Linking the dots

For The New Republic to criticise Pope John Paul II as "too absolutist" is a dog-bites-man story. But it becomes a man-bites-dog story when this charge is levelled by Damon Linker. Damon was formerly editor of First Things, a journal of conservative Judaeo-Christianity that in November 1996 hosted a symposium ("The End of Democracy? The Judicial Usurpation of Politics") to debate whether Roe v Wade and other excursions in pro-abortion judicial activism had absolved conservative Judaeo-Christians of their allegiance to the US Constitution.

UPDATE: Thanks to Douglas LeBlanc at GetReligion for linking to this, and for doing some further investigative digging. Mea culpa for not realising that Damon wasn't at First Things during its Harper's Ferry period; I did check that particular issue of FT to see who was editor then, but couldn't find what I was after. If DL's stint at FT postdated the much-publicised symposium, that makes it curiouser and curiouser that he would later work at that magazine.

It seems surprising, too, that a Catholic would both (a) be conservative enough to work at FT, but also (b) be liberal enough to consider JPII "too absolutist". Now, one can easily imagine a conservative Protestant admiring the Pope, writing for FT, but still considering the Pope's theology "too absolutist" in certain respects: on married clergy, for example, or contraception, or just war theory. (On the other hand, the Pope could equally accuse conservative Protestants of being "too absolutist" about, say, drinking of alcohol, or gambling, or use of images in worship).

King Henry II, King Henry VIII, and Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV Spin In Their Respective Royal Graves...

... as the world sees who's really boss:

LONDON - Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles will be married in a civil ceremony at 12:30 pm (7:30 am EDT) Saturday, his office announced Tuesday. The wedding was postponed a day to allow Charles to attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II. [...]

-- "Charles, Camilla reschedule wedding for Saturday", The Associated Press (5 April 2005)

The media have quoted duelling reasons for the postponement: "mark of respect" is the official reason, followed by "so C'n'C can themselves attend the papal funeral in Rome", but others whisper that C-1 and C-2 realised that in a direct, head-to-head timetable clash most of their A-List of dignitaries would be otherwise engaged.

"The Papacy: Putting A Spoke In British Royals' Re-Marriage Plans Since 1529"

UPDATE: Great minds think alike.

Further news: Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg better watch out. The stars this week are not favourable to the mortality of Europe's heads of micro-states.

Even the demons believe, and tremble

Speaking of Mark Shea, I should clarify that when I disagreed with him that Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings is a "deeply Catholic film", I was not merely saying "any good film with a Christian message of some sort must necessarily be Evangelical". Rather, some good films (and other sagas) are particularly Catholic in their theology, others are more Evangelical (and a lot, of course, are anti-both). I was musing on this recently when I got to see Hellboy at last, on DVD. And Hellboy really is a deeply Catholic film, in three ways:

(1) The good guys use particular physical objects (most notably a crucifix) to battle evil supernatural beings. Divine (or, at any rate, Lawful Good) power is depicted as being especially present in some things and not others. Hellboy explains how his gun, the "Samaritan", is loaded with (literally) magic bullets: "these babies. Made 'em myself. Holy water, clover leaf, silver shavings, white oak... the works." At another point, Hellboy's mentor mentions that "In 1938, [Hitler] acquired the spear of Longinus, which pierced the side of Christ. He who holds it becomes invincible." You don't see this, by contrast, in Frank E Peretti's fiction, which is also about angels battling demons. Peretti, a Pentecostal, depicts spiritual and physical warfare as basically exclusive alternatives, and Protestants would largely agree.[*] To an Evangelical, any supernatural power inherent in a relic -- granting, arguendo, that there's any there at all -- would come from its association with God or His angels and saints, and therefore cannot be appropriated and used by the bad guys for evil purposes.

I wrote this comment at Mark's blog last June (but unfortunately did not save a hyperlink to the Haloscan page):

Re [someone's question] “why is it [always] a Black [Catholic] Mass and not a Black [Evangelical worship] Service?” Generally speaking, Protestants do not regard God’s power as confined to physical objects. Therefore there’s nothing to desecrate with any supernatural effect. You can threaten, upset and anger people by burning down their church, but you can’t capture God’s power and make it your own by stealing the communion wafers or the wine/ grape juice. Protestants often get accused of "idolatry" towards the Bible, but even if someone steals or destroys your big black-leather-bound family heirloom KJV (with Words Of Christ In Red), you just buy another one from Word Bookshop. Whereas if someone steals the thigh bone of St Morticius from the reliquary, you can’t simply replace it with any old other bone from the graveyard – it has to be that particular object to have the same effect bringing you closer to God.

... I think that this is a strong factor in a lot of evangelical – well, you could call it “caution”/ “wariness”/ “fear”/ “revulsion” (choose your term) towards the Catholic/ Orthodox tendency to regard the Divine is especially present in particular places (icons, shrines, the Eucharist). If God is especially present in the Ark of the Covenant, then you “lose God” to some extent if the Philistines capture it. If God is especially present in the Eucharistic bread, then you "lose God" if Satanists steal and profane it; they don’t just bring condemnation on themselves. The Prot fear, I suspect, is that taken to extremes this undermines God’s sovereignty and you end up with some kind of "Open Theism".

As a rule, to Protestants, Jesus is safely glorified in heaven and cannot be “grasped”, so to speak, by anyone here on earth. To Catholics, I think, this makes God remote and uninvolved, and culminates in either hyper-Calvinism if God intervenes on earth, or Deism/ Unitarianism if He doesn’t.

I do not say that the above proves either side is right... [but] this fear/ wariness/ caution (call it what you will) explains a lot of the difference over this issue.

(2) The plot of Hellboy places great emphasis on freedom of individual choice. Nobody is predestined unto damnation -- not even a horned, red-skinned demon brought into this world by Indy-Jones-style Nazis opening a forbidden porthole through some occult rite. Hellboy's human sidekick reminds him, at the moment of temptation, "Your father gave you that choice". Literally, he's referring to the human scientist/ occultist who adopted the baby demon, but his words bear also the sensus plenior of referring to God. Some would say that this is outright Pelagianism -- but I do not think so. It can be interpreted in the Catholic sense: you have freedom of choice only because of the grace of God. At the end, Agent John Myers muses on this further: "What makes a man a man? A friend of mine once asked. It's the choices he makes. Not how he starts things, but how he finishes them." This echoes Dumbledore's words to Harry Potter in The Prisoner of Azkaban: "It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices."

Of course, Protestants would agree up to a point about human freedom -- human responsibility is a more accurate description of the Evangelical view -- but to see human nature as (relatively) equally balanced between good and evil is much more the Catholic position. Both sides agree that original sin tilts the billiard table of the conscience in the "sinful" direction, but for Catholics it's a dictionary under two table legs whereas for Prots the table is propped up at a ninety-degree slant.

(3) Hellboy also emphasises discipline and obedience to one's spiritual "parent". Hellboy chafes at the discipline his "Father" imposes, but we, the audience, know that Professor Bruttenholm's restrictions are objectively necessary to stop Hellboy endangering himself and those around him. Contrast other films where the lesson the hero[ine] must learn is not to trust some seemingly benevolent authority figure, but instead to think for oneself (I prophesy that Star Wars Ep III: The Sith Have Serious Issues will emphasise this with Anakin falling under the sway of the seemingly noble and paternal Palpatine).

This confirms, by a third witness, my earlier observation that Catholic comic-book superheroes (eg, Nightcrawler and DareDevil respectively) "tend to be tormented by guilt -- as you would too, if you either looked like a devil or dressed like one."

[*] But then compare this passage from Perelandra (Voyage to Venus), by the Anglican CS Lewis:

"...It stood to reason that a struggle with the Devil meant a spiritual struggle ... the notion of a physical combat was only fit for a savage. If only it were as simple as that..."

But then, of course, Dr Ransom realises that punching out the possessed don is precisely what he's meant to do.

Failure to Grasp the Concept - II

Although Mark Shea has resumed blogging due to recent events, he hasn't (yet) picked up this headline which appeared on the Google News page about 30 seconds ago:

Donna Cassata (AP), "Poll: New pope should change some policies", Minneapolis Star Tribune (5 April 2005)

"68.3 'Approve Or Strongly Approve' Release of Barabbas - Morgan Gallup Reveals"

The Kiss of Terry Sweetman is Death

Who'd want to get on the wrong side of Terry Sweetman? The fearless coulumnist from the Sunday Mail who likes to get it off his chest pulled no punches when discussing the effective euthanasia of Terri Schiavo, especially when dispensing with the views of those who opposed it.
While identifying that opinions are divided on the issue, and that her parents and siblings disagreed, his caricature of their perspective is disquieting.

Part of his introduction is to express his unhappiness if he was in a physically vegetative state but still mentally sound:

What if I was lying there in pain and my family interpreted my every
facial tic as a sign of animation and pleasure? If that is Christian
kindness, count me out.

He then launches a full frontal assault on all things "Christian":

"...only those hostage to blind religious dogma could have refused to accept that Terri's mind was dead and that her body was a helpless shell"

Although there are many other parties involved (the President of The United States, the US Congress for example), Sweetman continues his pursuit of Christians, implicit in the next phrase:

"...the right to make that sort of decision [a husband authorising the decision to terminate his wife's life] is under challenge from third parties and busybodies."

Yes, like the President. And Congress. And the Supreme Court. But these are not the targets of Sweetman.

He goes on:

"The intrusion of religion in politics and secular affairs and the exaggerated influence of Bible-bangers and fundamentalist happy clappers, is a pointer to where we are heading. "

Let's not let anything like democrcy intrude and have any of those fundamentalist bible-banging happy-clappers have a vote and an influence, shall we?

Sweetman again:

"In a Schiavo-like situation, any understanding either of us might come to
with carers could be challenged by self-appointed ethicists. "

Like politicians, judges, courts, and God forbid, journalists.

More Sweetman, this time, the attempted knockout blow:

"Knee-bending, psalm-singing and politically motivated stickybeaks and grandstanders can mind their own business.

We don't need them in life and we don't want them in death."

Perhaps Terry Sweetman has better legal advice than Sam Newman, who on live TV fired off his opinions about homosexuals, and was subsequently censored.

Even John Laws has been muzzled following similar complaints about homosexual vilification.

In my view such comments by Sweetman constitute religious vilification according to the Anti-Discrimination Commision.

Or perhaps acomplaint to the Press Council would close down such worrying expositions.

Time to do some homework.

More popular than George Bush

As any Google search will quickly reveal, contrary to John Lennon's assertions, Jesus is more popular than The Beatles (31,200,000 versus 2,920,000 and counting).

Now we know that Pope John Paul II in death is more newsworthy than George W. Bush is in life, according to The Global Language Monitor:

Major news media around the world devoted 10 times as many stories to Pope John Paul II's death as they did to the re-election of US President George W Bush, according to an analysis.

The Global Language Monitor, which scans the internet for the use of specific words or phrases using Roman characters, found 35,000 new stories on the Pope in the 24 hours after his death on Saturday.

That compares with about 3,500 new stories on Bush within a day of his re-election and 1,000 new stories on former President Ronald Reagan within a day of his death last year.

Yet the Google ranking of George W. Bush easily outranks John Paul II (12,400,000 to 4,560,000). Go figure.

Papst Johannes Paul II. ist tot

Alternative Postmodern Unorthodox - It's all the same to me

An article in The Age covering the efforts of one "alternative" worship service in Melbourne.

Read it here

No disrespect intended but I am still finding it difficult to come to grips with the idea behind such efforts.

Best search phrases to date have been "alternative worship" and - yup, you guessed it - "postmodern worship".

Now I am looking not just for a "theology" or "rationale" for postmodern worship, but for a reasonable critique of its modus operandi (and if I can't find one I shall be forced to write my own, but I cannot guarantee that it will be "reasonable").

From my understanding, pomo worship concentrates mainly on the felt need of the worshippers, generated through artistic installations. This is a great distance, IMHO from authentic NT worship, which are the acts of Christians done in response to the saving work of Christ - the one true worshipper - for example, taking care of orphans and widows.

See Hebrews 12 for more.

Postmodern worship is a much a distraction from authentic NT worship as are the mega churches with so-called "worship leaders" who promise to "usher you into the presence of God."

This is a futile quest for the numinous apart from the everyday, when in fact there as followers of Christ there is no distinction between sacred and secular, as we are already always in the presence of God. And we cannot get any closer by our owns mean, whether these be reflective contemplations, enthusiastic Hillsongs or alternative worship installations.

These are human-made props that are intended to serve as a ladder to God, when in fact our ladder has already been nailed to a piece of wood.

His name? Jesus.

Tom's first law of Christian culture

Tom's first law of Christian culture:

Once something new has become familiar enough that it is no longer too threatening for Christians to invoke, then it has become so familiar to the general culture that it’s stale to the average non-Christian.

EXAMPLE: If someone says something new about God or religion in a less-reverent-than-we’re-used-to way, the reaction from Christians will be outrage and cries of “blasphemy” for the first ten years, and then finally “Well, it’s not so bad… You can find some good in it…” the next ten, and finally after the third decade, “Hey! Remember XYZ from 30 years ago? Well, we’re ‘cool’ enough to be able to ‘rap’ about it with you – even joke with you about it – without having any ‘hassles’ about it being irreverent!”

Discuss, class, with reference to Jesus Christ Superstar in the Sixties, Godspell and Monty Python’s Life of Brian in the Seventies, Kirk Cameron (of Growing Pains fame) in the Eighties, rap music (remember MC Hammer, anyone?) in the Nineties, and now The Matrix in the Double Zeroes.

Call No Man "Father"...

Surely someone with the surname “Abbott” should've foreseen the possibility of men’s genes ending up in unexpected places.

(For American readers: Tony Abbott, Member of the House of Representatives and Australia’s federal Minister for Health, is approximately – in politics, religious views, and personal style – the equivalent of Pennsylvania Republican Senator Rick Santorum).

Four comments on this:

1. Didn’t more or less the same thing once happen to Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation?

2. Pacê Mrs Donnelly, the withdrawal method is not “Vatican Roulette.” Rather, it's usually referred to as “the Queensland Rail method” (“we always pull out just in time”) or, by the Vatican itself, as “the grave sin of onanism” (since it's what Onan did in Genesis 38:8-10 -- albeit with his late brother’s widow, whom he wasn’t supposed to have sex with at all except for the specific purpose of giving her a child: see Deuteronomy 25:56). “Vatican roulette” is the nickname for the timed-abstinence method where the couple deliberately schedule their intercourse for a safe (read: non-fertile) time of the woman’s cycle. Its supporters prefer to call this method “Natural Family Planning,” because there's nothing artificial about it (since thermometers and vaginal temperature charts have been found growing on trees in the wild for millennia).

3. Objectively speaking, I would say this reduces to somewhere around 0.001% the Australian Law Reform Commission's hopes of persuading the Howard Government to put legislation before Parliament to outlaw DNA tests in disputed child-support cases.

4. After this episode, will Mr Abbott still want to base Australia’s constitutional arrangements on a system of government that places such a high premium on paternity being reliably evidenced?

The Pope and the Da Vinci Code

Amidst all the current controversy about Dan Brown's da Vinci Code there has been a group of people over at www.catholic.com who have been working indistriously on this problem for some time.

Some quotes from the article Cracking The Da Vinci Code:

"The author is Dan Brown. He is a former English teacher who has authored three previous books"

Go English teachers! Yeah! After years of reading dreary essays, stories and conspiracy theories from genertaions of glazed-eyed students, now Dan has the cahnce to inflict his on the world.

"Should other Christians be concerned about the book?Definitely. Only some of the offensive claims of The Da Vinci Code pertain directly to the Catholic Church. The remainder strike at the Christian faith itself. If the book's claims were true, then all forms of Christianity would be false (except perhaps for Gnostic/feminist versions focusing on Mary Magdalene instead of Jesus)."

Yeah! Go Gnostics! Go Feminist theology!Go anyone who wants to make up their own religion from works of speculative (science) fiction! Hang on, don't we already have scientology?

Apart from this the real tragedy is those who are prepared to give intellect and faith assent to the narrative found in The da Vinci Code (for which there is little historical evidence and much speculation and conspiracy theorising) and offer NO time for true christianity (for which there is much evidence and can readily withstand testing according to accepted standards of judicial, scientific and historical fact).

I'll give the final word to www.catholic.com:

"It isn't a defense to say that The Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction. Fiction can't change the basic facts about major historical figures without being subject to criticism. People would be outraged if Doubleday printed a novel portraying Adolf Hitler in a positive light. Christians have a right to be outraged when the basic historical facts about Christ are falsified. The criticism will be even more intense when a publisher releases a book parodying the most sacred beliefs of others in this fashion."

Fun and games in the land of cheese and clogs

An article about the new Dutch Groningen Protocol "a new set of guidelines ...that deal with ending the lives of babies whose medical conditions have supposedly sentenced them to a life of unbearable suffering."

Interesting read. Especially about euthanising children and the post-modern god of "tolerance"

"Never have we as a society talked so much about tolerance; never have we shown so little tolerance to those who do not fit our idea of what is clean or right or beautiful or democratic. We have long had trouble tolerating people of other races and religions, and economic and political systems that are different from ours. Now we are losing our ability to tolerate babies that don’t measure up."

Failure to Grasp the Concept

If Mark Shea wasn't currently on blogging hiatus to finish his book A Catholic Discovers Matthew 12:48, it would be his office to link to this story below under the heading "Failure to Grasp the Concept". In Mark's absence, we perform this vital public service instead:

THE Irish Republican Army (IRA) said today it had offered to "shoot" those who killed a Catholic man following a pub brawl, but the victim's family rejected violence and wanted the case taken to court. The IRA, the main Catholic paramilitary group in Northern Ireland, said it had told the family it "was prepared to shoot the people directly involved in the killing of Robert McCartney", who died on January 30 in Belfast. His murder prompted not only a campaign for justice by his family but caused wide protests from areas of Belfast where there is traditional support for the IRA and its political wing Sinn Fein. [...]

-- Agence France-Presse, "IRA offer to execute killers" (9 March 2005)

"We're not a gang of killers! Just to prove that, we'll kill any of our members who commit homicide!"

Daily Fruit

Just came into the inbox:

The sign of the coming kingdom will be the true man, the true woman - not the Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist. Religious people can say what they like, but this will not hinder the burgeoning movement of people and nations toward a humanity that strives for higher goals. And though these goals may seem weak and incomplete, God will still protect and preserve them for a new future.

An excerpt from a letter written by a pastor to his son working as a missionary in China.

I wonder what the son had to say. Time to pack up and go home? The message of Christ has already been said by Confucious, Buddha and Mohhamed.

Raise the Bleached Mullet

First we hear that former Van Halen frontsman David Lee Roth has swapped his striped leather pants for a New York paramedic's uniform:

Legendary Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth has stopped "runnin' with the devil" to do God's work -- riding ambulances in gritty neighborhoods throughout New York City to become a paramedic.

The famed rocker has cut his trademark blond mane and dropped his celebrity persona so he can ride unrecognized with ambulance crews in The Bronx, Manhattan and Brooklyn several nights a week.

Several weeks ago, the charismatic crooner saved the life of a Bronx woman who had a heart attack by shocking her back to life with a defibrillator.

The Post caught up with Roth last week as the 1980s icon grabbed a slice of pepperoni pizza after sitting for hours in an ambulance waiting for a call.

Just three days earlier, he had played to an adoring rock-'n'-roll crowd in Minnesota.

Roth, 49, initially expressed reservations about discussing his latest endeavor because he felt publicity "would diminish what I am trying to do here."

But the following day, he told The Post more about his new passion.

"I have been on over 200 individual rides now," Roth told The Post. "Not once has anyone recognized me, which is perfect for me."

"It has been an eye-opening adventure," said Roth, who asked The Post not to disclose which "very colorful neighborhoods" he works in because he doesn't want to draw attention to himself or his colleagues. [...]

-- Erika Martinez, "David Lee Roth a NYC Paramedic", Fox News (16 November 2004)

One pictures DLR correcting a colleague's inept CPR by screeching "You'll lose her in the turn!". But better not put him on duty talking would-be suicides into climbing down, especially not from the Brooklyn Bridge.

Now, I learn that former Sydney Swans football godling Warwick Capper is now a "nondescript road worker flipping a stop-go sign for $16.50 an hour":

[...] Warwick Capper has gone from one-time Sydney Swans sex symbol to nondescript road worker flipping a stop-go sign for $16.50 an hour.
Almost unrecognisable in a reflective top, sheriff-style cap and sunglasses, Capper began work last week with Queensland road management company Traffic Services Australia.

Capper, keen to downplay his latest foray into the workforce, expressed surprise when contacted by The Sunday Telegraph.

"How did you get that photo of me?" he asked of a shot of him at work. "Mate I'm not a council worker, I just drive utes for this private company. I don't do it fulltime, I only work for them a couple of times a month. How funny is that?"

Capper, who rocketed to prominence when he kicked 103 goals for Sydney in the 1987 season, insists he has not fallen on hard times.

"No way, I needed to do something casual because I'm very busy and I'm going away all the time," he said. "My wife started it all - she said: 'Stop being a big-head, go and get a job in the real world'. It's certainly been an eye-opener. Even though I don't do too many hours, it's a lot bloody harder than life as a celebrity." [...]

-- Peter Badel, "High-flyer working as stop-go man", News.com (27 February 2005)

Cappa would be less wasted if he, too, worked as a paramedic. You can be durned sure no one would bleed to death with one of his tourniquets.

PS: Re Dawn Eden's sacking -- to complicate the picture, she's also ethnically Jewish and a convert to Christianity.

Darkness at dawn

Interesting comment-piece on how a white, female Christian was sacked from her job for some careful editing of an article of IVF.

Journalists beware!

Battlestar Galactica

Is Glen A, larson turning in his yet-to-be-occupied grave (Mr larson is alive and well and living in Salt lake City Utah)

battlestar galactica ver2.0 screened on Brissie TV on Friday and saturday nights - and the fans were not disappointed. It's not often that a great new sci-fi series comes out (we hope that BG will also fulfil this expectation!)

3 points

1. Characters names - just call them "Adama" "Apllo" "Starbuck" - no need o use "nicknames or callsigns. They might as well have bizarro names - hey, evrything else in this sf reality can be weird, why can't the characters?

2. Datedness - I was at first confused - was this a remake or a sequel? The Galactica turned into a museum? schematic diagrams of 1980's era cylons? only the "old model" colonial vipers work? get it together guys. do you want retro or not?

3. cylons - "creartd by man" - what, ther terminator premise? now they resemble humans? invasion of the body snatchers? But there are only 12 models. Not good enough. Are the cyclons invented by a Henry Ford - "You can have any colour you want as long as it's black"?

POSITION VACANT: Socialator. Must be blonde, female, attractive and hopelessly addicted to uber-masculine Colonial Warriors. Passing resemblance to a Charlie's Angel will aid application. Must have seen "Xanadu" at least 10 times, and enjoy Discos, bad-hairdos, and Saturday morning re-runs.

"Aussie boys sing for Pope"

"Aussie boys sing for Pope"
From correspondents in Rome February 3, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse

A young Australian choir belted out the verses of Oasis hit Wonderwall outside Rome's Gemelli hospital today to wish ailing Pope John Paul II a quick recovery.

The group was to attend the Pope's weekly general audience today but when they learned of the 84-year-old Pope's sudden illness and the cancellation of the audience at St Peter's, they decided to go to the Gemelli to pay their respects with a performance.

Though they got no closer than the front gate, they formed a semi-circle in their blue jackets and began singing the British band's anthem.

It contains the chorus: "Because maybe, you're gonna be the one who saves me, and after all, you're my wonderwall".

Episode III Revenge of the Sith Screen Crawl

Remember way back to 1999, when Episode 1 first came out? Remeber the feeling ofexpectancy as you settled in to the comfy cinema seat to enjoy, nay RELISH the long-waited prequel of the legendary StarWars trilogy? And remeber the feelings of dismay and confusion that started from the opening screen crawl about taxation, trade disputes and blockades, and still hasn't ended? (I still can't figure out why the Trade Federation invaded Naboo,"A peaceful planet with no standing armies!", or if they are suppoed to become the Imperials or the Rebel Alliance).

Well(only 3 weeks late!) you can see the Episode III crawl here at starwars.com.

EPISODE III

REVENGE OF THE SITH

War! The Republic is crumbling

under the attacks by the ruthless

Sith Lord, Count Dooku.

There are heroes on both sides.

Evil is everywhere.

In a stunning move, the

fiendish droid leader, General

Grievous, has swept into the

Republic capital and kidnapped

Chancellor Palpatine, leader of

the Galactic Senate.

As the Separatist Droid Army

attempts to flee the besieged

capital with their valuable

hostage, two Jedi Knights lead a

desperate mission to rescue the

captive Chancellor...

All very nice but it sounds like some fruity Lucasian doctrine coming up. Obviously all the baddies ("Separatist" Droid Armies, Clone Warriors, Isengard, Mordor, etc) are dancing to the tune of Sauron, er, Palpatine / Darth Sidious, and will unite into one big baddy to assail the forces of good left in Middle Earth /the galaxy.

Who's the king, baby?

Cousin Leonard's Blog.

For those who like "youthmultimedia", he's the host with the most.

BTW, in his brief bio, he didn't mention his stint on Big Brother or at the Albion trots.

Let me just add them here, now.

http://kingleonard.blogspot.com/