Achievable resolutions, 2014

Below find my traditional list of achievable new year’s resolutions for 2014. Disclaimer: I am a professional. Do not try this at home.

I resolve to give up twerking.

I resolve to cut my caviar expenses by at least 50%.

I resolve to eat no komodo dragon meat.

I resolve to be gracious in my forgiveness, when the Minneapolis Star and Tribune finally apologizes for failing to meet my information needs, as inevitably it must.

I resolve to help Peter Jackson fix his last Hobbit script, if asked.

I resolve not to run if nominated, and not to serve if elected.

I resolve not to let the Balrog pass.

I resolve to read no books by Dan Brown.

I resolve not to wear knee-britches.

I resolve to permit my enemies one more year of life before I defeat them, see them driven before me, and hear the lamentations of their women.

Happy New Year!

2013 in Review+

In looking over news from the past year, I was a bit discouraged to remember that Mr. Obama was reelected. But that wasn’t the only news from 2013. Here’s a roundup.

Our friend, The Very Right Holiness Prophet Dr. Hunter Baker, joins other friends of NRO to give the year’s highs and lows. “The fear, uncertainty, and loss experienced by Americans because of ill-conceived legislation and incompetent management, however, are unrelievedly negative.”

World Magazine has their 25 of their most read articles from 2013. They also offer this column on the year’s propaganda. Marvin Olasky notes:

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell stated in May, “IRS agents did nothing wrong.” Even in November Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post claimed, “This has been a really relatively scandal-free administration, first term and second term.” If that statement is relatively true, it’s only because most reporters haven’t looked.

Andrew McCarthy reviews American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character by Diane West.

Her purpose was to explore the Cold War paradox: Despite our seeming victory over the evil empire, we lost the same Cold War at home, to a lasting, corrosive effect, thanks to a “riddling, corruptive drive against what we now regard as ‘traditional’ morality, Enlightenment logic, and cultural memory.”

Collin Hansen on the best of 2013, including a piece recommending the legalization of murder.

“The Eight Kinds of Commenters in the Christian Blogosphere” as told by Dale Coulter(via Jared Wilson)

How to read the whole Bible in 2014

Netflex review: 'Lilyhammer' Season 2

You may recall that I wrote a review of the Netflix TV series Lilyhammer for the American Spectator Online last year. I won’t be doing that again this year, though I recently watched the second season all the way through. I just didn’t like this one as much. That is not to say that the writing or the production are inferior the second time around. In some ways they’re superior (the season resolution was more plausible, certainly). It’s just that I could find a message to love in the first season, and I got nothing from this one.

The first season, as I noted, had as one of its overarching themes the recovery of manhood in a neutered society.

This year’s theme seems to be “embracing your inner Gay.”

If there’s a third season, I’m undecided whether to even watch.

(One scene I did kind of enjoy was the appearance of a group of Norwegian-Americans from Minnesota in the last episode, when the main character and his friends have traveled to New York City.)

Neither season is actually recommended for our readership. Lots of f-bombs, and the occasional nudity of the first season has been upped to about one scene per episode. Also each season contains one shocking murder of an annoying but essentially innocent character.

Strong stuff. You’ve been warned.

Tolkien and the Long Defeat

Andrew Barber connects Tolkien’s elves to the Christian life. “This place, once so full of life and sustained by the Lady of Light, Galadriel… has become a glorious ruin. For Galadriel, like the rest of her kin, has left the world to the rule of man; the elves, in all their splendor, have reached their end. [She says,]’. . . together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat.'”

Beautiful Books

Yes, Buzzfeed is an ugly site, but they occasionally have good lists, like this one on beautifully designed book. They say, “Not only have e-books not killed print books yet, they’ve actually made them better by pushing publishers to give readers a reason to buy print over digital.”

So, here’s nineteen examples. This one of Dickinson’s envelope poems, The Gorgeous Nothings, looks wonderfully inspiring.

'Hard Magic,' by Larry Correia

I was in the embarrassing situation of having Larry Correia as a Facebook friend but never having read any of his stuff, even though he seemed to have his head on pretty straight. So I remedied that by downloading Hard Magic, Book One of the Grimnoir Chronicles series. It’s pretty good.

The story is set in the 1930s, in an alternate universe where people with magical powers (known as Actives) starting appearing spontaneously among the population sometime in the mid-1800s. This led to some changes in the world – primarily in the balance of power. World War I was ended by the Peace Ray, an invention of Tesla’s, resulting in the virtual annihilation of Berlin, which became a miserable city of zombies. Russia was defeated magically in the Russo-Japanese War, making Japan the dominant power in the east. It’s known now as the Imperium, and is effectively controlled by a ruthless magician.

In the atmosphere of complacency permitted by the Peace Ray, only a small order of Actives, the Grimnoir Knights, carries on an asymmetrical resistance under the leadership of Gen. Pershing, John Moses Browning, and others. This book centers on two new recruits – Jake Sullivan, an ex-con who worked for the FBI for a while but was cheated by J. Edgar Hoover, and Faye Vierra, an adopted child raised by a secret Grimnoir Knight on a farm in the San Fernando Valley of California. Jake and Faye are two of the most talented Actives in the world, and all their powers will be needed when the Imperium makes its sneak attack.

The characters were very good, very believable in relation to the supernatural situations. In general the values were good as well (Correia is a Mormon), although there is some rough language. Lots of violence.

I look forward to reading the second novel in the series, Spellbound.