to get back at our tormentors.
So, is Idle anti-religion?

No. Not really.
Now I have nothing against Jesus Christ; what he says is actually great: forgiveness, love one another, peace on Earth, turn the other cheek -- all are excellent principles, and if only more Christians would practice them the world wouldn't be in such a mess today. Our current crusaders, with their anxiety to strike the other cheek, first seem to be closer in philosophy to Reg the Revolutionary: "What Christ fails to realize is it is the Meek that are the problem." Oddly enough, although almost all religious bodies came out and attacked the movie, thereby ensuring it was a hit, the Communists and Lefty Revolutionaries left us alone, although the French did complain a lot about our movie not being blasphemous. But then they are Catholics.

... I'm an Alzheimer's agnostic: I can't remember whether I don't believe in anything or not.

However I do believe religions are the cause of most of the problems in the world today and there should be a moratorium on the use of the G-word. I think it should be replaced by something less controversial that we can all agree on. Like Chocolate.
Well, the whole item here is cute in this way. Some won't see it as cute at all.

I suppose the Times will now get a flood of angry letters and the pious, born-again, love-Bush, love-the-war, love-Jesus, hate-the-Muslims crowd will cancel their subscriptions. Let them. We don't live in a puritan theocracy just yet.

Posted by Alan at 22:15 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
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Saturday, 24 April 2004

Topic: In these times...

Looking Back and Looking Forward

On January 25, 2004 in Just Above Sunset there is a review of a new book - see 1968 - Annus Mirabilis - except for the riots and assassinations...

The book is this:

1968: The Year That Rocked the World
Mark Kurlansky, Ballantine Books; 1st edition (December 30, 2003)
Hardcover: 464 pages ISBN: 0345455819

David Aaronovitch just read the book and seems to think we're there again.

See this:

Year the music died
In 1968 we thought we could change the world. But we didn't change that much.
David Aaronovitch, The Observer (UK), Sunday April 25, 2004

Here's take on the year...
These days, 1968 is principally remembered as a year of street demonstrations and hipness. It was the year of the Guevara icon, the year that the Yippies turned up to the Democratic convention in Chicago planning party games such as 'Pin the Rubber on the Pope'. It is fascinating now to see how, in so many places, the cause was different but the cast was similar.

In France the May student revolts (which killed practically nobody) seem in retrospect, says Kurlansky, to have been as much about the boredom of life in a wealthy, provincial democracy, run by an elderly, arrogant war hero. The 'revolution' was sexy, creative and largely without demands. It was as much about the end of deference as anything else. Over in China students were also having fun at the expense of their professors, tying hats to them, covering them in paint and forcing them to denounce themselves as part of the great Cultural Revolution.

Forty-nine per cent of the French, one year after the Six-Day War, thought that Israel should annex all the land it had conquered. Only 19 per cent thought that it should give everything back. In Poland protesters waved Israeli flags, because their government was pro-Arab - in Berlin they burned them because their government was pro-Israeli. In London we protested against an American war, in Cairo students demonstrated in favour of an Arab one. Only in Czechoslovakia that spring was anybody demonstrating in favour of their government.

Just as in 1956, there was a cold war symmetry. The Russians suppressed the quiet Czech revolt, and put an end to the illusion that there was any radical potential remaining in states ruled by 'existing socialism'. And the Americans began 1968 to the sound of the Tet Offensive, which showed that there would never be a settlement on their terms of the conflict in Vietnam; 14,000 Americans were killed that year.
Yep, that's how I remember it too.

Aaronovitch says that reading Kurlansky one sees both the parallels and non-parallels with Iraq.

Really?

There's "the danger of believing what you want to believe, that all opposition is communist or Baathist, that if you just hold out a while then things will come good."

I wish that didn't sound so familiar. But Aaronovitch points out there is no North Iraq, no coherent Iraq Liberation Front, and no great desire on the part of Iraqi people that there should be one. "The lesson could be that Iraq isn't Vietnam, but if the coalition does all the wrong things, it could become Vietnam, complete with its own My Lai massacres. In its consequences at least, Fallujah has come close."

Is this our Vietnam and is this 1968 all over again?

Man, this is all a bad dream.
The year ended, not with an anti-war Democrat, but with Richard Nixon in the White House, and with Cambodia yet to come.

It ended with the French Right winning a landslide in the post-?v?nement elections, with Labour entering a period of crisis which culminated, 18 months later, in a Conservative government.

Twenty-one more years had to pass before a new Prague spring, and Mikhail Gorbachev blamed 1968 for putting the cause of reform in the Soviet Union back by more than a decade. It saw the death of liberal republicanism in the States, and the beginning of the process whereby the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland was to be supplanted by 30 years of killings and murder. It was the year of Enoch Powell and a 30-year fear of even the word 'immigration'. It was the year that the great hopes of non-violent change, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr, were murdered. This violence found its way into the language. As Kurlansky puts it: '"Motherfucker" was everybody's word that year'.
Okay, then... here we go again.

Plus ?a change, plus c'est la m?me chose.... ? boire ou je tue le chien!

Posted by Alan at 20:54 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Sunday, 25 April 2004 16:10 PDT home


Topic: The Culture

Religion and Politics Today...

Well, that Kristof fellow over at the New York Times started it off today with a plea for tolerance...

See Hug an Evangelical
Nicholas D. Kristof - Published: April 24, 2004

The idea is that since good Christians are tolerant of all sort of perverse left-wing folks, perhaps the left should good easy on the born-again folks who want everyone to accept Jesus as their personal savior so we can have world peace and all the rest.

Here's the beginning and end - and click on the link if you want the detailed middle -
I've argued often that gay marriage should be legal and that conservative Christians should show a tad more divine love for homosexuals.

But there's a corollary. If liberals demand that the Christian right show more tolerance for gays and lesbians, then liberals need to be more respectful of conservative Christians.

... Liberals often protest that they would have nothing against conservative Christians if they were not led by hypocritical blowhards who try to impose their Ten Commandments plaques, sexual mores and creationism on society. But that's a crude stereotype, and it ignores the Christian right's accomplishments. Polls show that evangelical Christians are more likely to contribute to charities that help the needy, and in horror spots in Africa Catholics and other Christians are the bulwark of the health care system.

Moreover, saying that one will tolerate evangelicals who do not evangelize -- well, that's like Christians saying they have nothing against gays who remain celibate.

It's always easy to point out the intolerance of others. What's harder is to practice inclusiveness oneself. And bigotry toward people based on their faith is just as repugnant as bigotry toward people based on their sexuality.
Okay. Fine. Let them go to Fallujah and hand out Bibles. Couldn't hurt.

But the real issue in the last few days has not been the evangelical protestant folks who want to flood Iraq with bright-eyed youngsters eager to show those Muslim folks the error of their ways and how the love of Jesus will save them.

The issue is this week with the Roman Catholic Church deciding it had to say something about American politics, specifically about one guy running for president.

That started here:

Cardinal: Politicians Need Follow Church on Abortion
Philip Pullella - VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Friday April 23, 1:41 PM ET

Throwing down the gauntlet?
In remarks that could influence the U.S. presidential race, a top Vatican cardinal said Friday that a Roman Catholic politician who unambiguously supports abortion rights should be denied Holy Communion at Mass.

Cardinal Francis Arinze spoke amid a debate over whether Democrat John Kerry should be denied communion, which Catholics believe is the body of Christ, because he supports abortion rights.

At a news conference presenting a Vatican document restating standing rules about the celebration of Mass, Arinze was reminded of the Kerry case and asked if a priest should refuse communion to a politician who unambiguously supports a woman's right to choose abortion.

"Yes," he answered. "If the person should not receive it, then it should not be given. Objectively, the answer is there."
Cool. Excommunicate him, if you'd like. And say no Catholic can vote for him or that Catholic too will be excommunicated, and face eternal damnation and all that sort of thing.

Not my business - I'm not Catholic.

As expected, however, some folks just have to see a problem with this church position.

See Good Christians: Kerry, Bush, and religious double standards
Amy Sullivan, Contributing Editor, The Gadflyer - 4.21.04

Amy says this -
... I want to know why these same questions aren't being asked of George W. Bush, a man who has Jesus as his running mate and who told Bob Woodward that he doesn't turn to his father (George H.W. Bush) for advice, because he's more concerned about what His Father (God) has to say. No word yet on what God actually says.

But this is not just a throw-away point. Does Bush deviate from the teachings of the United Methodist Church? Yes he does, on some crucial political issues. Has he been reprimanded by leaders in his denomination? Yes, particularly on the issue of war in Iraq. And if you want to make this a question of who's the better Christian, then it's fair to ask why President Bush doesn't go to church. You heard me - the man worships at Camp David and every so often wanders across Lafayette Park (although the park is pretty much impassable now what with all of the security construction going on) to attend services at St. John's Episcopal Church. But the man who has staked his domestic policy on the power of civil society and of good Christian individuals to change lives isn't an active member of a congregation - the very kind of organization in which he claims to have so much faith.
But, Amy, everyone knows George is born-again. He doesn't have to prove anything.

Another fellow who writes under the name Atrios suggests as this story gets hotter and hotter, maybe some logic should be applied -
If the media wants to report this story, they should be obligated to note that "pro-Choice politicians" includes more Catholics than John Kerry, and that there are quite a few prominent pro-Choice Republicans. But, they're completely corrupt and would never dare let us in on that little secret.

Monday morning we'll have a little fun calling around to the offices of various Republican pro-choice politicians and asking their people a) if they went to Church on Sunday and b) if they took communion. Clearly, the day-to-day activities and policy positions of prominent Catholic politicians from all parties must be scrutinized for any deviation from doctrine. The world must know if they have taken the sacraments improperly or not at all. Their confessions should be public information.

... Call CNN at 404-827-1500 and ask them why they aren't discussing other politicians who shouldn't be receiving communion according to the Vatican, such as Tom Ridge and George Pataki. George Pataki and Rudolph Giuliani are pro-Choice Catholic politicians.

Then, you can ask them why they aren't mentioning the fact that the leaders of George Bush's Church opposed the war in Iraq.
Well, that happened - Bush own United Methodist Church reprimanded him and said the war was a really bad idea - like it was immoral or something. But they were probably just kidding around.

Oh yeah - I almost forgot. Arnold Shwarzenegger should be mentioned too - Catholic and pro-choice. Poor guy. No communion for him. And no Catholic votes either.

Now over at a site called Liberal Media Conspiracy we get the long view, the historical perspective, as it were -
In 1960, Republicans insinuated that a Catholic, Democratic candidate with the initials JFK, was unfit for the Presidency because he would do the Pope's bidding as President.

In 2004, Republicans (with the aid of the buttinsky Vatican) are insinuating that a Catholic, Democratic candidate with the initials JFK, is unfit for the Presidency because he won't do the Pope's bidding as President.

We've come a long way in 44 years, haven't we?
Well, we, as a nation, have decided we want a religious man to run the country, one who is proud of it, and doesn't see why anyone would have different views.

And of course Bush's father, who was, oddly enough, president for a time himself, and had his own war with Iraq, had similar views.

Here's what George the First said on August 27, 1987 - concerning people like me who don't exactly have a dog in this fight and find the whole business puzzling: "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots."

So I shouldn't say anything about this business at all.

It just find it all to be... most curious.

Posted by Alan at 13:56 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Saturday, 24 April 2004 14:11 PDT home


Topic: Oddities

Minor book note...

Jonathan Kay posts this at the web log run by The National Post - a rather dull Canadian newspaper, as you might know.
There is a weird phenomenon going on in Britain: The hottest book on the market is about ... punctuation. It's called Eats, Shoots and Leaves and over 500,000 people have purchased it.

The story behind the title describes why punctuation is so important:

A panda walks into a bar. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why? Why are you behaving in this strange, un-panda-like fashion?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda walks towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."
Indeed.

The problems of this world are directly related to punctuation?

Well, maybe not all the problems of this world....

Posted by Alan at 09:00 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Saturday, 24 April 2004 09:04 PDT home

Friday, 23 April 2004

Topic: Election Notes

How we choose our leaders -

Eric Alterman has this to say:
Based on his intellect, experience and knowledge of the issues Kerry -- like Gore -- is obviously more qualified to be president than Bush is. Furthermore he is morally far better qualified to send men to die in battle if need be. And finally, he is also closer to the American people on the panoply of issues that people say matter to them. What Kerry is not is more "likeable," at least as defined by the punditocracy. This may even be true. But so what? Just look where "likeability" has gotten us. We are the only advanced democratic nation in the world even to entertain such nonsense as a serious issue. And yet it will likely decide whether Bush and company are given a chance to finish the work they have begun: destroying the fiscal basis of our children's future; ensuring the violent hatred of our nation for generations to come and inviting Christian fundamentalists the right to determine what rights we enjoy in our public and private lives. I know that sounds overheated and inflammatory. I only wish it were, but there it is. That's all.
And the counterargument is?

Posted by Alan at 18:35 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
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