The shrines to Princess Diana were bad enough but, such is the price of technological progress, now we have iShrines erected to Steve Jobs along with weeping women and sniffling men.
We do need heroes, of course, but we seem to have developed an uncanny knack for picking the wrong people: the day Diana died, Mother Teresa died; the day President Kennedy died, C. S. Lewis died. On October 5th, 2011, Steve Jobs died; so did Arthur Leroy Brooks of Stratford but he is ignored even though he didn’t fill the world with irritating mobile phones whose batteries can’t be changed unless you send them back to the factory.
“The positive review of the latest Harry Potter film in L’Osservatore Romano is symptomatic of serious problems in the condition of many modern Catholics,” Michael D. O’Brien, author of “Harry Potter and the Paganization of Culture,” told LifeSiteNews last week.
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Cardinal Ratzinger’s was not the only Vatican voice to express grave concern over Potter. The Vatican’s chief exorcist, Rev. Gabriele Amorth, has repeatedly condemned the Harry Potter novels. In 2006 he said, “You start off with Harry Potter, who comes across as a likeable wizard, but you end up with the Devil … By reading Harry Potter a young child will be drawn into magic and from there it is a simple step to Satanism and the Devil.”
I haven’t seen the final film yet, but I have read all the books. I could be wrong – time will tell – but I am reasonably convinced that Messrs Ratzinger, Amorth et al are tilting at the wrong windmill.
For all its magic, wizards, wands and silly quidditch, Harry Potter remains a classic tale of good against evil. I don’t think it is as good as Lord of the Rings or Narnia, and obviously it is lacking the more explicitly Christian parallels – particularly in Narnia.
Tolkien was criticised for the apparent lack of the Christian God in Lord of the Rings: his response was that obviously he is there – it is up to the reader to notice him. C. S. Lewis was criticised for allusions to the occult in his science fiction trilogy, particularly in That Hideous Strength. So Christian Potter pooping is to be expected.
Flawed though they may be from a Christian point of view, at least the books use God given imagination to revitalise the truth that we dwell in a universe where cosmic forces of good and evil do battle – we are the soldiers and good eventually triumphs.
Job. Ed grovels to keep it – his job that is, not his dignity. In a characteristic celebrity apology, Ed the talking head emoted effusively over his verbal faux pas – complete with carefully rehearsed suppressed tears – over what he said: namely that Laura Ingram is a ‘‘right-wing slut’”. He made no mention that he had changed his mind, just that he should not have spoken his mind.
Last night I sank into a nostalgic haze while listening to some music that appealed to me when I was growing up: These Were Our Songs: The Early 60’s.
The lyrics seem preposterously naive by today’s standards, of course. For example:
You come on like a dream, peaches and cream,
lips like strawberry wine:
you’re sixteen, you’re beautiful and you’re mine.
You’re all ribbons and curls, ooh what a girl,
eyes that sparkle and shine:
you’re sixteen, you’re beautiful and you’re mine.
But, as a callow youth, listening to this did manage to sum up what seemed at the time to be the profound attachment I felt towards my fifteen year-old girlfriend. Alas, it turned out not to be true love, so my romantic gushing was soon to be transferred to her replacement.
Unfortunately, for the last 20 years or so, popular music has laboured mightily to dispel the sentimentality of its progenitor: romantic pretension has been expunged by a crass unrelenting assault on the sensibilities:
Your bark was loud, but your bite wasn’t vicious,
And them rhymes you were kickin were quite bootylicious,
You get with Doggy Dogg oh is he crazy?
With ya mama and your daddy hollin’ Bay-Bee,
So won’t they let you know,
That is you fuck with dre nigga you’re fuckin wit Death Row,
And I ain’t even slangin them thangs,
I’m hollin one-eight-seven with my dick in yo mouth, beotch
Which, I have on good authority, could be roughly translated into the slightly less obtuse, but no less revolting:
You talk a lot but you can’t back it up,
You can’t rap well,
You must be crazy to try and mess with me,
I will kill you. Your mum and dad will be crying at your funeral,
If you mess with Dr. Dre you are messing with every rapper on our record label.
I don’t sell drugs, I will yell murder as you perform oral sex on me. Bitch.
If that wasn’t bad enough, here is Me So Horny from 2 Live Crew:
It’s true, you were a virgin until you met me
I was the first to make you hot and wettywetty
You tell your parents that we’re goin’ out
Never to the movies, just straight to my house
You said it yourself, you like it like I do
Put your lips on my dick, and suck my asshole too
I’m a freak in heat, a dog without warning
My appetite is sex, ’cause me so horny.
Romantic illusions have been replaced with pornographic illusions.
Take me back to the ’60s.
Without appealing to the trappings of organised religion, Lost dealt – albeit less than coherently – with good, evil, sin, redemption and the immortality of the human spirit; so it could legitimately claim to be “spiritual, not religious”, the title, coincidentally, of a conference sponsored by the Diocese of New Westminster:
Our keynote speakers understand the spiritual and religious culture of this region in a way that few people do. It is an example of the bridge building that this group is talking about. The book Cascadia explains how we are a distinctive bio-region and the argument in the book is that it is the geography – the mountains, the fish, the rivers, the continental divide – that has created who we are and has helped shape us spiritually. We are different here, largely to do with the fact that we are at the end of the continent and we have this amazing geography.
It looks suspiciously as if the writers of Lost may have drawn inspiration from the meanderings of this obscure and largely defunct corner of dessicated Canadian Anglicanism: Lost was also about a distinctive bio-region, an island, and the effect that it had on those who lived on it. Lost was not specifically Christian – although one could argue that it had a firmer grip on the human condition than the Diocese of New Westminster, since it acknowledged the reality of sin.
Over time, Western Anglican Christianity has become more preoccupied with spirituality, mystery and arcane ritual, and less with truth; consequently you find a speaker at the conference sponsored by the Diocese of New Westminster saying,
“In South American shamanic ayahuasca ceremonies I’ve surrendered to the pulsing heart of the green world and immersed in Jewish Sabbath and high holy days gatherings with friends. I’ve probably taken too many workshops on a wide array of psycho-spiritual and body-oriented healing arts. Some people might say I’ve eaten too many vegetables! My root-meditation practice is inspired by the Buddhist tradition. For 45 minutes each morning I sit and breathe in loving-kindness, a focusing practice that strengthens the heart’s innate capacity to open, accept and forgive.”
This has descended from mystery to muddle – where it cavorts with the spirituality of Lost in which, had you watched it, you would have discovered:
The island has a “heart” of light kept glowing by a stone cork plugging a hole;
Human guardians of the island live thousands of years after drinking anything – from wine to muddy water – given to them by a previous guardian;
A man who fell down the corked hole can – and does – turn into a plume of smoke at will;
Electromagnetism from the corked hole is lethal to humans – apart from one;
A sequence of doomsday numbers keeps reappearing: their significance is never adequately explained;
The island can move through time when an antique wheel is turned.
This goes on and on and none of it makes much sense, scientifically or metaphysically.
Of course, Lost, unlike the Diocese of New Westminster, isn’t pretending to be a church and endless unanswered mysteries (well, some were answered) are good for ratings; moreover, Lost has accomplished what it set out to do: make lots of money for everyone involved – it has been a resounding success. It even entertained a few people along the way – something the Anglican Church has never been able to manage.
A British woman came forward Friday alleging sexual assault against director Roman Polanski, who is currently under house arrest in Switzerland for the sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl in 1977.
In a press conference at her attorney Gloria Allred’s Los Angeles office, Charlotte Lewis, an actress who appeared in Polanski’s 1986 film “Pirates,” alleged that Polanski sexually abused her in the “worst way possible” when she was 16 years old. Lewis claims the attack took place in Paris in 1982, four years after he fled the U.S. to escape sentencing for the sexual assault of 13-year-old Samantha Geimer.
According to Lewis, now 42, Polanski was aware that she was 16 at the time when he “forced himself” on her in his apartment. The legal age of consent in France is 15.
“He took advantage of me,” Lewis said. “What I want is justice.”
The renowned defenders of the sexually innocent, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, are busy organising lawyers to force the extradition of Polanski so that he can face charges in the US and Britain.
What I would really like to see is the MSM’s reaction to Bill Maher calling Michelle Obama a MILF. Sadly, that isn’t going to happen, and the fact that he used the epithet about Sarah Palin has been largely ignored because – well, anyone can say anything they want about Sarah Palin. According to Maher, she is a moron. A moron who made 12 million dollars in less than a year; Maher’s net worth is only $13M. Perhaps he is envious.
Ugh. Obnoxious comments from “Hardball”‘s Chris Matthews and “Real Time”‘s Bill Maher, who were discussing Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann on TV. Matthews said, “They showed up together looking — well, they’re attractive ladies.” And then Maher added: “I think you’re right. You hit on something there. They’re attractive, especially to the Republican Party which is not known as the party that does really well with the opposite sex. Usually they’re doughy white men. I think they look on Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin as, you know, MILFs … and I agree. They’re morons I’d like to forget.” Hey, guys? It’s still sexist — and unprofessional — when liberals say it.
Police in the US state of New Jersey have ordered a family to cover up their snow sculpture of the famous nude Venus de Milo after a neighbour complained.
Eliza Gonzalez sculpted the snow-woman with her son and daughter on her front lawn in Rahway following a snowstorm.
Leo Tolstoy in his later years was taken to see a film by a friend. His response was, “why would anyone watch such rubbish?”
Malcolm Muggeridge, after a lifetime of making his living from television, retreated to a small English village and had his television aerial removed. I met him in the early 1980s and mentioned how much I enjoyed his writing. He said that that was music to his ears; I doubt he would have responded similarly had I said how much I enjoyed his TV appearances.
Theodore Dalrymple isn’t swayed favourably by the pernicious twaddle that emanates from the electronic purveyor of mental pollution either:
Shortly before Mr Blair was elected Prime Minister of Great Britain, a newspaper discovered that I had not had a television in my home for about thirty years. This struck the editor of the newspaper as an extraordinary circumstance; so extraordinary in fact, rather like having been an anchorite in the Syrian desert subsisting on locusts and honey, that he contacted me to ask whether I would agree to having a television installed in my home so that I could tell readers, after a week of watching it, what I thought of it. This I consented to do on one very firm condition: that the newspaper took the television away at the end of the week. The newspaper agreed.
When the television arrived, I plugged it in and turned it on. The picture was grainy, for something else was required, evidently, to have a good reception. But it was good enough to know what was going on.
The programme was one of those in which a degraded family, or perhaps I should say a group of human beings who have lived in close association for some time or other, airs its appalling behaviour in public in return, I should imagine, for money, and for the prurient delectation of a voyeuristic audience.
A fattish woman approaching middle age was complaining in a monotonously high-pitched voice, halfway between a harangue and a wail, about her three daughters who were aged twelve, thirteen and fourteen respectively. According to her, they ‘did drugs’ and had left home to be prostitutes.
At this point, the presenter of the show interrupted her and asked the audience to give a warm welcome – with, of course, a round of applause – to the three young trollops in question, who came tripping down the steps to the television set with smirks of self-satisfaction on their faces. No lack of self-esteem there, I thought; rather too much, in fact.
Of course, mother and daughters began at once to trade high-pitched insults and accusations, and generally behaved like a dog and a cat enclosed in a sack. There was undoubtedly a morbid fascination in all this, though the spectacle was disgusting; suffice it to say that I was not encouraged by it to take steps to ensure that the television had a permanent presence in my home.
The newspaper had given me a timetable of programmes to watch, though it did not inform me as to the criterion it had used in their selection. Whether what my wife – who likewise had had no exposure to television for years before I met her – and I watched was better or worse than the average that was on offer to viewers, we could not say; but it seemed terrible pabulum to us, having approximately the same effect on our consciousness as a food-mixer on vegetables. It turned it into a kind of soup.
weeping women and sniffling men.
