Notes on the Da Vinci Code

Last night we went to see the latest film that has conservative Christians calling into talk radio shows to complain about how persecuted they are. It certainly has been interesting these last couple of years to see evangelical protestants come to the defense of Catholics. Whether they're protecting Mel Gibson from Hollywood liberals, or slamming Dan Brown for insinuating that the Vatican might not be the most honest institution, it seems as if American WASPS have forgotten their history of Nativist impulses. The people that are trying to soften the public's opinion of Opus Dei on the nation's airwaves today were the same folks that called JFK a dirty papist and claimed he'd sworn allegiance to Rome. But for some reason these right-wing Christians feel threatened enough by The Da Vinci Code to stick up for the Catholic church.

That being said, the movie (I haven't read the book) is full of all sorts of historical inaccuracies that should be addressed. And while I understand that it is a work of fiction, Dan Brown did preface his work with a claim that all his references were authentic and based in reality. I don't want to make you read a laundry list of all the stuff that Dan Brown just got plain wrong about religious history, there are plenty of websites for that. But I would like to talk about a few of the ideas that are proposed within the storyline. One of grievances against the Vatican proposed by the main character of the movie is that the Church has been institutionally oppressing women since the early Middle Ages with the justification that since women played no role in the initial founding of the Church, that they shouldn't play a role in its present incarnation. Now, Mr. Brown is definitely not the first person to question this myopic piece of Catholic dogma, but he has certainly brought the scriptural justification for it to light within the mainstream of American culture. The Gnostic gospels (which I think are just as reliable as the four canonized gospels) clearly indicate that Mary of Magdala's relationship to Jesus was a much more intimate one than what we learned at Sunday School. And yes, there seems to be enough evidence to suggest that Jesus and Mary could have been a married couple, or at least lovers (and at the very least she was probably heavily involved in the original manifestation of the Christian Church leadership). It does seem as if the Catholic Church has been purposefully neglecting this possibility for the sole reason of keeping women from being priests and assuming any sort of position of authority in the biggest all-boys club in history. And at least The Da Vinci Code, despite disarmingly bad performances by Hanks and Tautou, has made radical scripture a popular subject. Thank God.

While I'm totally in favor of sexual liberation on all fronts (as well as the breaking of most taboos), I find it very telling that pedophilia "activists" consist of 99% middle-aged men, and that the 12 year-olds that they claim to be liberating tend not to be on the front lines of protest with them. But I guess their voices deserve to be heard as much as anyone else's.

So this guy serves in the United States military for over 15-years, fights in two wars, dies for oil in Iraq, and our government won't recognize his religion of choice in his memorial.
“The least his country can do is give him the symbol of faith as he would have wished,”... for real!

And it seems as if Moscow could use a bit more protesting all around.

I thought the Europeans were the progressive ones

Usually I can say that I'm proud to be French, but it seems as if my people may not always hold civil liberties as close to their hearts as I do.

And right across the border, the Germans (well, at least some of them) continue to embarrass themselves. Even though racism doesn't exist in Germany anymore, Gerhard Schroder had this advice for those people of color wishing to spend time in the Fatherland for the World Cup:
"There are small and medium-sized towns in [the German state of] Brandenburg, as well as elsewhere, which I would advise a visitor of another skin color to avoid going to.... It is possible he wouldn't get out alive."
All of this coming on the heels of a brutal attack on an anti-fascist activist in Warsaw.

Many Moroccans are fleeing their water-side residences in a scene reminiscent of the panic caused by Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast in the 1938.

Oh, and Fred Phelps is still out of his fucking mind!

Acts of Genocide

The New York Times magazine section ran a terrific article last week on the situation in the Darfur Region of the Sudan. You would have thought that the UN would have learned its lesson in Rwanda. But, alas, the international community has much better things to do than prevent the government-backed mass murder of African villagers. And leave it to the United States media to find a way to demonize Muslims in the process. The racial slant of the Sudanese crisis presented to American citizens by our illustrious, non-biased, corporate news makers is one of the most irresponsible bits of reporting I've seen in a long time. Just because white people feel the need ethnically classify everyone, doesn't mean that those living in Darfur see it that way. It's very easy to blame racial tension because it brings the conflict to the surface, so to speak. But the "Arabs" in Darfur have a skin-tone that's not much lighter than the non-arabs being killed. The anti-Arab xenophobia running rampant in the United States is now being fueled again at the expense of a nation-state that most Americans couldn't give two shits about otherwise. But we'll all wake up one day, won't we?