A Parable for Liberals
You have heard the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000, but perhaps you have not understood what it means. Well, Lars’ posts on liberalism and something my five-year-old said last night has inspired me to think through this story from the perspective of a politically liberal American.
5,000 men (and countless women and children–uncounted because of the deplorable chauvinism in that culture) had followed their teacher around and become hungry. They were natural victims of their devotion to the teacher.
Jesus asked his disciples what food they had brought to feed the masses and found his own disciples hadn’t prepared anything. It was a food shortage. Something must be done about it, or innocent people would suffer. Continue reading A Parable for Liberals
Hold Tight, by Harlan Coben
Hold Tight is a mystery. It’s also a thriller and a family drama. It’s not at all like the kind of mystery/thriller I usually read, but it grabbed me almost painfully.
I read and reviewed one Coben novel a while back, and felt ambivalent about it. I decided to try another because I’d read an interesting thing about Coben. He’s made it a point to write his most recent books without using major obscenities. No “f” words. No “sh” words. I can’t find anything that says he has any particular religious devotion; he just seems to be concerned about raising the level of discourse. Which earned my respect, and prompted me to give him another try.
Hold Tight is about families in a suburban community—how they love each other and irritate each other, and (most importantly) mistrust each other and keep secrets. Continue reading Hold Tight, by Harlan Coben
Today I Am Going to … Never Mind
British poet Carol Ann Duffy wrote a poem a while back in which someone with a knife says, “Today I am going to kill something. Anything.” That poem, “Education For Leisure,” has been removed from the English GCSE syllabus. Some British literati are upset, but Duffy says, “I never really liked the poem anyway.”
It’s only hypocrisy if Republicans do it
Oh, I like this one.
From Freedom Dogs: A Tale of Two Houses.
Lesson in liberalism, for liberals
I don’t mention Michael Savage much on this blog, but when I’ve done it, it’s been in a negative way. I don’t like his show (I once called my local station to complain about it), and his on-air personality gives me prickly itch. I share with a few others a not-so-secret suspicion that he’s pure snake oil—not a conservative at all, but a performer who’s found a routine that makes him money, and milks it.
But he’s not a danger to the British Commonwealth.
Here’s Threedonia’s report (featuring a cool picture of the signing of the Magna Carta) on the story of the British Home Office’s decision to list Savage among 16 people banned from their borders. Savage’s response is (for once) entirely appropriate:
“Darn! And I was just planning a trip to England for their superior dental work and cuisine,” he joked….
It’s become increasingly clear that our present educational system has cultivated public ignorance to the extent that liberals nowadays don’t even know what “liberalism” means. Continue reading Lesson in liberalism, for liberals
Ralph Winter, Producer of Wolverine, on Making Movies
Patrol: I feel like, especially in my generation, there’s this backlash against Christian cheese.
Winter: Look, nobody starts out to make a bad movie. Everyone starts out with good intentions. People have differing skill sets to do that and different reasons and purposes.
I think that movies are better at entertaining people than transmitting content. And I think when we try to convince people of the truth of the Gospel, movies aren’t the way to do that. That’s where you can get in trouble. It would take tremendous skill to make a movie to do that. And I look at movies that just touch on it a little bit.
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Ben-Hur. I just saw it—I watch it every Easter. It’s a powerful movie. And you never see Jesus’ face, you never hear him speak. The conversion process that happens for Judah Ben-Hur is after he stands at the cross and sees Jesus, he comes back to Esther, his then sort-of girlfriend, and says, “When he spoke, I felt the sword fall from my hand.”
And you know from that three-hour journey you’ve been on that that’s a big deal to him. And that’s his conversion; it happens off-screen. But you begin to see the results of that, it changes who he is and how he acts. Those are powerful, entertaining stories that make you question why. It would take a very, very skilled filmmaker that could figure out how to do that and be evangelistic without being cheesy. I can’t imagine at that moment what that movie would be. It’s better at asking questions. It’s better as an art form.
Borders Stores Are Hand-selling Like the Old Days
The big dogs at Borders Group have developed a company network to get select books into the hands of their employees in order for them to recommend them to local shoppers. It’s the same idea you might see at a small, independent bookstore. You buy a couple things or shop there regularly, and the store owner says, “Hey, have you heard of On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet? It’s debut novel, like the kind you seem to enjoy, and I love it.” That’s called hand-selling. Publishers have given Borders credit for making the four previously selected hand-sellers into best-sellers.
Never Satisfied
From Dan Springer of Fox News: “For decades, environmental groups have talked about ‘big oil,’ painting the petroleum industry as greedy and destructive. Now similar language is being applied to renewables. Instead of eco-friendly green power, increasingly it’s ‘big wind’ and ‘big solar.’ . . . many local activists say we need to slow this rush to renewables or risk trading one power problem for another.”
No joke.
A Warning to Non-Fiction Writers
This could happen to you.