whatever became of . . .

. . . Spanky?

(the blues behind the icons)

George "Spanky" M^cFarland was the fat kid in those now-ancient Little Rascals shorts. He was two years old in 1928 when his uncle sent a photograph of him to producer Hal Roach. Placed under contract, his family was moved to Hollywood and he stayed with the series until it expired under M-G-M auspices in 1944, when he was sixteen. During this tenure he had made over one hundred-fifty features and shorts. Aside from these Our Gangs two-reelers he also appeared in Kidnapped (1938), Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936 - with Henry Fonda), and Johnny Doughboy (1942).

After this period Spanky tried being a freelance actor, but with little luck. After a stint in the Army, he sold insurance, sold automobiles, wholesaled Coca-Cola, and briefly ran his own restaurant until legal complications developed (his landlord disappeared and his lease was cancelled). He then worked at an aircraft plant, which he hated.

In the late 50s Spanky began freelancing in television, doing mostly commercials. This helped him land a regular job in Tulsa, OK, where he hosted a children's daily television show. This gave him the opportunity to alter an approach he had always despised: kiddie entertainers who dress and try to act like children. "Kid shows are always playing down," he said. "It's silly to have a grown man sitting there trying to be a kid. Kids know better." Among the old movies he introduced in his daily shows were those he had made with Alfalfa and Buckwheat and Darla (she particularly remained a lifelong friend). Through the years McFarland continued to do personal appearances and cameo roles in films and television. His final television performance was in 1993 in an introductory vignette at the beginning of the popular Cheers episode "Woody Gets an Election."

He died suddenly of cardiac arrest in 1993 at the age of sixty-four.

In January 1994, “Spanky” joined fellow alumnus Jackie Cooper (both are in the foto above) to become one of only two Our Gang members to receive a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.

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Alfalfa was shot to death in a quarrel in 1959.

Buckwheat Thomas was killed while flying food to Biafra in 1968.

Robert Blake (Mickey) went on to play a murderer in the 1968 adaptation of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and then again in real life (allegedly, of course ;)

I've been extremely busy with two particular projects so I haven't been blogging lately. I got interested in the fate of Our Gang a few days ago after a brief conversation about the evolution and eventual eradication of the graininess of the film medium. After doing a little reading, I thought I'd share . . .

peace

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Sam Harris surveys ...

Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, is conducting some research and has asked for volunteers on his website to complete a series of four surveys.
Please help him out if you can.

peace

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atheism, atheist, Sam Harris, skepticism, Buddhism, Buddha, agnostic

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Paul and the pastorals . . .

Over at Debunking Christianity I was surprised to find someone actually defending Pauline authorship for the pastorals.
Curiously, the argument that the commenter (J) presents involves an imagined 'conspiracy of scholars', one intent on undermining the patristic writers' contributions in the telling of history. The following is cited:

“In judging of the early evidence it should be borne in mind that all three Epistles claim to be by St. Paul. So when an early writer shows his familiarity with them, quotes them as authoritative and as evidently well known to his readers, it may be taken as a proof not only of the existence and widespread knowledge of the Epistles, but that the writer took them for what they claim to be, genuine Epistles of St. Paul; and if the writer lived in the time of Apostles, of Apostolic men, of disciples of Apostles, and of Timothy and Titus (as did Ignatius, Polycarp, and Clement) we may be sure that he was correct in doing so. The evidence of these writers is, however, very unceremoniously brushed aside. The heretic Marcion, about A. D. 150, is held to be of much more weight than all of them put together.” (Catholic Encyclopedia - emphasis by J)

But is it really just "brushed aside"?
The phrasing of that last sentence will reveal its writer's polemical function (find their outline and things will tell you their name :) The fact is that many good, persuasive arguments have been presented (they go back even before the reformation) that cast doubt on either the authenticity or the dating or the provenance of the various patristic texts.

To say that they are just "brushed aside" is either uninformed or disingenuous.

The post-Pauline quality of the disputed epistles have inspired countless volumes, so I'm not going to tread all that ground here. I'll only mention a couple of points I think are crucial:

• Marcion, the champion of all things Paul of his day, collected all of the letters that were attributed to the man from Tarsus into a corpus, and he left behind a list of all the books he "knew" were Paul's. This is the earliest list of its kind that we have, in fact. This list very simply does NOT include either Titus or Timothies 1 & 2. This is a fact. It is true that the muratorian canon included these epistles in its proto-canon (circa 185), but Marcion's list predates it by several decades. In short, the ultimate Paul freak of his day never heard of these epistles.
  Interesting, eh?
• To anyone who would complain that the patristics are summarily ignored in our attempt to determine the authenticity of these disputed texts, I would put forward this challenge:

  Provide a citation from any writer earlier than Polycarp that cites any Pauline work besides the first letter to the Corinthians.
  

  That's my challenge. Go searching. You'll realize that no other epistles (much less the deutero-pauline ones under discussion) are ever quoted by them. When you do, you'll hopefully also realize that the patristic familiarity with Paul that you imagine was the case, is textually and historically unsupported (and mind you, I doubt that the Ignatian corpus is authentic to begin with for many reasons, but I'll grant it here for the sake of argument :) -- and though there are similar themes in some patristics, these don't qualify as quotations.
  In short, in discussing Titus and Timothy, we are justified in ignoring the patristics, not because of any rancor or conspiracy, but because they simply don't say anything at all about these books.
  

Like I said . . . whole libraries have been devoted to the subject, so I won't belabor it further, but it's fascinating to see someone in 2008 still defending outmoded medieval ideas that have long been obsolete.

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Buddhist, skeptic, horses, music, musician, musicians, santeria, voodoo, voudun, macumba, atheist, agnostic, agnosticism, Dennett, Dawkins, Hitchens, Huxley, Darwin, evolution, species, science, biochemistry, chaos, entropy, enthalpy, conductinity, technique, illusion, maya, aztec, taino, arawak, carib.

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