Sunday, June 21, 2009

West Wing Bible Lesson

A great scene from the West Wing. I stole this from my friend Mark's blog, who actually posts in English on occasion! :)

2 comments:

Mark Friesland said...

Rob, I first saw this video on Susan Russell's excellent blog "An Inch at a Time." At the end of my own blog post, I wrote "Благодаря, Сюзън Ръсел!" which says "Thanks, Susan Russell" and has a link to her blog. So I borrowed it from her first and want to give her credit. This video is very relevant to current events in Bulgaria. In Bulgaria, there is freedom of religion but also the idea of freedom from religion. It is a violation of the Bulgarian Constitution and Bulgarian federal law for churches and religious institutions to be "used to political ends." We are approaching the June 27 date of Sofia, Bulgaria's Rainbow Friendship event and some small religious groups have been planning counter-protests. But the laws in Bulgaria would strictly prohibit organizations like the Knights of Columbus and the Mormons from continuing to have tax-free status as religious organizations and injecting millions of their religious funds into partisan, anti-gay politics. In light of the approaching pride event in Sofia, I also thought it was very important (and very funny) to translate some of that video (which is a great critique of fundamentalism) and Martin Sheen's memorable phrase "monthly meeting of the ignorant tight-ass club" into Bulgarian: „Месечна среща на невеж, стегнато сфинктер организация" The best I could do in Bulgarian was roughly "monthly meeting of the tight sphincter association." When I said that in Bulgarian and explained that it was a critique of anti-gay religious groups, Nikola burst into laughter and sprayed a mouthful of Diet Coke on me. On behalf of President Obama and the American people, U.S. Ambassador to Bulgaria the Honorable Nancy McEldowney has issued a statement in Bulgarian and English commending and endorsing the upcoming Rainbow Friendship event on 27 June in Sofia. No American ambassador under Mr. Bush would do that in the last eight years, so this is a very big endorsement and powerful gesture of friendship and solidarity from the U.S. gov't and the American people and it has been received with joy by the Bulgarian queer community.

http://sofiaecho.com/2009/06/17/737681_us-ambassador-backs-rainbow-friendship-rally

We send you our love!
Mark

Doorman-Priest said...

Ah, Dr. Laura reworked.

Very good. That must have pissed off a fair few when it was broadcast.

Good.