Link: A Vatican Retreat on Homosexuality.

I’m not a Catholic, so my commenting on this means little to nothing, but the negativity coming out of one of the world’s largest Christian faiths towards homosexuality is just sad.  What does it matter if man who will be celibate his entire life (if you believe that all priests remain celibate) has homosexual "tendancies."  If he chooses to live a life of Christian servitude why keep him out?  And the Catholic Church wonders why it has trouble attracting new priests to the fold!  As this editorial points out, this is just the Church’s way of scapegoating homosexuals for the abuse scandals.  Once again, the Church puts Its head in the sand instead of confronting issues head on.

Link: Supreme Court Pick Assures Key Senator on Abortion Views.

Can Judge Alito really promise something like this.  Don’t your personal and moral views bias every decision you make, they certainly do in my case.  There’s a lot of room to apply one’s personal and moral beliefs to the law; moreover, someone like Judge Alito can use his own interpreatation of the law to strike down the availability of abortion.  His promises are meaningless.

I’m sure he cold care less, but I have to agree with Sean Connery:  Daniel Craig was a great pick as the new 007.  I recently watched Craig in Layer Cake, one of those great British movies, and could see some interestng potential for him as James Bond.  He certainly doesn’t have the classic pretty boy features of the last few 007s, but Connery wasn’t a pretty-boy either.  Like Connery, Craid has a more rugged quality about him — a real "man’s man," so to speak.  Don’t get me wrong, I think Pierce Brosnan was the best 007 since Connery, but Daniel Craig is definately an interesting choice with the potential to make the James Bond movies something different than they’ve been the last few years.  Re-imagining Casino Royale is also an interesting choice.  By far, it’s one of the better Bond novels Ian Fleming wrote (at least of the few I read).

Well, NBC is finally tired of Joey, and my questions is, "What took you so long?"  This show has been bad from day one.  "Joey" was never a strong character on Friends and was only as good as the characters around him.  The creators of this show surrounded him with some very lackluster supporting players.  Even Drea de Matteo, who was fantastic in The Sopranos, is badly written on this show.  In a bid to win back their former Thursday dominance, NBC is moving Will & Grace to Joey’s spot, adding Four Kings to follow, and bringing My Name Is Earl and The Office from Tuesday to Thursday.  I don’t watch Will & Grace anymore and I’ve never liked My Name is Earl or the Americanized version of The Office, so I wonder if this will help NBC.  The network made a bad mistake, I think, by putting The Apprentice on at the 9:00pm slot.  They’ve always done better with comedies from 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm (Eastern).  Of course, they still have to contend with the CSI juggernaut.  Based on the longevity of hit shows, CSI has a good 3 to 5 years left before people grow tired of it, so I think NBC is doomed to second place for the time being.  There’s also the possibility ABC could put something on.  They haven’t had much success with Alias, but that was a bad move on their part.  If they were to move on of their hit shows to Thursday it might not draw the mega-numbers it does now, but it would definately draw more than the 5 to 6 million Alias is drawing.  Too bad I’m not a network executive.

I not a big fan of Oprah WInfrey.  I can acknowledge she does good work and it a very charitable person.  Her Angel Network does some truly wonderful things.  That being said, the way people fawn all over her just gets on my nerves at times.  I sat down Thursday evening to watch her much-ballyhooed appearance on David Letterman’s show and while I understood Letterman’s fawning, the way the audience jumped to their feet and appauled for several minutes is just unreal to me.  Letterman has had the opportunity to interview some major figures in both televsion, film, politics, and world government; yet, none of them get that kind of reception.  It’s just odd.

There seems to be a brouhaha about House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s changing of the nation’s "holiday" tree to a Christmas Tree.  I see no problem with that.  That is, after all, what their displaying.  Is there any other holiday tradition during this season that uses a tree in it’s celebration?  Not that I know of.  It would have been nice if they could have put a menorah up as well, but since Jews make up a small part of our population that’s just "tough luck," right?  If they do have one displayed I certainly don’t see it in any of the pictures.

I’m sure Hastert thinks he’s won some sort of moral victory, and to Conservative Christians who believe there’s some sort of "war" on Christmas it will be a moral victory.  To the rest of us it’s just calling a Christmas Tree … well .. a Christmas Tree.

On another note, read about the interesting history of the Christmas Tree.

Yet another company, this time Ford, has cowed to the blatherings of rightwing Conservative Christian groups.  Ford has decided it will no longer advertise in gay publications.  They say it is a business decision, but who the hell do they think they’re kidding.  It just amazes me these companies are backing down.  These wingnut groups only have power as long as you give it to them.  Christian groups have threatened Disney with boycott for the better part of a decade because they have a "gay day."  Did it hurt they’re business, no.  Now, Disney did recently make a change to how they offer that program, which Conservative Christian groups claimed as a victory, but those groups’ boycotts had absolutely no effect onDisney’s  bottom line — none.  At a time when car sales are in the toilet, you’d think Ford would try to not alienate an entire consumer group.