When asked his favorite novel in an interview on the Fox News Channel, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney pointed to Battlefield Earth, a novel by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology.
“I’m not in favor of his religion by any means,” Romney, a Mormon, said. “But he wrote a book called Battlefield Earth that was a very fun science-fiction book.”
Asked about his favorite book in general, Romney cited the Bible.
The Book of Mormon doesn't even rank?
Hubbard, whose Scientology back story itself reads like bad science fiction, set the novel in the year 3000 AD. Earth has been ruled for a millennium by an alien race, the Psychlos (hairy, 9-foot tall, 1,000-pound sociopaths who look a lot like John Travolta). Humanity has been reduced to a few scattered tribes in isolated parts of the world, while the Psychlos strip the planet of its mineral wealth. Why, it's a story ripped from today's headlines!
The Economist called Battlefield Earth "an unsubtle saga, atrociously written, windy and out of control" while the respected sci-fi magazine Analog criticized it as "a wish-fulfillment fantasy wholly populated by the most one-dimensional of cardboard characters."
But perfect light reading for a one-dimensional candidate, we suppose.
Sure, there's no accounting for taste. But do we want a copy of Battlefield Earth on the president's nightstand in the White House? Just the thought is enough to max out my e-meter!
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Christian humor, satire, humor
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Web: Mitt Romney and the limits of literacy
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2 comments:
6 questions Mitt Romney must now answer:
1) Mr. Romney, you said L. Ron Hubbard’s Battlefield Earth was your favorite novel. Then later you clarified by saying it was only your favorite SCIENCE FICTION novel, and that it was written before Scientology was founded. So now that you know it was actually written 29 years AFTER Scientology was founded, is it still your favorite science fiction novel?
2) Most critics outside of Scientology found this novel to be dreadful. Many of them couldn’t even finish it – it was that bad. But you described it as “fun.” Specifically, what part(s) of it were “fun?”
3) If this is your favorite science fiction novel, what other science fiction novels have you read that were, by definition, not as good as Battlefield Earth?
4) When did you read Battlefield Earth?
5) Since Battlefield Earth came out in 1982, you couldn’t have read it before then, what led you to believe that it was written before Scientology was founded?
6) Battlefield Earth is over 1,000 pages. Is it the biggest novel you’ve ever read? How long did it take you to read?
Forget science ficton, get to the facts.
The Mormon prophet Brigham Young taught that the moon and the sun are inhabited.
"Who can tell us of the inhabitants of this little planet that shines of an evening, called the moon?...when you inquire about the inhabitants of that sphere you find that the most learned are as ignorant in regard to them as the ignorant of their fellows. So it is in regard to the inhabitants of the sun. Do you think it is inhabited? I rather think it is. Do you think there is any life there? No question of it; it was not made in vain." - Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, vol. 13, p. 271.
Somebody please ask the governor what he thinks of the prophet's teaching concerning the sun and the moon.
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