Slumdog Millionaire

This is the easily best film I've seen in three years. You should see it while it's still in theatres.

Interpret my dream...

Just like MLK, I too have a dream.  Well, not just like MLK.  My dreams are senseless and strange and motivate no one.  Here's one from last night. All of a sudden it came back to me in a flash... 

I was eating dinner in a restaurant somewhere in the south (kentucky? tennesee?)  with my good friend, Birt. We were driving somewhere far away and had stopped to eat.  The restaurant was busy and we were sitting by the window.  The booths had red vinyl seats. Outside the window there was a man tuck-pointing the brick work on the building.  We noticed it was our friend Bash. We waved and made faces at each other.  We were laughing.  He was laughing.  But we gave no indications  of surprise at finding Bash tuck-pointing brick work outside of the very window where we sat eating dinner, hundreds of miles away from home on some unknown journey in the south.  

offer your interpretations:  

Reserved Inaugural Optimism

Today I went home during lunch so i could watch the inauguration of President Obama with my family. It was truly a monumental day for our nation, and it's really quite incredible in a couple of ways. First, of course it is evidence that we are a better nation today than we were a hundred years ago with respect to race and unity. Second, it is an amazing thing that we are able to peaceably redistribute power like this on a regular basis. A nation is pretty divided when 54% of the vote is considered a landslide. And yet with a million plus in attendance, power was exchanged with no riots, bullets, bloodshed or uprisings. Considering how unpopular President Bush has been for quite sometime, it should probably be considered historically anomalous that he wasn't ousted earlier by some sort of violent coup or rabid mob on the white house lawn months ago. All in all, we're a remarkable nation when we function according to our principles and ideals. 

Additionally, I am dually perplexed. Tuning in to some conservative blogs, and broadcasts I've been "hormusified" (it's a new term I've coined to express the sensation of being simultaneously horrified and amused, or the sensation one experiences when one's president spontaneously invents new terminology during public discourse) by the criticism that is already being leveled at Obama. I have no problem with the Hannity and Limbaugh types getting critical. It's all part of the delicately balanced dysfunction that makes the two party system somewhat workable. I do find the recent level and nature of the criticism curious given a simple fact: HE HASN'T DONE ANYTHING YET. At least let the guy make a mistake first. geesh. Equally as "hormusifying" to me is the level of adulation and veneration Obama seems to be receiving from the mainstream media and his supporting public generally. The only thing I've ever seen that compares is the response of many in St Louis when the Pope came to town in January of 99. Now I've got no problem with being incredibly enthusiastic about one's president. But heres the thing: HE HASN'T DONE ANYTHING YET. 

How about we settle for some reserved optimism?

helvetica

Last night after church I watched a documentary. About helvetica. The font. And it was awesome.

Penn

From Crackle: A Gift of a Bible

funky presbyterian goes to church circa 1977

Apt

Right here at the last little stubby end of 2008 I've stumbled upon the lyric that seems custom written to summarize our 2008. It's not much in the way of poetry, but there's gotta be something said for aptness.  

It's first line on the first track of the most recent Ryan Adams & the Cardinals album, Cardinology. The song is Born into a Light:

For everything that's wrong there is a worried man,
There is a reason why
We just don't understand but will, you gotta keep the faith
be patient oh the past is just a memory and heal.
Heal your vines, you'll heal inside eventually

We were born into a light.

listen here.

The Award for Most Pleasure Inducing Album Recorded by Someone Else and Listened to By Me in 2008 Goes To

Midnight Organ Flight, by Frightened Rabbit

The Award for Best Fiction Book Read by Me in 2008 Goes To...

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

The Award For Best Non-Fiction Book Read by Me in 2008 Goes To...

The Reason for God, by Tim Keller

whole heartedly recommended for your Christmas listening needs

low- christmas
rosie thomas- a very rosie christmas

unadulterated cheer and goodwill never make for satisfying christmas carols. advent always requires those undertones of melancholy, longing, and humble restraint. these two albums deliver the goods. put one in your stocking this year.

Vintage Funky Presbyterian on a Television Antenna

Science Community Narrowly Avoids Apostacy

The title of this post links to an article in discover magazine. It's a scientific magazine, not a religious magazine. What seems odd to me is that the scientific establishment will go to such great lengths to protect their belief that there is no intelligent creator of the universe, even though they admit such a conclusion is not based on scientific method. They are willing to postulate the equally unscientifically verifiable solution of infinite universes in order to avoid saying what the data seems to suggest: the universe was intelligently and intentionally designed to accommodate us, that life is not random or peripheral, but central to the purpose of the universe. 

Now, I don't have any problem with people postulating theories which are not scientifically verifiable. What I do find curious is the scientific community's insistence that they are not religious and that their beliefs about the world are developed from empirical evidence and scientific methodology. Clearly at this point their methods cannot sustain the beliefs to which they have committed themselves a priori.  And yet they hold them regardless.  In one sense, I'm completely ok with that.  There is no other way to hold beliefs about the world!   I just wish they'd write a follow up article admitting that they too are religious and have an orthodoxy to which they hold and which exists independent of, and prior to the criteria by which they judge the evidence.  But they can't because in the modernist, scientific religion, doing so would amount to apostacy.  

I guess what I'm saying is  I am suspicious of their metanarrative.  Call me a religious skeptic.  

Call it a fluke, a mystery, a miracle. Or call it the biggest problem in physics. Short of invoking a benevolent creator, many physicists see only one possible explanation: Our universe may be but one of perhaps infinitely many universes in an inconceivably vast multi verse. Most of those universes are barren, but some, like ours, have conditions suitable for life.

The idea is controversial. Critics say it doesn’t even qualify as a scientific theory because the existence of other universes cannot be proved or disproved. Advocates argue that, like it or not, the multiverse may well be the only viable non religious explanation for what is often called the “fine-tuning problem”—the baffling observation that the laws of the universe seem custom-tailored to favor the emergence of life.

Physical laws clamor for life: the universe knew we were coming.

“For me the reality of many universes is a logical possibility,” Linde says. “You might say, ‘Maybe this is some mysterious coincidence. Maybe God created the universe for our benefit.’ Well, I don’t know about God, but the universe itself might reproduce itself eternally in all its possible manifestations.”

nobody panic.

RUSSIAN ANALYST PREDICTS DECLINE AND BREAKUP OF USA
Tue Nov 25 2008 09:04:22 ET

A leading Russian political analyst has said the economic turmoil in the United States has confirmed his long-held view that the country is heading for collapse, and will divide into separate parts.

Professor Igor Panarin said in an interview with the respected daily IZVESTIA published on Monday: "The dollar is not secured by anything. The country's foreign debt has grown like an avalanche, even though in the early 1980s there was no debt. By 1998, when I first made my prediction, it had exceeded $2 trillion. Now it is more than 11 trillion. This is a pyramid that can only collapse."

The paper said Panarin's dire predictions for the U.S. economy, initially made at an international conference in Australia 10 years ago at a time when the economy appeared strong, have been given more credence by this year's events.

When asked when the U.S. economy would collapse, Panarin said: "It is already collapsing. Due to the financial crisis, three of the largest and oldest five banks on Wall Street have already ceased to exist, and two are barely surviving. Their losses are the biggest in history. Now what we will see is a change in the regulatory system on a global financial scale: America will no longer be the world's financial regulator."

When asked who would replace the U.S. in regulating world markets, he said: "Two countries could assume this role: China, with its vast reserves, and Russia, which could play the role of a regulator in Eurasia."

Asked why he expected the U.S. to break up into separate parts, he said: "A whole range of reasons. Firstly, the financial problems in the U.S. will get worse. Millions of citizens there have lost their savings. Prices and unemployment are on the rise. General Motors and Ford are on the verge of collapse, and this means that whole cities will be left without work. Governors are already insistently demanding money from the federal center. Dissatisfaction is growing, and at the moment it is only being held back by the elections and the hope that Obama can work miracles. But by spring, it will be clear that there are no miracles."

He also cited the "vulnerable political setup", "lack of unified national laws", and "divisions among the elite, which have become clear in these crisis conditions."

He predicted that the U.S. will break up into six parts - the Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong.

He even suggested that "we could claim Alaska - it was only granted on lease, after all." Panarin, 60, is a professor at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and has authored several books on information warfare.