"He was sadly deprived of his final wish, which was to be run over by a beer truck on the way to the liquor store to buy booze for a date."

I think we have a candidate for best newspaper obituary ever!

The Door To Heaven

Another neat C.O. Baptista christian film from the 1940s: The Door to Heaven:



The intro part and additional music at the start is by the weisenheimer YouTuber who posted this...but I do owe him thanks for putting it online.

Wooly!!!!, Noooooo!!!! :)

My friends will understand why I bought this movie two minutes after seeing this clip. :)



"When contaminated gas from an ancient mine create the formation of a giant mutant sheep, a Wild West tourist town becomes a chaotic nightmare. The 8-foot monstrosity wreaks havoc, spewing flammable orange gas and dancing with the town freaks! Captured by the corrupt, racist mayor, this hellbeast soon becomes a town attraction. Over-the-top, campy, and utterly hilarious, GODMONSTER OF INDIAN FLATS would make John Waters very happy."

With bonuses uncluding the music video "You Cannot Fart Around With Love", which I think my friend Wade will enjoy. Regrettably, it is not the love theme of Godmonster of Indian Flats, which would just be too cool. It comes from another film:

More interesting than the Tory efforts to make Harper look like Dwight Eisenhower, at any rate

(This Harry Enfield sketch was spotted by Tim Blair

Not my pastor's favourites... :)

Here are the trailers for my fave Christian movie, A Thief In The Night, and two of that film's sequels...



Please keep in mind that I like a little cheese with my movies. (And these movies were good evangelistic tools, back in the day.)

It was only a dream...OR WAS IT? :)

The 1941 version of The Rapture

This is The Rapture, a 1941 Christian film by C.O. Baptista Films



It's understandably old-fashioned, but I think it's a good explanation of the theological concept of "the Rapture".

Check out the footage of the crashing trains!

Lawn mower versus sheep, best of three falls

I think that comedian Stan Freberg would be aware, judging by his 1960s TV commercial for Jacobsen Lawn Mowers, that some people have toyed with the idea of using a sheep to mow their lawn.



Many years later, however, it would take Cecil Adams, genius columnist, to try to seriously answer the question "Could sheep replace the lawn mower?".

I'm Counting On You...

Here's Johnny O'Keefe, Australian pop star of the 1960's, with "I'm Counting On You", one of my very favourite songs.



He is miming to the record on an Australian TV show.

Help...Help...I'm being repressed!

Now that National Review Online reports that there is a national campaign for that *other* Palin, there's a groundswell for Michael Palin for President, this clip is more appropriate than ever....



You know, I think I was in an "anarcho-syndicalist collective" in my university days... :)

Elmo "hulks up"

An amine show in Toronto hosts a wrestling card that features guest wrestler....Tickle Me Elmo?!? Funny!



Hat tip: Wrestlecrap.

Today on a very special General Hospital....

The boys from MST3K clobber two early 1960s snippets from General Hospital...

You wiped your feet on the doormat of my heart...

The gang from Mystery Science Theater 3000 starts an episode by making fun of an early 1960s episode of General Hospital!

Their spoof starts 5 1/2 minutes into this video...



and continues in this video:





"You wiped your feet on the doormat of my heart!"

Today, we are singing with Heino! Today, we are singing with Heino!...

Heino, a German singer with blond hair and ever-present sunglasses, must be seen to be believed. Here he is on his TV show Sing mit Heino.



He's Mitch Miller with a side order of Bratwurst. :)

Tonight...on America Has Talent...

Farmer Cecil Dill shows how he can make music with his hands in a 1933 Universal newsreel:



It's a good thing that Joseph Pujol, "Le Petomane", was mostly retired by the time that sound newsreels came to exist. :)

Faire Le Lcomotion

I like the Sylvie Vartan cover version of The Locomotion almost as much as the original. :)

Neighbourhood Nuclear Superiority

I had never realized that I needed "Neighborhood Nuclear Superiority" until I saw this clip from Michael Nesmith's Elephant Parts:



I'm thinking that this would be kind of handy at my job. :)

Who doth inhabit first

On YouTube, two Elizabethan-styled actors perform a funny Shakespearian version of "Who's On First", perhaps assuming that the Bard of Avon at one time hosted three shows a day at Minsky's for some extra ducats...



Here's some more details from the original post on YouTube:

An Elizabethan twist on Abbot and Costello's famous vaudeville routine. Performed by STNJ actors David Foubert and Jay Leibowitz on New Year's Eve of 2006 in Morristown, NJ. Written by Jay Leibowitz and Jason King Jones. www.jayleibowitz.com

How to interview, by Wierd Al Yankovic

It would seem that interviews are *much* better when you can make up the questions after you have the answers! If only I had know this during my Report days! :)

Weird Al Yankovic shows us how!

When he "interviews" Madonna...



Michael Stipe...



Paul McCartney...



Eminem... (Weird Al must have had fun with this one as Eminem messed up his plans to do a video spoof of one his songs)



Mick Jagger...



Paula Abdul...



Tom Petty...



Mariah Carey...



Billy Joel...



Ozzy Osbourne...



and George Harrison...

Best cover of Windy ever!

I have to ask myself, which is better...

Windy, as performed by The Association...



Or the cover version of Windy, as performed by Drew Carey and Craig Ferguson on The Drew Carey Show!

Faire Le Kangourou

It was a dance craze in Quebec--The Kangaroo!

Over 200% of your daily cholesterol needs

I must be hungry, as I am reading this Internet wag's description of Swanson's Hungry Man Breakfast, which he dubs The Breakfast From Hell.

Shatner! In! The! Sky! With Diamonds!

This amusing cartoon video accompanies William Shatner's definitive version of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.

Tech Tags: William+Shatner+Lucy+In+the+Sky+With+Diamonds+video William+Shatner+Lucy+In+the+Sky+With+Diamonds

Vote Socialist Turtle on October 14

Here's a link to the page on Upton's Universe where you can find mini-comics about a favourite comic character during my university days: Socialist Turtle by Vancouver cartoonist Colin Upton.

(I have a copy of his re-introduction in the January 1990 Discorder magazine which I am thinking of tacking by my desk at work, thus further befuddling my co-workers.)

Artist Upton recalls that the strip was "Mysteriously popular with kids." But Socialist Turtle is such a cuddly-looking agitator!

Tech Tags: Colin+Upton Socialist+Turtle

Tales from Todd

[The third story in The Report newsmagazine on Todd Bentley. From the October 7,2002 issue, pages 56-57]

Tales from Todd

A B.C. evangelist continues to struggle with explanations about his criminal past

By Rick Hiebert

Christian preacher Todd Bentley has always had the gift of gab. “When I was born again, I had nothing. I didn’t have one natural gift but speaking,” he says in a sermon audio tape he sells as part of a three-tape, $15 package. His speaking talent has rocketed the 26-year-old B.C. man into international prominence as an evangelist and faith-healer. But the charismatic preacher’s easy way with words has also led to questions about his like of forthrightness when he talks of his youthful criminal record.

Mr. Bentley’s past is well known to readers of The Report. In an interview for a March 2001 story on his growing ministry, the Abbotsford resident white-washed his pre-Christian “bad-body” days, saying he was imprisoned for “crimes of an assault nature.” The whole truth, as explained in a follow-up article a month later, is that Mr. Bentley was convicted at the age of 15, in March 1991, of sexually molesting a seven-year old boy the previous October. ‘They were sexual crimes,” Mr. Bentley eventually admitted to The Report, waiving his right to anonymity as a young offender. ‘I was involved in a sexual-assault ring. I turned around and did what happened to me. I was assaulted too.”

He continued. “I don’t like to talk about it in public because it would hurt [my ministry]. I don’t whip it out in the newspapers or on TV because people will go, ‘Whaaa?’ I’ll say ‘I was in prison, period. Let’s move on.’” Summing up his earlier interview with the magazine, Mr. Bentley admitted, “I beat around the bush and was evasive with you.”

He did it again last month, this time with the magazine Charisma, a U.S. based publication whose 200,000-plus circulation makes it North America’s biggest charismatic Christian magazine. Inside its September 2002 issue is a full-page ad bought by Mr. Bentley’s ministry and seven pages of editorial contest devoted to the “impish-looking” evangelist. Near the end of the main article is this sentence: “By the time he was 14, he was behind bars, arrested for assault.”

The author of the story is freelancer Gail Wood of Olympia, Washington. Mr. Wood tells The Report that, in reporting the story, he was naturally curious to get the details of Mr. Bentley’s imprisonment. ‘I know a little bit,” he says. ‘Todd asked me not to mention it [in the article] because he didn’t feel comfortable talking about it. I didn’t think it was pertinent.”

But what facts had Mr. Wood withheld on Mr. Bentley’s behalf? “He told me that he had hit his [now-deceased] mother, who was deaf, and that was the reason he was put in jail,” Mr. Wood declares. Mr. Bentley did not mention this alleged assault to The Report last year. When informed of Mr. Bentley’s earlier admission to The Report of a sex crime, Mr. Wood responds “I am totally surprised.”

Mr. Bentley refused requests for an interview to answer questions about why he withheld information from Mr. Wood. However, an unnamed official at Fresh Fire Ministries, Mr. Bentley’s business, said in a September 17 e-mail, “Mr. Bentley generalized his past criminal behavior and upfront told Mr. Wood there were some things he would not publicly talk about. Todd never stated what he was in prison for. He only made reference to doing prison time.” The e-mail continues “It was a misprint in Charisma that Todd was in prison for assault along with two other misprints.” The communication did not specify what other errors the story may have contained.

The e-mail message continues, “Todd does not want to be misleading but at the same time does not feel the need to publicly bring up an over twelve year old juvenile record.”

Nevertheless, Courtenay B.C. sexual abuse expert Linda Halliday-Sumner says Mr. Bentley should be more open about his conviction, especially since he is playing on his criminal record as a way of gaining credibility as a reformed law-breaker. “He’s contravening everything that the treatment tells you to do,” she says. “The sex-offender programs stress that you must let people know that you are a child molester or a sex offender, especially if you are asked a direct question such as ‘Why were you imprisoned?’ That’s the only way that you are going to stop it from continuing, stop putting people at risk.” At the very least, she says, Mr. Bentley should tell the pastors and elders of churches that he ministers in about his offense, to prevent legal liability problems.

Mrs. Halliday-Sumner believes Mr. Bentley tried to manipulate his past for his own benefit, and now it has backfired. “there was no reason in the beginning to tell anyone that he had been in prison [for any matter], as [his young-offender record] was sealed,” she points out. “He knows it’s advantageous to him to bring up the jail thing because otherwise how does he become a ‘good evangelist’ if he’s never experienced any rough times? Say his biggest problem has been not getting the car for the prom, people are going to look at him and say ‘What do you know about life?’ So he has to tell this story.”

Follow the money [sidebar story]

While Todd Bentley’s less-than-forthright approach to his criminal record has cast a shadow over his ministry, it was his apparent truthfulness on a related matter that has sparked a probe by the B.C. Ministry of Human Resources.

In one of his audio tapes, Mr. Bentley tells a sermon audience that, as a teen, he collected welfare while also working. “By the time I was 17 years old, I had two jobs and I was collecting welfare so that I could support my drug habit,” Mr. Bentley says. “It’s not that I didn’t want to work. It was that I wanted to more money for drugs.” Mr. Bentley goes on to say that he was delivered instantly from drug addictions immediately upon conversion, which happened around the time he turned 18.

If his admission is true, his actions appear to constitute a case of welfare fraud. He does not say on the tape whether he confessed the apparent fraud to authorities, or whether he repaid the money. However, in answer to questions raised by The Report, an unnamed official at Fresh Fire Ministries said in an e-mail, “Our only statement about the provincial government money is: yes, Mr. Bentley had made full repayment. Fresh Fire has no further comment.”

The message did not say when Mr. Bentley had repaid the money, or how much it totaled. It seems clear, however, that he now has the financial resources to repay old debts. He drives a three year old van, and his family lives ina three bedroom house. Mr. Bentley employs 18 workers, and he says his ministry sells between 10,000 and 30,000 “tapes” a month. If those are all audio tapes (which sell for $5 apiece), his business would gross, at worst $50,000 a month. If, on the other hand, they are all videotapes (which sell for $15), sales would reach at best, $450,000 a month.

Earlier, the B.C. Ministry of Human Resources had said it would investigate Mr. Bentley’s fraud admission. “We take these case very seriously, because they take funds from those who really need it,” media spokesman mike Long said. If found guilty of welfare fraud under $5,000, Mr. Bentley could have been sentenced to up to two years in prison. If the fraud totaled more than $5,000, the penalty is up to 10 years in jail.

--30--

Does forgiving mean forgetting?

[The second article by The Report newsmagazine on Todd Bentley. From the April 30, 2001 issue, page 50.]

Does forgiving mean forgetting?

A faith healer comes clean on his young-offender conviction for child molestation

by Rick Hiebert

Todd Bentley has a confession to make. A faith healer who has attracted international attention over the past several months, Bentley presents himself as a reformed bad boy who was once jailed for 18 months for “crimes of an assault nature” and breaking-and-entering in his home town of Gibsons B.C.. The truth is, his most serious crime was more heinous; the molestation of a seven-year-boy. “They were sexual crimes,” Bentley admits. “I was involved in a sexual assault ring. I turned around and did what happened to me. I was assaulted too.”

“I don’t like to talk about it publicly because it would hurt [my ministry],” he concedes. “I don’t whip it out in the newspapers or on TV because people will go ‘Whaaa?’ I’ll say ‘I was in prison, period. Let’s move on.’”

Bentley’s admission took place after he was confronted with information given to The Report following the magazine’s publication of a story (“Signs and wonders”, March 5) on his burgeoning ministry. Federal law protects young offenders by prohibiting the dissemination of any information that may identify a youth convicted of a crime, but Bentley, now 25, freely provided details of the offence. “I was 13 years old when I committed my crime,” he says. “I was jailed at 14.” (In fact, The Report has learned that Bentley molested the boy in October 1990, when Bentley was 14, and that he was sentenced in March 1991, when he was 15.)

Bentley, who is now married and is the father of three young children, stresses he has repented for his crime and has undergone three years of counseling. “There has not been and there won’t be other cases,” says the evangelical faith healer, who feels he needs no counseling to ensure he does not re-offend. ‘It’s something that’s dead and buried for me.”

But, in an age when the likes of Protestant televangelists and catholic priests have been ensnared by sexual scandal, the issue is far from dead. Denny Cline, pastor of the Albany, Oregon, Vineyard where Bentley launched a healing revival last year, looks on him as a spiritual son and says Bentley always exhibits a godly character. Upon learning of Bentley’s molesting offence, Pastor Cline remarks, “I don’t think he told me that, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. It wouldn’t have mattered in regards to what he is doing now, and the person that he is now…If he’s paid his debt to society and God’s forgiven him of everything, then who am I not to forgive?”

On the other hand, Lieutenant Jeff Johnston, a Salvation Army pastor in Port Alberni, B.C., who used to work in Bentley’s hometown is more skeptical. “There’s absolutely no way that I would allow my own kids to come within a million miles of anyone who had been involved in a youth sexual assault,” he says. Lieut Johnston notes a church group tried to bring Bentley to Gibsons for a series of meetings in 1998, but the gatherings were called off after Lieut. Johnston and other pastors threatened not to allow their youth groups to attend.

“It’s one thing to be forgiving, it’s another thing to be stupid,” Lieut. Johnston says. “If you, as a pastor, had someone in your church ministry who had been involved in these things and they ever re-offended, the fact that you knew and didn’t disclose it to parents, take every pfrecation, would be a huge liability issue.”

Forewarned is forearmed, says Canadian Alliance MP Randy White. Given the notorious recidivism of pedophile offenders, the federal government should pass the national sex-offenders registry bill he tabled April 4. Mr. White explains that police need to be able to keep track of sex offenders who enter fields such as itinerant evangelism. “It’s worse not to admit the offence from the start,” Mr. White observes. ‘If you hide it, ultimately someone will cross your path and expose you. It becomes twice as hard to deal with.”

Furthermore, Darrell Johnson, a professor of pastoral theology at Vancouver’s Regent College and a Presbyterian minister, says that although Bentley promises his past is “dead and buried”, his victim—and the victim’s family are likely still suffering. The professor is also concerned that Bentley admits he has no pastors or counselors to help him now. Says Prof. Johnson, “Openness, transparency and accountability would protect him, as well as the people he ministers to.”

--30--

Signs and wonders

[The first article in The Report newsmagazine on Todd Bentley, which was published in the March 5, 2001 issue]

Signs and wonders

A young B.C. faith healer has gained both international renown and the scrutiny of sceptics

By Rick Hiebert

As a teen, Todd Bentley knew one thing very well: how to get into trouble. Growing up in [Gibsons, British Columbia], his life was filled with drug dealing, fighting and robbery. The nadir came when he was sentenced to 18 months in detention for assault and breaking-and-entry. Mr. Bentley, now 25, was able to put that all behind him seven years when he became a Christian. But his transformation was not all at once. Over the past three years, he has gone from working the green chain in a sawmill to speaking in major Protestant churches throughout the Western U.S., Canada and Africa.

Actually, his appearances feature more than just talk. Following what he declares are promptings from God, Mr. Bentley calls up sick audience members and prays for their healing. But as his renown as a faith healer grows, Christians and non-Christians alike are warning that, in the world of faith healing, what you think you see is often not what you get.

Mr. Bentley’s fame is especially great among charismatic Christians, those believing the Holy Spirit works today as he did in the apostolic church. The B.C. man was featured in four programs of It’s a New Day, the Winnipeg-based Christian talk show, in January. As well, Charisma, the main U.S. charismatic magazine, is planning to publish an article on the revival he led recently in Albany, Oregon.

All this is quite an accomplishment for someone who, although mentored by his pastor, a charismatic catholic priest and a charismatic Baptist minister, has little theological training. But Mr. Bentley has a simple explanation: “God is good, so he likes to heal.” He says “Christ healed because he was moved with compassion for those who were sick. If God wants you to be in health, he can use a doctor, he can use prayer, or he can use both. The Bible says healing can be instantaneous, or a process.”

Interestingly. Mr. Bentley avoids actually pronouncing people healed and urges those with who he has come into contact to work with their doctors. He does not keep a tally of his healings, but says about 20% involve something visible and 80% something internal, including “inner healings” of emotions, guilt and fear. As for proof, his ministry has only a half-dozen or so noncommittal notes from doctors about the disappearance of their patients’ symptoms.

This lack of verification worries skeptics such as Simon Fraser University psychology professor Barry Beyerstein. Aside from the numerous documented frauds among faith healers, the professor says not enough studies have been conducted by reputable scientists to back up the claims of faith healers. British psychiatrist Louis Rose spent 20 years trying to find a verifiable miracle healing and failed. William Nolen, a Roman Catholic surgeon, interviewed and examined 25 people reportedly healed by faith healer Kathryn Kuhlman. None had actually become better.

Prof. Beyerstein thinks faith healings can be caused by the natural healing work of the body, or by relief from psychological anxiety. “Lots of people suffer from psychosomatic problems, which mimic real medical problems,” he observes. “There would be some cases where there would be real value in being prayed for. If you feel loved and thus deal with guilt and anxiety, that would be all to the good.”

Ted Brooks, a Victory Church pastor in Westlock, Alta. Is so leery of “signs and wonders”, such as faith healing, that he suspects many of them are actually demonic counterfeits. “Christians long for a demonstration of the power of God,” Mr. Brooks says. “There’s nothing wrong with that, but we’re accepting practices that Christ never did, which leads to a wrong image of God. The problem with immediate gratification is that we are spoiled for anything else.” He also notes that many people spiritually wounded when they are not healed at meetings.

Mr. Brooks' congregation, which has also forsaken charismatic Christianity, believes the best “inner healing” comes from the long-term growth promoted by Bible study and prayer. One church member, he notes, is not being healed of his multiple sclerosis but is overcoming his suffering through a new spiritual maturity. “Our church members don’t pursue us any more for signs and wonders,” he says. “They have just grown up.”

-30-

It's very subtle, but I think they are implying that Jesus is their friend

Jesus is My Friend, by Sonseed



Hat tip: My friend Wade, who likes good music, so I can't imagine why he sent me this link.

No wait, yes I can. :)

Thanks, Mom! :)

The Joe Meek master reel-to-reel tapes that I mentioned in an earlier post have sold for 170,000 pounds. (Not pounds of..., but Pounds sterling. Although, perhaps Joe himself would have been tempted by 170,000 pounds of sausage. "He was very fond of sausage..." :)