Breakfast, Incest, and Late Night Unrest!

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"Even the flattest pancake has two sides."

-- my wife

(she says plenty of other things, too... but not about pancakes)


There is more than one way to look at any situation. SO many movies are about that very idea, different interpretations of the same event-- "Rashomon", "Courage Under Fire", "House Party 2" (well, maybe not).


Okay, first example: Lot's daughters!

First of all, you may remember Lot as Abraham's nephew, his wife had sodium problems (i.e., God turned her into a pile of salt, Gen. 19:26).

Well, prepare yourselves for some really weird stuff, right out of daytime soap opera!

(quick summary of Genesis, chapter 19).

You've probably heard of Sodom and Gomorrah, the two cities God destroyed because their inhabitants were so wicked.

Well, that occurred right after 2 angels (in human form) showed up in town and stayed with Lot and his family in Sodom. Then (v.5) the townsfolk knocked on Lot's door and, showing the kind of hospitality only seen in the film "Deliverance", demanded Lot surrender "the men" (angels) that were staying there, so they could...

wait for it...

rape them!

Yup, these folks wanted to rape a couple of angels
(really NOT cool... worse than kicking Jesus in the balls... if there is a sliding scale of theological /celestial "no-no"s).
Lot, being the swell father of the year that he was, offered the townsfolk his two virgin daughters instead (v.8)! Yikes. Not exactly Ward Cleaver, huh?
(... ask your parents).


So God got all "Samuel L. Jackson" on Sodom's ass:

"Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven" (v.24)

But Lot and his two daughters (remember, his wife is gone, sprinkled on some roasted peanuts) escape--
"and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters" (v.30).

Uh oh....

That's right folks, it's about to get even CREEPIER!

When old Lot is asleep, the two daughters start chatting:

"Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father..." (v. 32)

And guess what!

"... and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; ... and the younger arose, and lay with him;... Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father." (v. 33-36)

Cue the theme to "Family Ties"...

Yeah, gives new meaning to shouting "Who's your daddy?!" (although that always kinda creeped me out)

But not so fast, Judgey McJudgington (it's a family name)!

Back track to verse 31, when the two daughters are chatting--

"And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth. Come let us make our father drink wine..."

The two daughters just saw fire and brimstone rain down from the sky, destroy their city, their mom just got turned into a condiment, and they thought "there is not a man in the earth..."-- it's end of the world! They were just trying to perpetuate mankind, to "preserve the seed of [their] father..."


honestly, Officer, I swear I've never seen those harnesses and ball gags before- it's the truth...


Just look at the story from both sides. Put yourself in Lot's daughters' positions... and then take a long shower.


"Even the flattest pancake has two sides"


I have been considering this Subjectivity (and pancakes) because of the recent and most significant event of this young decade:

Conan vs. Leno!

I know, I know, there is serious stuff going on in Haiti
(you can donate at this website: http://www.standwithhaiti.org/haiti )

... but that is depressing!!!
Let's focus on something else:

A couple nights ago, Jimmy Kimmel was a guest on Jay Leno's god-awful 10 PM talk show. When Leno asked “What’s the worst prank you ever pulled?” Kimmel said “I told a guy that ‘Five years from now I’m gonna give you my show,’ and then when the five years came I gave it to him, and then I took it back almost instantly.'”

Essentially, Conan O'brien was promised "The Tonight Show" starting in 2010. Leno retired last year. NBC wanted to have their pancake and eat it, too. So they gave Leno a 10 PM show and Conan got "The Tonight Show" starting this past August.
Unfortunately, both their ratings have sagged... more than... [insert joke about elderly people's naughty parts).


So... NBC is deciding what to do...
Now Leno says he would love to return as host of "The Tonight Show", if he had the opportunity.

The classy move would be -- stay retired, leave Conan alone.


From CNN.com (reporting by Alan Duke, 1/19/10) :

"O'Brien took over as host of "Late Night" in 1993, after David Letterman left to start a show on CBS. NBC, fearing they would lose O'Brien to another network, agreed in 2004 to name him as Leno's replacement five years down the road."

So now Leno sounds pretty awful! After Conan was promised TTS, Leno won't give it up. But wait!

Okay... Now THIS makes Leno sound more like a victim.

(also from CNN.com)
"Leno described that process to his audience Tuesday:
"I'm sitting in my office, an NBC executive comes in and says to me, 'Listen, Conan O'Brien has gotten offers from other networks. We don't want him to go, so we're going to give him 'The Tonight Show.' I said, 'Well, I've been No. 1 for 12 years.' They said, 'We know that, but we don't think you can sustain that.' I said, 'OK. How about until I fall to No. 2, then you fire me?' 'No, we made this decision.' I said, 'That's fine.'"



Hm.
So who should we feel sorry for?

Who's to blame?

NOTHING, I repeat, NOTHING in this world is BLACK and WHITE...
It's all shades of GRAY.



Now, one final breakfast quote, courtesy of the great Homer Simpson--


Homer: [in living room, looking towards heaven] Why do you mock me, O Lord?
Marge: Homer, that's not God. That's just a waffle that Bart tossed up
there.
[Marge scrapes it off into Homer's hands]
Homer: I know I shouldn't eat thee, but -- [bites] Mmm, sacrilicious.

("The Simpsons", Season 5, ep. 16, "Homer Loves Flanders", Written by David Richardson)
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