I concur with Kathy

Because it’s effectively become Kathy Shaidle week at this blog (I can almost hear her yelling “Every week is Kathy Shaidle week, Accordion Chump!”) and in the interests of fairness, I’m going to point to two entries on her blog, Relapsed Catholic, with which I agree wholeheartedly.

Ain’t nothin’ wrong with a little swearing and violence in movies, a-hole, so shut up or I’ll give you something to really whine about

In this article, she pimp-slaps MovieGuide “but it’s just not Christian enough!” stance to their movie reviews. MovieGuide isn’t as over-the-top as ChildCare Action Project’s, but they’re still on the rabid side.

She writes:

“The filmmakers could have told this tale without all of this graphic content.” They’re right you know. I’m hoping for a version of Slap Shot without all the violence and swearing too. The nine minute version.

Guys, the Bible contains violence and nudity, m’kay?

Come to think of it, muses MovieGuide, “the filmmakers also should have added some spiritual, Christian insights to delve even deeper and more accurately into the theme of psychological trauma.” Too bad Potter wasn’t actually a Christian or maybe that would (ooops, I mean “should”) have occured to him. Between those hourly morphine injections.

Yeah, picture it now: pink and blue smiling teddy bears raining from the sky at the end, and Jesus nailing a touchdown, and everybody singing “God Bless America”…

She concludes:

Let’s make a deal, guys: we [Catholics] — the Scorceses and the Coppolas — will keep making the movies, and you [Protestants] keep boycottin’ them.

Daaaaaamn straight. Hey, there are days my life is like a Rob Zombie movie, and I still turned out all right.

No comments

Some people are upset that she doesn’t have comments in her blog, and some have even gone so far to say that it can’t be a “real” blog if there’s no facility for them to leave a comment.

Wrong! The only thing that really defines a blog is that it’s a log, and it’s on the Web. Everything else is an option left to the discretion of the blog’s author.

Kathy points out a list of a lot of blogs that don’t have comments, but she skipped the most important one: Captain’s Logs in Starfleet. Captain Kirk wasn’t obliged to take no steenkeeng comments in his log (“Y0 D0GG THAT GREEN CHIXOR WUZ HOTT OMFG”), and neither is Kathy.

If you really feel that you’ve got to make some kind of comment on what she says, you have all kinds of options:

• Yell at the screen. I know some people who yell at Springer, others who yell at the McNeil/Lehrer Newshour, and I’m sure my friend Sam has yelled at one or two of the castaways on Survivor. It might make you feel better, and it might be all you need to do before you go back to whatever it was you were doing.
• Send email to the address she’s published on her page. I’ve written, and she’s replied. Remember that a little politeness will go a long way.
• Start your own damned blog. Link to her and say clearly why you agree or disagree. If you don’t have a blog, email me and I’ll point you in the direction of a nice reseller for Blogware, the software behind this blog, and I daresay the only blogging tool that matters.

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Finally, I’d like to raise a filet mignon on a flaming sword to Kathy, for being a good sport and taking it was well as she dished it out. I do this partially because I believe in the spirit of fair play and sportsmanship, and partially because she’s thinking of moving to a condo close to where I live; the last thing I need when I’m busking is another heckler.