Out from the kitchen to the bedroom to the hallway
Your friend apologizes, he could see it my way
He let the contents of the bottle do the thinking
Can’t shake the devil’s hand and say you’re only kidding

So these are Jewish leprechauns?

you have an unclosed italics tag somewhere.

Isn’t this similar to the line of reasoning Vox Day put forward, i.e., Jews are responsible for anti-Semitism, because they’re such assholes and have it coming.

yeah, this is where the party ends, Gibson.

I can’t believe Mr. Combover Pocketprotector can’t imagine that Abraham Foxman knows what he’s talking about, nor does he have the sensitivity to imagine how offensive and hurtful Gibson’s remarks would be to a Jew. No, it’s all about how Jesus forgave Mel, and Abe should be more like Jesus.

Might I attempt a shorter?

Gaynor: “Hebe Jewman just proves what anti-semites these Christ killers are!”

And, Awwww, Mel Gibson has a disease, and that disease is alcoholism, and he “suffered a relapse,” so we need to forgive the vile filth about Jews that he holds in his mind at all times, because it only comes out his mouth when he’s drunk. Now, if Mel Gibson were a liberal atheist, he should be stripped of his US citizenship for saying those things, but since he’s not, we should feel sorry for him and forgive him.

Love a man who can quote They Might Be Giants!

And if pointing out and condemning anti-semitism is encouraging it, then what are all the wingnuts who rant about teh gays doing?

His column title is right however: Abe Foxman is NOT encouraging Mel Gibson.

I’ve always thought the biggest barrier to interfaith harmony and understanding was those anti-Semites in the Anti-Defamation League. Yup, they encourage real Jesus-loving Americans to hate Jews by, uh, appearing in public, and standing up for themselves and stuff.

Mel apologized because he realized that his career could be in the shitter. And we all know that drinking kills inhibitions, so you end up saying what you really think.

The question is, if Mel Gibson performed an abortion while drunk, would the wingnuts still be defending him? What if he got gay married? Converted to Islam? How far would the director of Passion of the Christ have to go to lose his Fundie Human Shields?

it’s OK to say vile shit when you’re drunk.

Yep. This has always been THE guiding principal in my life. And dammit, it’s served me well over the years!!

mikey

“His tirade finally reveals his true self and shows that his protestations during the debate over his film ‘The Passion of the Christ,’ that he is such a tolerant, loving person, were a sham”

Ding! We have a winner! That’s the crux of the biscuit (tm Zappa), the nub of the gist (tm Monty Python). During that whole POTC flap, how many times did we hear “Mel’s a nice guy! He loves everyone! He *can’t* be an anti-Semite!”? So, he *is* a raging asshole anti-Semite, who knew? Oh wait, the people who have worked him with since Mad Max, that’s who.

As usual with the schreeching monkeys of the right, they were wrong, wrong, wrong.

I listen to a class rock station at work and they had listeners call in about this during the morning drive. I changed the station after the third “It’s all a big Jewish conspiracy to discredit Christian Mel!” type caller.

Does Gaynor know his hair looks like that?

Fucking leprechauns . . . the leprechauns are responsible for all the wars in the world.

What are you looking at, sweet tits?

James McMurtry:

“I hadn’t intended to break the rules.
The whiskey don’t make liars
it just makes fools.
So, I didn’t mean to say it,
but I meant every word I said.
Too long in the Wasteland
must have gone to my head.”

Too Long in the Wasteland.

Yeah, that Foxman is an ass. A bunch of nazis and ustasha said they were sorry for systematically slaughtering jews and he just wouldn’t let by gones be by gones.

Damn you Haze for Horse, I was going to submit that very couplet by the great James McMurtry when I noticed you posted it. True words of wisdom.

I have been drunk more times in my life than I care to admit. Hell in the last two weeks. But you know what — not a single anti-semitic slur came out of my mouth during any of those times.

it’s OK to say vile shit when you’re drunk.

Yep. This has always been THE guiding principal in my life. And dammit, it’s served me well over the years!!

I know (or at least think) you’re crackin’ wise, mikester, but it was that was one of the very reasons I gave up the demon in the bottle. I was, at various times, a violent and mouthy drunk, and regularly talked my ass into situations that worked out very, very badly.* I work under the theory that booze doesn’t really make you say or do things you’d never in your right mind do. Rather, it allows to say all the dumb shit that bounces through your brain and do all the stupid stuff you don’t have the sack to do sober. Thought to myself, “Hey, I’m an asshole when I’m shit-hammered, and it’s getting my ass kicked and/or dumped on a regular basis. Maybe I should study on that some.”**

I don’t know if Mel Gibson is an anti-Semite or not. I understand his old man is a fruitcake on the matter, but frankly, I haven’t given Gibson much thought since Lethal Weapon 3 apart from the whole “Passion” kerfluffle. I do know, however, if you’re a dumb enough peckerhead to get drunk, drive and then have the audacity to talk smack to the cops, you deserve whatever smackdown you get.

* Do not, repeat, do not tell a punk rocker his ex-girlfriend, who you’re currently plowing, said he has a small dick and that his band sucks. Especially when he’s surrounded by, like, a half-dozen buddies who don’t like your long-haired smart ass anyway. If you ever find yourself in that situation, that is.

** Now I just smoke pot and I like to think I’m a much mellower cat for the entire journey. Course, it may just be the weed, but at the very least, I don’t have to apologize for things I don’t remember doing anymore. Which is nice, you have no idea.

Can you imagine what’d happen if Mike had to defend some guy accused of sexual harassment in court? “But your honor, the woman told my client to stop groping her breasts, which only encouraged him to do it more! Can’t you see that she brought this whole thing on herself?�

That does happen, sort of. Some places I’ve worked, I’ve had it heavily, HEAVILY implied that if I made a fuss about sexist behaviour, well, I have only myself to blame if the guys (I am often the only woman) decided they hated me and didn’t want to work with me because I couldn’t take a “joke.”

“Because they were Jews. Or gay. Or gay Jews who had filthy yarmulke sex.â€?

Umm, do you sell videos? Just asking.

Finally!
I’ve been waiting forever to use this couplet:

Some praise at Morning what they blame at Night;
But always think the last Opinion right.

Alexander Pope – An essay on criticism

Thanks Mel!

Will we get a revised column from Gaynor now that even Gibson has said his “reasoning” is full of shite?

1) anti-Semitism is a sin and thus to be avoided, not indulged in, and (2) Mr. Gibson, an alcoholic who admittedly suffered a relapse, does NOT encourage anti-Semitism when he is sober and, as a vile ranting of a drunken man, any anti-Semitic remark he made are not to be taken as divine revelation conveyed through Mr. Gibson.

Woah. 1) I love the way anti-semitism isn’t bad because it dehumanises Jews and thereby encourages violence against them and we all know where that leads, but because it’s a sin. 2) Does this mean that if Gibson had been sober when he said “Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world” it might have been a divine revelation?

So anti-semitism is a sin that should not be indulged in? WTF??? Is it like having too many scoops of ice cream or yelling at someone who really annoys you? Maybe instead of repressing his anti-semitism so that it can burst out of his chest like an alien every time he hits the sauce, Mel should get an education. You know, talk to all of the Jewish friends he says he has.

Also, Gaynor has the absolute longest biography at the end of his article that I have ever seen. I mean, write a book about your childhood while you are at it.

Because they were Jews. Or gay. Or gay Jews who had filthy yarmulke sex.

Congrats, Brad! That’s a sexual perversion I have neither seen in person nor done myself. And there aren’t many of those.

Well, Ginger, to be fair– the reasons you state is why anti-Jewishness is a sin, though I do wonder what reasoning makes him feel guilty, if any.
Honestly? I hope he’s sincere about the apology, but I can’t know what’s in his heart, so :shrug:.
Sometimes people need an ugly incident like this to see why then need to confront themselves; some do, some just crawl in even deeper.

…It won the “hearts and minds” of “good” people….

Clearly, winning over “good” hearts and minds is easier than winning over the other types.

And that is quite a word – ‘good’. Seems like it ought to be next to cleeaasnliineess.

Will we get a revised column from Gaynor now that even Gibson has said his “reasoning� is full of shite?

Also from that link:

Meanwhile, ABC announced it had canceled a planned miniseries about the Holocaust that it was developing with Gibson’s Icon Productions. …

ABC, in announcing the cancellation of the Holocaust project, said in a short statement that since ”it has been nearly two years and we have yet to see the first draft of a script, we have decided to no longer pursue this project with Icon.”

What does ABC mean by “script”? Mel figured, you know, since the Holocaust didn’t really happen, the miniseries wouldn’t need any “characters”, “plot”, “settings” or that sort of thing.

Oh, Dan Someone, you are my hero.

best.
lyric.
grab.
ever.

Does Gaynor know his hair looks like that?

He looks like one of those guys who always has a sheen of sweat on his forehead, no matter what the weather is like or what he’s been doing. (In fact, he seems to have that sheen in his picture.)

… Okay, I just looked at his bio. He was born in 1949?? How old is that picture? He looks to be no more than thirty. I also note that there is no mention of a wife or family. Wonder why?

He… proceeded to give much more encouragement to anti-Semitism that Mr. Gibson might have last Friday while inebriated, by using the unfortunate incident to disrespect “The Passion of the Christ.â€?

I was working myself into a righteous state of language-police fury about Gaynor’s grammar, for although the war against ‘disrespect-as-a-verb’ was lost long ago, I’m a dead-ender on the topic. Can’t he just say “Yo! That Abe Foxman was dissing my homie Gibson!” Then you could photoshop a baseball cap on his head and a graffiti-covered wall in the background, and I would be happy again.

But any complaint from me would give him much more encouragement.

Fucking leprechauns . . . the leprechauns are responsible for all the wars in the world.

What are you looking at, sweet tits?

Laughed out loud, read the rest of the comments, went back up, read it again, laughed out loud again. Nice.

it’s OK to say vile shit when you’re drunk.

Oh! And when you’re Mel Gibson. Did I forget to mention that part?

Does this mean that Mel isn’t going to do his movie about the Maccabees then?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3555161.stm

Fucking Maccabees, they grab all the best parking spaces outside my house. Brad, you’re not a Maccabee, are you?

“Shorter Michael Gaynor: it’s OK to say vile shit when you’re drunk.”

Shit, you mean it’s not ok? Because for years, I used alcohol as an excuse to say all kinds of stuff! And it was fun!

You know, it’s just as well I can’t drink anymore.

Does this mean that Mel isn’t going to do his movie about the Maccabees then?

A movie that glamorises a bunch of nationalists who rebel against the massive military might of an empire, and eventually win by guerilla tactics and sheer endurance… No, I can’t see any problem in that.

Fucking Maccabees, they grab all the best parking spaces outside my house.
That Scottish sense of humour is too subtle for me. Maccabees, MacCabbies, it only just sank in.

any anti-Semitic remark he made are not to be taken as divine revelation conveyed through Mr. Gibson.

but a movie interpreting the Bible made by Mr. Gibson SHOULD be taken as divine revelation. That is just how God works.

Well, Ginger, to be fair– the reasons you state is why anti-Jewishness is a sin
Not really, those are the reasons it is wrong. It’s a “sin” because somebody is convinced big daddy in the sky said it’s wrong. The difference gets to the crux of why we can’t deal with the religious right: they believe morality is prescriptive, that right and wrong are based on rules rather than the outcome of actions.

Does Mr Gibson plan to apologize for the sexist remarks, as well? Or was “sugar tits” a perfectly okay thing to say?

Sidhe, c’mon. “Sugar tits” is an anti – semitic slur. It’s well known that the Jews used to control the sugar trade and women would offer their tits in exchange, hence the expression Sugar – tits as a slur. What, you never heard that? Hmm. Wonder if that has anything to do with the fact I JUST MADE IT UP!!

mikey

You should see my new drag review where I spin around like Kate Bush but sing “katyusha, katyusha, katyusha-ya-ya.” It was a big hit with my friend Cher Gaza, who sings “Haifa Breed.”

There is something to be said for attempting to avoid acting the stereotype whenever possible. Sadly, the “jew that wants his pound of flesh” is a stereotype and there ARE going to be Christians who will see the apology as a “Christian” act of confession that was rebuffed by Unchristian Jews.

On the other hand, what makes Jew-hatred distinct from most other predjudice is that the Jews get blamed for everything – even things that are contradictory. Other racial stereotypes are relatively consistent, for example blacks are stereotyped consistently as specifically dumb and/or ill-disciplined, almost never as cunning manipulators behind brilliant plots. Jews, however, get blamed for being behind BOTH World Capitalism AND World Communism. When they are “stingy” they get blamed for being “covetous” but when they are generous they get blamed for trying to “buy” affection. So I feel Foxman, because I understand how it feels when you reach a point where you think “They WANT to hate me, so they will hate me no matter what I do…so fuck it”.

The worst thing Mel ever did was make “The Passion of the Christ.” I could forgive the blatant (but obviously heartfelt) anti-Semitism if it had been a good movie. I want to see it dubbed into English like a 1960s Hercules movie, with funny voices. That would be fun, and it would make up for the excrutiating two and a half hours I spent in the theater when it first came out.

Is there a Web site called melgibsonisanasshole.com? Because, God knows, there should be.

But please know from my heart that I am not an anti-Semite. I am not a bigot. Hatred of any kind goes against my faith.

Does anyone else think that he sounds like the stereotype of the “PC racist” who holds racist opinions but, having been taught that ‘ Racism is wrong’, cannot bring themselves to admit, even to themselves, that ‘I am a racist”.

There is something to be said for attempting to avoid acting the stereotype whenever possible. Sadly, the “jew that wants his pound of flesh� is a stereotype and there ARE going to be Christians who will see the apology as a “Christian� act of confession that was rebuffed by Unchristian Jews.

The problem is, the Jewish people have ALL the stereotypes now. If we avoid the Shylock legacy, we fall under an entirely different stereotype that they’ll hate us for just as much.

So, yeah, fuck ’em.

And the Passion sucked prison dick.

The passion of Mel rears its ugly head via the bottle? What’s his dad’s excuse?

Just wanted to restate for the record:

Alcohol does not make you schizophrenic.
Alcohol does not make you believe crazy shit.
Alcohol does not make you tell lies.
Alcohol does not make you want things you don’t normally want.
Alcohol does not make you hate things you don’t normally hate.

All alcohol does is lower your inhibitions, forget your standards of etiquette, and pay more attention to your own desire and less to the desires of others.

A guy who gets drunk and turns into sleazy Mr Grabby-Hands is not acting out of character. He is acting how he wants to act while sober, albeit perhaps on a subconscious level, but does not because of social conditioning, peer approval, not breaking the law, not hurting people’s feelings, etc. Deep inside, he’s always sleazy Mr Grabby-Hands.

Maybe Mel only spews anti-Semitic bile when drunk, but inside he’s always an anti-Semite, even while sober. He’s just good at hiding it, is all, maybe even from himself.

Trouble is, booze makes us want to stop hiding. It makes us arrogant and proud, yes, even proud of those things of which we whould be most ashamed.

Speaking of the Passion, this is so wrong, but really funny.

“Passion Plays” almost by definition are anti-Semitic. They were used by governments in the middle ages to work local populations into a froth so that the locals would take it upon themselves to drive out any annoying populations of Jews in the area. The main reason lesser nobility had to be “annoyed” with Jews is because they often owed money to Jewish merchants – Christians were forbidden to loan each other money with interest (it’s a sin – it’s in the Bible!), but Jews were exempt from this prohibition.

Passion plays depicted the execution of Jesus as taking place due to the instigation of Satanic, blood-crazed Jews, who bore direct responsibility for his death. They usually show one of the Roman characters placing Jews under a “blood-curse” for all time because of the responsibility they bear.

And the charming thing about Gibson’s movie is that last little (completely historically inaccurate, might I add) bit about the blood curse is in his film. When one of the Jewish groups to preview the film complained about it, he removed the subtitles – but the dialogue is still there.

And Mel Gibson is somehow not an anti-Semite. Right.

The only Passion Play I’ve ever enjoyed was the Jethro Tull album of 1974.

One of those Very Long Concept Albums, but worth a listen.

Other racial stereotypes are relatively consistent

Really? Like ‘Mexicans are lazy’ and ‘I’d wish they’d stop coming over here and taking all our jobs’?

—

Jilian:

Sort of right. The top-down model of antisemitism probably doesn’t work well, and passion plays are far from the most virulent antisemitic medieval Xian works. On the other hand, antisemitism is a key engine of Mariolatry: see John of Garland’s Stella Maris for a paradigmatic example. The worst antisemitic stories were the ritual murder charge (originates in the mid 12th c., either in the Rhine Valley or in Norwich) and the Host Desecration charge (13th c.), neither or which were concocted by the “government.” Can’t quite recall who came up the the HD charge (think Miri Rubin’s Gentile Tales: The Narrative Assault on Late-Medieval Jews should tell you), but the R. M. charge likely derives from monks (see JJ Cohen’s “The Flow of Blood in Medieval Norwich,” Speculum 79 (2004): 26-65 and follow his bib if you need more). If there’s any government-sponsored antisemitism, it’s coin-clipping, which isn’t limited to Jews, but, in England, Jews were the primary group charged with it, and were executed in great numbers by Henry III and Edward I.

Christians did loan each other money with interest. How do you think Northern Italy got so rich? In England, The monks were the big moneylenders in the 12th c., as were “native” Anglo-Saxon merchants, and the richest moneylender in England in the late 12th c. was William Cade, a Xian. When Henry II ruined them, the Jews stepped into the place. Yes, the Crown often used Jewish debts to break the kneecaps, so to speak, of the lesser nobility, which certainly led to the York massacre of 1190 (that and the fact that there was a vacuum of authority, since Richard I had just left on crusade, and it wasn’t in Richard’s interest that ‘his’ Jews be killed). But that’s not necessarily linked directly to religious antisemitism or, especially, passion plays, since, iirc, none of the evidence for English passion plays predates the expulsion of Jews in 1290. As for the Continent, not sure.

David Nirenburg’s Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages is a good place to get a methodological overview, while Jeremy Cohen’s Living Letters of the Law is probably the best book in English right now on the discursive history of medieval antisemitism. The Rubin and JJ Cohen above are also useful.

Do I do this for a living? Why yes I do.

I’d never heard about the “blood curse.” The idea is ridiculous, not least because it’s superstition. That is patently incongruous with Christianity. Unless God said it, dude, there isn’t any curse. “Some Roman”‘s saying it does not imply the will of God. If Mel put it in his movie, subtitles or no, or any Christian believes it or thinks it justifies anything, that just shows them all to be fools.

p.s. I am an agnostic, so my use of the word God is contextual.

Since when has Christianity been “incongruous with” superstition?

I’d never heard about the “blood curse.� The idea is ridiculous, not least because it’s superstition. That is patently incongruous with Christianity. Unless God said it, dude, there isn’t any curse. “Some Roman�’s saying it does not imply the will of God. If Mel put it in his movie, subtitles or no, or any Christian believes it or thinks it justifies anything, that just shows them all to be fools

Lucy, I suspect the phrase “His blood be on us and on our children” (Matthew xxvii:25) is what this is referring to. A spot more research would be a good idea. Ridiculous, yes, but it is in the Bible.

To sum it all up in the shortest terms:

“In vino veritas.”

That’s all, folks!

Ed

Excuse me, but even if he says it in the Bible, “some Roman guy” (loosely quoting the phrase “one of the Roman characters” above) is not the same as the “recorded” word of God.

Oaths, superstitions, or any form of shamanism is incongruous with Christianity as it is taught–for example, as it was to me.

The Passion would have won an Academy Award for Best Picture if the characters had been portrayed as monkies.

TURN OFF THE FUCKING ITALICS!

Ah, a Grumpy Medievalist. Just the person
Karl, how do you feel about Carlo Ginzburg, and his book Ecstasies? As I recall it, in the first section he argued that one particular pogrom (of 1321) and one particular antisemitic libel (they poison wells to spread the Black Death!) were indeed top-down phenomena. He suggested that the French authorities started off by applying the libel against lepers — in order to close down the leper communities and confiscate their endowments — then moved on to other vulnerable minorities. Is his thesis accepted by other historians?

Apologies to the Sadly,Nauts, who might not share my fascination with the topic, but the opportunity to ask a medievalist seldom comes up. I don’t often meet one at the pub (it is too full of Dutch academics and squirrels).

There should be a regular column. “Ask Mr. Mediaeval!”

It’s the Jews who are responsible for all the stuck italics tags in the world!
/Gibson

Have the Jews ever considered? it is the devil who tells them they are “The Chosen People” to justify thier selfishness, greed and excludeion for all others and thus provoke thier own “Holocost”. English Athiest, who knows the devils Best Jewish Trick. May your children always be Safe, its the adults whos Conciet and intellegence, that leaves much to be desired.