July 18, 2008

1) jaime said (on 07/18/08 at 07:45 AM):

I much prefer this. But that's probably just my liberal bias.

2) adam875 said (on 07/18/08 at 07:49 AM):

Oh my god, that's terrible! I'm a little sick to my stomach. The devil's line is a sentence fragment.

3) Andy said (on 07/18/08 at 09:39 AM):

Those damn good ol' boys, always votin' fer the homerseckshul preferences. They don't call it "Oklahomo" fer nuthin. She-it. I'ma votin' fer Brent, 'cuz if'n they's one thing this county needs, it's a commissioner what can draw little nekkid devils and all. That there's a skill could come in real handy. I believe Commissioner Brent is the last, best hope we got, else'n this whole town gonna turn into Gomorrah on Sweetwater Crick. Dag nabbit.

4) TED said (on 07/18/08 at 10:58 AM):

It's just an (even more) down-market Chick tract. He stole the idea, if not the artwork or some of the details, from there.

5) birdfarm said (on 07/19/08 at 12:28 AM):

Also, "pedophile" is spelled wrong.

I like Jaime's link, although the "300" references stick in my craw a lil. When I went to Iran last year, every single person we met, the first thing they said was, "We do not like the movie 300!"

6) Arenap said (on 07/19/08 at 12:36 PM):

The comic book is hilarious, and I myself have had several hours of chortling over it.

But I am also from Oklahoma City - and I can tell you that this does NOT represent the worldview of the vast majority of Oklahomans - as evidenced by the many quotes from Oklahoma public officials (yes Virginia, including Republicans) and academics who rightly condemn Rinehart. The Oklahoman - OKC's main newspaper, and conservative in its outlook - called the comic "16 pages of tripe."

Andy, if I may say, your own comment on this was tripe as well - and completely predictable.

Look, Rinehart is a mentally-disturbed narcissist with a penchant for pencil mustaches and corruption, and his (few) supporters are very unbalanced people.

Oklahoma City is a thriving metroplex of more than a million people (named by Forbes as among the top 10 recession proof cities, while a suburb, Norman, was named the 6th best small city in America by Money Magazine last week).

I also hope that those with an axe to grind against Christianity will not somehow take this comic book as indicative of a Christian worldview. Frankly, that’s like shooting fish in a barrel. This is a theologically-bankrupt work, if I may put it bluntly. Christians do not believe in a little midget-man Satan with a pitch fork, nor in malnourished angels with magic wands - any more than we believe heaven is filled with angels playing harps (see C.S. Lewis for a better explication of this). That’s a caricature of a caricature of a caricature.

If you’re an atheist, and wish to dispute Christianity, I would not use this comic book for the foundation of your arguments. It is not at all a representation of Christian beliefs - but is instead the product of a diseased mind.

One aspect of this "comic book" requires a little background: You should know that the state was controlled by a one-party corrupt Democratic machine for its first century (the state just celebrated the centennial). This only has recently changed, but Rinehart is playing on old superstitions about corrupt Democrats who ran the state for so long - and nearly ran the state into the ground because of THEIR "culture of corruption."

7) Faustus, M.D. said (on 07/19/08 at 12:53 PM):

jaime: Hmm. My loyalty is beginning to waver.

Adam875: Well, he is the devil, after all.

Andy: If I move to Gomorrah on Sweetwater Crick, will you come with me?

TED: He seems unfortunately not to have stolen the Chick tracts' brevity, either.

birdfarm: I didn't like 300 either. It wasn't homoerotic enough.

Arenap: I doubt that many people reading this blog think of Rinehart as representative of Oklahoma or Christians in fact of any group but crazy people. Unfortunately this comic book is an extreme example of a kind of belief system that too many people have--all over the country but certainly more prevalently in evangelical Christians in the south. It's unfortunate that that belief system has in many people's minds become equivalent to that region and that religion, but I do think that it's the former, not the latter, that Andy is mocking (and by the way he is actually deeply Christian--you should check out his blog at lastdebate.blogspot.com).

8) birdfarm said (on 07/20/08 at 12:58 AM):

300 did have some hot girl-on-girl moments. but yeah, those guys really shoulda made love, not war. there must be more than a few porn takeoffs/spoofs.

9) Andy said (on 07/20/08 at 12:00 PM):

Faustus: I don't know if I would move to Sweetwater Crick, however tempting the possibility of a hostile homo takeover might be. It does sound like maybe a nice place for a country home, however. You know, on weekends.

Arenap: In my work as an LGBT advocate within faith communities, I have come across many people who just aren't going to be open to the ideas I bring, and that's okay. But most of them are polite and have deeply unshakable convictions about this; they're often almost apologetic, like, "Gosh, I'd like to be able to accept what you're saying, because you seem like a nice person, but the Bible says _______ and that's where it stops for me." I cannot imagine that most of the people I have talked with would look at this "comic" with anything other than eye-rolling and disdain. Rinehart is practically a made-for-SNL caricature of the paranoid fundamentalist rube -- pace birdfarm, note the "pedaphile" -- and it was in that spirit that I caricatured the kind of person who might take him seriously; of which I hope, pray and believe that there are few. It would take a seriously naive person to believe that a mere County Commissioner could save them from the homosexual menace, anyway.

10) Andy said (on 07/20/08 at 08:03 PM):

Reading through the "comic" again, I notice he spells it "pediphile" on page 5 and on page 8 has the woman gasp, "No, your kidding." I think "LOL" is the only appropriate response.

11) amy said (on 07/24/08 at 01:34 PM):

"Oklahoma! Where the wind comes whippin' down the gays!"-Bent Rindhard

12) goblinbox said (on 07/30/08 at 08:57 PM):

Anal sodomy?

...are there, um, other kinds?