1) If Edward Gory had done the paperback adaptation of The Trouble With Tribbles…

2)  Expect to see More Of This as right wing theocrat Howard Ahmanson continues to build his version of the Episcopal Church in America via Africa…

Trinity Preparatory School canceled its opening-night performance of La Cage aux Folles on Friday at the request of Bishop John Howe, head of the Diocese of Central Florida.

"His request was not to stage the production, and we decided to honor his request," said Headmaster Craig Maughan, who called off Friday’s and tonight’s planned performances. "I met with the cast and all the people involved in the production and announced the decision and explained it to them."

…

Howe, a leader of conservative bishops in the Episcopal Church, USA, has been vocal on issues of sexual orientation and in 2003 strongly opposed the election of an openly gay man as bishop of New Hampshire. That election, and the issue of blessing same-sex unions, has created a rift in the Episcopal Church.

I can appreciate Howe’s position regarding La Cage.  The play has two central and very flamboyant gay characters in it.  But the play is not about homosexuality.  It’s about what happens when people are forced into pretending they’re something they’re not, to appease the cheapshit prejudices of others.  It’s about the hypocrisy of the self righteous bigot.  And even more unforgivably…it’s a comedy.  It laughs at hypocrites.  And as every pinched faced autocrat knows, it’s dangerous to allow students to laugh at hypocrisy.

3)  The Science-Fiction Writers of America are to book lovers, what the RIAA is to music lovers… 

4)  Fred Clark ponders the little everyday mysteries of life…

I don’t know where, exactly, my copies of The New Yorker are printed, but I imagine it’s pretty far away. Yet somehow, each week, the magazine travels from the printer, to the warehouse, to the post office it is shipped from, then to my post office and, finally, to my personal mailbox. And then always, each week, as I take the new issue out of my mailbox, two subscription blow-in cards fall out onto the floor of the lobby.

I cannot figure out whether: A) the cards somehow know they’ve arrived at their final destination and refuse to fall out before then, or B) The New Yorker initially stuffs my magazine with dozens of these blow-in subscription cards and the others have all fallen out en route.

They aren’t stapled into the magazines of course, because the marketing departments figured out that when they fall out it makes you pay attention to them.  Which really annoys me when they’re falling out of magazines I’m already subscribing to.  And doubly so when it’s my monthly copy of Consumer Reports.

Warning…Fred’s blog post there also contains major earwormage.  As you value your mental peace and quiet, Don’t Start That YouTube Video!  Ask me how I know… 

5)  It seems it’s hard to teach respect for diversity in some Catholic Schools these days… 

BROOMFIELD – It started with a simple question and ended with at least one student chanting "white power" in a classroom.

It happened Tuesday in a classroom at Holy Family High School, the Catholic school that sits at the corner of 144th Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard in Broomfield.

The classroom discussion started with the question: Why do students need to learn Spanish?

According to the Archdiocese of Denver, the conversation soon became about immigration and it turned ugly.

"It became a heated discussion and some rhetoric was used that was inappropriate for the classroom," said Jeanette DeMelo, spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Denver.

At least one e-mail sent to 9NEWS said that at least one student started a chant of "white power" and some said that all Mexicans should go back to Mexico.

There were Hispanic students in the classroom at the time.  They asked to leave the classroom when the bigot explosion erupted.  The school says they were allowed to leave.  The students say they were forced to stay in the classroom and endure being trashed by the other kids.

The Archdiocese says they did not expect something like this to happen in their system, which has embraced its Hispanic students. Archbishop Charles Chaput has come forward several times in support of the Mexican community.

Right.  Like you’ve embraced your gay students too I’ll bet.  You teach contempt for one group of people, and next thing you know contempt just takes wing and flies wherever it damn well pleases, doesn’t it?  Who’s your Jesus Charles…the one that loves all the children, or the one that loves some of them more then others?

6)  Or maybe it’s just money that Jesus loves…

Disgraced pastor Ted Haggard won’t be fundraising for a Monument nonprofit run by a sex offender, won’t be ministering to anyone and needs to get a job, his overseers said in a statement released this afternoon.

"Mr. Haggard’s solicitation for personal support was inappropriate," his church supervisors said in the statement.

The statement came one day after the four-member team of ministers responsible for overseeing the spiritual restoration of Haggard met with him in Phoenix.

Last week, Haggard had e-mailed a KRDO-TV reporter in Colorado Springs, asking that supporters send contributions to Families with a Mission, a Monument non-profit run by Paul Huberty…

Who upon further investigation, turned out to be… 

…a twice convicted sex offender.

In his fundraising solicitation, Haggard said he was looking for people who would be willing to support him and his wife, Gayle, monthly for two years while they sought to obtain their counseling degrees from University of Phoenix.

Haggard had also told KRDO that he and his family were planning to move into the Phoenix Dream Center, a halfway house, where he and his wife, Gayle, would minister to the "broken people" there.

The overseers said Wednesday that Haggard will not be moving into the Dream Center.

"It was never the intention of the Dream Center that Mr. Haggard would provide any counsel or other ministry," wrote the overseers.

"Mr. Haggard will not be moving in or working with the Dream Center. He will not be doing any ministry. He will be seeking secular employment to support himself."

Dan Savage over at SLOG sums it all up…

Take a bow, Dave Coffman. It was Coffman who discovered that Haggard had had directed his supporters to send him money via a convicted sex offender, and it was this revelation—which we broke here on Slog—that brought the wrath of Haggard’s overseers down on his head. Good work, Dave!

Oh, man. What a great day. I fucking live for the day when every asshole out there bilking gullible Christians out of their hard-earned dough—from the Nazi pope on down—is told the same damn thing: Get a fucking job, you parasite.

I’d just like to add that goes double for the folks who run PFOX, Exodus, Evergreen, and other assorted ex-gay ministries everywhere…and…especially you John Smid.  Get A Fucking Job, You Goddamned Parasite!