Month: April 2023

Ann Coulter’s stopped clock moment?

Yeah, I couldn’t believe this wasn’t a parody either… Mind you, it’s not like she’s suddenly attained even a minimal degree of enlightenment and realised the hypocrisy of Republicans screeching against women being able to get abortions when they need them while having no problem getting them for their own daughters/mistresses/etc…

…she’s actually concerned that the Republicans’ obsession with abortion and reproductive rights control is going to lose them political power (all the other bullshit they’re currently trying with libraries and trans health care are another matter, perhaps?), so it’s not like she’s actually cool with people who are OK with abortion being able to get one. Loathsome person’s always got to be loathsome…

RIP Father Bob

Bob Maguire, professional crusty old bugger and much loved Catholic priest who made the critical error of taking his vocation seriously and caring for people, has left us at the age of 88, and he shouldn’t have done. By several accounts, he was ousted from his own Father Bob Maguire Foundation last week, and was apparently unaware of the fact himself until it was reported on social media. I feel there’s more to the story regarding what’s happened and why it’s happened now, but the foundation appears to have pulled off an absolute cunt act against an old man in declining health during his last days, and indeed probably helped make them his last days.

I think it’s appropriate to let John Safran have the last word, since he helped bring the old boy to the nation’s attention, and he shall miss him more than most of us.

EDIT: Well, actually, let’s give the p.s. to the Foundation themselves, who I’ve now seen issued a statement the other day:

“…The issues at stake were thoroughly canvassed and considered at a recent VCAT Hearing in which Fr Bob participated. The result of that hearing was that Fr Bob’s family were granted Guardianship in relation to where he lives and what care he gets. VCAT does not make such decisions lightly. It relies on a number of medical views of Fr Bob’s physical and mental condition.
Of particular relevance is that the VCAT decision means that Fr Bob is no longer eligible to be a Board member (or Chairman) of the Foundation. This is a legal dictate under the Guardianship and Administration Act 2019.

I don’t know about anyone else, but that reads to me like a tacit admission that, yeah, the Foundation kind of lied a bit in their previous statement about Bob “stepping down”. If this is a VCAT rule (and it may be, I don’t actually know) that he had to step down, why didn’t they say as much earlier? I also thought this was an interesting further remark after denying all the claims being made against them:

Those familiar with Fr Bob’s mental state are not surprised by recent comments attributed to him. Fr Bob has always been someone who ‘comes out swinging’ in any context. However, in recent times his opinions have taken on an eccentric flavour.

And, obviously, I’m not familiar with his mental state, which I’m guessing was indeed less than optimal, but I do smell a hint of well-poisoning here despite that.

Incidentally, it’s nearly 9.30pm as I write these last words and I find it interesting, shall we say, that I’ve seen no word (at least not on the SMH site, The Age, News.com.au or the Guardian) from any representatives of the Catholic church here in Australia, or from their representatives in the Liberal party, or from anyone in the Liberal party in general (all I’ve seen from the latter is a comment from the Victorian opposition leader John Pesutto) so far today. Weird how quick they were to praise that pedophile enabler a couple of months ago but not Bob now, eh. (I’d be a lot more OK with Bob getting a state funeral than I was the other guy, I must say.) Maybe the church’s media team are just trying to find a way of expressing sadness over his passing without admitting what they really thought of him…

Whoops

So some dickhead called Stephen Wolfe said something on Twitter about white evangelicals being the bulwark against “moral insanity” in America, and a company called Canon Press objected to this politely:

That’d be the same Norman Rockwell who underwent an unexpected leftening in the 60s and got hate mail from racists over his painting “The Problem We All Live With”, and who wasn’t a particularly regular churchgoer of any kind, let alone Evangelical

They are, I think, not wrong about this. But this is a little rich coming from Canon Press specifically…

To be clear, THIS is dumber

…given that they’re the right-wing Christian publisher who published Stephen Wolfe’s book The Case for Christian Nationalism. I feel like whoever’s looking after Canon’s social media is going to be reassigned shortly to a position where they can’t publicly call shit on their authors, even if they’re right…

The value-added home video release of the Christ

I’ve said on here before that I hate Passion of the Christ, so I was delighted to find this thing this evening:

It does have me wondering what a terrifying alternate ending to this story might be, though…

EDIT: OK, so I posted this on my Facebook and a friend made an addition to it that had to be shared:

In which Kanye West dodges a bullet

RIP Parler, if only for now.

Parler, the self-described “uncancelable free speech platform,” has been sold and shut down while its new owner conducts a “strategic assessment.” The platform will be back eventually, new owner Starboard says.
The Parler website is now a simple page containing only today’s press release announcing the acquisition, which was completed without financial terms being disclosed. “No reasonable person believes that a Twitter clone just for conservatives is a viable business any more,” the acquisition announcement said, promising a revamp.
“While the Parler app as it is currently constituted will be pulled down from operation to undergo a strategic assessment, we at Starboard see tremendous opportunities across multiple sectors to continue to serve marginalized or even outright censored communities—even extending beyond domestic politics,” the press release said. No timing for a return was mentioned.

Lest we forget, of course, the idea had been to sell the white (power) elephant to Kanye West; at least part of why Candace Owens was cuddling up to the latter was because her husband George Farmer was CEO of Parler by then and the thing was already tanking, and basically they were intending to exploit Kanye’s mental problems by selling it to him (because, obviously, these people are DOGSHIT)… and no one to seems to know what Starboard paid for it, but I imagine it was less than Candy and George were hoping the mentally ill man would give them for it. Alas for them, Kanye went full Hitler and started saying the quiet part out loud, and even they realised this sale would be a bad look even for them and called it off… and now here they are. I don’t know why Parler even bothered existing at all given that Gab was already a thing when they started (and a lot more honest about appealing to the fash), and now that Elon’s running the shitshow at Twitter, the latter is sufficiently friendly to the far-right that even Gab is not exactly necessary any more… And I read that last bit of the press release as implying that Starboard might actually turn Parler’s original intentions on their head, which would be kind of hilarious…

Teeth sind Krieg

So 2023 marks 30 years since this happened:

And no, I don’t mean Dave Mustaine pissing and moaning about being kicked out of Metallica

If Kerrang were shitting their pants about those Norwegian kids and their wacky antics at this point, things would of course go further south a few months later… I think it is important to remember how young most of the black metal crowd were when the Norwegian scene began, even the guys from Mayhem were in their teens when they started in 1984 and so were a number of the bands that followed in their wake (a few are even younger than me, including Ivar Bjornson from Enslaved and quite a few of the rotating cast of Gorgoroth and most of Dimmu Borgir). I think that explains at least some of the idiocy that some of them took part in (it wasn’t all burning churches and killing each other), but also, frankly, some were kind of disconnected from reality on some level.

The scene has, I think, mostly grounded itself as its participants have aged and even come to realise there was and is something absurd about black metal’s theatrics and posturing. The documentary Until the Light Takes Us kind of drove the final nail into the coffin with its revelation that the Helvete shop crowd would be all “trve kvlt” and “Satanic” while other people were in the shop, but when the customers were gone they would talk among themselves about how they enjoyed their cornflakes at breakfast and that sort of thing. It was always posturing except for a few with even less sense of irony or self-awareness than the rest who took it too seriously and didn’t realise how much of it was just show (and some arguably still don’t; looking at you here, Gorgoroth/Infernus)… And with hindsight, the posing all looks sillier and sillier. I mean… for fuck’s sake, how were we supposed to take this sort of thing seriously:

Honestly? I gather this is someone called Heimvik from a band called Ofryskje which released one demo in 1997, apparently he was the vocalist and he had no nose, an amusingly elliptical mouth and a thing for gardening tools. I mean, black metal has been rife with ridiculous imagery, like this iconic and, well, immortal photoshoot for Immortal:

“Boo!”

And Dimmu Borgir feared no nonsense either:

“Yeah, they used up all the black facepaint, I had to make do with the hat… No, I don’t think Shagrath is compensating for anything here”

But really I think Heimvik and his dental work are underappreciated in the annals of silly black metal visuals, which are extensive and only get sillier as the years pass. It’s the sort of picture that’s probably better in this sort of mediocre quality, the sort of washed-out contrasty photocopy look is exactly how it should look and why would you want to see any more detail anyway? And it’s definitely the sort of thing that makes me wonder how we were ever supposed to take black metal seriously, which I say as someone who does enjoy the stuff…