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Tuesday, April 13, 2004 |
The GWB Free Association Hour. Well, that
was a bizzaro spectacle. It seemed like each question was followed by
about 20 seconds of something that might be construed as a response in
a vague, Rorschach test kind of way, then a couple minutes of some sort
of random decoupage of old talking points on a variety of dubiously
relevant topics. Should we have an MI5 style intelligence agency? We're
committed to fighting AIDS in Africa! Sometimes I'm not sure whether
Bush is taking his cues from Karl Rove or Salvador Dali. The only hint
of the strategic influence of the former is that, in Bush's case,
running down the clock by any means necessary makes a certain amount of
sense.[Hit & Run]
It was strange the way he'd say "yes" or something like that at
the end of every question. He was recognizing the question as one that
he had prepped for, and it was time to go into a canned sort of speech
about a certain topic. The thing is, though, he isn't very good at
going into those canned things and especially at relating them to the
questions that wwere asked. He had little bits memorized, and just
turned those on from time to time. What an embarrassing excuse for a
president.
8:39:02 PM Permalink
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Waco in Iraq
.
My friend Jean Rosenfeld, whose work I've mentioned previously, is a
religious-studies researcher at UCLA who specializes in analyzing
extremist religious movements and the way religion can inspire
violence. She was among the scholars consulted by the FBI [Orcinus]
Orcinus is one of the best blogs I read, and this contains an
excerpt from an eye-opening piece comparing what's going on in Fallujeh
now with Koresh in Waco. Scary stuff; it appears the military is set on
making the same mistakes the FBI made in Waco.
8:34:40 PM Permalink
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Choose Your Own Savior. Jesus As You Like Him: "When Mel Gibson responded to critics of his blockbuster The Passion of the Christ by saying they had a 'problem with the four Gospels,' not with his film, he was staking a claim to authenticity: My Jesus is the real one, not yours.
But it's not just Mel. Everyone claims their Jesus is the 'real' one, the only authentic Christ unperverted by secular society or religious institutions. The best-selling fiction book The Da Vinci Code, which posits among other things that Jesus fathered a child by Mary Magdalene, styles itself as a fact-based account of the 'real' Jesus, who has been covered up by a Vatican conspiracy. Academics who seek evidence for the Jesus of history attempt to peel away layers of the Gospel narratives until the genuine Jewish prophet is revealed. Nowadays, even nonbelievers assert a superior understanding of who the actual Jesus really was and what he stood for.
Why can everyone from atheists to Zoroastrians lay claim to knowledge of the real Jesus? Because there are so many of him. The New Testament itself presents multiple Jesuses, not just among the four competing Gospel accounts but within each Gospel as well: Baby Jesus, Teacher Jesus, Miracle Worker Jesus, to name only three." —Chris Suellentrop, Slate [Follow Me Here...]
8:55:38 AM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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