Crazy people make good TV?

An Undisclosed Location – (DCF) – The website www.CrooksandLiars.com has posted a clip from the Fox “reality” show, “Trading Spouses”.  (It can be viewed here: "Trading Spouses: This is a scary video".)  Go ahead and watch it.  I’ll wait.

Done?  Good, because if you don’t watch the video, this post won’t make much sense to you.

The woman in the video, whose name is Marguerite Perrin, claims to be a “Christian Warrior”, and the producers of the show placed her with a New-Age Humanist family.

Bad idea.

First, she freaked out because, in her words, the family “don’t believe in God!  AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!”  Then, she had unexplained fits of vomiting and proselytization.  Finally, she forced the entire family to go to a Catholic church with her because she believed this was some kind of “test”.

For the record, the woman that she switched places with didn’t attempt to push her beliefs on the host family.

When she returned home, Marguerite went on a rampage in her home, screaming like a banshee at her family (including her two daughters and her granddaughter, who looked no older than about seven or eight years old).  She accused them of not praying for her, screeched that “I ask questions because I’m the warrior!  Why can’t you be the warrior?!”  She finally chased the Fox crew out of her house, shouting, “GET THE HELL OUT, IN THE NAME OF JESUS!!!”  She also tore up the envelope with the instructions from the other woman that said how the family would have to spend the money they received for taking part in the show, saying “I don’t want it!  It’s tainted!”

(Later, Perrin recanted and accepted the money, which was given to the two oldest kids in the house, who got themselves a place to live away fromt heir crazy mother.)

Anyway, because of this two-part episode, Marguerite Perrin is now a bit of a celebrity.  She was on the Tonight Show, where Jay Leno presented her with a bobblehead doll of her that he purchased on eBay.  (It sold for $870!)

So, I guess the bottom line is, if you act like a complete loony on television, good things will come your way.

However, the point I’d like to bring up is that Fox, whose “news” arm is valiantly fighting the good fight against a mythical (and completely non-existent) “War on Christmas”, their entertainment arm is putting people who clearly have some sort of mental imbalance and using them as their “representative Christian”.

Now, I know a lot of Christian-type people.  They’re good folks who are trying to get by and make a life for themselves, just like anyone else.  If they feel that they need to go to church, more power to them.

Unfortunately for them, they don’t make good TV.

Myself, I believe in God, but have no use for organized religion because it all goes bad when you get other people involved.  Besides, it says right in the Bible that the best way to do it is by yourself:

(From the book of Matthew)

6:5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. 6:6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy *closet*, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

Seems pretty self-explanatory to me.  But what do I know?  I believe in evolution, too.  Figure that one out.  I almost made a minister’s head explode once when I told him I thought God was playing the part of the impartial scientists – He’s letting things run their course so He can see what happens.  This same minister almost had a coronary when I told him that evolution is explained, albeit vaguely, in Genesis.  The problem is, because back when the Bible was being written, the people of the time didn’t have the terminology, so they couldn’t explain it more clearly.  Let’s take a look, shall we?

Science says that the universe was created (The Big Bang), the planets formed, and they, in turn, started moving around suns while moons moved around them. The water on earth receded, allowing for landmasses to be less soggy.  The goo in the sea developed into multi-cellular organisms, including fish, dinosaurs, cows and, I don’t know, alpacas or something.  Some of the fish, fed up with being damp all the time, crawled out and grew feet, lost a flipper here and there, grew hair and started to walk.  These, eventually, turned into human beings.  (I may be kind of vague on the details, but you get the idea.)
Now, with the above in mind, have a look at what the Bible says:

1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 1:2 And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. 1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

1:9 And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 1:10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. 1:11 And God said, Let the earth put forth grass, herbs yielding seed, and fruit-trees bearing fruit after their kind, wherein is the seed thereof, upon the earth: and it was so. 1:12 And the earth brought forth grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, wherein is the seed thereof, after their kind: and God saw that it was good. 1:13 And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.

1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years: 1:15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 1:16 And God made the two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 1:17 And God set them in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth, 1:18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. 1:19 And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

1:20 And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 1:21 And God created the great sea-monsters, and every living creature that moveth, wherewith the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind: and God saw that it was good. 1:22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth. 1:23 And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind: and it was so. 1:25 And God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the ground after its kind: and God saw that it was good. 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 1:27 And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 1:28 And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. 1:29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food: 1:30 and to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for food: and it was so. 1:31 And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

So, with all of this in mind, I have completely forgotten the point of this post, so I’ll shut up and go to bed.

Oh yeah…  That lady on “Trading Spouses” was crazy.

All the best,
Derek
(DCF)