Joan Rivers Loves Us!! She REALLY Does!!

Or maybe not. Tip o' the hat to Get Religion

Now for the new. From the Oct. 1 issue of Entertainment Weekly, comedian Joan Rivers continues her work as an ambassador of love:

Resplendent in a silver jacket, luxe fur scarf, black pants, and rhinestone-studded heels, Joan Rivers is angry as ever. As she frenetically paces the stage at the Stardust in Las Vegas, the crowd eats up her barbed mots on this steamy night in June. She tosses out a few zingers about Donatella Versace's face -- punctuating the joke by scrunching up her own famous enhanced visage -- and Rosie O'Donnell's hygiene (not printable in a family magazine) before directing her rage at born-again Christians. "I hate Jesus freaks," she declares. "They're ugly, she seethes, her huge cocktail ring bouncing sparkles around the room with every pointy gesticulation. "'Jesus loves me,' they say. If he loved you so much he would have given you a f----ing chin." If anyone in this blue-hair Vegas audience is offended, their qualms are buried by a room exploding in laughter.

A blue-haired Vegas audience bellowing at cheap-shot humor? Can it be? And if poor beleaguered Brad Stine were to do that last joke, aiming it at any other faith and its adherents and (of course) substituting freaking for Rivers' F-bomb, how long would his next Promise Keepers gig last?

Hey, Joan -- if you have another face lift, your belly button will be in your left nostril!! I agree with one of the commentors over at GR -- someone who's had that much surgery shouldn't EVER mock anyone else's appearance.

Posted by: Warren Kelly at 01:53 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Cheap Shot to the Right

Steve Gushee has a great article in the Palm Beach Post. He talks about Noah and the Flood, the covenant that God made with man after the flood, what caused the flood, etc. Unfortunately, he ruins the whole article (at least for me) in the second paragraph.

Some conservative Christians will insist that Hurricanes Frances and Charley were (and Ivan might be) the result of God's will to punish us for some litany of behavior of which they disapprove. They are not only mistaken about divine climate control, but they make a mockery of the very Scripture they believe is without error.

Is anyone else wondering who the heck he's talking about?

I'm a conservative Christian. I hang out with conservative Christians. Heck, I'm married to a conservative Christian. I read lots of things written by conservative Christians. I haven't heard this one. Nobody I've heard of has mentioned the whole punishment for sin thing -- mainly for the exact reason that Gushee mentions in his article. God promised not to punish us that way any more. That's how we know that the storms that have battered Florida are because of odd weather patterns, not divine justice.

Unfortunately, Gushee takes a wonderfully-written column, a piece rare in journalism in that it takes theological truth seriously, and turns it into a vicious and (from what I can tell) unfounded attack on a LOT of people.

Maybe, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, there's a preacher who is writing his sermon for tomorrow. He's got the only satelite dish in his little town, and he's been watching the events taking place in Florida. His flock is familiar with Florida -- they've heard about Baywatch, after all, and Doc Sanders went there for that convention, so they KNOW the immorality that goes on there. So he decides to tell them that God has decided to judge these evil Floridians for their fornication and perversion. As he writes this, he can hear the AMENs ringing out in the pews.

Maybe this is the guy that Steve Gushee has in mind. Maybe Steve Gushee even believes that this guy is representative of "conservative Christians". But I can assure him, and you all, that conservative Christians aren't this stupid. And we're getting pretty tired of people treating us as if we are.

Maybe if Gushee had started the column off with something like this:

I was listening to Preacher X the other day, and he said something that disturbed me. He said that the hurricanes in Florida were ...

I'd have had less of a problem with that. I'd have an idea that there was actually someone that he had in mind, who said this idiotic thing, and I could go off on them about their stupidity. Unfortunately, all we get is "some conservative Christians will" do this.

I wonder if he even heard anyone say this, or if he just decided that it sounded good, and would get him some praise from the people who read his column. If that's the case, he's no better than the hypothetical preacher in my story -- changing and shaping the facts to suit his audience, with no regard for the truth.

Posted by: Warren Kelly at 05:54 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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More on "Tolerance"

Maybe that should say "moron tolerance."

Just read this little piece about a terrible hate crime. Unfortunately, you won't hear an uproar about it. The ACLU probably will ignore it. The Washington Post and the Atlanta Constitution probably won't say a word about it. And if there WERE hate-crime legislation on the books, I doubt that this particular crime would apply. Because it's against us.

I'm a proponent of free speech. I'm a fairly peaceful man. But if MY kid was at that daycare, and I found out who'd been threatening them, I might have to be reminded of the whole "love your enemy" thing, because some non-lethal violence might start sounding awfully good to me. And I have an oversized driver I don't use anymore .... Titanium hurts when applied forcefully to the head.

The sad thing is -- nothing will be done. They'll get the people on a trespassing charge -- maybe. If they find them at all. If it had happened at an abortion clinic, or at a gay bar, or a porn shop, they'd be all over those 'intolerant Christians'.

So let's raise a fuss about those intolerant atheists who run around threatening kids. Bunch of cowards.

Posted by: Warren Kelly at 02:51 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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