I think I ensured my immortality today, and I want to publicize it here, just to make sure I get full credit.

“Trzupr” over at Threedonia, posted this interesting piece today, about the irony of Disney building a “Tree of Life” in its Animal Kingdom, to teach the sacred value of natural things, and actually building the object out of man-made materials, on the frame of an oil rig.

I pointed out in comments that this was similar to using the most technology-heavy movie in history to preach the evils of technology. And then I wrote, “We have reached the Post-Ironic Age.”

The more I think about it, the more I like that phrase. Continue reading “The Post-Ironic Age” →

Jeffrey Overstreet reviews that sci-fi movie you’ve been hearing about:

The masterstroke of the original Star Wars‘ trilogy was its bold third-act subversion of audience hopes and expectations. Lucas made the villain we loved to hate into a redeemable human being, one who could be saved by grace. Avatar has nothing so bold or redeeming as that, nothing to discomfort audiences with the wild truth.

What begins as mythmaking devolves into political pulpit-pounding, a narrow-minded “war-for-oil” critique of recent and present-day American military interventions in the Middle East that sounds oh-so-2004.

Illustrator Paul Rogers has a series of sketches based on well known movies. If you think you know your movies, then eyeball six sketches from each film, presented in order and without star actor’s faces, and see if you can name it. I was pleased to recognize “39 Steps,” but I most of these I’ve never seen.

Oh, joy. My cold is creeping back up on me, just when I thought I was beginning to get better. What I actually think is happening is that I’m getting rolling colds–my weakened resistance picks up a new one whenever the last one’s begun to weaken. Think of a wave pattern, like a sleep cycle.

I spent this afternoon learning CPR and AED (Automatic Electrical Defibrillator). They’re installing AEDs at work, and want as many employees as possible to know how to use the things.

I actually think I’m more likely to need the device than to help anyone with it, but I took the training. Oddly disquieting. If you don’t know how to help someone, you have a sort of built-in, guilty justification for doing nothing. If you do know how, there’s a moral obligation to help. Helping is great if you’re sure you’ll succeed and everyone will look up to you as a hero. It’s not so great if you do your best and fail. It’s not great at all if you make a mistake and actually do harm.

My default mode has always been passivity. “Nothing ventured, nothing lost” is my motto.

But that’s profoundly un-Christian. I’m convinced that that’s a large part of what Jesus meant by the business of taking up your cross and following Him. You do right, you do what He would do, and accept the possibility you’ll fail or be misunderstood (He was certainly misunderstood). “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in Hell.” (Matthew 10:28, NIV)

I have no natural leaning toward heroic living.

Speaking of people with no leaning toward the heroic, this article from France says that Mel Gibson plans to film a Viking movie next year (hurrah!). He plans to star Leonardo DiCaprio in it (wha…?).

That slapping sound you hear is me palming my face repeatedly.

Is it beautiful or is carefully marketed? James Bowman writes: “To the shock, then, that the work should be unashamedly pretty we may add the shock that it should not be shocking as well as the additional and perhaps greatest shock of all, namely the suspicion that it is a bit of glorified interior decorating.”

The debate on the trustworthiness of climate science is into the deep weeds on this post on Change.org. I doubt I can keep up.

(My dad in the snow, sometime in the 1940s.)

Winter has arrived in earnest. The snow, like a snowy quilt, covers the snow-covered landscape like a quilt of snow. And it’s cold as… cold as a quilt is not. I note this for the record; I’m not sure what else to say about it. I knew about winter when I enlisted. Could have stayed in Florida if I’d wanted to take the coward’s way out.

I should spend more time being grateful. Unlike my dad long since, I don’t have to go out twice a day to milk cows, and throw hay down from the loft, and shovel manure out of the barn. If I get really sick, I’ll be able to just call in and tell the folks, “Carry on—somehow—without me.” I won’t have to drag myself out of bed, wrap up in three layers, and do the danged chores anyway, finding something to lean on when I get lightheaded, because you can’t let the animals starve.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Hannukah (or Channukah). Best wishes to our Jewish friends (or friend).



Aitchmark sent me this link to a review from The Wall Street Journal, of the book Last Exit to Utopia, written by, of all things, a Frenchman. Looks excellent.

Have a good weekend. Stay warm. Or cold, if you prefer.

This is from outside the Bergen home of Norway’s royal family. Here’s another beautiful photo of this mansion in wintertime.

Justin Buzzard: “We lose power if we do not concentrate on the right thing.”

I’m barely functioning tonight. Last night I needed sleep and wanted sleep, but my brain (which hates me. With some justification) wouldn’t let me sleep. So just a few links.

My new novel, West Oversea, was just reviewed at The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, a journal for homeschooling families. Nice review, too.

One of my favorite blogs, Mitch Berg’s Shot In the Dark, has begun a series of hard-hitting exposes of the true, never-before-revealed roots of organized crime in America — the Norwegian mob. Mitch calls the Capo di tutti capi De Godenfar, but I prefer the name we used (in hushed whispers) back home — The Codfather.

Part One here.

Part Two here.

Part Three here.

More to come.

Also some scintillating comments from one of America’s finest young novelists.