Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

That meeting sounds like a shotgun wedding between a shitshow and a clusterfuck.

We do not need to pander to people who do not like what we stand for.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Keep the Immigrants and deport the fascists!

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

People are complicated. Love is not.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Sunday Morning Open Thread: All Hail the Easter Bilby!

Sunday Morning Open Thread: All Hail the Easter Bilby!

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Also the Bilby Appreciation Society! I would chomp me the heck out of one or a dozen of these guys…

And for those of us who can’t stomach the Easter Pharisees bloviating on the bobblehead shows this morning, here’s Charlie Pierce on the rabble-rouser at the heart of the Christian mystery:

… Authority is the villain during Holy Week. Secular authority, in the person of Pontius Pilate. Religious authority, in the institution of the Sanhedrin. What matters most throughout the season is the individual conscience. As Garry Wills never tires of pointing out, Christ did not make priests. He did not make a Church. And he sure as all hell didn’t make a Pope, draped as the office is with the sad detritus of medieval royalty. What the pope said in his homily above has no basis in the gospels of the season. Christ does not ask his disciples to be “radically obedient.” He washes their feet and tells them, according to the Gospel of John.

Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me, Teacher, and, Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that ye also should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, a servant is not greater than his lord; neither one that is sent greater than he that sent him.

What stands out in the Holy Week services is humility in the face of unreasoning authority. What stands out, ultimately, and whether you believe in the Resurrection or not, or think the whole thing is a bunch of hooey imported from the Egyptian mystery cults or somewhere, is that, in the story of Easter week, unreasoning authority loses. It loses badly. It makes a fool and a scandal of itself through the ages, so resoundingly that we eventually had ourselves a Reformation, and the secular explosion against unreasoning authority that came after it in Scotland, and France, and, most important to us, in the British colonies of North America.

Sometimes, I think I stay in the church just to be one of the stubborn people who say this stuff. Anyway, Happy Easter to y’all.

Reader Interactions

96Comments

  1. 1.

    Gretchen

    I was interested to hear that Charlie stays in the church despite it all. I was of that mindset myself. I thought I’d outlive the last Pope, but didn’t figure on the next being even more reactionary. I left after tiring of months of Sundays where abortion was the only moral question. I wish we could take our Church back from these guys.

  2. 2.

    freelancer

    Peace on Earth, and Goodwill towards men (and women and everyone in between, too)

    AL, if you hadn’t opened this thread by quoting that article by Pierce, I surely would have linked to it. As a maligned “secular progressive” who learned morality by way of Jesuit Catholic priests espousing the Gospels and liberation theology a la Dorothy Day, it’s sad to see how our institutions fail us. But the larger humanist message that those wise men taught this dumb white boy is still being promoted. There is a chance for this world as long as those who share salvation also share the idea that it comes from within, that it welcomes thought, and that salvation requires love of others in order to truly save.

    /lapsed Catholic

    Happy Easter/Passover to all my Juicer friends. May you celebrate this divine narrative of the totally not-Pagan story of a demi-god accepting an unjust death sentence in order to rid our species of our guilt on the strength of his will. Nevermind the fact that it comes up yearly, but is calculated to take place after the first Sunday after the first full moon after the first day of Spring. And Bunnies and eggs and festivities of the like coincide with this deep metaphysical truth.

    /funny fucking asshole

    Hey Juicers, Love the ones you’re with, and give those you don’t love a pass for the day. If I’m wrong, Christ will surely burn all of your specific enemies in Hell. So you got that going for you.

    /Carl Spackler

  4. 4.

    Dan in DE

    For all His sound moral teachings, Jesus also said a whole bunch of “cast thee forth as a branch and withers to be thrown in the fire”, and “whosoever ignores the least of these laws shall be called least in the kingdom” type of stuff. And I’d argue that Christ certainly does ask His disciples to be “radically obedient.”

    If you think you’ve managed to distill the real essence of Jesus’ teachings, then by all means, explain. But you can’t just proclaim it to be so.

  5. 5.

    Marcellus Shale, Public Dick

    the whole thing, to me sounds like a heavy bdsm sesh where the sub forgot the password.

  6. 6.

    freelancer

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Circle is one of the best standup hours ever.

    That said, Bill Hicks got there frist.

    This isn’t a competition, I’m just saying. I love the part of Circle where Izzard is talking about the Pope imprisoning Galileo and christens him “Pope Shit4brains the 9th”. That and when he refers to the dark ages as “The Stupid Fucker period” are priceless.

  7. 7.

    Steve in DC

    Bilby looks good. I’ve never found rabbits to be endearing animals, they are pests and shit factories. Rather tasty though (love some rabbit if it’s cooked right) and I always bought them to feed the pythons (apart from that hilarious month when Fester ate our cat, go Fester, fuck cats), but out of that, dirty animals.

  8. 8.

    Arclite

    My God, woman. I’ve yet to bed (it yet to be 11:30 PM here in Hawaii) and you’re already up and posting. I truly hope you’re getting a proper 8 hours, or you’ll be dead in less than a decade, which would be a shame, as we need you.

  10. 10.

    freelancer

    @asiangrrlMN:

    I’d normally say, start with his self-made first hour Sane Man, which was recently available on Netflix streaming, but I’ll forgive you if you start with the documentary made about him. Then if you can find Sane Man, dig it.

    Then listen to his four CD’s in chronological order.

    Then watch his Just for Laugh’s special Relentless in Montreal in 1991.

    Then watch or listen to the “Hicks Loses It” Chicago funny farm bootleg.

    Then listen to the Flying Saucer Tour CD followed by his album Salvation, where he was first becoming a rockstar in the UK.

    Then watch his UK standup special Revelations.

    Finally, watch or listen to his last show at Igby’s in SF in 1993, where you get to say goodbye to a master at the top of his game, as he knows he’s on the way out.

    Lastly, do a search for a bit only found on a bootleg from one of his UK tours about Charlie Hodge, an oft-forgotten member of Elvis’s entourage.

    Welcome to “You’re Wrong” Night! (I’m KILLING ME! Join me!)

  13. 13.

    JPL

    Two men were arrested in Tulsa. Hopefully they don’t claim that they were standing their ground.
    Happy Easter

  14. 14.

    kdaug

    @freelancer:

    If I’m wrong, Christ will surely burn all of your specific enemies in Hell.

    Wait, wait, wait – so the kid who beat me up in middle school, there’s a specific prayer I need to say to get him sent to Hell?

    I can just chant something and light some candles or whatever and he’s poof-gone’ed into Hell?

    I’d pour a little beer out in remembrance.

    Not much. But a little.

  15. 15.

    ornery_curmudgeon

    Yes, Charlie! Amen.

    The pharisee/corporate warmongering Right has built its house on sand, not the rock of Christ’s Word … the question is whether we will all be caught in the great fall of that house, or not.

  16. 16.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    Paraphrasing Richard Dawkins: All good Christians are atheists when it comes to Thor, Ba’al, and the Golden Calf. We atheists just go one god further. But, I do appreciate the tradition of a properly cooked leg of lamb and kids hunting for Easter eggs.

  17. 17.

    MattW

    Why is white chocolate considered a seasonal candy? It’s awesome. I’m going to be pissed this week when I can’t find any more white chocolate M&Ms (which are best when kept in the freezer).

  20. 20.

    bemused

    Scott Walker talked about his kind of religion on CBN’

    “And God’s abundance is always great, no matter what you do”.

  21. 21.

    Steve in DC

    People should stop tossing team six about. It was utterly horrible that their involvement in missions was made public, and it’s done a good deal to make many in the military even more hostile to the democrats, and this sort of shit just makes it worse. What’s next, we start talking about the ISA/GRAY FOX in public.

    Honestly, Obama should have taken credit for the kill and then shut the fuck up. This is a mess.

  22. 22.

    WereBear

    Renewal goes way back; since we lifted our heads and noticed winter doesn’t last forever.

    It is for everybody.

    And I feel for those despairing at the ones who run their religion; but they don’t own God.

    God is bigger than that.

  23. 23.

    Mustang Bobby

    We Quakers don’t celebrate Easter — every day is a holiday for us — so I expect to spend the day like every other First Day; reading the paper, doing the puzzle, going to meeting, and catching up on TiVo. Tonight I’ve been invited to Easter dinner with friends who don’t celebrate it any more than I do, but it’s an excuse to bake a ham and make the fixings.

    (My favorite counter-culture Easter card was a picture of the disciples outside the tomb announcing “Easter’s off; they found the body.”)

  24. 24.

    Steve in DC

    Easter and non of y’all are going to go with some home cooking on eggs?

    Fucking eggs sardou! Great dish.

  27. 27.

    the Conster (f/k/a Cat Lady)

    So since Feb. 20th – the day my youngest daughter got married – my mother died after a long illness, my father in law died after a short illness and my brother’s wife died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage last Sunday. Three funerals and a wedding, and two interments, the last of which was yesterday. I’m kind of burned out on the whole death/resurrection theme.

  29. 29.

    Lojasmo

    @Steve in DC:

    Will you kindly STFU and replace some hard drives or something. Jesus…every desk jockey in the military seems to have the chops to second guess the CIC when he’s a ni*CLANG*

  32. 32.

    JPL

    @NotMax: I’m not going to link to the article but somehow if I lost my home and all my belongings, I’d be a little upset.

    @the Conster (f/k/a Cat Lady): Not sure what to say but please take care of yourself. I’m sorry that you had to experience so much pain.

  34. 34.

    Bruce S

    @danielx:

    Nice that Little Richie Lowery saw fit to “part ways” with the scum Derbyshire for embarrassing him. More telling that he couldn’t find it in his tiny little soul to use the word “racism” and actually make a statement about it. As long as this conservative movement finds racism merely “maddening, outrageous, cranky, and provocative” or “outlandish” – some “line” to be “danced around” – or even “nasty and indefensible” – they are showing their hand as a safe haven for racism. This was pathetic – Lowery even touted Derbyshire’s book. I’m kind of surprised there wasn’t an Amazon link. This wasn’t a public shaming or excoriation over the most blatant racism. It was a reminder to “Ssshhhhh!”

  35. 35.

    RalfW

    @Bruce S:

    And how many weeks before Derbyshire’s gentle firing will become an example of the left run amok and having unfairly demanded his scalp?

    Depending on the venue, I’m sure it’s under way already. But as a Villager narrative, I’d give it three cocktail parties.

  36. 36.

    JPL

    @RalfW: Lowry sounded like a victim in his response. Oh Lordy me! How could I have known that the reputation of NR could be at stake by hiring a openly racist individual.

  37. 37.

    Palli

    So Don’t Ask Don’t Tell won’t be obedient enough either, Benedict XVI?

    Poor Lowery, he walks a tough tightrope. He has to be obvious enough to rabble-rouse the worker serfs but “intellectual” enough to spawn rationalization and false equivalency.

  42. 42.

    Schlemizel

    @MattW:
    More to the point, why is white chocolate considered chocolate? Seriously, you’re the first person I heard heard who actually likes the stuff.

  44. 44.

    the fugitive uterus

    HELL YES! Also, these little guys have a rather Easterish hue to their coats, it looks like lavender.

  46. 46.

    WyldPirate

    This thread needs moar Bertrand Russell:

    Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time. It is customary to suppose that, if a belief is widespread, there must be something reasonable about it. I do not think this view can be held by anyone who has studied history. Practically all the beliefs of savages are absurd.

  47. 47.

    yuninv

    What’s the first word Jesus said when he left the tomb?

    “Brains”

    Carry on…

  52. 52.

    Dr. Omed

    Posted on Tulsa shooting suspect Jake England’s Facebook wall last Thursday: ” Today is two years that my dad has been gone shot by a fucking nigger it’s hard not to go off between that and sheran I’m gone in the head. RIP . Dad and sheran I . Love and miss u I think about both of u every second of the day”

    Tulsa mayor Dewey Bartlett interviewed by Npr said it was too early to know if it was a hate crime.

  54. 54.

    Schlemizel

    @yuninv:
    My parents were shocked & scandalized when my older brother came home from seminary for Easter break with jokes he had learned.
    5 sheckles the skinny guy with the cross doesn’t make it up the next hill
    Jesus stops at an Inn, tosses 3 nails on the counter and say “Can you put me up for the night?”
    spreads arms out & mimics falling over to the side Damn beavers!
    A very long one about Jesus calling to John while on the cross & John having a fight to get to the foot of the cross. “What is it master?” “John, I can see your house from up here.”

    If this is the way that ministers talked in school what must they think?

  56. 56.

    WereBear

    @Schlemizel: Reminds me of the black humor of doctors.

    I love Jesus; as a teacher, as a conduit to the divine. He struggled with being an incredible human being… and being a human being.

  57. 57.

    Schlemizel

    Mike Wallace died – thats one tough news guy gone. No justice in this world that his kid is soaking in wingnut welfare on FAUX news. Maybe the tributes to his dads work will jar him toward decency

  59. 59.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Bago:

    You also get Bea Arthur wrestling a velociraptor.

    Obviously fake. No velociraptor in its right mind would ever try to mess with Maude.

  60. 60.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Schlemizel:

    I’ll bet the reflections on Mike Wallace, like those on Walter Cronkite, are but a fraction of the rending of garments that took place when the vile toady Russert kicked.

  61. 61.

    Schlemizel

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Yeah, for some reason Mike does not have as many friends in the DC illiterati as Timmy did.

    Afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted worked for Mike. Timmy got it backwards as was rewarded for the change.

  62. 62.

    magurakurin

    @Schlemizel: hmmm. Pretty sure there are people who like white chocolate besides MattW and myself. White chocolate is delicious. Have you ever been to Brugge, Belgium. The chocolate of all kinds is unreal there. If you have ever eaten white chocolate in Belgium and still hate it, then you just aren’t a candy lover I would say. Not that that is bad, but white chocolate is not a thing that deserves to be slagged.

    I get chocolate from The Old Chocolate House every year for Valentines they ship anywhere Their white chocolate is fantastic.

  65. 65.

    jeffreyw

    Th[is] Old Chocolate House

    I think the best episode was the one where they rehabbed a case of Vietnam War era Tropical Chocolate Bars. It still tasted horrid, but it did get a fresh new look.

  68. 68.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Schlemizel: @WereBear:

    RIP Mike Wallace one of the great true investigative journalists.

    And I agree his son is a sorry pale shadow, but from what I can tell (clips, occasional news items, because Bilby knows I don’t watch FNC) he is among the more honest of Ailes’ hires. I realize that’s a pretty low bar.

    But he has my sympathies today.

  69. 69.

    Schlemizel

    @magurakurin:
    Fantastic it may be, chocolate it is not.

    I have had Belgian, German, Swiss, French and American chocolate but rarely white. Its fine I guess but its not really chocolate is it? With so much good chocolate in the world why white? You could take cocoa butter and mix it with grape juice and call it purple chocolate but its not really chocolate.

  70. 70.

    the Conster (f/k/a Cat Lady)

    @Dr. Omed:

    If his dad had been shot by a white guy, he’d be going around shooting random white people, right? RIGHT?

  71. 71.

    the fugitive uterus

    Mike Wallace talked about his bipolar disorder and suicide attempt. God bless him for having the guts to do that and for bringing awareness about mental illness and trying to take some of the stigma off of it.

    I try not to think about Chris Wallace being his son, but on occasion he can be alright.

  72. 72.

    the Conster (f/k/a Cat Lady)

    @Schlemizel:

    Also notable that Wallace interviewed every president but one – George W. Bush. I’m going to take a wild guess and say it wasn’t because Wallace didn’t ask.

  74. 74.

    A Humble Lurker

    @MattW:
    Hell. Yes. I adore white chocolate, and I’m pissed I can’t find it nearly as often as milk chocolate (although I’ll gladly take the milk chocolate any day of the week).

    In middle school, I was sitting at a table at lunch and heard some boys behind me arguing about what girls like, and it was all kind of annoying. This one African American kid said something akin to ‘all the ladies love the chocolate’ and I turned around and said ‘Actually, I like white chocolate’ which made all the boys at the table go ‘ooh’ and then…get really confused. Still makes me smile.

  75. 75.

    the Conster (f/k/a Cat Lady)

    @Egg Berry:

    LOL. He was 93, so just about. Since Kennedy, though, so every president in my lifetime which is all that counts. ;)

  76. 76.

    BGK

    We had to euthanize my mother’s cat Josephine this morning. Apropos of noting just needed to share. Sitting on the lanai with my own cats on a stunning Eastern morning helps some.

  78. 78.

    the Conster (f/k/a Cat Lady)

    @BGK:

    So sorry. It’s so sad. My mom recently died a horrible prolonged agonizing death from Alzheimer’s, and I used to come home from visiting with her and promise my cats that I could never let them suffer as much as she was. You did the right thing, I’m sure, which is no comfort.

  82. 82.

    scav

    Not quite the one I’m looking for, but still Richard Vranch with Bunny for egg-and-chocolate-based spring festival. Oh, and Navy? If GSD and/or The Lord Our Bailing Pilot don’t have rank and serial number, I’m still left wondering what you’re going on about.

  84. 84.

    Hujo

    @the Conster (f/k/a Cat Lady):

    I had to put down a beloved 17-year old Rotty-Cattle-dog cross about a week before my wife died of cancer in great pain. When I got back from the vet I took her hand and said “wish we could have done the same for you sweetheart”

  87. 87.

    Roger Moore

    @Schlemizel:

    More to the point, why is white chocolate considered chocolate?

    Because it contains a huge amount of cocoa butter. If you don’t actually know what it is, why are you complaining about it?

  88. 88.

    MonkeyBoy

    The writers of the Bible were notorious prudes who never used words for penis or sex but always used euphemisms such as “lay with”. As far as we know, Jesus really could have been talking about washing guy’s penises.

    When biblical authors wanted to talk about genitals, they sometimes talked about “hands,” as in the Song of Solomon, and sometimes about “feet.” Coogan cites one passage in which a baby is born “between a mother’s feet”; and another, in which the prophet Isaiah promises that a punitive God will shave the hair from the Israelites’ heads, chins, and “feet.” When, in the Old Testament, Ruth anoints herself and lies down after dark next to Boaz—the man she hopes to make her husband—she “uncovers his feet.” A startled Boaz awakes. “Who are you?” he asks. Ruth identifies herself and spends the night “at his feet.”

  90. 90.

    Atticus Dogsbody

    The good ol’ Easter bilby. He’s been showing up for a few years now, but nobody pays attention to him. They’re all too distracted by a chocolate laden rabbit.

  94. 94.

    YellowJournalism

    White chocolate lover over here! I hate that Canada doesn’t have all the white chocolate options of candy bars that the US has. But I guess it evens out because of the free birth control.

  95. 95.

    Schlemizel

    @Roger Moore:
    Please see my comment about purple chocolate – if you can’t be bothered to read the comments why are you adding to them?

    snippy response for a snippy comment

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