Two Columns Worth Reading

On Madonna's "courage" and "shocking" behavior:

Pity the pop star that ages unwell. What must she do to get noticed? For the 47-year-old Madonna Ciccone, known to her fans simply as Madonna, the bag of circus sideshow geek tricks looks emptier all the time. On Monday night, fans in Los Angeles got to watch her latest attempt at outrageousness. She decided to hang from a mirrored crucifix while singing one of her oldies, "Live to Tell."

Upon hearing of Madonna’s latest plea for attention, Catholic League President Bill Donohue told The Associated Press, "Poor Madonna keeps trying to shock. But all she succeeds in doing is coming across as a boring bigot."

...

Blaspheming the crucifixion even earned a federal subsidy once. Andres Serrano put a small plastic crucifix in a jar of his own urine, photographed it, and won an award that was sponsored in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Hey Madonna, that was the 1980s.

Now mocking Christian beliefs rates what? A couple of AP reporters desperately calling every Catholic organization they know looking for someone to be offended. I bet Madonna doesn’t even get a mention at the MTV music awards for this stunt.

It's been my prediction -- and hope -- that Madonna would do this, more or less. Age very badly and very loudly to boot. I remember seeing Shelley Winters on Carson as a kid. Her beauty had long departed her, and she was reduced to telling about all the men she'd had sex with on books and national TV. It was sad and pitiable, trying to cling to an image of potent sexuality that almost everyone else refused to indulge.

Madonna will make Shelley Winters look like the most graceful woman who ever lived.

On Saint Cindy, Useful Idiot:

Cindy Sheehan's maudlin narcissism has already been extensively examined, but for those unfamiliar with her philosophy, Dear President Bush is a good primer. “Was it freedom and democracy?� she asks rhetorically about the purpose of her soldier son Casey’s death. “Bulls**t. He died for oil.� This comes a few pages after her solution for problems in the Mideast: “We need to be more fair with policies that way too heavily favor Israel.�

But did Casey die for oil or Israel? Because if it’s Israel, then the obvious Peace Mom solution would be to do whatever those oil-producing, Israel-hating countries want. But if Bush only cares about oil, like she says, then why does he “way too heavily favor Israel�?

Saint Cindy questions that whole unilateral war-of-choice against Hitler, by the way.

Changed: I put these into their own post because posters were only discussing the Duke rape case when they were included with that story.

Not saying you have to discuss these or anything. Just providing an opportunity to do so without comments being lost in a sea of discussion of the Duke rape case.

posted by Ace at 01:25 PM

| Access Comments