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December 05
December 31, 2005
Hey Everyone,
We’ve set Brian Nemeth up with his own blog HERE at eyewitnessflava.com. It’s just getting started, but be sure to bookmark it and check it out, give him feedback, etc.
Posted by: darksandal in Uncategorized | Permalink Comments
December 31, 2005
The Rocky Mountain News reported yesterday about the Ted Haggard/Mikey Weinstein email exchange that was sent out to various media and blog sources (including the Toilet Paper, and now now posted up at Non-Prophet)
The debate, if you haven’t been following, is about the Constitutionality of proselytizing on the Air Force Campus. Mikey Weinstein, a Jew, is suing the Air Force for what he believes is systematic violation of the establishment clause. New Life Church and Ted Haggard have come to the defense of the Air Force in this suit because they believe their religious freedom and the religious freedom of the cadets will be obstructed. You can learn more here and here.
Two things strike me:
1). “Haggard said he wanted people to see that Weinstein is ‘bombastic and condescending in those e-mails,’ and said he planned to put up the full exchange on a Web log.” To me, Haggard missed Weinstein’s tongue-in-cheeek tone entirely, which isn’t hard to do in email exchanges. But of course if their “friendship” had, previously, been cordially adversarial as the RMN article states, it isn’t a stretch to think that Weinstein would have been ribbing Haggard just as Haggard had ribbed him with the emailed joke, especially if Weinstein thought the exchange was private.
2). This is yet another completely bizarre media moment for New Life not unlike the awkward “Don’t Be Weird” email. Whatever their intention with “leaking” the exchange, Haggard comes off looking disingenuous at best, and like a bully at worst. It seems Haggard drew Weinstein out in a private, joking tone and then misconstrued (deliberately or not) Weinstein’s private, joking riposte, and then took offense and used it as grounds to leak the emails. It isn’t surprising that Weinstein felt “ambushed”. Whether or not it’s a misunderstanding, it should’ve been cleared up in private, or Haggard should’ve let Weinstein know he wanted to make it public — purely out of respect, i.e. no matter what New Life’s internal policies are .
Part of the reason the Establishment Clause exists, in my opinion, is both to prevent any majority — be it secular or religious — from bullying a minority where matters of religion are concerned. Free expression, however, stops at the point at which someone is using Federal dollars to forcibly coerce or bully someone because of their religious beliefs. If evangelical coercion is deemed systematic within the Air Force, then Weinstein has every right to sue the Air Force because it could be easily argued that the Air Force itself is forcibly advocating one type of religion, which violates the establishment clause.
It has also been made clear to me in discussions with Rob Brendle, Associate Pastor at New Life Church, (who writes about the issue HERE at his blog) that New Life takes issue, primarily, with Weinstein suing the entire Air Force rather than those individuals who may have bullied his sons about being Jewish. But what Brendle says is this: “This noisy minority’s real gripe is that, well, they are a minority. They hate the fact that, any way you slice it, most Americans believe something.” This is an odd attack since that Weinstein’s complaint was based on the fact that his sons claimed to have been called “filthy Jews” and that they’ve been accused of being responsible for Christ’s death. (And where would all these Chrisitians be if Christ hadn’t died for their sins, hmm?). Brendle’s argument would be considered astonishing if he was talking about blacks, wouldn’t it — that their real gripe is that, well, they are a minority? If New Life’s gripe with Weinstein’s case is that he should be suing individuals rather than the Air Force, then, why aren’t they rattling their cups about that in the media rather than trying, essentially, to discredit Weinstein in the court of public opinion? And why doesn’t Brendle mention this in his blog post if it’s the real source of his and New Life’s gripe?
Posted by: darksandal in Uncategorized | Permalink 1 Comment
December 29, 2005
From Chris Selvig, one of our many great friends who left CS for less sucky pastures, a link to the Perry Bible Fellowship site where many Christian comics like this one below live:
Posted by: darksandal in Uncategorized | Permalink 1 Comment
December 29, 2005
Congratulations to The Colorado Springs Independent for actually doing something interesting, conceptual,original and not humorless on the cover this week.
While I think everyone appreciates the wheat germ they sprinkle over the city each week, a little bit of flavor that they didn’t steal from someone else’s honey pot every now and again doesn’t hurt.
Congratulations, Cara. Now if you can just wean yourself from the word “wacky” and from biting other papers’ ideas, i.e. the coming “Regrets” issue (lifted directly from The Stranger,and this week’s issue in particular), you’ll be well on your way to not boring the shit out of people all the time.
Also, a suggestion to the Indy’s art department: you might want to give your cover stories and images permanent links when you post them so that these wacky, newfangled things they call blogs can link to them without the links changing. Your stories might actually get some play in blogland.
Posted by: darksandal in Uncategorized | Permalink Comments
December 29, 2005
The Gazette reports this morning that SAFER (Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation) is seeking to get a statewide initiative on the 2006 ballot in Colorado to legalize possession of small amount of pot if you’re over 21, just as they did in Denver this year.
Of course, the Gazette reports that local officials won’t back it, and their non-responses are typical politics-before-reason knee-jerking in Focus on the Family’s long, dark shadow, i.e.:
“I have yet to hear any discussion or clamoring for legalization of drugs” said Newsome, who said he has spoken to 60 groups since taking office in January.”
No, John — not “drugs” but “marijuana”. Drugs, such as nicotine and alcohol and Nyquil, are already legal. And if you haven’t heard people clamoring for the legalization of marijuana, then you obviously don’t read the opinion page of our republitarian Gazette, which every-so-often comes out of the closet about its support from the decriminalization of pot (as I suspect they will tomorrow, too).
“Newsome said he has not seen the proposed initiative and he would have to study it before commenting directly on it. But he said he is generally opposed to any effort to legalize drugs.
“I can tell you in my line of work we see people destroyed by drugs,” he said.
And by “destroyed” does he mean “sent to jail” or does he mean “stark-raving mad reefer lunatics beating their wives, driving high and killing people, and raping people”? If it’s the latter, then I think he must have pot confused with alcohol.
I’m clamoring for it, even though I don’t smoke pot, because I’d like to see intelligence preside over morality for once here in Colorado Springs, or for the moralists to shut up about gay marriage and start rattling their cups for a new prohibition of alcohol.
You can get involved here
Posted by: darksandal in Uncategorized | Permalink Comments
December 28, 2005
Colardo Springs’ The Great Redneck Hope is all up in on tour for the first time since sodomy was legalized in Texas.
Good readin over at the TGRH Blog
So yo! The first day of tour was a pretty unmitigated success, brah.
Wichita is always lovely to us, but this time was sweeter than even the gods could have known. It was an epic battle.
We drove like true doggs. There was stopping and eating at times. I read a book about a child molester. This book was called “The Bible.” True to form, there was much singing along to Alanis, Dan getting far too stoned and trying to eat his own fist, and Bradley blinking and looking around.
We also got pulled over for the first time ever. It went down like this:
We was cruisin’, reciting poetry to Dan, who was writing it down for posterity, when we saw the copper flash his lights. We pulled over, hid our massive stash of ganj n’ ludes. When the cop came to the window, Jeremy started crying. (This is because he was once cornholed by a nightstick.) The cop was all, “Yo, your tags are expired.” I was like, “We got a temp sticka, nigga,” and he was like, “Aw, dang.”
Anyway, we told the cop to chill, threw a handful of feces at him, and were on our way to the ‘Chita only an hour and change late. We pulled up to see one million kids at the show. Each one of them bought a shirt, a hoodie, a record and a copy of Dan’s solo album, called “Reflections on Gay: Dan Sings!” Seriously, a lot of kids, which is kind of refreshing after the last tour, where we played primarily for the girls from whom we’d borrowed money in the past.
We got the “Fuck Thunder” vinyl from Dustin, who is officially the sweetest bearded leprechaun we know, especially now that he’s started drinking. Our van is a merch machine: Six different shirt designs, all four full-length formats, rekkids, stickers, Staind tribute band albums, etc. Rock.
We’re now at Kody’s. Rickyfitts left last night for tour, so we spent most of our time this morning stealing their stuff. I scored a pretty sweet melon spoon.
Tonight is the sweetness of Alton, where we’ve been promised barrels of yak.
Posted by: darksandal in Uncategorized | Permalink Comments
December 28, 2005
Q. “What’s the hardest part about roller-blading?” A. “Telling your parents you’re gay.”
I’d say the hardest part of parkour (”free-running”) is telling your parents that you’re Spider-Man. Watch THIS Google video from Estonia, and THIS one from Russia.
Skateboarders gettin pwnzed by these crouching tiger motherfuckers!
Posted by: darksandal in Uncategorized | Permalink Comments
December 28, 2005
Is THIS GUY the next Daniel Johnston. Watch the video of “The Superbowl is Gay” over at Google Video, and see for yourself. Who is this guy anyway?
HERE’s another great video game music video of “The Internet Is For Porn”.
Google video is, BTW, a wonderful example of the future of TV on the web.
Posted by: darksandal in Uncategorized | Permalink Comments
December 28, 2005
There’s an interesting story at worldchanging.com about Craig Venter, that chap who mapped the human genome (privately, I might add), who’s attempting to create the first synthetic life form, a bacterium that they will, yes, zap with electricity. Frankenteria (not to be confused with cafeterium)!
via neatorama
Posted by: darksandal in Science | Permalink Comments
December 27, 2005
The Toilet Paper just got wind of a rumor that Drunk Dan the Stencil Man, a certifiable minister, who is already married to beer, got married to our friend and contributor Rachel. It’s no wonder they didn’t invite anyone, since many of us would surely have failed to hold our peace on the grounds that Drunk Dan is already married to beer! His marriage to Rachel constitutes polygamy, which will can only lead to gay marriage. The TP objects in absentia.
Posted by: darksandal in Uncategorized | Permalink 2 Comments
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