L.B.: The Trepid Reporter

Left Behind, pp. 256-258

The rest of this chapter, as far as Buck Williams goes, involves him getting ready for his big interview with Nicolae Carpathia. Chaim Rosenzweig (who in addition to being a botanist and an electromagetismologist moonlights as a booking agent) has scheduled the interview for sometime after midnight:

"He has several interviews, mostly with television people, and then he will be live on ABC's Nightline with Wallace Theodore. Following that, he will return to his hotel and will be happy to give you an uninterrupted half hour."

So Buck's "exclusive" follows "several interviews" and requires him to show up at Nicolae's hotel room late at night. This is the sort of thing that gets Hattie in trouble later on. I also can't help but wonder if Ted Koppel's absence on Nightline is meant to suggest that he was among the disappeared. (And what's with his replacement's name? Is his co-host "June Ward"?)

He heads home to change out of his "George Oreskovich" costume (i.e., his baseball cap) and to shave and shower for the first time since his return to America. Steve Plank tags along to help him get ready, which makes him seem less like Buck's editor and boss and more like Duckie in Pretty in Pink.

They don't discuss Carpathia's "electromagnetism" theory of the disappearances -- even though just a few days ago Steve gave Buck the assignment of writing a feature-length cover story exploring just that topic. Nor do they discuss how it is that either of them still has a job when they haven't produced an issue of Global Weekly in more than a week.

Instead, they talk about the international banking conspiracy led by Jonathan Stonagal and about Carpathia's possible role in it. To be fair, it's been less than 48 hours since Buck narrowly escaped a car bombing due to his investigation of this conspiracy, so it seems reasonable to me that this topic would be something Buck would want to discuss. (Laura Bush would disagree with me on that point -- she would likely view this as another example of journalists' biased preoccupation with "the one bombing a day that discourages everybody.")

Buck's investigation of this conspiracy is the one storyline so far in Left Behind that doesn't directly involve events from the Bible Prophecy Checklist. The idea of powerful international bankers secretly plotting behind closed doors goes along with the fears of a coming one world government and the Mark of the Beast, so this subplot isn't much of a departure. But unlike Carpathia, these nefarious bankers don't correspond to supposedly biblical characters from the premillennial dispensationalist timeline. Since that timeline drives the plot of this book, it's hard to know what to make of it when we're told that, after his press conference, Carpathia "was seen in the company of Jonathan Stonagal."

Stonagal isn't the Beast, or the False Prophet, or the Whore of Babylon, so what's he doing here in the pages of Left Behind?

Mainly this subplot seems to exist so that we can see Buck playing the part of the Intrepid Reporter.

It's the idea of the reporter as action hero -- half detective, half super-spy. (Think Joel McCrea in Foreign Correspondent.) So we get many of the stock scenes from Intrepid Reporter movies. Buck receives a cryptic answering machine message and jets off to London to meet Dirk, his secretive inside source, only to find that Dirk is dead. It's an apparent suicide, but the Intrepid Reporter suspects foul play -- that Dirk was killed because he Knew Too Much. This is confirmed by the policeman who warns Buck to just drop it if he knows what's good for him. The policeman tells our Intrepid Reporter that Dirk was killed by Joshua Todd-Cothran, the outwardly respectable head of the London Stock Exchange (think Herbert Marshall in Foreign Correspondent) who secretly controls Scotland Yard while plotting "some clandestine thing" with international banker Jonathan Stonagal. And then the policeman is killed, the victim of a car bomb intended for the Intrepid Reporter himself because he's Getting Too Close.

Steve Plank and Buck Williams spend the next three pages discussing this conspiracy:

"But, Steve, you have to agree it's likely that Dirk Burton was murdered because he got too close to Todd-Cothran's secret connections with Stonagal's international group. If they wipe out people they see as their enemies -- even friends of their enemies like Alan Tompkins and I were -- where will they stop?"

And here, abruptly, Buck ceases to play the part of the Intrepid Reporter. In the standard version, this would be where the IR and his editor discuss whether they have enough evidence to go public with the story (which, usually, they don't, necessitating the elaborate set piece of the movie's final act). But neither Buck nor Steve seems to remember that they're in the journalism business. Neither of them recalls that the best weapon against shadowy conspiracies is the bright light of public exposure. It never occurs to either of these Woodward and Bernstein wannabes that the head of the London Stock Exchange killing a policeman might constitute news. When it comes to actually reporting on what he has learned, our Intrepid Reporter turns out to be extremely, well, trepid.

The bigger problem with all of this is that we never get even a hint of what "clandestine thing" it is that Stonagal and Mr. T-C are up to. We're told there's a conspiracy, but never what it is that they're conspiring to do. There's no maguffin.

Dirk suggested that the Stonagal group has been advocating the shift to a single global currency, but that hasn't been a secretive effort -- it's not even the sort of thing that could be done in secret. It's kind of a dumb idea, but there's nothing illegal about it. The only hint of illegal activity is when we're told that Stonagal owns different banks in different countries. Arranging that seems like it would involve a bit of graft and corruption to get around foreign ownership regulations. Of course, this also seems like a reason for Stonagal to oppose any plan to consolidate currencies -- the trading of which must be making him a fortune.

We learn later that Stonagal is pulling levers to orchestrate Carpathia's election to the post of U.N. secretary-general, and it's hinted darkly that this would make him the power behind the global throne. But we're never told what he intended to do with this supposed influence.

What could one do? What would it mean if you did have a corrupt secretary-general in your pocket? I suppose you'd have the inside track to no-bid contracts for refugee resettlement. Maybe a slice of the lucrative Darfur-observer money machine. And you could guarantee that officials would look the other way as your criminal empire smuggled goods from northern Cyprus to southern Cyprus.

This plot only makes sense in the context of the authors' peculiar understanding of the United Nations (see earlier, "Going to the UN"). According to this view, the U.N. secretary-general outranks the president of the United States. The president, after all, only rules over one country, while the secretary-general rules over the entire world. To LaHaye and Jenkins, Ban Ki-moon is not merely an international diplomat. He is the king of kings.

Comments

[twig]

So wait, following an unsuccessful murder attempt, Buck is going to go meet a man who is apparantly very politically powerful on a global scale, a man who can see through his 'secret identity,' and they are meeting in the man's private room late at night with few witnesses.

Buck is Fox Mulder. The mystery solved.

[ako]

So Buck's "exclusive" follows "several interviews" and requires him to show up at Nicolae's hotel room late at night. This is the sort of thing that gets Hattie in trouble later on.

You have just explained why there is so much Left Behind slash fanfiction.

I can't wait to read about Buck's interview with the Antichrist. That should give even more hilarious examples of inept writing.

[Jeff]

What would it mean if you did have a corrupt secretary-general in your pocket?

According to conservatives, you could make a fortune by which companies run the Oil-for-Food program. That said companies make a larger fortune isn't mentioned. Shhhhhhhh.

[Fade]

...is it terribly wrong that I'm now wondering where I might go to find Left Behind slash fiction?

I mean, all I remember from my one attempt to read the series was that I was rooting for Nicolae to take out all those schmucks before he even managed to make it into a scene in person. I'm curious.

[Sarah Dylan Breuer]

The plot to create a single world currency as well as a single world government is not in the Christian bible -- but it is "canonical" for the Rapturists, such that I wouldn't expect to see a novel like LB without it. What would anyone -- especially someone like Jonathan Stonagal -- hae to gain from instituting a single world currency? Some Rapturists see it as needed to motivate people to take the Mark of the Beast -- a totally unified world economy so there can be no buying or selling for those unmarked. But I think you keep forgetting that LaHaye and Jenkins don't think they need anything like conventional or realistic motivation for their characters; they're doing what they were destined to do, not that it'll make a damn bit of difference, until the Christinator shows up to clean house.

[the opoponax]

the other thing about the one-world currency that is ridiculous beyond belief is that even if for some reason it were in Stonagal's interest to do such a thing, who gives a crap? look at how difficult the Euro was to coordinate, and the way the European countries with the strongest economies simply said no thanks to the whole thing. there is no way you'd ever be able to convince the US, UK, Japan, etc. to submit to that.

which makes the desire for one world currency not only not illegal, but also about equivalent to the desire for flying unicorns. big effing deal...

[Dan]

I've got an idea for a wonderful bit of investigative reporting by the GIRT - why the heck is ANYBODY paying money for these books? And why does ANYBODY acclaim them as good writing?

Think about the parrallels here - St. Nick o' the Hills repeats drivel for a couple hours, and the world is fawning over his oratory skills. L&J continue to pump absolute crap out and millions of people fawn over their writing skills. I'm sure little bucky getting an interview with St. Nick fits in with L&J's fantasies of being interviewed by Time or Newsweek.

It's probably been said in here before, but L&J are the real antichrists of this story, taking over the world with their group-think mind-control skills. You, dear slacktivist, are the Buck of this story. And since we're all still stuck here, then I guess the post-trib folks must have been right all along.

[JS Bangs]

...is it terribly wrong that I'm now wondering where I might go to find Left Behind slash fiction?

It is terribly wrong. Nonetheless: here you are.

[Ken]

The idea of powerful international bankers secretly plotting behind closed doors goes along with the fears of a coming one world government and the Mark of the Beast, so this subplot isn't much of a departure.

Isn't Powerful International Bankers (TM) usually a code word for The Jews (TM)?
Next thing I expect is that there were twelve of them, and they met to plot at midnight in the middle of a graveyard somewhere in Europe...

According to this view, the U.N. secretary-general outranks the president of the United States. The president, after all, only rules over one country, while the secretary-general rules over the entire world. To LaHaye and Jenkins, Ban Ki-moon is not merely an international diplomat. He is the king of kings.

It's not only LaHaye & Jenkins. Or End Time Prophecy fanboys. I've run into "Progressive Citizen of The World" types and heard of academics (and Trekkies) who also believe the UN (under the label "multinational decision-making body") does (or at least should) outrank the US. They're sort of a funhouse-mirror yin-and-yang of LH&J.

I've got an idea for a wonderful bit of investigative reporting by the GIRT - why the heck is ANYBODY paying money for these books?

"Because They're So SCRIPTURAL! (proof-text proof-text proof-text...)"

And why does ANYBODY acclaim them as good writing?

When you have nothing in your experience to compare them to (except CBA-approved Christian Fiction) and they play to your Holy Escape & Revenge fantasies...

It's like a lot of the crap you get in Furry Fandom; there the audience doesn't care about anything except whether all the characters have fur & tails. And if they do, that's all that matters. Substitute Bible Verses/references for fur & tails, and you have the formula.

"An addict is a person with low sales resistance." -- C.S.Lewis (I think)

Think about the parallels here - St. Nick o' the Hills repeats drivel for a couple hours, and the world is fawning over his oratory skills. L&J continue to pump absolute crap out and millions of people fawn over their writing skills. I'm sure little bucky getting an interview with St. Nick fits in with L&J's fantasies of being interviewed by Time or Newsweek.

It's already been established to my satisfaction that
1) Rayford Steele is LaHaye's Gary Stu/Ensign Nancy/Wesley Crusher,
2) Buck Williams GIRAT is Jenkins' Gary Stu/Ensign Nancy/Wesley Crusher,
3) Left Behind is their wish-fulfillment fantasy, about on the order of "We all woke up one morning and found that overnight everybody had become upright talking animals! With FUR! And TAILS! Yiff Yiff Yiff Yiff Yiff...", and
4) the writing quality is about on the order of the Eragon trilogy.

[Bugmaster]

4) the writing quality is about on the order of the Eragon trilogy.

Naaaah, I'd still say that Eragon is better than Left Behind, in the same way that getting stabbed with a rusty nail is better than chewing broken glass.

[aunursa]

We later learn (in one of the sequels) that Cameron Williams, an international globe-trotting investigative reporter, in fact the Greatest Investigative Reporter of All Time, is fluent in English and no other language.

[Kathryn]

4) the writing quality is about on the order of the Eragon trilogy.

... and wasn't the author of the Eragon trilogy in his late teens while writing the books?

[cjmr]

Entirely off topic, but:

As I was mincing the ingredients for the vegetable fried rice we had for dinner, I couldn't help thinking of LB and the 'healthy mix of fruits and vegetables' they rustled up. I won't post a photo of the 'steaming mounds of produce' though.

[Trevor]

It's already been established to my satisfaction that
1) Rayford Steele is LaHaye's Gary Stu/Ensign Nancy/Wesley Crusher,
2) Buck Williams GIRAT is Jenkins' Gary Stu/Ensign Nancy/Wesley Crusher

No doubt. When LaHaye was interviewed by Drew Marshall (you can hear the interview here) he stated quite explicitly that he identified with Rayford and Jenkins with Buck. Oh, and that a pre-trib rapture is the ONLY POSSIBLE WAY of understanding Revelations, and anyone thinking anything else is simply wrong.

Of course, I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me why I wouldn't want to be 'left behind'. Matthew 24 tells us that it will be as it was in the days of Noah - the flood took everyone away, and only Noah and his family were Left Behind. Wouldn't that imply that the entire premise of the series under discussion is backwards? (Apologies if this has already been addressed in previous threads.)

[Sue W]

If the commentators here ever have a slacktivist-fest, the menu had better include steaming mounds of produce. :-D

[sdf (Stu)]

is fluent in English and no other language.

From the little I have digested, based entirely on Fred's recounting of this book, do we have any proof of English?

Next thing I expect is that there were twelve of them, and they met to plot at midnight in the middle of a graveyard somewhere in Europe...

One would think Rosenzweig was somehow involved in all of this ...

[sdf (Stu)]

The UN fixation always struck me, as far as One World Government conspiracy theories, to show a remarkable poverty of the imagination. Now if you want rich, detailed, fascinating conspiracy, Alex Jones, for example, beats this drivel hands down. Throw in a little Bohemian Grove, a little Bilderberg group, a little Illuminati, and then the World Bank stuff fits in seamlessly. Plus, he mixes in some all-too Reality Based criticism of the Patriot Act, the rule of the Busheviks, etc. (When I lived in Austin in 2002-03, and NPR was music during the daytime, he was the one place where one actually heard anything on the radio that smelled even remotely of criticizing the Boy King.)

It's no fun to have a sinister tinfoil hat conspiracy that is neither very conspiratorial nor very sinister.

[LMM]

What I want to know is, what does the Intrepid Reporter do if it *isn't* a conspiracy? If, it turns out, the friend died from natural causes and all the spying turns out to be for naught?

Incidentally, I now have the urge to write Left Behind vingettes, from the POV of random people on the other side of the globe. I mean, maybe everyone in the US is caught up in the End Times checklist whirlwind, but people in other countries, especially places without many Christians, have got to have their priorities straight.

[dzd]

... and wasn't the author of the Eragon trilogy in his late teens while writing the books?
Yeah. I mean, the Extruded Fantasy Product market can't be that hard up for authors that they have to start tapping the high schoolers, can they?

[Erick Oppeen]

This twerp is the GIRAT? Carl Kolchak is spinning in his grave!

[Evan]

The bigger problem with all of this is that we never get even a hint of what "clandestine thing" it is that Stonagal and Mr. T-C are up to. We're told there's a conspiracy, but never what it is that they're conspiring to do.

Well... you know...Jewish stuff. They're International Bankers, aren't they? They have to twiddle their mustaches and cackle and sharpen their noses and so forth. I expect they're probably going to get to work on finding a suitable replacement ingredient for motzahs, now that "blood of Christian babies" is unavailable.

[JessicaR]

I've been reading through old LB entries and I've just had a brain flash about Carpathia. I realized why I think it's funny they go on about how Nicky looks like a young Robert Redford. It reminds me of one of my favorite original Twilight Zone episodes where a woman terrified of death reluctantly lets a wounded policeman, played by Redford, inside. It turns out, naturally, that he is Death, and he's come for her. But he's gentle and kind, and makes her see how much of life she's missed by boarding up the windows and doors in a futile attempt to hide from death, and how death is just really the beginning of a new journey. It's a lovely episode all around, and a sharp contrast to the mind set of L&J and their followers, so frightened of death they've created a loophole, and so frightened of not getting into heaven they let the world go to hell while they try to make sure they meet all the man made requirements to get in.

[Erick Oppeen]

Not to mention...don't "international bankers" have children, too? What if their big, evil conspiracy involves "we're going to track down the (CENSORED BY THE INTERNET BOARD OF GOOD TASTE) who took our kids...and he's gonna PAY!"

I'm no parent myself, but I know many...and if someone had taken one of their children, much less ALL of them, they'd become vengeance machines until those kids were back home.

[Jos]

You know, while I read this post, I simply could not shake the image of Plank braiding Buck's hair while they were talking.

This is probably because Plank is the only fictional character I have ever encountered (so far) who I simply cannot see as an individual. He exists solely to help Buck along and when that's not needed he actually stops existing.

I'm assuming that the "hair-braiding" image is therefore some kind of subconscious metaphor for the Plank/Buck relationship.

[L]

The only way this could be a more stereotypical LB chapter is if the
conversation happened over the telephone.

the Greatest Investigative Reporter of All Time, is fluent in English
and no other language.
Hey, English is the language of the King James Version, and if it was
good enough for God....

Left Behind slash fiction
With names like "Ray Steele", "Buck Williams", and "Steve Plank" they're
practically begging for it. I'm surprised they didn't have a "Rod
Woodward" or a "Dick Jerkins".

[Jesurgislac]

I think that my favorite blurb of the stories JS Bangs linked us to (I haven't looked at the stories... yet...) is: "Co written. Parts of Left Behind they didn't tell you about, carefully scripted and cast for your enjoyment. Rated for hinted slash and major stupidity. We take no responsibility for any loss of health, sanity or eyesight that may occur once read."

Tell the truth: have some of the Slacktivist gang already been getting together offlist to do this? Or is there another blog doing this somewhere?

[Brandi]

I mean, the Extruded Fantasy Product market can't be that hard up for authors that they have to start tapping the high schoolers, can they?

The kid who wrote Eragon had an unusual advantage: his parents were publishers (small-press probably; they had published 3 books prior to Eragon) and willing to have him take a pretty extensive book tour (maybe because he's homeschooled? It certainly would allow a flexible schedule). If Wikipedia's to be believed, his book then caught the eye of Carl Hiassen (or his stepson, who told him about it) who in turn told Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. that it might be worth pubhlishing.

[Brandi]

Damn, messed up a tag.

The kid who wrote Eragon had an unusual advantage: his parents were publishers (small-press probably; they had published 3 books prior to Eragon) and willing to have him take a pretty extensive book tour (maybe because he's homeschooled? It certainly would allow a flexible schedule). If Wikipedia's to be believed, his book then caught the eye of Carl Hiassen (or his stepson, who told him about it) who in turn told Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. that it might be worth publishing.

[Nick]

I've read Eragon and I REALLY hated those books, so naturally I immediately went and looked for anti-Eragon websites. So I can tell you about Eragon.

The first book the author began when he was 15 (not an uncommon age to begin writing) and finished when he was 19 (yep - he was an ADULT), which is when it was published by his parents' publishing company after being rejected by every other publisher. After it inexplicably became popular, Knopf started publishing it. The second book (which is the only instance in which I advocate book-burning) was published when he was 22. He's currently 24 years old, and still lives with his (ahem) eccentric parents in some weird survivalist hut thing in rural Montana.

[Eoghan]

"The only hint of illegal activity is when we're told that Stonagal owns different banks in different countries. Arranging that seems like it would involve a bit of graft and corruption to get around foreign ownership regulations."

Am I missing something here? Foreign ownership of banks is perfectly legal in most developed countries. Is there a list somewhere of the countries Stonagal owns banks in?

[the opoponax]

i think the idea is that he owns multiple different banks, all in different countries. i guess the idea is that he has something approaching a monopoly on international finance. which, while i don't know for sure, may well be illegal. i know it is in terms of media corporations, and even where legal, it tends to creep people out. see Rupert Murdoch, for instance.

the other mystifying thing about this is that all the really important banks are international enterprises. it would be kind of pointless to own Citibank, Barclay's, and Dreyfus, for example. any of those will do business worldwide, anyway.

[McJulie]

And why does ANYBODY acclaim them as good writing?
When you have nothing in your experience to compare them to...

Actually, this is an interesting consideration with Christian religious fiction -- because, presumably, anybody reading this stuff has at least one book to compare it to -- the Christian Bible. And, during the 70s at least, the more conservative L&J types all read the King James Version. And the KJV has some well-documented accuracy problems, but in a literary sense, it's lovely.

So, I propose that many people simply have the literary equivalent of a tin ear* and are as immune to the literary charms of the Bible itself as they are immune to the literary sins of drek like L&J. When they say "this is good" they mean "it makes me feel good to read this."

Obviously, having your worldview flattered is the sort of thing that can make people feel good.

*...and the visual equivalent of a tin ear, and, well, the musical kind too. Growing up, I was always baffled by the evangelists around me, and how they seemed to literally perceive no difference between DaVinci's Last Supper and cheesy angel prints from the 1950s, or between "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" and some dull, tuneless faux-folk recitation.

I think our host has spoken before about this cult of "sincerity" in evangelical art, where only the "message" is seen to be important. Actual artistic quality is a distant second -- or maybe even mistrusted as vaguely decadent.

In a context like this, LB sort of makes sense -- it's nothing if not sincere and on-message. Of course, it's also a steaming pile of ordure, but you're not allowed to notice that.

[Robert]

McJulie, I believe the phrase you are looking for is "steaming pile of produce."

This excursion into Buckworld always baffled me. Now that I know more about how the book is put together it makes more sense. It's a chance for Jenkins to do his wish fulfillment thing. He doesn't do it very well, but then we've come to expect that from L&J.

Bad writing is one thing though. What makes these digressions so bizarre is their insulation from the rest of the story. International currency reform proposals are obviously big, big news...except after two billion people just vanished. The events of the Event never intrude on Buck's Adventures. Could the bankers be responsible for the Event? If no, how will it affect their plans?

Bankers however don't appear in the Bible. Therefore there is no obvious connection between the Rapture and the NWO bigwigs. Lacking any curiosity Jenkins never asks himself how the two could relate, so it remains in a hermetically sealed plot-bubble.

[Francis]

4) the writing quality is about on the order of the Eragon trilogy.

When I read this, I thought you meant that the writing was about on the order of The Eye of Argon.

On second thoughts, the Eye of Argon is actually entertaining in a massochistic sort of way.

[the opoponax]

McJulie (and others) --

i think a HUGE part of it is the general correlation between parts of the US where aesthetic appreciation is not valued and places that have a high level of religious fundamentalism.

i grew up in the bible belt. bookstores and libraries had crap selection: mainly pulp, with a small literature section that was mainly composed of titles on the school reading lists. any real art was a few hours' drive away -- our town didn't have a symphony or any museums or the equivalent in other media. the schools didn't teach art or music, and english classes were heavy on the grammar and much lighter on literature. what we did read in school was almost as a rule either complete drivel or the absolute most pointless and boring "Great Literature". it took a lot of effort to emerge from school without an absolute hatred of the printed page.

but, oh, was there a lot of jesus. "religious bookstores". "christian radio". etc. etc. it doesn't surprise me at all that Left Behind is so popular with this crowd, and why the crazyfundies don't have an aesthetic bone in their bodies. when we're not taught an appreciation for art from a young age, we rarely acquire it later.

the weird thing is the people who are trapped in that, even if they aren't particularly religious, stop looking for it after a while. my youngest brother is interested in studying fine arts. i've begged and pleaded with him to move to New York, where he could, you know, actually experience it. you can just pop over to the Metropolitan Museum whenever you want and check out Monet, Rodin, Vermeer, Picasso. spend every weekend for the rest of your life touring galleries. there are entire book stores devoted to art books, and even in regular bookstores the arts section is bigger than the biggest bookstore in our hometown. you can't swing a proverbial cat without accidentally hitting some conceptual artist who's swinging an actual cat as part of a performance piece. and yet he's not interested. all his friends are going to LSU. and he'll never make any money as an artist anyway. i grew up in this universe, in the same actual household, and i just don't fucking understand the degree to which even those in the bible belt who love art will actively shun it for extremely stupid reasons.

[LMM]

Francis: Your link is out of date.

Believe it or not, they found the ending.

[Noah Brand]

"You can't swing a proverbial cat without accidentally hitting some conceptual artist who's swinging an actual cat as part of a performance piece."

That is a SPLENDID image. It works coming and going.

[ako]

It's not only LaHaye & Jenkins. Or End Time Prophecy fanboys. I've run into "Progressive Citizen of The World" types and heard of academics (and Trekkies) who also believe the UN (under the label "multinational decision-making body") does (or at least should) outrank the US. They're sort of a funhouse-mirror yin-and-yang of LH&J.

There's a big difference, though, between thinking that the UN should outrank the US, and thinking that it does. If someone thinks the UN should outrank the US, you can view that as a bad idea, or an utterly horrible one, or a fairly sensible idea but not practical, or the full range of political opinions, based on the usual combination of facts, speculation (about what would result in the future), and your personal values. And (particularly if you're emotionally or ideologically invested as seeing neat little left/right opposites so you can regard both sides as equally bad), you can regard it as so bad as to be idiotic or insane.

However, Lehaye and Jenkin's idea about what the UN actually does, and how it relates to the US is wrong. Factually, verifiably, wrong. Granted, if your main argument for giving the UN more power is to create the United Federation of Planets, a few facts about the current role of the UN aren't going to make you any more rational or convicing, but at least someone starting with actual correct information has a reasonable possibility of coming to a good conclusion. Someone starting with completely false information has only the most vanishingly small chance of coming to a correct conclusion.

[mrlinzy]

Stonagal's "International Group" represents, I assume, the infamous "Tri-Lateral Commission", since Stone-A-Gal is a lame play on Rock-A-Feller, and everyone knows that the Rockefellers run the world through the Tri-Lateral Commission. There must be some reason why the authors need to drag the poor Rockefellers into their skit.

[emjaybee]

Re: mistrust of art, I think this has been covered before, but...basically, fundamentalism is extremely suspicious of any thoughts that are not directly taken from their interpretation of Christianity. Just the same as any dictatorship. Unless art (or artistic attempts anyway) are glorifying the Authority (state or church) it is perceived as a threat. Which is why Michelangelo had to paint so many Bible scenes to get paid.

Anyway, on a much smaller scale, in my household it came down to an argument I once had with my father about imagination....he believed it was sinful. No really, he said that. It was sinful to imagine. Because, I guess, imagined thoughts hadn't been put through the church-o-filter and given the stamp of approval. All unapproved thoughts might come from the Devil, and so should be cast out. And we, as individuals, were not to trust ourselves regarding which thoughts were ok...we were to defer to the Authority. Which was called "God" but was of course "the church."

I hadn't yet read Orwell at that age, or I might have recognized the "whatever was not forbidden was mandatory" tone of all this.

Artistic skill itself, in the form of good writing, music, what have you, is completely unimportant next to hitting all the godly talking points. And yes, being too good a writer/artist...which would mean illuminating reality in all its complexity--will almost always lead people to look at you with concern that you will mislead the flock and cause "confusion."

So Precious Moments and LB thrive, while any artist who wants to be a Christian but still ask hard questions will not be able to find listeners in a fundamentalist church.

[Ursula L]

Bankers however don't appear in the Bible.

Bankers would fall under the Biblical profession of "money lenders," who were well-hated at that time, since most people would only borrow money in dire circumstances, and the interest charged on loans was cripplingly high.

[Erick Oppeen]

While I like making fun of _The Eye of Argon,_ I do keep in mind that the person who wrote it was sixteen years old at the time, which tempers my mirth somewhat. I'm _very_ glad that my juvenilia is, as far as I know, long since destroyed. There's much less excuse for L+J.

I would also say that Michelangelo did so much religious-themed art because the people who were paying for art wanted to show off how pious they were by giving something spectacular to the church. These days he'd probably be doing book covers or working for an advertising firm---those are the people who're willing to pay for art.

"Stone-A-Gal is a lame play on Rock-A-Feller."

Good grief, I never realized that! This truly is cheesy fan-fiction: puns are an integral part of it.

[Reverend Ref]

Stone-A-Gal is a lame play on Rock-A-Feller

There are lots of indicators as to why LB is the Worst Book of All Time, and Fred and all the other commenters here do an incredibly good job of that. I think, though, that this is really the first post in which multiple characters are named in one post. I mean . . . just take a look:

Buck Williams, Nicolae Carpathia, Chaim Rosenzweig, Wallace Theodore, Hattie, "George Oreskovich", Steve Plank, Jonathan Stonagal, Dirk Burton, Joshua Todd-Cothran, Alan Tompkins, Ban Ki-moon

This list alone makes my head hurt. LaJenkins would have done better if they had simply copied the "Begats."

[cjmr's husband]

One of these names is not like the other...

Still silly though.

[ako]

Do they make up a fake name for the UN Secretary-General? Before (I'm guessing) Carpathia takes over the position? Because it would be hard to come up with a name that was visibly too strange or implausible to be UN Secretary-General. You'd have to out-weird Butros Butros-Ghali, Gladwyn Jebb, and U Thant. By that standard, Nicholae Carpathia looks downright plausible.

[X]

Compare and contrast:

GIRAT: Hero who speaks only one language.
Antichrist: Unholy charmer who speaks many.

Je vais à l'enfer.

"Tell the truth: have some of the Slacktivist gang already been getting together offlist to do this? Or is there another blog doing this somewhere?"

You mean someone else might have worked out that LB are lousy books?

[aunursa]

Buck Williams, Nicolae Carpathia, Chaim Rosenzweig, Wallace Theodore, Hattie, "George Oreskovich", Steve Plank, Jonathan Stonagal, Dirk Burton, Joshua Todd-Cothran, Alan Tompkins, Ban Ki-moon

It gets worse. Can these names that appear in the sequels sound any more ethnic? David Hassid, Ming Toy, Hannah Palemoon, Chang Wong, Tsion (pronounced 'Zion') Ben-Judah?

And then Jenkins pats himself on the back for producing the characters (with what he considers to be cryptic names) Viv Ivins and Pinkerton Stephens.

[Professor P]

Ako... Carpathia's predecessor was King Mwangati Ngumo, Master of the Universe and Lord of the Seven Continents.