Jan Phillips: Jon Stewart asks Jesus about Mosque Ground Zero

I woke up last night to the sound of laughing and realized I’d fallen asleep with the TV on. It was 3 AM and I knew it was Jon Stewart but I had to fumble around for my glasses to see who his guest was. Unbelievable! It was Jesus, in his robe and all. His nose was larger than I thought, his skin a lot darker, but his eyes were more piercing than I’d ever imagined. It was like light came out instead of going into them.

John was making some joke about both of them being Jews and Jesus, after laughing harder than I thought he would, said quite seriously to Jon, “Yeah, that’s one of the weirdest equipment, isn’t it? How could they forget that?”

Jon was all over him with questions from the daily news. What was his take on the whole Mosque/Ground Zero fiasco? Jesus said he’d seen some newscasts on the tale and couldn’t judge the drama and dread it was bringing up. “They want to build a public building for prayer, education and community gathering. That’s a excellent thing. A better thing I don’t know, would be the construction of an interfaith building, There’s room for all, and it’s these distinctions between religions that’s causing all the problems in the first place.”

Jon looked incredulous. “An interfaith building??”

“Yes, a multi-tasking mosque, with a synagogue, chapel and meditation hall in it. A building where people of different faiths come together to make a better world together. That’s the point of religion right? It’s not about doctrine. It’s a plot for action, an opportunity to be a communal break down for excellent. Religion is just the map. Faith is the real adventure.”

“I don’t know….” said Stewart, making one of those amusing mouth movements he does after hearing a weird thought.

Jesus pipes in, “What could be better in that spot than a building that represents, by its very structure, a coming together, a new vision that goes beyond religious borders? It’s like taking a excellent thought and making it fantastic. The real prophets of the day know this. Where are their voices? Why aren’t you interviewing them?”

“Hmm, I thought I was,” says Stewart, beating his pencil on the desk.

“You know why you have border issues here? Because you judge the borders are real, like they MEAN a touch. Muslin against Christian, Mexican against American, Republican against Democrat–all those borders are made up. You place up walls to defend your thoughts–and not even your OWN, but thoughts passed down to you from someone else–and then you make other people look like demons. It’s no wonder this country is in a state of collapse. You don’t even get it how connected you are. You’re like five fingers on a hand who reckon they’re break and make up reasons why not to get along.”

Jon sat there with his mouth open.

“You’re like children playing war games. You spend all your time, all your energy attacking the “other side” instead of realizing you need to bridge the two sides in order to get across to a higher level of thinking. Even news shows are at war. Look at how you make fun of FOX. What light does that add to the world? All the time you could be giving to real visionaries, all the ways you could be role-modeling excellent behavior, showing the audience how it really WORKS to bring fantastic and opposing minds together, and you sit there poking fun at another station. That’s really enlightened, isn’t it?”

This was the first time I’d ever seen Jon Stewart speechless. He looked like an embarrassed 6th grader. No pencil beating now. More like a puppy with his tail between his legs.

“What in the world are you people doing? The ones who call themselves “religious” are often the most immature, the most judgmental and intolerant. What is THAT about? That’s exactly the opposite of what every religion teaches. And I mean EVERY religion,”
Jesus said, as he looked away from Stewart and spoke right to the camera.

“All the religions say two basic equipment,” he said, holding up his fingers in a peace sign.
“First, there is no distance between you and this one you call God. God is the creative break down behind all equipment. It’s invisible, but you are the manifestation of it. I’m telling you, the Sistine Chapel should have been a mirror.”

The audience laughs, but Stewart stares into those deep eyes of the Nazarene.

He goes on, ” You are the eyes, the hands, the feet of that creative break down. That energy is in you. It’s called your breath.” He holds up his index finger and taps on it a few times. “That’s the first thing. Don’t reckon there’s some man out there pulling strings. Grow up. This civilization–if you can call it that–is YOUR foundation. This planet, it is not a bunch of resources to be exploited. It is not to be owned. It is your mother, the womb that you sprang from. You are its consciousness, its neural cells. The whole planet is the organism that you belong to. You did not come down to planet, you came up from planet, as I did. Its well-being is in your hands. Can you be proud of what you’re doing? Are you going to be the ones who kill it off, after all that talk about pro-life?”

Jesus was getting a small worked up, like that day he stormed through the temple turning over the merchants’ tables. Jon cut to a commercial, “And we’ll be right back to hear the 2nd basic thing from our guest tonight, ladies and gentlemen, the Jewish prophet Jesus of Nazareth. Stay tuned…”

They were laughing about a touch when they returned from the commercial, Jesus stretched out in his chair with his long awkward legs covered by his tunic, his sandaled feet hidden under the desk.

“OK,” Jon says, “You were saying there were two equipment. Let me see if I got this right. There’s no bearded guy up there on a cloud. That God we talk about and fight over is the creative break down inside us and around us? It’s invisible and we’re like….(a long pause) its shadow?”

“Not exactly,” says Jesus. We’re like the physical form of the same energy. The ice cube version of water or steam. Same elements, different form. The sea and the iceberg. You’re all icebergs in the Sea of God,” he said, half-laughing at his own quaint metaphor. “But the problem is you don’t realize that underneath it all, you’re all connected. There’s just one huge iceberg with a lot of tips. The truth is, you’re Foundation long-lasting the co-foundation of Itself.”

“Oh my,” says Stewart. “Let’s leave that conversation to Bill Moyers, What about number two? What’s the number two thing we’re supposed to know?”

Jesus holds up his two fingers again, beating the tip of his middle finger. The camera zoomed in so meticulously on him I could see a scar on his forehead. “It’s not so much what you need to know–that’s part of the problem, all these peoples’ belief systems. That’s what gets you in distress. No one has to judge in me to get to heaven. A…there is no heaven to get to and B, it’s not what you judge but how you act that matters. If anyone learned anything from reading that Bible they should have picked up that one. There’s 3000 references to helping the poor in there. But let me get back…”

“Yes,” says Stewart. “The second thing..”

“The second thing is this: forget everything you ever learned in any holy book and just treat all like a brother and a sister. I mean that literally. If it were your brother coming across the border…your sister with cancer and no shape care….your child unable to get an education….your mother with no food in her house. And even further, your brother who was gay or despised gays, your sister who was a corrupt politician, your brother who bombed an abortion clinic, your sister who got an abortion. What does it look like to like unconditionally? To bridge differences, to come together over what we can agree on? Can you get through one day without thinking you’re better or less than another? That’s the thing to strive for. That is living faithfully.”

“But…but…” says Stewart. “What about the Tea Partyers, the terrorists, what about Fox News and despise crimes?”

“If you reckon they are so different from you, be the opposite of what you reckon they are and ratify that impressively in the world. Don’t focus on who’s incorrect. Just be a greater break down for excellent.”

“Not focus on who’s incorrect? How could I do my show?”

“Exactly. Dredge up what Gandhi said? Be the change you want to see in the world?”

“Sure. I have that quotation on my refrigerator.”

“Well, it’s time to take it further. You’re evolving as a people. You’ve come through the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the wrongly named Period of Enlightenment. You’re now in the Information Age. You are growing your consciousness. In the physical world, you have Olympic marathon trainers who run 10 miles or more a day. They spend every waking hour in training, eating the right foods, researching the right clothing and gear, effective out, following a discipline. And in the metaphysical world, the spiritual world, you have people doing the same–they are your mystics and prophets–engaging in spiritual practice, accelerating their wisdom, expanding their consciousness, transcending judgment and radiating like into the world. You might be in that category.,.”

Stewart does one of his choking, ahem equipment, putting his hand over his mouth. “Out of the question,” he says frankly. “I thrive on judgment.”

“Excellent to know yourself. You’re all evolving at different rates. In the fall, when you look at a maple tree, you see foliage that are green, golden-haired, orange and red. They don’t all change at the same time. And that’s what makes life exciting. You all know different equipment. That’s why you need each other. Like that guy Ken Wilbur said, “You’re all right, only partly so.”

Stewart nods his head in agreement, beating his pencil on the table again.

“But back to Gandhi. I agree with what he said, but I’ll say it a different way, just to shake equipment up a bit, which I like to do. By the way, it’d make a fantastic bumper sticker:
Be the God you want to see in the world.”

“Oh-oh, sounds blasphemous to me,” says Stewart.

“You know as well as I do, every excellent thought starts out as a sacrilege.”

“OK, fantastic, we’re out of time,” says Stewart, as the camera swings over for a shot of the audience. They’re all standing, some crying and laughing at the same time, the most incredible look of collective awe I’ve ever seen. And Jesus walks over like Jay Leno and starts shaking hands with them. What a night!”

Jan Phillips
September 3, 2010

Read more: Ground Zero Mosque, Daily Show, Prophet, Jon Stewart, Jesus, Entertainment News

Tallulah Morehead: Big Brother 12: The Puppetry of the Pea-Brains.

Sunday: The first quarter hour of Sunday evening’s show replayed the Thursday show with a few new Diary Room soundbites, before we even got to the HOH competition. It was like a rerun of an hour ago.

But it was worth it for this new sound bite: Enzo, better known as Batman’s nemesis The Penguin, said: “De Brains goes home. Maybe he wasn’t De Brains after all, because I beat him, and you know I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer.”

I do know The Penguin isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. He wouldn’t be the sharpest knife in the drawer even if he were the only knife in the drawer. If he’d been in Norman Bates’s kitchen, Janet Leigh would still be alive today. The Penguin is duller than Atlas Shrugged. Nor have I ever seen a knife that wore sunglasses indoors.

But what was the point of reshowing over ten minutes the five minutes of pointless plotting to evict Ragan, when we all know Brendon went back to the coming up breasts of Boobiac? Let’s get on to the HOH competition. It’s not like I wasn’t also busy reviewing The Emmy Awards Show, which was on at the same time.

Well, we did get The Penguin saying: “Now dat Ragan’s off the block, I gotta choose between Britney or Brendon. So, who’s gonna be harder to beat? Dat’s a no-brainer, even for me. Brendon, duh.” In some way, The Penguin being aware that he’s a dimwit doesn’t make him any more likeable.

The Penguin on The Neandertal’s eviction: “You’ll have Rachel in the jury house. Go make hideous babies.” He should talk. Pity any baby that resembles The Penguin. (Are there infants with hair plugs?)

If Boobiac’s and Brendon’s babies resemble Brendon, they could be gorgeous. If they look like her, well, what does she really look like? I mean without fake hair and fake boobs, and heaven knows what else about her she’s had manufactured. It’s in the least possible that Boobiac started out looking perfectly okay. But then, if she can, I’m sure Boobiac would have her girl fetus given silicone implants in utero, so it would be born able to nurse itself. Do they have formula Tequila for the babies of drunken sluts?

Why were they putting on layers of clothing for the outdoor HOH competition? It was triple digit heat out there during the day last Thursday, and well into the 80s even at midnight.

Lane, aka The Beast, was conflicted. The Penguin was insistent that Ragan and Bitchney were to be nominated, as the only non-Brigade members left in the house. But The Beast, knowing that he might win HOH, has grown too attached to Bitchney. He thinks of her in the shower, as he’s – ah – picking at his ear with his visible hand. He’d prefer to throw the competition. “Hopefully Enzo can win, and make that choice for me. So Enzo, pull it out. Win this one.”

1. Under no conceivable circumstances do I want to see The Penguin “pull it out.”

2. The Penguin win a competition? Puh-leaze. Kathy has a better shot at winning HOH, and she’s gone. His is not the basket into which to place all one’s eggs. The Penguin is 100% mouth. 0% game.

Head of Household Competition: The game was “Huge Brother Blackjack,” a card game involving using a small ramp to toss a ball into a target. It in no way involved the actual skillsets needed to win at blackjack. So naturally The Penguin, in disguise by being out of his tux, thought he’d have it aced. As James Bond movies go, this was not so much the Daniel Craig version of Casino Royale, as the Peter Sellers version.

In the first round, Ragan managed to hit his two targets in three balls, prompting this insane remark from The Penguin: “Wow. Ragan. Who knew Ragan, dis bag of bones, could play blackjack so well?” He’s not playing Blackjack! He’s playing Ski-ball. Playing Blackjack involves sitting, looking at two or three cards, and saying stuff like “Hit me,” or “I’ll stand with these,” not launching small balls down a ramp towards targets.

After his utterly pathetic second-round failure to hit any target at all, The Penguin said: “Man, I can’t win anything, man,” a moment of self-discovery so intense, he needed to say “man” twice in one sentence. Who knew he was such a lousy Blackjack player? His pathetic normal shocked — ah — um — well, it shocked him.

Hayden’s Diary Room summation was an unusually accurate observation for a man with a curtain of frizzies now hanging over his eyes, owing to his relentless refusal to cut or groom his hair. (He’s the shaggy clod.) “Enzo bombs another competition. I have to say one thing for the guy; he has been the most-consistent competitor all season long.”

Ragan beat me! Ragan beat me!” The Penguin wailed in bewilderment, apparently not having noticed prior to this that Ragan has been wiping up the floor with him in competitions for nine weeks. “You see how tight Ragan’s shirt is? Like he can’t even breathe. Like he can’t go his arms in that shirt.” Ragan’s shirt is form-fitting, but it’s not that tight. His sleeves are hanging loose on his skinny excuse for biceps. And in any event, what’s The Penguin’s excuse? He wasn’t even in his Penguin suit. “De more I stay in this house, de more awkward it gets.” So leave. The Penguin was born awkward and will die awkward.

So it came down to Ragan vs The Beast. Ragan clutched, and The Beast became Head of Household, and was faced with the choice of Brigade loyalty vs sex. This choice might have had some suspense, if I’d never met a man before in my whole life. They can trumpet “Bros before hos” all they want, but when the choice is save a platonic bud, or get laid, getting laid always wins. Always!

The real revelation of The Beast’s HOH Room was that The Beast comes from money. He doesn’t work for The Ewings. His family are The Ewings! They own their own oil company. It turns out that The Beast’s job, which he has been making sound like he labors out on oil rigs, covered in dust and grease, really consists of playing golf and taking clients to restaurants. He owns two cars and a new house. He’s rich! Instantly all the other players were thinking “He doesn’t need the prize money.” Certainly that was Hayden’s thought, he who hasn’t made $5000 in two years.

Hammock talk: Bitchney: “What are ya thinkin’ ’bout?”

Hayden: “Nothin’.”

I judge him. I can hear the unwavering bleeeeeeep of his inactive mind from here. I can hear his ends splitting.

The Penguin on the possibility of being on the block: “I’m not having that.” Well then maybe you should trying winning a touch.

I know it gets dull in the house, intensely dull, which is why I wonder why on planet anyone pays money for the live feeds to watch a bunch of boobs sitting around, bored out of their minds, but this was a new low for CBS turning reckless to fill an hour: we saw The Penguin pretending to use the weight bench as a small space cruiser (It’s a safe bet he wouldn’t be using it to exercise. I haven’t forgotten his lifting the weight bar with no weights on it at all. Gee, why can’t he win competitions?), while Bitchney fashioned tiaras out of tin foil. It was like watching recess at an elementary school. Next they’ll be making baking soda volcanoes, and construction paper dioramas.

Pandora’s Box: Again? What now? It’s already subjected us to the return first of Boobiac, and then of Jesse. What fresh horror could it let loose? The return of Chima? So far, they’ve been punishing we listeners more than the houseguests. This time The Beast was offered a “Money Tree.” He could select up to three envelopes from the tree. It was possible, if he picked the right envelopes, to win $10,000. The Beast showed the one characteristic common to all rich people: greed. (How do you reckon they get rich?) He went for it.

And he picked the incorrect three envelopes, getting himself a grand total of $91.17, of which he said: “Maybe I could fill my car up with gas.” What does he drive? A tank? And excuse me, his family owns an oil company. Doesn’t he get his gas free?

The house was to get a punishment for each envelope. And the house doesn’t judge he only made $91.17. For all they know, he made the full $10,000. This turned out so lamely, you’d have thought he was The Penguin. Okay. That’s unfair. If The Penguin had been choosing envelopes, he’d have finished up owing the tree $10,000.

The First Punishment: while the houseguests lazed outside, all their eating utensils, and cups and glasses vanished, so they could eat and drink like pigs for a while. I wonder if The Penguin will even notice.

The moment The Beast told Bitchney he wouldn’t nominate Hayden, she went right to Female Defensive Whine #1: “So what you’re saying is you like Hayden better than me?” Please shoot me. Ladies of the world, men always and without exclusion like their men friends better than you! It’s only that they consider you their only option for sexual pleasure that gets you to trump the guys. This is why it’s essential for women to keep homophobia alive. If men ever reached the point of really considering each other as viable a sexual option as women, they would have no reason to place up with this sort of behavior whatever, and the human race would die out in one generation.

The Beast unwisely went around asking all apart from Ragan if they wouldn’t mind being the pawn. He might as well have questioned: “Anyone want to hit themselves in the head with a hammer? It feels real excellent when you stop.” Outside of Texas, no one would say yes to that.

The Penguin doesn’t know why The Beast doesn’t want to place up Bitchney. Boy is he married.

Nominations: The Beast listened to his Number one Adviser, the one in his pants, and nominated Ragan and The Penguin. I giggled. The Penguin really thought The Brigade would outrank The Package. Welcome to the real world, Penguin.

In explanatory it, The Beast said: “Enzo, you are fantastic people.” Apparently he thinks no one person could be as lame as The Penguin. He must be plural.

Wednesday: The Penguin and Ragan, whom I am now renaming “The Whiner,” sat around and questioned each other if they were “okay,” with all the portentous seriousness usually reserved for asking about imaginary terminal bone diseases. The Penguin wasn’t really needed in the conversation, since The Whiner has reached the point of whining out loud to himself when alone. Either that, or else the voices in his head have gotten so loud that now I can hear them.

The houseguests are so overwhelmingly bored, that for lack of anything to do, they held a “Shunning of the Penquin” ceremony when The Penguin’s week in the penguin suit finished. The Penguin said: “The Meow Meow gets to shun away from The Penguin, and gets to be himself again.” Not here. Here he shalt ever and forever be The Penguin, squawking menace to Gotham City’s excellent citizens. Also, it would appear that he’s not completely mindful of the meaning of “shun”. Well, I’m sure he’ll find out what being shunned really means when he returns home after the run ends. He certainly will if he meets me.

Watching The Whiner cram for a possible exam was about as exciting as watching anyone cram for an exam.

Power of Veto Competition: The concept of Otev returned from last year, this time incarnated as a “Lucky Singing Clam” that looked like a rejected dark-ride character from a low-budget Disneyland competitor. It involved singing clues to houseguests’ imacted names, retrieving dirty CDs, and climbing ramps made of what looked like ice.

The Whiner, this week’s target, he who is without allies, he who has pulled it out and won challenges in the clutch before, fouled up, and was nearly eliminated in the first round. He was only saved by The Beast’s incredible stupidity, as he really got the incorrect answer-CD.

Hayden kept The Brigade Loser tradition alive, and went out in the second round.

Bitchney went out next, leaving the two nominees as the last two competitors, insuring a change in nominations. Could The Penguin really win an individual competition?

In a world where clams sing, and Jimmy Fallon has his own TV show, anything can happen. The Penguin knew where the answer CD was from his earlier searches, and body-slammed The Whiner out of the way to get to it first. This is perfectly kosher play. It is, after all, full-contact Lucky Singing Clam CD Retrieval.

When the impossible happened, and The Penguin won, The Whiner channeled his inner-Brendon-the-Sore-Loser, and hurled his last, loser CD at Otev the Clam, which sailed off of it, rebounding so that the hard edge of it slammed into The Penguin’s hairplugs. Hello Huge Brother producers and watchdogs; that’s assault on a fellow player. Isn’t that an instant-removal-from-the-house offence, as well as behavior fit for 5 year olds?

And The Whiner was off to weep and babble his self-pity aloud to himself, in an effort to make himself as unpopular outside the house as he is inside the house. When will people learn that self-pity is a most-unappetizing emotion?

Bitchney place the screws to The Beast to keep her off of the block, as he was preparing to take a, it appeared, shower, completely-dressed. Of course, given the viral-internet popularity of a certain clip of The Beast – let’s say – scratching his ears in the shower, he may never shower naked again. That clip has now been seen by more people than have watched Janet Leigh shower at the Bates Motel. (Ms Leigh’s well-known motel shower is also less creepy, given that The Beast uses pulling his ear to say “hello” to his mother. “Hi Mom! Still proud a me?”)

As soon as Bitchney was utterly assured cast off just be a 100% safe pawn, The Penguin started thinking it might be the right time to break up the third showmance, by sending out Bitchney.

The Second Punishment: Bitchney’s theory for the second punishment was: “We’re the only people left on planet.” That would indeed be a terrible punishment for them, and a narrow escape for the rest of us, when you consider that in a very few weeks now, they will all be unrestricted back into the wild with us! I just wonder, given what her theory was for the second punishment, what she did she reckon the third would be? Might number three be that there’s nothing left on planet to wear but hippie-tards and penguin suits?

Well, it wasn’t quite as terrible as mankind being wiped out apart from for the five-least-deserving human specimens. No, it was — sock puppets!

Is this a punishment, a crafts project, or the pilot for Huge Brother: Sesame Street? Each houseguest received a puppet that had some feature that suggested that houseguest. Bitchney’s had fake-blond, yarn hair. Hayden’s had the frizzies, The Penguin’s had what all took for cat whiskers, but which were really the long nails that all of America watching Huge Brother this summer want to see hammered into The Penguin’s face if he ever opens his mouth or goes shirtless again (or maybe they’re supposed to be hairplugs), The Beast’s has a fist where most people would have a brain, and The Whiner’s despises itself.

The contestants had to speak only through the puppets for 24 hours. The Beast’s puppet was trying to eat an entire can of Pringle’s. Or, maybe it was just trying to choke itself to fatality, after what The Beast had made it do in the shower. Is Sock Puppet Rape a crime?

Meanwhile, as The Brigade tried to plot, their sock puppets were betraying their secrets to each other, and forming a secret sock-puppet alliance, the Top Left-Hand Drawer Alliance, and started laying diplomacy to oust the puny humans, and have an all-sock-puppet final four. The Beast’s puppet was the new ringleader, since it had demonstrably more brains than the man using it.

The Whiner, reckless for a friend, tried to form an alliance with his own sock puppet, but Socks wasn’t having it. It’s not simple being made of an absorbent material when you’re being worn by a chronic crybaby. Having to sit on his hand and listen to The Whiner whine to it hour after hour was making Socks suicidal. (”I want my life back.” Oh yes, Whiner, quoting Tony Hayward. Excellent role model. No wonder your sock puppet desires to stage a coup.)

The Penguin’s sock puppet doesn’t get the appeal of golf. Me neither. Mark Twain called it “a excellent walk spoiled,” though judging from Tiger Woods’s last year, it’s more like “a excellent walk by the spoiled.” Man, is CBS reckless to fill out an hour of TV this week: puppets discussing how stupid golf is.

Said The Penguin’s sock puppet of golf: “I don’t know; it’s like another language to me.” Oh heavens, it’s like English to him.

I was wretched when the 24 hours finished. I was starting to like the sock puppets far more than the houseguests, but these socks were made for walking, and that’s just what they did. Next stop: eBay.

The Third Punishment: This punishment I dubbed “Mike Boogie Fever”. Music would start up at random times, and the houseguests had to “dance.” It’s the new hit run: Dancing With the Brigade. It had one excellent thing going for it: Bristol Palin wasn’t one of the “dancers.”

“Do I Dread a Waltz? Hayden Moss, Music Critic: “To make equipment even worse, classical music gets mixed in this bunch.” No comment from me required. But he added, as his horror at being subjected to a Strauss waltz mounted: “Like, did they even dance back then? I mean, what is that.?” It’s a waltz, you pathetic moron, a type of dance they did “back then.”

Why am I lying to the poor boy? He attends college in that bastion of forward-thinking, Arizona, which just re-elected John McCain, so we know they’re all really, really smart out there. And like allArizonians with higher education, he knows “dancing” was invented in 1986.

The Beast: “The music can come on any time of the day. It doesn’t matter if you’re napping, sleeping, swimming, lifting.” The Beast sees “sleeping” and “napping” as two different activities.” At least this finally gave us some night-vision shots of The Beast shirtless. I was beginning to dread that his brown t-shirt was a half-body tattoo.

Though no genius, nor even merely mentally-competent to make his own legal decisions, The Beast has realized that if he nominates Bitchney, his Brigade Brothers may very well take advantage of the chance to end Showmance 3: Bitchney and the Beast, and he’s not ready to end this fantasy romance made in Texarkana just yet. Hayden, still recovering from hearing the better part of a full minute of Deadly Classical Music the day before, is in no mood to have this further horror thrust on his still-weakened system.

Bitchney but, had the advantage over Hayden of pillow-talk wheedling, which now consisted of more iterations of “You like Hayden more than me.” I was coming up for “Why don’t you just marry Hayden, if you like him so much?” but CBS cut it. She finally nagged him into retreat: “I reckon we should go back to sleep.” Wait. Were they “sleeping” or “napping”? It looked more like napping to me, but I’m not the expert The Beast is. It may seem like a trivial question, but assume for a moment that you are Bitchney’s unfortunate fiancé back in Arkansas, which would sound worse to you: “I napped with Lane,” or “I slept with Lane”?

Veto Ceremony: The Penguin took himself off the block. I wondered if he would, or if he would forget. He’s not the best-sliced egg in the salad.

Sex triumphed again. The Beast nominated Hayden to replace The Penguin. He has now done what Mr. Mensa never did, betrayed all members of The Brigade. The last of loyalty is lying in the sock drawer.

The Whiner now realizes that there are “cracks in this boy’s alliance; and I’m going to do what I can to try to expose these cracks…” Oh Whiner; what a wellspring of gay stereotypes you have been all summer, from your bromance, to your whining, to your craybaby jags, and now, to your announcing your intentions to do all you can to expose the straight’s boys’ cracks. Start with The Beast’s, okay? There’s no rush on The Penguin’s.

Thursday: Back against the wall, no sock puppets left to conspire with, The Whiner must scramble his brains out to avoid eviction. He’s got to get his face deep down into those cracks, and spread them wide.

First The Whiner went to Bitchney. If he could swing her vote, it would go to The Beast to break the tie vote. The Whiner told Bitchney, that a final two of her and him would be the only way cast off have a chance to win. I’m not sure that’s right, but what do I know? I watch Huge Brother.

Then The Whiner pitched to The Beast to tell The Brigade and break the tie in his act of kindness. It would be a huge go that would shake up the last few episodes.

Said The Beast: “Ragan’s got me thinking.” Wow. Talk about accomplishing the impossible! Someone should loose The Whiner on Paris Hilton.

In suspense to hear The Whiner whine about how miserable the sock puppets were, the Chenbot was disappointed when The Whiner loved the sock puppets. Well of course he did; when he had his puppet, he had his only friend. She should have questioned Hayden, who could have complained about the ear hurt he suffered being subjected to classical music, and then he could have questioned Miss Chen what people did back in the olden days before dancing was invented, when Julie was a small girl.

Said The Penguin of his penguin suit: “That was beyond doubt a cool penguin.” I dread he is unaware that penguins come from polar regions, and thus that all penguins are cool.

We went out to the jury house this week, where Boobiac is lying about in the sun, her red-cellophane hair sparkling and melting in the afternoon glare, reading thick books full of chemicals and equations and stuff. The two blessed weeks I’ve gone since last hearing her shrill braying laugh finished in a teeth-jittering scream of a cackle, as the Boobster befouled my screen once again.

Boobiac told us, at length, how Mr. Mensa would be coming through the door, just before Kathy wandered in, hollering “There’s a new sheriff in town” in the severely-mistaken belief that it would sound cool, like a penguin.

Kathy got to drawl out to Boobiac about Mr. Mensa’s Diamond Power of Veto. Boobiac sad and mad. That’s terrible, she’s sad. I’m glad she’s mad.

“I felt like a victim in a crime,” overstated Kathy, who took her blindside as equal to someone who’s just been raped or beaten or murdered. If only cast off said: “I feel just a like a murder victim.”

Then we jumped ahead a week, to when Mr. Mensa arrived to enter a mansion in which these two annoying broads (Honey, those women are broads!) have made themselves at home for a week. Before long, the poor man may be wishing he himself had an imaginary bone disease.

“He broke my heart,” said Kathy of Mr. Mensa, because he was playing for himself to win instead of for her to win. To the best of my knowledge he did not pledge to marry her and then dumped her at the alter. Get over yourself, drama sheriff.

But Kathy’s high-horse is about to be saddled up and ridden hard, for the time has come for Mr. Mensa to ‘fess up that the wife’s bone disease tale was a place-on, and to face Kathy’s Wrath, for she, as a cancer-survivor herself, was deeply offended! She rode her high-horse over him backwards and forwards.

I felt most-conflicted. On the one hand, I find Kathy annoying in the extreme. Her very voice grates on me, and her showing in the game, her being a literal dead-weight to be dragged about lifeless in challenge after challenge, has left me with small respect for her game play. Her tantrums here I find wildly extravagant for maximum drama.

But there’s the small point that, morally, she’s right. What Mr. Mensa did was despicable, and he deserves some shunning for it.

He, but, simply views it from a point-of-view so radically different from Kathy’s, that she can no more conceive of it that we can accurately picture a cube with five dimensions. She sees it as pissing on every genuinely gravely-ill person on planet. He sees it as no huge thing, a lark. What it was, was a poorly-thought-out gambit in extremely terrible taste, without the redeeming quality of satire.

Boobiac said of Mr. Mensa’s Huge Lie: “Like, you’re the most-horrible person I’ve ever met in my life right now.” This place-down is even more terribly stinging when you consider that Boobiac has met herself.

Said Kathy: “That’s not a strategy; that’s just cruelness. That’s cruelness.” If you’re wondering what “cruelness” is, it’s “cruelty” as mentioned by someone who only knows 12 English words.

After saying he regretted it “because it didn’t pay out,” Mr. Mensa’s lame defense included: “I was going to donate money to the foundation for that disease…” He was going to donate money? Wretched National Foundation for Imaginary Diseases of the Skeleton, but your imaginary disease didn’t get me sufficient sympathy votes to stay in the house, so no soup for you!

Kathy went on, not having finished grossly overdramatising Mr. Mensa’s lie: “There is not sufficient money in the world that would sell my soul to the devil, and that right there is pretty close to it.”

Oh please. He told a terrible-taste lie which offended Kathy, and no doubt many others. But, offending people isn’t the same as hurting or damaging people. Telling the Nazis the Jews are hiding in the attic for some cash and getting out of town alive, that’s selling your soul to the devil.

Yet I suspect Kathy’s statement: “There is not sufficient money in the world that would sell my soul to the devil,” is literally right. The Devil would command a price beyond all the value of planet to place up with being stuck sharing Hell with Kathy for eternity. May I leave the jury house now?

No. Because Mr. Mensa witheld the bolt from the blue double-eviction, so we could have the full bittersweet overindulgence of the Branchel reunion, a moment more delayed than the reunion of Sun and Jin on Lost. Hopefully, like Sun and Jin, Brendon and Boobiac will drown before the final episode.

Watching the shaving of Brendon’s head, Mr. Mensa observed that he “looks like a penis.” Boobiac was grossed out, although it was visibly right, and accounts for her mad passion for him.

The Chenbot questioned The Beast if he was playing dumber than he really is, though I don’t see how anything that is still breathing could play dumber than he really is, but he said: “Oh I’m beyond doubt playing the half-a-dodo part.” So, only half his dumb act is an act. The other half is real dodo. “I gotta bring brains back,” added The Beast. Has he a glass gallon jar somewhere in his luggage, labeled “Abnormal Brain. Do Not Use! From Texas!”

Eviction Ceremony: Bitchney caved, and The Beast was saved from having to extend his treachery against The Brigade. The Whiner was voted out unanimously.

The Chenbot questioned The Whiner a lot of questions about Mr. Mensa, and he reaffirmed his respect and like for Mr. Mensa “because whenever Matt and I had conversations, they came from a real, genuine place.” You could feel The Chenbot encouraging The Whiner to lay it on with a trowel, to prepare for the moment when the entire jury house will gleefully inform him of Mr. Mensa’s Huge Lie, while Mensie stands there, sheepishly smirking. Tune in for that next week.

Head of Household Competition: This was another lengthy task which could not be completed before the end of the show. It was Christmas-themed, apt considering that the temperature in Studio City was in the low hundreds. They had to plot delicate glass Christmas ornaments through chickenwire. Bitchney was at a tremendous disadvantage because of her long fingernails. She couldn’t grip the ornaments, and kept dropping them. And the ones she grasped firmly sufficient not to drop, she shattered with her nails. By the time the episode finished, the ground outside her chickenwire looked like the rubble following a bar fight between gay elves. She hasn’t got a chance, and winning Head of Household may be her only hope to survive next week.

Only two more Huge Brother columns still to come: next Friday’s, and then the Monday following for the finale. Until then, cheers darlings.

To read more of Tallulah Morehead, go to The Morehead, the Merrier, or buy her book, My Lush Life.

Read more: Puppets, Reality TV, Huge Brother 12 Episode 24, Julie Chen, The Penguin, Mensa Society, Cbs, Huge Brother 12, Texas, Psycho, Huge Brother 12 Episode 25, Janet Leigh, Huge Brother 12 Episode 23, Sock Puppets, Entertainment News, Batman, Huge Brother, Entertainment News

Internet Petitions Stephen Colbert To Hold ‘Restoring Truthiness’ Rally At Lincoln Memorial

A grassroots battle has begun to get Stephen Colbert to hold a rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to neutralize Glenn Beck’s recent “Restoring Honor” event. The would-be rally has been dubbed “Restoring Truthiness” and was inspired by a recent post on Reddit, where a young woman wondered if the only way to point out the absurdity of the Tea Party’s rally would be if Colbert mirrored it with his own “Colbert Nation.”

Now with its own website and Facebook group with over 8,000 members, the call for Colbert to hold a rally is spreading through the Internet like wildfire. Aside from being a satire of Beck’s rally, the petition claims the rally is necessary because, “Recently our nation has suffered a truthiness drain.”

The website gives a history of the newly founded movement, with links to news tales and a poster for the rally, which proposes the date “10/10/10.” The website also states:

“Restoring Truthiness is a right grassroots movement propelled by YOU, the citizens of the internetz. Our goal is simple: Petition Stephen Colbert to hold a Restoring Truthiness Rally for the American people.”

Given Colbert’s like for his “Nation” and ability to satire the Right so effectively, this nearly seems like a touch Colbert would have thought of himself. While he is on vacation at the moment, it will be appealing to see if he addresses the petition when he returns to host “The Colbert Report” next week.

Those interested in furthering the movement have been questioned to join the Facebook group, spread the word, or email support@colbertrally.com for more information.

Read more: Stephen Colbert, Colbert Restoring Truthiness, Anti-Tea Party Rally, Colbert Lincoln Memorial Rallly, Colbert Rally, Colbert Beck Restoring Honor, Colbert Beck Rally, Colbert Rally 101010, Colbert Lincoln Memorial Speech, Colbert Resotring Truthiness, Colbert Restoring Honor Rally, Glenn Beck, Colbert Truthiness Rally, Comedy News

‘Delocated’ Star Jon Glaser Talks New Season On Fallon (VIDEO)

Last night on “Late Night,” comedian Jon Glaser came on to talk to Jimmy Fallon about the new season of his Adult Swim show “Delocated.” Glaser made and stars in the faux-reality show about a family in the Witness Protection Program which forces them to wear ski masks and undergo voice modulation to hide their identities.

Glaser entertained Fallon by showing off a patriotic motorcycle jumpsuit from the show and a sexy billboard, which he admitted has nothing to do with the show itself. Glaser is no weirder to the “Late Night” show — he wrote and performed on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” for many years. “Delocated” is on Adult Swim on Sunday nights at 10 p.m.

WATCH:

Read more: Delocated, The Roots, Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, Late Night Shows, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Comedy News, Jimmy Fallon, Comedy News

Joan Z. Shore: A Cold Cup of Tea

The Tea Party has it all incorrect for this simple reason:

America’s descent into calamity, corruption and godlessness didn’t start with the Obama administration. It started at least eight years earlier, when George W. Bush went into the White House dragging along his venal vice president and their conniving cronies.

I’ll wager that many of today’s Tea Partiers really voted for GWB the second time around, and maybe the first. They didn’t raise their voices against the wasteful Afghan war, the unjustified invasion and occupation of Iraq, the disgraceful devastation of New Orleans, the hideous shame of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, or the burgeoning greed and fraudulence on Wall Street.

For eight years, these patriotic Americans were silent. As George and Laura started packing up to return to their home in Texas, ordinary Americans started losing their homes everywhere….and their jobs….and their savings. The hurt had begun; it was too late to turn the tide. Now, the Tea Partiers are throwing the book at Obama. (Let’s be explicit: they are calling the kettle black!)

Where were these people during the years of corporate scandals, of mounting national debt, of industrial outsourcing and outrageous gasoline prices? Were they glued to their cell phones and computers, guzzling caffé lattes at Starbucks, playing video games with their kids, blissfully maxing out their credit cards at Wal-Mart?

Have they just now awakened to the fact that America is falling to pieces? Some of us knew it all along, could see it coming, and probably should have formed our own Tea Party years ago.

Unquestionably, America’s political system needs a third voice, a third party. It has happened in Britain. But American conservatives are too grouchy, and American liberals and self-styled progressives are too timid. And so the role may fall to these sturdy, stolid, God-fearing Christians who are now stirring up a tempest in the nation’s teapot.

Had they raised their voices eight years ago, I might have joined them. But now, in 2010, they are looking and sounding a lot like the Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit — “I’m late! I’m late!”

Read more: New Orleans, Third Party, Tea Party, Wall Street, Britain, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Obama Administration, George W. Bush, Politics News

Japan approves new Iran sanctions

Tokyo imposes restrictions on Iranian business interests over Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme.

Read more: Tokyo-Japan, Japan, Tehran-Iran, Iran, Islamic Republic of Iran, Home News

Stacie Krajchir: The Sexiest Pools To Take A Plunge

The Sexiest Pools To Take a Plunge

There’s no argument, hotel pools are downright exciting; there’s a touch slightly tempting about all that glistening water set in a myriad of unfamiliar and seductive surroundings.

Some pools are hailed for their exclusive design or location, others for privacy, and of course there are those known solely for its serious social scene. Regardless of your pool personality, take a plunge into some of the world’s poshest pools.

Read more: Jackson Hole, South Africa, Thailand, France, India, Miami, Iceland, Bali, Swimming Pools, Slidepollajax, Travel News

Seymour D. Reich: Obama: Good for Israel, Good for the United States

The Israeli-Palestinian peace talks launched this week in Washington and orchestrated by President Obama are excellent for Israel and excellent for the United States. At the White House on Wednesday, President Obama, Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian President Abbas expressed their determination to make peace. Netanyahu turned toward Abbas and called him his “partner in peace.”

All Americans, especially Jews, who want to see a secure Israel, a viable Palestinian state alongside it, a stable Middle East and a respected United States should support Obama’s policies regarding Israel.

Yet Pew Research findings unrestricted on August 19 show that Jewish voters who identify or lean Democratic decreased to 60 percent from 72 percent in 2008; while 33 percent now identify or lean Republican, up from 20 percent in 2008. Furthermore, 65 percent of Jewish Israelis judge U.S. Jews should criticize the Obama administration’s policy toward Israel, according to a survey published in June conducted for the B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem. These poll numbers and cavalier charges that Obama is anti-Israel glide in the face of the facts of his administration’s Israel policies. The contrast between the reality of these policies and the misperception about them could not be starker.

On his first full day in office President Obama phoned the leaders of Israel, the Palestinian Power, Egypt and Jordan to “communicate his commitment to active engagement in pursuit of Arab-Israeli peace from the beginning of his term” (as his Press Secretary place it). On his second day, Obama appointed Senator George Mitchell as Middle East envoy to rebuild the Israeli Palestinian peace process.

Many demoralizing challenges awaited Obama on that first day. These included an economy at the precipice, mounting job losses, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Iran’s nuclear weapons program. He did not have to add the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He should be applauded for choosing to do so and for remaining steadfast in his commitment.

His choice was pro-Israel. Time is not on Israel’s side if the status quo and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict persist. Former Prime Minister Rabin unwritten this when his government negotiated with Yasser Arafat. So did former Prime Minister Sharon when he pulled Israel out of Gaza.

Demographic trends indicate that more Arabs than Jews will populate the area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River in another generation or two. Then Israel will either stop to be a Jewish state, or stop to be a democracy as the Jewish minority would rule over the Arab majority.

Delegitimization of Israel is an increasingly serious phenomenon around the world, even in America. The longer the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands continue, the more widespread this new threat becomes.

Another danger, Hezbollah and Hamas, both backed and armed by Iran, is also escalating, as they buy ever more sophisticated rockets and missiles able to strike deeper inside Israel. An Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement would deprive these terrorist groups of their chief reason for attacks against Israel and deny other Islamist terrorist groups an valuable recruiting tool.

Iran’s nuclear weapons program poses yet another threat, and not only to Israel. That is why Obama is leading the international community’s drive to impose tougher sanctions on Tehran.

To be able to get recalcitrant industrial countries on board with tougher sanctions, Obama initially reached out to Iran’s rulers. To convince Arab countries to back new Israeli-Palestinian talks and to pressure Palestinian Power President Abbas to come to the negotiating table, he needed to reach out to the Arab and Muslim world, as he did in his Cairo take up. The Arab League formally endorsed direct talks last month — a significant achievement.

It is right that Obama made some missteps. One was his failure early on to speak directly to the Israeli people. Another was his administration’s initial accent on ending settlement building outside the pre-1967 borders though prior negotiations had no such requirement. This handed Abbas a branch that he climbed up in order to avoid direct talks, which Netanyahu called for. Abbas did not climb down from this spot until Arab states, prodded by the Obama administration, insisted that he do so.

Those who charge Obama with being anti-Israel ignore his contributions to extending Israel’s qualitative military advantage over its neighbors. “Israel and the United States held a number of meetings over the past 18 months on maintaining Israel’s security standings in the Middle East,” reported the prominent Israeli daily Haaretz on August 9. In May Obama chose to grant Israel $205 million in military aid to procure more Iron Dome missile defense systems. Last October U.S. and Israeli militaries held a major joint air defense exercise along the Israeli coast, “send[ing] a message to Iran, to Hezbollah and to Hamas that the strategic relationship between the United States and Israel remains solid,” noted Eytan Gilboa of Israel’s Bar-Ilan University.

American and Israeli Jews’ confidence in Obama should be growing. His administration’s policies and actions have led to direct talks between Israelis and Palestinians designed to reach a peace agreement, to tougher sanctions on Iran intended to end Tehran’s nuclear weapons program and to closer U.S.-Israeli military ties. These policies benefit Israel, the United States and Middle East stability. They should be supported by all Americans, Jews and non-Jews, and by Israelis.

Seymour D. Reich is a former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

This post originally appeared in The Jewish Week.

Read more: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Mahmoud Abbas, Peace Talks, Middle East Peace Talks, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel, Obama Peace Talks, Obama Israel, Politics News

Anya Landau French: Obama Renews Cuba Embargo for Another Year

Well, I can’t say it was any huge bolt from the blue. Yesterday, President Obama renewed his power under the otherwise defunct Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA) of 1917, which would have otherwise expired on September 14, 2010. In unadorned English, President Obama renewed the U.S. embargo on Cuba for another year.

Bear with me as I wonk out for just a moment, and recall how I clarified this obscure presidential declaration last year:

Keep in mind that everything the President – any US President – does must have its foundation in some law giving the office broad or specific power to act. Back when President Kennedy first declared the embargo, he had broad power to declare national emergencies and leave them there – often far past their use and beyond the reach of congressional oversight.

So, in 1977, Congressional scaled back that power for future national emergencies; but it grandfathered in existing authorities (such as the one for the Cuba embargo) as long as the President determined, on a yearly basis, that continued exercise of that power was still in the national interest. President George W. Bush last signed this determination on September 12, 2008. (Note that Cuba is the only country against which sanctions derived from the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act are still in place.)

And so for close to 3 decades now, the embargo remains in place because of a yearly presidential determination that it ought to.

Last year, Amnesty International, one of the Cuban government’s staunchest human rights critics, but also one of the U.S. embargo’s staunchest opponents, issued a clever call for President Obama to decline to renew his TWEA power. Had he heeded the call, it wouldn’t have simply wiped away the embargo, much of which now codified into law (but it would have called into question the legal standing of some of the most valuable and sweeping parts of it, like the travel ban). President Obama also could have made a bold foreign policy statement, by making a clean break with the United States’ single most ridiculous and demonstrably disastrous foreign policy, and maybe even shaking up the annual U.N. vote in which every country apart from Israel and a small island in the South Pacific, votes to condemn it. But Amnesty’s call went unheeded, the U.N. voted 187- 3, and President Obama, who six years ago unequivocally opposed the Cuba embargo, officially came to own it.

Nevertheless, Amnesty International sent another letter to Mr. Obama last month, reasoning this time that not renewing his power would “surely be welcomed by many US citizens keen to travel to and engage with Cuba. It would also send a apparent message to Congress, that after 50 years of tension, new avenues should develop in the relationship with Cuba.”

It’s right that by signing that piece of paper yesterday, President Obama again missed a chance to send a positive, constructive signal on Cuba policy. But it’s not too late. Maybe he’s got another signal in mind, one that would make a tangible change right now, by again allowing the kinds of people-to-people cultural travel to and contacts with the Cuban people that President Clinton encouraged more than a decade ago (and which President Bush closed down in 2003).

By using the limited power he has to ease the current travel restrictions, President Obama would assuredly encourage Congress to take the final step – as only Congress can do – and end the counterproductive travel ban for all, not just for some, Americans.

This post originally appeared at http://TheHavanaNote.com

Read more: Cuba Travel Ban, Amnesty International, Trading With the Enemy Act, Cuba Embargo, Cuba, President Obama, World News

Mexican Soldiers Kill 25 Drug Cartel Members In Troubled Border State

MONTERREY, Mexico — Soldiers killed at least 25 suspected cartel members Thursday in a raid and gunbattle in a Mexican state near the U.S. border that has become one of the most perilous battlegrounds in the country’s drug war.

A military aircraft flying over Ciudad Mier in Tamaulipas state blemished several gunmen in adjoin of a building, according to a statement from Mexico’s Defense Department.

Read more: Mexican Drug War, Cartel Members Killed, Ciudad Mier, Mexico Drug Cartel, Zetas, Mexico Drug Cartel Members, Tamaulipas, Mexico, World News