Anticipating 2008

At this time of year we are always treated to a flurry of predictions for the new year. Unfortunately I cannot join the fun because my crystal ball is out of order. For your enjoyment, however, here are a few things I suspect will dominate the headlines for the next twelve months.

U.S. Presidential Election: If you're already tired of the endless campaign, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Tomorrow nigh week real people in Iowa will actually start selecting delegates to the national party conventions. Then things will start to happen really fast, and we ought to know who the two nominees will be sometime in the next few weeks. Then we will be treated to fun of a different kind as the two finalists spend months slinging rocks at each other. There's a good chance that one, and possibly both, candidates will be senators, which means every single vote in the U.S. Senate will become a presidential campaign issue. Congress may just grind to a complete halt - which wouldn't be such a bad thing, actually.

Troops Withdraw From Iraq: The "surge" strategy may or may not be working, depending who you ask and how they measure success, but one way or the other the U.S. military commitment in Iraq should start to fall significantly this year. The Pentagon simply can't sustain current troop levels for another year unless they lengthen tours beyond 15 months. Hopefully the force reduction will be orderly and the Iraqis will be able to maintain order on their own.

New War Fronts: The troops who leave Iraq may not get much rest before finding themselves in another hotspot somewhere around the Gulf. Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey are all potential destinations. Iraq will not be the last campaign of the War on Terror.
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Geopolitics: Apart from the Middle East there are plenty of other trouble spots. Radical Islam is moving into Asia and Africa, for instance. It will be interesting to see how Russia develops when Putin moves from president to prime minister. North Korea, Venezuela, and other potential enemies will bear watching. The summer Olympics in Beijing will have vast political implications.

Pope Visit U.S.: Pope Benedict XVI will visit New York and Washington in April. He is scheduled to address the United Nations and meet with President Bush. The publicity surrounding this will be intense and coming in the midst of the presidential campaign it will inevitably turn political.

Culture War: The movie and TV writer's strike, if it drags on, may have the pleasant side-effect of sparing us from Hollywood's worst indignities, at least temporarily. Don't applaud too quickly, though; they will find new and innovative ways to pipe garbage into your home.

Bolt from the Blue: It's the things you don't expect that always matter the most. The possibilities are endless: another 9/11, nuclear war in the Mideast, bird flu pandemic, economic collapse, you name it. At some point in 2008 we'll get an ugly surprise, and maybe more than one. Should we worry about it? No. Just be ready. You can save time if you start praying now.

I can say with complete confidence is that this time next year, things will be a lot different. In what ways? I'll get back to you on that.

Feline Music

With 6.7 million views on YouTube, this cat named Nora is officially a star. Click here if you don't see the embedded video. There's also a sequel if you want more.

Nora's sublime and thoughtful notes are a vast improvement over most of what passes for music today. Hopefully she will devote all of her nine lives to composition and give us a full symphony.

Hat tip: Sister Mary Martha

Bella is Worth the Wait

I promised I would report back on the movie Bella after I saw it. Mrs. Driving Out The Snakes and I managed to sneak out this weekend long enough to visit a brand new theater where Bella had just opened.

After seeing reviews like this one from Barb Nicolosi I must say I was a little concerned. Apparently some people are a annoyed about the extensive PR campaign the producers have staged in Catholic and other Christian media. I get their point, having heard or read the same story several times in different places the last few weeks. I was convinced after the first time.

That said, I can't blame the producers for trying to promote their film however they can. When you don't have the budget to run much advertising or offer free action figures at Burger King, working through the media is the most cost-effective way to get the word around.

As for the movie itself, I liked it a lot. So did Mrs. D.O.T.S. The romantic story is touching and unfolds in an interesting way. The pro-life message is not at all pushy or moralistic. The Latino family scenes really show what a loving home is like. There are a few holes in the plot and some things that don't make logical sense. It's still well worth seeing, far better than the other dreck that comes out of Hollywood these days. I'm looking forward to more and even better films from Metanoia.

Arise a Knight

In Kingdom of Heaven (2005), a young man living in the Middle Ages learns his fate is to be a knight - an honor and burden he does not seek but nonetheless accepts. This is the Oath he must take:

Be without fear in the face of your enemies.
Be brave and upright that God may love thee.
Speak the Truth always, even if it leads to your death.
Safeguard the helpless, and do no wrong.

I have no idea if this language is historically accurate, but they aren't bad rules to live by. We would all do well to adopt them. Yet, as Balian learns in the film, keeping his oath is much harder than it seems.

Click here if you don't see video embedded below.

Jefferson vs. Madison

... according to the inimitable Mark Shea:

The odd thing about America is that our whole system of government is predicated on a faith in the Fall. That's why we have checks and balances: because nobody can be trusted with too much power. The moment fallen man is given power is the moment he is tempted to forget what the power is for and start using it to acquire more power, no matter what it takes. And, just in case you are wondering, "Does this have dark implications for America since we are the sole superpower on earth?" the answer is "Yes."

The tension in American culture has always been between Jeffersonian cockeyed optimism and Madisonian realism. Our governmental institutions are founded on the belief that you cannot trust people with power. Our culture is founded more and more on faith in The Wisdom of the Common Man. That, by itself, is not a bad balance. But in the 20th century, there have been fewer and fewer Madisonian voices and more and more flatterers. Our entire advertising industry is all about giving you moral permission to indulge yourself because You Deserve It.

Religion has, to a large extent, also been co-opted by the flattery industry. God is crazy about you because you That Sort of Chap. Joel Osteen is the Face of American Protestantism. Jonathan Edwards, not so much. Catholics are afflicted with the Church of Aren't We Fabulous where it's always the Feast of St. Narcissus. Our Manufacturers of Culture are constantly playing to our vanity. And a theology of the Fall is highly inconvenient to this project. It's "guilt manipulation". It's "hatriotism". We want to hear about how wonderful we are, how wronged we've been, how much everybody owes us, how powerful we are.

READ THE REST

You Must See Bella

I am not in the habit of recommending movies I haven't yet seen. Having heard several interviews with the producers and rave reviews from people who were at pre-screenings, however, I'm excited about a new film called Bella. It opens next weekend, October 26.

Bella is described as "a true love story that shows how one day in New York City changed three people's live forever." The three producers - Alejandro Monteverde, Leo Severino, and Eduardo Verastagui - seem to be men of great faith who want to build an oasis in Hollywood, with artistic and entertaining films that touch people in profound ways. Bella won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival, so it's clearly not "preachy" or overtly religious. It is just a good movie, with a subtle yet powerful pro-life message.

Leticia at Causa Nostrae Laetitae has chronicled the amazing story of this film and its makers. Bella is a miracle in itself, as the producers overcame numerous obstacles that should have been insurmountable. Read Leticia's review and other articles here.

Bella opens October 26 in a limited release of 31 cities. If it does well in the first week or two, other theaters around the nation will be encouraged to show it. So it's very important that as many people as possible see Bella in its opening days. Click here to see if it is playing in your city. I'll post more thoughts after I see it for myself.

Bella Official Site
Yahoo! Movies Bella Page
iMDB Page
Rotten Tomatoes Page
Bella trailer on YouTube

Rise of the Wiggers

Bill Cosby, who in recent years is making it his mission to preach self-responsibility to black Americans, has a new book called Come On, People. On Sunday he appeared on Meet The Press along with his co-author, Dr. Alvin Poussaint of Harvard Medical School. They seem to have their work cut out for them.

MR. RUSSERT: One of the things that you did in “Come On, People” were—was to compile statistics, very hard-headed numbers.

DR. POUSSAINT: Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT: And they are numbing when you read through them. You mentioned one. One out of three of homeless people are black. Blacks make up 12 percent of our population. And here’s a some—a few more that you cite which I think really does help us dramatize how critical this discussion is. And let’s read them through here.

“Homicide is the number one cause of death for black men between 15 and 29 years of age and has been for decades.

“Of the roughly 16,000 homicides in this country each year, more than half are committed by black men. A black man is seven times more likely to commit a murder than a white man, and six times more likely to be murdered.

“Ninety-four percent of all black people who are murdered are murdered by other black people.

“Although black people make up” “12 percent of the general population,” “make up nearly 44 percent of the prison population.

“At any given time, as many as one in four of all” black men, “young black men are in the criminal justice system—in prison or jail, on probation or on parole.”

Those are numbing numbers. They truly are. What can we do? [Full transcript]

What the transcript doesn't show is that when Russert said "What can we do?" there was a long, awkward pause before Cosby began to answer. My impression was that he knows full well that there are no good solutions. Two and maybe three generations are lost forever. It's very sad. Cosby has a few specific public policy ideas, which may help some, but what really needs to happen is a moral awakening in the black communities. There is only so much that outsiders can do to help.

The broader point I wish to make is that I fear the trends we see among young blacks are finding their way to white youth, through the conduit of rap music. More from the MTP interview:

In fact, the audience for gangsta rap is made up predominantly of white youth, who get a vicarious thrill from participating in a black thug fantasy, including the degradation of women. Black youth, as well as some misguided adults, have defended the use of the N-word, suggesting they are somehow making it a positive term...

If you’re going to use those words and the white male is buying the CD, then they’re buying into those words, and those words are being used on their women. Hint, hint. Domestic violence in the police department. Now they also share in the N-word. And it’s OK to say it, according to them, because it’s on the record...

Remember, too, that for a while that white kids who were into some of this rap and so on started calling themselves “wiggers”? ...

... the young, young girls will be dancing to words that degrade women and degrade them and they’re dancing to it. It shows you how much values have been corrupted, you know, by some of the media influences, and the young people can’t distinguish between what’s right and wrong. It’s like the, the bad stuff has become normal, and then they even see it as part of their culture instead of something that’s abhorrent and, and, and, and hurtful to their, to their lives and to their community.

Now, I know plenty of white parents who either don't mind or don't know that their kids listen to the vile lyrics of gangsta rap. I suppose it is possible, in a family situation that is otherwise healthy and stable, that this kind of music won't cause any harm. On the other hand, it's insane to suggest that music has no effect on us at all.

Music is processed by our brains differently from spoken or written words. It makes us feel good, and we retain information better when we acquire it musically. Kids who would never read poetry in English class love to hear the same words set to music. Properly used, this can be a good thing. Use it to spread misogynistic, violent, and hedonistic thoughts, and it should surprise no one if we end up with misogynistic, violent, and hedonistic youth.

White Americans need to hope and pray that people like Cosby and Poussaint are successful in their mission - not only because blacks are fellow citizens and humans, but because whites are vulnerable to the same disorders. The trends you see in black youth today will overtake white youth. When white kids begin calling themselves "wiggers," you know it's already starting. The violence and chaos that prevail in inner cities are spreading to white suburbs.

Think I'm wrong? I hope I am. Let's talk again in twenty years.


UPDATE 10/16/07: Mark Gordon has a post about the Cosby book. Otherwise not much reaction in the blogs I read.

America is Las Vegas

The brilliant social critic Neil Postman argued that in every era there is one city that captures the American spirit and becomes its symbolic center. In the Revolutionary era, that city was Boston, with its cry for freedom. In the mid-nineteenth century, New York, a melting pot of diverse cultures, became the symbolic center. In the early twentieth century, Chicago embodied the spirit of entrepreneurial adventure with its railroads, steel mills, and cattle.

“Today,” Postman says, “we must look to the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, as a metaphor for our national spirit and aspiration, its symbol a thirty-foot-high cardboard picture of a slot machine and a chorus girl. For Las Vegas is a city entirely devoted to the idea of entertainment, and as such proclaims the spirit of a culture in which all public discourse increasingly takes the form of entertainment.”

Whether you agree or disagree with Postman, Vegas is key to understanding not only where we are as a culture, but also where the rest of America is headed. Like it or not, America is looking more like Vegas every day.

Source

Miss SC May Be Smarter Than We Think

The incoherent blonde who became the temporary Queen of YouTube this week may have the last laugh. I have long doubted the old saw that "all publicity is good publicity" but this incident may make me reconsider.

First a quick apology. This young lady has a name, which is Lauren Upton. While the women in these contests apparently don't mind objectifying themselves, they remain human and I should have regarded her as such and identified her by name. Mea culpa.

Ms. Upton parlayed her stumbling answer into an appearance on the Today Show, where she appeared reasonably intelligent and mature, along with a video feature on the People Magazine web site. It seems that she also has career ambitions and possesses an extensive and, ahem, compelling portfolio of model-type photographs. See an example here.

Given her unique gifts, it will not be at all surprising if Ms. Upton reaches a level of professional achievement far above her fellow beauty pagenat contestants, and indeed greater than most U.S. Americans, even those who can read maps. Let us hope that - unlike some buxom blondes - Lauren's success will be more than skin deep.

Horrors, We're Losing Money

WSJ reports that Hollywood's recent fixation with intense blood and gore is not paying off as hoped.

Wedbush Morgan Securities analysts William Kidd and Jung Hwang argue in a research note today that movie maker Lions Gate Entertainment needs to branch out. Its core horror franchises — “Saw” and “Hostel” — may be running out of steam. Also, and more interestingly, they argue there may be too many horror movies on the market.

They say 25 horror films are being released this year, compared with an average of 8.5 horror films a year from 1982 to 2006. They note recent films are generally more gory and sadistic than in years past. Unfortunately, they say, more and more gruesome film-making doesn’t translate into additional buckets of box-office blood. They estimate the 2007 horror picture slate will generate about $600 million from 25 films; in 1999, the box-office take was $611 million from only 11 films. more

Here we have powerful evidence that money doesn't necessarily outweigh ideology in Hollywood. Check out this list of the top grossing films of all time, adjusted for inflation. Notice a trend? Here are the top five: Gone With The Wind, Star Wars, The Sound of Music, E.T., The Ten Commandments. The rest of the list is much the same.

The fact is that decent family films tend to make a lot more money for the studios and producers than adult-oriented horror, violence and sex-themed movies. Yet Hollywood continues to push out blood, gore, and soft-core porn. This tells me they are less interested in making money than in pushing their own twisted visions onto society.

When the public doesn't buy it, what's the response? Push the envelope by getting bloodier, gorier, and sexier. It still doesn't work, but the idea of making movies that normal people might want their kids to see still doesn't occur to many producers.

This sort of thing drives economists crazy, because it proves that business people aren't always rational. The ideology motive can often outweigh the profit motive.

True Beauty

So last night we watched the Miss Universe pageant on TV. My lovely & talented wife picked Miss Japan as the winner early on, and as usual she was right. Congratulations to Riyo Mori.

I am not generally a fan of these events but it did bring back some memories. Way back in the 1970s, beauty pageants were annual events on the liturgical calendar of network TV. (For younger readers, this was before we had “cable.” All TV programming came from a strange-looking antenna on the roof. On a good night we were lucky to have five clear channels. Somehow we survived.)

Back then it was also not common to see scantily clad women displaying themselves for all to see. That being the case, the televised swimsuit competitions were eagerly anticipated by at least half the viewing audience. Now, of course, male Americans can hardly escape the onslaught of young things writhing and undulating before us. This may explain why beauty pageants are no longer a ratings bonanza for the networks. This year Miss Universe was surpassed by a rerun of something called Two and a Half Men. Beautiful young girls prancing on stage? Yawn.

In fact, the contestants would probably argue that they are more than just pretty faces/bodies; they have minds, too. I believe them, but the sad fact is it doesn’t matter anymore. The feminist quest to “empower” women by using sexuality as a weapon has had the opposite effect. For men, the mystery is gone. We’ve seen it all. The secret pleasures we longed for as teenagers have lost much of their allure because they are now everywhere.

Young ladies are well aware of this, and their response is to become even more audacious and revealing. Last year's “accidental” view of the nether regions of Britney Spears was, I fear, a sign of things to come. The bikini-clad Girls Gone Wild videos provide an even better example, consisting as they do not of professional models but of otherwise undistinguished college students who think in a drunken fog that flashing their breasts to an anonymous male audience is fun and exciting. Then they wonder why it is so hard to find a man who will view them as more than an object.

Do I mean we should go back to the days of head-to-toe coverage, or Islamic veils for women? No. All I’m saying is that Miss Universe was a reminder of a different time, and in some ways a better time.

The 1970s were not an age of innocence by any means. Nonetheless, it is hard to argue that the increasingly open sexuality of our culture is a positive development for anybody. Far from being “empowered,” women are trying more desperately than ever to extract money and security from men, using their bodies as the medium of exchange. The fact that they can now do this voluntarily is nice, but their real goal remains elusive.

Men share the blame for this state of affairs, of course. We give in too quickly to our adolescent impulses. We run from responsibility and commitment. This needs to change, too. Someday it will - but probably too late for the last generation or two. They don't know what they are missing.

Beauty, we are told, is in the eye of the beholder. I'm not sure that is true. Last night I watched a group of the supposedly most "beautiful" women in the world. Yet none of them were remotely comparable to the woman I've given my life to. I have my own Miss Universe, and I love her more every day. I can't imagine anything better.

Lost Withdrawal

As much as I criticize the dismal state of our culture, I should confess to being occasionally entertained by Hollywood. For example, I'm addicted to the ABC-TV show Lost, which aired its Season 3 Finale episode last night. (If you haven't seen it yet and want to remain unspoiled, stop reading now.)

For those who are unaware, Lost is about a group of people whose plane crashes on a tropical island, leaving the stranded. Many strange things happen and the series has turned into a massive puzzle with multiple layers of mystery. It's complicated. How many other TV shows have their own online encyclopedia?

More important, Lost is about human emotions and relationships: family, love, sacrifice, faith, and hope. We get to know the characters through flashbacks to their prior lives. All are faulty in various ways. Thrust into a terrible situation they must share with strangers, they must live together - or else die alone.

I'm a little bit shook up after last night's episode because my favorite character died. While it may have been the most dramatic and heroic death ever seen on network TV, and was long foreseen, I will miss Charlie because I saw some of myself in him. No, I'm not a heroin addict, or a musician. But we have a few other things in common and it was interesting to see him deal with those challenges. I feel kind of like I've lost a friend.

We need more TV programming like Lost. It's dramatic, entertaining, and (more or less) clean. It is also immensely profitable for the network and the producers, so you'd think they would get the message and dump some of the drivel that fills the rest of the week.

The producers recently made a deal with ABC to continue Lost for three more seasons and then bring it to a definite ending. Season 3 is now complete and Season 4 won't begin until February 2008. That gives us all eight long, frustrating months to ponder the mysteries of the Island. On the other hand, I will now have more time for blogging. :)

For those in the know: who was in that coffin? Post your theories below.

Musical Chicken & Egg

One ironic aspect of the Don Imus brouhaha is the fact that the insulting, racist things he said are almost routine in black culture. James Taranto revealed yesterday there is actually a popular band called Nappy Roots. They warmed up the crowd at a Barack Obama event just last year. So presumably Mr. Obama doesn't find the term racist.

Likewise, the term "ho" ("whore") in reference to black women is common in rap music. So what's the difference? The difference is that Don Imus is a white male. Because of his ethnic background, he is forbidden to use these terms. They are reserved for inner-city youth.

This brings up the question of modern music and its meaning in our culture. Some people think rap and heavy metal music has a perniciously negative effect on the young people who listen to it. Does it? Or it this just another aspect of youthful rebellion? I know that my parents didn't care for the music I liked. I suspect their parents didn't care for the music they liked. And I don't really care for the music my son likes.

Zippy points us to a long, scholarly article from the Hoover Institution that argues it is different this time. Basically, the authors suggest the music isn't a cause of our broken culture. It is a result of our broken culture.

Why, we must ask, do kids like this music that we Baby Boomers find so unpleasant? Answer: because it expresses the deep longings they have for the security of home and family:

If yesterday’s rock was the music of abandon, today’s is that of abandonment. The odd truth about contemporary teenage music — the characteristic that most separates it from what has gone before — is its compulsive insistence on the damage wrought by broken homes, family dysfunction, checked-out parents, and (especially) absent fathers. Papa Roach, Everclear, Blink-182, Good Charlotte, Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam, Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, Tupac Shakur, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Eminem — these and other singers and bands, all of them award-winning top-40 performers who either are or were among the most popular icons in America, have their own generational answer to what ails the modern teenager. Surprising though it may be to some, that answer is: dysfunctional childhood. Moreover, and just as interesting, many bands and singers explicitly link the most deplored themes in music today — suicide, misogyny, and drugs — with that lack of a quasi-normal, intact-home personal past.

The study goes on to list many specific examples of popular artists pouring out their souls with sad stories of broken homes. A common theme, especially among rappers, is the absence of a father during childhood. This is a perfect reflection of what really happens in the urban black population. The prototypical nuclear family of mom, dad, and kids is almost unknown. Yet the kids somehow know it is the ideal, and they miss it. They sing about it.

This also explains the popularity of "retro" themes among kids today. Consider That 70s Show which was amazingly popular on Fox TV. The Foremans had their share of problems - but they were a family, and other characters were drawn to them because of it. I think many kids today fantasize about living in a such a "normal" family.

Certainly some of the attraction in modern music is simple youthful rebellion, just as our generation experienced in the 60s and 70s. Kids from loving, intact families are still drawn to the latest rap just because they like the beat. Even so:

...there is no escaping the fact that today’s songs are musically and lyrically unlike any before. What distinguishes them most clearly is a the fixation on having been abandoned personally by the adults supposedly in charge, with consequences ranging from bitterness to rage to bad, sick, and violent behavior.

And therein lies a painful truth about an advantage that many teenagers of yesterday enjoyed but their own children often do not. Baby boomers and their music rebelled against parents because they were parents — nurturing, attentive, and overly present (as those teenagers often saw it) authority figures. Today’s teenagers and their music rebel against parents because they are not parents — not nurturing, not attentive, and often not even there. This difference in generational experience may not lend itself to statistical measure, but it is as real as the platinum and gold records that continue to capture it. What those records show compared to yesteryear’s rock is emotional downward mobility. Surely if some of the current generation of teenagers and young adults had been better taken care of, then the likes of Kurt Cobain, Eminem, Tupac Shakur, and cer­tain other parental nightmares would have been mere footnotes to recent music history rather than rulers of it.

I have to say this article struck me like a ton of bricks. The music many in my generation find so unpleasant isn't just an attempt by the next generation to annoy us. It is a finger in our faces, reminding us how we failed. It is pain and sadness. It is a cry for help.

Sadly, for many of these kids help is too late. We failed them. We will pay the price.

Girls Gone Wild vs. IRS

Lost in all the Don Imus news this week was the downfall of another cultural icon. Joe Francis, founder of the "Girls Gone Wild" video empire, is behind bars. He was initially jailed for contempt of court in a civil case filed by some of his underage photographic subjects. Two days later he was hit with an indictment by the IRS alleging he deducted $20 million in phony business expenses from his 2002 and 2003 tax returns.

The Smoking Gun has Francis' mug shot and a copy of the indictment. It's interesting reading if you are a tax nerd. Among other things, he disguised about $4.7 million in construction expenses for a house in Mexico as "consulting services."

No doubt Francis will hire the best lawyers money can buy, but the IRS is not an organization to be tangled with. It will be interesting to see what happens to the Girls Gone Wild business. Could the IRS end up owning the whole company? Stranger things have happened.

Adios Imus

I've never heard more than a few bits and pieces of Don Imus. Nothing I heard made me want to listen any further. I think the furor over his recent comments which now seem to have ended his radio career says more about the rest of us than it does about Imus.

First of all, who did Imus insult? He did not, as far as I've read, say that all black females are nappy-headed hos. He was referring specifically to the Rutgers ladies basketball team. What he said was ignorant and ugly and he owes those young ladies an apology.

If, however, you are not a member of the Rutgers ladies basketball team, you have no business demanding an apology, because you have not been insulted. Who made Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton the official conscience of black America? Was it black Americans, or was it the media which needs a handy face to put on stories about race?

Second, Imus seems to have a long pattern of saying outrageous things like this. Yet he has not lacked for a wide variety of famous, and generally liberal, people willing to make guest appearances on his show. Why are they all suddenly so outraged with him? This could not be a surprise to his regular audience and guests. This suggests to me their current disgust has more to do with media attention than any principles of propriety.

Third, the cancellation of Imus by MSNBC and CBS Radio was driven totally by money. Advertisers were starting to bail out. No advertisers, no show. It's not at all complicated. I don't believe for a second the faux sensitivity of the network executives. They are protecting their business. Nothing more, nothing less.

I will leave you with a quote from Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, placing this story in the context of other recent events.

“Two years ago, Penn Jillette (of the comedy team Penn and Teller) went on Showtime calling Mother Teresa ‘Mother F—king Teresa’ and called the nuns who worked with her ‘f—king c—ts.’ Showtime is owned by Viacom and that is why I wrote to its chief, Sumner Redstone, to register a complaint. He wrote back extolling the merits of ‘artistic freedom’ and ‘tolerance.’ Last year, on Viacom-owned CBS radio, Jillette said Mother Teresa ‘had this weird kink that I think was sexual,’ compared the saintly nun to Charles Manson and said she ‘got her [sexual] kicks watching people suffer and die.’ Again, nothing was done about this.

“In 2005, Bill Maher went on HBO at the time of the death of Pope John Paul II and said, ‘For those who could not make the funeral, the Vatican has asked that in lieu of flowers, just stop touching your d—k.’ He also said that the whole story of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and the Resurrection was ‘grafted from paganism’; he ended by mocking the death of the pope and the upcoming conclave. The letter I received from HBO said that ‘it’s a free country, and people are free to say silly things—even on HBO.’

“Right before Easter, the Catholic League protested the chocolate Jesus with his genitals exposed that was to be shown in the art gallery of the Roger Smith Hotel in midtown Manhattan (located on street level, the public was invited to eat him). Air America radio co-host Cenk Uygur, writing on ‘The Huffington Post,’ said, ‘So is the argument that Jesus didn’t have a d—k? Or were people offended because it was too big? Too Small? Too immaculate? Not immaculate enough?’ Regarding Imus’s remark, Uygur called it ‘derogatory and insulting.’

“Similarly, Joan Walsh on Salon.com said the chocolate Jesus was not ‘a big deal,’ and advised people not to go see it if they didn’t like it. She has now called on Imus to be fired. Even New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg said ‘don’t pay any attention’ to the chocolate Jesus, but he now finds it necessary to brand Imus’ comments ‘repugnant.’

“In other words, Catholic bashing is humorous and an exercise in liberty. Racism is awful. Bigotry, then, is neither good nor bad—it just depends who the target is.”

Children of Men

A new movie called Children of Men sounds very interesting. I have not actually seen it but the premise is fascinating.

Imagine this: it is the year 2027 and humans have lost the ability to reproduce. No one can get pregnant. There are no more kids. The youngest people alive are now in their 20s. School buildings sit empty while society descends into a chaotic hopelessness. There is no future for mankind.

This whole idea gives me the chills, frankly but it's not too far off from what Western civilization is in the process of doing to itself. Apparently in the film there is a glimmer of hope for humanity. There is no such hope for societies like Russia and most of Europe, where low birth rates are inexorably leading these societies toward extinction. The U.S. isn't far behind.

Of course, in the real world some humans are reproducing, and rapidly. Among this group the most popular name for newborn boys is "Mohammed." That particular society has a bright long-term future. Hopefully this film will help people wake up to where we are headed. It is almost too late.

Here is a particularly interesting review of Children of Men.

Celebrities Behaving Badly

Try as we may to escape, there is no way to remain ignorant of the latest antics of those whom our culture anoints with popularity. Anna Nicole Smith's self-destructive behavior finally caught up with her last week and the news channels are obsessed. Meanwhile Lindsey Lohan is "happy" in rehab, her mother tells a breathless nation.

Exactly why did Ms. Lohan need to go to rehab in the first place? She's not even legal age yet but apparently spends half her time bar-hopping. Why do celebrities enjoy these hedonistic lives and get away with it?

An economist at Clemson University thinks he has the answer. His research suggest that the key factor is replaceability.

To establish which explanation of bad behavior works best, Kendall gathered data from the National Basketball Association. Players in that league have been notorious for their rude and at times even criminal behavior. Fights on the court, brutish fouls, and even rape have been in the news in recent years. Kendall set out to discover which players behave the worst.

The NBA is a fine place to test these competing theories. Its players are young, have high incomes and guaranteed contracts. There is also significant variation in ability. Some players, like Kobe Bryant of the Lakers, have such preternaturally special skills that they fundamentally change the competitive level of their team. Others play their positions adequately, yet could be easily replaced. Do the irreplaceable stars tend to misbehave more?

To find out, Kendall gathered data on unsportsmanlike ``technical'' fouls for many years. He then performed a statistical analysis to identify what set the bad boys apart. While Kendall analyzed behavior across the entire population, his list of the worst offenders is a Who's Who of sportsmanship's greatest embarrassments, including such players as Rodman, Charles Barkley and Rasheed Wallace.

The results were striking. Income matters, but substitutability appears to matter more. If you want to know who will be a bad actor, look to a player's salary rank on a team. The player with the highest salary will behave the worst.

If you have two identical players, one who makes $10 million and is the third-highest-paid player on a team, and another who makes $10 million and is the highest paid on his team, the latter will behave much worse. The fellow with the top salary believes he cannot be replaced and abandons self control. MORE

This makes sense even without the statistical evidence. I've seen it myself in the business world. A key person can have bad habits and aggravate co-workers, but if the boss has no better alternatives to get the work done he will usually put up with it.

At the cultural level, we need (or think we need) actors and athletes to save us from lives of boredom. So we excuse their boorish behavior and continue buying tickets and watching games. The pressure to make it to the top - or to stay there - then drives these celebrities to ever more outrageous acts.

The good news is that the Internet is giving all of us the power to create our own celebrities. We don't have to live with whoever the studios tell us are our heroes - just find your own stars on YouTube.

For actors, at least, there is also the threat of being replaced with digital creations. The technology to do so is advancing rapidly. In Lord of the Rings, for example, Gollum was a digital character, given life only behind the scenes by Andy Serkis. Did he not seem real to you? In a few years, I'll bet actors won't be necessary at all. At that point there will be a lot of unemployed stars. A computerized Tom Cruise works a lot cheaper than the real one.

Lord Tom?

I wish I were making this up, but it is actually true:

Tom Cruise is the new “Christ” of Scientology, according to leaders of the cult-like religion.

The Mission: Impossible star has been told he has been “chosen” to spread the word of his faith throughout the world.

And leader David Miscavige believes that in future, Cruise, 44, will be worshiped like Jesus for his work to raise awareness of the religion. MORE

Now I can believe there are people out there nutty enough to worship Tom Cruise. What I would really like to know is whether Mr. Cruise really thinks of himself this way. From what I have heard about him recently, it isn't that far-fetched.

Oprah!

Carl Olson at Ignatius Insight dares take on the Mighty Oprah.

There's no doubt that Oprah has a tremendous impact on the views and emotional lives of numerous viewers. So much so that a December 2006 AP-AOL poll had Oprah in third place (behind President Bush and American troops, and tied with Jesus and Barack Obama) in response to the question: "If you were asked to name a famous person to be the biggest hero of the year, whom would you choose?" Pope Benedict XVI was far down the list, of course.

One of the few times I ever watched Oprah at length (more than 30 seconds) was when musician/singer Sting (aka, Gordon Sumner) was interviewed. When Sting described how he had left his first wife to be with his second and current wife, Oprah and the audience erupted in passionate, adoring applause. Apparently this was in response to Sting's earnest explanation that he committed adultery and abandoned his first wife (well, he didn't put it that way) because he "had to be true" to himself and he couldn't waste away in an unhappy relationship—after all, his mother had done so, and he saw what that did to her.

And that is likely a big element of Oprah's appeal: the constant message of "be true to yourself," believe in yourself, create your own destiny, follow your own path, blah, blah, blah. After all, it worked for Sting (no word, of course, about Sting's first wife. Celebrity trumps feminism, I suppose)... MORE

Olson is now trying to wait out the 30,000 Oprah fans who have surrounded his home demanding that he recant this heresy. Oprah must be obeyed without question. All hail Oprah!

Gabbana on Parenting

I caught flack from some folks for this post in which I suggested children should have both a) a mother and b) a father, thereby ruling out gay couples becoming parents. Now, via Drudge Report , we learn that a well-known gay person agrees:

Gay designer STEFANO GABBANA is against the idea of same sex couples becoming parents, because he believes children need both a mother and a father. Gabbana insists taking a child away from its mother is "cruel" and that he will never adopt, although a female friend recently agreed to become the surrogate mother of his child through artificial insemination. He says, "I am opposed to the idea of a child growing up with two gay parents. A child needs a mother and a father. "I could not imagine my childhood without my mother. I also believe that it is cruel to take a baby away from its mother." MORE

It isn't clear why Gabbana has engaged a surrogate mother if he really feels this way, or who will raise the resulting child. Nevertheless, his parental instincts are correct. I hope he can persuade other gay people to abandon their quest to produce children.

You can be further enlightened by clicking the MORE link above and then the "view all comments" link in the top right of the page. A very interesting discussion is underway from those on both sides of the issue. Mr. Gabbana's comments are probably not going to help his business prospects.