Joe Tex, “I Believe I’m Gonna Make It”

I meant to squeeze this in for Veterans Day, but didn’t make it.

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We Are the Illusion

We watched Network (1976) over the weekend; first time I’ve seen it. If you haven’t seen it in a while, or have it somewhere at the bottom of your queue, I recommend moving it up. Things have changed so much in the last thirty years that they’re pretty much exactly the same. The clip below [...]

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We can only wonder

I put this up in another format recently, but I love this quote attributed to Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses. I haven’t found it yet, but it’s worth digging for in there: Concepts create idols. Only wonder understands anything. Song of the day, by some trick of my ear: Gillian Welch, “Annabelle”

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Gorgeous Behavior

One more comment about worldly gain, and then a song. I promise. A friend from High School is now at the National Review, and wrote this insightful piece about the standards for card playing in the current race. It’s interesting what we choose to get sensitive about, and Palin’s candidacy will give us plenty more [...]

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As you said it to the least of these. . .

Now, I can hardly believe a word being said on or about a convention stage in the last two weeks, but I thought this was an interesting response: a call for Christians to stand against Palin’s rhetoric, if not her content. The Matthew 25 Network includes both shunned Obamacon Roman Catholic Doug Kmiec and ubiquitous [...]

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Permanent Ink and Voting for Change

I watched a bit of the documentary (concert video?) of Joe Strummer, God bless his soul, and the Mescaleros 2001-2002 tour, Let’s Rock Again! Strummer is enjoyable, although there is not really a ton of off-stage reflection. But, that seems to have been his way of doing things. After reflecting on the eagerness of the [...]

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“Let’s get home before we get older”

If you’ve ever given much attention or thought to teenagers, maybe even been one or cared for a few, I recommend this recent post from Stuff about Cari: Maybe they secretly met up with the hottest guy at Lincoln Middle after changing into the cutest long-sleeved midriff sweater from Abercrombie in the bathroom at the [...]

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A Nation of Mans

Within a few experiences of each other, I saw Mike Judge’s Idiocracy and Pixar’s Wall-E. I don’t know if this will happen to a lot of people, but it makes for an interesting vision of the future. Wall-E assumes we will be commodified and technopolied into boneless blobs of passive, isolated-in-a-crowd, roaming media eaters. Idiocracy [...]

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Secession Imminent

“Californians are less likely than other Americans to consider religion “very important” in their lives or to be “absolutely certain” in their belief in God.” (LA Times) Read this just after hearing a radio interview with a group of young Chinese, who rattled off a list of American TV shows they regularly watch, and then [...]

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Streets of Bling

This idealized newsfeed (HT ME) was really fun for me. It might not be all your hopes and dreams, but it got my imagination going. It also got me thinking about how we talk about heaven. A lot of our songs and language about the restoration of a broken, groaning creation amount to odd quotes [...]

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