controversy

Scientology fascinates me, and not because I have any desire to be a part of whatever the hell it is. I'm just inexplicably drawn to beliefs and practices I would never personally adhere to because I'm interested in what drives other people, especially if aliens might be involved. The "religion" claims to have ten million followers, and there's obviously something about it that attracts celebrities. Do those Hollywood peeps know something about it we don't, or is it just another trivial and meaningless fad like Kabbalah?

48 Hours recently did a show on Scientology, specifically Jeremy Perkins, a paranoid schizophrenic who stabbed his mother to death. Perkins parents were Scientologists (his mother was a senior auditor at the Church of Scientology in Buffalo, NY) and did not believe in psychiatric treatment. You can watch the episode here. I have not watched it yet myself, but feel free to take a look and share your reflections in the comments.

[via Digg]

The animated MTV2 series Where My Dogs At? from comedians Jeffrey Ross and Tracy Morgan came under fire recently because of a segment that featured two women on leashes, a scene meant to parody an actual appearance involving Snoop Dogg with two women in tow on chains. Some insisted it was a simple spoof of a real event, while others found it misogynist and racist. This may end up being a moot argument, however, as MTV has not decided whether or not the show is going to return for a second season. As I said in my previous post, I never watched the show, and the little bit I've seen of it on MTV2's site didn't impress me very much. I didn't find it offensive, I just didn't think it was very good. A shame, really, because I like both Jeffrey Ross and Tracy Morgan quite a bit. Were any of you readers a fan of the show?

So you saw him at the White House Correspondents Dinner, watched the clips on YouTube and GoogleVideo, and talked about it ad nauseam on this very site and various other blogs and messageboards. Of course, I'm talking about Kenneth T. Walsh, chief correspondent for US News and World Report. Seriously, who let that guy speak, anyway? Don't they have some kind of screening process for these kind of events?

Yeah, okay, I'm actually talking about Stephen Colbert, who was either very funny or very not funny, depending on, well, whether you thought he was funny or not. Anyway, several blogs have been reporting that the DVD of the event is now available on the CSPAN Web site. Of course, you can also just watch the event on GoogleVideo, too, but you don't get the joy of loading a disc into something, which is really what life is all about.

First, comedian Joe Rogan of Fear Factor got into an online debate with a kid half his age, and then later smoothed things over with the kid. Now Rogan may be courting controversy again with this fifty-page thread on his messageboard. The thread wasn't started by Rogan; it was actually started by a board member who found out that another board member, whom he disliked, was part of a support group for obese people. Apparently this was the culmination of an ongoing battle of wits among the members of the board, and like most messageboards, conversation eventually devolved into personal attacks and racist insults. This kind of behavior on messageboards is hardly news, but apparently Rogan decided to toss in his support for the thread, even adding a few insults of his own. Rogan apparently loves the raw and unfiltered power of the internet, even if his participation in it might be construed by some as indirectly supporting anti-Semitic sentiments.

[via Best Week Ever]