Guest Thomas Keske Posted May 20, 2007 Share Posted May 20, 2007 PARTRIDGE FAMILY FOR PRESIDENT It was the scariest movie I'd seen in a long time. It was a horror flick about the "Partridge Family for President" campaign, starring Donny Osmond and Lee Harvey Oswald. Americans are easy suckers for schlock like that. They eat it up like flies on a popsicle on a sidewalk on a hot summer day. Sweet. There was this guy named Taggart.. no wait a minute .. Braggart? Faggart? Reverend Haggard? Jimmy Swaggart? Governor Walmart? I forget. The Partridge Family was going to grab power by any means necessary. No deception was too slick, no sell-out was too cynical. They believed that they were so much more wholesome than everybody else, that it was nothing less than their Manifest Destiny to achieve Total Global Domination through sheer military might, even if the young Partridge family puppies, themselves, would be sitting on couches, strumming guitars, and missing the whole fight. The real-life Cowsills were the inspiration for the fictional Partridge TV Series Family, which were the inspiration for the real-life Presidential Partridge First Family. It was like art imitating life imitating art imitiating life and eventually leading to massive death. The American women's vote simply swooned over proud Papa Partridge, his Breck-shampoo hairdo and his chiseled jaw. It was sooooo manly, the way he ate massive amounts of bloody, red meat, and ate it raw. They knew that in times of impending disaster, they could be reassured by the broad, friendly smile that was chiseled in plaster. It was Wholesale Wholesome Mormon Mania, as long and strange of a trip as the LDS on LSD. It was like a whole country, turned into cult zombies. Everyone was convinced that the President was an Invincible Superman. Then, the Partridge Family decided to invade Iran. It was the Battle of the Mormons vs the Muslims. It was the Final Test, to prove which God was Whose, and How So, and Where To, and Why Because, and Which One was the Best. All hell broke loose. It was a flood of blood, like a breaking New Orleans levee, never stopping until it was over the rooftops. The ashen-gray corpses were strewn, from here to the moon, a scene of total violence more gruesome than a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Following the total failure of the military occupation, the legions of diseased and dying hoped that it was not too late for a little mutual cooperation. Determined to find an uplifting, upbeat, positive note, in spite of the complete collapse of President's parade float, amid the blood, the carnage, the radioactive ruin, the ashen-gray corpses that were everywhere strewn, Donny got out his guitar, and played a little song that he wrote: Everybody sing along! ... I love the Brady Bunch.. Were they reality, or simply out to lunch? I love the Brady Bunch.. They were so sweet and kind but totally out of their minds Oh, you can get on Lakeshore Drive, and keep on riding, to get out of the cities where the air is fine, like sweet-smelling pine without radioactivity You can swim in the grove Or do lunch with Karl Rove or you can rent a canoe At Indian Lake, you can run around naked, like the Indians do. WHoo-whoo-whoo-whoo!!! ------------------------------------------------------------------ 67. Prophecy of the Choad So says the prophecy. The man will be named Taggart and he will signal the coming of the end ... calculus, according to the prophecies, as he was in . cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~huyl000/choad.htm ------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. The religion of the Scarecrow of Romney Marsh The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh had no actual super-powers, and can be seen as being the in the same tradition as other non- powered pre-Superman characters http://www.adherents.com/lit/comics/Scarecrow_of_Romney_M... ------------------------------------------------------------------ .. Townhall.com::Why I Think You Should Vote For My Dad: :By Taggart ... By Taggart Romney Monday, April 2, 2007. Like a lot of kids, I grew up thinking my Dad was Superman. And like most kids, in my teenage years, my view of him http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/TaggartRomney/2007/04/... ------------------------------------------------------------------ .. Mitt Romney, The Modern Walter Mitty [Oliver Willis: Like ... Using The Romney Method, my years as a kid running around with a towel tied around my neck clearly qualifies me as Superman. http://www.oliverwillis.com/2007/04/mitt_romney_the.html ------------------------------------------------------------------ 36. Anarchy (Meant2b) Relationship: I should tell you = Acquaintence Taggart has signed with Prophecy Productions and is performing in the first show at the Oracle . s12.invisionfree.com/Meant2B/ar/t861.htm ------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. Comments by sluggo - Wonkette Romney concedes that he is a member of a totalitarian cult, his eyes glow, ... ( Will the Cowsills be the opening act?) Nothing more need be said. H-Rod is ... wonkette.com/commenter/sluggo/ [Found on Yahoo! Search] 3. Blogs | robwire.com .... 1960s singing family The Cowsills, was found dead on a ... Romney Works to Put Skeptics' Doubts to Rest. Highway Debris, Long an Eyesore, Grows as Hazard . robwire.com/?q=blog&page=107 [Found on Yahoo! Search] 4. The Happies - If We Were Really Here CD review .... real-life inspirations - The Cowsills ("Hair," "The Rain, The Park ... song, aside from the opener, is "Eleven" (written by yet another brother, Romney? . http://www.concertlivewire.com/happiescd.htm ------------------------------------------------------------------ 20. The religion of Superman (Clark Kent / Kal-El) .... and Shuster and whatever editorial input they had never thought out Superman's religious background. Maybe they meant him to be a mix of Everyman (by putting him in America's heartland) http://www.adherents.com/lit/comics/Superman.html ------------------------------------------------------------------ 27. Generation Sit >> Blog Archive >> Jesus & Nietzsche IV: The Sound Of ... .... ps - Hitler took Nietzsche's Uberman (Superman) and held it up as the perfect German model. Hitler also loved Wagner and took his music .. http://www.generationsit.org/archives/187 ------------------------------------------------------------------ 12. Superman / Queerty Queerty's archive of Superman. Queerty - The gay blog. ... Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has again called for a federal amendment banning gay marriage. http://www.queerty.com/queer/superman/ ------------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.signaturebooks.com/reviews/acronym.htm Edwards offers a fresh take on the bibliomystery with this debut effort, set at the Independence, Mo., headquarters of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Toom Taggart, a coffee-swigging, cynical historian, suspects foul play when one of his colleagues turns up dead in the church archives. Although denominational officials and police treat the death as an ill-timed heart attack or stroke, Toom finds reasons to believe that the deceased was actually poisoned?but why, and by whom? Edwards explores what's at stake in ecclesiastical history by positing that a newly discovered document showing the prophet Joseph Smith to be a charlatan might have been enough to push one of Toom's coworkers to murder. Taggart arrives at work one morning to find the church archivist being wheeled out in a body bag, the victim of what must have been an unfortunate accident with a poisonous cleaning substance while he was working late the night before. ------------------------------------------------------------------ .. "Taggart" (1983) Taggart is total murder fantasy land.Lord knows what the body count is for all the series but it must be substantial.It is usually written to a formula of a . http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088621/ ------------------------------------------------------------------ 62. Taggart - Death Call Set TAGGART - DEATH CALL SET reviews from the nation's top critics and audiences. ... enough Tomatometer critic reviews for Taggart - Death Call Set to receive a http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/taggart_death_call_set/ ------------------------------------------------------------------ 33. Naughty Limerick Entries from May '97 A whore by the name of Flo Taggart Had a john who was a pompous-assed braggart. Then, while watching T.V. She was surprised to see The same guy! http://www.toastpoint.com/limerick/1997/naut597.html ------------------------------------------------------------------ 23. Comments on: Romney = Superman .... it is funny the the so called leaders of this state people who work for us and are paid by us but they vote not for us but for them even blog.kackley.net/archives/2003/09/24/romney-superm... ------------------------------------------------------------------ 25. Happy Endings: The Day An Army Man Raped Superman / Queerty Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has again called for a federal ... solider alleged Estrada forced him to dress up like Superman and then, well, raped him. http://www.queerty.com/queer/happy-endings/happy-endings-... Army Staff Sgt. Edmundo F. Estrada from Virginia's Fort Eustis has been charged with rape, indecent assault, having an inappropriate relationship with a trainee, and cruelty and maltreatment of subordinates, after another solider alleged Estrada forced him to dress up like Superman and then, well, raped him. He told his victim that he'd previously "help soldiers with their self-confidence and alleviate depression". Um right... Could it be Devery L. Taylor's going to get a cell mate? [Pilot Online] ------------------------------------------------------------------ http://boston.metro.us/metro/blog/my_view/entry/Romney_runs_risk_ with_new_dig_job/4456.html There's a great temptation for a person with presidential ambitions to dress up as Superman, flex some muscle and say, "Look at me." Mitt Romney won't be saying "Look at me" if a ceiling panel from one of those tunnels crushes someone else to death. What Romney had in mind long before the July 10 accident that took the life of Milena Del Valle in the I-90 connector tunnel was getting rid of the turnpike chairman so he could appoint his own lackey to the job. He used that tragedy to make Amorello the heavy: the guy in charge bites the bullet. Romney persuaded the Legislature to put him in charge of the project, to give him all the Big Dig records and documents and trust him to oversee all further inspections and safety audits. Now that he's the new czar of the project, the only way he can play it safe is to detour all the Artery-Tunnel traffic until the next governor is inaugurated and he's off the hook. The bottom line is that Romney has overplayed his hand. What Amorello has and the governor does not have is an institutional knowledge of the project. Amorello knows from thousands of conversations and memoranda why certain decisions were made. Romney was disingenuous in saying Amorello was being secretive, but he shouldn't expect much cooperation from a man he treated like a leper. Just so you'll know, a governor resigns to the secretary of state. ------------------------------------------------------------------ 56. Why I Think You Should Vote For My Dad Like Lincoln in 1860, Roosevelt in 1901, and Reagan in 1980, Mitt Romney is the right leader at the right time for our great nation. He may not be Superman http://www.mittromney.com/News/In-The-News/Tagg_Townhall ------------------------------------------------------------------ 37. Mitt Romney Is A Bush Man [Oliver Willis: Like Kryptonite To Stupid] .... Religious Right Republicans Rudy Giuliani Science Sports Stem Cell Research Superman Technology Television ... Bush is worth noting and filing away for the moment when Romney flip- flops. http://www.oliverwillis.com/2007/02/mitt_romney_is_.html Mitt Romney Awesomeness Mitt Romney looks to be entertaining. He faked his abortion position. He did a horrible job running the Republican Governor's Association. And now he's hired as his economic advisors one guy who supports an increased gas tax and another who thinks outsourcing is a good thing. Somebody go ask Mike Dewine how those kinds of economic ideas sell nowadays http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Taggart Taggert's prominence after that battle, gave him enough political clout to where he was elected president of the Confederation's Senate. Despite his numerous complaints about the political backbiting involved in the job, he proved to be an able leader, guiding the Confederation through a crisis with the Union of Border Worlds, and the attack of the Nephilim. It is likely that part of his success as a politician is due to the close ties that he still maintains with his old friends in the intelligence service. ------------------------------------------------------------------ 9. Rev. Ted Haggard caught in triangle of God, gay sex and crank - People Rev. Ted Haggard resigned as president of the unbelievably large 30 million ... Haggert has trotted out the advice and guidance card, bowing out of the people.monstersandcritics.com/article_1218379.php/... ------------------------------------------------------------------ 5. Assessment of creativity: Resolving a mid-life crisis Torrance, "Faggart, and Taggart (1984) have developed the. Higher In-. formation Processing Survey,. which is designed to assess brain hemispheric- ... http://www.springerlink.com/index/P3515P3343G6507G.pdf ------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. The Smallest Minority Ballistic fingerprinting technology is proven and reliable. ... Not as simple as the Brady Bunch makes it sound, is it? But wait! There's MORE! . smallestminority.blogspot.com/2005/01/why-ballisti... ------------------------------------------------------------------ 3. Can you build a foolproof death penalty? | csmonitor.com Mitt Romney asks panel to explore its reinstating capital punishment. ... he argues, have made it possible to adopt a death-penalty system so reliable that . http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1105/p02s02-usju.html ------------------------------------------------------------------ Latest Brady Bunch Nonsense - TheFiringLine Forums Latest Brady Bunch Nonsense Legal and Political. ... New technologies, such as microstamping and other ballistic identification systems, might have allowed . http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2345... ------------------------------------------------------------------ 23. State Gun Laws :: Virginia BALLISTIC FINGERPRINTING Must handguns be ballistic fingerprinted prior to sale? No ... No state requirement that a Brady criminal background check be done on people buying guns at gun . http://www.stategunlaws.org/viewstate.php?st=VA ------------------------------------------------------------------ 19. Brady Campaign - Assault Weapons Threaten Our Safety and Security Ballistic Fingerprints Help Solve Crimes. Carrying Concealed Weapons ... The Brady Law: Preventing Crime and Saving Lives http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/issues/?page=aw_safsec ------------------------------------------------------------------ 3. Biography of Willaim W. Taggart His grandfather was Joseph Taggart, a pioneer in the Black River country, who ... Taggart became sole proprietors, thus originating the flrm of Faggart Brothers, history.rays-place.com/ny/jeff-bios/taggart-ww.htm The industry was established and put into successful operation, but after a short time Mr. West sold out to his associates and a Mr. Davis, by whom the business was continued about five years, when Byron B. and William W. Taggart became sole proprietors, thus originating the flrm of 'Faggart Brothers, which was afterward So conspicuously and prominently identified with many of the most extensive and successful manufacturing enterprises in the Black River region until the death of Byron B. Taggart, January 20, 1897. In 1886, for business convenience, the old firm of Taggart Brothers was converted into a stock company, under the style of Taggart Brothers Company, and at the same time Henry W. Taggart and George C. Sherman (son and son-in-law of W. W. Taggart) were taken into the concern. He is also President of the Watertown Savings Bank, the Taggart Paper Company and the Taggart Brothers Company, succeeding to these positions on the death of his brother, B. B. Taggart. ------------------------------------------------------------------ 27. In Newsweekly: New England's Premier GLBT Media Company -.- Opinion ... Roberto Miranda, who has blamed the "forces of Satan" for the ... from gays and lesbians threatened with the loss of civil rights. ... very real problem neither he nor his hero Mitt Romney http://www.innewsweekly.com/innews/?class_code=Op&article... ------------------------------------------------------------------ 10. Romney said the people, not courts, should define civil rights - Boston.com "Who's going to tell us what a civil right is and what's not? ... run its course," said Roberto Miranda, chairman of voteonmarriage.org, which . http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2... ------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. JURIST - Paper Chase: Friday, July 15, 2005 .... Romney says innocent protected under proposed Massachusetts death penalty ... Knapp because he was intentionally not advised of his Miranda rights. jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2005_07_15_indexarc... ------------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.baywindows.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&n... Is Mitt Romney a homophobe? I have no idea. It's hard to say that he isn't when he appears on a stage, as he did this past Sunday, with Roberto Miranda, who once compared the marriages of same-sex couples with the terrorist attacks of September 11. With Romney just several feet away from him, Miranda angrily warned the crowd that gay activists were "aggressive, invasive, politically sophisticated and powerful" and that they sought to impose the "homosexual agenda in our schools, our workplaces, the social service sector and eventually our homes and even our churches." Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether Romney is a bigot. Because he's an opportunist who's more than happy to take advantage of the bigotry of others. ------------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.english.emory.edu/classes/Shakespeare_Illustrated/ Romney.Tempest.html This engraving was done by B. Smith after the painting by Romney. The original painting upon which the engraving is based was destroyed in a fire, but the canvas, measuring almost fifteen by ten feet, was judged a failure. Prospero and Miranda stand a short and improbable distance from the shore and the roiling sea and watch the shipwreck with its posed and frozen figures struggling against the tempest. The characters all seem detached from one another, and even Miranda, who pleads at this moment for Prospero to allay the wild waters, looks off in the distance, while her father casts his eyes upwards away from her. Lord Thurlow proved prophetic when he said of Romney's commission to do the painting, "By God, he'll make a balderdash business of it." Thurlow also advised Romney to read Shakespeare before he tried to paint him (Dorment 320). Dorment ends his remarks on Romney with a fanciful and personal interpretation of the relationship between The Tempest and Romney's painting Miranda. In the light of Emma's subsequent fate, Romney's decision to paint her as Miranda in the opening act of The Tempest is one of the little ironies of history. Admiral Horatio Nelson (1758-1805), like Ferdinand in Shakespeare's play, sailed into the Bay of Naples and won Emma's heart. Their love affair, apparently condoned by Sir William, was the talk of Europe and lasted until Nelson's death at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. By that time Romney, the Caliban of the story, was also dead. ------------------------------------------------------------------ 8. deseretnews.com | Admire traits not the person The old "swagger" was gone, replaced by a stagger. He looked rough around the edges ... Swaggart, as you know, was the toast of the TV evangelism until he deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595048346,00.html I saw Jimmy Swaggart, the preacher, on television the other night. He did not look well. The old "swagger" was gone, replaced by a stagger. He looked rough around the edges and haunted around the eyes. Swaggart, as you know, was the toast of the TV evangelism until he was forced out of the pulpit by a sex scandal. When he fell, he fell hard. And he took a chunk of Christian America's idealism down with him. I'm sure many of us - not just me - have a habit of turning people into heroes. When we're young our hero might be a ballplayer or a pop singer. Later on we hold up writers, politicians, actors or educators. It is a dangerous game. ------------------------------------------------------------------ http://ezinearticles.com/?Screenwriting-Competition:-Beverly- Hills-Cop-(1984)-Deconstructed&id=111131 Meeting the Supernatural Aid: Jenny Summers. Discussing the coming Journey: Axel asks Jenny about Mikey. Mentor guides the hero toward the Antagonist: Jenny guides Axel toward Victor Maitland. Threshold Guardian to the Antagonist and his Lieutenant: Victor's secretary. Entering the New World of the Transformation: "this is the cleanest police car in the world; the nice police station; the clean cell?" Meeting the Shape Shifter: Taggart punches Axel. Trial 1: evading Taggart and Rosewood with the free meal and the bananas. Trial 2: Finding the coffee grounds and seeing the bonds unloaded. Developing the challenges of the Allies: the anti - banana disguise sequence; Taggart is uptight; Rosewood doesn't stand up for himself. Developing the character and challenges of allies: Rosewood tells Taggart he eats a lot of red meat. Trial 3 [intercut part 2]: Axel gets some communication? Hero and Ally relationships developed: Axel jumps in Taggart and Rosewood's car. They go to a strip joint. ------------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/629222/posts By Lisa Riley Roche Deseret News staff writer Did he or didn't he? Mitt Romney said news reports Thursday that he used obscenities to criticize security personnel and transportation volunteers were inaccurate. "I used the 'H-word.' It takes a lot of frustration to get me to say the 'H-word,' " he told the Deseret News. The accusation came from Capt. Terry Shaw, a Weber County sheriff's deputy who is in charge of Olympic security at Snowbasin. But according to a Morgan County sheriff's report filed by deputy Kodi Taggart, Romney and three or four other men pulled up in a tan SUV and began directing traffic through the exit around Taggart's patrol car. One motorist who Taggart tried to direct back onto the freeway told her "Mitt Romney himself told me to go this way," the report stated. A fellow officer told Taggart the buses passing through the exit were "dirty," meaning the passengers had not been through any metal detectors ------------------------------------------------------------------ .. DownWithTyranny!: ROMNEY CAMPAIGN WORRIED HE'S THE REAL BRECK GIRL . ROMNEY CAMPAIGN WORRIED HE'S THE REAL BRECK GIRL... AND A REAL FLIP FLOPPER-- THEY SAY THEY NEED TO FIX "BRAND ROMNEY". The Boston Globe has gotten its ... downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2007/02/romney-campai... ------------------------------------------------------------------ .. The Cowsills: Hair My hair is a fright I'm hairy high and low But don't ask me why ... The Cowsills plus the Lincoln Park Zoo | The Cowsills | We Can Fly | Captain Sad and his . cowsill.com/discography/music-hair.html ------------------------------------------------------------------ 8. Doomed Generation: The Hair, the Bomb and the Bible 1) I had no idea what a Breck Girl was. After a bit of googling, I determined it was a series of shampoo spokeswomen sometime in the middle of the previous blogs.southflorida.com/citylink_dansweeney/2007/04... ------------------------------------------------------------------ 4. Hurricane Katrina Blamed in Death of Barry Cowsill NEW ORLEANS -- Barry Cowsill, a member of the popular 1960s singing family The Cowsills, was found dead on a wharf nearly four months after he disappeared ... http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/1/6/145900.... ------------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1600167/posts This was pretty much the opinion. If Katrina proved the government was willing to let people die, right there on TV, why should 9/11 have been any different? A classically hermetic New York conversation ensued, quickly moving from snickers about bin Laden's supposed CIA code name, "Tim Osmond . . . as in Donny and Marie," to speculation about the role of Jerry Hauer, Giuliani's former OEM guy, in the post- 9/11 anthrax threats. ------------------------------------------------------------------ .. CNN.com - CNN Political Ticker WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Entertainer Marie Osmond stood by fellow Mormon Mitt Romney Thursday saying the former Massachusetts governor turned presidential ... http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/2007/05... ------------------------------------------------------------------ SuperFrenchie >> Another French-bashing politician Just for the record, I do think Romney was french bashing. There is no other reason to compare our economy to France as opposed to any other country. superfrenchie.com/?p=292 ------------------------------------------------------------------ 17. French Lick Returns to Its Sin City Roots - New York Times Taggart died in 1929, but then his son Tom Jr. took over. ... Movie Review | '28 Weeks Later': The Satire Is Biting, and So Are the Zombies . travel.nytimes.com/2007/03/16/travel/escapes/16Fre... ------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. Mitt Romney lies about abortion | Redstate Am I allowed to officially name the class of Romney Zombies now? Are we at that stage? We are but warriors for the working-day. http://www.redstate.com/stories/the_parties/republicans/m... ------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. Burning Man :: Image Gallery - My brother looking at photos of H ... .... Sweeny, Charlie, taggart, scott, Tamsin, Shannon, Tanner, Dave ... My brother looking at photos of H-bomb tests our father participated in almost 50 images.burningman.com/index.cgi?image=6407 ------------------------------------------------------------------ 3. Slim Pickens - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia .... which ended with Pickens riding an H-bomb down to global destruction. ... Another of his memorable roles was as Taggart, head of the gang of cowboy thugs en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slim_Pickens Slim Pickens His most famous role was as B-52 pilot Major T. J. "King" Kong in Dr. Strangelove, which ended with Pickens riding an H-bomb down to global destruction. Another of his memorable roles was as Taggart, head of the gang of cowboy thugs in Mel Brooks' classic 1974 comedy Blazing Saddles ------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. Internet Archive: Details: March of the Cowboy Thugs March of the Cowboy Thugs. This short movie illustrates President George Bush's Radio Address to the Nation of August 13 2005, with the evocative satirical http://www.archive.org/details/MarchoftheCowboyThugs ------------------------------------------------------------------ .. Midwest Values PAC | With Slim Pickings, GOP Freshmen Pick 'Idiot' as President Others. With Slim Pickings, GOP Freshmen Pick 'Idiot' as President. by any ... midwestvaluespac.org/blog/586/with-slim-pickings-g... ------------------------------------------------------------------ 20. String Physics III .... a difference) - William Taggart 9/15/100 ... William Taggart 9/14/100 (2) ... Lets Change This This to The Taggart/Faggart board! - ZErO Cool 9/07/100 (5) . superstringtheory.com/forum/stringboard/index3.htm... ------------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/discussions/start- thread.html?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B000KLQUV2&authorID=A3M2WW0PO34B94& store=yourstore&reviewID=R6M4M8ERIBD4T&displayType=ReviewDetail The Scariest Horror Film I Have Seen In Many Years, March 9, 2007 Towards the end of the film, Mike Papantino gets a call from Pastor Becky and is able to pepper her with some hard questions. During the talk, she states that they don't talk about government at her camp, and this is moments after we have watched her children break mugs with the word `government' on them and then pray to the cardboard cutout of President Bush. Did she not remember these moments at her camp? Did she forget the cameras were rolling? After camp, they travel to Boulder, Colorado and visit Reverand Ted Haggart's extremely large church. The boys are mesmerized as Taggart leads his large sermon and we watch the director putting together the televised broadcast. This was clearly shot before Haggart was outed and confessed to having sex with male prostitutes. Now, he is apparently fighting with the film's producers and Distribution Company over his portrayal. ------------------------------------------------------------------ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donny_Osmond Donny became a teen idol in the early 1970s as a solo singer, in addition to performing with his older brothers. He and David Cassidy were easily the biggest "Cover Boy" pop stars for Tiger Beat magazine in the early 70's. His signature solo song, "Puppy Love" vaulted him into international fame. The fame was further advanced by his appearance on the "Here's Lucy" show, where he sang "Too Young" to Lucille Ball's actress/daughter Lucie Arnaz Donny can be seen dancing in the music video of "Weird Al" Yankovic's song "White & Nerdy". The song is a parody of Chamillionaire's "Ridin'", and is on Yankovic's 2006 album Straight Outta Lynwood. In the video, Osmond's role is analogous to that of Krayzie Bone to Weird Al's Chamillionaire. Weird Al asked Donny to appear because he was the whitest guy he could think of.[ Liz Smith, of the New York Post wrote "I am here to tell you he is charmingly campy, good-looking and grand as the villain "Gaston," patterned after our old friend Elvis and noting "Donny is divine". Donny married Debra Glenn on May 8, 1978 at the LDS ("Mormon") Temple in Provo, Utah. Donny and Marie were part of a Pepsi Twist commercial in 2006 with the Osbournes (Ozzy Osbourne and family). In August 2005 Donny became a first-time grandfather. Osmond, like the rest of his family, is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He received some criticism from members for not serving a mission as his religion encourages, but most of the furor over this lack of service has died down. In retrospect, he states, 'It would have been nice to be able to have served a regular full time mission, but when I was of that age, my career was such that everyone, including my parents and the leaders of the church, thought that I could do a lot of good in the world by continuing being in the public eye, by living an exemplary life and sharing my beliefs in every way that I could. Osmond returned to ABC as host of The Great American Dream Vote, a prime-time reality/game show that debuted in March, 2007 ------------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.chromehorse.net/rants/rants01/reed.htm In 1954, Robert Reed married Marilyn Rosenberg. They were divorced, after a daughter, years later. Reed went on to have a rather undistinguished but durable career in the entertainment industry. If you think that means he had talent, you should try getting a first novel published. You never know. Robert Reed, of course, was Dad Brady, the head of the most wholesome reconstituted family on television. He was also gay, and he died of AIDS. You know why it is so ironic that "The Brady Bunch" is one of the favorite shows of the Christian Right, don't you? Because it displays wholesome values? Because none of the characters ever swear or have premarital sex? Because it subtly but directly supports capitalism, in it's wholesome evocation of all-American values like thrift and employment? No. Actually, none of those values are particularly ironic, in this context. No, it's because Mike Brady and his wife never, ever spanked their kids. Never. Not once. Never ever ever. Think about it. Isn't it really strange that the most wholesome family show in the history of television sitcoms never shows the parents spanking their children. Yet, a lot of conservative Christians go absolutely ballistic at the idea that they should not beat their kids. And they adore "Brady Bunch". Would it bother them to see Reed flip little Cindy over his knee, drop her britches, and give her a good whopping? How do fundamentalists feel about spanking on the bare bum? Is that going too far? But if we decide that spanking on a bare bottom is going too far-- well, isn't that just the thin edge of the wedge, the start of the slippery slope, leading to tolerance and relativism and feminism and then.... gasp! Homosexuality! It's too late! ------------------------------------------------------------------ POET'S POSTSCRIPT I am not putting down wholesomeness, per se. I actually have a (gasp) Cowsills greatest hits CD. I really wouldn't care much for a mindset of such sophisticated cynicism that it had no place for minute of simplicity or innocence, in the scheme of things. Indian Lake (one if their hit songs) is in my home state of Ohio. Been there. It is all like a dorky high-school picture out of our own yearbooks. It was depressing to see what became of the Cowsills, after their burnout, and loss of their money and fame, and then the death of one brother, in New Orleans, during Katrina. The story seems like a cautionary note, why not to become too beguiled by the Fame Game. Hopefully they are getting along in their wounds and loss. It isn't innocence, per se, that is offensive. At least they never committed the politicians' sin of thinking that their own supposed wholesomeness made them some kind of superior, Master Race, fit to look down on all the supposedly unwashed, deviant sub-humans, who otherwise exist only as blights to spoil their own, wonderful Leave-It-To-Beaverland. The truly contemptible thing is when calculating politicians use their families like pawns, making cynical calculations for personal gain, like the Cowsill father apparently did in the music business, and like Mitt Romney is doing in politics. All posturing, all image-making, all manipulative, all for personal gain. I thought at first that it was only me who was struck by the impression that the Romney boys had a resemblance to the Cowsill brothers. Then, I searched and found the same thing, all over the internet. What perfect props they make. I remember an image in a documentary - I forget the name- but it a showed a series pictures of smiling, wholesome, fresh-faced children. Put you right at ease, made you feel good. Then the cameras pulled back, and revealed that the children were sitting next to uniformed Nazis. Chilling. Made you feel sick. Innocence as a propaganda tool, for men devoid of such namby-pamby, weakling, liberal notions as compassion or tolerance for a hated minority. Men who had great confidence in their unbeatable military, and a passion for remaking the world to their liking. For the driven, ambitious father of the wholesome Cowsill family, the whole master plan was working like a charm at first, for a while, until things started to go wrong, until things got over-extended, and eventually the whole, picture-perfect family got driven into humiliation and poverty. I can imagine a similar outcome, on a much larger sale. An entire country, burned out and bankrupted by an ambitious jerk who has lot of bluster and big ideas, but little substance, little sense, and little in the way of real scruples. You have to clutch your stomach, to see Time Magazine focusing on trivia like Romney's looks - so typical of our superficial, celebrity-oriented, decadent society. He is the epitome of a phony politician- big, phony, perpetual smiles, baby-kissing, Bible-quoting. Not a word of protest from Time, from the Boston Globe, or any other mainstream media that I have seen, when Romney made an all-smiles photo-op with Pat Robertson at Regent University. Romney says that he is not an anti-gay bigot. Pat Robertson once praised a book by the late RJ Rushdoony, the Christian Reconstructionist, that included an open call for death penalty for gays. Small details like this - the most fully revealing - are almost always off the radar of our Good German media. Some of the administration of Regent University also has connections with Christian Reconstructionists. Also off the radar of the media, another forbidden subject. What ought to be the rightful anger of the gay population is tamed by the censorship and lack of knowledge. I do believe that is part of the whole idea behind the conspiracy of silence, not merely a manifestation of their indifference. The media also worries more about whether poor Mitt Romney might suffer prejudice as a Mormon, in running for President. For a gay man, the question wouldn't even need to be asked- we couldn't even dream of it in our lifetimes. How much should we be wringing out the crying towel? It is typical of the media attitudes, though- the deeper that bigotry is, the more widespread that it it, the longer that it has gone on, the less important it seems, and the more it is taken for granted. Romney is the typical Big-Business wheeler-dealer who pretends to be the pal of Joe Lunchbox. He is really more in the league of CEO fat-cats who rake in hundreds of millions while laying off Joe Lunchboxes by the thousands. There is irony that Romney should blow so much air about Midwestern values and pander to right-wing stereotypes about Eastern liberal elites. Romney is the wealthy son of a wealthy Congressman. One of Romney's sons owns 3 homes in 3 different states. The gay poet who is writing this satire might now be living in Massachusetts, but was raised that land of wonderful Midwestern values, grandson of a coal-miner and son of a steel-worker. In college, my now-Republican brother was the long-haired, hippy. I was the short-haired engineering student who worked, nonstop, and otherwise would have seemed little different from a Romney boy. The problem with conservatives is that they think that they invented values, own morality, represent all things wholesome, built the country themselves, and are therefore the natural heirs to Power, while the Other must consist of disease-ridden, useless loafers and hedonists. But not to worry about reality, Romney knows the winning formula of pandering to bigotry, waving flags, bashing France, hunting rabbits. The Christian Right probably will not really care how much Mitt Romney lies, because their worlds are build on lies, too. They won't care, so long as he told his lies to liberals, and not to them. They will care mostly whether he is sincere when he lets them know that he loathes the same people that they loathe. Why should anyone lecture the American people, though? Electing someone like him will probably be its own punishment. When George W Bush was running, I said, "What does this mean? Will we be having Gulf War II?" I thought that I was only joking, only half-serious. Sigh. The media focuses more on rabbit-hunting, gay marriage, physical appearance and facial features than it does on a man who has never fought in war, yet is making Big Talk about "the military option being on the table" for Iran. It seems almost pointless to try to warn a nation that is so far gone into a hate-fest, dominated by bully-boy blowhards who are so convinced that they could never be wrong. At least, this time, saying it out loud would make it possible later to have the last, bitter laugh, if the assessment were proven in retrospect to be accurate. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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