The inter-national jihadist comedy troupe ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) took a break from filming its ongoing series of beheading videos to announce on Twitter its plan to attack Rome and hurl gay Romans off the city’s “leaning tower of pizza.”
At least that was the most common interpretation of the message as reported by the Daily Mail. In a late February tweet, one Abu Abdullah Britani (@abu_britani2) — employing the hashtag “We-Are-Coming-O-Rome” — stated “we will use your leaning tower of pizza to throw off homosexual” (sic). Most observers naturally assume that Britani simply mangled the English language, not to mention the geography and national landmarks of Italy, when he threatened to toss Italian lesbians and gay men off a very tall stack of double cheese and pepperoni pies.
But I take a different, more nuanced view. I believe Britani was actually making use of the idiom “to throw off,” meaning to steer in the wrong direction. What he was really threatening was a devious plan to distract, or throw off, gay people from our unruly sex drive by phoning in a particularly large order of Italy’s famous culinary delight and then just lying in wait for crowds of sodomites to stop having sex and immediately rush to the (unspecified) site of the delivery, climb the gooey tower, and eat themselves to death.
One word of advice to ISIS: don’t add the optional anchovies to the order. Nobody likes them.
Do You Buh-lieve in Life after Law? “‘Discrimination’” is a necessary thing in life (it simply means ‘to make a distinction’), but this word has been hijacked and turned into a weapon of tyranny being used against people of conscience. The ‘Employment Non-Discrimination Act’ (ENDA) being pushed in Congress by homofascist sympathizers, would make it illegal to ‘discriminate’ in hiring and firing practices against men who dress like women (and the reverse) or who display other in-your-face sexually deviant behavior. So, you don’t want to hire a man dressed like Cher? Be prepared to get fined out of business, or worse, if this becomes law.”
So writes RenewAmerica.com’s Gina Miller, who bills herself as “a conservative Christian political writer and radio/ television voice professional.” (My question: Does she do Daffy Duck? You can’t call yourself a true voice professional if you don’t do Daffy Duck.)
Her blather wouldn’t be worth quoting, let alone commenting on, if it weren’t for that ominous “or worse” in the final sentence. To what exactly is she alluding? Our “homofascist” plan to execute people who don’t love Cher? If so, hers is a troubling prediction. Very troubling. Don’t be silly, Gina. We only plan to execute people who don’t love Judy Garland. We’ll only maim those who don’t love Cher.
I’m Obviously Missing Something
“The Distance,” a recent episode of the AMC blockbuster series “The Walking Dead,” blew many of its loyal fans out of the water — and out of the fan base, too — when two new characters, Aaron and Eric, locked lips. Twitter lit up with outrage:
Manny @mejehu44: It ticks me off when the homo community taints my favorite show with their crap, #WalkingDead. No gay scenes on #WalkingDead.
Jamie Lynn @JLynnBSBgirl: I’m over gay stuff being pushed on us… It’s gross… Thanks #WalkingDead probably not watching anymore.
Justin Case @BettencortCase: Been watching #WalkingDead since day one. Not sure why they had to add a gay scene in there. This loyal viewer is done.
Manny, Jamie, and Justine have no problem with flesh-eating zombies, but they draw the nausea line at a gay kiss. Perfect.
And the Award for the Stupidest Post-Oscar Commentary Goes to… Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes for their inane piece in the New York Times. It began: “In the end, it was the audience that got snubbed. Following the best picture win on Sunday night by “Birdman” — a brainy film seen by fewer than five million ticket buyers in North America — the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences woke on Monday to soft television ratings for its Oscar telecast and fresh signs that its movie awards have become hopelessly detached from movie viewers.”
The Oscars are not the People’s Choice Awards. They’re awards given by a relatively small number of Hollywood professionals to films, actors, and tech people they think merit particular distinction. They have never been popularity contests, except among Academy voters, who — far from being the general population — are instead a group of industry insiders. That’s not to say that these insiders get it right all the time or even most of the time. “Boyhood” being shut out by “Birdman” is an all-too-typically absurd embarrassment. But Academy voters rarely use a film’s box-office take as a measure of anything when casting their votes. As my friend the novelist and sometime Times contributor Kevin Baker points out, by Cieply and Barnes’s logic next year’s Best Picture Oscar will have to go to “Fifty Shades of Grey.”
I’ll close with my favorite Oscar quote of all time, uttered by the late, great Ann Miller to my late pal, Mason Wiley: “I never see the pictures, but I always vote. It means so much to those kids!”
Follow @EdSikov on Twitter.
