Goodbye, Daniel

Surfing the blogiverse this morning, I discovered that CBS has pulled the plug on their "controversial" show, "The Book of Daniel." I'm not entirely suprised, and now I have to decide if I'm actually going to watch the second and third episodes that I recorded, or just nuke them off the DVR. Truth be told, the show wasn't all that great.

Unfortunately, I think that a lot of "conservative Christians" are going to take this as a "moral victory." The AFA rallied the troops and started a letter writing campaign to get it off the air. And no doubt, as I write this, the AFA and it's coconspirators are patting themselves on the back over the "success of their campaign." I doubt it'll ever occur to them that it's possible that, like CBS has indicated in their own public statement, the show was really cancelled because it just plain sucked.

Truth be told, I think that the show had far bigger problems than being controversial or "anti-Christian." (To be honest, I think calling the show anti-Christian is a bit of a stretch anyway, but I also think that some groups like the AFA consider anything that doesn't show Christians as perfect people who never struggle with personal or moral issues as "anti-Christian, so...but I digress.) The show was poorly written and way too melodramatic. A single family having that many "problems" and "woes" just isn't realistic. The writer tried to stuff so much into the show at one time that the entire scenario was forced and fabricated at best. The end result, even those of us who didn't get righteously indignant over the suggestion that a Christian minister might struggle with an addiction to pain medications (or have a son turn out to be gay) just like anyone else thought the show was lame. So I think it's just as likely that this contributed as much -- if not more -- to the show being cancelled as a bunch of outraged letter writers.

I'm reminded of the time Stace and I discussed the movie, "Brokeback Mountain." She found it ludicrous that so many people were looking to people's reactions of that movie as a "litmus test." She pointed out that this was silly, as some people would have other reasons to not see the movie other than the fact that it's a "gay cowboy movie." (Her prime example was that she herselt hated "cowboy movies.") As such, she felt it a bad idea to consider the overall reaction to the movie as an indicator of society's feelings towards gay people. I think that the Christians who are celebrating the cancellation of "The Book of Daniel" need to listen to Stace's thoughts and apply it to the current situation, as well. After all, there are other reasons to cancel a show than to appease a bunch of outraged Christians.

All the same, good riddance to bad rubbish.

Yes, I have yet another new blog

Yes, I've gone off the deep end yet again. I've created another new blog. (Don't ask how many I have, as I've lost count.) However, I felt this one was particularly needed. You see, it's a "specialty blog."

You might recall reading an entry or two in this blog that were written as letters to a hypothetical lover. I've been thinking about continuing that series of letters. I also decided that they needed their own space, rather than being mixed in with my random mutterings.

The result? I have now created Dear Lover, a site dedicated to letters written to a man whose identity I don't know -- and I probably haven't even met.

Feel free to check it out.