"Romeo Dhakhotah" was already taken

"A Pennsylvania man has complained a local grocery store refused to decorate a birthday cake with his young son's name: Adolf Hitler Campbell. Heath Campbell, 35, who denies the Holocaust took place and decorated his home with swastikas and Nazi paraphernalia, said The ShopRite supermarket in Greenwich Township refused to print his son's name on a cake to mark his third birthday, the Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) Express-Times reported Monday. Campbell said the store has also refused to decorate cakes with his 1-year-old daughter's name -- JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell...."

- UPI News, "Store: No cake for Hitler" (15 December 2008)

"Och, yeer damned right theeere, mon", the supermarket's manager, Angus Ian MacDonald, told press Monday. "I'd sooner defile yon cake with tha poop of a wee doggie than with that accursed name - Campbell."

... And It Will All Happen Again

We've all seen Exhibit A a zillion times since August '08. Exhibit B,
however, shows that this thing is really getting out of hand....

Life, alas, imitates art

Well, kitsch pop art, anyway:

Clone Wars

Couple of thoughts on the new "Clone Wars" series (after seeing the
pilot at the movies, and chunks of the first 2 episodes on TV today):

1. Good move to take control off Lucas and let others have a crack at it - this was how "Star Trek" and "Battlestar Galactica" both improved enormously, by changing the guard (NPI) (and you don't even need Ron Moore to take over, as I earlier thought!).

2. Also good to have SW episodes that are just meant to be an entertaining Saturday-afternoon adventure serial - crashes on jungle planets, secret plans, kidnappings, battered spice freighters, pirates, etc - as it was originally supposed to be in 1977-78, unlike the films where, after 'ESB' in 1980, every episode had to be Great Art freighted with heavy moral and historic symbolism (ie, Joseph Campbell; Jedi Temple = 9/11; Anakin = Dubya Bush; etc). CW reminds me of the SW comics (Marvel, pre-Dark Horse, ie costing less than an actual horse) which I used to buy religiously (NPI) back in 1982-83. Intelligent good fun, but no pretensions. Screen science fiction is never going to be critically acclaimed like "Taxi Driver", no matter how waaaaay dark you make it. So just give us Senator Palpatine, not Senator Palatine.

3. Lucas would have put enormous attention into, eg, making the spaceships look a certain way (to pay homage to some obscure detail in "Forbidden Planet"), but would not have thought up the entertaining human character touches that Dave Filoni did - eg, that the Clone Troopers, despite being identical copies of Jake The Muss, have expressed their individuality by giving themselves different haircuts, from bald to Milhouse-style bleaches to Marines jarheads.

4. Don't confuse "Clone Wars" with "THE Clone Wars" - entirely
different Star Wars-based animated TV series. (That stray definite article can make a big difference. Ask Scorsese whether anyone went to see "God the Father, Part II").

PS: Speaking of The Godfather... "Filoni." "Jabba's wicked uncle plotting to have him killed." Hmmm.

"Beatles' Tribute to 'Father McKenzie'"

"FOLLOWING last week's Guardian report on Northwich Memorial Hall's 40th birthday celebrations, tributes have poured in for one man who was at the heart of everything good during the early days. Tommy McKenzie was the hall's first compere and was responsible for bringing many of the top acts to perform at the venue. He lived in Rudheath, but originally came from Liverpool where he befriended The Beatles. Such was the bond between them, that the most famous band in music history called Tommy 'father'. The more avid Beatles fans will spot how much Tommy meant to the band. He was Father McKenzie in the song Eleanor Rigby..."

- "Beatles' Tribute to 'Father McKenzie'," Northwich Guardian (8 June 2000)

Let all men [sic] know, that this blog does not endorse non-centuries-old transgressions of Jesus' command in Matthew 23:9.

Sorry we ever doubted you, Ira Levin

No word yet of Templars, aliens or Kali-sacrificing Thuggee, but there's still much excavating to do.

And here I was thinking Douglas V Duff's On the World's Roof had conclusively located them in Tibet. Cancel Brad Pitt!

Nazi graveyards have been rediscovered deep in the Amazon rainforest during research for a book that chronicles the fanatical regime's plan to create a secret colony for a master race in the 1930s.

Totem-pole like wooden structures, standing at around 2.75m tall and with swastikas carved into them, mark the graves of the Nazis at Jari River, a northern tributary in the Amazon river.

The grave markers are believed to have been built by the Nazis but were forgotten about for decades, the UK's Daily Mail reports.

It wasn't until Jens Gluessing, author of The Guayana-Projekt: A German Adventure On The Amazon, began investigating the sites that he uncovered the wartime graves.

His book claims Hitler's henchmen believed they were destined to start a super colony in the jungle and that they were destined to settle the world like pioneers of America's wild west.

On one of the graves, an inscription says: "Joseph Greiner died here on 2.1.1936, a death from fever in the service of German Research Work."

Mr Gluessing discovered Greiner was one of three explorers sent to the jungle by the secret service to explore the region with the idea the Reich would eventually populate it.

Greiner's team sent information back to the Nazi headquarters in Berlin detailing how soldiers could live in Brazil, even though their cover story was that they were collecting wildlife samples.

In his notes to Heinrich Himmler, he said: "The two largest scantly populated, but rich in resources, areas on earth are in Siberia and South America,' he wrote to Himmler.

"They alone offer spacious immigration and settlement possibilities for the Nordic peoples."

"Amazonia" was the best place to begin colonising, he wrote.

"For the more advanced white race it offers outstanding possibilities for exploitation."

"Nazis 'hatched master race plan in Amazon'," NineMSN (Friday 24 October 2008)

Cor! Wiv' 'Is Best Mate, Draco Weasley, Also 'Elpin' 'Im Catch (Despite Ministry Stonewalling) The Blokes What Poisoned the City's Water Supply

No, really. Shouldn't joke about this. It's sad. But the kid deserves respect for this initiative...

"Two men in Britain have been arrested after the son of a murder victim set up a website, dedicated to solving the 11-year-old case. 16-year-old Daniel Grainger pleaded with police to re-open the case, when he launched the website www.whokilledmymum.com, two months ago...."

- Annika Burgess, "Two arrested after teen launches website to catch mum's killers," LiveNews (16 October 2008)

When priests attack!

UPDATE: "Warring monks threaten destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre," Sheera Frenkel, The Times (15 October 2008).

While this incident of course in no way compares to the disunity among the fragmented Protestant sects - how sadly often have we witnessed roving gangs of Baptists raiding Lutheran services armed with baseball bats - it is nonetheless intriguing to try to reconstruct the ipsissima verba ...

"St Mary's is a living faith community dedicated to peace, justice and non-violent dispute resolution! We are thoroughly sick of you RadTrads spying on our services and taking photos so you can report us to the Inquisitorial Office in Rome! So if you take any more photos I shall thump you!"

"But you're disregarding the Great Commission! Did not Our Lord say, 'Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, but only of course while wearing the correct vestment, such as the Greater Habit!'?"

THE parish priest of the South Brisbane St Mary's Catholic Church will fight allegations of assault after an incident at Sunday mass. Fr Kennedy is alleged to have knocked a mobile phone camera out of a man's hand during the service. Speaking on behalf of Fr Peter Kennedy, parishioner Karen Walsh unequivocally denied that Caboolture man Richard Stokes had been assaulted when Fr Kennedy tried to stop him taking photos of a baptism. "The shots had children in the frame and were unauthorised," Ms Walsh said. Mr Stokes and several supporters marched from the church to the West End police station afterwards to file a complaint. Mr Stokes was not injured and police are regarding the incident as "minor"... It is understood Mr Stokes was taking the photos because he was outraged the baptism was being conducted by a priest not wearing a vestment.

- Anna Caldwell, "Baptism photographer alleges attack by St Mary's priest," Courier-Mail (13 October 2008)

Hold me now

"The New South Wales Opposition's police spokesman, Mike Gallacher, says people with criminal convictions are being accepted into the police force to try and boost numbers. New figures show 133 serving officers have criminal convictions, including three senior constables and two detectives who have kept their jobs despite more than one conviction..."

- "Police 'need criminals to boost numbers'," ABC News (29 September 2008)

Giving positions of public responsibility to former convicted criminals?  Contrary to every principle that New South Wales was founded on!

"Beware the time-eater: Cambridge University's monstrous new clock"... The Chronophage

For a variety of reasons, this thing is so very Phillip Pullman.

Every "Ross Schultz" on the Planet Starts to Feel Nervous

Moral: don't risk sharing a name with someone who's pissed off any heavies of the New South Wales Right faction of the Australian Labor Party.

Downsizing a man's operation (so to speak)

"An 84-year-old Nigerian man with 86 wives and 170 children has accepted a decree issued by Islamic authorities that he must divorce 82 of them. The BBC, quoting a local emir, reported that Mohammadu Bello Abubakar agreed to the mass divorce at the weekend. Abubakar, a former teacher and preacher, faced the death penalty under Sharia law, which was reintroduced to the Muslim-majority Niger state in northwest Nigeria in 2000. While the death sentence was lifted, Abubakar still faced eviction from his home. Nigerian media and the BBC interviewed Abubakar several weeks previously, when he claimed there was no punishment in the Koran for having more than four wives. However, the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs said that Sharia law clearly limited a man to four wives."

- NineMSN, "Nigerian man agrees to divorce 82 wives" (2 September 2008)

"Playboy founder Hugh Hefner is reportedly getting married to one of the stars of Girls Next Door, according to reports on Wednesday. Hefner, 82, will reportedly marry Holly Madison, 28, who has been one of Hefner's girlfriends since 2001. Despite Hef's plans to get married to Madison, he is still married to Kimberley Conrad.  [...] Soon after Hef's separation from Conrad, Hefner began having a bevy of girlfriends, all of which were blondes between 18 and 28 years old and lived with him in the Playboy Mansion. Hefner had a rotation of around seven girlfriends until 2003 when Madison and Bridget Marquardt were his only two girlfriends."

- TransWorldNews, "Hugh Hefner Reportedly to Marry 'Girls Next Door' Star Holly Madison" (27 August 2008)

Bolshie rag

In conversation today I used the phrase "Bolshie rag" when describing a certain industry publication. I am not sure if my colleagues who heard me actually undertsood what I was saying, so I decide to google the phrase when I got home. The result: only six entries for the phrase "bolshie rag" and no wikipedian in sight. After my last attempt to edit Wikipedia (my ham-fisted efforts were viciously maligned by a pedantic Wiki-Nazi who insisted I has plagiarised my content. Au contraire! I was merely editing), I shall post my interpretation on the blog.

Bolshie rag: A derogatory term used of left-wing newspapers and the like, such as The Guardian (UK). Or any Australian newspaper containing a column written by Phillip Adams. From "Bolshevik" (abbreviated as Bolshie), original Russian revolutionaries, and "rag" for newsprint.

This definition is made up out of my ownhead and if you would like to correct or amend it, join the beg the Wiki-Fuhrer for permission to stain the beautifully polished marble floors of his palace with you mud-sodden boots. So there!

Some inspiration...

... for the Paradise Lost Lucifer film's CGI. Apologies to the respective original copyright-holders - I used to download any interesting clips I came across, without recording the site they came from. These are too good not to disseminate. Contact me if you are the copyright holder.

Paradise Lost to be filmed

I agree with this blogger: Rufus Sewell for Satan. ("But then I looked at his name again and saw it backwards: LLEWES SUFUR....Was this guy born to play the Prince of Darkness?")

[AE Hochner (Paul Newman's spaghetti-sauce-making partner) records in his Blown Away: The Rolling Stones and the Death of the Sixties that one Michael Jagger Esq was once sounded out, four decades ago, to play Lucifer in a proposed film (based on a novel by Herman Hesse or Gunter Grass or Carlos Castenada or Michael Mann or one of those guys), and he initially agreed, but after "Sympathy for the Devil" attracted some criticism from the usual enraged vicars (gee! Who'da predicted that! Why not just call yourself "bigger than Jesus" and be done with it?!), Mick decided he needed to, ah, de-Satanise his public image, and started ostentatiously wearing gold crosses in public.]

James Earl Jones, of course, for the voice of God. Essential to get right away from all the "talking lion king" associations that Liam Neeson would bring.

My preferred fallback for depicting God on screen (First Commandment issues and all) is "a bright light shining down from a cloud and three voices talking in unison", but since Milton was a neo-Arian (in modern terms, a Jehovah's Witness avant la lettre), his estate might veto.

Imagine the most evil creature that ever existed, a villain who commits atrocity after atrocity, who has scarred the world and each and every creature in it, a scoundrel so heinous he makes Heath Ledger's anarchist Joker look like Mother Teresa. Now imagine that you like him.

Director Scott Derrickson says that when you see his upcoming adaptation of "Paradise Lost," the epic 17th-century poem by John Milton about the Fall of Man, you won't be able to help but have sympathy for its bad guy: the devil.

"What's interesting to me is that you cannot help but feel that his initial feelings of being disgruntled are merited, and I feel a lot of empathy for the Lucifer character in the beginning of the story," said Derrickson, who wrote and directed "The Exorcism of Emily Rose." "I would want the audience to be sympathetic with him at the beginning, and what happens - what he's up against and what he's wrestling and struggling with - you certainly feel that."

The poem, praised by secular and religious scholars alike, opens with Satan's fall from heaven. He is surrounded by utter darkness before coming to rest in the fiery pits of hell. Defeated in his war against God, and with like-minded fallen comrades in his service, Satan soon concocts a plan to belittle the Creator by desecrating his most recent, and most prized, creation: mankind.

Given that setup (a remarkably futile one at that, since Satan can never actually defeat God), how is it that so many people most identify with the devil? It's a complex theological explanation that Derrickson can only sketch in the film but one that, if you are Christian, essentially boils down to this: "Because you are fallen too."

"In the movie, Satan goes from being a completely good being [an angel] to becoming the most heinous kind of evil, and you really have a hard time knowing exactly where he crossed that line because you were with him," the director said. "What is interesting about that story, in the way Milton laid it out, is that people jump off with him at different points and some never at all. Properly done, it's a story that tells readers a lot about themselves.

"You have to respect that Milton created the first anti-hero with that poem, and certainly this was preserved in the script," Derrickson added. "At what point does love turn to jealousy, jealousy turn into hate and hate into evil?"

For Milton, and for religious thinkers who follow similar beliefs, that point comes when Satan commits the sin of pride, when he begins to set himself up as separate from and in opposition to God. It's a transgression that is mirrored later, of course, by Adam and Eve. Much later, actually: Milton's sprawling poem isn't just dense, it's remarkably long as well, spanning tens of thousands of lines.

Fitting the entire poem into a movie is actually one of the biggest challenges, Derrickson said, but one he hopes to accomplish.

"The screenplay takes aspects of the entire arc," he said. "What it encompasses is still a fraction of the poem and has to be, because you could make a 50-hour miniseries out of it if you wanted to. But it really covers end to end the basic events of the poem."

That means showing not just the highlights, but also the building of Pandemonium (the chamber for the devil and his minions), the revolt of the angels and the battle of heaven. At this stage, much of Derrickson's work on the film is in trying to figure out how to do exactly that, he admitted.

"That's a big part of the process I'm in right now in terms of working on both artwork and just conceptualizing how to do something," he said. "There's CGI and then there's versions that are blends of the two, live-action and CG, and I think the best version of the movie is going to have a lot of blending in it."

Add up all the challenges - the evil character at its heart, the theology, the visuals, the epic story line - and adapting "Paradise Lost" is no easy task. For his part, though, Derrickson can't wait for the opportunity.

"It would not be an easy movie to make, but it would be ground-breaking," he said. "It's really worthy of the attempt."

- Shawn Adler, "Scott Derrickson Says His 'Paradise Lost' Film Might Lead To Sympathy For The Devil', MTV. com (23 July 2008)

"When I find myself/ In times of troubleborough..."

This was prophesied:

"The city of Maryborough, in south-east Queensland, could have its own anthem within the next six to 12 months. The Maryborough Regional Arts Development Fund Committee has allocated $13,000 of funding to compose a city song...."

- "Maryborough looks to own anthem", ABC News (9 July 2007)

Ooh! Ooh! Pick me! Pick me!

Maryborough! Mighty town of ancient awnings
Bringer of life, mother to us all
We swell with pride when the Mayor lets off
The ceremonial cannon every Saturday during the markets
Maryborough! Where they filmed "The Delinquents"
A story set in Bundaberg, but that town "looked too modern"
O Maryborough! We shed our blood for you
A thousand swords leap into our hands
Next time the bogans from accursed Gympie and Monto
Dare to drive donuts through our sacred burg
On their migration to Hervey Bay...

Take it from there.

Granted, finding "life imitates The Onion" stories in the Fairfax papers is like finding stray thongs on the beach, but still

'NEW YORK - Miguel Nunez, a Brooklyn-based artist, has sparked protest and outrage within the art community with his "Jesus Rising #4," a non-controversial, non-feces-smeared painting that in no way defiles or blasphemes Jesus Christ. "Jesus Rising #4," included in Nunez's new Divinity exhibition at the Whitney Museum, has received harsh criticism from artists and academics since its June 6 debut. The painting has been picketed nearly around the clock by angry protesters, who say they are stunned by its lack of obscene imagery metaphorically conveying a provocative, highly charged theopolitical message. "Why isn't this [painting] splattered with donkey semen?" asked sculptor India Jackson, one of the protesters. "And I defy anyone to find a trace of urine, human or otherwise, on this entire canvas. The piece does not appear to be an enraged howl against Christian patriarchal hegemony at all. Frankly, I'm shocked"...'

- "Non-Controversial Christ Painting Under Fire From Art Community", 37(22) The Onion (13 June 2001)

THE nation's top prize for religious art is again embroiled in controversy after one of its judges resigned in protest over the inclusion of a crucifixion painted by the artist Adam Cullen.

The Sydney academic Dr Christopher Allen has resigned from the judging panel for the Blake Prize for Religious Art over his vehement objections to Cullen's work. The triptych shows Christ on the cross and the inscription "only woman bleed", a line inspired by a song by the shock-rocker Alice Cooper.

Cullen said the organisers contacted him yesterday and told him Dr Allen had resigned in protest over the work's selection for consideration for the $20,000 prize.

"It's just a Jew on the cross," said Cullen, who won the Archibald Prize in 2000. "All the other entries would be of a Jew on two bits of wood. It's a very left-wing, almost pseudo-femme, artwork. How can he be offended?"

Dr Allen could not be contacted yesterday. But at a judging session on Friday he admitted he was not a fan of Cullen's work. "I've never even met him - I just don't like his work," Dr Allen said. "It has a kind of deliberate ugliness which has been exploited as a gimmick. This isn't a personal preference, it's a judgment."

Prize organisers were hoping to avoid controversy this year after entries last year, including a statue of the Virgin Mary shrouded in a burqa and a hologram of Christ morphing with Osama bin Laden, angered the then prime minister, John Howard, and the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell. Mr Howard called them "gratuitously offensive".

Most of this year's entries are benign, but the more provocative works include the party boy Corey Worthington as Jesus Christ. "Jesus was crucified to pay for the sins of man, and Corey was crucified by the media to pay for the sins of the MySpace generation," said the image's creator, Dean Sewell, a photographer who also works for the Herald.

The Blake Prize's chairman, Rod Pattenden, confirmed that Dr Allen had quit the judging panel. "Christopher Allen resigned due to his objection towards a particular work included in the exhibition. That was related to his training as an academic and it was an aesthetic objection."

Cullen's entry was condemned by another judge, the academic Dr Kathleen McPhillips, who described it as "really offensive". But another member of the judging panel, the Blake Prize-winning artist Lachlan Warner, was more supportive. "We knew that work was Adam's," he said. "It couldn't have been anyone else's. I decided to throw it in there. I put in a vote for it. I wanted to look at it again." Cullen has become used to strong reactions to his work. "Sometimes I think all I have to do is wake up in the morning - I just have to fart and there's flames."

- Erik Jensen, Louise Schwartzkoff and Richard Jinman, "Religious art prize judge quits in disgust," Sydney Morning Herald (Wednesday 6 August 2008)

And speaking of Tin Men...

RTFM

Just reading over at MetaLutheran a whinge about RTFM. Having offered this advice in desperation on the past, here's my two cents:

Josh (and many like him) are confusing _effort_ in searching with
_effectiveness_ in searching.

Example #1:

Child: Where are my school socks?

Mother: Where have you looked for them?

Child: Everywhere!

Mother: Here they are, in your sock drawer!

Take it as given that the child has indeed searched literally everywhere, but not found what they were looking for because of an ineffective search strategy. Searching exhaustively in and of itself will not necessarily find you what you are looking for - you have to know _how_ to look. And, you often have to know _what_to look for.

Example #2:
In the bush, you can look and look and look and not see a person standing near you because they are camouflaged. But if you look for a camouflaged person, "through the trees" instead of "at the trees" you will see them.

The manual is the best place to look for the right thing, but you still have to know what you are looking for and how to read it.

Testy techs do grab for this too quickly in my opinion, because many users are very needy and will often play helpless because they are too lazy to find out for themselves, and a tech support call will given a guaranteed iron-clad answer. Some people by habit just pick up the phone and call or send an email because that's how they learn - by asking someone else - rather than trying to find out for themselves. And others just want to get back to being productive rather than wasting time trying to sort out a problem that is not their department anyway (and they might make it worse- best to log a tech call).

Proper training of staff about their proper area of responsibilities (Should you call tech support to help you make a bulleted list in MS Word? No. Should you manager send you on an MS Word course to teach you how to use the tools of your trade? Yes), and of tech about how to speak to humans (Grunts, sneers, sarcastic remarks and long periods of silence are typically not regarded as helpful), goes a long way.

By the way, many manuals written by techs with poor communication skills are fairly useless. It is the synthesis of technical ability and communication skills that makes a tech an asset to both the computers and the people who work with them. They can act as a kind of priestly interpreter, divining the true gnosis generated by the 999th iteration of the Deep Thought project for the congregants at large.

And if they still don't understand, they can always RTFM.

Mark of McKain

'In case their Plantation Bend neighbors had any questions about how Doug and Wendy McKain feel about Barack Obama, the bumper sticker on their pickup could be a clue. But when Chynethia Gragg spotted the sticker -  depicting someone urinating on the name "Obama" - Sugar Land police say, she stopped to express her disapproval, and that's when things got ugly...'

- Eric Hanson, "Sticky Obama issue with these McKains leads to arrest," Houston Chronicle (24 July 2008)

"Sugar Land police"? Did twenty of them pour out of the same crazy car, waving their batons? Did Mayor McCheese turn up wearing his official sash?

And what's this "someone"? Surely Mr Hanson reads The Onion:

'Throughout its 224-year history, America has had many channels of discourse, its citizens expressing themselves by means ranging from pamphlets to protests, newspaper editorials to televised debates. In recent years, however, a significant new avenue of expression has emerged: "Peeing Calvin" decals.
 
Originally appearing on trucks as a salvo in the age-old Ford-Chevy debate, the popular stickers - which feature a bootlegged image of "Calvin" from the Bill Watterson comic strip Calvin & Hobbes urinating on a rival brand - have expanded to depict Calvin expressing urinary disapproval of a dazzling array of offenders.

Today, at the dawn of a new millennium, the terse but expressive decals are a vital part of our national dialogue, used by millions of Americans to exchange viewpoints and ideas about the important issues of the day.

"I used to devote hours to reading newspapers and magazines in an effort to understand my world and the issues that shape it," said Tuscaloosa, AL, resident Elvin Crosley, who proudly sports decals of Calvin urinating on a Democratic Party donkey and Greenpeace logo in the rear window of his pick-up truck. "But that became a tremendous expenditure of time I simply couldn't afford. These decals make a concise, digestible point in approximately two seconds and reach a far wider audience than I could by writing letters to my local paper or congressman." [...]

The [law]suit was denounced by ACLU president Nadine Strossen, who called it "an unconscionable attempt to gag free speech in America." "Watterson and the Universal Press Syndicate are attempting to block citizens from exercising their constitutional right to freely express ideas and opinions," Strossen said. "Peeing Calvin stickers may not have existed in 1789, but they are precisely the sort of thing the Framers had in mind when authoring the First Amendment."

- "'Peeing Calvin' Decals Now Recognized As Vital Channel Of National Discourse," 36(12) The Onion (5 April 2000)

"Peeing Aquinas", "Peeing Maimonides", "Peeing Ibn-Rushd" and "Peeing Rick Osteen" stickers also available on request for members of the other great living world faiths.