Things are Heating up in the Barn

Bill Maher: Moral without a Cause?
Retrieved by Pat Darnell

Jesus Fish in a Barrel: "Religulous"
Posted by robbiefreeling on Oct 3, 2008 at 10:52AM
[SOURCE]
Bill Maher has had quite a run. Fourteen years have passed since Politically Incorrect saved him from Shannon Tweed vehicles and endless stand-up. A Washington meets Hollywood twist on the McLaughlin Group, PI proved surprisingly durable for Comedy Central before losing steam (and some bite) on ABC. After ill-timed (if courageous) comments led to the show's cancellation, Maher moved right along to Real Time on HBO (tweaking the format by losing the left-right debate and giving more time to Maher's emboldened commentary), where his notoriety, and wonky-smug shtick, hasn't waned.

I watched PI regularly for years, drawn to the unscripted and surprisingly informed political exchanges between dustbin celebrities like Jimmie Walker and Casey Kasem. I was also drawn to Maher, whose vehement libertarianism often led discussions into knotty, unfamiliar territory, at least for American television.

But what has always bothered me about Maher is the irreconcilability of his dual, if defining, impulses: to engage seriously and intelligently with politics and morality, yet crap away all nuance, at a moment's whim, for the sake of an easy joke.

Rather than one supporting, illuminating, or even tempering the other, he too often just dilutes or degrades both comedy and argument. His latest project, Religulous, a Larry Charles--directed, gonzo-documentary screed against faith, is similarly self-defeating. (robbie freeling; Oct 3, 2008. retrieved HERE 10.21.2008) pd/mpw

[See: also Religulous movie review HERE]

PHOTO: neve board for Dr J

Sour Grapes: Bill Maher

Religious / Relguious / Religulous are Garrulously Related ...Huh?
by Pat Darnell

I have a bone to pick with cardinal pundits, who stand up and boast they know the lines before the lines are spoke... Okay?

There, I said it. Unfortunately my most recent failing as a cool objective bystander is presented to us in the new docu-drama Religugious-ocity.. or something like that, with Bill Maher.

Maher is a once and not any more comic, and it is pathetic for him to even try a lamentation of religion. He never even mentions the Hopi Creation Story, or the House of Malediction for menstruating women of the once named Congo. How daft is that?

And in keeping with the mode of operation that I always use to con flag my essays... I want to talk about how this is better described in Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Braid by Douglas Hofstadter. You see Timmy... err Billy, the anti-semitic nonsense you keep asking yourself about yourself is actually an anti-semantic question... I repeat more slowly -- ...you ...are ...questioning ...the ...anti-semantic:

A semantic network of the word BITTER, showing associations of the other words/concepts that denote bitterness. The length of the connecting lines reflects the degree of closeness from the associated words to BITTER. (STRUCTURE AS TEXT, Hypertext and hypermedia, no date; retrieved HERE )

To Bill Maher the Bunkboard rider I have this pearl of wisdom for you: Religions have a unique constant. It is a fact that Religions that are formed among "believers" will always split in to different "sects." Look around and there's the Orthodox Jew, contrasted in the Reform Jew; the Catholics and the Dutch Reform Lutherans; the fastest growing Church in history Southern Baptists and the contra Mellowed out Methodists... oh dios mios.

Here's how you tell; Bill -- Go ahead name one thing you do religiously. Is it brushing your teeth? Is it biting your fingernails? Is it plucking your eyebrows? In other words religious behavior is that grooming you personally need to get you through the tedium of days.

If your sect suddenly decides they aren't going to brush their teeth anymore, you or I might have to split apart from that group of people. You see Billy, it has do do with semantics of grooming, more than you know. I hope this helps you because you look a little bit tired in that Daily Show interview the other night.

To be politically incorrect -- Bill you seem a little long in the ear, and teeth; not to bring up the obvious, but maybe you are in over your head this time... oh, I mean every time. Most of all we wish you could be like Bill Gains and expunge the bombast, but in your interviews apparently you have not kept up with your critics who seem more on track than you:

"Talking to a melting pot of the faithful, Maher worms his way into the niggling contradictions of our cherished belief systems. There's a ticklish, childlike logical glee to his view that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are fairy tales for adults. Religulous isn't an attack upon God but on the vain, deluded things human beings say and do in His name." (By Owen Gleiberman; Retrieved HERE)

Duh !!! And "you're welcome" for the free advertising, ya' knucklehead. (pd)