Archive for July, 2008

REVIEW – "The Dark Knight"

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008

The Dark Knight movie posterI admit I was biased going into the film having looked forward to it greatly.

Even so… I was astounded. “The Dark Knight” deserves perhaps the attention it is receiving lately in the media. It is phenomenal. Many of us celebrated “Batman Begins” as the antidote to the silliness of the first few (modern) Batman films with Michael Keaton then George Clooney. Dark and edgy. Batman/Bruce Wayne as a tortured soul.

“The Dark Knight” is more than a worthy sequel to “Batman Begins” – it is perhaps an apotheosis. A “cinematic triumph” to use the tired but here appropriate cliche. The story. The writing. The sets. The action. The directing. Even the music. But the characters – who are part of the drama. (And is not drama a crucial part of effective art? What will happen? And how will the characters change?) And the acting.

I do not like to jump on bandwagons. I was never a big fan of Heath Ledger. (Not that I ever disliked him either.) But he dominates this film. Nay Heath Ledger does not dominate but rather a being called the Joker dominates. There is almost no Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight” – there is only a personification of Chaos who borrows the body of Heath Ledger (who can only be seen beneath the makeup for a couple brief moments – appropriately enough when the Joker for brief moments is restrained).

In his first extended scene the Joker enters a room – actually a scene – with about two dozen criminal bosses and their lieutenants. Within seconds they turn into background against which the Joker manifests his dark and chaotic energy. His “magic trick” is one of the most brilliant moments of the entire film.

Collectively “The Dark Knight” evokes basic issues – it could take days to work through all the implications and arguments and insights. Social order versus social chaos. How to fight evil and crime. By the rules or not? And what happens to those upon whom we rely to fight evil and/or restore social order? What is the true nature of human beings – especially when under extreme stress? Terrorism versus civilization. The answers – rather the suggested answers – sometimes shock and surprise.

That is part of why the Joker is so evocative and disturbing. The criminals of Gotham City have rules – even sociopaths have a kind of code. The Joke has none. He has no rules. No code. He does whatever he wants. He does whatever he can. Efforts to promote “order and security” work partly – the film suggests – only because even criminals in part observe the rules. What happens when you face someone who does not?

See it.

Various reviews at Rotten Tomatoes.

Posted in Art, Fun and Geek Stuff, Media, Society and Culture | No Comments »

Indentured servitude right here in America

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

I had a most remarkable experience last night.

For weeks I have heard on occasion news reports about foreigners being brought to the United States with promises of good paying jobs – the sponsoring “agency” providing safe housing and so on. And then these foreign workers get shunted around from what was promised to something less, their “agency” or supervisor keeping their paychecks, the poor guys are basically broke and stranded and at the mercy of their employer/supervisor/agency.

I trust you have heard these stories too right?

Met some last night. Oh yeah. An agency offering employment with good pay and opportunities to learn English and American culture. Pay them something like $1400 in fees. Pay another $1000-2000 for your air tickets. Arrive in America – no one picks you up at the airport like promised (although I did see the fine print) so they shell out more money for taxi and hotel. Then $400 to cover deposit and first month rent on a shared apartment. Good paying job at hotel? No sorry you will work in the kitchen at a fast food restaurant. Forty hours per week with some overtime to make as much as possible during their four months? Nope – they get 32-36 hours per week. Supervisor receives checks, takes out rent, gives rest to these foreign workers. They are hoping – at best – to break even after enduring 4 months of this heck.

They cannot afford cars. Walk to work – 30 minutes each way (often in Louisiana summer heat). Six to seven guys in the apartment. Almost no furniture besides beds. I did not even see much in the way of bedding. (The apartment itself is large, quite nice, and in a relatively safe complex.)

This is pretty bad. (Could be worse… but still this is pretty bad.) Lured to America with a bait and switch. These people shell out gobs of money for either no real return or even a financial loss. “I hate this country” is how one said he feels. Someone is making good money off this. Apparently one finds these operations only in nations with low standards of living – no French or German university students in this program no sir.

These foreign workers do have some freedom. They can quit. If they do… they are then completely on their own (to find new employment, place to live, and so on). And they will never see their last paycheck which the supervisor/agency will keep.

I could name names – of the local business that is employing these foreigners, of the company whose name/letterhead I see on the documents shown to me. Trying to figure out what if anything I can or should do.

Posted in Economics, Internationals and immigrants, Law and Justice, News, Personal, Society and Culture | No Comments »

A radical proposal concerning the alphabet

Monday, July 14th, 2008

During out time in Upstate New York visiting my mom and extended family I had an idea not unrelated to ideas I have had concerning how we count in English.

Consider that every letter in the English alphabet is spoken with one syllable. Ay, bee, see, dee, ee, eff, gee, aych, eye, and so on. With one exception.

Double-yoo. Three syllables.

My proposal is to change how we speak the letter w to one syllable – perhaps something like way. So that when we give out web addresses we no longer slog through double-yoo double-yoo double-yoo dot yahoo dot com. Instead just way way way dot yahoo dot com.

It gets better.

Have you noticed how often in English when we spell a word people have to ask “Wait – did you say em or en? See or zee?” Too many letters in English are too close in pronunciation that – especially over the phone – we are not sure. (This is why the military comes up with those whiskey-foxtrot-tango systems. No ambiguity at all.)

And those crazy Canucks and Brits and Aussies and the rest say zed instead of zee – which is why they never get confused over the phone. At least between c and z. You can laugh (and Weird Al pokes at this in his song “Canadian Idiot”) – but it makes sense. I wonder if we resist changing over because of that pesky “ABC Song”.

So why stop at way for w? Why not look at all the ambiguous letter-pairs and change one so that there is no more ambiguity?

Instead of bee and pee perhaps bee and pay. (I believe one finds this frequently in how foreign languages say their alphabets.) Instead of the always confusing em or en we get em and nay. And so on.

Coming up – why we need to do this with how we count numbers.

Posted in English, Fun and Geek Stuff, Language | No Comments »

"In a different reality I could have called you friend"

Sunday, July 13th, 2008

Romulan CommanderOne of the things that has struck me the last several weeks is how many people out there in the blogosphere are (drum roll please) a lot like me. I do not want to dwell too much on this but frankly I do not have many Close Male Friends(tm). Highly introverted. Mostly a loner. (Cue sad violin music.)

Read friend’s blog who cites some other blog and before you know it I discover all these fascinating people all over the country with whom I have much in common.

Today’s example is Calvin Park who is working on a degree at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts. (Massachusetts? Only my home state.) Among other things I came across at his blog Random Bloggings is this older post “10 Random Things About Me”:

Here’s my list, in no particular order:
1. I was once the official beta tester for a live CD Linux distro.
2. I have watched FFVII being played through five times, but have never actually seen anyone beat the final boss.
3. I am far more interested in attending SBL than a pastor’s conference of any type.
4. I want to visit the Great Wall of China.
5. I realized yesterday that if my job/occupation/ministry did not involve teaching I would die.
6. At one time I knew the names of all the Jedi trainees that were originally brought to Luke Skywalker’s Jedi Academy on Yavin IV.
7. I secret sin is Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
8. I am a sick person. If I score less than a 96 on anything I feel like I did horribly, especially on language tests/exams/quizzes.
9. My favor TV shows are sci-fi, but my favorite books are fantasy.
10. I own a Dell Inspiron 6400 that runs Ubuntu. I am in heaven.

I match up with about 7/10 of this list. (Not to mention Hebrew Bible and “Civilization IV”.) And “B.C.E.” is not liberal.

What frustrates me is I think, “Dang it, why do I discover people like this who live on the other side of the nation from me? We could hang!”

But where has God placed us? And what local friends has God given us? To me one of the problems of the Internet is we form “relationships” with people elsewhere and forget to form close friendships with people where we live. (Not to denigrate forming friendships with people we meet over the Web.)

Thus endeth the self-pity party.

Posted in Computers, Fun and Geek Stuff, Personal | No Comments »

Confusing disagreement with ignorance and antipathy (or) Pentheus rages some more

Saturday, July 12th, 2008

Katharine Jefferts-SchoriI suspect many conservative/orthodox Anglicans are grateful to God that Katharine Jefferts-Schori was elected Presiding Bishop.

The Chuch of England not only has voted to allow women bishops (that was a foregone conclusion) but much more significantly showed a complete lack of regard or accomodation for those who cannot for reasons of conscience and/or theology accept this. “We know you are going to do this. We do not want to leave the Church of England. But can you leave some room for us – as you had promised years ago?”

And now the Telegraph interviews Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts-Schori. Who said:

But Dr Jefferts Schori, the first woman to become a “primate” or leader of an Anglican province, claimed other reasons were often behind people’s opposition to women in the clergy.

She said: “I think there’s a whole range of reasons why people aren’t comfortable with the idea.

“It’s personal antipathy, and it’s a misunderstanding of leadership in the early church. The early church had women in leadership roles.”….

Did you get that? If you disagree with women bishops (or heck women priests) it is because (a) you do not like women and (b) you are ignorant (of church history). Ignorance or antipathy. Not principled disagreement.

Conservatives do it. So do liberals. Dismiss those they disagree with. (Although frankly the way Malcolm Yarnell does it is vastly better. His dismissal involves some logic.)

(This person is a bishop?!? Let alone a Christian?!?)

(I refrain from sharing another strong example from that Baptist discussion board. One fellow who keeps telling us “you need to read this… watch that… or else you have nothing to say about that matter”. I finally had had enough of this rubbish and stated the following.)

A dangerous rhetorical move I often see all across the theological/political spectrum is the assumption that people disagree with us because they must be ignorant. They must be. They know less. They are less intelligent. They have less information. They have read less. If they would only be more educated, more intelligent, get more information (the information we will provide) and read more (the articles and books we say they must read) then they would agree with us. Right?

Sometimes that might be the case. But how often is there someone that – if we are honest with them and with ourselves – is at least if not more informed, educated, intelligent, well read?

How do we know J has not read something? And if he has read it and still thinks the same… will we suddenly say “oh – well now I take your disdain seriously”? Why set conditions that when met frankly make no difference? (“Sign this statement or you can’t work for us”. And after they do? Are they safe? Thought not. “Agree with me on all these other issues or I will not listen to your anti-abortion views”. And if they do? Do they listen? Just asking.) And who can set conditions for you? And will you make as much effort to meet them as you expect others to meet yours?

This is a trap I sometimes fall into myself. I see liberals do it. Conservatives do it. Evolutionists do it. Creationists and Intelligent Design supporters do it. (Louisiana SB 733 comes to mind.) Earthlings do it. People from Alpha Centauri do it.

Such a mindset is by definition anti-rational. (If rationality – by definition – includes being open to all information and argumentation which may support or challenge.) Sometimes they disagree with us because they are ignorant (in some form). But it is dangerous a priori to assume this.

Several posts later… our friend went right back to it again.

Posted in Anglicanism, Ecclesiology, Media, News, Religion, Theology | No Comments »

Confusing disagreement with disobedience

Thursday, July 10th, 2008

Malcolm YarnellI assume – with excellent cause – that Prof Malcolm Yarnell at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is vastly more intelligent than I am. Probably a more holy faithful and committed Christian. Certainly – this is not an opinion – better educated and more productive as a scholar. His name has been cropping up a lot in my various readings and ruminations on what the Christian faith and the Christian church are supposed to look like. Whether one disagrees with him or not – one must recognize and deal with him if the conversation has anything at all to do with Southern Baptists.

He introduced a very interesting resolution at the Southern Baptist Convention (meeting – which is theoretically all the Southern Baptist Convention is) in Indianapolis about regenerate church membership and such. Resolution leads to articles and blog posts ad nauseum. One of the things that I find troubling about Prof Yarnell is that if you disagree with him – say if you are an Anglican who thinks baptizing babies (with certain conditions present) or are an Orthodox who thinks venerating icons is important if not necessary – then you are not wrong.

You are disobedient. You do not obey the commands of Christ. Because Christ has expressed his will in the words of the Bible. This is what it says. Do it. If you do not – then you are disobedient.

(Some who read this will quickly spot the giant gaping hole in the syllogism above. Hint – this is what it says.)

I offered some critique of this mindset at a Baptist discussion board:

What strikes me about Yarnell is two things. First – the (for lack of better language) absolute certainty with which he articulates his convictions. He has figured all this out. He is right. It is right there in the Bible. There is no (more) room for disagreement or discussion on these things. Rinse and repeat. ….

Second – and this is a criticism – he couches his convictions in terms of “this is about submitting to the Lordship of Christ”. So if you disagree with him – you do not disagree with Malcolm Yarnell. You are disobeying God. Jesus is Lord and this is what he said and if you do not do it then… Holding a different from him is not “well I interpret that differently”. For example:

Finally, Baptists do not baptize those who lack the assurance of their eternal salvation, because the doctrine that one may lose one’s salvation indicates a lack of submission to Christ’s own doctrine.

These seven biblical doctrines concerning baptism speak much about Baptist identity. If we compromise these revealed teachings of Christ, we will begin to lose our Baptist identity because we will have compromised the Lordship of Christ. I am a Baptist because I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord. And because I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, I must submit to His will. We may never compromise one aspect of Christ’s will, even in the name of supposed Christian unity.

Notice that if you disagree on some of these matters… it is because you are not “submitting” to the Lordship of Christ. “But I do. I just don’t think the Bible is entirely clear on these issues”. Ah – but Yarnell tells us the “doctrine of perspicuity” which means the Bible is very clear. (Oh.) “Maybe it is clear but it does not provide us all the information we need”. Apparently there is a “doctrine of sufficiency” (no argument from me) but which applies to… well all of these questions. And so on and so on. The Bible gives us all the info we need. It is perfectly clear. It is a written expression of the will therefore Lordship of Christ. If you disagree or act differently…

“I am a Baptist because I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord”. Notice the language used. So others are not Baptist because… because… they implicitly do not believe Jesus is Lord.

(If you are getting little hot under the collar do review the first paragraph. I respect the man.)

It gratifies me that someone else has spotted exactly the same thing – a missionary serving in Spain who works for the International Mission Board and has corresponded with Malcolm Yarnell on precisely these and other issues.

I also believe your choice of wording, “willful or ignorant disobedience,” with regard to “broader evangelicalism,” in Part III of your letter, obscures the real issue. As I inferred earlier in Letter #13, I find it hard to call sincere but mistaken interpretations and/or applications of Scripture, coupled with a heartfelt submission to the Lordship of Jesus, “disobedience.” It seems inconsistent to me for you to say, on the one part, “even those who have a faulty doctrine of justification may be justified by faith,” while those with a faulty ecclesiology are “disobedient,” and unworthy of our cooperation. Are you prepared to call all those with what you would consider a faulty eschatology, or an improper view on the five points of Calvinism, “disobedient” as well? As mentioned earlier, I believe in the necessity of biblical church discipline. However, when you carry this over as a prerequisite for cooperation with other Christians, it even leaves you in the uncomfortable position of eliminating as valid ministry partners the majority of Southern Baptist churches today. (emphasis added)

(I doubt Prof Yarnell finds that position uncomfortable at all.)

It is one thing to define the boundaries of what is properly (Southern) Baptist tighter and tighter. It is another thing to say “I have this all figured out and you are not merely wrong in my opinion – you are disobedient to Christ”. Do keep in mind this post is not about the person but rather about an attitude that parades as an argument.

Posted in Baptists, Ecclesiology, Personal, Theology | No Comments »

Out of town, state, and range

Monday, July 7th, 2008

Hey Rick! Why no new posts all week?

I am in Upstate New York visiting my mom for several days. I forget sometimes and must rediscover just how amazingly rural it is up here. Internet access is difficult and sporadic (must borrow car and drive a ways). Will be back in highly connected Baton Rouge this weekend.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Presiding Bishop responds to Gafcon (or) Pentheus rages

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

I can quote the whole thing because it is amazingly short:

Thinking of Bacchae by Mirka Mora 1980Much of the Anglican world must be lamenting the latest emission from GAFCON.  Anglicanism has always been broader than some find comfortable. This statement does not represent the end of Anglicanism, merely another chapter in a centuries-old struggle for dominance by those who consider themselves the only true believers. Anglicans will continue to worship God in their churches, serve the hungry and needy in their communities, and build missional relationships with others across the globe, despite the desire of a few leaders to narrow the influence of the gospel. We look forward to the opportunities of the Lambeth Conference for constructive conversation, inspired prayer, and relational encounters.

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate [Ed - ?!!!?]
The Episcopal Church

Where to start? Emission?!? (As in nocturnal? flatulent? automotive?) So many have already picked this apart and well. Its arrogance and condescension and hypocrisy are a case study in hubris. Speaking of which I have one thing to say about her and her reaction.

Those whom the gods destroy…

Posted in Anglicanism, Ecclesiology, News | No Comments »

How to cope better with air travel

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

Several months ago a friend whose work requires him to fly overseas regularly and logs hundreds(?) of thousands of miles offered this in response to my post about how much I am beginning to hate air travel. Tomorrow morning at 6:00 a.m. we fly to Syracuse, New York from New Orleans. I am not looking forward terribly to the flight(s).

Security.  This is much more difficult for the ocassional traveler.  It might be that after a specific number of times getting searched that your mind just goes to autodrive to get through it as quickly as possible.  What irritates me the most is the fellow passenger who wants to express indignation during the inspection issue.  I don’t care if the TSA dude/dudette is a power drunk or just having a bad day.  You can’t win and all you do is delay those of us behind you.  If you have a really bad experience, there is always the possibility of recourse after the fact.

Delays.  I second your experience.  The combination of a stone age ATC system in the US, conjestion at airports, delays, no food on planes makes domestic travel a pain.  So…I always have 4-5 protein and at least one good book in my carry-on (sometimes it helps to have good DVD or video game on your laptop).  2-3 of these bars are for sharing with a hungry stranger (in the spirit of full dislosure this is more pragmatism than good naturedness).

Turbulence can be tough.  The absolute best advice that I have is to make sure that you are either drinking water or a diet drink.  There is nothing quite like having turbulence cause you to spill your drink on your lap and having to spend 3 or 15 hours with an increasingly sticky lower body.  The best way to avoid nausea (or, at least, to lower the quantity of result) is to make wise pre-flight eating/drinking choices.  Avoid high sugar food/drink and stick to quickly digestable fats and proteins.  And, always, drink a lot of water.

Some good tips:

  • Get an intense workout in before your flight and you will have a great chance to be both relaxed and mentally alert during the trip. (Plus, being beefier than the average pax is a plus…just kidding.)
  • Consider a membership to a airline lounge.  If you travel 3-4 times per year, it might be worth the annual fee.  Aside from having a comfortable and quiet place to hang out during a delay, the lounge desk is the best place to get airline assistance…and these employees actually want to help you.
  • Travel like a Spartan: wear loose clothing that can easily be removed/changes, pack the right supplies in your carry-on, and focus like a laser on your goal.

Good stuff. And thanks.

Posted in Personal, Travel | No Comments »