McReligion

Interrupting the All Schiavo, All the Time reporting (hands up everyone who is waiting to hear the phrases "lovely plumage" or "pining for the fjords"), the Washington Post had this sad statement to make about McReligion outside the US:

On Feb. 3, the Demre City Council [of Turkey] voted unanimously to erect a statue of Santa Claus in the town square, replacing a bronze statue of the Saint Nicholas. "This is the one everyone knows," Mayor Suleyman Topcu said of the plaster-of-Paris figure put up in place of the elegant bronze. "We couldn't figure out what the other one is."

Apparently the Russian Orthodox priests, the tourists who prayed to the saint, and particularly the sculptor didn't have problems knowing who St. Nicholas was, and they're just a tad pissed off.

(For those who can't get into the WaPo site, since Bugmenot appears to be down, the same article is on MSNBC, although neither web version seems to have the pictures of both statues that were printed in the Post.)

I remember seeing St. Nicholas in a stained glass window in an Irish cathedral and thinking "What's HE doing there?! Oh, yeah, right, he really was a saint." Now the Disnification of belief goes on, with the image of the saint being literally replaced by a cheap rendition of the Thomas Nast character.

I guess we now know what's worse than turning a human being into a plaster saint. Turning a human being into a plaster caricature because "you can't figure out what [he] is." Not even "who," what.

Call for Snark!

trollprincess has an idea for a movie-mocking community. She's calling for community names and writers

Now, I know some of y'all wield a wicked snark. Anyone interested? Horsechicks, Menikoff, I'm so looking at you.

Another religious article

Slactivist (whose LJ feed is unsurprisingly, slactivist) has an interesting article comparing fundamentalist attitudes towards the Bible to the "strict constructionalist" judiciary. Basically, the thesis is that the attitude that the Bible is literal, clear, and not subject to any change or interpretation is being applied to the Constitution, which is equally considered literal, clear, and not subject to any change or interpretation. This the root of the complaints against "activist judges" - ie, those who do not hold modern society to what was "clearly intended" by the 18th century founding fathers. An interesting read.