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BOTOX BLUES
BY PETER KURTH (published 06.19.02)
Folks, let's talk about Botox.
I'm determined to be cheerful this week, and the only other items on
the news this morning were Tiger Woods, Winona Ryder's shoplifting trial
and murdering Saddam Hussein. And
that little girl in Utah, unfortunately, Elizabeth Smart, who got kidnapped out of her
bedroom. And those fires in Colorado. And
Andersen-Enron. And "dirty
bombs."
No wonder you look worried! Cheer up: Botox promises not just to
remove those annoying fright-lines from your brow, but will also relieve
your "overactive bladder," should you be unlucky enough to suffer
from one at this perilous moment in our nation's history.
"Bladder dysfunction affects a staggering number of people
world-wide," says a report for the pharmaceutical industry. "And the use of Botox injections can
offer many of these patients a safe solution to this embarrassing
problem."
Not a minute too soon! As far
as I can tell, Botox is mainly glue, but if it can remove all expression
and emotion from your face, I'm sure it can tighten your pipes, too, when
the bombs start going off. Imagine
trying to defend the homeland while wetting your pants! Try sniffing-out terrorists while leaving
a trail of pee in your wake! Will you be fighting the Infidel in soggy
drawers?
OK, never mind -- there are so many ghastly things going on out there
I don't know where to avert my eyes.
My vote for most disgusting news story of the week comes from Florida, as usual, where the Rev. Jerry Vines,
pastor of First Baptist Church in Jacksonville and a former president of
the Southern Baptist Convention, warned his flock that "Allah is not
Jehovah" and that Muslims "don't worship the same god as we do.”
"Jehovah's not going to turn you into a terrorist that will try
to bomb people and take the lives of thousands and thousands of
people," Vines insists.
Theologically and stylistically, he's in line with Dubya Bush, the
commander-in-chief, who intoned not long ago, "Evil knows no holiday;
evil doesn't welcome Thanksgiving or the Christmas season." But Vines
does Bush one better by adding that the prophet Mohammed was a "demon-possessed
pedophile." That'll win us some friends overseas!
The Reverend and Mrs. (?) Vines
This story might not have bothered me so much if a) I didn't have
some Muslims in my family, and b) President Bush hadn't bestowed his
televised blessing on last week's Baptist Convention in St. Louis.
The specific charge against Mohammed involves his marriage to a
six-year-old girl, the 12th of his wives, with whom he reportedly had sex
when she was nine. This was 15 centuries
ago, long before Southern Baptists had evolved from the swamp, and at a
time in history when all women and children were deemed to be the property
of men (never mind that Methuselah gets his first mention in the Bible at
the age of 187)
Indeed, I believe male ownership of women is still the rule among
Rev. Vines's co-religionists, whose 16 million members adopted a resolution
about it in 1998: "A wife is to submit herself graciously to the
servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to
the headship of Christ." A shot of Botox might definitely help here,
at least for any Southern Baptist woman who needs to keep a straight face.
Alas, mentioning religion and pedophiles in the same breath leads
inevitably to the topic of Catholic priests. I don't know how Botox would help in that
situation, except, perhaps, to seal the lips of everyone involved.
In Chicago on Sunday, Cardinal Francis George compared the American media to
"communist spies" and ordered them to leave their cameras and
notebooks outside his church while he celebrated mass. His parishioners cheered. It's worth pointing out that of 46,000
Catholic priests in this country only 250 have resigned or been removed
from their posts in the wake of the pedophile scandal. No comfort to the abused, I'm sure, but
not exactly the cataclysmic crisis it's been made to appear. No wonder the bishops in Dallas sounded strange in their remarks.
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