Diamonds, Engagement Rings & Diamond Jewelry in popular culture

For once, South Carolina is out of the embarrassment hotseat, and Massachusetts has settled in nicely to keep it all toasty-warm.  Yesterday, the bluest of blue states somehow elected Scott Brown as a replacement for the late Ted Kennedy.  For real.  For the first time in 30 years, an “R” was voted into a senate seat.  And what an “R” he is. 

“R” for “R-rated”, that is!

In 1982, Scott Brown posed nude for Cosmopolitan magazine as “America’s Sexiest Man”.  Was JFK, Jr. busy that day, or did he just refuse to take off his clothes because of aspirations beyond making Middle-American, middle-aged housewives hot?  The fold in the magazine and a conveniently-placed arm make it so we don’t see all of his, ahem, patriotism, but he’s clearly dressed in the Emperor’s New Clothes (so to speak).

"Putcha Hands In Tha Air For The New Senator. Wait...No, Don't."

His campaign was charming.  His television ads stated that his “…name is Scott Brown, and I’m running for Massachusetts State Senate.  This is my truck”.  We are then introduced to the truck.  He loves that old truck. 

In his victory speech, he was as eloquent as expected, sounding like a proud husband, father, and pimp.  He announced that his daughters were both available, then said he was “kidding”.  And THEN he went on to say that Arianna was, in fact, not available, but that Ayla is still without an engagement ring.  She’s 21.  What is this, South Carolina?  And are the new senator and his wife aware that they named their child after the main character in Jean Auel’s “Clan of the Cave Bear”?

So how did the truck-driving, flannel-wearing conservative win in a state that is 2/3 Democrat?  We can thank his opponent, Martha Coakley, for that.  If you want to know how to make Massachusetts voters hate you, follow Coakley’s lead.  Call Curt Schilling a “Yankees fan”.  What was next on her agenda?  Going to Newton and handing out bacon cheeseburgers to the Orthodox Rabbis?

Scott Brown had spoken to Barack Obama after Coakley conceded, and even offered to drive to Washington so the President could see his truck.  He then challenged our Commander-in-Chief to a 2-on-2 basketball game.  There are so many things wrong with this paragraph that it is painful to go on.

But go on we must.  With the images of a naked senator burned forever into our collective consciousness.

Breathe, South Carolina, while you have your chance.

Everyone of a certain age remembers watching Pee-wee’s Playhouse every Saturday and loving it, no matter how old we were.  Then a bunch of things happened and he fell out of the public consciousness.  Now the man who famously married a bowl of fruit salad in the Playhouse episode “Pajama Party”—but never officially exchanged wedding rings with an actual human—is back. 

Of course, for those of you who were not avid viewers of Pee-wee’s Playhouse, marrying a bowl of fruit salad might seem as deviant as some of the charges that were filed against Paul Reubens.  It was, in fact, innocent.  At his pajama party, he said that he loves fruit salad.  Following one of the many ongoing jokes on the show, his friends all said in unison, “Then why don’t you marry it?”  Naturally, Pee-wee said, “All right then.  I will”.  An elaborate ceremony followed.  There were tears.  Miss Yvonne cried.  It was lovely.

At Age 57, He's A Big Kid Who Is Grateful For Digital Re-Touching.

Now, 25 years after we started watching him, almost 20 years since his infamous arrest, and almost 10 years since his first major comeback in Ted Demme’s film Blow with Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz, PW is ready to ready to be in the spotlight again. 

Last night marked the first night of a limited engagement at Los Angeles’ Club Nokia.  Called “The Pee –wee Herman Show”, it is an update of his 1981 production, which played for five months at West Hollywood’s Roxy.  In 1981, every show sold out.  The same is expected for this round, which runs only through February 7.  It was originally scheduled to begin in November at a smaller venue, but devout Pee-wee fans came out of the woodwork, causing the show to require not only a larger club, but more room to create a really, really big production for PW, the cast, and the slew of animatronic puppets.  Paul Reubens’ “kids’ show for adults” is already a hit.

Since its inception in 1978, Pee-wee’s Playhouse has really been meant more for adults than children.  Most of the humor of the show was lost on anyone not yet old enough to drive.  Playhouse was, in many ways, groundbreaking.  Here was this strange boy-man in an ill-fitting suit having co-ed slumber parties with farm animals and talking foliage in addition to his human friends.  S. Epatha Merkerson, now famous for her role as Lieutenant Van Buren on Law & Order, played the saucy character of Reba the Mail Lady.  There was an ongoing flirtation between the very white Miss Yvonne, played by Lynne Marie Stewart, and Cowboy Curtis, played by then-unknown Laurence Fishburne.  It was among the first interracial situations, and it was on a show “for children”.  Performing the famous wedding between Pee-wee and his beloved fruit salad was Ricardo, a Latin-American soccer player.  The show was openly multi-cultural and yet, somehow, no conservative groups rallied against it.  How Pee-wee managed to fly under right-wing radar is something that only Jambi knows.  Also on the show for the first season was another unknown actor, playing the gruff Captain Carl.  It was Phil Hartman.

Reubens has a mission for his new start.  He wants to inspire people of all ages to find their own unique voices.  He told the Chicago Tribune, “This isn’t a nurturing time.  But the message of ‘The Playhouse’ has always been: ‘Dare to be different.  Here are some of the options you might not have thought of’”.  He also intends to make a new Pee-wee Herman movie when the right offer comes along.  Reubens has already received a few offers–including one from Tim Burton to have Johnny Depp play the lead–but he’s holding out for something else.  There’s no doubt that he’ll get it.

And this time, he promises, the Foil Ball will be enormous.

What does cleavage and lingerie have to do with selling hamburgers?  The same thing that bikinis, barely-there one piece bathing suits, and transparent dresses do.  Fast food chain Carl’s Jr. has taken the concept of “sex sells” and taken it to a whole new and nausea-inducing level.  Their first brush with controversy was Paris Hilton suggestively washing a car while eating a burger far too large for her mouth.  Who decided that cleaning automobiles was sexy, and why would someone eat a hamburger while covered in suds?  Because it was Paris Hilton, mostly naked, opening her mouth.  At least the advertising department at the chain knew not to let her speak.  

Because We All Eat Hamburgers In This Position. If We Can Get Into It.

The newest ad features Kim Kardashian—still without an engagement ring from on-again boyfriend Reggie Bush.  It gives all the young men who watch Carl’s Jr. ads hope that Kim will dump her famous multi-millionaire honey and be available to date boys who frequent drive-thru windows.  Let them dream.  It’s what the company counts on. 

None of the ads in the Carl’s Jr. ‘porn series’ inspires me to eat a hamburger.  Of course, I’m not a 17-year-old boy begging for the keys to Mom’s station wagon, hoping that Kim Kardashian will be at the Ventura location, picking up her delicious Cranberry Apple Walnut Chicken Salad for the night.  Then she’ll change into her lowest-cut nightgown to spill dressing on herself (close your eyes and try to hear the smooth jazz) only to wipe it off and suggestively lick her finger.

This is parody, right?  Like the “I Like Square Butts” campaign that sold patty melts in kids meals that included a SpongeBob SquarePants toy.  SpongeBob should be hanging his head in shame.  You know, if he had a head. 

Kimmy finishes the ad by—what else—taking a bath.  With her salad.  Always good to have a snack there.  And a video camera. 

What is completely vexing is that it is so hard to tell if Carl’s Jr. is making fun of itself, thereby somehow justifying these ridiculous displays of flesh and incessant sucking on apples, or bacon, or burgers the size of an Oldsmobile.  Or are they seriously using the ancient “sex sells” mantra?  No one does that anymore.

They ARE getting plenty of attention for it, that’s for sure.  Maybe that’s the goal.  Still, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at a hamburger or salad the same way again. 

Now I’ll need a soundtrack for it.

The story sounded familiar from the beginning.  With the urging of Simon Cowell, his “X Factor” winner Joe McElderry was well on his way to having the Number One Christmas track in the UK.  A Facebook group spearheaded a campaign to have political hard-rockers Rage Against The Machine’s 1992 single “Killing in the Name” beat out the television talent show winner.  A statement for the group wrote, “Fed up of [sic] Simon Cowell’s latest karaoke act being Christmas No. 1?  Me too…So who’s up for a massive purchase of the track “Killing in the Name” as a protest to the X Factor monotony?”

Cowell has never been afraid to put up money to have his acts go big.  Look at Susan Boyle.  He also arranged for final contestant Stacey Solomon to get decked out in over $160,000 worth of diamonds for the show, and she didn’t even win.  So politico-rockers commonly known simply as “Rage” staged a coup.

"Wait, we did WHAT?"

Did they realize that the same thing was done in the Ultimate Chick Flick, 2003’s “Love, Actually”?  In that movie, aging rocker Billy Mack (played by Bill Nighy) recorded a Christmas variation on The Troggs’ hit “Love Is All Around”, renaming it “Christmas Is All Around”.  He vowed to do anything to have it beat fictional boy-band Blue out of the top spot, even though he referred to his own recording as a “festering turd of a record”.  He promised that, if he won, he would perform in the nude—live—on television.  His unusual campaign to win the number one spot succeeded, and he kept his word, performing only in cowboy boots and a well-placed guitar.

Rage Against THe Machine Followed THIS GUY'S Lead.

This is a story that every straight woman and gay man knows.  Some of us can recite the movie from start to finish.

But this is probably not what Rage’s Tom Morello had in mind when he began his war with the UK’s version (which came first, by the way) of “American Idol”.  He’d probably be horrified by the comparison.  Rage Against the Machine is not exactly known for sappy love ballads and weepy stories—unless they bring attention to some kind of worldwide injustice.

And so, without a Christmas album coming out, Rage raged on.  Cowell referred to the whole thing as “stupid” and “cynical”.  Fans called it sabotage.  Cowell’s money couldn’t buy him out of this.  It was war!

Tom Morello gave a last-ditch attempt to overtake McElderry by (naturally) tweeting.  He wrote, “Rage’s Killing in the Name & the X-Factor’s goofy Christmas single are neck and neck for the num one spot on the UK chart.  England!  Now is your time.”

And it worked.  “Killing in the Name” was downloaded over 500,000 times in the past week, while McElderry’s Miley Cyrus cover sold 450,000.  And the winner is…

(drumroll, please)

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE!

They must be so proud to have succeeded where only an aging fictitious rocker and his ridiculous cover song had prevailed before.

No word yet on whether or not Rage intends to perform “Killing in the Name” nude on Christmas Eve.

Susan Boyle, everyone’s favorite frumpy spinster (if anyone uses that word anymore) with the voice of an angel, has been tearing up both US and British charts.  Topping all contemporary music, beating out the likes of Rihanna and Adam Lambert for the #1 position, Boyle’s debut album “I Dreamed A Dream” is taking her out of her little village and on tour. 

When Boyle first appeared on “Britain’s Got Talent” and was nearly laughed off the stage, she said that she hoped to have the same kind of success as her idol, Elaine Paige.  Simon Cowell and whoever Piers Morgan is could both hardly contain their laughter.  Until she started to sing.  Now the egomaniacal jackasses have gotten the proverbial “suck it” from Susan Boyle, as the both took part in creating “I Dreamed A Dream: The Susan Boyle Story”, which aired last night.  For the event, Boyle and Elaine Paige were decked out in diamonds, with Boyle herself wearing about $65,000 in borrowed diamond jewelry that included a pair of diamond earrings, a Deco onyx and diamond pendant, and a diamond ring.  Norwich jeweller Winsor Bishop outfitted the two for their duet performance, also lending Paige a pair of vintage teardrop diamond earrings.

This Is Susan Boyle.

With Susan Boyle’s star on the rise, becoming more popular in the US than any hip-hop, rock, or country act, it is only natural that other musicians would want to collaborate with her.  She’s a hot name.  Use her while you can before the world unceremoniously ships her back to Scotland, postage due!

Enter another great lover of diamonds, 50 Cent.  Fiddy has made it clear that he wants to work with Boyle.  Imagining the two of them pairing up for anything is like…like…

This Is 50. One of these things is not like the other...

Chocolate-covered gefilte fish.

A woman over 18 at a Jonas Brothers concert.

Hugh Hefner and a woman his own age.

And yet, it could happen.  The now-multi-millionaire spinster who had never ventured far from her small Scottish hamlet could go into a bulletproof recording studio with a guy who claims to have been shot nine times, although police reports are conflicting on this point.  Regardless of the number of times that Fiddy has taken bullets, we can say with relative certainty that the closest Susan Boyle ever got to being shot was staring down the barrel of Sharon Osbourne while onstage to perform that first time.  One puts holes in your body, the other puts holes in your soul as Osbourne sucks out your lifeforce.

50 Cent told the Daily Mirror, “Susan Boyle is hot right now.  I got to get her on a track.  We’d make a hit”.  Possibly, Fiddy, but you’d have to teach her what a “gat” is, and explain what the lyrics were really about in “Candy Shop”.  Or maybe that’s best kept secret.  The rapper went on to say that, “She’s got an amazing voice, and, together, we’d get everyone dancing…she’s cool. So I’ll ask somebody to let her know”.

You can just SEE her looking at that person, cocking her head to the side and saying in her thick Scottish accent, “Fifty Whooooooo?”

If they do meet, Fiddy has plans to “…take her clubbing, show her around my world.  She’d have a great time”. 

Think so, Fiddy?  She’s barely off the commune and you want to show her a world in which people leave behind showtunes in favor of lyrical musings like, “You can have it your way, how do you want it/You gon’ back that thing up or should I push up on it”. 

As 50 Cent makes the promotional rounds for his album “Before I Self-Destruct”, Boyle is busy belting out “How Great Thou Art”.  If there is middle-ground to be reached, I can’t wait to see where it is.

The divorce between Hulk Hogan and wife Linda has been ugly, to say the least.  It finalized in 2008 for all the world to see on “Brooke Knows Best”, the reality show that followed “Hogan Knows Best”.  Evidently, Hogan didn’t know best, as he married a toe-headed bimbo who is now dating someone only 1 year older than her daughter.  The Hulk has been dating Jennifer McDaniel, a carbon copy of Linda (only taller), and has given her the second of engagement rings in his life (not bad, considering the marriage rates of the average professional wrestler).  She was seen wearing a huge diamond ring on her engagement finger last week.  Hulk proudly announced to a friend: “That could be the new Mrs. Hogan”.

Hulk Hogan, Girlfriend, and Daughter. Not Sure Which Is Which...

First, he has a few things that are bothering him about his divorce from his first wife, the least of which is her ongoing relationship with someone who was just recently able to legally purchase alcohol.  Evidently, when Linda moved out, she took a few things that Hogan considers precious and irreplaceable.  Among the items “stripped” from his home are, allegedly, a tanning bed (this keeps his leathery wrestler skin in sharp contrast to what is left of his white-blonde hair), chandeliers (which reflect light beautifully off of same), bathtubs (to soak his body, which grows tired after long days hosting “American Gladiators” and entertaining his own significantly-younger significant other), and, most importantly, “the wooden antique toilet seat from the guest house.”

After all, what is a man without his antique toilet seat?

Hulk Hogan (real name: Terry Bollea) claims that Linda pillaged the house to make it impossible to sell.  With the Florida mansion still hanging in the balance, they cannot fully put the relationship behind them, and Hogan is, obviously, anxious to do so.  Having gotten the approval of his new girlfriend from daughter Brooke and son Nick, he wants to begin a life with her.  He believes that Linda is trying to make this impossible by holding on to items that are his, and by leaving their former shared home a disaster.

Maybe Linda is jealous because her barely-legal boyfriend Charlie hasn’t earned enough on his paper route to buy her an engagement ring.  Maybe because her own children think her relationship is creepy and gross.  Or maybe she’s just a gold-digger.

Hopefully, the Hulkster is able to see the humor in the whole ‘toilet seat issue’.  But he wants it back.  After all, it is an antique.

Best of luck to Hulk Hogan and his impending nuptials, and may he and Jennifer live a long, happy life together.  The three of them: Hulk, Jennifer, and their toilet seat.

Really, Hulk?

Thanks to a bit of controversy, this season of MTV’s “Jersey Shore” has gotten more media attention than any of Paris Hilton’s many engagement rings.  More media attention than Jon Gosselin giving Ed Hardy a bad name.  More attention than the desperate-to-stay-famous babydaddy of Sarah Palin’s granddaughter (almost) showing his Johnston to the world.  After MTV billed the show as having the “hottest, tannest, craziest Guidos” who “keep their hair high, their muscles juiced and their fists pumping all summer long”, the firestorm began.

Sorry, But If You Pose Like This, You're A Guido.

Italian-American service organization UNICO National immediately got their collective panties in a twist over the show, stating that it “relies on crude stereotypes and highlights cursing, bad behavior and violence in depicting renters at a New Jersey beach house”.  When the young men on the show proclaimed their pride over being ‘Guidos’, UNICO persisted, with President Andre DiMino responding that, “No ethnic group should be treated this way.  Just because these young people refer to each other this way [as 'Guidos'] doesn’t make it proper.”

The Marketing department at MTV probably sent UNICO National a basket of mini-muffins and a selection of flavored coffees for this.

Just as “The Sopranos” represented only a small percentage of Italian-Americans (criminals, lovable criminals), and just as “Growing Up Gotti” represented only an even smaller percentage of Italian-Americans (the spoiled spawn of Mafia Don John Gotti), so does “Jersey Shore” represent only a small group (guys proud to be ‘Guidos’).

Did the powerful Jewish Lobby rally against “Shalom in the Home”, in which fame-hungry Rabbi Smuley Boteach claims to solve all family problems within 30 minutes?  Did NOW seek blood when skanky women willingly vied for the love of hip-hop troll Flavor Flav on “Flavor of Love”…three times?  People choose to go on these shows, seeking fame and fortune by making fools of themselves on television. 

If there was an advocacy group for idiots, then they would have every reason to jump into the fray, but those folks can’t seem to organize.

Viewers tune in to “Jersey Shore” not to see proud heritage shown in a favorable light.  They tune in to see a bunch of walking stereotypes spike their hair, iron their wife-beater tank tops, drop f-bombs, and hunt for specific Guido-seeking Italian-American women in bars. 

Cast member Mike Sorriento eloquently explains: “I just happen to be 100 percent Italian, I happen to be in very good shape and my hair happens to be spiky,” he told MTV. “It’s not necessarily a stereotype; it’s just how it is. In New York and New Jersey, that just happens to be the style.”

Had UNICO National not responded, “Jersey Shore”, season 8 (or whatever) would have passed by our collective consciousness virtually unnoticed.  But now, legions of folks who have read about the controversy will tune in to see how a proud ‘Guido’ behaves.

And they’ll love it.

The Holiday Season is a time of giving.  Last year at this time, we were all reading about the Salvation Army bell ringer who received a diamond ring as a donation.  Evidently, the young man who gave it had used money he earned mowing lawns to buy the ring for his mother.  After she died, he said he wanted someone to put it to good use.  Naturally, handing it over to the Salvation Army was his first instinct.  They planned to have it appraised, as the ring’s value was unknown.

This year, a Goodwill store in Marietta, Ohio received a much more interesting donation.  When an employee opened what appeared to be a water cooler, he found four large baggies filled with marijuana.  Inexplicably, he brought it to the attention of his supervisors, who called the police.  They estimate that the pound of pot is worth about $1500, but that depends on where you sell it. 

"I Gotta Remember To Tell The Kids About That Place In Marietta..."

Police Captain Jeff Waite went on the news and announced that he was trying to find the donor, saying that, “If anybody would like to come in and claim this cooler, which is probably an antique, we would love to have them come in and we’ll be more than happy to try and get that cooler returned to them”. 

Is Captain Waite hoping that morons will actually respond to this?  If someone did, indeed, donate the cooler, filled to the rim with wacky tabacky, are they stupid enough to walk into PD and say, “Dude, where’s my weed?”

Well, maybe.  It has been a week, however, and the anonymous donor has chosen to remain so.  That could be an antique water cooler from the Titanic and used by Chuck Norris as a trophy stand, and no one is going to claim it.  It could be gold-plated and filled with diamonds, and it will remain in police custody.

It takes a naïve lawman to think that some guy will walk in and ask for his stash back. 

If the cooler itself is such a precious antique, shouldn’t the police give it back to Goodwill to sell and then do whatever it is that they do with confiscated drugs?  Goodwill can sell this heirloom rusty metal water jug at their Marietta branch, right?

Not if Captain Waite has anything to say about it.  He’s still hoping someone out there is desperate enough to walk up to a cop and request the return of his Maui Wowie.  Keep holding your breath, there, chief.

Right now, somewhere in Southeastern Ohio, someone’s Grandpa is tearing the shed apart for his “glaucoma medication”, or maybe some kids are gonna be totally bummed when they go to watch next year’s Civil War re-enactment. 

A reporter on WSAZ said that the contributed cannabis appeared to be “more than a year old and probably donated by accident”.

Ya think?

On November 17, 44-year-old semi-retired rapper Coolio, as famous for his crack cocaine drug bust last spring as for his music, embarked on a new path.  With the release of “Cookin’ with Coolio”, he is following up a web series of the same name from the website and network aptly named “My Damn Channel”.  Its popularity led him to the world of publishing, which was ready for something a little different in the cooking arena.

You Can't Make Stuff Like This Up.

This ain’t Julia Child.  It certainly isn’t Martha Stewart (no matter how much street cred she got for appearing with Busta Rhymes on the MTV Awards stage a few years back).  Coolio, who says he’s been cooking for more than 30 years—since he was 10 years old—has developed “Ghetto Gourmet”, soul food with a healthy twist that isn’t expensive.

No, really.

In case you missed it (and you know you did), he even had his own show on the Oxygen network, which most people have either never heard of or forgot existed.  The show, which premiered in October of 2008, is a reality show called “Coolio’s Rules” that covers the former mug-shot poster-boy as he launches a catering business, balancing his family life with his 4 children, aged 15-20, and the woman who exchanged wedding rings with Coolio’s former friend David Faustino (Bud Bundy from “Married with Children”).   It’s a gangsta’s life, as seen through the eyes of the post-menopausal women who watch the Oxygen network.

Stop laughing.  This is for real.

“Cookin’ with Coolio” is truly unique collection of recipes, the names of which are most definitely from the mind of the Man Himself.  His “Fork Steak” requires no knife, something that would have come in handy during a jail term.  The Steak goes beautifully with the “Heavenly Ghettalian Garlic Bread”.  “Ghettalian” is ‘Ghetto and “Italian” mixed.  That Coolio.  He’s clever.

He is proud to enlighten us to his gastronomical fabulosity, telling us that he “is gonna teach yo ass how to cook”.  When asked who he thinks of as his TV-show chef competition, he answered, “I like Rachael Ray.  I like Bobby Flay.  I like all them cats.  But they are not the Gourmet Ghetto, baby.  My motto is: I cook better than your Shaka Zulu mama.  And I wash my hands a lot.”

Good to know, Coolio. 

He also teaches us the intricacies of “Soul Rolls”, Banana Ba-ba-ba-bread”, and “Finger-Lickin’, Rib-Stickin’, Fall-Off-the-Bone-and-into-Your-Mouth Chicken”.  It’s worth buying the book just to read his directions on “How to Become a Kitchen Pimp”, “Chillin’ and Grillin’” and “Pasta like a Rasta”.

In “The Ghetto Gourmet”, Coolio explains “Karate Meat” by saying it “ain’t just called Karate Meat because it’s got an Asian kick to it.  It’s called Karate Meat because it will beat you up like a pigeon in prison.”  And who would know better than our neighborhood crackhead who posed for The Mugshot Heard Round the World?    But he embraces his experience in the drug culture by telling is that the best way to make an egg roll is to “Roll it nice and tight like a blunt.”

Anyone who doesn’t know what that means wouldn’t be buying the book, anyway.

He also tells us: “Let me be perfectly clear.  You ain’t cookin’ with fire.  You ain’t cookin’ with heat.  You’re cookin’ with Coolio, mother******!”

Actually, that’s not a bad sentiment from the man who’s best known use of a flame was to light a crack pipe.  Congrats to the man for pullin’ himself up by his crazy dreads, and for showing us how to make “5-Star Meals at a 1-Star Price”.

If someone wants to believe in Creationism over Evolution, then FINE.  If he believes that science is for atheists, then FINE.  People are entitled to their beliefs, no matter how silly they may seem to those of us who have been brainwashed by the liberal, Godless educators in our universities.

Curses on you, Liberal and Godless Educators!  Of courses, what do curses mean to those who live without fear of divine retribution?  God, no!  How do you punish an agnostic?

The short answer is: put him in a room with Kirk Cameron.

Creationism is okay, if you’re into that sort of thing, but to blame the Holocaust on Darwin might have taken it a little too far. 

The Years Have Been Kind, Except To His Brain.

Darwin’s “On the Origin of the Species” has, in an exciting twist of fate, become public domain.  Who better to write a new introduction to this classic book than some guy named Ray Comfort?  What better authority on the life-long work of famed Naturalist and father of the concept of ‘Natural Selection’ Charles Darwin than a guy whose main accomplishment is acting as a Pip to Kirk Cameron’s Gladys Knight?

On either November 19, November 21, or November 22 (all were cited by Cameron)—the anniversary of the first publication of “On the Origin of the Species”—Cameron was to hand out 50 thousand copies of his new version of the book with the new introduction “to present the opposing—and correct—information”.  Turns out the right date is November 22, but the books were given out 3 days before, perhaps to prevent any borderline-Creationists from jumping the fence.  Prior to that, in a stirring advertisement by The Way of the Master Ministries, Mike Seaver Kirk Cameron amps us up for the exciting distribution of the books, and, in closing, mentions something quietly about wanting to distribute more…if the funds were available.  Please give now!

No dice, buddy.

Nonetheless, Cameron went out to UCLA with his pretty new book that, in his eyes, is far better than the old, non-Ray-Comforted version for sale in the UCLA bookstore.  And Kirk’s were FREE.  The bookstore, he was quick to point out, sells theirs for $29.99—and that’s without the lunacy.

To try to win over the doubters and haters, the former “Tiger Beat” cover boy points out that the non-believing so-called academics ignored certain truths about Darwin’s agenda.  For example, Cameron assures us, the reign of Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust.  Citing Darwin’s supposed racism and ‘disdain for women’ (nice try to reel in the feminists, kiddo), he says, “You can see where [Hitler] clearly takes Darwin’s ideas to some of their logical conclusions and compares certain races of people to lower evolutionary life forms”.  First of all, very little logic went into a lot of Hitler’s thought processes.  That’s kinda what defines a madman.  And second, you can’t call science “an atheistic endeavor” (as Cameron did at UCLA), using Darwin as your poster boy for the removal of God from Creation, when Darwin himself was a practicing Christian.  He believed in evolution, but thought of God as “the ultimate lawgiver”.

Kirk should stick to his cable-access ministry and the very patient and kind soul who accepted a wedding ring from him almost 20 years ago.  And their six kids.  And the occasional reality TV appearance, you know, to keep the money coming in.

We’re not trying to “remove God from the world view of creation”, Kirk.  We’re trying to remove you from our collective psyches. 

Really, Kirk. Hitler?