The Many Poker Faces of Lady GaGa.

Thanks for the addition, Tristan. - 1/19/10

The Original (Embedding disabled by request)

Acoustic Version (Embedding also disabled by request)

A Cappella


Cartman


Space Cowboy Remix


Christopher Walken


Chris Daughtry


Kareoke Boys


Lady Gaga, Cartman, & Christopher Walken




Four versions at once as a response to this - 1/19/10

You and Your God Suck, Jack.

There's so much wrong here, I don't even know where to begin.

Chick's latest tract is called It's Not Your Fault and features the roommate of a boy who committed suicide while in a group home.  The police pick up a pattern of abuse and are blocked on their investigation.  By this time, I figured out it was sexual abuse and assumed it would be revealed that there was a large Satanic/Masonic/Catholic cult trying to cover up their child rape.  Well, no.  Just a judge. 

So the roommate has been moved to a group home of a woman who tells him the story of being in Rwanda during the genocide where her husband was murdered and she was raped and how she forgave them through Jesus (and the murderers/rapists are going to burn unless they repent so it's ok!).  She witnesses to him and then the kid prays to Jesus and then gets a phone call that the child-raping judge is dead and a verse at the bottom indicates that GodDidIt.

Let's just get this one out of the way: Jack Chick still draws non-whites like they're from a 1940's coloring book in Birmingham.

I agree strongly that there's a lot of recriminations to be handed out all over the place for the handling of the Rwandan Genocide.  Seriously.

What bothers me is the underlying message here.  Apparently, all Ralph had to do to save him, his roommate, and the other children was to accept Jesus Christ and God would strike down the child-rapist.  In that sense, it is Ralph's fault for not having done this earlier.  If all it took to end child abuse was telling Jesus, "I love you," I'm pretty sure a good 80+% of the world's population would do it.

But that's blaming the victim.  I'd rather blame Jack Chick's version of God.

 Seriously?

You could have struck down his rapist at any time.  You could have sent someone to witness to the judge like you did in Lisa.  Instead, you allowed these children to suffer and kill themselves, not knowing Jesus, which under your rules sends them to Hell forever. 

 

Because you love us, but not enough to actually save us?

Jack Chick's God, you send people to hell even when they're good and save the bad just because they decide to love you.

Yeah, Marcus Aurelius?  What say you?

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

In short, Go fuck yourself, Jack Chick's God.

A Princess of Mars and Victorian Anthropology

Note: The book is nearly 100 years old, but I'm still going to strive to remain spoiler-free here as much as possible, especially since I'm only halfway through.

When I was a kid, Speedy Gonzalez was still part of the Looney Tunes line-up and I found the earlier version of the Mary Poppins novel in which they go to Africa where American stereotypes of rural blacks lived.  Little House had its characters constantly worried about attacks by "savage Indians", much in accordance with my history texts and just about everyone in the fantasy books I tended to prefer were white and English.  Frances Hodgson Burnett's novels are pretty fucking condesending towards India.  Stephen King, while a good writer, is a font of Magical Negro characters and I was reading him from the age of 9 until I got really bored with Wizard and Glass.  I'm also really familiar with Lovecraft's work.  Works from the Victorian era and just afterward like to talk about the savage races and how uncivilized and lazy and strong they are.  So at this point, if it was written before the Civil Rights Movement and it's not King and there's casual racism peppered about, I simply sigh, think to myself, "What a damned asshole," and read on.

Let's not even pretend that A Princess of Mars isn't racist with it's depiction of Native Americans and when I started reading Burroughs/Carter's account of the Green Men of Mars (aka Barsoom) it was highly reflective of the usual Victorian Anthropology attitude of, "Yay the civilized white people, especially the English ones! (or in this case, Virginian)"  The Green Men are described as savage and brutish, without compassion, things are held in community, and the only laughter comes from witnessing death and violence.  I read it and I give my usual sigh.

I Swear Conspiracy Theorists Aren't Even Trying Anymore.

Yeah, Attorney General Holder totally met Judge Land in a coffee shop to conspire against Birthers (and by extension, the U.S.) even though he was across the country giving a speech.

Awesome, I Successfully Blogged for a Week

I kept getting distracted while writing my next X-Men post and it's just not coming out the way I want it.  I'd work on it today, but the comics are on a DVD, my screenshots for the panels are on the Macbook and I brought the netbook with me to jury duty.

The other problem is that I'm always composing posts when I'm not writing.  I'll be knitting or playing Dwarf Fortress or something else.  I've got this head full of things I'm thinking about and should make use of that to improve my writing skills and maybe take all my ideas and put them to use and I'm not doing it.

I'm out of school, out of work, I have the time, and I have no excuse for this.

I Feel Insulted...

Given my long period of unemployment, checking the mail has become a dreaded task. My funds are completely dry and I'm getting bills I can't pay. It just makes me feel worse and worth less than my currently negative worth.  Imagine my surprise when I open my mailbox and I have one of those perforate envelopes that says, "CHECK ENCLOSED."

I'm Just Not Even Going to Try to Make the Joke on Her Name for This

Orly Taitz, Czarina of the Birthers, filed a suit on behalf of an Army Captain named Connie Rhodes who was seeking a restraining order against being deployed to Iraq because she (the captain) was concerned that President Obama was a shining beacon of Christianity, Capitalism, Apple Pie, Superman, and all the other stuff the Founding Fathers held dear to their hearts as they founded This Great Nation. illegitimately president since she's not sure he's a natural-born citizen.

Today, the suit was dismissed for being frivolous in the most awesome way possible.