For Batman-TAS fans:

Because I could.

Extra Credit

Find the fallacy (ies) in this quote:







Answer early, answer often.

"Suing the Devil" and the Unpardonable Sin

THIS IS SPOILER-FILLED!! Be warned. But it is also clever, and may be worth it.



"Suing the Devil" is a "Christian movie" about a young lawyer who sees all the terrible things in his life, and in the world, and decides to sue Satan for eight trillion dollars. Inexplicably, the International Court accepts the suit, and the fun begins. Satan shows up, played to the hilt by Malcolm McDowell, and proceeds to use all his wiles (and a dream team of corporate lawyers) to destroy the young plaintiff, including dredging up "hidden sins" before a watching world (the chiefest sins on earth appear to be internet porn, the f-word, and racial epithets). Our Hero trots out Biblical texts, and Prominent Pastors to buttress his arguments. Satan bullies his team, charms his fans, belches incandescently at the reading of James 4:7:

 
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

I shall let you guess who wins. Better yet, see the movie. RedBox has it. It is a good popcorn flick, and actually takes some serious cues from C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters.

There are various weaknesses to the film. McDowell (who executive produced the movie) is great fun as Satan, and therein lies the problem. He becomes almost likeable, a likeable bullying buffoon. From a strong start, he rapidly moves into caricature.







"I'm a Tom Jones man." RIOT!

A key point to the movie is that Satan's cleverest ruse is to convince folks that he doesn't exist. They miss a more important one: Satan isn't stupid. He has had a long time to perfect his wiles. McDowell's portrayal waffles between "Master Schemer of the World" and "Thick and Sloppy".

Our Hero is revealed to be a nominal Christian with homicidal tendencies (he carries a major grudge against the drunk who killed Mom in a road accident). He is shown twice stalking the guy, getting out a gun, and then chickening out. One time he forgets the bullets. Thick seems to be a theme. He ultimately comes to the place of repentance and renewal, and does not shake his fist at God when he learns (from Satan!) that his wife has brain cancer.

Me daughter sez on Fa-CHAY Book:

OK, I figured out one thing bothers me so much. Movies like this inevitably portray Satan at some point like a blithering idiot...and he isn't. He's had millennia to perfect his tactics. Al pointed out the lack of guile in this particular portrayal - In the film, Satan is almost a bully, not a whisperer of half-truths and cunning persuasion. It's like writers glom onto the roaring lion aspect, and forget the serpent. Satan, I would contend, is not generally a creator of chaos, but a careful orchestrator of subtle change. It is man who *reacts* in a violent manner. The noise aspect is a good one, though. "The music of hell."

They got a lot of things right - again, the good parts were exceptional, and someone on the team clearly knew their Lewis.

It came close to being as good as one could expect...and is a far cut above MOST Christian movies. But it dumbs down the wrong things, and expects a certain level of scriptural understanding of which the target audience may not even be aware...(the)movie was embarrassing in all the ways that Christian movies usually are.

Trust her. She knows. I used to run programming at a local Christian cable station, and Friday night was "Lock-in Movie Night". I would take her to the station with me, get Little Caesar's, Pepsi, and suchlike (the $5 Caesar's, with whopping cheeseless crust tumors), and I would press the buttons and make movie magic for all our viewer.

These were movies like "A Thief In The Night", where a nominal churchian miss misses The Rapture, and Antichrist misdoings ensue. Real potboilers, long on dispensational dogma (read:false doctrine) and short on talent, but enough to scare Hell out of twelve-year-olds sated with soft drinks and pizza. To read my opinion of what passes for Christian Entertainment, go HERE.

"Suing the Devil" is very good, compared to the spate of End-Timey-Wimey stuff that is normal Christian movie fare. I recommend it, whether you are a believer or not (hello, Malcolm McDowell as Satan!). It is not perfect, but it is a sight better than most. 

Oh, and the Unpardonable Sin?

It turns out to be All a Dream!

This did not work in kid's puppet shows. It is not any better as a Christian movie plot device.

"Back to the Future" fans wax wroth over heinous hoverboard.

"You can tell it's Mattel...it's SWELL!"

Haven't seen THIS slogan in a LONG time. There MAY be a reason....

Mattel was the premiere toy company back in my day. REMCO, Hasbro, Topper...no-one held a candle to happy Matty, Mattel's corporate shill. You could expect quality, playability, TRENDINESS, but with a lifespan! Mattel tended to create trends, rather than ride them.

Barbie, anyone?

Hot Wheels, Major Matt Mason, a myriad of other toy lines;  you could expect quality. I have a 40-plus-year-old pull string toy whose voicebox still works! Heck, Mattel made the stock and other plastic bits for the eminently jammable M-16, for playing army guys in Southeast Asia.

Alas, the Baby Boomers grew up, our adult expectations went down, and Mattel met them.

Meet the NEW Matty...the corporate spokes scrawl for Matty Collector.com, Mattel's high-end, sell 'em to the ComiCon crowd, and to professionals with midlife-and-later crises.

This is not an endearing logo. He looks like a hood, Jughead after his first taste of crack, or one of the Joker's goons. Confidence is not inspired. This is not to say that the Matty Collector idea is a scheme gone wrong; much that I have seen is quite good: the Ghostbusters PKE meter prop would be usable for a good fan film. When they are good they are very, very good. When they are bad....

Which brings us to the Back to the Future Hoverboard replica. Fans and collectors have lusted after this beast for some time now, and the original designer for the movie was brought in to consult. On the promise of movie-quality proposity, Matty presold the things for $120. One. Hundred. Twenty. Dollars. This for a hoverboard that doesn't. It is supposed to glide over certain surfaces like carpet. Apparently, it doesn't even do that well. Beyond the Marquee reports on the whole thing, includeng BTTF designer Bob Gale's take on it all. The slaughter on the Matty discussion board is bloody, with collectors venting their spleen, and the Matty mods banning the righteous miscreants. They didn't even get the lenticular look right (remember the flicker rings?). Apparently, what you get is a pink board with stickers on it, and a stand that doesn't work well. Where do I sign up?

This naturally moves me to a rant on "the tuna doesn't taste as good as it used to". The aforementioned talking toy still works after over forty years. Bell Telephone equipment was so tough you could almost hammer nails with it, and still your call quality was excellent. The China/Walmartification of the marketplace leaves a hunger for quality products again.

The "Veg-a-Matic", on the other hand....

The Moral: If you want quality collector's stuff, don't buy it from a logo that looks like it grew up in Juvie.

Created by allthingschristmas.com

...as he moves carefully.

Ray Bradbury wrote a wonderful tale about a man who Became Aware of his skeleton, and of the man who helped him with his problem. I am currently acutely aware of my GI tract, so I am lying low today.

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Speaking of heresy (which does NOT necessarily mean false doctrine, but rather doctrine with a 'tude, a "my way or the highway" twist), WorldNet Daily is, true to form, marching in lockstep with that most peculiar of dispensational aberrations, the love affair with Judaism, the selfsame teaching that the apostle Paul FOUGHT against for a significant portion of his epistolary writing in the New Testament. Joe Farah is backing this with offerings like the "The Gift of Chanukah DVD" with an email subject line "Jesus celebrated THIS, not Christmas." (as foolish a come-on as ever was), as well as featuring writing by Richard Rives,  president of Wyatt Archaeological Research, and an adventist in outlook, whose grumping about keeping the Sabbath is being featured by Farah and WND.

This of course syncs well with the WND dispensational love affair with the modern state of Israel.

Paul withstood Peter for retreating from the gospel's liberty because Peter feared the Jerusalem church leaders who sought to lay the burden of the Law of Moses upon the shoulders of the Gentile Christians. The Holy Spirit-led missive from the Jerusalem Council is, to me, the crowning blow against the need for "commandment-keeping" in the Church.

²² Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas (called Barsabbas) and Silas, men who were leaders among the believers. ²³ With them they sent the following letter:

The apostles and elders, your brothers,

To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:

Greetings.

²⁴ We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. ²⁵ So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— ²⁶ men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁷ Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. ²⁸ It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: ²⁹ You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.

Farewell.

³⁰ So the men were sent off and went down to Antioch, where they gathered the church together and delivered the letter. ³¹ The people read it and were glad for its encouraging message. (Acts 15)

Those four strictures were the full extent of the requirements placed upon the Gentiles beyond the teaching of the Gospel. If God wished the Gentile church to be keeping the Sabbath, He missed a good opportunity to make it plain.

Paul's teaching in Galatians that if you seek the righteousness found in Law-keeping, then you have fallen from the Grace which imputes Christ's righteousness to you (see Romans), also makes clear the danger inherent in being a fanboy of Mosaic Law.

The admonition to "celebrate Chanukah" because Jesus did is a spurious one (beside its being a non-canonical festival). Jesus also celebrated Passover before He BECAME our Passover, and before he transmogrified the Seder meal into the commemoration of His Body and Blood. Jesus CHANGED the Passover, as surely as He changed the water to wine at Cana. Jesus also practiced going to the Temple, and all the rest of the Law, as it was meant to be. We have not had that charge laid upon us in ANY contextual passage of the New Testament.

 The "War on Christmas" has taken a perverse turn, the shooting coming from an ostensibly "christian" front. Christmas is, patently, not a New-Testament-approved holiday. Other than the reportage of the birth of Jesus, there is no mention of any celebrations of it in the NT canon. Does this mean that we should therefore not remember and celebrate Jesus' birth? If that is the reasoning, then a lot of churches must sell their buildings, as corporate ownership of property is not sanctioned in the New Testament either.

I write this not to promote this chimaeric season we call "Christmas", with its mangers and carols and stockings and Santas. I am writing this to denounce that which would seek to put us, in the name of Christ, into bondage under what Christ freed us from. The Law is our schoolmaster (as Paul wrote) to lead us to Christ, showing us our inability to bootstrap ourselves into the Kingdom by perfect adherence to the Law. Jesus Christ has freed us from the Law, by fulfilling it. He has freed us from the bondage of sin and death by defeating them.

That is Christmas present enough for anyone!

--------------------------------

In other news, this image DOES bring a tear to the old 'Varky eye....

Heresy

So, it has to be said.

THE FLYING SUB IS SEXIER THAN SUPERCAR!

Ghostbusters cosplay...you're doing it wrong.

Wherein the Aardvark waxes wroth at masquerade malfeasance.  

 When you go to a fan convention, do not wear a Party City version of the signature costume of that fandom. This may scream "elitism" to you, but the Aardvark loves you, and wishes to save you embarrassment. You have people at EctoCon in St. Louis with very movie-accurate props, and the blow-up costumery just doesn't make the cut. What's great for a Hallowe'en or New Year's party just doesn't cut it at the con.

Elitism. Huh.
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Welcome to Stream-of-Consciousness Saturday, being an exercise in staving off death-by-ennui.

Just heard a sci-fi gal mention "mundanes" with a verbal smirk. Mundanes are those who are not of the Body, not clued into the fannish gnosis; the terminally uncool; the very unGeorge. The ones who wait on you when you wear your costume to Steak and Shake, who check you out at Hobby Lobby when you are  buying a hot glue gun for affixing gears to your Dollar Store Nerf gun to go with your Steampunk outfit.

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Breakfasted at Steak and Shake today. All of the breakfast offerings left me feeling conceptually queasy, so I defaulted to a burger; not a bad breakfast. Their coffee is quite good. As I was dispensing with my second cuppa, a white-haired lady whom I had smiled at as I was being seated stopped by my table, and commented upon my reading. She had been perusing a small booklet as well. She asked to join me, and I gestured her to sit. We determined that we were each believers in Christ, and this provided a baseline. she had worked on VBS curricula for the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, and that she wrote poetry. We had a lovely chat, but I had to leave and set up my table for the day's sales.  It was a pleasant start to the day.
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In deference to my Muse, I am remembering old projects that need new life. Several stories being born again. One is in process.
 ---------------------------
 I believe that I am an inherently lazy person, in that my writing tends toward short fiction. Very short. I fear I write precis rather than stories.
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I will post this, now, to give you summat to do.


  

Best. Space toy. EVER!

Deluxe Reading Operation X-500.

@Michael - the control panel part became my SUPERCAR dashboard. 

Comment if you get the gag.

Or comment anyway.

Just don't ignore me-he-he-heeeee...(runs to bedroom, sobbing).

To all my many Reader-

I am thankful for our nation, that our nation has not passed the point of no return if only good men and women will do right; that I have a lovely family, all that I need, and that God loves us so much that He wants us to be with Him forever, so He sent Jesus to us on our silent planet.

I am thankful for good authors, Bradbury, Heinlein, Cordwainer Smith, Dickens for the schmaltz, T.S.Eliot, Lewis, L'Engle, Twain, Wodehouse, Steinbeck, Poe, Harper Lee, and the myriad of other writers of lesser note who have enriched my life.

I am thankful we turned off cable last January.

I am thankful for the Wonka meme, old-time radio, and audiobooks. I am thankful that my muse has not left me bereft.

I am thankful for the odd little assemblages of fans that we regularly hob-nob with at anime conventions. Thankful for anime, especially old-school, Leiji Matsumoto, Hayao Miyazaki, the weird and cranky stuff out of the '80s and '90s.

I am thankful for Stan Freberg.

I am thankful for you.

Have a blessed Thanksgiving day, and may the coming year supply many more things to be thankful for.

The glutting of America (or) Remember When "Holiday" Meant "Special Day"?

Photo: Southern Living

I had a dream this morning. I was driving through our little town, and I noticed photography being done around the marble balustrades of the Elkmont Courthouse, which was just uphill and beside my screenprinting shop, which was down a little side street to my left. I went to speak to the elfin blonde photographer, and she turned me around and showed me the amazing job our local department store had done decorating for Christmas.

Given that our Town Hall occupies an quarter of a metal utility building, which also contains our volunteer fire department, and the closest thing we have to a department store is Dollar General, I began to understand that I was dreaming.

What can I say? The store was enormous...must have covered half a city block, built in the gingerbready reddish-brown brick and concrete favored in the early twentieth century. The windows, grimy with accretions of city traffic exhaust, still shone with the tinsel and light within, promising a wonderland of Christmas color to all who entered.

I awoke shortly, after finding myself changing clothes in the hallway of a starship.

I awoke wistful, remembering my childhood, calling to mind those very wonderlands I had experienced as a little boy. Certainly, you could go to Sears, or to the local five-and-dime and find toys year-round, but it was pedestrian fare, bikes, yo-yos, hula hoops, cap guns, dolls; the stuff to see a kid through birthdays and good grades on the report card. But CHRISTMAS! The local small-town Sears store was ablaze with colored lights and shiny streamers, a majestic tree in the window. and beneath the tree, a bounty that (you hoped) presaged the trove to be found under YOUR aluminium tree at home come December the Twenty-Fifth (Correct!). Even the grocery stores were festooned with tinsel AND toys, the playthings courtesy of Deluxe Reading (pronounced "redding"), a company that marketed through food stores. Christmastime (you know, the holiday period that occurred AFTER Thanksgiving) was a time bursting with Things You Did Not See the Other Eleven Months.

In short, a special time. (Lest the history-ignorant crowd who take umbrage at the use of "Xmas" take ALL the umbrage, let me say "Put down your 'Jesus is the Reason for the Season' picket signs. This is not about that aspect of the season. Trust me, a moral is in the offing, and you may feel spiritually superior all the more for it.") Sights to see, foods to eat, smells to enjoy unlike any other holiday. If there be an American melting pot, then it is Christmastide.

But, to again quote Commodore Decker: "Not 'ny more!". Walmart shelves are bursting year-round. Toy stores are filled with the same stuff year-round; all Christmas does is provide a time to roll out the new models. It is "everywhere, everywhere Christmas tonight" every night. I can pull out a DVD and watch "Rudolph" or "It's a Wonderful Life" in August, if I so choose. A con friend wrote on her Facebook:

Not sure how much actual "Black Friday" shopping will happen for me this year. It's not as much of a big shopping day on Friday anymore since store "sale" hours are being pushed back into the Thanksgiving holiday itself, thus making it LIKE EVERY OTHER DAY EVER.

Her sentiment echoes a culture bereft of "special". We have a surfeit of everything, all the time. Toy stores encrusted with Santa's bounty year-round.

Shucks...remember Saturday Morning Cartoons? You waited all week to see "Herculoids" or "Space Ghost", or cool Supermarionation shows like "SUPERCAR" and "Fireball XL5". Now it's Saturday morning all-day every-day. Saturday is no different from Tuesday afternoon. Too much, all the time! 

At this point some Righteously Indignant sandal-wearing chicken-neck will splutter about "redistribution" and "the poor". Not what I'm talking about. Shut up. Go think about maybe considering working the soup kitchen, or donating that scuffed pair of Birkenstocks to Goodwill.

The homogenizing of holidays is execrable, and must end. Stores closing on Thanksgiving and Christmas might also be helpful, but that's another story. Please let the holidays (holy-days, both secular and religious set-apart days) be separate, from ordinary days, and from each other.

Have a Thankful Thanksgiving!

Reuben, Reuben, I've been thinking....

Photo: Chow.com

I have long let it be known that I do not have a kosher bone in my body. Of course, since a Reuben sandwich is patently unkosher, I have no idea what that had to do with anything, save to say that I am all ham. The provenance of the Reuben is in question, though the fact that "Reuben's Delicatessen" claims the distinction provides more than enough proof for me. Besides, Mason Adams told me that was true. He also told me that "Smuckers" has to be good. I have no argument with either.

I have also long claimed to make the best Reuben in the South, but such a claim must be founded upon fact. When I opted to stop at an Arby's to sample their Reuben - I was traveling to a convention, I was hours later than I wished to be getting started, and was thus in a wretched mood -  I placed my order, and as I moved to the Place of He Who Stands and Waits, a sweet thang called out "We are out of corned beef.". The person ahead of me got the last. The sweet thang apologised, and said "I can make it for you with turkey!". I smiled sweetly back and told her that if it has turkey, then it's not a Reuben. I got my refund and drove on, kvetching a great kvetch to the Universe.

A Reuben is made with corned beef. That is FLAT! And Swiss cheese. And sauerkraut. And Russian dressing (Thousand Island is standard now, but Russian is more accurate). On Rye. Grilled with Butter. My patented method layers cheese throughout, as though it were some curd-ey mortar. The melting cheese holds everything in place. Now, the standard method is to assemble the sandwich, then grill it both sides.

The Dread Dormomoo and I went to Anime Blast in Chattanooga last weekend, and as is our wont, we took several meals at the City Cafe Diner. One dinner I had a Reuben. As I prepared to eat it, I noticed the state of the generous slices of corned beef. I turned to the D.D. and said in the hushed tones of one who has just discovered the Ark of the Covenant in his attic "They grilled the meat before they assembled the sandwich!". As the Glory shone on my plate, it became clear that the rye was grill-toasted while the meat, cheese and all were grilled separately, then assembled and allowed to meld before serving. 

So yesterday, I went to Publix, and because someone in earshot earlier in the day had mentioned a Reuben, I decided to pick up the makings. Boars Head (Yeah, we've come a distance from the Carl Buddig pressed meat stuff. I can make it sing, though!), and I even found a rye bread with no high fructose corn syrup (Pepperidge Farm. I normally riot over the price of PF stuff, but the HFCS thing looms large now. And this is a special thing. The Aardvarks usually enjoy more pedestrian fare.)

(Note to self: rotate the tins of foie gras in  the cellar.)

I broke out our venerable cast iron griddles and set to work. And it worked. And it took less time. And it was scrummy! (Why is it that so many Brit exclamations sound like something one should get a shot for? "Worst case of scrummy I've seen in a fortnight!") Delish! (Who says "delish"?).

I have been converted to the Reuben Weirding Way.

I am the Kwisatz Haderach!

And they thought Papa John was evil.

The palatial Aardvark Estate built on the backs of the Workers and Customers alike.

The horror. We hear he eats pizza there.

If a thing of beauty is a joy forever....

Do you think I'm pretty?

The postmodern aesthetic is a curious beast. I am bothered by what I see. Why has Ugly become the pop-culture lingua franca? I suppose one could take the high road and claim that art is now taking its cues from Guernica, but that would be pretentious. It's just ugly.

I would not let my kids watch "Rugrats". The ugliness offended me, and I preferred that they see prettier things. You know, like "Jem" or "G.I.Joe". (There was the Ren and Stimpy video, but hey, John Kricfalusi is the Arbiter of all true Animation Goodness!) "South Park" has flashes of prophetic insight, but it is itself ugly, while decrying the culture's ugliness. 

The bane of reality TV has brought us the likes of Boo Boo Honey and her mastodonic mother, bellwethers of our physical future. Adult Swim offerings are hideous, if funnily written. Everywhere, everywhere, ugly tonight.

The Dread Dormomoo and I are at Anime Blast Chattanooga, and are having lots of time to talk of things like this. Her question mirrors the statement of a very aware person:"Your mouth says what your heart is full of.". Is the ugliness rampant in the West a reflection of its inward arrangements? May be an obvious question, but it is the one no-one is asking. As the West continues to flee from the foundation that made it great, I suspect that beauty in our culture will increasingly become a premium.