Thursday, May 31, 2007
History Channel gets highest ratings ever with STAR WARS: THE LEGACY REVEALED
Only Bill Gates could sell a $10,000 coffee table
Maybe as a complement for the Surface unit, Microsoft can create a Windows-based chair for Steve Ballmer to throw...
Fred Reed laments the "New Improved America"
Something is wrong with the United States. I think most of us have noticed it. There is a mortal rot in the country, made manifest by many little rots that are hard to integrate mentally yet are, I think, somehow related. The change is grave, accelerating, probably irreversible, and fascinating. Things are not as they were...Hit the link above for more....The Constitution really is going away, or has gone. It never did work as well as it should have, but few things human ever do. Habeas corpus is dead, right to an attorney, congressional right to declare war—it's not even worth listing the list. Joe iPod in the burbs doesn't care because it doesn’t affect him, yet. Git them Hay-rabs, ain't no draft, plenty sushi. Urg.
Let there be... white?
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Creation Museum, and why Creationism has become a corrupted belief
You might have heard about the Creation Museum that opened this week in Kentucky. It is a natural history museum that has made the Bible's account of a literal six-day creation the foundation of everything that is on exhibit.It seems to be a huge hit, because ever since it opened the Creation Museum has enjoyed capacity crowds. It's also attracted the usual gang of professional secularists: people who get too much of their jollies from deriding those who believe God made everything as "backward-thinking yokels".
I'm making mention of this, because I think that the Creation Museum and the "controversy" about it (which seems too manufactured by the mainstream press) epitomizes everything that's wrong with the "Evolution versus Creationism" debate... and especially how too many Christians get embroiled in this for the very worst of reasons.
Yes, I do believe God created the universe. No, I won't be going to the Creation Museum. And had I been elected to the school board I would not have actively pursued the agenda of pushing "Creationism" onto the children in our system, either... or have tried to smuggle it in under the guise of "intelligent design". And I believe it would be wrong for any current school board member to attempt to do that (I'm looking right at you, ya thievin' hypocrite who's now trashing the Constitution).
It's way past time to state the obvious: that "Creationism" is a political weapon and not a statement of faith. Creationism has never been about giving honor and glory to God... but it has been everything about seizing and wielding power over other people.
And that's the furthest thing from being a sincere Christian on this Earth that you can get.
To be fair, Evolution is exactly the same thing. What started with a scientific inquiry by Charles Darwin has become not just a political agenda, but a religion unto itself. Its disciples are no less driven by lust for power - or less despicable for it - than their Creationist nemeses. But Evolution as a belief system is something of this world: something which is completely alien to the nature of Christ. I can understand how those still living for the world would succumb to the temptation of power by using the concept of natural evolution to acquire it.
What I can neither understand or even tolerate is how those who do profess to be serving Christ, how those who are not supposed to be of this world, yield to that very same temptation and use the name of God to justify it and make an excuse for it.
How can this possibly be serving Christ? How is this in any way, at all, presenting ourselves as a humble witness to others for the sake of our Lord?
We - and I'm talking about myself and my fellow Christians - are meant to be above this sort of nonsense. There are matters far more important than how this world may have come into being. Trying our best to prepare those around us for the next world is supposed to be one of them. We can't do that if we are fixated on a sense of affluence that will yield nothing when it is thrown into the refiner's fire.
And that's all that Creationism - with a big "C" - will ever be: one more thing that the Deceiver will use to make us believe that we are wiser than we really are.
But do you know why I most hate "Creationism" as its rabid adherents preach? It's because they would force me to have a faith in something. It's not enough that a person reaches that faith on his or her own: Ultra-Creationist wackos demand faith on their own terms, in a way that they can understand and manipulate for their own ends.
I know that because I've spent most of my life dealing with people with this mindset. It was years before I realized that they were far more obsessed about whether or not a person believed that they were descended from monkeys than they were with whether that person was going to Heaven.
This is the kind of thing that a person needs to wrestle with on their own, between themselves and God. It was only in the past few years that my own mind arrived at a place where I could, at last, believe completely that it was entirely possible for God to have established everything according to His will, and to accept that as fully as I could that the sun will rise in the morning. What that belief precisely is wouldn't be something that Creationists would approve of: they would probably condemn me as a teacher of heresy and try to throw this blog into a bonfire... but it's definitely not anything even remotely like Evolution, either. And it might not even be entirely accurate at all to however it was that God did it. But it's how the universe was created and structured as best as I have come to understand it. Not how "someone else" believes I should understand it.
What's more, I find that it's entirely consistent with the teachings of the Bible. Maybe someday I'll publish it.
That was only after years of struggling to comprehend how God could have really created everything. Years filled with doubt and despair and even long nights crying about it, because I couldn't understand it (I don't know if this person would ever read this but if she does someday: Nikki, you told me something one night that radically altered the course of my philosophy... in a very good way :-)...
...I wouldn't take anything for those years of inner turmoil. Of trying to "figure it all out". Because that was time that my struggle to comprehend those things ended up drastically building my faith in God. I came out of that time much stronger in my faith in Christ, and I came out of it... well, Lisa would say that she thinks I've come out a better person overall. For the most part, anyway. Maybe a few rough edges still :-)
Why would, or why should, any of us as believers in Christ seek to deny others that same potential for such wonderful spiritual growth?
You know, the Bible really is the most wonderful, amazing book ever assembled. I believe everything about it is best summed up by the word that is the title of its final chapter: "revelation". And that is precisely what the Bible should be for us as Christians: revelation unfolding, never-ending...
How could we, as a singular generation, possibly declare ourselves the final arbiters of its comprehension?
Yes, I believe that God created the universe. I believe that my fellow Christians should believe that, also. But it's the why we choose to believe it, that will determine the validity of our being a presence for the Kingdom in this earthen realm. Anything less than it being for Christ and for His own sake will corrupt our work unto ruin.
In other words, to those who obsess on Creationism: ever hear the old saying about "wrestling with a pig"? Get your booty in gear: we got better things to occupy ourselves with than the exact mechanics of physical existence. Let "them" play with the monkeys...
What's your theological worldview?
 | You scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan, You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God's grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists.
What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com |
I was fully expecting to rank as an Emergent/Postmodern more than anything else. But my personal theology is a strange melange of independent Methodism, much teaching from Stanley Hauerwas, C.S. Lewis and lots of personal experience. What's my denomination anyway? Does it even matter anymore? I'm like, here dude, wherever God put me...
Thanks to Shane Thacker for finding this one.
PIXELODEON 2007: See my commercial at the American Film Institute!
Next weekend, on June 9th and 10th, the American Film Institute in Los Angeles will be hosting the Pixelodeon 2007 Annual Independent Video Festival. Over 300 independently-produced videos and short films will be shown. Well, guess what: the "Star Wars"-themed first commercial from my school board campaign has been given the honor of being one of them! It really amazes me that all these months later, it's still seems to be rather popular. I just made it because (a) the idea was too good not to do and (b) with 16 candidates running, I really did have to try to stand out a little. But lo and behold, it's something that became bona-fide viral... which I never expected to happen. And now it's being shown at the AFI!
Pixelodeon 2007 sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun! I won't be there unfortunately (there's a teaching exam that I have to take that Saturday in Raleigh) but if you want to check out something really cool and happen to be in L.A. next weekend, head over to Pixelodeon. Visit the show's website for tickets and other information.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Another SESAME STREET classic: "Subway!"
or you might lose something WORSE
on the subway!"
Before Curtis Sliwa arrived on the scene, no 'hood in New York City was safe... including Sesame Street, apparently.
Another great skit with the Muppets from Sesame Street. One that will leave you wondering "how did ALL those muppeteers fit on that tiny stage?"
You can't work unless Homeland Security approves you
Soon you will need approval from the Department of Homeland Security in order to hold a job.
Do you understand what that means?
First of all, these are the people who maintain - and constantly bungle - the "No Fly List". Now they are going to do the same thing with your work eligibility.
But worse than that: this is something straight out of the Soviet Union. Hell, let's call a spade a spade and say that this is something out of Nazi Germany. Sure was hard to find work there unless you proved that you weren't Jewish, wasn't it? Lord only knows what our government will come up with that would disqualify someone from employment.
And what's to keep "them" from stopping there? If we can have No Fly Lists and No Work Lists - and they've already got No Gun Lists well in the works - then why not No Marry Lists and No Hospital Care Lists and No Food Lists...?
When does it stop?
More to the point: when do we stop them?
A little over three years ago I wrote "People Who Should Be Shot When the Revolution Comes". Maybe it's time to update that directory...
EDIT 7:16 p.m. EST: Yes, I know that this was hidden away in the "immigration reform" bill. But there is nothing about stemming the flow of illegals into this country that possibly necessitates putting the damned Department of Homeland Security in charge of whether or not anyone can work.
If that doesn't pop a huge red flag, then I don't know what will.
An idea for a new Fox reality show
Pardon Me! will feature twelve contestants, all of them convicted felons on Death Row. Each week the inmates have to "file an appeal" which is critiqued by a panel of three judges, including one "celebrity judge" (I'm thinking O.J. Simpson and Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme via satellite from prison in Texas). At the end of each show the phone lines open and the audience gets to vote on who they like most. Each week the "contestant" with the fewest votes is sent "home" and escorted off the stage on what the producers call "The Long Walk". The very last person left after weeks of competition gets a full pardon.
We're headed straight toward that, folks. That's what I can't help but think when I read stories like this one from the BBC: a new Dutch TV show has contestants vying for a dying donor's kidney...
Outcry over TV kidney competitionI seriously have to wonder how long will it be before a show like this makes its way to America.A Dutch TV station says it will go ahead with a programme in which a terminally ill woman selects one of three patients to receive her kidneys.
Political parties have called for The Big Donor Show to be scrapped, but broadcaster BNN says it will highlight the country's shortage of organ donors.
"It's a crazy idea," said Joop Atsma, of the ruling Christian Democrat Party.
"It can't be possible that, in the Netherlands, people vote about who's getting a kidney," he told the BBC.
The programme, from Big Brother creators Endemol, is due to be screened on Friday night.
The 37-year-old donor, identified only as Lisa, will make her choice based on the contestants' history, profile and conversation with their family and friends.
Viewers will also be able to send in their advice by text message during the 80-minute show.
May 29, 2007: A tragic day for Star Wars fans
...but today is a time to mourn.
Today Sacrifice, the new Star Wars novel in the "Legacy of the Force" series, was published. As is being widely reported already, this is the book that sees the death of Mara Jade Skywalker: wife of Luke Skywalker and perhaps the most beloved Star Wars character to have never appeared in any of the movies.
Mara Jade first appeared in Heir to the Empire, the first of the modern "expanded universe" books, in May of 1991. When we first saw her she was trying to kill Luke. She ended up falling in love with him. The two had a wedding as beautiful as any to be found in a fairy tale.
Mara Jade Skywalker was many things: former Imperial, Palpatine's personal assassin, smuggler, dancer, spy, Jedi, diplomat, wife, mother to son Ben... and so very beautiful.
And now, she is dead. Murdered at the hands of nephew Jacen Solo... who is now a Sith Lord calling himself Darth Caedus.
It's the end of an era, my friends...
Mara Jade, we hardly knew ye!
By the way, I sort of have a bit of "history" with Mara Jade. Some years ago I sat next to Shannon McRandle - the actress who did Mara's "real life" portrayals - during dinner. And in 2000 I interviewed Mara Jade's creator Timothy Zahn in an interview for TheForce.net. Then I wound up making a replica Luke Skywalker lightsaber for a friend's Mara Jade costume...
And yes, I do have a "favorite" Mara Jade outfit. But I'm not going to say which one it is here. But I will say this: of all the Star Wars female characters, I always thought that she was the hottest (WAY more so than that ridiculous "slave Leia metal bikini"). And for her attitude as much as for her loveliness.
Rest in peace, Mara...
Amnesty opponents don't know "what's right for America", Bush says
"Those determined to find fault with this bill will always be able to look at a narrow slice of it and find something they don't like," the president said. "If you want to kill the bill, if you don't want to do what's right for America, you can pick one little aspect out of it.Once again, The Decider decrees that to disagree with him is unpatriotic. Hell, he practically accuses those against illegal amnesty of having the same mindset as "the terrists"."You can use it to frighten people," Bush said. "Or you can show leadership and solve this problem once and for all."
But it is George W. Bush and those like him who are destroying America. In ways that "terrorists" can only dream they could accomplish.
Quick note on some o' my websites
Monday, May 28, 2007
Rest in peace Charles Nelson Reilly
I didn't know him from any of that. No, like a lot of us who "came of age" during the last decade, I know Charles Nelson Reilly mostly from his role as Jose Chung in the classic The X-Files episode "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'": easily among the most unique hours of Nineties television.
A few years later Reilly returned as Chung in the Millennium episode "Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense". In his honor, here is the intro to that extremely hilarious episode (which made fun of Scientology):
Something to ponder this Memorial Day ...
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Government to sanction medical experiments without patient consent
The first things that flashed in my mind when I read this story were Nazi "doctors" like Josef Mengele, and the Tuskegee Experiment (which was conducted by the American government, by the way).
Someday "they" will go too far - if they haven't already - and the Man in Room Five is going to break free and come looking for them.
(Props to anyone who will recognize that literary reference.)
