Our Crumbling Civilization: Amped For Sex Edition

Let's say you've got an energy drink to hawk. You know the deal: Young demographic, need to be edgy, viral.

You could make an ad about having energy to party, or energy to work out, or energy to work. No, scratch that last one. You could have beautiful girls surrounding the guy with the energy drink. It could be fun. Fun .... There's a concept. You could make it all about sex! Not just sex, but stranger sex!

Welcome to AMP (that's three capital letters, required) Energy Drink.



For those who don't want to click through or are blessed with short-term memory disorder:

Man 1, waking up in woman's apartment: "When you wake up in the morning in an unfamiliar place..."

Man 2, sitting on woman's bed: "And you can't remember where or when, let alone her face ..."

Woman 1, looking under man's bed in her underwear: "When you cannot find your shoe and your hair smells like a bar ..."

Man 3, sitting on woman's bed: "But you kinda feel excited because you got really far ..."

Man 4, on street: "Last night I was sure I was with a 10 ..."

Man 5, buying energy drink: "But this morning when I saw those knakles I had to think again ..."

You get the idea.

(Kankles, courtesy of Incredible Daughter #2, who introduced me to this video, are calf's or cow's ankles.)

"They ought to put a Trojan commercial on after it," said ID #2. But it appears her peers like the idea of hawking products with trampy, tawdry sin. And they don't just view this spot on YouTube -- they watch it on TV. And they like it; here are some of the comments from YouTube:

Oooooh, good one doooood!

this is the best, funniest, and awesomest commercial ever!!! its soo funny and it rox!!

That is hilarious and its so true i usally am so wasted and dont no ne thing and just go its really funny tho theres usally other peeps 2

In case you're not text-friendly, the middle of that last one is "and don't know anything."

To capture just how civilization-crumbling this culture of cheap sex, loose morals and freewheeling materialism is, I offer up this comment from a concerned YouTube viewer:

why do people have to ruin a good commercial with cases of std comments stfu

Yeah, why let chlamydia or gonorrhea get in the way of fun? Feeling good for the moment, that's the ticket.

And the hucksters at ad mega-agency BBDO know it well, assailing morality in the name of bringing yet another unneeded brand of energy drinks to market. Eight different versions of the clip are up on YouTube, with combined hits in the 330,000 range.

And Tango Makes 420

The American Library Association's activist campaign against anything outside its mainline secularist dogma continues again this year with the group's routine (yawn!) announcement of the year's "most challenged" books.

To make the list, books must be the target of a formal, written complaint requesting it be removed from a library or school because of inappropriate content.

Topping the list again this year (says AP) is "And Tango Makes Three," a 2005 children's story about a family of penguins with two fathers.

"The complaints are that young children will believe that homosexuality is a lifestyle that is acceptable. The people complaining, of course, don't agree with that," Judith Krug, director of the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

And what's wrong with that? It's a perfectly good concern, but not in ALA-think. Note Krug's job: "Intellectual Freedom." By issuing the list every year, Krug is absolutely opposing intellectual freedom because the list exists only to shame people who hold believes based on traditional morals and the values-based thinking that comes from a solid moral core.

How can I allege such a thing? Because in all the schools, in all the libraries across this great land, there was a grand total last year of 420 complaints against the content of books. Complaints are of such tiny consequence that Krug's nasty little compendium should yield absolutely no media interest, but since the media generally shares the ALA's view that we should all ascribe to secular relativism, they're happy to trumpet the results each year.

What's more, the number of complaints dropped dramatically, from a whopping 750 in the mid-90s to 546 in 2006, and down to last year's puny 420.

Other books on the ALA's top 10 list include Maya Angelou's memoir "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings;" Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," attacked by know-nothings because it supposedly is racist ... sheesh; and of course Philip Pullman's "The Golden Compass," an anti-Christian work that was slumbering away in obscurity until Hollywood decided to make a big Christmas-season film out of it.

Krug's explanation for the drop in complaints is strange and troubling:

"The atmosphere is a little better than it used to be. I think some of the pressure has been taken off of books by the Internet, because so much is happening on the Internet."

I don't think she means the laissez faire morality of the Web has caused an erosion in morals which in turn brought a drop in complaints. More likely, she means people are spending more time on the Web and less in libraries.

And that may have more to do with the ALA's policies forbidding filters on computers and saying pedophiles have a right to look at kiddie porn on library computers, and librarians who think otherwise can be fired.

Our Crumbling Civilization: Killing For Art Edition

The Yale Daily News Web site is dead (temporarily) because of this story of a woman who killed (permanently) her unborn babies as an art project:

For senior, abortion a medium for art, political discourse

Martine Powers, Staff Reporter
Thursday, April 17, 2008

Art major Aliza Shvarts '08 wants to make a statement.

Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself "as often as possible" while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.

The goal in creating the art exhibition, Shvarts said, was to spark conversation and debate on the relationship between art and the human body. But her project has already provoked more than just debate, inciting, for instance, outcry at a forum for fellow senior art majors held last week. And when told about Shvarts' project, students on both ends of the abortion debate have expressed shock . saying the project does everything from violate moral code to trivialize abortion.

But Shvarts insists her concept was not designed for "shock value."

"I hope it inspires some sort of discourse," Shvarts said. "Sure, some people will be upset with the message and will not agree with it, but it's not the intention of the piece to scandalize anyone." ...

The display of Schvarts' project will feature a large cube suspended from the ceiling of a room in the gallery of Green Hall. Schvarts will wrap hundreds of feet of plastic sheeting around this cube; lined between layers of the sheeting will be the blood from Schvarts' self-induced miscarriages mixed with Vaseline in order to prevent the blood from drying and to extend the blood throughout the plastic sheeting.

Schvarts will then project recorded videos onto the four sides of the cube. These videos, captured on a VHS camcorder, will show her experiencing miscarriages in her bathrooom tub, she said. Similar videos will be projected onto the walls of the room.

Where do I start? What can I say? I'm not going to fisk this piece because it is too appalling and perverted for words.

Sacrificing human life to create a discourse is, perhaps, the most obscene and horrifying thing ever done in the name of "art." And her apology -- "I didn't intend to scandalize anyone" -- is perhaps the most horrifyingly out of touch statement ever made by anyone not the leader of a totalitarian state.

No, rather than fisk, I'll just raise some questions.

What sort of society creates monsters like Aliza Shvarts?

Certainly, it is not one that respects life. I know nothing about this woman, but I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that Shvarts is a liberal and is against the war in Iraq because it is "blood for oil."

Yet because we live in a society where a holocaust many times over has been perpetrated on the unborn, Shvarts is able to support "blood for art" without so much as a flinch in her horribly deformed morality.

What sort of university condones this sort of thing?

Yale of course is not alone among universities that have lost all sensibility, but it seems to be intent on carving out a place for itself as the most nonsensical of universities: It hired Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, the former Deputy Foreign Secretary of the Taliban; it employs Dr. LaMont Cole, an environmentalist who taught his students, "To feed a starving child is to exacerbate the world over population problem;" and, who can forget, it celebrated Valentine's Day 2004 with university-funded, faculty-supported Sex Week at Yale.

Here's a description of that last one; hide the kids and the sensitive folks:

One Yale professor gave a lecture on the "History of the Vibrator." Students gave talks on the secrets of great sex, hooking up, and how to be a better lover. At "Sex Toys 101," people who admitted to never having used a sex toy were given miniature vibrators. The highlight of the week for most, however, was the presence of Devinn Lane, a bisexual porn star from Wicked Pictures—the adult film company who [sic] co-sponsored many of the Sex-Week events.

Lane participated in a panel on "Sex, Entertainment and the Media" and held a Q&A session with female undergraduates. She topped off her day by participating in a "Porn Party" that was sponsored by Wicked Pictures, which advertised the event on the Adult Industry News website: "All events are free and open to the public, so make this your time to explore Sex Week at Yale, and the exotic world of Wicked Pictures."

Institutions of higher learning have been entrusted to the 60's Secularist liberals, and they have converted them into institutions of gutter learning -- and still, parents not only allow their children to go to schools like Yale, they pay the schools small fortunes to destroy their children.

Whatever happened to art?

There was a time when art existed to glorify God by showing the beauty of His creation and illustrating the stories of His book. Then came a time when art existed to bring people joy.

Today, art exists, in the words of Shvarts:

"I believe strongly that art should be a medium for politics and ideologies, not just a commodity. I think that I'm creating a project that lives up to the standard of what art is supposed to be."

There are two extremes there, neither one of which I'd call art. The first, of course, is Shvarts' miscarried pre-borns, ripped from the womb, mixed with Vaseline and splattered on plastic to create discourse through the processes of killing, defiling, offending and nauseating.

Then there is the manufactured image, commodity art, sold by the thousands of pieces from catalogs to decorate hotel rooms and trailer park community centers.

Does Yale, the art establishment and Shvarts want that to be it? Nothing in between? No serene still lifes, exquisite portraits, or lush landscapes? Not even any Picassos or Hockneys or Lichtensteins?

What right to they have to attack art that gives us serene pleasure in the name of provocation and hack ideologies?

What constitutes crime in America?

People are in prison in America because they got high on crack, but Aliza Shvarts will not be prosecuted for the crime of creating her art, because in America self-aborting a dozen pre-borns in the name of art is not a crime.

Why isn't she getting help?

The Yale Daily News article never raised the issue of Shvarts' mental health, but she is either souless and completely amoral, or she has a serious mental illness. If she denies the former, which she basically does through her comments, then she is the latter.

But she cannot be forced to receive the care she needs, apparently. Her parents are now probably aware of what their little girl is doing at Yale. Will they remove her and put her under the care of someone who will help her?

Or will they brag to their friends that their artist daughter is at the forefront of the post-modern art movement?

Our Crumbling Civilization: Juicy Edition

Oh! The woes of parents of young 'uns, trying to protect their wee innocents from the ravages of the Internet's social sites. (As addressed recently by Bookworm.)

Well that's all well and good for MySpace and FaceBook ... but wait 'til you get a load of JuicyCampus (get ready for an unhealthy dose of obscenity before clicking this link).

The collegiate-level social networking site is under investigation by New Jersey prosecutors:

JuicyCampus may be violating the state's Consumer Fraud Act by suggesting
that it doesn't allow offensive material but providing no enforcement of that
rule — and no way for users to report or dispute the material, New Jersey
Attorney General Anne Milgram said Tuesday. ...

The investigation began last month when a student came forward who had been terrorized by posts on the Web site that included her address. Prosecutors have subpoenaed information from JuicyCampus on how it is run, citing concerns about "unconscionable commercial practices." (AP)

I checked out the site and was greeted by the first entry seeking comments, "Who's the best f*** on spring break?" No comments yet, but I see where this is going: Girls will be named, often in very identifiable manners, so what they thought was a night of annonymous sex will follow them home, name badge attached.

A couple entries down was one called simply, "I swallow." You know what she means. She is revelling in the anonymity of the internet to be without bounds or moral confinement (as if Jesus, if you believe in him, weren't watching) -- an outlet that was simply not available until sites like thise came into being.

Can anyone explain the psychological, sociological or moral benefit of the change? Why is "I swallow" better off by being able to proclaim it and see the racy comments back than she (or he) would have been if this were a matter that was not broad-banded to the world?

Then there's the Big (?) Man On Campus who got this entry about him:

Does [name] seriously have a 2.5 inch erection. What a flaming pile of s*** that kid is anyways, he deserves to have his dick severed from his body, that piece of s***.

There was a time such an epithet would have been said in a dorm room and would not have gone much further. Now the kid has to read it and know people across the Internet are reading it, and who knows what the consequences of such on-line attacks and bullying will lead?

JuicyCampus is disgusting and troubling on two levels: First, that it exists, and second, that young people flock to it.

Someone -- someone now being investigated by New Jersey prosecutors -- knew he could make money by not just appealing to the lowest levels of the human psyche, but by going a step further and spreading those low levels everywhere with no care about the consequences. This person needed no business model; he just knew that if he offered filth, the flies would gather round it. And that didn't bother him one bit.

Worse, he's wildly successful, which means we have a generation coming up that feels comfortable attacking others anonymously, that gets its jollies by annonymous sexual postings, and that cares more about their own thrill of the moment than the long-term consequences those thrills will cause others.

Imagine, if you will, that the person who posted the item about the Little Man On Campus grows up to become the president, and is applying that kind of moral judgment to decisions on how to deal with renegade nations, bothersome allies or political enemies.

Since I started this "Our Crumbling Civilization" series a couple years back, I've never wrapped up an entry this discouraged, this convinced that our civilization is, indeed, crumbling.

Ashley Alexandra Dupre

I rarely blog to music, but this morning, I'm listening to a pop tune, Can You Handle Me?, by Ashley Alexandra Dupre -- the 577,716th person to do so already today .

Such sad fame.

I am all about my music, and my music is all about me… It flows from what I’ve been through, what I’ve seen and how I feel.

So says her MySpace page, which has become wildly popular since Ashley was identified as Kristen, the girl behind the Eliot Spitzer scandal, the girl that grew up Ashley ... Youmans. A precursor of what was to come?

Since she recorded the track -- which is conventional pop stuff: I know what you want, you got what I want. I know what you need. Can you handle me? -- how much more she's been through; how much more she's felt.

It is easy to by sympathetic to her ...

When I was 17, I left home. It was my decision and I’ve never looked back. Left my hometown. Left a broken family. Left abuse. Left an older brother who had already split. Left and learned what it was like to have everything, and lose it, again and again. Learned what it was like to wake up one day and have the people you care about most gone. I have been alone.

... but she made willful choices of glamor and comfort over morality and decency, and now at what should be the tender age of 22, she's paying the consequences.

While most 22 year olds from broken homes in Jersey living in New York would have a dumpy apartment shared with multiple roommates, she opted for a luxury rental skyscraper in Manhattan, The Chelsea Landmark, where imported Italian marble, floor-to-ceiling windows and a gym with a whirlpool and yoga and Pilates studios are offered. Rents start at $3500 a month for a studio of less than 1,000 square feet.

(We live in a 4,000 square foot home in one of the most desirable communities in one of the highest priced counties in the nation, and we pay about double that ... for our mortgage, not our rent.)

Aspiring singers having a hard time finding gigs do not live in such places, but Ashley found a way to secure such high-level material comforts.

There was, of course, another way: honest struggle and hard work, with the knowledge that if you do well, material comforts will come, and that whether you do well or not, spiritual and human comforts -- richer by far -- can be yours. But our pop society does little to reinforce that course. I'm sure there are many young kids who don't even know it's an option.

Instead, they see fame and wealth heaped on many who have done very little to earn it, and they have no measure of success save for the material measure.

As a father of three incredible daughters, who were all here at home last night for a few greatly appreciated and warm hours, I found this paragraph the saddest on Ashley's MySpace page:

Influences: My Brother, Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Celine Dion, Christina Aguilera, Frank Sinatra, Patsy Cline, Carly Simon, Diana Krall, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Mary J. Blige, Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys, Aerosmith, Lauryn Hill, Keisha Cole, U2, Jack Johnson, Vivian Green

Not a father in sight, not a mother (although her mother told the NYT they are close and Ashley did legally changed her last name to her stepfather's), not a youth pastor, not a teacher, not a saint or a Savior.

Perhaps I'm being unrealistic. Perhaps I am asking too much of a 22-year-old girl who aspires to be a musician. Perhaps, close as we are, my daughters wouldn't list me as particularly influential in their lives, even though I know I am.

But there were years, many years back, when divorce would have been an easier option than staying together, but unlike Ashley's parents (whose exact circumstance I know nothing about, so I'm not judging), we put the girls first. To put self and selfishness ahead of them, or ahead of God's clear directive to not divorce except, maybe, in cases of adultery, we stuck it out, got over what turned out to be a short spell of trouble, and gave our girls a safe, nurturing, reaffirming home.

None of them left at 17.

I can't take credit for recognizing the importance of staying, though. I was helped by the fact that love never left me or my wife, and by our church, which taught a lot about the importance and sanctity of marriage, and exposed me to plenty of men who had toughed it out through worse situations than ours. How lucky I was to have had that influence!

Her influential brother told AP:

"She's just trying to get through this. We are all trying to be supportive of her."

Will that be enough?

Spouse Abuse

As New York governor and superhero crusader in his own mind Eliot Spitzer faces the camera and admits he's just another guy who thought power would cover his sins -- just like the guys he so aggressively prosecuted to win the governor's mansion -- keep an eye on his wife.

There she is, playing the faithful political wife role, and through the entire clip, the camera never once inches over to the left to bring her more completely into the frame. It's as if to the media she is nonexistent.

Watch her eyes. For the most part, they are locked on the statement he's reading. Every once in a while she looks quickly at him with an expressionless expression, then returns her gaze to the sheet of paper.

That's shame, folks. She can't bring herself to look at the man she married. She certainly can't look at the people in the audience, much less the people on TV. She may remember him saying:

"I had a simple rule. I never asked if a case was popular or unpopular. I never asked if it was big or small. I simply asked if it was right, or wrong."

Apparently the simple rule did not apply to the person who was supposed to be closest to him, the person he was supposed to give the great gift of trust to.

That's why, despite the camerawork, she is anything but nonexistent. She is, in fact, central to this story:

Mr. Spitzer is likely to resign, perhaps as early as today, according to a person close to him, which would effectively end his political career just 16 months after he was elected New York's governor by a wide margin. "But first he's dealing with this personal tragedy at home," this person said.

It's not covorting with prostitutes that caused Spitzer's fall from grace -- it's idiotically defying the basic moral rule of not cheating on your wife. No wife, no resignation. Don't kid yourself; the morals of politicians only go so far.

As a public service for those who haven't seen the sordid details yet (you cave-dwellers!), here they are, courtesy of WSJ, which also provided the indent copy above:

Mr. Spitzer had registered under the name "George Fox," according to a person briefed on the situation, using his own Fifth Avenue Manhattan address. Mr. Fox, a hedge-fund consultant, is a longtime friend and supporter of the governor's. A person close to Mr. Spitzer said Mr. Fox had no involvement in the matter.

At around 9:30 p.m., the woman, who used the name Kristen, entered Room 871, as designated by the client, the complaint says. Shortly after midnight, Kristen reported to her boss that the appointment with Client-9 went well and she collected $4,300, partly as a deposit for future trysts, it says. "I'm here for a purpose. I know what my purpose is," it quotes Kristen as saying after the encounter.

If you want your fill of sordid details -- four pages of it -- where to you turn? The Daily News, of course.

Sunday Scan

All The News That Causes A Fit

Speaking hypothetically, if a conservative major MSM outlet (see why we have to be speaking hypothetically?) hired a liberal columnist, would anyone even peep? Well, peeping they are about the NYT's hiring of the Weekly Standard's William Kristol as a columnist.

As the picture shows, Libs aren't too keen on letting Kristol speak his piece, so it'll be nice that NYT readers will now have a weekly wincing and grinding of teeth, as we do on reading any number of their far left "thinkers."

And it's beyond nice to read this in the NYT:

Mr. Kristol, 55, has been a fierce critic of The Times. In 2006, he said that the government should consider prosecuting The Times for disclosing a secret government program to track international banking transactions.

In a 2003 column on the turmoil within The Times that led to the downfall of the top two editors, he wrote that it was not “a first-rate newspaper of record,” adding, “The Times is irredeemable.”

Is redemption at hand? Nah, not by a long shot.

"Considering?!"

If you're planning to become a parent someday, clip and file this one under "What not to do:"

GARLAND, Texas - An essay that won a 6-year-old Texas girl four tickets to a Hannah Montana concert began with the powerful line: "My daddy died this year in Iraq."

While gripping, it was not true .... Her mom acknowledged to contest organizers the claim was made up specifically to win the contest. ...

The girl won a makeover that included a blonde Hannah Montana wig, as well as the grand prize: airfare for four to Albany, N.Y., and four tickets to the sold-out concert on Jan. 9.

The mother had told company officials that the girl's father died April 17 in a roadside bombing in Iraq.

"We did the essay and that's what we did to win," Priscilla Ceballos, the mother, said in an interview with Dallas TV station KDFW. "We did whatever we could do to win."

Winning, Ceballos taught her daughter, is more important than honesty or integrity.

Ceballos and offspring were busted when the Dept. of Defense confirmed that the alleged father, one Sgt. Jonathon Menjivar, did not exist.

Support our fighting men! Kill them fictionally for concert tickets!

Most amazingly, contest organizers, instead of immediately pressing criminal charges against Ceballos so her unfortunate daughter might finally learn a civics lesson, are "considering" taking away the girl's tickets.

Healthy Christian Skepticism

While some famous Christians are hopping on the global warming bandwagon, George Pell, the Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney, isn't so sure. In a year-end column, Pell said:

The Bali summit on the Kyoto Protocol and climate change was a public relations triumph, although I'm hopeful the new government will not impose major costs on the people for dubious versions of climate goals.

We need rigorous cost-benefit analysis of every proposal and healthy scepticism of all semi-religious rhetoric about the climate and, especially, about computer models for the future. It is difficult to predict what the weather will be like next week, let alone in 10, 20 or 100 years.

"Semi-religious?" Pell is being diplomatic, since great faith is required to accept Warmism lock, stock and barrel. (hat-tip: Greenie Watch)


Ron Paul's Medal Mettle

Consistency, blogs Josh Nelson at The Seminal, "is one of Ron Paul's strongest points in his presidential campaign." Put Paul loses his mettle when it comes to Congressional medals.

Nelson points out that Paul voted against awarding custom-made, $30,000 solid gold Congressional Gold Medals to American luminaries, asking "Why should taxpayers pay for these medals?"
Why, then, did Paul earlier submit a bill (which, like all of his bills, went absolutely nowhere) calling for a military metal for everyone who served in the armed forces during the Cold War, from September 2, 1945 to December 26, 1991?

DoD fought the bill. Why? Well, think of the weapons you could buy or salaries you could pay for the loony concept's price tag: $240 million.

More damning than the flip-flop ("I was for costly Congressional medals before I was against them"), is that the supposedly anti-government, pro-individualism Paul was saying in this bill that it didn't matter whether recipients served well, stood out, or accomplished anything during their service; everyone gets a medal.

I've thought many things of Ron Paul, but I've never thought him to be a "trophy for everyone who plays" sort. (Art: Neoperspectives)

The Debate Is Over!

We've heard that one before. Not just global warming, mind you. The debate has long been over on vegetables. Eat 'em raw for max nutritional value; cook 'em and lose some benefit.

Right? Everyone says so! Just like global warming! Think again:

ScienceDaily (Dec. 30, 2007) — In a finding that defies conventional culinary wisdom, researchers in Italy report that cooking vegetables can preserve or even boost their nutritional value in comparison to their raw counterparts, depending on the cooking method used.

Specifics? You want specifics? We got 'em:

In the new study, the researchers evaluated the effects of three commonly-used Italian cooking practices — boiling, steaming, and frying — on the nutritional content of carrots, zucchini and broccoli. Boiling and steaming maintained the antioxidant compounds of the vegetables, whereas frying caused a significantly higher loss of antioxidants in comparison to the water-based cooking methods, they say. For broccoli, steaming actually increased its content of glucosinolates, a group of plant compounds touted for their cancer-fighting abilities. The findings suggest that it may be possible to select a cooking method for each vegetable that can best preserve or improve its nutritional quality, the researchers say.

The lesson: Beware of false algore-ithms.

What Would Satan Do?

I don't think Satanists wear What Would Satan Do bracelets, because Satan wouldn't like the behavior of Peter Gilmore, a Church of Satan high priest, too much:

CORTLAND, Ohio (AP) - A teenager was arrested after a leader of the Church of Satan turned over to the FBI an e-mail the high school student had written to the sect in which he threatened to kill his grandparents, authorities said.

Andrew Culver, 18, told police the e-mail detailing his intention to kill his grandparents and steal their money and car was a joke, said Bazetta Township Police Chief Charles Sayers.

According to police, Culver wrote he had access to an arsenal of weapons and wanted to "kill in the name of our unholy lord Satan."

Culver sent the message Wednesday to Peter Gilmore, the high priest of the New York City-based Church of Satan, Sayers said. Gilmore alerted the FBI, which notified local police. Culver was taken out of class Thursday and questioned by police, Sayers said.

"To send an e-mail making specific threats, to sign your name, that to me is not a joke," Sayers said.

Gilmore said his church discards most of the hundreds of e-mails it receives daily. But Culver's message stood out, he said.

"I thought it could be a joke, but with recent events in Colorado and Nebraska, I thought it was better to play it safe," he said, referring to mass shootings in an Omaha mall, a missionary school near Denver and a Colorado Springs church that killed a total of 13 people, including the gunmen.

Gilmore's behavior was quite moral, wouldn't you say? Where does that morality come from if the Church of Satan professes this belief of man's morality:

Man’s true nature—that of a carnal beast, living in a cosmos which is permeated and motivated by the Dark Force which we call Satan.

Satan would not be at all happy with Gilmore. He would have let the email pass, let the grandparents be murdered, and get the boy's eternal soul (assuming no jail house conversion, of course), don't you think?

What's this world coming to? A moral Church of Satan while priests molest children and Episcopalians embrace homosexualitiy!

Our Crumbling Civilization: Soccer Mom From Hell Edition

Ah, motherhood in America! Pile the kids in the SUV and haul them crosstown for soccer ... a gang killing?

Yes, this is the new model of motherhood, from just up the road:

LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) - Mothers have lied, spun elaborate alibis and hidden evidence for their gang-member sons. But investigators say Eva Daley went to murderous lengths.

Daley, 30, drove her 14-year-old son and six other members of the Latin Marijuana Smokers gang to a skate park to kill a 13-year-old boy they had a grudge against, police say. The boy, Jose "Bobby" Cano, was stabbed to death.

The Latin Marijuana Smokers gang? Eva must have been so proud! And what a good mom, so concerned that her little boy not drive without a license, that she stopped whatever she was doing (smoking crack? turning tricks?) and drove him and his buddies herself.

"I'm shaking my head at this because I thought I had heard of everything," said Gary Hearnsberger, head of the Hardcore Gang Division at the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.

Daley and the seven teenagers were charged with murder in the June 26 slaying near the squalid skate park in this port city of 462,000 about 25 miles south of Los Angeles.

I think Eva's twisted mothering is disgusting enough to stand alone as a civilization-crumbler, but the fact is, Eva doesn't stand alone: A few months ago, also in the LA area, a 37-year-old mother drove her son's friends to a rival gang member's home for a drive-by shooting. She's charged with assault.

And, just to take civilization's crumbling and pulverize it, there's this:

After Daley's arraignment Tuesday, a man supporting her screamed and lunged at Cano's family in a courthouse hallway and attacked a cameraman.

The family that slays together stays together?

Psychopathic Disrespect And Ruth Graham's Casket

Note: I've combined two posts that originally appeared a couple days apart because they work together to illuminate so wondrously the subjects of the human spirit and murder.

Psychopathic Disrespect

Try as I might, I can't imagine the mind of a murderer.

Certainly, self-esteem isn't a problem with him (and he's probably a him) because, after all, whatever he wanted was more important than the very life of his victim or victims.

Guilt can't be a particularly big issue, either; otherwise guilt from previous more minor misdeeds would have reformed him long before he got to murder.

Fear of God, morals, values -- all would have to be lacking for someone to carry out the sin that's been #1 on the charts since God carved the tablets.

And respect must also be lacking, for obvious reasons. It certainly is missing from the psyche of double murderer Patrick Knight, who's got about a dozen more days to live:

A convicted double murderer in Texas is holding a joke contest on the Internet so he can use the winning entry as his last words when he is sentenced to die by lethal injection on June 26.

"I'll be enjoying my last days on this earth ... I am asking you to spread the word that I am holding a contest. I want people to send me their best jokes, to keep me and the others with (execution) dates laughing!" Patrick Knight, 39, told CNN Friday in an interview from his prison.

Convicted of murdering two neighbors in 1991, Knight has spent the last 16 years on death row in Texas, the state that accounts for more than one third of all US executions since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. [The French at Agence Presse-France, who wrote this story, couldn't miss that dig, could they?]

Relaxed and cracking jokes, Knight got all serious when he explained why death row needed an injection of humor.

"We have a situation back there where you have guys that are actually innocent -- I'm not one of them ... Jokes are needed back there, something to ease the tension."

However, Knight betrayed no tension when he said, "Death is my punishment, I've accepted that, that's what's gonna happen. If you got to go, go with a smile." (Breitbart)

What kind of man is so cruel and pathological that he can murder,then go out with a smile? Here's what kind of man:

Convicted in the August 1991 abduction and murders of Walter and Mary Werner of Amarillo. Knight was a neighbor of the Werners, and according to relatives, had been harassing them. On the day of the crime, Knight and accomplice Robert Timothy Bradfield broke in to [sic] the Werners [sic] home and waited for them to return. They held the couple captive for several hours in their home before driving them to an isolated location and shooting them to death.

I can put myself in the place of the Werners. I can imagine the horrible emotions that Knight subjected them to: terror, sadness, anger. I can even begin to imagine the pain -- but I can't imagine the mind of Knight.

Knight's decision to go out with an Internet joke contest symbolizes that he is not ashamed of what he did and feels he owes nothing to the people he harmed by killing so terribly two people they loved. His response to their pain is to laugh at them. His concern about them is nonexistent; all that exists in Knight's mind is a desire for greater esteem.

It's not enough that he's reached the rarefied ground of double-murderers. No, he wants much more for himself than just that. He wants more fame, more media coverage (which the media is all too eager to provide without asking moral questions), fans that will send jokes, sensible people that will write him with their outrage.

In short, he wants all eyes on him as he takes his final walk, so everyone can see that Pat Knight doesn't care one bit about anyone but himself, that he's one tough mother.

Like I say, I have a hard time imagining the mind of a murderer ... but no harder than imagining the mind of the reporters who pander to him and losers who play into his sick game.

Ruth Graham's Casket

On Friday, I wrote about the Psychopathic Disrespect of a double murderer with so much warped self-centeredness and so little concern for the pain that he caused that he is running a contest for the best joke for him to say as his last words.

Compare that piece of human waste with this, the story of another murderer:

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Shortly before he died, convicted murderer Richard Liggett was asked to make two of the simple plywood coffins he meticulously crafted for fellow prisoners. Except the caskets would be for Billy and Ruth Graham.

"Humbled? He was honored, he was honored," said Burl Cain, warden of the Louisiana State Penitentiary. "He told me, of everything that ever happened in his life, the most profound thing was to build this coffin for Billy Graham and his family."

Graham's son Franklin made the request after seeing the coffins on a visit to the Angola prison and being struck by their simplicity, according to a statement from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Ruth Graham was to be buried in one Sunday at a private ceremony at the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, N.C. She died Thursday at age 87 after a lengthy illness.

"I wish you could look in that casket because she's so beautiful," Billy Graham told mourners who gathered Saturday to remember his beloved wife. "She was a wonderful woman."

The coffins are made of birch plywood and lined with a foam mattress pad covered with fabric. Brass handles are on the sides, while a cross adorns the top. The price: $215 each.

Liggett, who was serving a life sentence for second-degree murder, led a team of prisoners who built the coffins for the Graham family. He had found God in prison, Cain said.

"You would never think he'd be a prisoner. He wasn't all marked up," Cain said. "He just did a terrible thing, one time in New Orleans."

The prison has a Bible college and chapel near death row funded largely by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan's Purse.

Cain said many of its 5,108 prisoners are Christian and were spending the weekend "preaching and praying and remembering the Graham family."

But Liggett won't be among them: He died of cancer in March, nearly 31 years into his sentence. He was buried in one of the last coffins he built, Cain said.

What a contrast between these two murderers; one who listened to no one and heard only himself, going out with bravado and banality; one who listened to One greater than himself, now departed with humility and honor.

I just love the complexity of the human spirit.

Sex Ed ( With G-Spot) For 8th Graders

What do eighth graders need to know about g-spots, anal sex and masturbation?

Nothing.

But that didn't stop a Chicago-area teacher from forcing his 8th grade class to read out loud this FAQ on sex [a strong, strong caution goes with that link]. The FAQ starts off with "How do you have sexual intercourse?" The answer is explicit and uses "boy" and "girl" to define the genders -- not "man" and "woman."

After the students protested that they didn't want to read the stuff, the teacher, 27 year-old Scott Groff, forced them to keep reading, the ChiTrib reports.

"My daughter was the one who got to read aloud the question on oral sex," said one mother who asked that her name not be published because she feared it would add to her daughter's embarrassment. "I can't even tell you how humiliating this was for my 13-year-old. This is just way, way over the line."

There are two obvious questions: Why did Groff do it, and what will happen to him?

To the latter: Groff is untenured, but his chances of staying aren't all that bad. If the decision were the Superintendent's, he'd be a shoo-in for staying in the classroom, since educators are usually incapable of making tough, correct decisions. But Groff's fate is in the hands of the school board. And that makes it anyone's guess.

Were he the employee of a private organization instead of a school board, there would be no question of his fate. The job would already be past tense. But schools are not run by normal people.

Why did Groff do it? He says he didn't review the material first. That is not an excuse, since it's the teacher's job to review materials first.

The document's headlines are in red, bold, large type, and as I said, the first one is about how to "do it," which is not the stuff of 8th grade sex ed. A few questions later is "What position is best?" Any review at all -- even scanning the headlines as he handed it out -- would have alerted him to the fact that he was handing out unsuitable materials.

But he pressed on. The only explanation can be that he wanted the students to read it.

Then students began protesting.

Braley's daughter, Sandi, said she objected to the lesson, but the teacher told her it was part of the school's "human sexuality" curriculum.

"I just felt really uncomfortable talking about this in a class with boys and girls," Sandi Braley said. "I was like, `Mr. Groff, why do we need to learn this?' He just looked at me and said, `Calm down, calm down.'"

"Calm down, calm down" -- it sounds like what a child molester would say to a child who's making too much noise.

There is only one explanation for Groff's pressing on over the protests of his students, and it's the same one for why he made the claim that he did not review the materials: He wanted the students to read the materials.

But Groff, a sexual deviant who has been entrusted with young children, is still a teacher. The school board meets this week; will they be able to summon up the moral certainty to fire him?

Our Crumbling Civilization: One-Nighter With God Edition

Comedy Central thinks it's really, really funny to show God as the rejected recipient of a one-nighter with a crass human comedian.

World Net Daily provides this partial transcript from the Sarah Silverman Program of the morning after the holy sexcapade:

God: I had a really good time last night. A really, really good time.

Silverman:Thaaaanks (in a disdainful tone). Me too.

God: Come to heaven with me today.

Silverman: Today.

God: You'll see the past and the future. You can fly, and I will introduce you to Thomas Jefferson.

Silverman: Oh, awesome. I told my friend, Natalie, I'd help her move, though.

God: I can stop time!

Silverman: That is so sweet. Oh, your pants are over there. I mean, not like I'm asking you to leave. I just mean, like if you can't see it from this angle of still being in my bed.

God: Right, I should go.

Silverman: OK, um, all right, so, I guess I'll see you around some time.

God: Do you mean it?! Or are you just saying that?

Silverman: I don't just say things. I'm a lot of things. I'm not dishonest.

God: Can I get your cell number?

Silverman: I don't have a cell phone.

At that point, Silverman's cell phone starts ringing and God, embittered, zips up his pants.

Isn't it just so cute, so very funny, when human beings go beyond merely dishonoring God by making themselves equal, and audaciously portray themselves as superior to God? Don't you just laugh out loud?

It's not a laughing matter. Our beloved Freedom of Speech has been degraded to the point where it must stand in defense of otherwise indefensible attacks like this on Christianity, Judaism ... even, most would say, Islam.

One day, Ms. Silverman, Mr. Smallwood and all the writers, producers, directors and Comedy Central executives involved in this skit will stand before their maker, and he will play back the video of their lives, including this little clip.

They won't feel so superior then, will they?

hat-tip: Jim

Our Crumbling Civilization: William, Mary And Sex Edition

What would William & Mary's most famous alums -- George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe and John Tyler -- think if they knew the school they attended was using public funds for pubic (no typo there) events?

A recent "sex workers" art show at the College of William & Mary is prompting more questions about President Gene R. Nichol's leadership of the 314-year-old public university.

Mr. Nichol allowed the "Sex Workers' Art Show" to stop at William & Mary last week as part of its national tour. The event included male and female strippers, escorts and prostitutes in various states of undress expressing their feelings on subjects ranging from their jobs to global politics. (WashTimes)

Is what an escort thinks about the war in Iraq now considered meaningful education? Is watching hookers sit around wearing (or not wearing) who knows what the sort of learning activity taxpayers had in mind when the nation's second-oldest college went on the public dole back in 1906?

Nichols justified his position on the sex show as you would expect:

"I don't like this kind of show, and I don't like having it here," Mr. Nichol told the Williamsburg-based Virginia Gazette. "But it is not the practice and province of universities to censor or cancel performances because they are controversial."

Of course, he's not telling the truth. The open door is extended to liberal and secular programs; questions are raised only about conservative or religious ... make that Christian ... programs. In fact, another controversial move by Nichol did just that:

The criticism against Mr. Nichol began in October when he removed a cross from the school's Wren Chapel to make it more open to people of all faiths.

Mr. Nichol said he removed the cross because potential students and their families viewing the chapel on campus tours immediately departed and because a Jewish student required to participate in a program in the chapel vowed never to return. ...

Before Mr. Nichol's decision about the cross, it was always on display but could be removed by request. Now it can be returned by request.

What did Nichol do to the cross? He censored it! He cancelled its performance, which had been continuous since Williamsburg's historic Bruton Parish loaned it to the college in 1940.

One hypersensitive and bigoted Jewish student raising a stink is not exactly a big-time controversy, but it was enough to get Nichol jumping up and ripping down the cross, an action since approved (Natch!) by the faculty and student assemblies.

One alum, Karla Bruno, who has decided to withhold financial support from the college until sensibilities are re-established, put it nicely:

"Where's the line? There's got to be a line somewhere. He's making a judgment call about the cross, but he refuses to make a judgment call about this depraved event that was going on at the University Center."

Brit, Lindsey & Paris: Secular Relativism's Ultimate Glory

Not being a celeb-watcher, I wouldn't recognize Brittney Spears if she upchucked in front of me -- and I certainly wouldn't recognize her with her new hairdon't, shown here.

According to the breathless and brainless reports, Ms. Spears buzzed her own hair because she didn't want people to touch her any more. Her family is said to be "in full intervention mode" and rehab is a distinct possibility.

Meanwhile, the pop movie starlet Lindsey Lohan reportedly has checked out of rehab and is taking things one day at a time. And Paris Hilton is ... who knows what? Drinking, drugging, sexing, aping for any camera, anywhere.

My three girls don't think much of this crew of awful role models; they have other interests and other influences, most quite good, some bad, but none as bad as the drinking, drugging, slutting lot that captures the media's eye.

I just asked Incredible Daughter #2 , who's 18, what she thought of them and she said, "Nothing. The media over-hypes them, but they're disgusting."

"So they're not role models to you?"

"Oh yeah, I want to be like Paris, a ho with a lazy eye."

I could ask for better phrasing, but basically, Phew!

But all over America, in millions of households it's different, as young girls take on the personna of these partying, puking, pandering pieces of human garbage.

Incredible Wife saw a number of young girls who are influenced by these shameless hussies interviewed on Dr. Phil this week. She reported that they were vacuous, lost and utterly without morals.

They were, in a nutshell, Secular Relativism's ultimate glory, it's crowning achievement. They see nothing wrong in their behavior because they have no moral guideposts to give them the combatting senses of guilt and honor.

The media might as well dress up in a crimson body suit with horns and tail attached on this one, because the sensationalization of the news fuels the celebrity sluts, which in turn fuels the cameras, which in turn fuels the imaginations of the young and misguideable.

The other night as I was packing my briefcase and readying for bed, the late night news had stories on a man who threw a barking Chihuahua over a fence, a woman who discovered her Shi-tzu's ear had been cut off by a groomer, then superglued back on, and a piece on Anna Nichole's body, baby and hangers-on. Lacking a car chase that evening, that's what constituted the news for most people today.

Not a story of significance in the bunch.

The only fortress against this onslaught is a tight family with a solid center. The slut brigade (and those boys who are very, very happy because of this turn of events) doesn't stand a chance against a foundation of love, interest and discipline.

Where are those families? Lost, unfortunately, to Secular Relativism. Divorce, affairs, parental drinking and drugging, money above love, anger because control doesn't feel good, saying yes because saying no takes effort, as in the case of Lindsey Lohan's mom:

"As a parent, you tell them what you can tell them, but she's 20 and I'm not gonna say, 'Stay home and don't go out,' that's a ridiculous thing to do."

Really? You're daughter is 20 and self-distructing and it's ridiculous to intervene? Why? Because the money might dry up if she's just run-of-the-mill?

The media is not interested in positive role models, so if America is going to stop this slide before the next generation gets even worse, we have to change the media. Are we mad as hell, and not going to take it any more?

Dunno. Seems like a lot of work ... and besides, who's to say who's right?