Category: Arts & Culture

Time for a new year and a new episode of “American Idol.” I’ve never actually seen the show, but since Fox is the only place one can watch “The Simpsons,” I’ve seen plenty of previews for it. A wife of mine (who shall remain nameless) has actually seen an episode or two.
Does anyone else think the way they treat contestants on “AI” is wrong? I used to do some acting, and the Brothers Schultz and I used to do a little singing way back when, and I remember the kind of nervousness you get when you perform on stage. The way I understand it, in the first few episodes, they drag in kids who can’t sing and humiliate them in front of the cameras, then broadcast it to millions of people.
Ha ha ha. I’ve read that the producers identify the ridiculously bad performers and then tell them they’re going to audition for the main judges instead of the lower-level screeners. So these people think, “Hey, I’ve really got a shot,” but instead they get verbally abused. Maybe some of them think it’s a lark afterwards, but from the looks on their faces, they seem genuinely shocked.
If I were one of the sucky performers, I’d probably want to shoot myself — or that nasty judge, Simon. Where does he get off passing judgment on people’s talents? He’s the guy who inflicted the Spice Girls on the world. He should be on trial at the Hague, right after Milosevic is finished.
Anyway, the whole thing makes me sick. I don’t really care about the whole “Star Search” aspect, but it seems like they could have that without the humiliation. Or is cruelty considered good clean fun these days, and I hadn’t noticed?
UPDATE: I was wrong — Simon Cowell did not create the Spice Girls, contrary to my memory. He is responsible for the Teletubbies and the Mighty Morph’n Power Rangers. Simon Fuller is the guy who created the Spice Girls. I should watch VH-1 more often to keep these things straight, but I don’t have cable, so I can’t.

The stage show !Hero, written by Christian pop performer Ed DeGarmo, toured 20 cities in November, and plans another round this year. Christianity Today comments.

Giles, today there comes to
redeem us
A shepherd boy, our kinsman,
God Omnipotent!
He frees us from
Satan’s prison;
But he is kin of Bras,
Menga, and Llorente,
Oh, He is God Omnipotent!
If He be God, why sold
And crucified dies?
Giles, in His suffering innocently,
Do you see, He vanquished sin?
He is God Omnipotent.
Oh, I saw Him being born
Of a shepherdess most fair.
If He is God, why did He
desire
Among such poor folk to be?
See you not that He is Omnipotent?
No more questioning,
Let us serve Him
Llorente, since He comes to die,
Let us die with Him.
He is God Omnipotent.

Mark Steyn, whose wisdom and intellect are not yet legendary but should be, has some things to say about Europe’s practically non-existent birthrate:

I recently had a conversation with an EU official who, apropos a controversial proposal to tout the Continent’s religious heritage in the new constitution, kept using the phrase “Europe’s post-Christian future”. The evidence suggests that, once you reach the post-Christian stage, you don’t have much of a future. Luke, a man of faith and a man of science, could have told them that.

His exposition of Luke 1 at the beginning of the article is accurate and perceptive. Steyn consistently reminds the public about some uncomfortable truths, among them that kids are essential to a functioning society and not ornamental. Europe (and Japan) is embarking on a dangerous experiment: having massively expensive social programs and expecting immigrants and the young to shoulder the cost. That the fiscal numbers don’t add up does not seem to bother them too much.
My personal opinion is that the European Union is nothing more than a continent-wide suicide pact, designed to ensure that Europeans can live comfortably at the state’s expense as they contracept and abort themselves into oblivion. Look at Europe’s birthrates and tell me that’s incorrect.

Two brief comments this evening:
1. As part of my personal crusade to “Keep the Incarnation in Christmas,” I want to reiterate, contra every choral society in the English-speaking world, that Handel’s “Messiah” is an Easter oratorio. Furthermore, the “Halelujah” chorus from that oratorio is a celebration of THE RESURRECTION, not the Nativity. The words are from Revelation, not Luke. It’s exciting music. I love it. But it ain’t for Christmas.
2. Some mischevious persons change the words of “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing,” because their tender ears can’t stand to hear masculine pronouns used in an inclusive manner. “Pleased as man with man to dwell” is what Charles Wesley wrote, and that’s what we should sing. If you are “uncomfortable” with standard English, and you like gender-bending music, my advice is to write your own damn song.
Aside from eliminating the play on words with the double meaning of “man” (since when did liberals favor artistic censorship?), it’s an attempt to fly from the meaning of the Incarnation. “Pleased with us in flesh to dwell” is less theologically robust and it puts the emphasis on us, the worshippers.
Anyone else have Christmas hymn atrocities against which they would like to rail?