The Daily Does DaVinci

From experience, I can tell you there's no better place in journalism to begin a career than the august Philadelphia Daily News.

The Daily's values of edginess, dead-on incisiveness -- not to mention punch-packing brevity -- are increasingly going by the wayside in today's print marketplace. But they're sensibilities which have earned it a widespread repute for its love for its readership, and the public's affinity for the Little Paper That Could... or, rather, the Little Paper That Better....

Anyways, in keeping with the DN's grand tradition, here's a snip from the paper's DaVinci Code review, written by its movie critic Gary Thompson.

And, by the by, the movie gets panned.

First, as a non-Catholic, let me say the notion of Christ's being married does not offend me. Part of the appeal of Jesus is that he was sent to earth to feel our pain, to be just as miserable as the rest of us. What better way than being married?

What did offend me was the idea that the real legacy of Christ, who blessed the poor and meek, evicted the money changers and told Caesar to bugger off, was as sire to a monarchy, another tiresome European aristocracy: a "royal bloodline" whose members can marry tennis players, get DWI citiations and end up on Page Six.

There are those who found the bloody Christ of Mel Gibson's "Passion" hard to take. I prefer the bloody to the bluebloody.

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