The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Between Soapboxes

    An open thread to which I invite you to share what you are reading, thinking, viewing but don't feel like writing a dissertation about.

     

     

    Comments

    Me first?

    A great review of a not so great movie.  The Ghost of Rambo discusses the entire Rambo series plus the book on which the character is based.  Warning -- spoiler of ending, in case you weren't going to wait for the DVD anyway.

     


    This one is a little more iffy.  It deserves a longer and more thoughtful post but I am not the one to write it and I haven't seen anyone else mention it so far.

    Where in the world was Barack Obama yesterday morning?  From Insider Advantage/Georgia I learned he was at Harvest Cathedral in Macon, Georgia.

    "In some detail, Obama told of how he had come to walk down the aisle and get baptized, while doing social work with churches on the Chicago South Side.

    ...Obama was less interested in making his road to the cross dramatic than in making it plausible: A simple story which many in the church could relate to, settling any lingering doubts about the stories on the web that he has Muslim ties."

    Here is a video excerpt from Obama's website:

    YouTube - Obama speaks at Harvest Cathedral, Macon GA

    And here is a little more about the event from The Chicago Tribune

    Obama showed the importance he is placing on heavily black Georgia by making it his first stop after South Carolina. There, he provided a testimonial on his faith at a church in Macon.

    "I can sit in church and I can pray all I want, but I won't be fulfilling God's work unless I go out and do the Lord's work," he told hundreds gathered at Harvest Cathedral. "You've got to have Christ in your life, when you are running for office all the time."


    What chores would Jesus do?

    "You can't make other people more Christlike," she said. "We were pretty naive about what we were getting into."

    "Lord," he said, "this house, this community is a blessing. Help us to see it that way."

    I'm an atheist, but have always been fascinated by faith. This is an interesting portrait of people trying to live by theirs, something so few truly do.


    Wonderful. Excellent. Let's try and do this every day!

    I am not reading anything right now, but anxiously awaiting our Dear Leader's wisdom, which will graciously be passed down to us tonight...

    (Actually, I gotta run out, so I'll be watching the time-shifted version of Deal Leader's wisdom, on about a 1 hour delay...)

    Oh, and I'm enjoying watching McCain and Romney call each other liberals!!! 

    1.20.2009


    Am reading Sharon L. Nichols' and David Berliner's Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts American Schools.

    Excellent. It's making me wonder if we going to understand the damage we are doing to our kids, our teachers, and our society by making major decisions about peoples' lives on the basis of single "high-stakes" tests. Very important for Congress to fix the No Child Left Behind act.

    Is there an icon for a big yawn? :


    Wonderful idea, Emma, thanks.  Need breathing places outside of all the boxes these days. Pondering the differences between stifling debate, and debates which stifle thinking altogether.  The recent word-circus is just another roadside attraction.

    Salient for me?  What else? Who besides the People can lead America out of the quaqmire of 8 years of shameful mis-leadership, without pursuing impeachment proceedings formally against Bush and Cheney? Without using our Constitutional correctives, we become less reliant upon the rule of law, and more upon forces of personality and political cultism. Without the People asserting a corrective and precise political will,  I foresee the continued reign of more darkness in America. 

    We need both light to shine and eyes to see --  both ears to hear and truths to speak. Sadly, no candidate yet inspires me sufficiently to buy peanuts and sit credulously through just another show. But I will keep an open channel, always do.

    Personally, I've never been happier. Perhaps that has consumed much of my freer energies. For a certainty, I don't like or trust a dynasty redux: we don't need another set of I's and II's to grapple with at this hour.


    "Perhaps that has consumed much of my freer energies."

    Perhaps Love?


    The year has me all tuckered out already, and there is surely a gracious plenty of large headlines in our future.

    Too soon old, I hope not to be too late smart.


    Thank all of you for sharing.

    I'm trying to work out how or even if to respond to each of you individually.  I've enviously watched cscs facilitate conversation on his blog posts but I lack the social skills to carry a conversation very far.

    I wish there were some blogging equivalents of non-verbal communications like a nod, a polite smile, a big grin or a "right on" to acknowledge posts when I am too tired or too addled to write coherently.

    Maybe we can redefine the ratings on open threads like to indicate which non-verbal cues we want to convey so we at least acknowledge each other. 

     


    For no particular reason, your comment about leading reminded me of the Book of Exodus If It Had Been Done By Hollywood.


    As Moses' publicity man said to him, "I don't believe, for a Noo Yawk minute, that you can do it, Mose ol' buddy, but if you part the Red Sea and then close it on the Egyptians, I guar-an-tee I'll get you FOUR PAGES in the Old Testament, and I'm pretty sure a nomination for Best Special Effects!"

    --

    Howard

    *equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

    "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]


    What chores would Jesus do?

    If I remember the Bible stories accurately, I think he would do whatever was needed.  After all, he washed his disciples feet to teach them about humility.


    Thought you might want to watch Barack Obama's response to SOTU also.


    I often give a comment a 4 or 5 when signing off in a discussion, or when I want to show someone that I read and appreciate their comment but don't have anything to add.


    On other blogs, the tradition is to give people 5's (or whatever the equivalent is...) on these open threads. That would work. 

    Thanks for the compliment, too. I'm not sure it's great social skills...just chatty. Maybe that's a skill in itself? 

    1.20.2009


    Similar thoughts for me of late, Ticia. It's a strong Democratic field this year but none of these folks walks on water and we make it harder for ourselves when we get into the mindset that we're electing a Savior rather than a quite mortal president. (or, if you prefer, as someone said here recently, "Sheesh, it's not as though we're choosing a spouse!")

    The Savior mentality results either in disappointment and sometimes disengagement if our individual chosen Savior isn't the one chosen in the end. Or, it results in disappointment and sometimes disengagement if our chosen Savior does win, once they (inevitably, as all mortals do) stumble.

    Arguably our last non-Savior Savior, JFK, said in his Inaugural address:

    "...In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than in mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course...

    [and then, in closing]

    ...With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own."

    Yes. Exactly. Leadership comes from many sources, not just a president. Long after this election is over, when even the best president we could elect stumbles, or simply needs a lot more of us out there as active and effective advocates, will enough of us have the staying power and the focus as citizens to make the system we have work to advance our worthiest goals and ideals? Or, far more modestly, simply to begin to get unstuck from the deep hole we've dug ourselves into?


    Careful- 'Washing feet' is also a euphamism for something Mary Magdalen would get on her knees for.


    Emma is the best blog writer in the world.

    1) I'm reading 'Against the Day,' by Thomas Pynchon. If you're into difficult, obtuse, inside-out writing, this is the best book in the world.

    2) The President did the State of the Union Speech last night with NO UNDERPANTS.

    3) The stimulus package is such a mistake. Why pump another $150Billion through Visa and Mastercard at a 5% commission?

    4) Someone ought to write a blog about what's on other people's minds... again- thanks Emma.


    Sardonic or serious?

    Whichever, thanks for making me laugh.


    duplicate removed


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    My computer seems to have picked up a bug.


    But the Bible gives so little guidance on important modern questions. How many kinds of salad dressing did Jesus have in his fridge?


    Watched the DVD of the movie Interview, with Steve Buscemi and Sienna Miller.

    It certainly held my interest. It's about an interview between a reporter and a movie starlet and the strange turns their conversation and their evening takes.

    I saw it as, in part, something of a commentary or meditation on how the media and celebrities (it could have had a politician instead of the movie starlet as the subject of the interview) bring out and reinforce one another's worst tendencies and, in fact, make it hard to be and act human.

    If you happen to watch it, what do you take away from it?