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via AKMA here

from Todd at Reverend Ref +

What about specific issues? The first thing I noticed about the show was how much money was involved; from the Webster home to their neighborhood to the church to the building fund account. If anything, this is the poster-child show for the addage that money doesn't solve your problems.

fromJane at Hoosier Musings on the Road to Emmaus

There may well be priests somewhere who live in pristine, tidy family legacy mansions and have household help to serve Sunday supper; but I've never met them. The clergy homes I know tend to be of the "three-bedroom, bath-and-a-half, slightly-shabby, in-need-of-a-good-decluttering" sort. And Sunday supper is far more likely to be a) eating out, b) ordering in, or c) scrounging for leftovers, because no one has the energy to think of cooking. Likewise, it is the rare church indeed that has that kind of money.

These are similar to what I was struck with; ie. the plush house, the snobby family that their adopted son's girfriend has, and the "go for the laughs" Jesus. I could have known that from the previews, though.

A lingering thought as I read people's comments like "I have to wonder what our Lord and Savior thinks of his portrayal. This show demeans all true committed Christians, whether Episcopal or not." (from a comment on this post):
Just how much CREDIT are we giving a TELEVISION show (and by association, pop culture) for having ANYTHING important or serious to say about anything regarding the church or Jesus?

2 NBC affiliates refuse to air controversial ‘Book of Daniel’; show said to mock Christ - (BP)

Conservative groups including the American Family Association and Focus on the Family have urged supporters to contact their local NBC affiliates to protest the show, which stars a drug-addicted Episcopal priest who has a wife who downs mid-day martinis, a 23-year-old son who is a homosexual Republican, a 16-year-old daughter who sells marijuana and a 16-year-old adopted son who is having sexual relations with the bishop’s daughter.

I saw this last night , and my most 'offended moment' came when the parent of the adopted son's girlfriend matter-of-factly mentions how the son was laying on "My Jag"; and at the time, I didn't know this character is the bishop.

Waliszewski said in a statement on the Focus on the Family website Jan. 5 that Jesus is made to look like a “wimpy, white-robed visitor who cares little about evil, addictions and perversity. This Christ glosses over a teenager’s sexual romps with a ‘He’s a kid, let him be a kid.’”

“I doubt NBC would consider portraying a Muslim cleric or Buddhist monk in the same light. And rightly so,” Waliszewski added. “Why? Because to do so would be mean-spirited and insensitive. But for some reason, portraying Jesus as a namby-pamby frat-boy-guru is fine. I’m extremely disappointed that NBC has chosen to air this program.”

The "casual attitude" I am uncomfortable with is the lifestyles of the characters. (the "jag". the extremely "upper class" setting of the whole cast, and taking offense at a Jesus who is casual and flippant about "loose morals" that don't include taking offense also at a "bishop" who blithely bags about his "jag". The Jesus character is not a surprise, since this after all, is a TV SHOW. They're going for laughs and the "irreverent edge" is where it is usually found for the general audience.

As for the “I doubt NBC would consider portraying a Muslim cleric or Buddhist monk in the same light. And rightly so,” I say that Muslim clerics or Buddhist monks are not the majority in this country. If they were, and they took the same flippant, clueless tact that the American media takes toward Christianity , they'd be casting "offensive", "edgy" Muslim characters, and being "politically sensitive" toward the minorities. I believe the real "attack" on Christianity comes in the assumptions that the "bishop's" "Jag" (and probaly countless other things, like the entirely unquestioned, comfortable living in what looks a lot like a "gated community"---- I only saw the one episode last night......and oh yeah, the "bishop's wife" is a bigot, stating that she didn't plan on having any oriental grandchildren. What kind of bishop gets married to someone with that attitude? I guess someone who goes around dropping that he has "a Jag")

Of course, those things are not the sort of thing at which the Southern Baptist press takes offense. They want Jesus to be "angry and condemning" and dispaly the sort of smug arrogance as they do toward "impurity".

I don't think I'll be having this show on my schedule, although I'll probably have to linger on on it now and then when I'm channel surfing on Friday night.

See Flash Video of part 3 of my conversation with Gordon Cosby, where he talks about how he thinks I've been "ruined"

See Second Flash Video of part 2 of my conversation with Gordon Cosby, where he talks about how it takes disillusionment to be ready for ["that" = he points at the booklet I was holding, Becoming the Authentic Church] and also how we need a place to "keep us sober" from addiction to culture

My DV Camcorder which I got in 2000 has had periodic problems with the apparently infamous "E04 error: Unit in Safeguard Mode" problem after about 2 years of my 3 year warranty. I got it back to have it "serviced". Didn't see the error much after that for about a couple of months. Now it's back and happening with regularity almost everytime I try to use it. Usually "Remove the battery and re-attach" by itself doesn't work. I have to remove the tape, remove battery, re-attach battery, re-insert tape" and various combinations of that. BUt the error happens also when I am running from the AC Adapter.

A search like this reveals that this problem is rampant across JVC DV "GR" model camcorders. I tried the "smack it 4 or 5 times with the battery over the speaker area --which is on the side inside where the flip-out LCD screen opens. Mine seems to work after doing that. This I find after taking it with me to DC and having it refuse to work when trying to use it to shoot some mountain scenery on my way in to the DC area. I wish I had known then about the "whack it upside the speaker" trick. I had to settle for shooting Video with my Canon Digital Photo camera that shoots low quality, small size video avi clips of 3 minutes max.

In any case, I was looking at the new models, about to try to get a replacement (whcih I was loathe to do, but Thanksgiving and Christmas is coming up, so my wife asked me to see what we could get....then I decied to do this Google search. Really wierd)

After the plug by Kaz, I rented and just watched the Corporation (in two sittings--- started it too late last night), tonight. Really excellent. LOts of video interview snippets from Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, and lots of other top minds on how corporations shape so much of government policy, and sell themselves so that they have the people who suffer from their exploits supporting them in the process, so effective is their PR and media campaigning and "undercover reporting" (ie: pressuring of news agencies) and creation of "think tanks" that evangelize and distribute "news" for them.

Highly recommened by me as well.

the Black Hat-White Hat , glaring , "obvious" evil vs "believers" who all listen intently to all the "harvesting" of the "end times verses" (actually, I never believed, even when I was a pre-millineal, pre-Trib, rapture-spouting Christian, that Jesus was born again as a Baby at the end times.)

THis is pretty much Omen meets Left Behind, with some of those "extras" added by some of the developments oveer the 30 years or so since The Omen was playing. The evil forces are "Satanist" with glaring eyes (they glow in the dark when you look at them at a certain angle--- like the "fashion model/demon ladies on the plane staring at Bill Pullman(Massey) as he talks to the nun." (Actually, there probably aren't that many actual nuns who swalow the whole end times scenario as put forth here. But it always seems to make heavy use of Catholic and Greek orthodox Churches with big, traditonal cathedrals, and both the demons and the girl in a trance are speaking Latin.)

Anyway, I now will probably watch the rest of it, although my curiosity has taken a different turn now. Now I'm waiting to see how else the story can be popularized and how the good vs evil plays out.

Just watched an another great documentary DVD from Jeff Greenwald (who also did Outfoxed) This one was on the Iraqw War debacle of deception, and they had some great interviews (and more detailed ones in the DVD extras,
including Joseph Wilson, who wrote the Politics of Truth, which I was just reading for a while before putting in the DVD, which I just picked up at Borders for 9.95. A definite 4 stars, thumbs up, must see. Of course, the people who need the most convincing will never watch this, and would acuuse everybody (as they do) of partisanship and lying about everything. THere are also several clips featuring Ray McGovern, who was interviewed in Sojourners a while back (I posted in my "other" blog (my dotNet blog, which I haven't used much lately) here, the sojo article here

If Bush wins another term, I find it highly likely that he won't last it (similar to Nixon , who was renominated as the Republican candidate even as the Watergate burglars were in the process of their break-in. NIxon didn't last his term. )
There's Enron , which was pushed far back into the minds of Americans after 9/11, then there's the Senate Intelligence Reports (via Graham's book, a nd a host of others, like Richard Clarke, who will continue to press for answers on why Bush went on vacation after the infamous Aug. 6 PDB, and the Iraq series of deceptions and lies that allowed the Bush administration to get what they wanted all along. These people have to pay (they actually can't be held accountable to the level of their culpability, and the damge they have caused, and the true peril in which they have placed this world.

Weblosky quotes a NYTimes article by Robert BoyntonWe're going to be Outfoxed

I was particularly amused (not really)by this :
A large portion of the film's $300,000 budget came in the form of contributions in the range of $80,000 from both MoveOn and the Center for American Progress, the liberal policy organization founded by John Podesta, the former chief of staff for Bill Clinton; Greenwald, who is not looking to earn any money from the project, provided the rest.

Well, obviously, that's code to a conservative readership that entirely justifies dismissing the whole thing. With names like "Center for American Progress", that's gotta be liberal, huh? To take the stance that a critical eye toward someting in the mainstram media, particularly the "Fair and Balanced" , "No-spin" Fox News is enough to deserve the lable of "liberal" and "hopelessly liberal".

I don't have a good category for "Media Studies". Janet
and I watched the "OUtfoxed" DVD last night, and far from being a "left wing wacko conspiracy video" like the Right accuses it of being; I found it to simply be a revealing media study. As the Right usually does when its darker underside is shown for what it is, they rant about "the left". Having donea great deal of Media Study in the MARC program at United Theological Seminary in 1990-91 (Masters of Arts in Religous Communication), this was a revealing and thorough study. My fellow MARC students and I were somewhat concerned about how the Media waved the flag in the Gulf War that was in the process of happening. That "liberal media". I often doubted it , and was convinced otherwise as gthe Gulf War started and continued and eneded.

I also picked up a book "What Liberal Media" (by Eric Alterman), who was on the video). NO, I think the media is money driven, much in the way that politics is. It's about audience, and about advertising, and increasingly about ideology. The Fox network became quite noticable to me as a :"Republican Pundit Central" during the 2000 elections, when I was watching quite a bit of CNN, MSNBC, the 3 major networks, and Fox. Conservative/Republican acquaintances of mine seem disgusted with the suggestion that Fox news is anything but what they (Fox) say they are: Fair and Balanced. Conservatives are thrilled with this idea: that here is a "balanced" , "objective" coverage that gives them just what theywant, and comapres themselves favorably and ioverwhelmingly stronger than the "liberals".

I was a bit disgusted with the way they called the Fox News "token liberal" guy as a "Squirly-looking guy", wondering what that guy will feel when he hears of that. That's a vote of condfidence from a fellow progressive/liberal. other than that, the conservative and obnoxious conservative pundits are clearly the "strong" characters (like Mr. O'Reilly, who denied the accusation that he tells people to "Shut up", which was dutifully followed up by about 20 different clips of him doing just that. This kind of overbearing , obnoxious arrogance seems to fulfill the deep longing of the conservatives who have wanted to say this to whomever they considered their "number one enemy liberal".

I bought the DVD at Borders. It's the numbner one selling DVD at Amazon.com. The producer/director has promoted the use of "home meetings" to view the DVD in groups which can then talk about things to do in response to this, even perhaps including help defeat the "Fox hero" and "ultimate authority", the Bush administration. I much prefer the "Dean for America" philosophy (not to mention the policies to balance and begin to undo and address the problems we now have , no small thanks due to the ultimatye in arrogant US "regimes".

I got a new Digital Camera on Wednesday last week (since it was the day before my first trip to Great American BallPark in Cincinnati, and our daughter Kelli's 6th birthday). A Canon Powershot A80 (4 megapixels).

The Practice will no longer be practicing. After the ouster of most of the cast (they only kept Eugene, Elanor, Jimmy, and Lucy from the old crew)...gone are Lindsey, Rebecca, Bobby, Helen...all the "big money people". In came James Spader, and at first, I was amused by his character. After a bit, I grew tired of it. Apparently so did the people whose opinions make it in to the ratings factors.

It seems that this was like a "salary cap" issue. They axed several big contracts and replaced them all with rookies and one "free agent", James Spader, who often , in his movie roles plays some snobby, stuck-up rich kid with an attitude to match. His role in the Pratice seemed to be the same. What he allowed to get away with (and finally now that they are cancelled, they're finally getting rid of him.....or , another temporary- cliffhanger for a farewell, grabbing for those last few ad dollars).

Nearly every episode since Spader's arrival was all him. I'm sure that the Eugene and Bobby charcters were not too pleased (or maybe they were just out looking for new roles/jobs....they were often very involved in plots, even when the big stars of the past (McDermott, Flynn-Boyle, and the others) were still there. It seems that the entire storylines all switched to follow the "entertainer". The strategy backfired. Oh well, I enjoyed the series, for the most part, over the years (I started watching in about 1996)

I read Doc's and Dave Winer's entries on Tivo, and this spurred the following thoughts:

I am a tech junkie. When I was a kid, I was messing with audio cassette recorders when they were new technology. I learned how to use patch cords and all kinds of adapters. I styudied the Radio Shack Catalog, and taped things. When Video Recorders came along, I had to have one. I had my own business about 10 years ago, hooking up VCRS to the cable system in Cincinnati , which made it hard for the average joe to use their VCR as intended to tape one show while watching another. I was one of the first people I knew to have a Surround Sound Processor in one's own home.

Of all people, I am one who "should have a Tivo". It seems like one of those things that WILL happen, as soon as things get back on the right track financially. I have a job interview coming up on the 16th. Whenever things back to enough normalcy that a Tivo is added to the tech portfolio, I will no doubt be one of its biggest evangelists. Especially now that my VHS VCR has died (they sure don't make em like they used to --- the VCR thatjust died I got about 3 years ago. The one it replaced I had for 15.

AKMA does a pre-screening take on The Passion, and makes some good observations to consider amongst all the "flack" that is flying around the release of this film. The one I feel most in tune with is how much "embellishment" of otherwise "sketchy" details were done. AKMA's take on that is: "Of Course he does". To do otherwise would make for a pretty stale and unreal telling that would merely repeat the atrocities of traditonal, clean, dainty, non-offensive passion portrayals.

Further, all of the gospels, and the Bible for that matter, were NOT, contrary to however strongly the fundamentalists woud insist otherwise, written to cover all possible angles, all possible audiences, and all possible theological truths. They were written to adress a specific and therefore limited audience. The impact of the Biblical narrative and theology becomes more universal as scholars make the contextual connections for us, and we take all that into consideration along with our own personal responses to the story, and along with our own community's discourse about it.

Dramatic artistry demands a "screenplay", and this is no less true for more "holy" matters and subjects. Anything less would be "unrealistic".

I'll probably go see The Passion, having now seen TV Nightline specials and reading Ebert's review (he gave it 4 stars). I am skeptical of many interviewed evangelical Christian's opinions that theis movie is an "Evangelistic Tool". I'm not so sure how well "substitutionary atonement" works in our modern society, albeit it's lofty status in many a theological system. It certainly was relevant to a first century jewish world, but having never particpated in animal (or human) sacrafice, the image does not do much for me.

I can certainly derive a much better "recognition" of "the cost of discipleship" by looking at the story as the ultimate in "speaking the truth to power", and walking in Jesus' steps.

What lingers in my mind and concerns me a little .......

Speaking of Football and watching it on TV, I was in Cicuit City and Best Buy earlier as the Indy-New England game was starting, and watched a good bit of the first half as I walked around waiting for my son to choose some playstation gear to use his Christmas gift cards on. WOW. What a picture. There's a 55-inch Mitsubishi that is just a great looking set. It's not a plasma, super-flat kind of deal, but its $1800 and change instead of 4 to 6 grand, too. I'll give up a couple of feet of depth for that difference in price. (Of course, right now, the $1800 is completely out of range, too, until that day when work is more dependable and conssitent.

uh, oh, looks like Philly is in trouble now. Just went down 14-3 late in the 3rd, and McNabb was hurt late in the second half when he was hit while on the ground. He's back in, but he's gotta be in pain.

I am trying to learn the ropes of DVD authoring.  I got a great price on a refurb HP dvd writer,  and picked up a copy of Pinnacle's Instant CD/DVD for free ($40 - $40 rebate).  I have about 30 MiniDV video tapes full of family stuff,  and many more VHS tapes of more family stuff (including our wedding in 1983, the birth of our son in 1989, and the arrival of Kelli at the airport from Korea in 1999). 

The older VHS stuff I want to get onto VCD's or SCVD's.  The DV video onto DVDs.  My first attempt took about two hours to drop an avi file into the editor and send it to DVD (for about an hour of video).    So I'll be looking into VCD, SVCD, and DVD authoring options.  This kind of stuff will go into my Video and Movies section.henceforth.

Bruce Almighty and Terminator:  these last two movies I saw at the theater (Bruce on June 11 on my 20th anniversary) and Terminator 3 (yresterday).  I am always interested in different treatments of the now decades old human fear of  "machines taking over".  In fact,  the subtitle of Terminator 3 is "Rise of the Machines" (and the previous one,  T2 was "Judgment Day").  Both suggest that technology finally reached the level where Computers became "self-aware" and instigated a revolt against humans.  This is also a slight variation on the Matrix theme,  where all of what is experienced by most people as "life" is a computer generated program "life simulation",  but the question that gets re-opened in The Matrix Reloaded is "who wrote the program?"

This is where I think the Terminator theme is purely science fiction.  Their suggestion is that machines become "self-aware",  crossing the barrier from "instructed" (by the humans who build them) to "deciding agent".  The fact is,  computers are still very much tools that do our bidding,  from the machine level responding to volatge ,  to the operating system level,  to the appliaction level.  All are responding to voltage,  yes-no decisions,  translations of 0's and 1's into bits and  which represent other things, and work together to calculate and represent.  The fear that lies behind the mythological tales ,  I believe,  are the sense of being "out of control" with our decisions.  When we hand over "control" to a system of software and a network of such which is comanded to respond to situation A with response B by activating computer-controlled system C,  the range of possibilities for "malfunction" grows.  The malfunction may snowball into something unforseen.

In Bruce Almighty,  his initial decisions and acts as "God" have repurcussions on the other side of the globe (the moon incident when he arranges the moon to enhance the atmosphere for his romantic evening).  The application of computer control to such things as Missile Silos (also a theme in the 1983 movie, "War Games") gives us cause for pause when we contemplate handing over more power to the "Sytems" we have constructed.

This was a funny, and sometimes profound movie.  Not that they delved deeply into theology, except that some very simple theological points can be profondly relevant,  like the simple matter of trying to comprehend the role of God as deity.  Part of it is that it's not comprehendible.  Part of it is to anthropomorphize God is to make it even more incomprehensible. 

The whole time, both Janet and I were wondering what God ight have for us in all that we are experiencing now.  I am in a struggle to find a new place where my abilities and my passions can be utilized.  I have "held out" on taking something "less" (the biggest "less" is "less money".  It is not a matter of "less worthy work".  It is a matter of "appropriate work" according to where I can do the most good.  X number of hours in  "temp jobs" is x number hours NOT spent moving that much quicker to the goal.  But, t he amount of time spent "searching" and "making contacts and inquiries" is more debt as bills continue to come.  Low paying work will "stem the tide",  and yet we will remain behind,  and slip further behind,  albeit more slowly,  and also move toward the next rightful place at that much of a slower pace.  It's a very scary catch 22,  and I keep wondering where "faith" and "reason" and "what the best course" all meet;  what the best balance is.

The DVD I've had for a couple of years, and bring out more often than others, especially now and lately (see my The 'Field of Dreams' Roadtrip story)

Aside from its mystical , connected meaning to my present "dreams",  it's one heck of a baseball movie,  capturing ther hearts of many a baseball fan who misses the "When it was A Game" feel the game used to have, and whoever's family history is accentuated and made dear by numerous little league games and trips to major league parks.  This movie certainly tugs at this heart of mine,  especially when Ray calls out "Dad......you wanna have a catch?" and his voice breaks....and the lump in my throat pops up just about every time. 

The DVD is good too.  A very good "Making Of" documentary is one of the extras.

Digital Photography?  I got a digital camera as a gift from a friend,  who is really into digital photography now and has a 12 megapixel camera,  which he used to give us a portrait of the family on Dec. 28.

Saturdays and Sundays in January
NFL Playoff games

Sunday
The Practice

Tuesday 
Smallville
Judging Amy
If feasible,  on tape: NYPD (used to be a "must watch live" show)

Wednesday
The West Wing

Thursday
ER (Not as strong now as in its first 9-10 years)

Kentucky Basketball Games (whenever shown)

When are the good shows going to follow suit and release DVD collections?  I've seen collections of Malcolm in the Middle (which I've never seen,  so it might be good, but it is certainly not got any credentials of classic).....so where are the collections for "The Paper Chase" and "Thirty Something" (there are collections for My So Called Life and Once and Again,  which are two other shows from the writers of Thirty Something,  both of which I also liked....so why not do one of your best effort?)

I bought (or got free at Best Buy with a purchase of Norton System Works) Ordinary People ,  a movie I saw while I was a seminary student,  and was one of the best I ever saw.  Powerful, emotional, and real.  I've been wanting a DVD copy of this for quite a while.

Looks like a pretty good DV video site

TV Guide's West Wing Showguide

Martin Sheen, From Internet Movie Database

I remember seeing "Heaven Can Wait" back in 1978.  At that time,  I was a Rams fan who had been frustrted year in and year out with plaoff losses.  losing 3 NFC championships in the past 5 years,  and 2 other first rounders.  The fact that the Rams got there and won in this movie (besides it being a really fun story) kept this movie near and dear to my heart (it was also the very first movie I saw on my very first VCR a couple of years later.) The West Wing is kinda like that for me now.  With the Bush crew in the whitehouse,  the show makes me yearn for the articulate and the profound coming from the mouths of the leaders.  I've always liked the Martin Sheen aura,  and it's no coincidence that he plays well as a political leader,  since he also had roles as Jack Kennedy in the TV miniseries "Kennedy" that aired in 1983,  and as Bobby Kennedy in "The Missiles of October" (William Devane played Jack in that one).   He also played a crazed politician with a desire to "push the button" in "The Dead Zone").   I really like him in the Jed Bartlett role,  and the idealism we get to see not only in him,  but in the other characters... like last week when Toby and Josh listened to a father talk about sending his daughter to college and how difficult it is......I read on the TV Guide site's West Wing Guide that they come away from that conversation from last week to tonight's episode with plans to do something about it .

If anybody has seen my notice about my move to http://theoblogical.org  ,  please let me know by commenting something here if you get the time.   I want to see that somebody is getting this.  And anybody who has tips on anything else I might do to notify people,  I would appreciate them.

The first leg of a double-header Movie Night --- the second one was the one I had higher expectations for, and it turned out that Tootsie was far superior. The other was Dudley Moore and MaryTyler Moore and a title I don't even remember;(I looked it up: Six Weeks)

The first movie theater date, in Cincinnati, sometime in September 1982