Me: …

Seriously, this shit is starting to write itself.

Me: Oh yeah?

Liz (muffled): And “I’ll fight for freedom.”

Me: All fight for freedom?

Liz: No, I’ll fight for freedom. It’s on another sticker. It says I apostrophe L-L fight for freedom.

Me: Oh… (paused in thought) What the hell’s that supposed to mean?

Liz: I don’t know. But driving around in a mini-van’s a pretty good start.

I may be the only one I know who’s willing to admit to being a long time appreciator of comedian Richard Lewis. His anxiety-laden routines, such as I’m in Pain, I’m in Hell, and I’m Doomed spelled out Jewish guilt and life on the therapy couch in a cathartic flush of pain and laughter. Despite his material’s adult and personal nature, I could easily relate to his wild rants as a boy growing up. In hindsight, Catholic school probably made that possible for me, along with a few of my own yet to be diagnosed mental disorders. But I digress.

Why is it that these days I’m forced to think of Richard Lewis’ schtick every time I see George W explaining something to the media? I don’t really know. Low public opinion polls and a clear disregard for the Constitution he swore to uphold may have something to do with with the why. But this brief Slate article seems to touch what it all could actually mean.

George Bush is a quick wit. When a camera fell and dangled from the briefing room ceiling at his Jan. 26 press conference, he quipped to those seated below: “Are you wearing your helmets?” Later, a radio reporter prefaced his question about the Jack Abramoff scandal by saying he wasn’t interested in pictures of Bush and the disgraced lobbyist. “Easy for a radio guy to say,” Bush interjected.

I wish the president’s serious answers were as tart and on point. Dealing with delicate issues on camera, Bush’s mind may work just as quickly, but he keeps his mouth shut. The pause to think gives him away. When he doesn’t punch out a response, he’s not puzzling out the answer. He’s puzzling out the spin.

Sorry, after looking at my desktop today and hearing the news, I couldn’t resist adding this little adjustment to one of the Nonist’s more interesting downloads. Their original inspiration may be worth repeating.

a century and a half after darwin’s most important work was published people still seem to have a hard time wrapping their minds around it’s implications, or are made nervous and upset by them, we thought it was high time darwin’s image were updated and his ideas put into less technical terms which everyone can understand. with that in mind we modified bob peak’s poster for every which way but loose, an image we think better fit to reach the doubtful american public.

I added the suck it part.

But I’m long partial to such inflamatory provocations ever since a high school football game in which my small private school played Dover area high on a fluke. They were like three divisions ahead of us but we had a game to make up after somebody bailed out of the regular schedule. I swear those boys were like pure bred oxen designed (intelligently or not) for the sole purpose of pummeling underweight Catholics into the cold wet ground. Somehow I ended up playing that day, during my sophomore year no less, after our starting tight end was injured. We lost something like 54 to 0.

I remember thinking to myself, as the 250 pound brutes across from me at the line of scrimmage shouted obscenities about our mothers, “We will lose this game for sure, but somehow evolution will end up having the last laugh.”

Okay, maybe I didn’t think that exactly, but it does make for a damn good ending to my story.

Aaaah, sweet release.

In this case, the amusement came at the expense of Bibleman. As best I can tell, this is a super-hero whose only reason to exist is to provide concrete, if not highly comical, evidence that a ten year culture war has taken place. Unbeknownst to him, though, he’s the main casualty.

Played in this episode by Willie Aames of Charles in Charge and Celebrity Fit Club fame (he’s since been replaced by a younger actor), the show involved Bibleman confronting his own friends (or what anyone else would consider enemies) with biblical scripture as if it were some kind of antidote to a vaguely written notion about them returning to their “old ways.”

Sound funny? Well, you obviously haven’t seen five minutes of it yet. Because it’s absolutely hilarious, and more than a little sad. Let’s not forget, there’s also Biblegirl, a Bible cave, and some over-the-top villains like…(Dunt Dunt Dunnn!) the Wacky Protester. I can only imagine his main super power—an inhuman resistance to the awesome nature of George W. Bush. Oh, the humanity.

The tackiness has its own life force, but a true appreciation for this case study of child indoctrination comes from the little details that get all mangled up in translation from their “secular” pop culture couterparts. Case in point: Even though Batman doesn’t have any real superhuman powers, his modus operandi isn’t exactly beating people over the head with endless talk of his advanced knowledge of bats, is it? Not so with Bibleman. He wears a well-cut purple foam suit for the sole purpose of biblically berating people of opposing world-views. And he does it like a broken record.

As one would expect of endless sanctimony repeated over and over, it’s not like any of it can be absorbed. As soon as he chimes in for the sixth time with, “Well, you know what Ecclesiastes 3:12-15 says about vanity, Ted?” its like all that can be heard are words. Certainly not the Word of God, as if that could seriously be what anyone intended. Actually, if you’ve made it this far in the show without converting to atheism, you should get a T-shirt or something for your time. Or you might want to examine whatever made you put such a high value on crap. But I guess it doesn’t matter if you’re swimming in the aquarium and only finding algae to eat. Any of the same kind will do.

Still, I have to wonder, though, could The Incredible Shakespearean take him?

We asked Cruise to explain his recent comments regarding Brooke Shields. Cruise created a firestorm when he criticized Shields for revealing that she went into therapy and took antidepressants to deal with her postpartum depression. Cruise has said that, as a Scientologist, he doesn’t believe in psychiatric medicine.

Cruise: I’ve never agreed with psychiatry, ever. Before I was a Scientologist I never agreed with psychiatry. And when I started studying the history of psychiatry, I understood more and more why I didn’t believe in psychology.

And as far as the Brooke Shields thing, look, you got to understand, I really care about Brooke Shields. I think, here’s a wonderful and talented woman. And I want to see her do well. And I know that psychiatry is a pseudo science.

Lauer: But Tom, if she said that this particular thing helped her feel better, whether it was the antidepressants or going to a counselor or psychiatrist, isn’t that enough?

Cruise: Matt, you have to understand this. Here we are today, where I talk out against drugs and psychiatric abuses of electric shocking people, okay, against their will, of drugging children with them not knowing the effects of these drugs. Do you know what Aderol is? Do you know Ritalin? Do you know now that Ritalin is a street drug? Do you understand that?

Lauer: The difference is —

Cruise: No, no, Matt.

Lauer: This wasn’t against her will, though.

Cruise: Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt —

Lauer: But this wasn’t against her will.

Cruise: Matt, I’m asking you a question.

Lauer: I understand there’s abuse of all of these things.

Cruise: No, you see. Here’s the problem. You don’t know the history of psychiatry. I do.

Unfortunately for us, like most journalists who walk straight into a gold mine these days, Matt royally blew his opportunity for a follow up. Cruise just said that he knows the history of psychiatry, so why not ask him to summarize it for us? He just qualified himself as an expert on the subject.

Fortunately for Tom (not to mention Steven Spielberg, whose War of the Worlds depends to some degree on the salability of the one-day hunk), there is no need to answer such an obvious question. Because if he did get into the “history” of why Scientology is so anti-psychiatry, America would be raising a very curious eyebrow and probably shouting out a simultaneous “WTF!?” to their once-beloved box office star.

Consider Scientology doctrine concerning Xenu, a galactic being roughly equivalent to Zeus, and the historical impact of his actions. And, no kids, I’m not making any of the following up. Wiki it yourself and see.

Xenu was about to be deposed from power, so he devised a plot to eliminate the excess population from his dominions. With the assistance of “renegades”, he defeated the populace and the “Loyal Officers”, a force for good that was opposed to Xenu. Then, with the assistance of psychiatrists, he summoned billions of people to paralyse them with injections of alcohol and glycol, under the pretense that they were being called for “income tax inspections.” The kidnapped populace was loaded into space planes for transport to the site of extermination, the planet of Teegeeack (Earth). The space planes were exact copies of Douglas DC-8s, “except the DC-8 had fans, propellers on it and the space plane didn’t.”

I was just trying to get some perspective on what Scientology is all about and why it views psychiatry the way it does, but anybody with half a brain ought to be able to pull the reigns on the horse by the time they get to Xenu. This stuff is completely whacked!

Please, if Tom Cruise is any where near talking about Teegeeack, or R6 implants, or space planes that look like Douglas DC-8 airplanes, do me a favor and Tivo it for me, because I like watching a lunatic rant and rave as much as the next guy.

Now, to be fair, I think it’s only right to take a cautious approach towards drugs as part of any therapy, especially depression or any mental diagnosis having to do with children. I personally believe that the human brain is as fragile as it is unboundedly healable. So, in most cases, even serious depression, I believe a non-medicated “talk” therapy is the best first step to take. If that doesn’t work, maybe certain medications are worth looking into. But I’m certainly willing to give you the full disclosure on the subject. I don’t know the history of psychiatry and I don’t pretend to.

But I do know somebody who does. Anybody care to ask him why?

Update: And just because… Tom Cruise Kills Oprah

Okay, now that I said that, I want you to forget about it.

Here’s the deal. In my own way, and in principle, I actually believe in Intelligent Design.

There, I said it. I think accepting the spiritual nature of birth is a totally rational thought for a parent to have. And it’s something I can’t help but find myself feeling these days. To me, it’s a no-brainer, because… well, making a baby didn’t actually take a whole lot of effort on my part. I just kind of assume somebody else did the harder part of making it all happen from the start. That much seems obvious. There are, of course, all kinds of extensions to this line of thinking, which I believe shouldn’t conflict with the empirical study of evolution. End of story.

So then, moving on to those stupid stickers. It was only right to remove them from the student’s textbooks. They weren’t doing anything but trying to undermine the science of evolution, which people have been doing for decades. (Yawn.) And it’s not likely that such an “innocent” approach wasn’t carrying with it some sort of agenda. I can only guess that the sense of entitlement the new crop of anti-evolutionists must be feeling today is the result of (1) George W’s re-election and (2) someone kinda-sorta articulating an alternative theory in ID (albiet with conjecture and not a whole lot of science). That being as it is, challenger’s to Darwin’s science should not go unchecked. Nor should they ever. And whether they’re trying to do so or not, singling out evolution in a child’s textbook is the wrong way to get ID to be taken seriously. It sends the wrong message to everybody.

I thought the judge in this case summed it up pretty well.

Adopted by the school board, funded by the money of taxpayers, and inserted by school personnel, the sticker conveys an impermissible message of endorsement and tells some citizens that they are political outsiders while telling others they are political insiders.

And if that doesn’t sink in yet, here’s what some of the other textbook stickers could have looked like.