The boy, a Massachusetts second-grader, was asked to draw something that reminded him of Christmas. He drew a stick figure on a cross, with X's for eyes, and, when questioned, said the figure was himself. The school ordered the kid to get a psychological evaluation, but his father Chester Johnson explained that he had recently seen a statue of the crucifixion and was probably just drawing from memory. Johnson is considering sending his son to a different school, saying, "You can't walk back in an establishment that didn't have confidence in you ... and continue to do business with them. He's been excluded from all the other kids, man."

Johnson sounds like he took parenting classes from the Dude, but he may have the right idea. Children's drawings have become a stock horror trope, signaling impending doom in everything from The Ring to Battlestar Galactica. This may be partly because of evidence that kids reveal abuse through their drawings. But some have questioned whether drawings are a reliable marker of child abuse, and one thing's for sure: kids say, draw, and do a lot of weird shit, and it doesn't necessarily mean they have an abusive home life, or a Jesus complex.

I was a pretty innocent kid, and my drawings of giant eyeballs on legs, while odd, didn't set off any alarm bells. My brother was and is extremely reticent, and apart from his perplexing "my brain is like it has two sticks in it" speech (age 3), I don't remember him freaking anybody out either. But we did grow up with a kid whose drawings of his family looked adorably normal — except that "Mommy" always wore a blue bra instead of a shirt. It turned out that his drawings revealed not his mother's actual sartorial choices, but his abiding love for Princess Jasmine. Tracie writes, "in the third grade I made a Mother's Day card at school where I drew a picture of my mom looking maniacal wearing curlers and a bathrobe on the front, and on the inside I wrote a poem about how I still love her, even though she hits me with a wooden spoon." And Anna H. says that when she was eight or nine, she wrote "sex object" on her inner thigh, causing her mom to weep out of the fear that she'd failed at feminist parenting. But now Anna runs a website where we take Perez Hilton to task for writing things like that (and worse) on photos of women. So I guess what I'm saying is, just because a kid makes a weird Jesus drawing doesn't mean he should be excluded from all the other kids, man.

Boy's Jesus Drawing Alarms School Authorities [AP, via NPR]

And that makes me cry, because I need her to be who she is. You know, the kind of woman who can face anything.

The campers were given some paper and pencils and asked to draw pictures of their experiences in the jungle. Most of them drew scenes of themselves in the river, or the view of the trees from their cots. Stephen Baldwin sketched himself topless, with the Bible:

He's also taken to calling himself Stevie B. And that brings us full circle to Janice's dream:

• John McCain has decided that since everyone is annoyed at him for lying and being a dick when he's called out on it, he's going to say Obama is lying and being a dick when he's called out on it. That's still lying, John, you're missing the point here. [Gawker]
• He was then promptly called out for lying again, not that he cares. [Swampland]
• And for being all for anti-abortion terrorists and their rights to harass and commit acts of violence against women and reproductive health care providers. Even better? Nancy PfotenhauerPfuckingsucks set him up for it by mistake. [Think Progress]
• He's probably still wondering why Obama is ahead in the national polls, though. [CNN]

• The Dow, unlike Obama's poll numbers, continues to shrink. [Washington Post]
• Katie Couric is annoyed that Sarah Palin is blaming her poor interview on editing. [Politico]
• Lieberman thinks God will propel Sarah Palin to the Presidency. Unfortunately, neither God nor Jesus is an American, so they can't vote. [TNR]
• Last call for voter registration in many states, so check yours here and fucking do it already if you haven't. [Vote411]
• Michelle Bruce, whose second race for City Council was undermined by her opponents' attempts to force her to expose the status of her bits, finally won her lawsuit that she didn't mislead voters by identifying as Michelle. [Wonkette, Brattleboro Reformer]

I'll admit, I too figured I'd be the one suffering in the Rapture, no doubt. I left the Church when I was 17 (not that Catholics are eligible anyway, right?) and I've professed to being too lesser a being to know the nature of God thus never picked up another religion (it's sort of hard to pick when each says all the others are wrong and you're not sure any of them are right). Plus, you know, I had sex outside of marriage, used birth control, drank, danced, gambled, took God's name in vain, coveted, disrespected my parents occasionally, stole some office supplies, lusted some more, engaged in some sloth and gluttony and even some rage, so I figured that I was a shoe-in to be left behind. But one thing I tried really hard to do? Treat other people like I wanted to be treated. It turns out that Jesus was actually being honest in Matthew 22:35-40 when he said that the second superceding commandment was "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Whoops. Sorry buddy.

So, like, it turns out that charging gullible Christians $40 a year to store their letters to their "bad" friends isn't exactly considered a really Christian thing to do, buddy. Also, hypocrisy sucks and being an ass to people of other religions suck and thus when "true Christians" were called up, well, those of you the rest of us never liked got left down there. And since we were all true Christians, we didn't think our wonderful friends of other faiths who spent their whole lives doing the right thing should get stuck with you guys either so we ginned up a petition to ask, but it turns out that the whole thing was just kind of a test from God as to whether or not we were actually worthy of being up here and they were just all waiting on the other side of this big door and yelled "Surprise" and then She threw us all a kick ass party. It lasted kind of a few years so that's why I haven't written before now. Sorry about that.

Anyway, so, have you learned anything in the last 7 years? Anything about how money isn't the be-all-end-all of life? Or anything about being kind to everyone because you have the option even if you don't have the obligation? How about how everyone is actually equal? Um, what about not judging people based on your (often ill-informed) opinion of what God thinks? Shit, what the hell were you guys doing down there the last few years? Just fighting wars and making money off the backs of others and increasing income inequality and spamming each other with ads for bigger penii? Great. Fuck, I hate having to go to work after a party.

Anyway, so, like it's been 7 years down there and I know that we're all supposed to come back and have dominion over the world and shit at the 7 year mark, but our collective hangovers really threw off the schedule (they actually don't hurt, it just makes us want to lie in bed and cuddle for a few months). Besides, people that are hissy about starting on time and their friends being a few minutes late are kind of asses anyway and didn't make it in. But it's cool, I think we'll be back down around January 20th? I hear there's another party to be had.

Kisses,
Megan

'Saved'? Site Lets You Send E-mails Post-Rapture [ABC News]

[Malibu, January 26. Image via Flynet]

If there's anything more important to the family Hasselbeck than football, it is Jesus. Betsy, with a retired husband and the children off playing pro-ball, has devoted herself to running "workshops for current Pats players and their wives. The workshops focus on faith, marriage, and family" since Hasselbeck fears that without her instruction, these men and their wives might turn towards the Devil's ways: "We live in an upgrade world where temptation and fame can threaten any marriage. What we're trying to do is teach [couples] how to strengthen their marriages and commitment to God."

Betsey's faith has also propelled her towards her other project: Doing whatever she can to stop perverts from coaching youth sports. "I was lucky, because Don was our boys' coach for nine years. But I thought, OK, if I've been placed here for a reason, it's to help people. This is one way I can give something back," says Betsy, despite the fact that "breakout figures are not available for young athletes, [and only] anecdotal evidence suggests [that children] are especially vulnerable to predator coaches." Good to know that if you are placed on this earth to do some good, it's for a cause that you've pulled out of your ass!

But before you start make assumptions at Betsy Hasselbeck, be sure to know this: "We've never cared about labels," she says, in regards to identifying the specifics of their Christianity. Good to know! It's always refreshing to meet a prostelytizer who can understand that expressions of faith need no names! Elisabeth Hasselbeck sure lucked out marrying into this family — the woman couldn't have asked for a better teacher on preaching her overly-simplified ways of thinking.

Extra Points [Boston Globe]

So anyway, as we were saying "Models For Christ" really is a thing that Britt, above, belonged to, and today the New York Observer checked in with the New York branch of the organization. Now their excuse for making a club only superhot people can belong to is that they have similar customs and rituals such as throwing up their food and being completely braindead from smoking crack.

Fashion Gets Religion [New York Observer]
Britt's '700 Club' Appearance [YouTube]
Related: The Power Of Christ Compels Her! [TVgasm]

[Marc Jacobs show, New York, September 10. Image via Splash]

1. Hate everything, and
2. Hate yourself.

We dunno if you're a religious type, but there's an easy way to remember this if you've read that part in the Bible where Jesus boils down the 10 Commandments into two easy ones. Only where He says "love", substitute "hate," so it's more like:

1. Hate Yourself above all those things.
2. Hate (the thing you are blogging about) As You Hated All Other Things (you hated before) The first part is really important for when you make really, really dumb mistakes borne of arrogance, like that time we fucked up your name and even had our intern PHOTOSHOP AN ENTIRE GRAPHIC INCORPORATING THE FUCKUP. And look, we hate ourselves so much we're linking to it! How easy was that?

Tom Ford's Store: My Two Cents [Fashion, Inc.]
Love God Above All Things, And Love Your Neighbor As You Love Yourself [A Christian website]
Earlier: 'Portfolio' Fashion Blogger Hates The Word Blog

Playboy Network rumored to be closing up shop. [Jossip]

It's Jesus, not women's magazine editors, who expect you to look like a supermodel. [Feministing]