Fatwas All Around!
Hey, I got one of those. Me and Tim. We got ours with a hot Aussie.
So, what you gotta ask yourself is … are you Fatwa-worthy?
You know you wanna be.
Here is my crime:
However, Nicole Kidman is hot
By Jules Crittenden/ Online Exclusive
Boston Herald City Editor
Thursday, August 17, 2006 – Updated: Sep 19, 2006 10:59 AM EST
I’ve been wondering if it is possible for me to describe exactly how much I don’t give a damn what actors think. Or rock stars.
I should state at the outset that when actors lend their celebrity to raise money for cancer research and similar causes, I think it’s wonderful.
On foreign policy, I just don’t give a damn. George Clooney has been almost as incensed about Iraq and the evils perpetrated by the Bush military junta, I mean administration, in the last few years as he was pre-911 about paparazzi paying attention to him. I don’t care.
Susan Sarandon and Barbra Streisand, amazingly, have stumped against Democratic presidential fodder Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman for their unforgiveable support for the war in Iraq. That, I cared about a little, because I am after all a tabloid newsman and it does have that “pigs aloft” quality to it. Ditto the Dixie Chicks, because everyone was running that naughty photo of them with the stories about them bashing Bush. Theirs is a special case. The Chicks, as a country act, have learned it isn’t wise to poop where you eat. Country fans didn’t appreciate their heartfelt peacenik blabbering.
Preachy Irish rocker Bono on third-world debt? Bono is loaded with cash. Hundreds of millions of our fan dollars. Maybe he should pay that debt off instead of coming after our tax dollars. I have appreciated his silence on Iraq, however. That’s a smart rocker. He still gets invited to the White House.
Tom Hanks feels we need to honor World War II vets. I agree with him. He seems like a nice and sincere guy. But I don’t really need Tom Hanks to tell me about that, even if he did survive some of the most vicious and bloody combat ever staged.
There are some exceptions to my ennui on this issue. When Sean Penn announced he was going to be a human shield in Baghdad back in 2003, I cared deeply. I thought this was a touching and appropriate use of stageflesh, and that he and all his fellow Hollywood activistas should place their bodies in front of as many innocent Iraqis as possible. War was coming, and in war, innocents often die. For this reason I applauded the entire human shield movement and was sorely disappointed when they all chickened out.
I also found it compelling when Sean decided he and his entourage were going to personally rescue Katrina victims, but they forgot to put the drain plug in their boat. I felt this made a very important statement about the role actors can play in important events. Lately, Sean has been playing the role of globe-trotting reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. This does little to restore any credibility to my sorely battered profession. But Sean makes a fascinating case study.This is what happens when a middle-aged man of moderate intelligence, stunted world experience and great emotional range wakes up and realizes his life has been about nothing.
There are other exceptions. Ronald Reagan, Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sonny Bono, Shirley Temple Black and Fred Thompson. They actually put themselves and their beliefs in front of the voters. I’m OK with that.
The problem with the gratuitous yammering is, actors and rock stars generally aren’t very bright. They are superficial. Their professional focus is on conveying emotion, whatever emotion the paycheck and the director demands at any given moment. They spend most of their time on stage, on movie sets, in Hollywood or in various vacation locales where the emphasis is not on reality. They are surrounded by staff whose jobs depend on keeping all mortal nuisances at bay. Presumeably, we’re supposed to care what they think, because we feel like we know these people, and they are everything we wish we could be. They say clever things on screen, look good and have money.
And war is bad. The tragic plight of innocents is important. These are easily grasped truths. Bitter experience shows us it is sometimes necessary to look beyond these immediate undeniable facts. This is a cruel truth. Foreign policy and war are extremely complex matters. Sometimes it has been that innocents are accidentally, tragically killed in the process of removing parties who purposefully have killed hundreds of thousands, or intended to do so. Sometimes those parties are directly responsible for the deaths of innocents when they hide and fire from among them.
This level of complexity is generally beyond the scope of the glitterati.
Yesterday, a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times by an A-list of actors denounced the killing of innocents in Lebanon and Israel. They laid the blame exactly where it belongs.
La-la luminaries Nicole Kidman, Michael Douglas, Danny DeVito, Dennis Hopper, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Don Johnson, James Woods, Kelly Preston, Patricia Heaton of “Everyone Loves Raymond,” William Hurt and 73 others said they are “pained and devastated by the civilian casualties in Israel and Lebanon caused by terrorist actions initiated by terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas.”
The amount of logic and empathy on display, the willingness to break from prevailing views that Israel’s act of self-defense was “disproportionate” and that Hezbollah should be allowed to fire from within civilian populations, is astonishing.
I still, by and large, don’t give a damn what actors think. But in this case, the pigs have taken flight. I have a prediction. More of them will emerge. Actors who think it’s cool to oppose murderous terrorist groups and have the totally cool sophistication to appreciate some level of complexity in world affairs. Actors who have the ability to look past the immediate emotional impulse, buck the cocktail party clucking, and transcend superficiality. This is something different, and I’m interested.
Besides, Nicole Kidman is hot.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:56 am Comments (22) on Tuesday, April 10, 2007
22 Responses to “Fatwas All Around!”
Leave a Reply
Trackback URLYou must be logged in to post a comment.
April 10th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Ah Jeez Jules-I come here for hard-hitting and insightful commentary on international and military affairs and now I’m going to be thinking about Nicole Kidman all day-especially that one scene in “Dead Calm”.
I mean, it wouldn’t be so bad on any normal day, but me and the wife have the week off for Easter and now I’m going to have that far-off, dreamy look in my eyes all day and she is going to be all like “what are you thinking about?” And I’m going to have to think up some convincing lie to distract her and try to casually bring up what we should do tonight like “Hey, want to rent a movie? I heard that ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ was really good.”
April 10th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Serendipity-AMC just showed an ad for “Moulin Rouge”.
April 10th, 2007 at 11:41 am
You filthy infidel! Your thoughts are impure. Very very dirty … exceedingly unclean …
uh … this “Peeking with Eyes Closed” film of which you speak, it is good? Cinematically, I mean. Not the forbidden parts, of course
April 10th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Can’t talk now, she’s back from her hair appointment.
Hi honey-you look really pretty!
April 10th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
My thoughts are very impure…..especially when it comes to Nicole Kidman. Yowsah!
April 10th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Bill’s Nibbles // Open Post — 2007.04.10
Note: I’m having some major problems posting at Bill’s Bites; I’ve submitted a Help Ticket but haven’t heard anything back from TypePad yet. Until I do I’m going to do things differently on this post than I normally do. I’ll
April 10th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Jules,
Yeah, I was so excited when I read that post. I went right over to the website that was issuing the fatwas and demanded one too. Actually, I asked if I could have a dozen or so, ’cause I have a lot of freinds and I wouldn’t want them to miss out and be jealous, like.
Sadly, they had some sort of lock on the comments so I couldn’t post. my comments. Kept saying there was an “error” when I hit the post button. I think I have a good idea where the real error is, but I’ll save that for another day. Stoooopid jihadi techno-nerds.
Respects,
April 10th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Holy Shit! Achmed, Ali and Farouk, stole Jules name and are posting with it. I show you my shoe bottom, you filthy goat lovers.
April 10th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
OH, I demand my own fatwa. Allah, SUCKS.
there, that should get me one.
April 10th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Man, I never got a fatwa….but I did have some people get stirred up by the HIG tell me they were going to kill me. Does that count?
April 10th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Who do I write to for a fatwa? I can point to hundreds of posts on various blogs that point to my horrid infidelity . . . er, well, you know what I mean. I’m a scantily clad female Islamofascist-hating atheist of Jewish heritage — an infidel of the first order!
And CavMed, you aren’t fooling anybody, least of all your wife.
April 10th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Dear saltydog,
Resume just reached cave. Lighting is bad here, like what I see. Big fatwa soon to come.
April 10th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Just in case you didn’t know: Eyes Wide Shut (er, “Peeking With Eyes Closed”) was Stanley Kubrick’s private fantasy with Nicole Kidman made film. Who said the director of a movie isn’t God? Otherwise, it was execrable.
I’ve already put in my request for a fatwa over at Rusty’s place. I insulted Islam, probably big time. If I disappear for good, you’ll know it worked.
April 10th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Checks to make sure that wife is busy watching American Idol.
Salty-scantily clad you say?
You aren’t, by any chance, a redhead are you?
Looks back at wife. Why is she suddenly scowling? Damned psychic females.
April 10th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
Bill’s Nibbles // Open Post — 2007.04.10
Please feel free to use this post for comments and trackbacks not related to other posts on the site. If you leave a trackback your post must include a link to this one and, as always, comments claiming the sun
April 10th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
Never got an official fatwa but I did get a strange phone call. Some idjit wanting to verify my name and address. The call came from Islamabad. That count?
April 10th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
That nitwit from I’bad needs to get a computer, Grimmy. Also, you should offer to sell him an Acme identity theft startup kit. $1000 initial investment, but he stands to earn $5000 a day upon completion of the course. While you’re at it, explain to him you’ve been looking for a reliable agent in Pakistan, because you have an extremely large pile of Pak rupes you need to transfer, and he’ll make 10 percent for doing nothing but setting up the account, but first …
April 10th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
Yeah, good ideas there Critt. If he calls again, I’ll hook him up.
The call did serve to remind me that it was time to do the clean and maintain drill with my personal defensive arsenal though. So, not a bad deal.
If I have the first round in my riot gun as #9 bird shot, think that’ll stand up in court as a good faith attempt at non lethal?
April 11th, 2007 at 12:11 am
Yeah, Cav, I am a redhead. And I have green eyes. And in my day I could have made you weep. Unfortunately, my day was some time ago. My hubby thinks I’m still hot, though. ;^)
April 18th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
[...] Fatwas All Around! @ Jules Crittenden [...]
July 15th, 2007 at 12:10 am
[...] Fatwas All Around! @ Jules Crittenden [...]
October 12th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
[...] Fatwas All Around! @ Jules Crittenden [...]