What would Jesus do?

Like many people, I was appalled this morning to read Pat Robertson's comments regarding Venezualan leader Hugo Chavez. I am not a member of any Christian denomination, but to me assassinating someone (even a foreign leader you don't like) seems to be the exact opposite of Christ's message. For which, it must be remembered, he was assassinated. I was all set to write a squib pointing this out (in a humorous way of course). Then I thought, "Wait a sec. Pat Robertson, as much as I despise him, has probably read the Bible a lot more closely than I have. I'd better check my sources before going off half-cocked." As we all know, most people who read this blog are highly devout fundamentalist Christians, as well as real sticklers for accuracy. So I skimmed through the New Testament, and you know what? Robertson's right! Christ is constantly offing people, usually for political gain. The dude's a one-man killing machine. "For He so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten sniper." "Blessed are the hitmen." "Do unto others, but cover your tracks, to minimize blowback." The whole thing reads like a study packet from The School of the Americas. The apostle John has some particularly interesting things to say about remote-controlled carbombs. And the whole reason Jesus had to raise Lazarus is because he had flown into a fit of rage and...you'll have to read it yourself. It's so bloodthirsty that I really don't feel comfortable posting excerpts here. Suffice to say that I was shocked; who would've imagined that the Sermon on the Mount was delivered from the Grassy Knoll?

Fans of Doug Kenney...

...founder of National Lampoon and 70s comedy icon, will enjoy this article. It's specifically about Caddyshack, but gives a nice summation of the man and his career, which is ultimately a very sad story.

We have no chairs...

...so I can't type for long, but two things: 1) Santa Monica is GREAT. 2) There's a great exchange of comments here at Jon Schwarz's blog, Tiny Revolution (read down the thread). I didn't want to besmirch the thread's excellence by adding this factoid (you'll see why), but I seem to recall from my reading that the dictator Sulla was consumed by worms. Also, striking while the ire is hot: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was very disappointing. Johnny Depp is a great actor, but his performance here is extremely offputting, as was Burton's attempt to locate the movie in something like our own reality. Our artistic era suffers from a surfeit of timeliness; we have an historical self-regard bordering on prejudice. The only reason for the remake I could ascertain was that the old one didn't look current. And where the original movie (and book before it) delivered Dahlian black humor and whimsy, the remake gives us context-free pop culture references (Busby Berkeley, 2001). And don't get me started on the lame backstory for Wonka; explaining him is like explaining how a peach can grow to titanic size. "So, Aunt Spiker, are you ready to investigate this hostility of yours? Was James's mother your parents' favorite child?" Roald Dahl would've puked.