6 Athene 82 - 4:06 p.m.

Co-Dependence Day

First, a confession, in the mode of Scott Foy:

If you liked the cartoon, you'll like the movie. If you hated Scrappy-Doo, you'll like the movie. If you want to see a lot of goofing on the foibles and subtext of the cartoon...well, there's some of that, but most've it wound up on the cutting room floor, so you're better off waiting to see if it's on the DVD. Everyone nailed their performance, even Fred; it just took him longer, is all.

But I've also been to see a blockbuster you might actually want to see. A wise man once pointed out that we need not dissect a butterfly to see why it flies, but we can learn from dissecting a turkey why it doesn't. Hence, and so as not to spoil, no actual review of MiiB. The reason I devoted a paragraph to the Doo without actually dissecting it is that turkeys make good eatin'.

Now, a philosophical observation:

Looking at the letters page of my local newspaper this X-Day, I was uncomfortably reminded of the seventh and last "Exercize" [sic] proposed by Robert Anton Wilson at the end of the ninth chapter of his book Prometheus Rising:

Go to a Fundamentalist revival meeting where faith healings are performed. Or watch Jerry Falwell on TV. Remember all the time that Jim Jones started out with this routine. See if you can get into the head space of the believers and decide whether or not they would drink cyanide if their HOLY MAN told them to.

The sane letter is from a former Long Beach superintendent of schools, whose wife was the music teacher at the elementary school I attended here. When I was under their jurisdiction, politics didn't matter to me -- politics, I figured, was for grown-ups. Now that I are one, at least in years, it's comforting to know that this man, a Bible-believing or at least Jesus-believing Christian, knows what the Big Guy actually had to say about school prayer and all other public shows of piety:

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites [are]; for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen [do]; for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
-- Matthew 6:5-7 (KJV)

Think about it, won't you?

-30-

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last time, on The Slack Shack - our next inciting exstallment