Good news (West Coast party?); bad news (JC or KT?)

[IED0DXM%UCLAMVS.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA]

>I'll bE Damned.  now that doug is having a katemas
>partY three thOUsand miles away, how come theRe is
>noThing from oUR biggest kb faNatic this side of
>the mississippi river?
>
>fu-sheng
>l.a., ca

Message(s) received and point taken, Fu-Sheng.
Attention, all Western-based Love-Hounds:

As a point of honour, efforts must be made
by the better half of the pack to match Nessus's
recent demonstration of Bush Bashing.

Therefore, IED would like to give a little party
for So-Cal Love-Hounds at his house in West
Los Angeles, but first he would really like to
know how many L-Hs such an occasion might attract.
Doug, could you let him know
if there are three of us or thirty
out here? Greatly appreciated.

IED has a nice venue, but one drawback:
since this sort of affair usually centers
around a video screen, IED would like to
set the date of the party sometime after
August 29, by which time he will have a house
to himself, and will probably have been able
to procure a 20XBR. As for the party itself,
video will be the word of the day. IED is
equipped with Beta Hi-fi (and 8mm), but not
with VHS, so if anyone out here can provide
one for the evening, the atmosphere will be
much improved. Also, who might want to help
with the refreshments? And of course, we'll
have show-and-tell time for collectors.

STOP PRESS:
Inside the latest issue of Billboard Magazine
there is a new FULL-PAGE announcement
about a "SPECIAL SCREENING of KATE BUSH's
'RUNNING UP THAT HILL' video on MTV",
Wednesday night, 9:00 Eastern, 6:00 Pacific.
(Problem is, IED forgot to check whether they
meant this week or next -- the issue is dated
a week ahead. Woops! Sorry.)

>I don't really understand why it's arrogance.  Say that you have just
>been *HIT OVER THE HEAD* with good luck.  You naturally enough, want
>to tell people, not necessarily to cause jealousy, but simply because
>it's a *good thing*.

>Suppose furthermore that it's not an exclusive sort of luck (like
>winning a million dollars), but something that can be shared with
>other people without depriving yourself (more like winning a money
>tree--something that's completely unlimited in its scope).  Wouldn't
>you be some kind of a genuine creep to keep that to yourself--when
>telling other people would do them good, and you no harm?

>You may disagree that religion has these benefits--but please understand
>that from the point of view of the other person, talking about their
>new interest is the right thing to do.

>            AMBAR

Well, Ambar, you've made an interesting comment.
There are three reasons IED has for
deploring the recent announcement in
Break-Through about using the magazine
as a mouthpiece for Christian dogma.
The first is simple: the subject is
about as closely related to Kate Bush
as, say, the subject of dinner etiquette.
This is not to imply that Kate Bush should
never be discussed in the same breath as
either organized religion or place-settings;
only that regular and prolonged -- and
dogmatic -- association of KB with either
of the latter subjects would be silly.
The second reason is that sudden converts to religious
ideological structures tend -- admittedly
this is a generalization -- tend to
forget that their personal enthusiasms
are not necessarily shared by others.
Kate Bush fans subscribe
to Break-Through for, among other things,
a feeling of belonging within a community
of people who share their enthusiasm. It
is arrogant to take unfair advantage of
the publication's captive audience for the
purposes of disseminating tracts about
a single, highly structured and largely
irrelevant ideological system. It is offensive
to IED to find that, simply by being a Kate Bush
fan, he has become fair game for purveyors
of a religious ideology which he wants nothing
to do with.
The third reason is more personal. IED has
had it up to here with organized religion in
the North American media. It seems to him that
most if not all of the most abominable new
forces of sensorship and the suppression of
basic freedoms are allied with, or even sponsored
by, various extremist Christian groups.
Break-Through was one of the steadily declining
number of oases that provided a bit of security from
the stormy ocean of the Moral
Majority's Campaign for Conventionality.
IED mourns the loss of that security.
Have you considered, by the way, that if all this
continues, Kate Bush's "Not This Time" and
"Do Bears...?" will likely be forced to
bear labels that brand them as obscene?
And after those two, what next -- "Breathing"?