I wonder how many underage boys are suddenly without their weekly retainer?

Posted by: Mick Travis Bickle at May 16, 2007 1:04 PM

Interesting thought Mick, but that would be the Catholickish fat-blobs. Everyone knows that Babtizts don't fornicate, adulterate, fellate, or pediphilate.

Or depilate, for that matter.

(sizzle. crackle. sizzle. snap. BURN?).

Posted by: Ian at May 16, 2007 1:32 PM

Isn't illegal to bury large quantities of trans fats? If he's cremated then it will be akin to the Chernobyl cloud except and we should all stay inside. Pity the fool who does the embalming I'd rather comb the fur under the fridge with my tongue.
I"M SO GLAD THAT EVIL FUCKER IS GONE!!

Posted by: Reich Spits On Falwell's Corpse at May 16, 2007 2:09 PM

Falwell's heyday was so far in the past--during the Ronnie Raygun years--that I've been a bit surprised by the headlines his death has generated. Even so, the man has always had a penchant for keeping his name (and his fundamentalist beliefs) in the news.

I remember when he enacted a "hostile/holy takeover" of the PTL (Jim & Tammy Faye) Heritage Rip-Off Christian Theme Park and hurtled himself down their waterslide as a show of "power."

It was a watershed moment. Falwell's Moral Majority, though doomed to flow into and be wholly absorbed by the general evangelical political sentiments of the late 8os and early 90s, did indeed build the groundwork for the re-emergence of the Bush dynasty in the person of God's favored warlord--George W.

In his latter years, Falwell was just a voice braying--occasionally--in the wind. One has to grasp the intricacies of the American Bible-Thumping set here; Falwell was a staunch Baptist and he--more than anyone--blanched when the truly evangelical form of Christianity (exemplified by Pat Robertson) took control of Protestantism in the 90s.

Falwell's Baptist ilk were seriously damaged by the "boom" of the "Super-Churches"--those 14,000-member congregations that advertise such closeness to Jesus that they don't even bother to denote themselves as "denominations." The whole "non-denominational" shite. Before that time, the Southern Baptist Convention was the fastest-growing denomination in the USA. That stopped abruptly once "tongue-speak" became the shiny new fad.

Of course, many of the same so-called "family values" Falwell espoused were shared by his evangelical rivals, but one never saw him hanging out with Robertson or Dobson--not much.

American Protestant politics are more complicated than is thought.

I'm certain Falwell's loved ones are sad at his passing--condolences are theirs--but he was one of the original and most foul bile-spewers par excellence. I don't happen to believe in Hell (I doubt Steven does either), but the blob-dropping pork-sizzlin'-on-brimstone metaphor was actually a good one on Felty's part.

Falwell earned that kind of jibe, even if it is only a jibe. He merited that.

A divisive, savvy, religious terrorist--as dangerous in his heyday as any Islamic extremist.

Posted by: Ian "Immoral Minority" Ransom at May 16, 2007 3:42 PM

Ian, if the universe is a truly ordered place then Mr. Falwell's conciousness has been projected into the Hell he envisioned. I don't believe it, but it'd be a nice piece of quantam housekeeping.

Anywho, his influence may have waned, but the damage he's done is still with us. I feel a bit like one of those Fred Phelps nuts with the signs at funerals, taking so much glee in his passing, but he was a very bad man and he lived way too long.

Posted by: steven at May 16, 2007 4:39 PM

Oh well shut my mouth... Towle Road has this beaut posted.

Posted by: steven at May 16, 2007 5:21 PM

"Everyone knows that Babtizts don't fornicate, adulterate, fellate, or pediphilate.

Or depilate, for that matter."

Right. If the past eyewitness accounts are accurate, in Jerry's case they git real drunk behind closed doors and pass out an' ain't gone be doin' NOTHIN' then.

The folks running Jerry's local bar back in Lynchburg is SO not stoked right now...

Posted by: MP at May 17, 2007 1:29 AM

Is he wearing one of those diabedies bracelets? the one that tells the pramedics he's an afflicted dude so they know what to do with him when he has a heart attack?

Posted by: Brink at May 18, 2007 5:29 AM

I know it's bad form, on principle, to heave editors on a site centered on generating comic relief from cultural narcissism adulation but this is flat out, the most apt title, possibly ever.

Posted by: Sir Philip at May 20, 2007 5:49 PM