A priest, a rabbi, and a minister walk into a comparative religion class...

So we've all heard about the drastic failures of American public schools, and how high-school seniors can't find their ass on a map of the country and whatnot. Gentle readers, Time is deeply concerned about this state of affairs, so much so that the cover of their April 2nd issue boldly purports to prove "Why We Should Teach the Bible in Public School (But Very, Very Carefully)." I'd like to propose an alternate cover article, maybe something like "Why We Should Shut the Hell Up Until We Have Something Meaningful to Say About This Hoary Yet Unceasingly Controversial Topic."

It's not really discussing the Bible in a classroom setting that bothers me, I'll get to that in a second, it's the fact that the article basically boils down to "we should teach the Bible, not religion." I'd like to offer everyone involved a tasty shake with that penetrating McArgument. Like, a comparative religion class is a great idea, frankly. Everything outside of Christianity is so mystifying to us as a country, and it's just retarded to look at Judaism, or Islam, or any other long-established religion as some kind of wacky fad. But, this David Van Biema goober in Time is a little too focused on the Bible in particular, and as always when this subject comes up, I get concerned over whether we're talking about teaching or converting.

The article doesn't really piss me off that bad, it's simply a waste of time because there's nothing new in it. The author mentions a few facts about the history of the debate, and drops the "fact" that the Bible is "the most influential book ever written" (almost certainly true, but something about the definitive tone doesn't sit right), thus proving that it should not be ignored in any comprehensive educational setting. Again, I pretty much agree, but seriously, why is this a cover story? I know several agnostics and atheists, and they all know the Bible is a materially important book, no matter their opinion of it, but maybe that's because none of them are stupid. The guy also asks rhetorically whether teaching the Bible wouldn't play into both secularists' and evangelicals' hands, then answers by way of saying "Yes. Both. Which may suggest that each is exaggerating its claim." OK…seriously, what does that mean? There's a paragraph that quotes a secularist, and one that quotes an evangelical, but it still doesn't explain the reasoning behind that cutesy bullshit. Then there's some stuff about a couple of proposed curricula, and his observations of a classroom wherein a Bible class is being taught. That's it. End of story. Whoopty-fucking-doo.

The only thing that kind of grabbed me was this paragraph:

"A BASIC QUESTION: WHY TEACH THE BIBLE and not comparative religion? It may not be necessary to provide Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism with equal time, but it seems misguided to ignore faiths that millions of Americans practice each day; and a glance at the headlines further argues for an omnibus course. Yet could a school demand that its already overloaded kids take one elective if they take the other?"

Well, actually, it's absolutely fucking necessary to devote equal time to other religions, if what we're really talking about here is the broad, humanistic process that is true education. This is where it feels a little like the author wants to crank up the temperature in the Easy Bake Christian-Making Oven. Stir in a Bible, sprinkle the briefest of lip services to "other religious texts," and broil for four years of high-school at Fahrenheit 451. It's not that I am seeing some grand conspiracy here, just the opposite; it's the breezy "oh shit, I almost forgot to name-check that Islam thing in one single fucking sentence" forgetfulness of everything outside the comfort zone. I mean, the guy seems neutral enough in tone, and he talks enough about the constitutionality of Bible education that I know he isn't a dumb-ass, but, what would a dumb-ass think about this subject? I don't like any of the answers I come up with for that.

For example, I think about how a Bible class would play out in my not-so-enlightened hometown of Corinth, Mississippi. And, first of all, I am truly grateful to my parents for never forcing me to go to church in Corinth, which anyone could tell you is strangled socially, culturally, and economically by an incredibly noxious mixture of ignorant "Christian" assholes. I mean, I haven't read the local laws or stone tablets or whatever the fuck real closely, but I know liquor sales are illegal, and possibly dancing, or looking at any given sex organ for more than five seconds. Anyway, all that being said, how can anyone expect in fairness that small-town teachers like the ones I grew up with talk about the Qur'an when everything in their environment begs them to be scared as shit of Muslims? I don't expect every teacher to be perfectly objective when dealing with such powerfully divisive subject matter, but that's kind of the point in NOT TEACHING THIS SHIT IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE. Jesus. The plain fact is that Christianity is not going to scare the bad old alternative religious beliefs away, so, if you can't talk about them all and sundry with due diligence and without freaking out, then the Bible as taught in school is nothing more than an extension of whatever you're getting in Sunday school. So, what's the point? Oh yeah, that's right, turning the whole of American society into a crazy Dobson fundamentalist zombie factory. My bad, I forgot. Queer killin' rocks!

Like I said before, I'm not feeling a grand conspiracy about this particular issue stated in this particular way, but it's just a little too risky to me. God knows I hate to trot out the tired old "slippery slope" routine for any length of time, but seriously, this kind of shit could get ugly if we aren't careful. I guess I could compare it to Pandora's Box. Booyah...Jason's ability to draw a metaphor from a mythological source, 1, America's subtly and not-so-subtly instilled Christian idioms, 0. Suck on THAT, Bible!!!

Manliness…BY GOD

"Manliness" has to be just about the biggest single piece of bullshit emotional baggage that men carry. Men have hungrily abused both substances and other humans in general throughout history for the purposes of manliness. Men are drowned in this shit from the time they are children, and I'm sad to say many of us don't get through it unscarred to become actual human people. Men die sooner than women in its mindless service. In celebration of the incredibly stupid-ass concept of manliness, I'd like to list a few of my favorite things that are manly enough to put fucking hair on your chest:

1. Wife beating
   
2. Rape
   
3. Misogyny of other unspecified types (see: referring to women by any term other than women, "LET'S GO GET SOME BITCHES")
   
4. Homophobia (see: gay bashing, assault, fucking murder)
   
5. Inferiority complex (see: giant Earth-devouring trucks, sports cars)
   
6. Fear of intimacy (see: "she actually wants me to TALK to her")
7. Repression of emotion, subsequent depression, alcoholism, murder-suicides
   
8. Lack of meaningful heterosexual relationships (see: man whoring, "LET'S GO GET SOME BITCHES")
   
9. Lack of intimate friendships of any kind (see: "dudes don't talk about that stuff," repressed homosexuality)
   
10. The goddamn fucking back-clap hug
    
11. Every fucking thing about That Guy (see: you know EXACTLY who I am talking about, "LET'S GO GET SOME BITCHES")
    
12. "Masculine" play fighting (see: dudes who can't actually fight but feel like they have to try, also repressed homosexuality AGAIN)
    
13. Excessive Bible thumping about only MANLY concepts (see: Church of Christ, "barefoot and pregnant")
    
14. Disgusting conception of sexuality (see "old enough to bleed, old enough to breed," "LET'S GO GET SOME BITCHES")
    
15. The phrase "LET'S GO GET SOME BITCHES" or its usage
    
16. The continuing existence of Hummers: not the sex act, the fucking mega-huge, cock-substitute trucks (see: penis enlargement pills, creams, surgeries, magic spells)
    

GO MANLINESS!!! I NEED A BEER AND A SHOTGUN!!!

This Black Snake Moans...with excellence! Also, 300 (stupid-ass gay jokes)

Let's talk for a minute or twenty about how 300 is kind of stupid.

People tell me sometimes not to make fun of something like a comic book movie, because they're supposed to be stupid. That doesn't have to be true, but it definitely IS true most of the time. Like, I guess Ghost Rider is a stupid movie too, I'll never know because I sure as hell won't watch it, but it's about a guy who rides a motorcycle and his head turns into a flaming skull every now and then. Now, flaming-skulled-biker movies are predisposed to be stupid, but why does 300 have to be? We're talking about some pretty impressive shit that actually happened, albeit in a way no doubt different from how a comic book would tell it, so why does that story have to be cheapened by stupid shit like ten million gay jokes?

I'm not going all Mr. Serious Art Feelm on it, and I don't expect a comic book adaptation to be necessarily realistic. There are all kinds of great liberties you can take with comic book material and it's a mistake not to take some of them. I thought Sin City was fucking cool, but everybody involved there took the comic book thing and just ran with it like hell, and the story itself is so balls-out crazy that it ended up being all kinds of fun. 300 came from Frank Miller too, so it surprised me that it's so blah. It's supposed to be a pretty much shot-by-shot recreation of the graphic novel, and that itself is kind of a dumb-ass move on everyone's part, because you might as well put some kind of individual spin on it, but whatever. There are some cool images, although overall it doesn't even look as good as you'd expect, and it doesn't have much else going for it besides looks. The problem could be a lot of stupid dialogue and cheesy shit going on, and seriously, about ten million gay jokes.

OK, so it pounds you over the head with the fact that the Spartans are the heroes here, they are "real men," so I guess the Persians have to be "vaguely androgynous and/or fags." Is America collectively that stupid? Like, why does Xerxes have to be RuPaul? And also why does Xerxes' camp have to have all kinds of "freaky" sex acts going on inside? I came in to see a battle epic and all of a sudden I get vignettes from Hot, Deformed Lesbian Bitches? I mean, I'm not humorless about this kind of thing at all. It's just that I expect it to actually be funny, and not somebody's homophobic pottymouth acting up. For example, the trailer for Knocked Up was attached to 300, and that shit will be funny as hell, and one of the jokes is that Seth Rogen is an expectant father, and his friend says he'll help "rear the kid." Jason Segel snickers out "Watch out, he wants to REAR your kid!" and I responded by laughing my ass off. I mean, I'm not above this shit. It's all about the childishness of the joke overpowering hatefulness, like when a friend of mine told me he was in a threesome the other day and I asked what the guys' names were. Fun all around! That's totally different than Leonidas in 300 saying the Athenians were "philosophers and boy-lovers" or some similar bullshit. Sure, that's factually true, but it's not like the Spartans and every other Greek didn't get into sport-fucking their brethren from time to time. Of course, none of that matters, because the joke for 2007 America is that nothing says taking it up the ass like reading a book. Jesus. Seriously, somebody tell me, are we all that fucking stupid? And with the shot of Leonidas' wife getting it from behind? Leaving out the fact that she's hot, it was all just way too much manly gamer dork attitude for me, I guess. Maybe they thought the audience would all be guys who had only the slightest acquaintance with vaginas. Who knows.

And also, while we're talking about my favorite things, I don't want to forget the ugly American shit 300 quietly hauled up to the table too. Leaving out the fact that the Persians were all dandies, and corrupt ones at that as proven by bitches actually KISSING!!! ohmygod did you see them up in the middle of their warlike goings-on, they also represent "mysticism" whereas the Greeks are all about "reason." So…yeah, that's right…

"Gee, I'm glad those brave, noble, hard-charging, hot-wife-doggy-style-fucking Spartans never surrendered to the kinda sissy, ambiguously non-white, differently religioned Persians! HEY do you think there is a parallel between those PERSIANS and this whole Earthful of DARK PEOPLE that AMERICA HAS TO KILL?!? Glory Be we cain't surrender to them Terrorists!!! Cause if it ain't Chrish-tin, it's puuure mystic-cism!!!"

Accuse me of reading into it if you want, I guess, but I don't think I'm crazy. It's not like I even think the movie was consciously pushing an agenda. I read a review where the critic said it was too silly to be actually about anything, politically or otherwise, and I mostly think that's true. I also read that the director had to quash rumors that 300 was government funded, and that's just retarded. Most of the feeling I get off it in this respect comes from how trained people are to jump on anything that jibes with some jingoistic bullshit right now. The last thing I would want to do is feed on that shit, and if I were writing a movie I would parse it word for word about fifty times to make sure I wasn't. So, I don't know whether it was a conscious choice, but I'm pretty positive somebody's "AMURICANS DON'T DUCK-N-RUN" was acting up. It's so awful to me to hammer everyone's frayed post-9/11 nerves but I guess that's how the movie industry rolls in general. But, anyway, I went through all that mostly to say don't waste your $8.50. Black Snake Moan is good, though. Go Craig Brewer!

New and unimproved

So I'm switching my blog from MySpace to Blogger, including moving the old entries from there over here. Any entries before this one were imported, including their original date and time stamps. Anyway, same old shit, different site. I serve at the pleasure of being completely ignored.