From CNN:
The Rev. Patrick Mahoney, a conservative Christian activist leading demonstrations outside a Florida hospice where Schiavo lives, said he would take his fight to Washington on Monday.
____________________________________________________
Having exhausted their legal options, the Rev. Mahoney, Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry, and other members of the hard religious right have decided to stage an event in front of the Capitol building in order to heighten awareness of Terri Schiavo’s case and other core issues.
“We have a problem,” said Mahoney. “The vast majority of people in this nation don’t agree with us about this issue. The vast majority of evangelical Christians don’t agree with us on this one. So we’ll show ‘em. We’ll show the whole darned country.”
“This is about mainstream American values,” added Terry. “Unfortunately. most of America is out of touch with mainstream American values. This should fix that.”
At 5 PM this afternoon, Mahoney, Terry, and “most of the hard-line Christian right” will get on motorcycles on the Mall in Washington and begin accelerating towards the steps of the Capitol building. They will fall into formation, and in groups of two and three they will ascend a hastily built ramp.
“That’s just the beginning,” says Mahoney. “Terri would want more than a simple motorcycle jump.”
To add to the symbolism and solemnity of the cause, a large tank has been placed directly in front of the Capitol. Inside the tank is a large, recently-captured great white shark. At precisely 5:15, the first of the conservative activists (Mahoney, Terry, and Rev. Pat Robertson), will hit the top of the ramp and (presumably), sail over the tank and the shark and land at the very foot of the steps. The rest of the Christian right will follow.
“The shark is a symbol of activist judges and liberal atheists, determined to tear into our moral fiber,” said Mahoney. “We will rise up and sail overhead…”
[etc.]





42 comments
Trackback from Temperantia R4 - Jumping The Shark
March 29, 2005 at 2:45 pm
Thompson
March 28, 2005 at 2:57 pm
1Well, someone’s gotta say it…
Dunno, adam, I thought this whole circus jumped the shark weeks ago.
Rusty
March 28, 2005 at 3:11 pm
2Could this be the end of happy days? Geez, that’s dating me.
CoolSchool
March 28, 2005 at 3:20 pm
3Is is true they have scheduled a very special guest celebrity rider-Ted McGinley?
bjd
March 28, 2005 at 3:21 pm
4Reminds me of that episode of “South Park” where the parents slingshot themselves to death at the television studio to protest Terence and Philip… only to win the day with explosive diarrhea.
Amber
March 28, 2005 at 3:30 pm
5I think it would be more effective if they arranged for Michael Sciavo’s to get his arm cut off in a freak helicopter accident, then later drop a helicopter on him, thus killing him. You know, like when ER jumped the shark.
Chris B
March 28, 2005 at 3:43 pm
6And if that doesn’t work they’ll bring in Mahoney’s cousin to help the cause and boost the teen ratings.
Lynne
March 28, 2005 at 3:51 pm
7The whole family could go on vacation to Hawaii and the hilarity will begin when little Bobby Schindler finds a statue of King Kamehaoneha…
norbizness
March 28, 2005 at 3:52 pm
8How about the shark eating Cousin Oliver? The cultre of life could withstand that, I think.
Mike Z
March 28, 2005 at 4:07 pm
9Yeah, everyone knows that Oliver’s a jinx!
Murray
March 28, 2005 at 5:18 pm
10Eventually every show runs into the creative limits of its writers. There are only so many story lines they can make interesting, or ever more exciting. (Except ABC which likes to kill good shows in mid stream, China Beach, Twin Peaks, etc, or perhaps the Law and Order franchise which doesn’t rely on character development, only the plot which is held in a never changing template).
Hopefully America will treat the loony Righteous Right similarly, as the RR runs out of creative ways to force their morality onto the rest of us.
sly
March 28, 2005 at 5:38 pm
11…jesus. we can only hope you’re right.
Bob
March 28, 2005 at 5:57 pm
12I don’t know about that, Murray. These clowns have put on enough shows to go into syndication forever.
merkley???
March 28, 2005 at 6:00 pm
13I love it when liberals start writing about the conservatives the way conservatives usually write about liberals.
copy and paste that shit. save yourself some time.
you’re all NUTTS!! BANANAS!! OUT -2- LUNCH!!
Harold
March 28, 2005 at 6:07 pm
14I think it would be more appropriate if Patrick Mahoney, Randall Terry, Tom DeLay, and the rest of these nutcases expressed their solidarity with the long-suffering Mrs. Schiavo by entering permanent vegatative states themselves, with explicit instructions that they be kept alive at all costs for as long as possible.
Mike Z
March 28, 2005 at 6:41 pm
15Nuts? Bananas? Lunch? Sounds like someone’s hungry.
Jerry
March 28, 2005 at 7:31 pm
16Check Merkley’s site before you get too incensed. He is a goof, but (by our standards) politically correct. Sorry, Merkley, I know you would hate that accolade!
Jerry
March 28, 2005 at 7:33 pm
17This whole brouhaha jumped the shark fifteen years ago, when someone, for some unkowable reason, decided to keep her brain-dead body alive.
Lynne
March 28, 2005 at 8:45 pm
18From over on The Onion:
“If we allow one brain-dead Floridian to die, what’s to stop us from extending that policy to include the rest of the state?”
Katie
March 28, 2005 at 10:23 pm
19I’d pay money to see that!!!
Deno the Untergeek
March 28, 2005 at 10:28 pm
20I just think that it’s really really sad that a brain-dead woman in Florida warrants more news coverage than the Red Lake school shootings. But that’s me.
I too would pay vast sums of money and donate time at the ventilator pumps if DeLay and the rest ‘volunteered’ to go brain-dead.
tess
March 29, 2005 at 12:36 am
21Delay going braindead? So you’re telling me that desicated corpse in the House still has a brain? I thought he was a zombie with a voice box, or am I thinking Bush?
aslam
March 29, 2005 at 12:38 am
22Say what you will but all of this _is_ an undeniable sign from God. How else could reality imitate satire?
Mary
March 29, 2005 at 10:31 am
23Yes, aslam, it is a sign from God…..that human beings are WAY overrated.
The sooner we become extinct the better off Earth will be.
Note to those outside the Florida Hospice- Terri is in a vegetative state. She can’t swallow water from a glass.
Jerry
March 29, 2005 at 12:06 pm
24Delay? Tom Delay…oh! *You mean the man who who took his father off life-support* back in ‘88! After he was brain-injured in an accident on a backyard “tram” that Tom built?
(Just for clarity: it was his father who was brain-injured in that accident…I don’t know what happened to Tom’s brain!)
Jerry
March 29, 2005 at 12:17 pm
25And while I’m pissed (for our BE friends: that’s “angry,” not “drunk”) let us note that this brave proponent of tort reform to stop those damn ‘frivolous lawsuits’ that drag American business down filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Lovejoy Inc., the Illinois-based maker of a coupling they said failed on the tram, and Midcap Bearing Corp., a distributor in San Antonio.
The case was resolved in 1993 with payment of an undisclosed sum of about $250,000.
jokes
March 29, 2005 at 3:45 pm
27Fellas fellas . . . come on now. Terri wants to live. They know of course they know. I mean who in these days can really say they know their wifes better than their local state government.
Thompson
March 29, 2005 at 4:47 pm
28Oooh. There’s a squicky thought. Politicians enforcing prima noctem again…
Mike Z
March 29, 2005 at 6:10 pm
29oohhh, boy….I just heard on npr that the Pope’s doctors might insert a feeding tube because he’s having trouble swallowing with his trache. tube. Seems like a reasonable precaution given the circumstances, right? Of course! and that’s how it often gets started…
Deno the Untergeek
March 29, 2005 at 8:07 pm
30No, tess, you’re thinking of Strom Thurman. The make-up guys just couldn’t keep up with the wear and tear anymore, so they admitted he was dead. DeLay is far too diabolical and animated to be anything less than either a cleverly constructed CGI or a right-wing racist SOB. If only he were just a racist SOB. Too bad AIDS doesn’t affect computers…
Jerry
March 29, 2005 at 8:08 pm
31Can’t find “prima noctem!” Elucidate?
Poor John Paul. He must have a a lot of empathy for Terri. I think they are just keeping him alive so they don’t have to elect a new Pope, who will naturally take the name George Ringo.
Murray
March 29, 2005 at 9:16 pm
32Prima Noctem
Latin for first night, as in honey moon.
(Just think of our fine leaders telling us to grab our ankles).
Jerry
March 30, 2005 at 1:22 am
33So, is that like the liegelord has the right to spend the first night of a new marriage with the bride? Or am I too far afield, and Murray’s “grab you ankles” closer? Or, in this case is there any difference?
Thompson
March 30, 2005 at 1:21 pm
34If the next pope takes the name George Ringo, would that make the Beatles only as big as Jesus?
Ann
March 30, 2005 at 8:33 pm
35Jerry, I think that’s “droit de seigneur.” But it seems apt–if Congress knows what a woman wants more than her husband does…
When I first read Adam’s post, I thought they were putting a MILITARY tank in front of the Capitol. And then a shark inside? It was a very funny mental image.
tess
March 31, 2005 at 3:32 am
36Deno:
If Delay is really just CGI, can’t we just start a DOS attack on him and put him out of commission for a few weeks? Or at least slow him down enough for prosecution to begin.
Thompson
March 31, 2005 at 6:25 am
37Ann: Same right, different language. It’s all BOHICA in the end.
Deno the Untergeek
March 31, 2005 at 1:06 pm
38Yes tess. Unfortunately my programming skills are nonexistant…how are yours?
tess
March 31, 2005 at 2:08 pm
39Deno:
Sadly in sore need of remedial classes. Though I know a few unemployed programmers right now who would be more than happy to create a few Trojan horses. I mean, what else do they have to do?
Thompson
March 31, 2005 at 3:48 pm
40How about something more subtle? Get a couple of unemployed CG animators to play around with the skins for the model. Add a Hillary in 2008 button to the lapel and slap a Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker onto his coattails, see if the AI notices.
Riker
April 2, 2005 at 11:45 am
41Adam,
This American Life just had you reading a bit on gay marriage. I can’t find it on here, and there are SOME PEOPLE in my family that I think could use a good read of it. Can you direct me towards it?
Thanx –
Murray
April 2, 2005 at 6:11 pm
42Riker,
July 31, 2003
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