As George W. Bush, our God-fearing president and sweetheart of the Christian Right, continues his crusade to legalize torturing prisoners it may be time to reflect on how Jesus was tortured – suffering terrible pain and humiliation at the hands of his Roman captors. Difficult to believe that Jesus would condone torture under any circumstance.

But why should we be surprised? The Christian Right has done an amazing job of perverting the teachings of Jesus and the gospels. Jesus was humble, an itinerant wanderer who embraced an ascetic life of fasting and penury. His closest associates were poor working men – fishermen, carpenters, and tax collectors. He focused his ministry on the destitute, the diseased, and the troubled (gamblers, criminals, and prostitutes). He preached of a coming doomsday and the being saved by God through sacrifice, charity, redemption, and salvation.

Yet, this is the figure that the Christian Right uses as the symbol of their wholly un-Jesus agenda. As if Jesus would condone the unmitigated invasion of Iraq and the killing of women and children (collateral damage). As if Jesus would side with the Bush administration to legalize the torture of alleged terrorists. As if Jesus would rally to the battle cry of deporting and arresting illegal immigrants. Would Jesus really own a firearm? Or bristle at his tax dollars being used for Welfare or universal healthcare?

Jesus was… is… a liberal. He wouldn’t participate in gay bashing. He would live among the poor and condemn CEOs and their outrageous salaries and benefits. He would call for leniency for criminals. He would march in anti-war rallies and argue passionately for the dismantling of nuclear weapons. Jesus would call for living wages for the poor – housing and healthcare for all.

For evidence look no further than the Gospels.

The four Synoptic Gospels in the Bible attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the only parts of the Bible that outline Jesus’ life and give us the only real glimpse at the man – his actions and words. So we’ll use the Synoptic Gospels as the final word on what Jesus believed and how he lived.

I do this with reluctance, however, because the Gospels are not a reliable source by any modern standard. Biblical scholars break down the four Gospels like this:

• Mark’s Gospel is attributed to a discliple of St. Peter. It is the earliest of the gospels probably written between 60 and 70 A.D. – about 30 to 40 years after the death of Jesus by a man who did not know him.
• Matthew’s Gospel has traditionally been linked to St. Matthew, the tax collector who became a discipline, but most scholars now refute his authorship. The date of the Gospel is up for debate with conservative scholars placing it between 60-65 A.D. and their more liberal colleagues at 80 to 100 A.D. It borrows liberally from material in Mark.
• The Gospel of Luke was written by a doctor and a follower of Paul. Modern scholars put the date of this Gospel was written between 80 and 100 A.D.
• John’s Gospel is attributed to John the Apostle, but most scholars generally disagree with that assessment and place the date of the Gospel being written as late as 120 A.D.

Labels: Essay, Religion

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Labels: Poem, Rebecca Traquair

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“Hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have.”
- Clint Eastwood in “Unforgiven”

There’s a scene in “Unforgiven” with Sheriff Little Bill Daggett entertaining his henchmen; showing off for his new writer friend. They’re gathered in the murky, soulless confines of Greeley’s Saloon. Little Bill, giddy and boisterous, buys the crowd a round of whiskey. Outside, lightning flickers as a storm rolls in and illuminates the dead body of Ned Logan. Little Bill and his men have killed him.

As Little Bill and his boys laugh it up, a dark figure with a shotgun looms in front of the camera. The henchmen notice first, their chuckles catching in their throats. They fall deadly, fearfully quiet. Little Bill continues to rant and rave before, he, too, finally notices and sputters to a stop. There’s an instant in his expression – just a flash, mind you – that fear seizes him as he realizes he’s looking at his tombstone.

William Munny, fueled by whiskey, has been transformed from a slightly bumbling and affable cowboy into the man he used to be: a merciless murderer. He moves differently now and even his eyes have gone black.

“Who’s the fellow who owns this shithole?” Munny asks.

He blasts the saloon owner with his shotgun, the sound like thunder, smoke filling the hard lines of the wooden building.

“You cowardly son of a bitch!” Little Bill shouts. “You just shot an unarmed man!” (The irony of this statement lost on him).

“He should have armed himself if he was going to decorate his saloon with my friend.”

Little Bill, a control freak if there ever was one, realizes he’s lost control of the situation – things are spinning way out of hand – and the panic is being to bubble off him like a bad odor.

“You’d be Will Munny from Missouri, killer of women and children,” Little Bill says.

“That’s right,” Munny says. “I’ve killed women and children. I’ve killed just about everything that walks or crawls at one time or another. And I’m here to kill you Little Bill for what you did to Ned.”

And he does.

“Unforgiven” is arguably Clint Eastwood’s best movie – and certainly it’s one of the preeminent Westerns ever put to celluloid. Movies like this make DaRK PaRTY a huge Eastwood fan. He’s become one of the best actors and directors in Hollywood and even when he misses – he manages to put together an interesting film. So without further ado, DaRK PaRTY presents the five best and the five worst Clint Eastwood movies.

THE GOOD

Unforgiven (1992)
A western that encapsulates the American psyche and rips apart the films of Eastwood’s youth where he played no-name gunslingers that never had to face up to the consequences of their violent actions. He does this with career performances from Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, and Richard Harris.

Pale Rider (1985)
Second only to “Unforgiven” in the western genre. This one meshes the tale of stranger riding into town with an unnerving ghost story. Like “Unforgiven,” “Pale Rider” is heavy on atmosphere and gives us wide-open spaces combined with claustrophobic interior shots.

A Perfect World (1993)
An underrated gem. Kevin Costner stars as an escaped convict who kidnaps a boy from a repressed religious family as Federal Agent Clint Eastwood pursues. The story is really about the bonding of a troubled man and a lost boy. It’s the small moments in this film that make it great.

Tightrope (1984)
This is the movie where Eastwood sandbags his Dirty Harry personae. He plays a cop pursuing a serial killer who murders prostitutes. The cop shares some of the same violent sexual urges as the killer – an even some of the same women. Eastwood should have done more with this – but bails out at the end. Good stuff, nonetheless.

In the Line of Fire (1993)
Eastwood plays a Secret Service agent nearing retirement. He failed to protect President Kennedy and now he’s tested again when the new president is threatened. The movie is stolen by the high-octane performance of John Malkovich as the assassin.

THE BAD

Pink Cadillac (1989)
Eastwood should of known better to star in a movie with “Pink” in the title. This was supposed to be an action comedy – but it isn’t either.

The Rookie (1990)
It co-stars Charlie Sheen. Charlie Sheen = Crap.

True Crime (1999)
Eastwood looks like he should be in a nursing home. Totally miscast as a rogue journalist with women and booze problems. The bare-chested scene has you wincing and reaching for “The Outlaw Josie Wales.”

Bronco Billy (1980)
The title sounds like it should be in the adult section. Eastwood stars as the owner of a traveling Wild West show on the skids. It’s worse than it sounds and co-stars Sondra Locke, who simply can’t act.

City Heat (1984)
Co-starring Burt Reynolds and directed by Blake Edwards. That stench you smell is, in fact, the movie.

Labels: Clint Eastwood, Movies

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Labels: 5 Questions, books, literature, R.A. Salvatore

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Labels: Ambrose Bierce, literary criticism, literature

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Labels: Ambrose Bierce, Poem

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Labels: 5 Questions, Ambrose Bierce, Don Swaim

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To capture the full essence of Ambrose Bierce, a reader must appreciate his acid wit. He was one of the most prominent social critics in post-Civil War America. One of Bierce’s most popular works is The Devil’s Dictionary, a collection of his newspaper columns that redefined common English words to lampoon the double-speak of U.S. politics and business. Working for the Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner, Bierce had a national podium to spew his sardonic opinions and stir-up national controversy -- which earned him the nickname Bitter Bierce.

DaRK PaRTY has collected some of his gems:

“A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.”

“Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.”

“Acquaintance. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.”

“Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.”

“All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher.”

“An egotist is a person of low taste-more interested in himself than in me.”

“Bore, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.”

“Consult: To seek approval for a course of action already decided upon.”

“Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.”

“It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better.”

“Optimism: The doctrine that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong... It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.”

“Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.”

“War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.”

“What this country needs what every country needs occasionally is a good hard bloody war to revive the vice of patriotism on which its existence as a nation depends.”

“Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.”

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It was steamy and still in New York City. Exhaust from the cabs and buses pressed down on the avenues and streets like a ratty, wool blanket salvaged from a fire. A storm was brewing – you could feel it building like an electrical charge, but the rain was still hours away.

I pushed out of the air conditioned confines of Two World Financial Center and bid my client a safe journey. He had a customer meeting in mid-town and barely remembered to acknowledge me before plowing into the backseat of a waiting taxi, which plunged into the surge of traffic.

I stood on the sidewalk, the heat from the pavement making the bottoms of my feet sweat, and stared across the West Side Highway at the tasteful fencing that divided the Financial District from Ground Zero. I felt a pitter-patter in my heart and it occurred to me that the elegant waterfront restaurant where we had dined was across the street from a murder hole.

No one had mentioned that fact during lunch.

I glanced at my watch. I was supposed to catch a plane back to Boston, but instead I crossed the street the next time the traffic light turned red. Perspiration coated my face and neck when I finally arrived on Liberty Street. I walked up to the chain link fence and looked down at this notorious place; this dead zone that once sprouted up proud buildings of shiny glass, steel, and concrete. A serious place – stern even, a place that once shunned frivolity. This had been a place laden with money, designed for commerce, and with a spirit so unyielding that it would crush those foolish enough to stand in its way.

Not anymore.

That place went up in flames – turned to dust, vaporized in an instant. There’s no more twisted steel and piles of rubble. There’s no sense of destruction or pathos. Ground Zero is more like a well healed scab now; a bald spot on an otherwise healthy head of hair. The seriousness is gone. It is solemn now, not unlike stepping into the dark, hallowed foyer of an ancient cathedral.

People rush by. Cabs honk. A bus blunders by; gears grinding. The sun is hot and bright without the shade of the buildings. I try to conjure up the feelings I felt five years ago when I stood in the office of a colleague in a Boston high-rise and watched the first tower crash to the ground. Then it was surreal; the squeal from the throat of the receptionist next to me, and the voice of my former boss: “Jesus fucking Christ.”

It seemed like the world was ending back then. Planes dropping from the sky like meteors or toys hurled by an angry god. Certainly we had done something to deserve this furious fate. And I remembered the visceral fear that gnawed at my belly like a rat I had inadvertently swallowed whole at the building cafeteria.

I remembered looking out of my colleague’s office window at Logan Airport across the harbor. The sky was blue and clear and the airplanes had already been grounded, but I thought we were next. That a 747 would appear like a speck of cancer and grow and grow until the entire world would become an airplane wing and the last thing I would hear would be the explosion that would kill me.

We were vulnerable and scared. My building was evacuated and I drove home desperate to be with my wife. We huddled around the television, exchanging glances, and wondering what the hell was going on. The commentators told us everything had changed – and we believed them.

But standing at the edge of Ground Zero on this stifling summer day, looking down at the vacant lot that resembled a construction zone more than the final resting place of nearly 3,000 murdered people, I find it difficult to replicate those feelings. I searched for the fear and the anxiety – but it wouldn’t come.

And that was a good thing. We have wallowed in 9/11 for too long. We shouldn’t forget, but we’re on the verge of turning September 11 into a holiday for grief; a pity party for a strong, wealthy nation that should know better. It’s time to stop using 9/11 as an excuse – a crutch. We’re supposed to be better than that. Stronger. When you’re knocked to your knees, you stand up again.

It’s time to do that.

Thunder rumbles in the distance. The sky over lower Manhattan churns with inky black clouds. You can smell the rain now. I turn away from Ground Zero, my back a little straighter, my stride a bit wider. I hail a cab.

Neither the cabbie nor I mention the hole to the left of us. I tell him I want to go to the airport and he asks which one. I tell him and we drive away as the first fat drop of the storm splatters on the windshield.

The heatwave will be broken.

Labels: 9/11, Essay

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Labels: 5 Questions, 9/11, Jimmy Walter, Politics

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Summary: Sanger Rainsford, a famous big game hunter and author, is sailing to South America to hunt jaguars in the rain forest. As his ship passes the notorious Ship-Trap Island, feared the world over by sailors, he accidentally falls overboard. Rainsford swims toward the sound of pounding surf and washes up on the rocky coastline of the island. But not before hearing the screams of a hunted animal he cannot identify. Rainsford is surprised to find a castle hideaway owned by the mysterious Russian General Zaroff. Zaroff is also a big game hunter, but shares some disturbing news with Rainsford. Bored with hunting animals, Zaroff now hunts other men. Outraged, Rainsford demands to be taken to the mainland. Instead, he ends up in the jungle being stalked by Zaroff. Using his wits and courage, Rainsford manages to turn the tables on the general. In the end, Rainsford kills Zaroff and ends up sleeping in the general’s bed.

Analysis: Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” has become a staple in high school literature textbooks as the prototype for an adventure story. It’s a story that teachers never have trouble getting the students to actually read. It’s got guns, knives, murder, action, and suspense. We’re not talking about the complex, internal musings of Virginia Woolf here – but a mano vs. mano struggle in the jungle.

The story raises interesting questions about the ethics of hunting and the nature of violence – although it ultimately fails to provide a satisfactory answer to either question. In fact, it’s not clear that Rainsford doesn’t enjoy killing the general at the end of the story (a reader could easily inferred that he found the kill quite satisfying).

The story, published in 1924, was an immediate success and won an O. Henry Memorial Award for best short story. It is by far the best known work from Connell, a journalist and writer who had a successful, yet profoundly mediocre career after “The Most Dangerous Game” (although he did win an Academy Award in 1941 for the screenplay for Meet John Doe). The reason is staring you in the face. While Connell’s most famous short story has a bucketful of action and adventure – it lacks sophistication and many of the plot points now seem tired and cliché. The writing can also seem unnatural and too rehearsed. Take the opening:

Labels: literary criticism, literature, Richard Connell

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