Dead American

So we visited with my grandmother the other day.  She is old and doesn’t really know anyone anymore.  She is generally very sweet … but bedridden and sleeps most of the day.

We were going out to lunch on Sunday, and she yells at me as I pass by her bed (which is in the living room now), “Britt!  Are you dead?”

Strange question, but I walked up to her and said, “No, ma’am.  I’m right here.”

Grandmother settled in and very calmly stated, “You have to teach yourself how to be small.”

I answered, “Yes, ma’am.  You’re right, I do.”

Some might write off her statements as the ravings of an old senile woman.  I thought her statements quite profound.  So I’ll repeat them to you …

Are you dead?

If your answer is no, then you must teach yourself how to be small.

Peace.

Looks like they’re going in a new direction for Spiderman 4 … maybe a Japanese director?  New theme song?

give it a look and wait until the end to really judge it … maybe the world needs a more international Spiderman where he fights big robots …

Or maybe go to the link here if video doesn’t play …

Peace.

on my personal rant about comment spam … ironic?

Peace.

When did it become godly to “seek to save your own life”?

Peace.

Been sick forever … or feels like it.  Sometimes you just feel so bad, it is kinda like this:

Peace.

The Watchmen

So I saw The Watchmen tralier in front of Iron Man a couple months ago.  Looked very cool, but I had never read the comic book.  I was a collector then, twenty years ago, but I was more interested in GI Joe and Transformers and maybe Batman or Superman then.  So before the movie comes out, I decided to read it.

The premise is this: what if superheroes really existed and ran around in weird costumes?  Alan Moore’s answer is a little disturbing.  In his mock universe, they would have to be insane or sexually repressed.  The really powerful ones would be corrupted by that power, develop some god-complex.  Moore also speculates on a different history: the US would have won Vietnam, completely subjected the world in its domination (even the Soviet Union), all because the Superman-type character is American.

In The Watchmen, the superheroes are all original to the story (no DC or Marvel universe characters), but they are familiar enough that you can relate them to certain types.

They’ve made a few of the darker comics from the 80’s on (300, Sin City, the Crow, etc … I would love to see them do Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns … but that’s not gonna happen), so it makes sense this one is next.  If they stay true to the comic story, and chances are with 300′s director they will, don’t go expecting a superhero story.  This is designed as the ultimate anti-superhero story.  Go expecting something more along the lines of V for Vendetta or Children of Men and you won’t be disappointed.

While pretty dark, and definitely not Christian, I really liked it.  I appreciated the original take on the superhero mythology.  I also liked the pessimistic view of human nature expressing itself even through those attempting to be heroes and “save the world.”  Very appropos for the Obama “hope” presidency in my view, although they wrote it with the Regan administration and 80’s Cold War mindset as a focus … and the liberal Hollywood would more want to relate it to the Bush administration.  The story sees humanity and even our heroes as fatally flawed, at the very least, if not even more problematic than the bad guys, and that’s half the truth, at least.

The next review shows the other half, too.

Fireproof

So Eric and Heather went to see this movie a couple weeks ago and really blessed us by offering to watch the kids while we went to see it.  It took a couple weeks to get there, but Becca and I saw it last night.

This is from the same people who did Facing the Giants.  While not a great movie on its own, Facing the Giants had heart, and it was pretty amazing that a fellowship came together and just made a watchable movie with a great message.

Based on the success of Facing the Giants, they made another one.  Somehow they got Kirk Cameron on board and went forward.

As a movie, it was pretty good.  Definitely better than the first one … they actually pulled a couple scenes together nicely.  The first few minutes of the story, during the setup, were a little tortuous, but it got a lot better quickly.

The story was a great idea.  A couple good themes ran throughout.  They even had some moments of good comedic timing and acting along with some of the drama that went a little overboard here and there.  The salvation scenes were good, not too forced, and a lot of heart and genuine reality in them.  The two action scenes had some good tension, as well.

Don’t get me wrong.  This movie doesn’t touch Oscar worthy.  The script could have used some work, and some of the actors were definitely not professionals.  I’d rather watch an agenda driven average movie about the true redemptive power of Christ, however, than a great agenda driven movie about gay cowboys.

Oh, and the “forced” nature of the spiritual scenes are way less contrived to me than the “forced” liberal and secular humanist drivel I have to endure in most movies from Hollywood.  We’re just so used to getting force fed that crap that it seems more forced when actual truth is openly expressed.

I can honestly recommend this movie … although it is more of a chick flick. 

The Happening

Finally saw the new M. Night movie last night after house church.  While I enjoyed it, I put it more in the category of The Village.  Good to watch once, but not something I’d probably get excited about seeing again.  I love the way M. Night makes movies, but the character development and acting weren’t as strong as in some of his others.  The ending, usually one of Night’s strong points, really left something to be desired.

This one was a little more violent than his others.  Some of it was creepy and a little disturbing, but overall not as redemptive.  Again … why don’t these movies take the time to really work on the script? 

I need to watch Lady of the Water again.  I really liked that one.

Peace.

Okay, so I watched this video and it is excellent … yes, there is a little pro-McCain message at the end, but the first five to seven minutes are amazing.  Do the fact checking if you don’t believe what they’re saying.

The rhetoric that the Bush “failed economic policies” had anything to do with the current crisis is an outright lie.  That is a strong word, but it’s true.  Anyone who knows anything about business and business practice knows that this kind of crippling doesn’t happen in a few years in one administration.

Watch video here if interested in the facts behind current economic crisis.

Peace.

From Douglas Adams in Mostly Harmless …

“you are as as you think you are.”

Peace.

A story surfaced a few days ago based on a recent survey looking into racial views in light of the first African American presidential candidate in the US.

Right off the bat, I think the survey is valid and timely. Either way, we will have the first black male president or female VP. It’s been a historic race so far, and I for one am glad of the progress. How we view people of other race and genders, especially in our media savvy nation, comes into play.

The survey found that most whites, Republican, Democrat and independent, have negative views on African Americans. They see them as complaining, lazy, irresponsible and likely to commit a crime. Registered Republicans were more negative and less positive than Democrats, but even white Democrats had similar predjudices. Independents were, predictably, in the middle.

I believe this survey was pretty accurate. I wasn’t surprised but fairly disappointed. I believe, if we’re honest, when most white people read the list of negatives above, it went right along with our current views on people with a darker skin color.

Part of Martin Luther King’s dream was that men would not be judged according to the “color of their skin but the content of their character.” This cannot be legislated and hasn’t been fully realized.

Paul the Apostle wrote that in Christ, these distinctions are gone, all external distinctions. God does not look at the external but the heart.

If we have Christ in us, we should be above this.

I don’t care if you meet 99 black people in a row that act like gansters, give you attitude or commit a crime in your full view, that doesn’t give you the right to have any of those expectations for #100.

And this goes for all races we tend to make snap judgments about. As Christians, we’ve been given the mind of Christ, and weapons of grace to pull down strongholds in our “imaginations” that “exalt itself against the knowledge of God.” This is a biggie. Every human being is “fearfully and wonderfully” created, fashioned by the hand of God Himself. Each deserves the right to be treated as an unique individual, regardless of how they dress or look or speak.

Picture a suburban neighborhood mostly white. Minorities, especially African American, begin to move in. What happens? Do the whites welcome the new additions, reach out to them, feel glad that maybe their standard of living is improving? It might happen. I’d like to think I would. Mostly what happens, though, is the white people move out, farther from the urban areas, try to create a new suburban safe zone, and all with excuses of “it’s too crowded” or even negative ideas of “lower property values” or moving to a “safer” neighborhood for their kids or better “education”.

I think this is racism. If someone of a different skin color moves into your neighborhood and you move out based on negative perceptions associated with that race, it is racism. What’s even worse is when whole fellowships of Christians do this.

And most Christians who act this way vote Republican.

If we’re honest (we being white people, myself included), we’re more afraid of being CALLED racist than actually thinking racist thoughts. For Christians, this shameful. Again, we follow a God that looks at our heart, not at what people perceive of us.

The Church is still one of the most segregated groups, by race, in this whole country. Shameful.

My agenda here isn’t to generalize white people either. Let me be clear — my challenge is to all Christians to get rid of ALL racial, political, national, or cultural profiling and treat every person like God does: as an amazing creation worthy of his time and love.

Peace.

PS

In fairness, something the article didn’t point out, is that you will also find among some African Americans a certain feeling that they should vote for Obama becuase he is black. Every person votes for their own reasons and that is their right, but to vote for someone because he is black is just as racist as NOT voting for him because he is black. Both belie the attituded that the pigment of your skin makes that much of a difference.

If you vote for a candidate based on the content of their character, even if you don’t vote for the black man, you’ll take part in realizing MLK’s dream.

In keeping with some upcoming and recent posts, we’re gonna deal a little with Ronald Regan this week.

The Regan years were interesting, especially if you lived through them consciously like I did. Regan was wildly popular (the election in ‘84 was a historic landslide and some even talked of changing the constitution in ‘88 so he could run again), but he was under constant criticism and attack from an increasingly liberal media and a Democratic Congress.

While I don’t have this perfect image of Regan, he should go down in history as top 5 president at least. Unfortunately, the modern liberal media (CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, and most newspapers) is currently doing their best to rewrite history and slam him.

Today I’m going to tackle what was derisively called “trickle-down economics”. Even this term, to me, was used as misinformation. Regan’s economic plan, while having elements of “trickle down” to it, was bigger in scope than just being friends with the rich. This isn’t what the left will feed you, so let’s look at it.

To explain: Regan inherited probably the worst American economy since the great depression. Unemployment in double digits, high inflation, a real recession (not the panic driven one we’re going through now … not actually a recession). His solution was not to bail out the economy with tax dollars but to cut taxes across the board, rich and middle class and poor and even business. The result? The economy boomed, millions of jobs created and the the stock market soared. Also, the US government INCREASED their tax revenue by hundreds of millions of dollars.

People give Regan a hard time for increasing the military budget while he was president (hold on, History Lesson #4) and being responsible for the spike in the national debt. But if you look at the actual numbers of the Federal Budget during those years, domestic spending on welfare programs increased way more than military spending. Why? Well, Regan made deals with the Democratic Congress (they ran both houses through the ’80’s) and overall spending through the ’80’s by the government skyrocketed. Welfare programs were just as responsible for the deficit, if not more so.

These are facts, numbers you could easily check me on. The “trickle down” aspect that the left so criticized in their attempt to foster class warfare was the idea that if businesses (and therefore, the “rich”) have more money, they’ll use it to invest and grow their business … yes, because they eventually expect more profit. That creates more jobs … which in turn creates more jobs … which takes more people off of government dependence and they pay taxes from income they generate, which raises the government’s tax revenue.

But Regan lowered taxes for everyone. And that put more money into everyone’s pocket … and that gives people more confidence to spend and invest which creates more jobs … which … well, you get the idea.

This is exactly what happened.

Things weren’t perfect in the ’80’s. I mean, the Flock of Seagull’s haircuts alone should tell you that, and I don’t want to hail Regan as some messianic standard for the presidency or that this is necessarily a fully Christian ideal. But in this, he was right. The economy improved. People’s standard of living improved. And it is definitely un-Christian to lie about that.

Now, Regan didn’t invent this. This is a law of economics, even before capitalism, throughout history. Cutting taxes, especially burdensome ones, improves economic conditions for everyone and increases state tax revenue. Raising taxes to an oppressive degree produces recessive conditions. An overtaxed people will rebel — just look at China’s history … or what’s been going on in Europe now as “conservatism” is on the rise and people see the failings of socialism.

As an example, JFK sought lower taxes for these very reasons. Why don’t we laugh at him or put him down for such silly economic ideas? Oh, right, he was a Democrat.

If the economy presents a major concern for you and you want the government to have more money to play with at the same time, vote for the candidate who will lower taxes, not raise them.

Peace.