OK -- it's another cool, cloudy, windy day (Ben and I did get to sit in the garden yesterday, though -- I feel like I've snuck one past the day-off god), so I'm sitting here blogging.
Nostalgia:
Remember when the press used to do some reporting and some analysis, used to fact-check, used to hold people's feet to the fire? Thanks to Scoot for this tidbit from Crooks and Liars:
Stewart: So why not encourage gay people to join in in that family arrangement if that is what provides stability to a society?
Bennett: Well I think if gay..gay people are already members of families...
Stewart: What? (almost spitting out his drink)
Bennett: They're sons and they're daughters..
Stewart: So that's where the buck stops, that's the gay ceiling.
Bennett Look, it's a debate about whether you think marriage is between a man and a women.
Stewart:I disagree, I think it's a debate about whether you think gay people are part of the human condition or just a random fetish.
So far, Jon Stewart and Steve Colbert are behaving more like journalists than anyone at NYT or WaPo.
As Tuesday's interview with Bennett pointed out in clear terms, Stewart goes where other newsman fear to tread. When he interviews people, he is asking the kind of pointed questions and bringing up issues that mainstream news organizations should be doing, used to do , and now have somehow failed to do in their pandering to the current the regime. Where the mainstream media has failed the public, Stewart and Colbert have taken up the banner of pointing out the holes in everyone's arguments. They show us the emperors with out their clothes.
I think they should both run for the Senate.
How Sick Is This?
This is from the Left Behind Games website:
LBG is developing products to include the same types of compelling elements that have made interactive games popular for years, and yet offer a less graphic experience to the sexual themes and gratuitous violence currently found in many titles. We plan to make all games visually and kinetically appealing. We anticipate our titles will be classified as both action, strategy and adventure genres, and will likely receive either an "E" rating (appropriate for ages 6 and up) or a "T" rating (appropriate for ages 13 and up). [Emphasis added.]
This from a review at WarCry:
Also, to bring real life to the game, Chris Fabry himself has written countless individual life stories of the inhabitants of this post-apocalyptic New York City. LB:EF is not just your average RTS; it's a very directed, very controversial, and very story driven game where each individual's life story matters, and each interaction with biblical passages (in the form of scrolls) grants the player a deeper understanding of why-oh-why the world as we know it is coming apart at the seams.
One thing many gamers will likely find disturbing about Left Behind, though, is the black-and-white polarization of good and evil portrayed. The faithful are good, and the undecided are (decidedly) bad or evil. The only way to accomplish anything positive in the game is to 'convert' nonbelievers into faithful believers, and the only alternative to this is outright killing them.
And some of the comments:
"We're going to push this game at Christian kids to let them know there's a cool shooter game out there," said attorney Jack Thompson, an author and outspoken critic of video game violence. "Because of the Christian context, somehow it's OK? It's not OK. The context is irrelevant. It's a mass-killing game."
And note that the article from LA Times is, on the whole, fairly laudatory. Of course, it's an article from the business section, and the only morality in business is the bottom line.
To put this in a context that actually relates to some sort of morality, see this commentary by Jonathan Hutson (via Crooks & Liars):
Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City. You are on a mission - both a religious mission and a military mission -- to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state - especially moderate, mainstream Christians. Your mission is "to conduct physical and spiritual warfare"; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice. You have never felt so powerful, so driven by a purpose: you are 13 years old. You are playing a real-time strategy video game whose creators are linked to the empire of mega-church pastor Rick Warren, best selling author of The Purpose Driven Life.
Read Hutson's several essays on this. It's beyond the violence of the game itself (and how Christian is that?). There seems to be the usual Republican/conservative Christian interlocked marketing going on here. Looks like the culture of corruption isn't limited to inside the Beltway.
And just think about the content of the game itself, as outlined in the paragraph quoted above. This is, as far as I can tell, conservative Christianity: Do it my way or get blown away. For thirteen year olds.
About What's-Her-Name:
Not someone you've seen many comments about here (nor will you). But this caught my eye:
Later, when a Fox News anchor asked if she was being provocative just to sell books, she bragged that she was already rich. "Frankly," she said, "I don't need any more money."
What is it that she needs, do you suppose?
Constitutional Amendments:
OK -- when's the last time someone actually burned an American flag in this country?
Clinton Lite:
Interesting article at The Nation by David Sirota on Barack Obama. Obama is one of my senators, and I have to confess that I am ambivalent. On the upside, he's pragmatic and politically savvy. On the downside, he's pragmatic and politically savvy.
So Appalling I'm Speechless:
If people begin to market the vaccine or tout the vaccine that this makes adolescent sex safer, then that would undermine the abstinence-only message,” said Reginald Finger, a member of the ACIP and a former medical adviser for the pro-abstinence Focus on the Family.
ACIP is the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Dr. Finger's qualifications are at revealed in this interview:
The Sharpshooter: So how did your appointment to
the ACIP come about? And what is the ACIP?
Dr. Finger: The Advisory Committee on Immunization
Practices is appointed by the Secretary of Health and
Human Services to work with CDC to set immunization policy
for the nation. We look at the safety, effectiveness, and costs of
vaccines, new and old, and the epidemiology of diseases that can
be prevented by vaccination, and hammer out recommendations
and schedules for the use of each vaccine. These are then accepted
and published by CDC. My appointment came about because
a little over a year ago, Focus on the Family was asked—along
with a number of other organizations—to line up a list of qualified
scientists to suggest to Secretary Thompson for service on
various federal boards. My bosses here gave the assignment to me
and kindly suggested that I put my own name on the list. So I
did—and this spring HHS called and asked if I would serve on
the ACIP! It was a marvelous opportunity and I jumped at the
chance.
The Sharpshooter: Isn’t it a bit unusual for a public
health physician to be working at a place like Focus on
the Family?
Dr. Finger:Well, it’s true that most ACIP members work
at academic medical centers, and some at state health
departments or private medical practices. But through the years,
Focus on the Family has gotten many questions from the public
about medical issues, and lots of those concern public health. The
two other MDs here see a big need to have someone with my
background, do research and analysis on medical and public
health policy questions. So I have found a good fit here at Focus.
This ministry is very pro-immunizations and can be a great
influence in helping parents resolve their concerns about vaccines.
In addition, Focus on the Family wants to have goodrelationships at CDC—and I can help make those happen. [Emphasis added]
The ITAT interview is somewhat of a gusher; see also this quote, from Blogs for Industry. . . blogs for the dead:
Reginald Finger, an evangelical Christian and a former medical adviser to the conservative political organization Focus on the Family, said. 'With any vaccine for H.I.V., disinhibition' - a medical term for the absence of fear - 'would certainly be a factor, and it is something we will have to pay attention to with a great deal of care.' Finger sits on the Centers for Disease Control's Immunization Committee, which makes those recommendations.
(No link to the New Yorker article because the New Yorker's search engine is so crappy that I passed on the opportunity to wade through 275 responses to a search for "Reginald Finger.")
OK -- the Department of Health and Human Services is asking a bunch of nutcases like Focus on the Family to provide members to an advisory committee on vaccines? They are actually soliciting these whackjobs? And so is it any surprise that we get someone who is going to consider the possibility that someone might be encouraged to have sex more important than the effectiveness of a vaccine that will save someone's life?
This administration can't end too soon to suit me.
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