I think Ricky Gervais’s television shows are hilarious, but he really should leave theology to other people.  He said in a recent article, A Holiday Message From Ricky Gervais: Why I’m an Atheist:

The existence of God is not subjective. He either exists or he doesn’t. It’s not a matter of opinion. You can have your own opinions. But you can’t have your own facts.

This statement, and several other things about his article, dismayed me.  However, his article was also instructive for those who want to look beyond its text.  I’ll get to that in a moment.

But first, why did Mr. Gervais and the media choose to release this article right before Christmas?  Nice timing.  Very respectful.  Why is it that Joy Behar storms off her own show because Bill O’Reilly makes a statement about Muslims and everyone cheers her, yet nobody has a problem with Mr. Gervais insulting Christians?  Mind you, it doesn’t bother me that his statement bothers people.  In fact, those who believe in God (regardless of religious affiliation) should welcome such a challenge. It’s the timing that is disrespectful.

Second, there’s an arrogance that oozes throughout the piece.  Mr. Gervais is so insistent that he is right – a trait often exuded by those on the Left — that he subsequently relies on faulty logic and a few bad childhood experiences to bolster his case. (more…)

The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto:

What kind of people blow up children?

White supremacists, for one example. On the morning of Sept. 15, 1963, members of a Ku Klux Klan “splinter group” set off dynamite under the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., killing four girls: Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley. Denise was 11; the other three were 14.

—–

Islamic supremacists, for another example. Groups like Hamas and al Qaeda not only attack civilians indiscriminately but frequently employ Muslim children as suicide bombers. Our friend Brooke Goldstein made a whole movie about it.

There’s a new kind of supremacist on the scene: green supremacists. They haven’t blown up any children–not in real life. But they’ve been thinking about it.

A British outfit called the 10:10 Campaign hired Richard Curtis, a writer and producer of cinematic comedies, to produce a four-minute video promoting its effort to encourage people to cut “carbon emissions.” The result, titled “No Pressure,” struck James Delingpole, a global-warming skeptic who writes for London’s Daily Telegraph, as “deliciously, unspeakably, magnificently bleeding awful.” He’s being too kind. (more…)

Comprehending the work of a propagandist is nearly impossible. Since their goal is the opposite of trying to enlighten, there’s never any logic behind the words. Instead, the goal is to obscure and deflect in the hopes that The Lie being told is highlighted and can come across as some sort of scholarly conclusion now that it’s been buried in a whole lot of meaningless words. Patrick Goldstein, Hollywood’s chief leftist enforcer at the L.A. Times, has just created yet another perfect example of this (and why the financially troubled newspaper has been reduced to the size of a dinner menu).

Goldstein’s editorial mission — his specialty at the high-profile perch — is poaching from another news outlet any story that disrupts the Leftist Hollywood narrative. If the story makes Hollywood look bad or risks damaging the industry in any way, Goldstein’s job is to twist it around in the hopes of changing the narrative into what Hollywood wants to hear.

If you recall, just this last month, Goldstein did exactly this with a Wall Street Journal profile of musician Jonathan Kahn. Nowhere in the article did Kahn claim his right-of-center politics had ever hurt his career, and yet in an attempt to paint him as a whiner, Goldstein told all of Hollywood he had. Worse, in a conscious effort to portray Kahn as a no-talent has-been, rather than mention Kahn’s long, successful relationship with a Grammy-winning producer (which made up a large part of the WSJ profile), Goldstein ignored it and instead Googled up some old credits of Kahn’s in order to present them as though they were Kahn’s entire resume. (the hard-left film site Movieline soon followed suit.) (more…)

“My dinner with Fidel Castro was the eight most important hours of my life,” Steven Spielberg is reported to have announced after returning from a visit to Cuba in 2002.

The quote was carried by many papers including the Wall Street Journal  and was included in this writer’s articles and books. Upon their publication, the Hollywood agent who arranged Spielberg’s trip to the Caribbean police-state notified me that Spielberg had uttered nothing of the sort. Therefore I should retract that statement from my writings.

Castro’s own media, explained Mr. Stephen Rivers (formerly with Creative Artists Agency), had concocted the Spielberg quote from thin air. So there was absolutely no truth to it.

Well, that actually makes my point better than the quote genuinely issuing from Spielberg, I replied to the high-rolling Stephen Rivers, who also represented Michael Ovitz.  My writings document that Fidel Castro is a master propagandist and that his KGB/STASI- trained secret services specialize in obtaining many such statements from many such luminaries via a variety of methods.

So the proper — and especially, the logical — course of action (if Mr. Spielberg had indeed been  thusly swindled) was for Mr. Spielberg or his agent, to make Fidel Castro’s treachery known publicly.  After all, Mr. Spielberg (supposedly) was the aggrieved party here and the damage (from what Mr. Rivers was telling me) had been inflicted maliciously by the secret services of a Stalinist regime. (more…)

So some gay groups are upset over a photo the Wall Street Journal ran of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan:

It was also a picture we ran on Monday. It’s of her playing softball. The beef? That the shot is meant to provoke questions about her sexuality.

Gay and lesbian advocates, like Cathy Renna, believe it “clearly is an allusion to her being gay,” even though the paper never mentioned her orientation.

And that’s my point: The only time Kagan gets outed, is by gays. The bottom line: most of America doesn’t care who Kagan likes to cuddle with. In fact, most of America doesn’t even care about the Supreme Court period. The fact is, this so-called “whispering campaign” over Kagan’s sexuality wasn’t started by an average Joe or even an angry right wing preacher. It was launched by busy-body bloggers, mostly on the left, who have too much time on their hands and too much identity politics in their heads. My favorite line, for example, comes from a major liberal blog. In it, the writer says that Kagan’s friends say she is not gay. But adds: “And yet, the rumor persists.” (more…)

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto waded into the “South Park” - Muhammad controversy with a column employing this title, subtitle and closing summary:

Everybody Burn the Flag
If we don’t act like inconsiderate jerks, the terrorists will have won ….

The problem with the “in-your-face message” of “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” is not just that it is inconsiderate of the sensibilities of others, but that it defines those others–Muslims–as being outside of our culture, unworthy of the courtesy we readily accord to insiders. It is an unwise message to send, assuming that one does not wish to make an enemy of the entire Muslim world.

Comparing a drawing of Mohammed to flag burning completely misses the point of the energy people have towards the idea driving a Draw Mohammed Day (which looks as though it might have been cancelled anyway on account of…something). Taranto also looks at what kind of behavior will or will not place the Muslim community outside of our culture in a fashion that leans heavily on the politically correct at the expense of logic. 

When our culture is working the way it should there are no sacred cows. When our culture is firing on all cylinders we collectively take the same amount of incoming fire from our national satirists. Taranto’s belief that Muslims should receive some sort of special treatment — a unique inoculation when it comes to this sort of satire — that’s the act that puts the Muslim community outside of our culture. To be a part of our culture and community means taking the good and the bad. (more…)

It is more than just interesting how advertisers are rebelling against free television’s current crop of lurid, creepy content.  For the Hollywood elite, this is a canary in the coal mine, and they should heed that figurative dead bird’s warning.  Their time as the sole arbiters of what will and will not be seen is ending.  And the conservative movement stands to gain.

As the Wall Street Journal recently reported (subscription required):

The world’s biggest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores, and Procter & Gamble, the world’s biggest consumer-products maker, are jointly creating a made-for-TV movie, in an effort to promote “family-friendly” alternatives to what they say is increasingly risqué TV fare.

The two advertising heavyweights have teamed up on the two-hour “Secrets of the Mountain,” to be broadcast in April on NBC. The movie, which focuses on a single mother who brings her family to a mountainside cabin, highlights values—such as generosity, honesty and togetherness—that Wal-Mart and P&G executives say are in short supply on television.

Now, the root cause of the problem is clear.  Television and other Hollywood executives are interested in two kinds of currency.  One currency is dollars.  The other is coolness.  And you don’t get a coolness payoff by producing entertainment involving decent people and solid values.  Sure, a show about a normal family, free of the perversions and bizarre Blue Velvet-esque weirdness Hollywoodoids always seem to attribute to normal Americans, might make money.  But what are your peers going to think?  Are you going to win an Emmy?  Are you going to be labeled a visionary?  Are girls with piercings and daddy issues going to even want to talk to you anymore? (more…)

This week’s Washington Times column:

John Mackey – the founder, CEO and marketing genius behind Whole Foods – finds himself in an organic, unsustainable mess with his carefully cultivated affluent, liberal customer base after penning an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal titled, “The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare.”

For starters, Mr. Mackey opens with a line from known-liberal-allergen Margaret Thatcher that features the dreaded “S” word: “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” Then he goes on to provide eight sensible free-market solutions gleaned from his company’s well-regarded employee health care program.

Mr. Mackey, a free-market libertarian, is now at the mercy of an unforgiving grass-roots mob intent on destroying his company. More than 25,000 people have signed on to a Whole Foods boycott on Facebook.

“Whole Foods has built its brand with the dollars of deceived progressives,” the online petition reads. “Let them know your money will no longer go to support Whole Foods’ anti-union, anti-health insurance reform, right-wing activities.”

(more…)

So I`ve been thinking that this whole immigration issue is like Easter Sunday at my family`s house. A bunch of people start showing up – a lot of them, mind you, I really don`t want to see. But the reason why I don`t want to see them has nothing to do with race, it has to do with being human. Human beings are weird creatures in that we resist things that aren`t comfortable – so when someone drops by unannounced, or perhaps with a date you immediately assume is pompous, stupid and covered in cheap cologne – you take an instant dislike. Essentially, we’re an irritable bunch, and the people we take it out on are the those unfamiliar types that show up without a proper invite.

But here`s what I know about parties: I`ve thrown a crapload of them, and yes, most of the time I’ve been drunk. But the key to a good party is accepting people into the throng not because of what they can do for you, but because they can`t do anything for you…yet.

You just never know. (more…)

“Who is watching the Watchmen?” Just about everyone…or so it seems.

The brand new film adaptation of the classic graphic comic Watchmen is a hit of monstrous proportions on its opening weekend, but not everyone loves it. In fact, not only is there a prominent character named Rohrschach (played by Oscar nominee Jackie Earle Haley), the film itself is serving as a Rohrschach Test for critics, fanboys and the broader public.

The Zack Snyder-directed $120M epic started with $4.5M in Thursday midnight business which is outstanding. There was no way for Watchmen to approach the $18.5M midnight start for lat summer’s The Dark Knight. First off, it is March and not the middle of summer blockbuster season. Kids have school. People are working. These are not the lazy days of July when it is easier for many to see a movie at midnight on Thursday, and hit the office late on Friday. The other factor is the movie’s rating. This is an R-rated movie, not PG-13 like The Dark Knight. (more…)