Monthly Archives: January 2019

Holy Shit

 

I don’t have a social media account, which not only makes me a dinosaur, but something of a hypocrite. Because I can no more stay away from Trump’s tweets than I can half-off candy.

And this was his latest gumdrop:

Donald J. Trump

The tweet came from, where else, Fox & Friends, the television’s version of Pravda.
The Trumptards had North Dakota Republican Rep. Aaron McWilliams on the program, touting his sponsorship of a bill to support Bible literacy in the classrooms of his state.

In addition, they brayed, five other states are considering similar measures: Missouri, Indiana, West Virginia, Virginia and Florida.That was enough to get Trump’s sausage fingers a flyin.’ Which will, very likely, get his base in other states to demand similar proposals.

Let’s set aside any legal questions, which interest our president as much reading. Let’s also ignore the fact that the U.S. Constitution, in calling for a separation of church and state, does not use the word “God” once in its text.

Instead, let’s frame this proposition from a religious standpoint. Let’s go further: we’ll tackle the issue as believers, giving as much benefit of the doubt as academically feasible. We’ll even accept the good book is not only accurate, but an acceptable role model for our children, just to appease Bible thumpers.

The question, then, is this: which of its literary passages should the kiddos learn? We’ll tackle only the biggest, as the Bible is rife with innumerable inconsistencies, contractions, and historical and scientific inaccuracies within its covers. I guess that’s to be expected, perhaps even accepted, considering it was written by first century illiterate goat shepherds.

First, the ten commandments, namely the one purists love to point to as the moral compass for humanity. Here’s number six:Image result for the ten commandments

Thou shalt not kill.

Seems reasonable enough. But will we redact the chapter where the priestly tribe of the Levites was instructed to punish anyone who insisted on sticking to their pagan idolatry? Image result for tribe of the Levites draw swords

Thus sayeth the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side. and slay ever man, his brother, companion, neighbor. — Exodus 32:27

Now onto a common theme of the Bible: rape. The Bible’s rules on rape are laid out clearly in Deuteronomy: pay the father of the violated woman, who must marry her rapist — and who will not be free of him until he croaks:Image result for Deuteronomy rape

The third instruction of that list of golden rules says:

If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives. — Deuteronomy chapter 22.

A shekel of silver is worth $320 in today’s U.S. currency. That’s $16,000 per rape.

It gets better. Old Deuter (sorry, Lebowski) later tosses out the recompense entirely if the rapist is arrested and victim identified:

If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you. — Deuteronomy verse 29

And I’ll guess we’ll have to omit the 13th Amendment of the Constitution altogether during civics class, because the Bible has a lot to say about slavery, and none of it holy. The Bible describes Timothy as a righteous missionary and good friend friend of the Apostle Paul who warranted his own byline and quote in the good book: 

All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered. — Timothy 6:1

To make the sure point was not lost on the heathens, Paul and Timmy co-wrote this gem: Image result for apostle paul and timothy

Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. — Colossians 3:22

One of these days I’m going to quit reading Trump’s twit tweets. I swear to god.

Preying on the Grieving

 

I spent half my career as a police reporter. After watching Ronald Gene Simmons executed for killing 16 people over the Christmas holiday, I realized I wanted out of the death business.

So I took a beat as far-flung from crime as I could imagine: movie critic. In writing this review for a website, I was reminded why I left:

 

‘Ted Bundy was not your typical serial killer. Educated, telegenic and media-savvy, Bundy redefined how authorities hunted and captured murderers. He also forged a macabre template for Hollywood that persists to this day.

Fittingly, Netflix’s new film, Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, is not your typical crime documentary. Unlike the recent spate of real-life whodunnits, including Making a Murderer, The Innocent Man and The Staircase, Tapes is more concerned with documenting murder rather than questioning it.

While the murders are more than four decades old (the film marks the 30th anniversary of Bundy’s 1989 execution), it remains etched on America’s consciousness: Zac Efron will play Bundy in the film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, which debuted at this year’s Sundance and will be released commercially later this year. And the documentary set Twitter so ablaze with panicked posts after its release the streaming service tweeted that audiences “not watch the movie alone,” though that may have simply been slick marketing.

Still, the documentary included several revelations about the case and demonstrated how Bundy’s killing spree forever heightened the nation’s fascination — and paranoia — surrounding random violence.

Directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Brother’s Keeper, the Paradise Lost trilogy), he begins the four-part series with a troubling, unexplained truth about the country: Serial killings became en vogue in the 1970’s. From Charles Manson to the Zodiac Killer to Son of Sam to John Wayne Gacy, the decade was essentially blood-stained with a series of random slayings that transfixed the country.

But none captured public attention like Bundy. Unlike the other murderers, whose homicides were contained in relatively small geographic regions, Bundy’s murders spanned seven states, beginning in Washington and ending in Florida. And none neared his body count; while Bundy confessed to 30 murders of women, police speculate he may have claimed more than 100 lives.

Even the story of how investigators and reporters obtained more than 80 hours of audiotape was something out of a movie. Until two days before he was sent to the electric chair, Bundy refused to admit to any killings. So frustrated questioners tried a different tack, asking him to explain how a killer might have committed such atrocities yet remain uncaught. Speaking in the third-person, Bundy obliged, apparently relishing reliving his elusive methods and two prison escapes.

Among the shows revelations:

Bundy road-tripped after his first escape. Bundy, who had a college degree in psychology, knew that local police jurisdictions communicated poorly. So after jumping out of a second-floor window during his kidnapping trial, he stole a car and began a 3,000-mile road trip, killing women in seven states. It took months for authorities to link the slayings.

Bite marks sealed his fate. Because police had no fingerprints and DNA analysis had not yet been invented, Bundy was convicted on meager evidence:  bite marks on one victim — evidence now considered junk science. One of Bundy’s victims was bitten twice during her slaying. The marks matched Bundy’s crooked teeth, forensic experts testified.

Bundy was tried for murder while on death row. Florida prosecutors were so concerned Bundy might overturn his conviction on appeal, they prosecuted him on death row for the murder of 12-year-old Lynette Dawn Culver. He was found guilty based on a witness who saw Bundy force the girl into a van from her middle school.

Bundy started a family on death row. Bundy, who acted as his own defense lawyer, proposed to girlfriend Carol Ann Boone as she sat on the witness stand (prosecutors believe he thought it would make him appear sympathetic). She accepted and the couple, who surreptitiously copulated behind bars,  conceived a daughter on death row.

Bundy inspired FBI profiling. Following Bundy’s arrest — along with the high-profile surge in serial killings — the FBI began collecting details of the slayings into a single database, and began training agents to look for similar traits. Bundy himself became a profiler, collecting news stories and sharing theories with agents who would visit him for counsel.

Berlinger sprinkles the show with other sensationalist details, including that Bundy later confessed to necrophilia and beheading some victims. The confessions, often recorded in whispers through prison Plexiglas, were an attempt by Bundy to “cleanse his soul,” the film explains.

But the true revelation of the series is how Bundy remains imprinted on our culture. He had groupies at his trials, young women who attempted to deliver love notes to him through his attorneys (all rejected). And the pop culture image we have of serial killers remains Bundy-esque: brilliant, cunning and eloquent, sometimes dashing. Think Hannibal Lecter, Dexter, American Psycho‘s Patrick Bateman, You‘s Joe Goldberg.

The most telling depiction, though, comes from Bundy himself, in the last words captured in Tapes:

“We want to be able to say we can identify these dangerous people. And the really scary thing is you can’t identify them. People don’t realize that there are potential killers among them. How could anyone live in a society where people they liked, loved, lived with, worked with, and admired could the next day turn out to be the most demonic people imaginable?” ‘

 

He’s a Poet and Didn’t Even…Realize It?

 

You know Trump is reaching for catch-phrases when his minions can’t echo them.

Earlier this week, he tweeted this doozy — three times:

“BUILD A WALL & CRIME WILL FALL! This is the new theme, for two years until the Wall is finished (under construction now), of the Republican Party. Use it and pray!”

 

Later, at an impromptu press conference with Kellyanne Conway, CNN’s Abby Phillip asked about the wall’s dwindling popularity in polls. In response, Kellyanne went Kellykuckoo:Image result for crazy kellyanne conway

“And so why would that be the question, why is that a good question?” Conway asked. “I’m asking you why you’re still saying wall when the president has said, I’m asking why you and the polling questions respectfully are still saying wall when the president said you can call it whatever you want. Call it steel slat barriers…”

“He calls it a wall as well, Kellyanne,” Phillip responded, adding “this morning, he said it as a new slogan when he called it a wall.”

“Yes it’s a great slogan, build a wall and crime will fall, we know that’s true,” Conway said.

“So why can’t we call it a wall when he calls it a wall?” Phillip asked.

“Right, he calls it a wall, steel slat barrier, physical barrier, anything,” Conway said, then asked what Democrats called it when they “voted to renovate the existing wall.”

How about this for a slogan: “Check the borders of your mental disorders?”

And, for something less off-kilter, Slapfacts:

 

  • There is a strip club in Ontario, Canada that doubles as a church on Sunday.Image result for ontario strip club church on sunday
  • Since its creation in 2006, the United Nations Human Rights Council has resolved almost more resolutions condemning Israel than on the rest of the world combined.
  • Shturmovshchina is Russian for working frantically to meet a deadline, having not done anything for the last month.
  • Juries in the U.S. are often 12 in number as that was the number of Christian Apostles.Image result for 12 christian apostles
  • The sign for the female sex (♀) represents the hand mirror of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of beauty.Image result for aphrodite hand mirror
  • In Ancient Rome, women donated their hair for use as military catapult elastic.Image result for In Ancient Rome, women donated their hair for use as military catapult elastic.