Meow House Theatre

An AP story I saw on The Huffington Post:

AP NewsBreak: Haggard Leaves Colorado

ERIC GORSKI | AP | April 18, 2007 07:37 PM EST

DENVER — The Rev. Ted Haggard moved Wednesday from his longtime home in Colorado Springs to Phoenix, where the disgraced minister will join the same church that helped fallen televangelist Jim Bakker.

Haggard, 50, resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals last year, after a former male prostitute alleged a three-year cash-for-sex relationship. The man also said he saw Haggard use methamphetamine. Haggard confessed to undisclosed “sexual immorality” and said he bought meth but never used it.

As part of his severance package from New Life Church, a 14,000-member congregation he started in his basement, Haggard agreed to leave Colorado Springs, a city he helped make an evangelical center.

Rest of the story is here.

The parts I really found interesting were:

… after a former male prostitute alleged a three-year cash-for-sex relationship.

and

… Haggard has told his advisers he does not believe he’s gay.

Well OF COURSE he’s not gay! He just likes to have sex with men. For 3 years. That we know of. That doesn’t mean he’s gay. He’s just “friendly.” He was just getting a massage—a therapeutic massage!—and that guy, who happened to have another entrepreneurial venture as a male prostitute (totally separate line of business, obviously), well that guy just had wandering hands, among other bodily parts, and Ted probably thought at first it was some kind of religious thing. And then he just felt bad about telling this poor lost soul to kindly back the fuck off, which any regular “Not Gay” man would do but Ted is a giver. He clearly must have thought he could bring this poor sinner into the fold and so even though he’s “Not Gay” he kept going back … for 3 years … in the hopes that just maybe Mr. Magic Fingers would see the Jesus light. None of this makes him gay. ‘Cuz that would be really terrible, especially after his vehement preaching at “Jesus Camp” that The Gays are all sinners and going to hell. Let’s see, if Gays = Sinners Going To Hell, and Haggard = Gay, then … um I must be getting my logic arguments wrong. Yes, I’m sure that’s it. I’m sure he’s “Not Gay” just like he “Didn’t Use” the meth. He merely bought it for no reason.

In related news, denial is not just a river in Egypt.

Heard an interesting story this morning on NPR:

Great Expectations for Dickens Theme Park

Morning Edition, April 19, 2007 · A $125 million Charles Dickens theme park is set to open outside London in May. Attractions will include cobblestone streets, staff dressed as pickpockets and wenches. Plus rat catchers who will hunt down vermin.

You can listen to the full story here.

I’m all for Dickens and all for getting kids (and adults) to become more interested in history and literature. I have discovered many of my own areas of interest because I watched some historical (but fictional) TV drama about, e.g., the Revolutionary War, and thought, “Hey, I really want to find out more about the geography of 1770s Boston.” (Thank you, John Jakes.) And I think it’s great to have a theme park based on one of the greatest writers the world has ever produced.

But rat catchers? They’re going to have persons dressed as rat catchers? And where, “prey” tell, will be their animatronic (one imagines) twitching-nosed scaly-tailed booty? Do they really have to go that far into authenticity? Perhaps they should have people emptying their chamber pots out of upper-story windows; I hear that was the way things were sometimes done back then too. Or at least have a few open sewers to go along with the rat catchers. For that real down-London flavor.

Maybe I’m closed-minded, but I just don’t see how rat catchers can ever be marketed as something fun and amusing and “theme-park-ish.” Blimey, me wee lass, here’s a nice plump one I got for ya, now let’s off for a spot of tea why don’t we? Right after we make sure this here furry fella never harms Brittania again, God Save The King.

This makes Disney’s obsession with picking up every piece of trash that should happen to find its way to the ground that much more appreciated. Of course I don’t like trashy streets in the first place, and especially not on streets which are part of someplace I’ve paid big bucks to get in to, but it’s vaguely unsettling to see the pristine state of a Disney park. Like it’s slightly fake. Which of course it is. It’s totally fake. But I would rather, any day of the year, go with their plastic-surgery-i-fied cleanliness than have rat imagery follow me around all day.

I’m just not seeing getting the attraction of this one point. Some things are better left in the past.