Click below to jump to the full size players or click here to launch them in a new window. Or just hang out and watch them in The Media Bar next door.

Today's Gigantic Media Bar is so big because so much happened over the weekend! Let's get started.



Daily Song:
Fleet Foxes
"White Winter Hymnal"







Television:
SNL
Justin Timberlake as one of Beyonce's "Single Ladies" backup dancers (5:01)
and
Paul Rudd and Adam Samberg get gay and naked in "Everyone's A Critic"
and
"The Kissing Family"
It's real, real gay.



Politics:
4 Prop 8 videos
Melissa Etheridge's wife Tammy Lynn appears on Oprah and attempts to singlehandedly destroy the right for gays to marry. Best line from Lady's Brunch Burger Award-winner Tammy Lynn: "I don't care about the word 'marriage.'"(9:45)

Wanda Sykes comes out! Yup, the woman who convincingly argued that everyone getting fucked in the ass might just save all marriages has come out! Best line in her coming out speech? "I'm proud to be a woman. I'm proud to be black. And I'm proud to be gay." (4:24)

Ashton Kutcher on Bill Maher. Best line from Kutcher: "It's unconstitutional!"

A Mattachine Society-era Michelangelo Signorile puts on the best display of rational thinking so far by any of our gay spokespeople. Best line from Signorile: "Are you going to let me talk, Maggie?"

And then there's medavog, the youtube user who uploaded what could possibly be not just the best Prop 8 video out there, but very possibly the best video of any kind in the past six months.

Click below to jump to the full size players or click here to launch them in a new window. Or just hang out and watch them in The Media Bar next door.

Daily Song:
Fleet Foxes
"White Winter Hymnal"

Politics?

And then there's medavog, the youtube user from my hometown of San Diego who uploaded what could possibly be not just the best Prop 8 video out there, but very possibly the best video of any kind in the past six months. Favorite line: "The Berlin wall, to name a few."


Television:

Justin Timberlake as one of Beyonce's "Single Ladies" backup dancers (5:01)

Television:
Paul Rudd and Andy Samberg get gay and naked in "Everyone's A Critic"

Television:

SNL "The Kissing Family"
This should be called "The Gay Kissing Family" (4:10)

In a world where religion is used as a weapon against equal rights, there might be an answer.The British Humanist Association is attempting a new bus campaign in London promoting atheism. The copy? "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." Via the Guardian:

There's no doubt that advertising can be effective, and religious advertising works particularly well on those who are vulnerable, frightening them into believing. Religious organisations' jobs are made easier because there's no publicly visible counter-view to refute their threats of eternal damnation.

The atheist bus campaign aims to change this. In addition to the slogan, the adverts will feature the URLs of secular, humanist and atheist websites, so that readers can find out more about atheism as a positive and liberating alternative to religion.

Richard Dawkins, who will match all donations raised for the campaign by The British Humanist Association up to a maximum of £5,500, says, "This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think – and thinking is anathema to religion."

Bill Maher is gonna love this.

In a review of Religulous over on The New Republic, Damon Linker, discusses the views taken by Bill Maher in the film:

Maher hilariously exposes astonishing levels of ignorance and parochialism among the earnestly pious Americans he encounters in his travels around the country . . . Religulous achieves the rare feat of blending stiletto-sharp cultural criticism with farce . . . Maher and director Larry Charles are highly adept at ridiculing their fellow citizens. Anyone who has seen Charles' last film (Borat) is familiar with his directorial style: put ordinary Americans on camera, ask them a few questions about their beliefs, and then stand back as they reveal their vapidity.

Borat did this beautifully, but he did it with ulterior motives. Sacha Baron Cohen's portrayal of Borat allowed different kinds of people to bounce off of their perceptions of the character he meticuloulsy created. The laughs that punctuated each of Borat's cultural missteps unfurled our, the audience's, prejudices against outsiders. The people in the film weren't the joke -- the audience members were. Maher attempts what looks to be a similar tactic.

Yet Maher has loftier ambitions than laughs. He wants to save the world from the idiocy he unearths in the American heartland, and he believes the best way to fulfill this aim is to mercilessly attack religion and all those who adhere to it. And that's why the film, like so much written by critics of religion in recent years, must ultimately be judged a failure . . . [Because] Maher takes on simpletons and extremists instead of seeking out theologians and other thoughtful believers to explain and defend their beliefs . . . Not only is this approach to religion intellectually fraudulent and morally sloppy--equating as it does scientifically literate believers with God-intoxicated scriptural literalists--but it is also asinine as a practical strategy

But Maher's only appears to be the same tactic. Instead, Maher's attempt, like his other comedy, is targeted against the people he is engaging, not the larger issue. Where Borat pushed us to reevaluate our views, Maher uses unsophisticated thinkers to make us feel good about ourselves. He commits this same mistake in his HBO show when he tells two black guests to stop arguing because he doesn't like to see "black on black fighting." Or when he refers to Sarah Palin as a "stewardess." I am often uncomfortable watching Maher's fumbling, although I do appreciate the platform he gives to his panel members. And while he is a good liberal, his talent never seems quite up to the task at hand.

Linker goes on to discuss how people like Richard Dawkins commit similar moral crimes in their efforts to underscore the dangers of religion, but, on that point, I could not disagree more Linker. Dawkins' book The God Delusion summarizes beautifully and compassionately the wrongness of religion in a manner Maher could learn from. Preaching to the choir never works, but there are people out there who need and deserve a preacher other than Bill Maher.