Jimmy Akin – Page 471

Imposing Our Crosses On Others

In a recent post an issue arose in the combox over whether a particular term has a crass origin and what the implications should be for Christians who use this term.

I won’t link to this post for reasons which will promptly become obvious.

In fact, I won’t even use the term in question, though at least partly for a different reason than you might think.

There is a well-known phenomenon in languages of using euphemisms for tabooed words. Every language has tabooed words. When people of conscience feel the impulse to use these tabooed words, they often substitute a euphemism in their place.

Over time these euphemisms can become so established that they are viewed as independent words in their own right and they do not call to mind the original tabooed words on which they are based.

I’d give you examples, except to make the point effectively I’d have to enlighten (or try to enlighten) you about a word origin that you didn’t already know.

You’d then be burdened with the knowledge of where a particular word came from, and you’d have unpleasant, tabooed associations pop into your head when you heard or were tempted to use the word whose origin I had "outed."

To avoid this problem, let’s make up a new pair of words.

Suppose that schmelf used to be a taboo word. It doesn’t matter what the meaning of schmelf was. It could have been any of the usual suspects: something connected with the bedroom, something connected with the bathroom, something connected with religion. All that matters is that schmelf was a really, really tabooed word.

Let’s say it had the same kilotonnage as the F-bomb.

Naturally, polite people wouldn’t want to use it. But, being human, they’d be tempted to at least on occasion. And so a euphemism–smurf–comes into existence.

At first, the fact that smurf is being substituted for schmelf (pardon my language!) is painfully obvious to everyone. But with time, smurf takes on a life of its own, and people no longer realize how the word originated. It has its own, distinct meaning (let’s suppose that it refers to a tiny, blue imaginary creature), and it no longer calls to mind any of the unpleasant associations of the tabooed word from which it was derived.

In fact, let’s suppose that smurf becomes a very popular word, and people use it all the time, saying things like "Oh, Papa Smurf! He’s just the smurfiest smurfing smurf that ever smurfed!"

And one day a Catholic blogger who does not know the origin of the word smurf (a blogger who happens not to be me, though easily could have been since I had never heard its claimed origin either) is writing a blog post in which he uses it, and someone in the combox says:

I am SICK TO DEATH at seeing the vulgar slang words, "smurf" and "trolling," beginning to appear even on Catholic blogs. How in the world could people not be aware of the following:

(1) "trolling" is so obviously a euphemism for "troll king" (which word comes to mind every time the milder version is spoken/written).

(2) "smurf" (as I well recall from my childhood) was coined as a variant of "schmelf" (slang term that sounds as bad as the F-bomb), and then took on an extended meaning of "small blue imaginary creature."

Anyway, folks, DON’T USE THESE BAD WORDS, please.

What would happen next?

Probably, a lot of people would point out that it doesn’t matter where smurf came from. Regardless of whether this word was originally a euphemism for schmelf, it simply doesn’t mean that anymore and does not call up that association in the minds of most people. Now–for the great majority of people–it refers to a small blue imaginary creature, and that’s all.

Not meeting with the success he wanted, the commenter might then reply:

I should have realized that no one here is truly Catholic, but will
do/say anything to justify their use of euphemisms (that call to mind
the vile words behind them), rather than resolve to amend their lives
and pursue the universal vocation to sanctity. I guess that’s one of
the reasons for Purgatory, to burn away the love for the vulgar that is
found in so many people who responded to me.

The lack of humility among almost all commenters here — and the
penchant for kneejerk self-justification and rationalization –are
mind-boggling. It breaks my heart to see NOT EVEN ONE person write a
message saying, "Thanks, dude. I was not aware of what you told us. I
will avoid saying ‘smurf’ and ‘trolling’ in the future."

As always, we can ask the question, "What Would Jesus Do?" You can
be sure that he would not use foul language or even any euphemisms
derived from it it. He would also not use His Father’s name improperly.
Ditto for His vicar on earth, Pope Benedict XVI. Let’s follow these
role models, instead of making bad role models of ourselves.

PS to another commenter: It doesn’t matter what "Jimmy" says on this, because I
have noticed that he too has rationalized some of his own (and others’)
improper behavior. Although "Jimmy" knows lots of facts, he is
definitely no guru for Catholics’ behavior.

Setting aside the attempt at poisoning the well there at the end (and the strange quotation marks around my name, and noting that I’m a sinner in need of Christ’s mercy and do not aspire to be a guru for others’ behavior), I would raise the following concern.

To the great majority of people today, the word "smurf" is not associated with its alleged term of origin. (And word origins for slang terms are really tricky matters. Slang terms–especially tabooed ones–don’t get well documented in dictionaries, meaning that it’s hard for etymologists to trace their pedigree, so a lot of what you read is just conjecture. As someone who spends a lot of time looking up word etymologies, I know what I’m talking about. Sources regularly disagree and admit ignorance over where terms came from, and there are popular myths about word origins that simply aren’t true. Most of the origins that you hear for the F-bomb are false.)

Since most people today are not burdened by the knowledge of where the term smurf (may have) originated, they do not have to wince when they hear it or wonder whether they should correct others who use it or feel bad when they are tempted to use it themselves, because for them it has no crass associations.

If for you it does have crass associations, that is a cross you must bear (either that or decide that at some point it’s not worth fretting over what the origin of a word was and just go with the way it’s being used now).

It is one thing to shoulder this cross yourself, but it is another thing entirely to impose it on others by forcing upon them knowledge that will now be the occasion for scrupulosity on their part.

Now, many people will not scruple over this–or scruple much–but some will. (Particularly the scrupulous ones.)

The meritorious thing to do in such a situation would be not to disturb the consciences of others and to shoulder one’s own cross, without causing others to suffer as well.

Incidentally, I’ve been restrained in discussing this subject in the past because I didn’t want to burden people by revealing the origins of words they didn’t know. Now that I’ve come up with smurf and schmelf, I’ll be able to talk about it more freely.

I’d also recommend that people not "out" euphemisms in the combox. (That was kind of the point of this post.)

Anyone who does so is a smurfitty smurf who’s just out trolling!

(NOTE FOR LINGUISTS KEEPING SCORE: The use of smurf as a way of avoiding using an actual euphemism makes it a meta-euphemism. Schmelf, as a replacement for a non-specific taboo word, would be a generic euphemism.)

White On Korban & Sola Scriptura

James White has now supplied a current description of his thought on the korban passage and sola scriptura, so let’s look at what he says.

His basic assertion seems clear. Referring to the korban passage, Mr. White refers to

Jesus’ plain teaching that we are to examine all traditions by the higher standard of God’s Word, even those that claim to be divine in origin.

By "God’s Word," Mr. White means "Scripture," and "even those that claim to be divine in origin" is subsumed by "all," so his claim is that

Jesus’ plain teaching [is] that we are to examine all traditions by the higher standard of [Scripture].

If Mr. White’s claim is not that we are to examine all traditions by the higher standard of Scripture, I am open to correction on this point.

Now, claiming that the above principle is Jesus’ "plain teaching" is a pretty strong claim. In order for a teaching to be plain, there must be (a) an act of teaching and (b) this act must have the quality of plainness–meaning that its meaning is easily ascertained.

A common way that teaching a principle is done is by stating a principle forthrightly. When Jesus gives the great commission he states forthrightly that the apostles are to baptize the nations (Matt. 28:19).

This is not the only way that teaching can occur. One can, for example, teach by stating a principle in a veiled manner. Jesus did this when he used parables, such as the Parable of the Sower and the other kingdom parables (Matt. 13).

By stating matters in a veiled manner, however, the teaching no longer enjoys the quality of plainness, since the veiled nature of the teaching prevents its meaning from being so easily ascertained.

It is also possible to teach without stating a principle at all. This happens when one "teaches by example," as when Jesus himself is baptized even though he has no intrinsic need of it himself (Matt. 3:13-14).

A difficulty for obtaining "plain teachings" from situations that involve "teaching by example" is that there is no explicit statement of principle, meaning that–while it is possible to determine something from the example, the precise extent to which the example is to be followed (or avoided) is often unclear.

This constitutes a difficulty for Mr. White since in Mark 7’s passage on the korban custom, Jesus does not state forthrightly that we are to examine all traditions by the higher standard of Scripture. Neither does he state this in a veiled manner such as with a parable. Instead, the most that can be said is that he is teaching a principle without a statement of principle, simply by his example.

Since it is very difficult to obtain "plain teaching" from instances of teaching by example, Mr. White will have a difficult time establishing the idea that "we are to examine all traditions by the higher standard of [Scripture]" from this passage.

So what kind of argument does he use to support his claim?

Continue reading “White On Korban & Sola Scriptura”

You’re So Vain; I Bet You Thought That Post Was About You

James White has periodically complained about certain Catholic apologists not wanting to interact with him, and this week I was reminded of why.

AS ILLUSTRATED BY THIS POST,

he just can’t resist ad
hominems, insults, and little jabs, and he has a constant assumption that he is of such
unique importance that people in the field must be intimately
familiar with whatever he writes or says or they reveal their own
inadequacy.

This makes it difficult to interact with his arguments because of the obnoxious way he presents them.

So here’s what I’m going to do.

First–in this post–I’m simply going to document how the way that James conducts himself makes it hard for others to interact with him and then–in a second post–I’ll lift the arguments he makes out of the matrix of snottiness in which he embeds them and interact with them directly.

The reason I’m taking this two-post approach is that James’s ungentlemanly style has nothing to do with the merits of the arguments he makes, and I don’t want the two subjects to be entangled.

Since the manner in which White conducts himself toward other apologists is more of a matter between apologists, you may not be as interested in this subject.

Fair enough. If this isn’t your cup of
tea, I totally understand.

So I’ll place it below the fold in this post
so that it doesn’t take up further home page real estate.

Continue reading “You’re So Vain; I Bet You Thought That Post Was About You”

Zarqawi An Ex-Terrorist!

I blog in the evenings, so I’m a day behind the news cycle, but in case you haven’t heard, our forces got "Abu Musab" al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qa’eda in Iraq and so he can’t kill any more innocents anymore!

WOO-HOO!!!

Now, I must say that I’m sorry that the chief head-hacker of Iraq didn’t repent of his ways and cease his head-hacking, terrorist actions, but given that he didn’t, I’m glad that he is no longer able to hack off people’s heads.

I don’t wish death on anyone–death is a grave physical evil–and I’d rather see them repent and live. I even hope for the salvation of his soul, despite the abominable actions he undertook (which is to say, I hope that he either repented at the last second or that he was so mentally scarred by previous life traumas that he was not sufficiently rational to be responsible for his horriffic actions). But killing people is such a serious matter that there are times when a person refuses to repent of their own death-dealing actions and they must be removed from the ranks of the breathing.

This is the basis of the Church’s just war doctrine. You can’t say that any war in history has been just unless you are willing to say that removing certain individuals from the ranks of the breathing is just. And if (regardless of what you think of the Iraq War as a whole) you don’t agree that a head-hacker like Zarqawi was such an individual then God bless you.

It is to be appreciated that Zarqawi can no longer harm anyone and that the forces that supported his campaign of terror have been dealt a major blow.

It may be an even larger blow than is apparent, since in a letter from Ayman al-Zawahiri (bin Laden’s #2 man) to Zarqawi last year revealed the senior al-Qa’eda leader asking for a donation of money from al-Qa’eda in Iraq to the parent organization, which was hard up for cash.

Depending on how well Zarqawi’s group is able to re-group in the wake of his demise, the decapitation of al-Qa’eda in Iraq thus may translate into a significant blow (by loss of revenues and further esteem in the Muslim world) to al-Qa’eda in general.

And that’s good news.

Fortunately, most individuals–Democrat or Republican or independent–can acknowledge this.

It is simply inexplicable–and despicable–that certain individuals in Congress would claim that this is a stunt or otherwise seek to portray it as anything but good news.

EXCERPTS:

"This is just to cover Bush’s [rear] so he doesn’t have to answer" for Iraqi civilians being killed by the U.S. military and his own sagging poll numbers, said Rep. Pete Stark, California Democrat. "Iraq is still a mess — get out."

I have a difficult time regarding as anything other than the actions of asini those politicians who would be so focused on their own agenda that–regardless of what one thinks we should do at this point in the war–one could not agree with Democratic senate leader Harry Reid and say,

"This is a good day for the Iraqi people, the U.S. military and our intelligence community."

Indeed.

The chief head-hacker of Iraq can’t hack heads off anymore.

GET THE STORY.

and

GET THE LARGER STORY.

Remember Byron?

Kathleen Parker has a nice piece on abortion and some of the absurd reasons that people are using to justify having them.

For example: having a clubbed foot.

She writes:

The week before, in what could have been a prequel to the child-actor story, Britain’s Sunday Times reported that more than 20 babies had been aborted in advanced stages of gestation between 1996 and 2004 in England because scans showed they had clubfeet.

She goes on to point out that, had such abortions been performed in the past, a number of very prominent individuals would have been aborted and that having a clubfoot did not stop these individuals from going on to notable successes in life.

Among them were the poet Byron, the commedian Dudley Moore, and the figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi–in fact the latter not only won her fame with her feet, but she began figure skating as treatment for her clubbed feet.

What makes the abortion of such individuals even more appalling is that having clubfoot is a treatable and often fixable disorder.

Parker writes:

While it may be intellectually easier to justify aborting a fetus in cases of severe abnormalities, terminating a pregnancy because of easily corrected imperfections should disturb our sleep.

GET THE STORY.

What’s This?

You may be tempted to say, "It’s a rainbow." But it’s not an ordinary ranbow. For one thing, it’s not shaped like a bow.

It’s also not a rainbow because it’s not caused by light refracting through moisture droplets. It’s caused by light interacting with ice crystals, and so is a type of ice halo.

In fact, it’s a type of ice halo known as a circumhorizon arc (so named because it’s an arc that appears near the horizon). This type of phenomenon can only occur under certain conditions:

It occurs when sunlight passes through ice crystals in high cirrus clouds. It is one of 15 types of ice halos formed only when the most specific of factors dovetail precisely together.

[The] clouds must be at least 20,000ft high and the ice crystals within them align horizontally instead of their usual vertical position. The sun also needs to be at least 58 degrees above the horizon.

This particular circumhorizon arc appeared Saturday over the Washington-Idaho border and lasted about an hour.

From what I can tell, it also seems to be one of the more spectacular circumhorizon arcs. There are pictures of other ones on the web, but this one was particularly beautiful.

GET THE STORY.
cht to the readre who emailed.

MORE ON ICE HALOS, INCLUDING RARE ONES (WITH PICTURES!)

The Immortality Of The Soul

A reader writes:

Being starved for Catholic radio out here in the Bay Area, I find myself turning to an Evangelical radio station during my commute. Today, I heard a commenter saying something like this: that it was clear that the old testament writers didn’t believe in an immortal soul. The bible teaches we will be raised from the dead to everlasting life, but it doesn’t mean that our souls are immortal, that is, that our souls are alive while our body is dead. This is an idea that is more common in Greek philosophy, he explains, but is not biblical.

Have you ever heard this theory bandied about? How would you respond to that?

There are a number of different groups that have variations on this idea. The Jehovah’s Witnesses (who are not Protestant or even Christian), for example, hold a physicalistic understanding of the spirit that basically precludes its existence between death and resurrection (meaning that there are serious questions about wheter you are still you at the resurrection). That view is not common in Protestant circles, however.

More common in Protestant circles is the idea of "soul sleep," which is that you do have a soul that continues to exist between death and resurrection but that it does not have conscious experience in the interim and is thus "asleep." Luther seems to have held this view, as do Seventh-Day Adventists and a few other groups, but it has been quite uncommon.

MORE INFO ON THESE TWO VIEWS HERE.

I can’t tell from what you said whether the gentleman you heard on the radio was saying that the Old Testament writers didn’t believe in an immortal soul or whether he was saying that it is untrue that there is an immortal soul.

These two positions are not the same. One could hold that the Old Testament authors did not believe in the immortality of the soul because this doctrine had not yet been revealed but–since it has been revealed in the New Testament–we now know what they didn’t.

If he meant this latter position then I would say he at least has part of a leg to stand on. The idea of the afterlife is not sharply defined in the Old Testament, and it is not clear what most Jews believed about the afterlife at this time. Indeed, they may not all have believed the same thing. The Old Testament spends very little time discussing the afterlife; it is focused primarily on salvation from dangers in this life rather than salvation from hell after this life, so we don’t have enough data to draw firm conclusions about the particulars of how the afterlife was conceived in this period.

We do have enough data, however, to establish that at least some Jews (and almost certainly the great majority) did at least acknowledge the existence of the afterlife.

For example, the fact that, when various patriarchs die, they are regularly said to be "gathered to their people" suggests a reunion with those who have died. That phrase is a little ambiguous, though, but here is something that is not: If belief in an afterlife was not common among the Jewish people then God wouldn’t have had to warn them against using mediums and spiritists to call up the dead.

There also is at least one passage in which the fate of a particular figure is prophecied and it describes the descent of his soul and its encounter with other souls, who recognize who it, is described. That occurs in the prophets, so one could interpret it non-literally, but one passage that is not vulnerable to this objection is the situation in which Saul has the witch of Endor summon up the spirit of the departed Samuel.

I know that there have been some (more out of a desire to say you can’t call up the dead than anything else) who have speculated that it was a demon impersonating Samuel, but this is not the way the text depicts the situation. The text presents it straightforwardly, as if the witch really did call up Samuel’s spirit (presumably by a kind of divine dispensation, since Samuel immediately prophesies Saul’s doom, which then comes to pass).

Whether or not it really was Samuel’s spirit, the passage attests to Israelite belief in the afterlife–and not just any kind of afterlife, but on in which the soul continues to exist between death and resurrection. If that’s not what you believe then there’s not point in trying to contact a dead guy.

So if the gentleman you heard on the radio was saying denying the presence in the Old Testament of belief in this kind of afterlife then he was overstating matters. It would be more defensible to say that the concept of the afterlife was not clearly defined in this age and that there may have been some Jews who did not accept it (just as some Jews did not accept the exclusive worship of God), but to say that the idea is foreign to the Old Testament is simply inaccurate.

If the gentleman was going further and saying that we do not have souls that exist between death and resurrection then he will have insuperable problems when it comes to the New Testament, because Jesus’ parable of Lazarus and the rich man clearly envisions conscious human souls in the intermediate state. The fact that this is a parable also is not an issue, for even if there was not a specific Lazarus and a specific rich man who had this experience (something that is likely), Jesus’ parables nevertheless are populated by things from the real world. They are about kings and merchants and fields and farmers and servants and sums of money and other things–like conscious, departed human souls–that really exist.

Even if he wanted to be truculent on this one, he’d also have to face the book of Revelation, which unambiguously depicts departed human souls, before the resurrection, worshipping God and talking with him in the intermediate state.

The idea that we don’t exist or are not conscious between death and resurrection simply is not tenable.

By the way, since the gentleman was Protestant he wouldn’t accept this, but it’s worth pointing out that the second book of Maccabees also has a very explicit passage on the reality and consciousness of departed souls, for Judah Maccabee receives a vision in which he learns that the departed (and unresurrected) prophet Jeremiah prays for the people of Israel. Judah also sees the soul of a departed priest in this vision.

Korban & Sola Scriptura

A reader writes:

Dear Sir,

What is the Korban Rule, and why does James White make such a big deal about it when he speaks of sola scriptura?

A korban (or, more properly, qurban) was an offering made to God and thus consecrated. There were a wide variety of these in the Old Testament.

By the first century, a custom had arisen among Pharisees whereby sons would circumvent their obligation to care for their parents’ financial needs by consecrating to God the financial support that their parents otherwise would have received.

This came up in Mark chapter 7 when some Pharisees attacked the fact that Jesus’ disciples at with unwashed hands, contrary to the tradition of the Jewish elders.

Their having made tradition an issue, Jesus turned the subject around on them by pointing to their own misuse of tradition, and he cited the korban custom just mentioned, stating that it violated the Ten Commandments, which require us to honor our parents and, by implication, support them in their old age so that they do not become financially destitude (which was the fate of almost anybody back then whose children didn’t care for them once they could no longer work).

He therefore concluded that they were "making void the word of God through your tradition" (Mark 7:13) and stated "You leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men" (Mark 7:8).

I haven’t read or heard specifically what James White may have been doing with this passage, but it is a staple of Protestant anti-Catholic apologetics.

The reason is that in this passage Jesus sets the korban tradition in opposition to the word of God and this is frequently taken as an indicator that all tradition is opposed to the word of God or that there is a fundamental opposition between tradition and Scripture.

It is thus common to hear Protestant ministers and apologists waxing eloquent on this passage–and even getting emotionally worked up from the pulpit or behind the microphone about how horrible a thing it is to set tradition above the word of God–and how we must therefore cling to the precious principle of sola scriptura or "by Scripture only."

The problem, of course, is that this argument commits the logical fallacy of hasty generalization.

The fact that in this passage Jesus says that particular aspects of Pharisaical tradition are contrary to God’s word does not mean that all traditions are contrary to God’s word. Nor does it say that we must use Scripture only and not Tradition. The fact that one tradition or one set of traditions must be excluded does not mean that all traditions must be excluded.

This conclusion is made even more clear when one realizes that the New Testament praises other traditions, which are in harmony with God’s word.

Thus Paul tells the Corinthians, "I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you" (1 Cor. 11:2), and he commands the Thessalonians, "So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter" (2 Thess. 2:15). He even goes so far as to order, "Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is living in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us" (2 Thess. 3:6).

Paul also seeks to ensure that the apostolic traditions would be passed down after the deaths of the apostles, and he tells Timothy, "[W]hat you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also" (2 Tim. 2:2). In this passage he refers to the first four generations of apostolic succession—his own generation, Timothy’s generation, the generation Timothy will teach, and the generation they in turn will teach.

So from the perspective of the New Testament, Pharisaical tradition was unreliable and could be contrary to the word of God (not that it always was), while apostolic Tradition was normative and binding for Christians.

By the way, you may have some difficulty making some of these points to a Protestant who is using the New International Version. That translation displays a prominent bit of translator bias when it comes to rendering the term for "tradition" in the Greek text (paradosis). Whenever the term is used in conjunction with Jewish traditions, it renders the word "tradition(s)", but when it is used in connection with apostolic tradition (as in the passages above), it mistranslates the word as "teaching(s)." The net effect is to make tradition sound bad by hiding the positive references to it and using the word in passages where it is subject to critique.

Pop-Up Priests & Fireman Priests

A reader writes:

I’ve been looking for canonical or magisterial information on the practice of some priests (who are not presiding) who exit the sanctuary once they’re finished with the homily only to pop-in later to give communion to the faithful.

I argue that it shouldn’t be done because of the unity and continuity between the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Bread.

They started this practice so they could have a single priest give the
homily for all the weekend Masses (5 in total at our parish).

You’ve got at least some traction here in the law, if they’re doing it on a weekly basis. According to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal:

66. The Homily should ordinarily be given by the priest celebrant himself. He may entrust it to a concelebrating priest or occasionally, according to circumstances, to the deacon, but never to a lay person. In particular cases and for a just cause, the homily may even be given by a Bishop or a priest who is present at the celebration but cannot concelebrate.

The phrase "in particular cases" indicates that this should not be a habitual thing.

The reader also writes:

Related to this question, is a "fireman" priest who comes in to distribute communion always preferable to an extraordinary minister of communion?

Rome would have much less problem with this, because they really, really, really do not want extraordinary ministers being used unless they have to be.

This is indicated by the tenor of the way the issue is handled in the instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum:

[157.] If there is usually present a sufficient number of sacred ministers for the distribution of Holy Communion, extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion may not be appointed. Indeed, in such circumstances, those who may have already been appointed to this ministry should not exercise it. The practice of those Priests is reprobated who, even though present at the celebration, abstain from distributing Communion and hand this function over to laypersons.

[158.] Indeed, the extraordinary minister of Holy Communion may administer Communion only when the Priest and Deacon are lacking, when the Priest is prevented by weakness or advanced age or some other genuine reason, or when the number of faithful coming to Communion is so great that the very celebration of Mass would be unduly prolonged. This, however, is to be understood in such a way that a brief prolongation, considering the circumstances and culture of the place, is not at all a sufficient reason.

While this doesn’t explicitly say "priests who aren’t present can come in to distribute Communion," it establishes such a strong preference for ordinary ministers over extraordinary ones that Rome not only wouldn’t have a problem with this but might regard it as preferable.

The Dork Knight of Gotham

Being that two of my JA.O blogmates have posted recently on the topic of super-heroes, I had to throw in my two pfennigs.

A few weeks ago our family acquired (cheap) a copy of the original (Adam West) Batman movie (1966).

Okay, I admit it… I have no taste. I like this movie better than any of the darker, more recent Batman films (except Batman Forever) and it is a guilty pleasure that I have passed on to my kids. They have really enjoyed it. One measure of the success of a film in our house is when we go around for weeks afterward inserting bits of the dialogue into our everyday speech. Batman 1966 qualifies in spades.

The movie is campy, fun, clean, goofy, brimming with Bat-gadgets and fisticuffs, and boasts the greatest cast of Bat-villains ever. Like the classic Looney Toons, the humor of the movie (as well as the series) operates on different levels. As a kid I missed a lot of the grown-up jokes and sexual innuendo, but had a blast, anyway.

For the record, in this film Batman is intensely heterosexual.

The main reason I’m posting on Batman, though, is a scene toward the end of the film, where the President of the United States makes an appearance (more or less… we see his chair and one arm from behind). He sports a generic Texas twang and, though it isn’t really a straight impersonation, it is obviously meant to represent then President Lyndon Johnson.

What’s weird is that, though it doesn’t sound like Johnson, the voice sounds remarkably, uncannily like George W. Bush.

SEE IF IT DOESN’T!

[JIMMY ADDS: If you watch this movie, don’t miss the MUST SEE (!) "Some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb!’ scene. It’s hilarious!]

[JIMMY ALSO ADDS: There’s an interesting episode of the Batman TV series in which they play off Lyndon Johnson’s political misfortunes and the fact that due to his unpopularity he didn’t run for re-election when he legally could have. In this episode, Batman is running for mayor of Gotham City in order to stop a villain from getting the post, and the episode is transparently meant to be a "Batman runs for president" episode under the surface (e.g., they mention the cowboys and indians voting in the western precincts of Gotham City). At the end of the episode, after Batman has won and turned the mayorship over the the guy who really should be mayor, he is in Commissioner Gordon’s office when he receives a phone call from a major, unnamed political party asking him to be their presidential candidate. He politely declines, but he and the commissioner comment on how nice it was of "them" to ask. At this point, we have no idea which party it was that asked, but then Batman gets another call, from the other political party, asking him the same thing, and he replies, "I . . . thought your party already had a presidential candidate for 1968." ZING!]