How Did Dennis Rodman Become Kim Jong Un's BFF?

It was VICE, baby,...

Getting All Those Missing Pieces Of The Puzzle In Place

For all those folks who can't see "Lee Daniels' 'The Butler'" is a fiction, but sided with the Mormons when they insisted HBO's "Big Love" wasn't telling the truth:

This was not your typical tax court case, to put it mildly. 

The case was finally heard in early 2012 after frequent delays and a failed attempt by Blackmore and his legal team to win a sweeping ban on evidence, publication and some witness testimony. In the end he gave his own testimony under subpoena as a “compelled witness” with the expectation that his statements in this civil case can’t incriminate him in any future criminal trials. 

Blackmore arrived each day at the Vancouver courtroom during the four weeks of hearing wearing a natty black suit and clutching a black-bound Book of Mormon. Campbell and federal Justice Department lawyers were bound by an equally unbending tome: the Canadian Income Tax Act. 

“These appeals introduced unique and novel legal and factual issues that are not normally before this court,” Campbell wrote with judicial understatement. She wrote how she had to acquaint herself with the intricacies of Mormonism, Episcopal polity and apostolic success. “Many terms, such as ‘The Priesthood Work,’ ‘United Effort Plan,’ or ‘United Effort Plan Trust,’ ‘Law of Consecration’ and ‘Tithing’ were either completely new to me or I had no working knowledge of them.” 

Her patience was tried by Blackmore’s often evasive or vague answers, and his convoluted spiritual explanations, frequently delivered sotto voice. He grudgingly admitted to having 21 “plural wives,” though he had trouble remembering the name of at least one. He fathered 47 children during the five years under review, which may help explain his inattention to the intricacies of the tax act. By some estimates he has more than 120 children. 

Bountiful doesn’t appear on any B.C. map. It is the name that the fundamentalists call the community based at Lister, just a kilometre north of the U.S. border and seven kilometres from Creston, where some of the sect’s business dealings are based. Many operate under the Blackmore-controlled company J.R. Blackmore and Sons, which include several fencepost-manufacturing plants in B.C. and Alberta, as well as various logging and farm-related operations.

Takes a while to set up "several fencepost-manufacturing plants" and "various logging and farm-related operations", don't it? While producing 120 children? I've only got two thoughts:

1) Child sexual abuse or no child sexual abuse, nobody really wanted to catch these guys too badly. I've never heard a word about them on Michelle Malkin's Hot Air, Breitbart, or ("21st Century Relationships") Instapundit.

AND/OR 

 2) When it comes to acceptable ways of building wealth, they might be right that black people have been going about this thing ALL WRONG,...

 

Cry, Bitch

Now's the time for angry tears, baby:

HBO canceled its critically acclaimed dramedy “Enlightened” Tuesday evening. The show, which chronicled the cringe-inducing “recovery” of a business executive scrambling to put her life back together after an office meltdown, offered a searing critique of both the self-help industry and the corporate workplace.

Damn it - I was afraid of this: 

 Trying to make a NewAger a hero - even in her own mind - isn't going to cut it as "a searing critique". 

   

 Just as the great cult film Martha Marcy May Marlene unfortunately left out the most important information for deciphering the issue (my same criticism about the "Will & Grace" debate surrounding gays) the half-assed dramedy approach to exploring NewAge - instead of going for the jugular - just doesn't carry us deep enough into their delusions to ring true.

   

 “Enlightened” was a start, for television, though:

When I began this blog it was almost impossible to find any criticism of NewAge from the world of entertainment, but not anymore.

   

In “Enlightened” we saw NewAgers for what they are:

Troubled - and trouble - for all around them. 

Through Amy Jellicoe's parents, lovers, co-workers - and anyone else who doesn't buy into the vapid evangelical's empty belief system's insane promises - we finally explored (and this is a big one to me) a NewAger acting as a Nazi, committing multiple acts of revenge on those around her - usually in secret - for their heresy. It's laughable, sure, but how that translates into a comedy - or even a "dramedy" - I'm not sure. I told you, reality is settling in again, so it's really not funny. There are, literally, billions of these people out there, turning life into a horror show for everybody else - get real:

It's time for angry tears,...

 

SUPACULTAFUCKINGNEWAGESUPACOOLADOCIOUS

Had you guys heard of Enlightened, HBO's NewAge dramedy with Laura Dern? I didn't, and it looks pretty good. All the appropriate contradictions appear to be in place, including - and especially - the raging hostility at the world, hidden under the all-purpose Peace-and-Love platitudes. They got me.

Self-delusion. Delusion as to the nature of others. Delusion as to the nature of reality. All the bases are covered by the lead character, Amy Jellicoe. Other than revealing more about the "holistic treatment facility" she was in - and snapping her - I really don't know what HBO can be doing better.

But let's not snap her too soon,...

 

WRONG: Julianne Moore As Sarah Palin

Moore is playing Palin in the HBO movie of the book Game Change.

Moore as an actress, BTW, specializes in nudity and crying. I say it's bad casting all the way around.

You ARE Still That Loser Kid In High School,...

...And your work has always said so:

I still feel like that loser kid in high school

Lady GaGa goes on a crying jag for HBO.

Awww, whatsa matter, Lady G? Nose jobs, NewAge, bad art, and turning other people's kids into "little monsters" isn't fulfilling?

Fucking loser.

Dear Woman: Hope You're Lesbians Because We Have Been Reduced To A Bunch Of Pussies

You can watch this if you want but, before I even made it to 30 seconds, I was laughing so hard I couldn't go on. (There's something about wimps, claiming to "worship" women and dissing masculinity, that'll do that to me.) I might be back to do an update but, right now, I'm re-watching the entire first season of Deadwood and really can't be bothered.

Fucking losers.

The Macho Response: Tony Fucking Soprano!!!

"You're too susceptible to the psychics and the dream messages and dirty fucking toilet seats."

-- Tony Soprano, HBO's extremely flawed-but-trying mob boss, speaking to his superstitious enforcer, Pauly Walnuts (right) about some of the common themes of this blog, during "The Ride" (Episode 9, Season 6) of The Sopranos.

The Perfect Show For NewAge Politics

"Vampires have recently emerged from the shadows and into a wary society, their open presence made somewhat tolerable by the invention of synthetic blood."

-- Troy Patterson, describing Allan Ball's new HBO series, True Blood, for Slate.com