I've just noticed something

At the time of the coup at Focus on the Family when Jim Daly and his minions forced out Doctor James Dobson from the ministry he founded, it was stated by many FoF representatives that there would be many celebrations of "Doctor's" accomplishments before he finally leaves the airwaves at the end of February this year.

Er....where are these 'celebrations'? It is now January 31st 2010 and I've noticed something that bears consideration.....

Since old Dobbo announced he will set up a new rival radio program to the daily Focus on the Family broadcast, I don't think that he's been live from the Colorado gulag - not for the entire month of January. At least when I've tuned in, it has always seemed to be a "Best Of The Best" recording of a previously aired program. No live Dobson. No specially interrupted broadcast so he can smack the President around a little with the likes of Gary "the tosser" Bauer and Chuck "the felon" Colson.

So look for any special "celebrations" of Dobson's achievements at Focus on the Family to be if not non-existent, then very perfunctory and aired probably but once around February 26th - basically just as Daly finally boots him from the building.

This Dobson vs Daly feud can only heat up as 2010 progresses and I love it.

With a recession that shows no sign of going away for the middle class and a shrinking funding base for the twisted fare Dobson and Daly offer, the animosity can only keep going up and up.

Let the games begin!

Hooray for Johnny Weir

It's not that often that I give a shout out to male ice skaters with their "points for style" and their very dodgy wardrobes, but I feel today we must all stand up and say "Well done Johnny!"

Yes indeed, Johnny Weir, all sequins, sparkles and a little bit of fox fur has raised the ire of the animal rights loons and he has said what all right thinking people should say to such idiots :-

“I totally get the dirtiness of the fur industry and how terrible it is to animals. But it’s not something that’s the No. 1 priority in my life. There are humans dying everyday. There are thousands if not millions of homeless people in New York City."

"Look at what just happened in Haiti."

“I tend to focus my energy, if there is a cause, on humans. While that may be callous and bad of me, it’s my choice.”

Bravo Johnny! People are more important. MORE IMPORTANT than animals. Every person in pain in Haiti is worth more than all the little foxes that are or ever were.

Spartacus: Blood and Sand

Anyone who saw the new Starz series "Spartacus: Blood and Sand" knows it should be renamed simply "Spartacus: Blood". The producers of this so called "entertainment" took an effect used hardly sparingly by Frank Miller in "300" namely the slow motion arterial spray of blood, and put it in almost every hit, stab, punch or kick in every fight scene portrayed. And sometimes the blood, for want of a better term, "redded out" the screen background - why? For a scene change? Now that was not really a cheesy effect, but it was a cheap looking one - like someone had no ideas except "throw up more blood!".

Of course the other aspect of this series that pushes and pushes and pushes itself to the fore is the rumpy pumpy.

In the opening episode there were three scenes, two involving the soon to be named Spartacus played by Andy Whitfield and "his woman" Sura played by Erin Cummings ( I kid you not! ). The other one involved the evil Roman Glaber ( Craig Parker ) and his very conniving wife Ilithyia ( Viva Bianca ) "You know women are not allowed at the front" he tells her. Pfnarr! Pfnarr! And while the first scene between Sparty and Sura was somewhat perfunctory with many fade cuts, the second one between them could hardly be described as such.

What it can be described as is lazy. It was lazy because it used the movie making cliche of having the characters do it directly after a scene of intense danger - which of course is what happened. Hey we killed a lot of bad guys together! Let's do it, right here right now, we are already sweaty and breathing hard, so its really no biggee.

So maybe we should think of a second name change for this "epic" - let's go with "Spartacus: Blood and Sheets".

Now though this is very bad TV and I mean really really bad, I will be watching the next episode to be sure, for the contextual analysis of course.

Woo! Manhattan Declaration Update

Again, giving them the generous concession of perhaps 160 million people in the US who might be interested in signing, today's number of 404834 signatories to the "Manhattan Declaration" still only represents 0.253% of the American population who gives a flying crappola.

Last week on one of the Focus On The Family broadcasts someone said "hundreds of thousands of people have signed". That would at that time have been THREE hundreds of thousands. Talk about bending the truth while not actually bearing false witness.

All the loons from Jimmy Dobson, to Chuck "the Felon" Colson and Gary "The Tosser" Bauer and beyond can get back to me when they have a 20% sign up rate.

That's going to be for me at 32 MILLION people.

And also, it ain't EVER going to happen.

And one last thing, doesn't this whole "Declaration" thing strike anyone else as kind of prideful? It's like this document's originators are puffing up their importance and the cultural significance of what they are doing. This whole exercise strikes me very much as them setting themselves up as modern day equivalents to those who did actually sign the most significant documents in our nation's past - like say, The Mayflower Compact or heaven forbid, The Declaration Of Independence.

And ladies and gentlemen, I think we can all agree that the people signing this new "Declaration" are truly not fit to shine the shoes of the men from 1776.

But they so think they are. Amd that disturbs me.

This is a Public Service Movie Review

To all my American friends out there, I want to post a review of a movie called "Vampire Killers" as my latest attempt to bridge the cultural gap between the US and the UK.

Please note that the title of ths movie in Britain was "Lesbian Vampire Killers". That says something right there.

Oh dear. This is simply Lad Culture translated into a movie.

And it is very bad.

If you are unaware of the whole Lad phenomenon, it is a marketing culture from the UK aimed directly at 15-year old lager drinking, Ibiza vacation taking, footie fans. It's "literature" is magazines like "Stuff", "Nuts" and "Loaded" full of stories about drinking, football and with lots of color pictures of topless girls.

It is a culture that is manifestly afraid of women. Or to be the most charitable I can be, it knows nothing about women. But it wants to because it feels a "funny" attraction to them.

It might use the word "pornography" in its mags, but that is really a foreign land to the Lad - he is quite happy that topless girls are chopped off at the waist in his favorite Page 3 photos. He feels that below the female waist is little like Antarctica - something is probably going on down there, but he himself really doesn't want to visit at this time.

All that is reflected in this film - the "heroes" are true lads. They use the F-word all the time, they want to just drink beer and pick up "hot birds". If they were ever successful, they wouldn't have clue what to do with one. The vampires are completely asexual; actually making the title change for the movie in the US a more accurate case of truth-in-advertizing. There is suprisingly little pulchritude on display. There is really hardly any blood. There is definitely no out and out gore a la "The Descent".

If you were looking for female vampires like those in Francis Ford Coppola's "Dracula" movie, you are going to be very, very disappointed.

And Paul McGann plays a vicar who uses the F-word a lot? I could hardly contain my water.