STILL STUPID AFTER ALL THESE YEARS:
PETA "Hires" the Blessed Virgin Mary
Just when we thought there was already too much eye pollution along the nation's highways, along comes the perennially obnoxious "animal rights" group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) to add even more, this time in the form of a billboard in Rhode Island and (eventually) five other states seemingly designed to offend Catholics. We say "seemingly" because, it turns out, what PETA really had in mind was appealing to Catholics in its ongoing anti-meateating campaign.
The billboard in question depicts Jesus' Mom holding a dead chicken. Alongside this "icon" in large, bold text is the message "Go Vegetarian. It's an Immaculate Conception." The "O" in "Go" resembles a Celtic cross.
In response to an avalanche of protesting emails, letters, and phone calls from offended Catholics (including William Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights) and other Christians (including the Rev. John E. Holt, head of the Rhode Island Council of Churches, who found the billboard "insulting to any Christian"), PETA "explained" that the ad was designed by "a devout Catholic" on PETA's staff and, according to PETA Director Bruce Friedrich (who says he's "a practicing Catholic"), was intended to "raise awareness" of the "plight of chickens" to Catholics, not mock their faith.
"Mary is the embodiment of selfless love and compassion," Friedrich said. "The most oppressed creatures on the planet are chickens." Friedrich added that "The intention isn't to offend people. The intention is to shock people into thinking about the violence they are supporting."
Instead, what Friedrich really succeeded in doing was make even more people think about what utter dunderheads he and his comrades can be. PETA, which seems consistently run by dumb clucks, continues to be even more clueless than the pea-brained poultry they want the rest of us to help them rescue.
"Any questioning of the moral ideas that prevail ...is received with the utmost hostility.
To attempt such an enterprise is to disturb the peace"
--H. L. Mencken
Friday, December 05, 2003
Tuesday, December 02, 2003
ON MUSIC AND SUFFERING:
Within the Darkest of Times Can Lie Beauty and Heroism
Two months ago we noted that Washington DC area singer and recording artist Grace Griffith, a long-time fixture in the DC-MD-VA folk & Celtic music scene, had begun to experience debilitating advanced stages of Parkinson’s Disease and that she was determined to keep making music in the face of it –and to keep mentoring up-and-coming young artists, such as the late Eva Cassidy, whom Griffith almost single-handedly launched to international stardom despite her awareness of the cost to her own career.
On another note of heroism on the part of another artist, we found in this month’s edition of First Things a particularly moving and thoughtful piece written by theology professor Peter M. Chandler, Jr., a tribute to the late singer Johnny Cash, who died three months ago at age 71 after several years of declining health.
Chandler focuses on how Cash used the suffering in his own life, up to and including his impending death, to grow as an artist and thereby leave behind a body of some of the most remarkable and remarkably original music in modern history. This was only possible, notes Chandler, because in his music Cash both embraced and revealed his own soul, drawing no distinction between himself as a man and himself as an artist:
…Johnny was the kind of person who could simultaneously hold in tension the conflicting parts of his personality and communicate to those who are alienated by a deeply counterfeit culture —particularly a counterfeit Christianity. …We seem to prefer the smile that conceals an inner deception to the honest purgative truth about ourselves. But with Johnny it was otherwise.
That’s because he lived, sang, and played truthfully. There was in him no hint of fraud. At a time when he could have resurrected his career by riding the coattails of others’ popularity (as is the trend today), Johnny did the reverse. On 1994’s American Recordings (on the cover he stands in a field wearing a long black preacher’s coat, alone except for two dogs), he did not simply return to the “old” Johnny Cash and commodify himself for a younger audience. …in a world full of fakes, Cash was authentic.
…[I]n a culture that by and large loves death but does not know what to do with it —a culture simultaneously repulsed and attracted by it— Johnny’s confrontation with his own imminent demise was largely misunderstood. The critics who complained that his voice was not what it used to be missed the point entirely. It is precisely because his voice was not what it used to be that the songs have such power. The beauty of the record lies in that very frailty, the tremolo in his voice that became more pronounced with each album. Even in his younger days, the inimitable strength and fortitude in his voice was mixed with the occasional moment of weakness, the odd quaver and show of vulnerability. In the last few years those moments became more frequent, and his voice became more diaphonous, disclosing more of the effects of illness.
Yet for that very reason, Cash’s voice was all the more beautiful —it had a weakness stronger than others’ strengths….
Within the Darkest of Times Can Lie Beauty and Heroism
Two months ago we noted that Washington DC area singer and recording artist Grace Griffith, a long-time fixture in the DC-MD-VA folk & Celtic music scene, had begun to experience debilitating advanced stages of Parkinson’s Disease and that she was determined to keep making music in the face of it –and to keep mentoring up-and-coming young artists, such as the late Eva Cassidy, whom Griffith almost single-handedly launched to international stardom despite her awareness of the cost to her own career.
On another note of heroism on the part of another artist, we found in this month’s edition of First Things a particularly moving and thoughtful piece written by theology professor Peter M. Chandler, Jr., a tribute to the late singer Johnny Cash, who died three months ago at age 71 after several years of declining health.
Chandler focuses on how Cash used the suffering in his own life, up to and including his impending death, to grow as an artist and thereby leave behind a body of some of the most remarkable and remarkably original music in modern history. This was only possible, notes Chandler, because in his music Cash both embraced and revealed his own soul, drawing no distinction between himself as a man and himself as an artist:
…Johnny was the kind of person who could simultaneously hold in tension the conflicting parts of his personality and communicate to those who are alienated by a deeply counterfeit culture —particularly a counterfeit Christianity. …We seem to prefer the smile that conceals an inner deception to the honest purgative truth about ourselves. But with Johnny it was otherwise.
That’s because he lived, sang, and played truthfully. There was in him no hint of fraud. At a time when he could have resurrected his career by riding the coattails of others’ popularity (as is the trend today), Johnny did the reverse. On 1994’s American Recordings (on the cover he stands in a field wearing a long black preacher’s coat, alone except for two dogs), he did not simply return to the “old” Johnny Cash and commodify himself for a younger audience. …in a world full of fakes, Cash was authentic.
…[I]n a culture that by and large loves death but does not know what to do with it —a culture simultaneously repulsed and attracted by it— Johnny’s confrontation with his own imminent demise was largely misunderstood. The critics who complained that his voice was not what it used to be missed the point entirely. It is precisely because his voice was not what it used to be that the songs have such power. The beauty of the record lies in that very frailty, the tremolo in his voice that became more pronounced with each album. Even in his younger days, the inimitable strength and fortitude in his voice was mixed with the occasional moment of weakness, the odd quaver and show of vulnerability. In the last few years those moments became more frequent, and his voice became more diaphonous, disclosing more of the effects of illness.
Yet for that very reason, Cash’s voice was all the more beautiful —it had a weakness stronger than others’ strengths….
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)