Trailer for Dennis Hurley's new flick

Dennis is the guy who did the Albino Code.

I can't make it to Massachusettes, sorry dude. Looks funny. Don't forget to bring band-aids.

Jonah on "Covetousness as Fiscal Policy"

In an interesting LA Times editorial, Jonah Goldberg points out that the rich aren't "made of money" and the continued attempt to milk them parallels the "curse" of despotic oil-rich nations. Excerpt:

Today, our politics seems to be suffering from a "rich people curse." We treat the rich like a constantly regenerating piñata, as if they will never change their behavior no matter how many times they get whacked by taxes. And we think everyone can live well off the goodies that will fall to the ground forever.

Of course, typical wage earners pay plenty of taxes, but not in ways that foster a sense of reciprocity with the government in Washington. Their biggest federal payment is the regressive payroll tax intended to fund Social Security and Medicare. And even though as a matter of accounting these payments are no different from any other taxes, they're sold simply as retirement and health insurance programs.

Meanwhile, Democrats keep telling the bottom 95% of taxpayers that all of America's problems will be solved if only the rich people would pay "their fair share" of income taxes. Not only is this patently untrue and a siren song toward a welfare state, it amounts to covetousness as fiscal policy.

Read the whole thing. Jonah is always humorous, even though he uses the word indeed too much. On the other hand, I probably use the word humorous too much, as well as the word excerpt.

If ye hath ever read Gibran...

...this poetic review will be very funny unto all y'all. Excerpt:

At the second opening, these words:
“You the talkative I have loved, saying, ‘Life hath much to say’; and you the dumb I have loved, whispering to myself, ‘Says he not in silence what I would fain hear in words?’”

At the third opening, these words:
“Work is love made visible.”
To which I reply, You must have been pretty lucky in your job,
If you ever actually had a job,
But then I recall myself to myself,
And I discern that my task at the moment is but to open the book,
Not to comment thereupon.

Therefore I turn, and cause the Book to be opened a fourth time:
“Men do not desire blessedness upon their lips, nor truth in their bowels” _
— And I make no comment about the bowels,
But rather allow the completion of the thought, such as it is—
“For blessedness is the daughter of tears, and truth is but the son of pain.”

Reminds me of a great scene in Elvis Meets Nixon where the King is sitting in his Graceland bedroom reading The Prophet and he throws the book across the room in anger. Then he goes to his his walk-in closet, puts on a purple cape-suit and starts pigging out on Hershey bars. Priceless.

Happy Veteran's Day

And having said that, I direct you to an interesting "Litany of Nonviolence", even though the guy calls it a "liturgy". A priest I knew used to call this kind of stuff "para liturgy" (as in, "Yo, dude, I don't DO para liturgy, all right?")

Anyway, this guy is some kind of soldier-against-the-war type, I read something of his on Sojourners. I got a huge kick out of the prayers directed to Karl Marx, Ziggy Freud, Chuck Darwin and Maggie Mead. And Gautama Buddha is mentioned alongside Saint Mother Teresa as a fellow "fountain of compassion". Good grief! that Buddha guy just sat on his fat ass staring at his navel! Some fountain; at least Mother Teresa practiced compassion every fricking day by actually helping poor and sick people.

Near the end we have Our Lady addressed as an "unwed mother". Finally Our Lord shows up at the finale. That's kind of a twist; usually He is addressed before the saints. Of course, usually Al Einstein isn't mentioned at all.

On the other hand... uh, no... words fail me.