Angry Gay Pope in the News Again

I already pointed out the tasteless and harassing tactics of one of the Anonymous members going by the nick name of "Angry Gay Pope" (AGP). See here, here, and here.

Jeff Jacobsen seems to agree with me after another display of AGP's "talent".

Mark Bunker, on the other hand, in spite of making reservations about him, justifies his behavior using the "Gays and Scientology" myth.

I really like Mark Bunker as a person. I really do. But sometimes I wonder where on earth he misplaced his insight.

The fact that AGP is gay or not has nothing to do with his behavior. It has everything to do with the fact that he is a bully by nature. Pitdown Man is also gay, and yet I am sure he would never bully Scientologists for no better reason than the fact they are Scientologists.

Mark also writes "facts over harassment will win everytime". This is only partly true. Context is almost as important as facts. As an old saying goes, "Truth without love is cruelty".

Clearing by Cartoons

I found a great way to clear up words and have fun at the same time. The resource is CartoonStock. Type a word and you’ll get a series of cartoons culled from various sources to illustrate it. Great demo and sometimes really funny at that.

Some may say that this is another application of the Scientology concept of "balancing mass and signification". I'll be sending Scientologists using the service my usual fee for providing such a great replacement of the clay demo table...

Tip: the search gives an overview of individual cartoons, like this, but if you edit the URL you can get the first ten hits on a single page, which I find more interesting, like this. Just change the word "smugness" by whatever word starting with s you want to look up (or change the starting letter for another non-s word). Did not find yet how to achieve same through the menu.

Crusing the Good Wave

"Wow! His family is quite a powerful bunch lately! First his wife Katie Holmes has the highest grossing show on Broadway. Then, his 2 year old daughter Suri is voted Hollywood's most influential kid. And now he's on DETAILS magazine's list as one of the most influential men in the World! All I can say is... ROCK ON!!"

From http://scientologist.blogspot.com/2008/11/tom-cruise-one-of-most-powerful-men-on.html

Indeed Tom Cruise is on a good wave for the moment, and he also "made up" with Matt Lauer by brightly sustaining the litany of jokes and insults that are requirements to be honored by the "Friars Club" - plus he received excellent reviews for his short appearance in "Tropic Thunder" (which in the meantime I saw. My opinion: bad movie but indeed amazing performance by Cruise in a very atypical role).

But now comes Valkyrie, to be screened on the day following Christmas. I don't have enough information to make a judgment on the film, but I have this to say: whatever the outcome of the film, I find Cruise dedication to make movies because he finds them valuable in spite of the risk it may entails admirable. This may explains why he almost systematically comes up with great quality films, something that helps make him retain his place as the most bankable Star in the past twenty years even after the wave of criticism that followed his antics on Ophra's couch and other gaffes.

Of course, independently from his adhesion to Scientology, he also is extremely handsome and talented, IMHO, and I admit having a deep admiration for him as an actor.

This being said, I did find quite bad the famous interview leaked on to the Internet and which has been the target of numerous parodies (the funniest to date, IMO, being the SuperHero one). I realize that Cruise made the video for an internal audience and not the general public, something critics don't take into account in their mockery, but really he was not good at it. His arguments were weak and his laugh, well... stupid. By far the worst "role" I saw him in.

It also is worth to note that Anonymous' rather distastful protests at Kathy Holmes debuts in "All My Sons" didn't do squash to prevent it to be a great success. You know, there also is some cognitive dissonance to be had here. Anonymous basically "advertised" the fact that she was a Scientologist to those who may not have been aware of it. She ignored them and focused on her role instead. Because she did so well, people now may think that this Scientology thing is not so bad after all. Anonyous thus unwittingly helped her to promote Scientology!