PopeMobile Implications

I just saw Cars 2 - which really should have been called Larry the Cable Guy As a Tow Truck has James Bond-ish Globetrotting Adventures, but hey, even I realize that's a little too big to fit on the marquee at the Multi-plex. Besides, the target audience for this merchandizing bonanza is having a hard time recognizing the letters, in that order, and that giant number after those letters in the first place.

I went in expecting the 'worst' Pixar movie - and realized what it was, and why it existed, and that was to sell more bed sheets at Target this summer. I mean, it's been a few years since the last one, and there's a whole new batch of four year olds who might not have a Lightning McQueen bookbag for pre-K this year. I can imagine the Disney executives at a board meeting applying pressure on the Pixar team to ramp up Cars 2 in order to beat out the competitor car-people-robot Transformers 3 heart-and-mind smash fest in the playground. I mean, really, there isn't room for two sets of car-cartoons in the prepubescent male pop culture war, is there?

So, other than the graphic violence of boat people, and spy cars - it was still a fun and exciting story that complemented Doc Hollywood Re-told by Anthromorphic Computer Modeled Vehicles For Sale. Er, sorry, the first Cars.

The one thing that stuck out like a sore thumb though, were a couple references to religion. There's a Pope Car and a Pope Mobile. We even see him... and Larry the Tow Truck even asks, "Is the Pope Mobile Catholic?" Funny stuff. Right?

But what does that imply?

It implies that there was a Christ Car.

Now you have to ask, "What would Christ drive?" The only thing I can think of is a donkey. And he really only rode a donkey twice - once as a child fleeing his homeland to avoid Herod's wrath (Depending on which Gospel's timeline you're reading/believing at the moment) and when he entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. And since there's no motorcycles in Cars land -- and the first non-animal drawn single passenger vehicle would have been Italian designed and wind driven. The first was Guido da Vigevano in 1335. It was a windmill type drive to gears and thus to wheels. Vaturio designed a similar vehicle which was also never built. Later Leonardo da Vinci designed a clockwork driven tricycle with tiller steering and a differential mechanism between the rear wheels. But that's still 1330's...

So, what was the Christ Car? Do we have to assume that we have to wait until the development of the internal combustion engine to name the Christ Car?

I wonder if there's a Passion of the Christ Car - and he's either impaled on a Spindel in Berwyn Illinois or was thrown into a trash compactor? Do Car Catholics worship a spike or a cube? I'm going with the Spindel since it was located on Route 66 and ties in with the previous film.

So now there's another problem - there's a Car God. Is it the Battlestar Galactica 'God' or is it the robots that built the Cars in the first place, or does it go deeper? Maybe they're all Deists, as it would fit the story better -- but they're not. Maybe there are a few of them that believe that the hairless monkeys are actually running everything? Maybe those are the angels and demons?

Huge honk and nod to Cyroaque Lamar's Sweet Edsel Jesus, the implications that the Pope Car in Cars 2 suggests... as my inspiration to see the film and expand on the humor you originally started with.

Your Fresh Baby, Sir

Ah, the warmth of this sweet baby's soul shall sustain my life force for another hour... good... goooood!

Atheist Extremists, Nazis, and the Pope

Pope arrives in Britain warning of 'atheist extremism'.

The Pope equates atheists and Nazis.

"Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live. I also recall the regime’s attitude to Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives. As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a 'reductive vision of the person and his destiny.'"~Pope

Wow, an ex-Nazi who runs the world largest pedophile ring, promotes the spread of AIDS and an unsustainable population explosion by refusing to allow his followers to wear a rubber has the audacity to call people who don't believe in his invisible sky god, and make prayers to the secondary characters they call Saints "extremists".

What an asshole!

I'm afraid, there's a tad bit of dis-information, or fuzzy memory there, oh, infallible one? Nazis weren't extreme atheists. In fact, a large number of them were Christian. Ratzinger was certainly around to know that. And as for eradicating God from society? The opposite, actually.

"We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."~ Adolf Hitler, Speech in Berlin, October 24, 1933

Ooops. Look, say what you will about the Nazis - but they weren't Atheists. Come on, Pope? Don't you remember? I mean, you were one of them!

The Vatican Endorses Blues Brothers

When Jake and Elwood Blues, said they were on a mission from God, the Catholic Church apparently took them at their word.

On the 30th anniversary of the film's release, "L'Osservatore Romano," the Vatican's official newspaper, called the film a "Catholic classic" and said it should be recommended viewing for Catholics everywhere.

The film was based on a skit from "Saturday Night Live." In the story, Jake and Elwood -- played by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, respectively -- embark on the John Landis cocaine-fueled comedy where blowing up lots of stuff is hilarious, concerts, car chases, clashes with the police and neo-Nazi groups, and attempts at revenge from a spurned lover, all, ostensibly, to raise money for the church-run orphanage where they grew up.

But aside from a brief appearance from Kathleen Freeman as a wrist-slapping nun referred to as "The Penguin" and the brothers' periodic claim that they were on a mission from God, spirituality does not play a significant role in the film. Those crazy priests must really believe Jake's word.

In addition to Belushi and Aykroyd, the film featured an all-star cast including musicians James Brown, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, John Lee Hooker, and Chaka Khan, in addition to noted actors John Candy, Carrie Fisher, Charles Napier, and Henry Gibson, and cameo roles for Frank Oz, Steven Spielberg, Landis, Mr. T, and Paul Reubens.

With the recommendation, "The Blues Brothers" joins the list of dozens of films recommended by Catholic authorities that includes Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments," "Jesus of Nazareth" from Franco Zeffirelli," Mel Gibson's "The Passion of The Christ," Victor Flemming's "Joan of Arc," and "It's a Wonderful Life" from Frank Capra.

I'm still holding out for them to endorse, "The Garbage Pail Kids Movie"

Pope Panda

Two billboards in Marsa advertising the Pope's visit to Malta got the unlikely addition of two stencilled images of what looks like a panda. It is not clear why the "artist" in question juxtaposed the bears with the Pope. The organizing committee was alerted yesterday morning and it plans to erase the images.

Guess what, that's no panda!

The cartoon character "Pedobear" is a renamed version of the 2chan ASCII art character "kuma". In his American incarnation, he is an anthropomorphic bear child predator that is often used within the community to mock contributors showing a sexual interest in under-age girls. Pedobear is one of the most popular memes on non-English imageboards, and is gaining recognition across Europe. Although the meme is apparently unknown in Poland, it has been used as a symbol of pedophilia by Maltese graffiti vandals.