Playing off Political Fear

I’ve been reading Edward Larson’s book A Magnificent Catastrophe, which chronicles the strange, but almost all-too-familiar events that transpired during our country’s first presidential campaign. The main contenders were John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

Back then the parties were divided mainly on issues of big government (Adams’ Federalists) versus individual freedom (Jefferson’s Republicans) so the main hot issues weren’t quite the same as we have today, but some of them are pretty close.

One thing that hasn’t changed is the use of rhetoric to advance one candidate over the other. As the U.S. approached the 1800 election, France was going through one of its most turbulent decades. The French Revolution was marked by the people’s attempt to remove all traces of monarchical governance, and as such they received sympathy from Jefferson and the Republicans of his day. When the French Revolution devolved into what most would consider full-fledged anarchy, it provided Federalists with some much needed ammunition to malign the Republican cause, especially, when, in early 1800, Napoleon took advantage of the chaos and declared himself Emperor.

Fisher Ames, a Federalist, wrote that if Jefferson were elected “the people would be crushed, as in France, under tyranny more vindictive, unfeeling, and rapacious than that of Tiberius, Nero or Caligula.” It’s one of those statements loaded with such unfair and bloated rhetoric, it’s hard to know where to start. Let me begin by saying first that I have no real compunction to defend Jefferson. If anything I’d have to agree with many of the then federalists that Jefferson was a bit naïve when he defended some of the overt excesses of the French Revolution, because to him, the end (freedom) justified the even the excesses (killing innocent in the streets).

Having conceded that, however, do we find that once Jefferson took office the nation went to hell in a hand basket? Did Americans suffer under tyranny? The short answer is no.

The thing that is so disturbing is that such an educated scholar as Ames could fall to using such manipulative and fallacious rhetoric. Not only did he say that America would be in a worse state than France, but it would be even worse than Rome under Caligula and Nero. This is what English teachers may respectfully call excessive hyperbole, generous preschool teachers call exaggeration, and honest everyday citizens call a bald-faced lie.

I guess I’m bringing this up because in this season, let’s do our best not to let these so-called experts tell us what’s going to happen and not be swayed by bloated rhetoric when we step into the voting booth in November.

Far too many Republicans are worried that if Obama is elected militant Muslims will take over the world, and far too many Democrats are worried that unless a Democrat is elected, we will become the Fourth Reich.

How about we start voting our consciences, instead of voting out of fear of what could happen? Instead of letting this (in most cases) fictitious bogeyman lurking in the future drive us from voting who we really think would be best.

Obama has touted that we need to have not a Red or Blue States of America, but a United States of America. It’s a funny notion being that in the same breath he’ll say we need to pull out of Iraq and fight global warming, which I believe, in spite of the incessant drone of the media, are both blue issues, but I agree with him that this country isn’t supposed to be Red vs. Blue. I think the country would be much better served if we started seriously voting for who we agree with, over who looks presidential or who would make a good buddy, who lost enough weight, or who has the potential to win. Our country would be better served if instead of Red or Blue, we had ten colors to choose from, or none, and just voted.

Stop-Loss

Advocacy films are tough to critique. They can be terribly written, directed and acted, but if they raise awareness for a little known tidbit of tyranny or injustice does that boost their merit? That's the question the recently released Stop-Loss has raised for me.

Its moral and social implications aside, Stop-Loss did not work for me as a piece of art or entertainment. I get the feeling the writers and producers became aware of Stop-Lossing (the act of extending soldiers' active duty without their consent), and decided to get a film out as quickly as possible. The acting is hit-and-miss, and Channing Tatum (of the "Step Up" series of dance films) is just not up to the challenge of this material at this point in his career. He gets a few teary moments right, but his performance seems rushed and forced. It may not all be his fault because the writing just seems to chug along with uninspired lines, resting on cliche and unearned twists to forward the narrative.

The film begins in Iraq with a tense scene at a military checkpoint. The passenger of a fast-approaching vehicle opens fire, and the vehicle speeds off, at which point Sgt. Brandon King (played by Ryan Phillippe) issues the order to give chase. They end up trapped in a narrow alley, and in this, the film's most effective scene, you get a sense for the madness of this kind of war. King comments on this later-that he expected war would be fought in the open against clearly defined bad guys, but it isn't. The war is fought in people's homes, and the enemy could be anyone.

Two soldiers are killed in the battle, and Brandon blames himself for their deaths feeling that he led the men into a trap. He also carries guilt for another split-second decision he made in the heat of battle-the consequences of which are shown later in a flashback scene.

Upon returning home, he decides to retire from active duty and move on with his life. The clerk tells him that he has been stop-lossed, and must report back to Iraq soon. Haunted by guilt and post-traumatic stress, Brandon cannot bear the weight of leadership in the circumstances mentioned above, so he goes AWOL. The movie follows him as he seeks a way out of redeployment.

The problem with this kind of journey is that it is not necessarily good movie material, so writer/director Peirce feels compelled to add twists and turns in order to make it more entertaining. Every bad thing can and does happen- a barroom brawl that comes out of nowehere, a theft that King just happens to notice at the right moment in order to chase down the perpetrators, and the coincidental appearance of a sweater at the bottom of a pool prompting King to think one of his men is drowning. All these events could work, but they are not adequately prepared for. Again it feels like you are watching a first or second draft.

Upon a closer look at the social issue itself, it gets a bit muddy. Soldiers sign an eight year contract. The contract stipulates that the government can, at any time, require their service in a time of war. Stop-Loss, then, is not a backdoor draft, but just the act of holding the soldier to his word. Now, of course, the issue gets muddy in the current situation because of the dubious nature of the Iraq War. It does then bring up a pertinent question: if we are a nation at war, then why aren't there more of us fighting it? The film also has one other thing going for it: MTV films picked up distribution, which means a younger target market. So the film may be effective in making young men and women stop and ask the question, "Should I become a soldier in light of all this?"

Peter Travers said this film was a powderkeg and that the scene at the film's heart, a graveyard fight between Phillippe's character and Channing Tatum's, is effective. While I agree that this film raises some interesting questions, this scene in particular was not convincing in the least and encapsulated my problem with the film as a whole: if you're going to cover a topic you feel strongly about, why not do it justice?

** out of *****
Rated R for graphic violence and pervasive language.

Expelled

Our youth pastor has been getting promotional info on Ben Stein's Expelled (his new documentary that attempts to show how modern science is acting like a religion in its dogmatic dismissal of Intelligent Design), and whenever a big movie starts targeting churches like that, I get the heebiejeebies.

Before I continue, let me say that I think there is some truth to Stein's claim. I think if scientists did a bit more history homework they'd realize that the church isn't always the ones responsibile for dogmatic support of one side of issues. Science has been guilty of this as well (see the current debate of Neodarwinism vs. Punctuated Equilibrium or the old debate between Edison vs. Tesla, etc.). Nonetheless, just because Stein may have something to this claim, its presentation and the way he's marketing the film give me pause.

Whatever we may think about the movie itself, Mel Gibson employed the same strategy of appealing to churches with The Passion of the Christ to lucrative effect. He made 1000% profit off that film. I'm not necessarily questioning his motives, but the question is-if you market yourself to the choir, what is your aim? Education or ensuring you have an audience? It's a good business move, but is it really a good meanse of raising awareness?

I have not seen a recent "issue" documentary, from Jesus Camp to Inconvenient Truth to even one of the most entertaining films of last year-the King of Kong-that has not succumbed to misrepresentation and manipulation to prove points (except Paper Clips and a very unknown film Dear Francis).

You'd think it would be harder to lie with video than with words in a book, but that is rapidly being proven false. Since Michael Moore purposefully and willfully misrepresented events, people and chronologies in Bowling For Columbine in order to convey his point (whatever it was), so many directors have taken to the documentary as the perfect medium to make money and raise awareness FOR THEIR CAREERS instead of the subject matter they supposedly feel so passionately about.

I actually want to make a documentary myself. I want to call it Schlockumentary: The Art of Using the Truth to Tell Lies.
My aim would be to attack this recent spate of documentaries that have turned the genre into one-sided diatribes that have no honest intent to arrive at truth. Their goal is to be entertaining and to be watched, consequences to fact and truth be damned.

Now it may seem hypocritical for me to talk about making a documentary after decrying it as a medium, but in substance the medium itself is fine when it is not manipulated to meet the expectations of your target audience and molded into a nice Arisotelian plot arc even when the subject takes a dramatic down- turn in real life.

Anyway-Expelled seems to me to be the same animal. I predict that it will only muddy the already murky waters of honest debate over evolution even more. There's good information out there to be had (see Talk Origins for the evolution side, and listen to local Pastor Nic Gibson's phenomenal analysis from a Christian perspective -Click on the two talks on evolution and biblical authority links), and if people want to honestly debate it, maybe we could get somewhere. But I feel that movies like this merely make the dividing lines more pronounced, and even people who know better end up succumbing to name-calling and diatribe as a result.

More Favorites from 2007

Hot Fuzz
While most fans of the Frost, Pegg and Wright triumvirate prefer Shawn of the Dead, I had a lot more fun with this film. While it may not have much to say on a deeper level, the movie was one of my most entertaining movie-going experiences this year.

I’ve heard some critics fault the film because it didn’t fully comment on the action genre in the same way Shawn commented on the zombie genre, but I don’t know if that was the goal with this film. It was a genre-bender: blending action, buddy comedy, slasher and mystery elements.

I could do without the added hiccup twist at the end, but the film’s climax has to be one of the best comic/action moments of recent years, and the film is home to some of the best one-liners of the year.

Oscar worthy? In my opinion it was definitely better than Michael Clayton, but it didn’t deal with the issues ;)


Rescue Dawn
Most critics let this one go upon viewing the seemingly tacked-on and forced conclusion, but this shouldn’t distract from yet another fantastic effort by the underappreciated Bale. This is the second time he has radically altered his appearance to the point of endangering his health, and still, for some reason, the academy thought that George Clooney was more compelling playing a less interesting character this year than the one that got him an Oscar nod for Syriana. Politics pure and simple? That’s the only credible answer I can figure.

In addition to providing Bale with a great part, this film also gave Steve Zahn a chance to go beyond his traditional role as the goofy comic relief for something far deeper. The guy really has talent, and with this role under his belt maybe we’ll get to see him a lot more.

Oscar Worthy? Yes-Christian Bale-Best actor nomination without a doubt. Should he have beaten Daniel Day Lewis? I’ll leave the actors to decide that one. I don’t know; I thought Day Lewis’ Plainview was a bit over the top, but maybe I just didn’t get it.
Best supporting nomination could have gone to Steve Zahn. Should he have gotten it over Javier Bardem? Not a chance.



Amazing Grace
This one was a good education for me on British abolition. I reviewed the film earlier (you can read the original review at Ford's Film Reviews). My enthusiasm for the film has cooled a bit upon reflection (and upon reading some less-than complimentary reviews that brought up some justifiable criticisms). I still stand by the film as a solid representation of one man’s fight against a cruel institution, and as such, it stands in stark relief to the glut of biopics that have little more to say than fame is dangerous.

Oscarworthy? Probably not on any definable level. There’s nothing overt or subtle enough about this film to commend it in such a competitive field.


The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Aside from being a top nominee for the list of longest movie titles in history, this movie created no special stir in critics’ circles this year, garnering lukewarm praise at best. But the critics can have their oilbath with Their Will Be Blood, and I’ll settle for this picture. This isn’t to say this film works better than Blood, but I was much more interested in the characters here by far. Andrew Dominik decided to write his characters as 3 dimensional entities as opposed to one note blood vessel bursting screamers (i.e., PT Anderson’s Plainview and Paul Sunday). Not only does Casey Affleck further his up-and-coming dominance, but the film is filled with first-rate performances. Gary Dillahunt, who stole scenes as Tommy Lee Jones’ plucky sidekick in No Country for Old Men, is just as good here in a vastly different role.

Brad Pitt’s performance is good on the whole and downright creepy in places. He probably doesn’t get enough credit for his acting. One could contend that he overplays his material sometimes, but he really hits certain moments with his heart, and I find him effective.

I had some problems with the cinematography at times. I could have gone without the repeated blurring of the corners of the frame. I suppose it was there for artistic effect, but I just found it pretentious and distracting. Deakins’ camerawork at other points of the film really is magnificent, however.

The story was engaging, for some reason drawing parallels for me with last year’s Hollywoodland, a film I also recommend. Both are depressing, but they get certain emotions and themes right on the nose. In this film I felt a profound sympathy with te characters. I felt like I could honestly relate to Robert Ford nad his motivations and uncertainties at times. I like movies that act like a mirror, reflecting those inner fears and temptations that I sometimes overlook or am oblivious to. This movie did that for me.

On the Oscar front-the film was up for Best Cinematography, but lost to There Will Be Blood, and justifiably so. There Will Be Blood was filmed with more restraint and precision. It’s too bad that someone like Dillahunt doesn’t even get a second look for supporting actor, even if he only appeared in a few scenes. The guy was fantastic, but that’s how the Oscars go. He’ll win one in a few years for something else as a reward for the street-cred he earned this year, probably for a performance that pales before these.

Best Movies 0f 2007 Continued

Becoming Jane

I’m a male, but I’m not ashamed to say that A & E’s Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite films (if as a miniseries it can be called such) of all time. My mom forced my dad and I to watch it while I was in high school, and while I normally would only remotely tolerate her chick flick choices (usually because I had crushes on the female leads), this classic won me over. I think it was David Bamber (who, incidentally, will be playing Adolf Hitler in Brian Singer’s upcoming Valkyrie, a film about a plot to kill Hitler starring the recently incognito Tom Cruise) and his portrayal of Mr. Collins that hooked me, but ultimately it was Jane Austen’s timeless story that kept me watching.

While Kevin Hood and Sarah Williams took much more artistic leeway in writing Becoming Jane, my wife, an avid reader of Austen’s work and familiar with Austen’s history, gave it a thumbs-up for its faithfulness to the spirit of Austen. We were both pleased with its portrayal of Austen, even if the real Austen wasn’t as eye-catching as Anne Hathaway.

Hathaway did a great job, however; far better than Kiera Knightley did with her giggled-up version of Elizabeth in Joe Wright’s recent adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, which in spite of its improvements upon the miniseries in cinematography and historical accuracy, made great departures from the book, and succumbed to Hollywood’s tendency to elevate infatuation and superficial desire over the kind of deep love of character championed by Austen.

Becoming Jane also gave James McAvoy a substantial role that he played straight and likeably. He was fun to watch and did well with the material; I’d much prefer him staying in these roles than his upcoming Wanted with Angelina Jolie (blecchh).

So, on the whole, I found the film entertaining, and I was satisfied with its treatment of love. It depicted love, as it should be, in its highest form of self-sacrifice for others instead of romanticizing the more shallow and fleeting feelings that Hollywood is prone to idealize.

Best Movies of 2007?

After watching the Academy Awards last year (the 2007 awards-that is-honoring movies from 2006), I decided I would come up with my own list for the movies that should win Oscars for 2007. Unfortunately, Panama City is not the best place to play movie critic because our theaters often skip the films that end up being viable Oscar contenders. I was intending on having the list done by Oscar time, but since I had to wait for many titles to come out on DVD, and due to other more pressing matters, I’ve had to postpone my best movie picks of 2007 for quite some time. I’ve decided to post this list one movie at a time, because my discussion of each film has ended up going a little long.

What’s more-this list has undergone some serious changes. What originally began as an Oscar list has now become a list of the movies that have struck me for one reason or another. These are the movies that succeeded in fulfilling their purpose or at least their purpose as I construed it. I don’t subscribe to the theory that movies are supposed to be (or even can be) perfect. Everyone of the films that is mentioned below has its flaws, and, it’s my firm conviction that every film nominated for Best picture Oscars this year had theirs as well. I don’t think of myself as a film snob, and after this year I’m starting to wonder if the “snobs” aren’t a bit influenced by peer pressure and the flood of political opinion, but more on that later. I will be posting the list in descending order, so without further ado, the first film on my list (or last I guess you could say) is:

I am Legend

Before you tune out: I’m not saying this is a perfect film. It’s not even a great film in the grand scheme of things, but for my money, it achieved its goal far better than any other blockbuster this year.

It created a post apocalyptic New York that was truly engrossing, and it gave Will Smith the opportunity to show that, once again, he’s more than just a comedian. He was great, and while the movie went off the rails in the second half and suffered from both a screenplay that required a few more rewrites and ill-conceived CG zombies, the film captured something that’s been sorely lacking in many big budget films: a profound sense of realism (minus the zombies of course).

I was transfixed by the way in which they recreated New York City, which prompted me to again ask myself a question that has bothered me in the past: at what point does a film go beyond creativity into Hollywood gluttony? One scene in I Am Legend may have cost well over $5 million to shoot.

The scenes of an empty and overgrown Times Square boggled my mind and have left me wondering how they did it. I’ve heard that these were shot on a set, and this is what makes me wonder: is this responsible? Doesn’t this seem a bit excessive? Of course I am entirely culpable for this excess because I funded it (after the fact, of course). There is a big push today towards conservation and helping the poor, but isn’t a bit incongruous that so much money is spent on playing pretend? I’m asking these questions because I really don’t know the answers. I’ve always liked watching blockbusters, and I’ve never really thought much about quitting, but sometimes I wonder if the cost for realism may be too great.

So perhaps it’s a bit strange that this film should fit into a “best of” list if I’m questioning its very existence, but now maybe you get a sense of what this list is about: less about traditional criticism and more about the capacity for the films to arouse discussion and prompt consideration.

As far as the Oscars go, I Am Legend would only have been capable of nomination for the technical awards, and I don’t have enough expertise to make any judgments there.

I enjoyed the film when I first watched it. It provided some of the best scares of the year, and I was, once again, mesmerized by the production value. But it was not until after I had heard others’ criticisms of its plot and the ending that I had to admit the film did not work on the whole. So, it’s not No Country, but I’ll still pick it over The Golden Compass, Pirates 3, Spiderman 3, and (bracing for impact...) The Bourne Ultimatum.

Academic Integrity

I was published last week in our local paper for the first time. The following essay made it in the opinion page of Thursday's News Herald. If you've read my other blog on intelligent design, there's some definite overlap, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

The evolution debate would greatly benefit if people who put forth their opinions quit using bogus information to justify their position. Those against evolution should therefore:

1-quit using the evolution-is-just-a-theory argument. This has been successfully debunked in the News Herald many times. Evolution is considered a working theory, which, like gravity, has enjoyed widespread acceptance among scientists.
2-Quit using the second law of thermodynamics as an attack. It’s a law of thermodynamics, not a biological law. It may make logical sense as an argument, but it isn’t justification to debunk evolution.

The bulk of this piece will focus on the other side of the debate, however. I've read and heard many pleas for scientific rigor in the science classroom. Nonetheless, I think the other side is so focused on stamping out any vestige of faith from the I.D. or creation side, they have done little to correct misinformation on the evolution side that has found itsway into textbooks.

It is true that bringing God in to answer scientific mysteries is nothing short of metaphysics (or religion), but I feel that popular evolutionary theory has been doing this for over a century: by removing the word “God” and inserting “evolution” or “natural selection” or “punctuated equilibrium” in its place-i.e., replacing theist leaps in logic with materialist leaps in logic. And, yes, I do understand that there is evidence for natural selection and evolution on some level, but much of the accepted understanding of macroevolution and evolutionary theories of origins are so faith-based, I don’t understand how it constitutes science because it’s not testable, provable or falsifiable.

How can I say that evolution is not falsifiable? Because it still chugs along even though quite a number of its holy grail moments have been weighed by years of scientific scrutiny and found wanting. The Miller, Urey experiment is one of those cases. To this day, the experiment is still taught as a proof of evolution (see Glencoe's 2007 High School Biology Textbook at http://glencoe.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0078695104/student_view0/unit4/chapter14/concepts_in_motion.html), even though for over thirty years scientists have known that the substances used to perform this experiment may not have adequately recreated the earth's ancient atmosphere.

Bill Bryson, in his book A Short History of Nearly Everything, has this to say about it: "Despite half a century of further study, we are no nearer to synthesizing life today than we were in 1953 and much further away from thinking we can. Scientists are now pretty certain that the early atmosphere was nothing like as primed for development as Miller and Urey’s gaseous stew” (287). If we were really concerned about the integrity of the scientific education, why is an experiment known to be inaccurate for over thirty years still taught?

Currently, no one is quite sure how life formed originally, because any experiments are at the very best semi-educated guesses due to the amount of time that has passed. This explains the occurrence of the following kinds of statements whenever origins are addressed in science textbooks:

"What modern cells do scientists believe to be close relatives of the Earth's first cells?" (from Glencoe Biology, Chapter 14 Test Practice, question #7 at http://glencoe.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0078695104/student_view0/unit4/chapter14/chapter_test_practice-english.html, emphasis mine).

I did a survey of another high school textbook when I was teaching at Arnold High School, and I made the discovery that suppositional words like "believe" and "speculate" appeared much more frequently in the chapters addressing origins and evolution than any other chapters I perused. Granted, my study was not exhaustive, but any time I found those words used in other chapters they were describing old ways of thinking that have since been proven wrong. So scientists believe certain things? That’s great! But according to the logic of those criticizing our School Board for their "bigoted" decision those beliefs should be relegated to religion class.

My point in all this is to ask the question, "Why are we teaching origins at all?" I'm not talking about testable and provable microevolution and adaptation, but macroevolution and the origins of life. Keep teaching the stuff that's verifiable, but if we're going to remove metaphysics from textbooks, can we at least be fair about it?

A good show of faith on the side of those who support the teaching of evolution would be to:

1-Remove those traces of mythology that have worked their way into popular evolutionary theory and have gone unchecked in the school system for over two decades.
2-Quit the lowbrow sucker-punch rhetoric of branding creationists or I. D. proponents as illiterate bigots, and start policing the religious extremism that is being displayed by the supposedly enlightened side.
3-Remove Haeckel's embryos, remove the bogus peppered moth data, and remove the notion that Miller and Urey proved that life did originate without intelligent help. In short, start teaching science again.

Sincerely,
Ford Seeuws

A Thought for the Day

Psalm 87:7b
“All my springs of joy are in you.”

Is this true for me?

In early Biblical life a spring was any source of water that made life possible. The Psalmist brings this physical concept into the realm of the spiritual prompting us to ask ourselves:

“What is the source for my daily life?”
“What am I depending on to get me through another day?”

It may be a dream, some form of entertainment, another person, place or feeling. For me it’s often any one of these things, and most of the time it is some expectation for the near future. I latch onto some upcoming event: the release date of a movie I want to see, a potential swell, time off from work, a date with my wife, or a visit to see family or friends.

We, as citizens in the developed world, and perhaps humans in general, tend to work for the weekend. We’re deriving our motivation from one of these finite sources. So it is here that the Psalmist’s words needle us to ask ourselves: "Am I drawing my joy from the right sources?"

Jesus: Red, Blue or Other?

Christianity (or Evangelicalism, as we have been so dubbed in the Western world in recent years) has become a powerful political force. More and more people have come to the realization that Jesus really wasn't a Republican after all. He did certain things that defy conservatism. Al Franken and Don Simpson wrote the now famous comic The Gospel of Supply Side Jesus, which has made quite a stir even in evangelical circles, garnering a mention in Donald Miller's Searching For God Knows What. So is Jesus a liberal?

Mark 5:25-34 may give us some idea of his political affiliation at least in one instance. Here we have a case of a woman who has endured a long battle with some debilitating infirmity, which one version renders "hemmorhage." It's not my intent here to delve into the specific nature of her condition, but verse 26 tells us that she "had endured much at the hands of many physicians, and had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse."

Jesus goes on to heal the woman, in spite of the fact that he is in a tremendous hurry to help someone far more wealthy and politically important. What I find interesting is Jesus' reaction to the woman. When he does decide to help her, how does he do it? Does he raise awareness of the evils of commercial healthcare, and petition Rome to institute healthcare reform? Does he find her a lawyer who can fight for her in the civil courts to at least win some money from the doctors who fleeced her?

No, he doesn't react to her in any way that can be deemed political. The Greek word from which we derive politics is polis, which means "city" or "nation." A politician is one who works as a mediator and leader in such settings. He does not act alone. All that he does must concern a large number of people.

Jesus, however, acts alone here. He doesn't ask for permission. He doesn't get a permit. He heals her on the spot. Here we have real power and real love. Here we have a man who needs no party platform, funding or election to perform his social action.

And here is the issue as I see it. Jesus is not interested in politics when it comes to establishing his kingdom. He is an advocate for the poor to be sure, but his advocacy starts and ends with him. What does Jesus say when the disciples are freaking out about the five thousand hungry people in their care? "You give them something to eat." He doesn't tell them to ask someone else (other than himself) for help.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ gives us no information on Jesus' politics, except this-that if any change is to come in this world, it's not going to be through government, but through people. Jesus has set the standard for us as Christians to attack social ills at their core, to enter into these very complex problems personally. The incarnation is the theology of personal involvement. If we want to see change and bring healing and help to those in need, we can't depend on the government to do it for us.

And I do understand that most of us, especially in the West don't quite have Jesus' magic touch, and we will need group involvement in this mission to the unfortunate. However, as a Church we need to own this vision. Instead of trying to fight against welfare and social healthcare politically, if the Church with all the people in it would do as Jesus did and personally deal with social ills face-to-face we would put the need for welfare and social healthcare on the shelf.

Now, I am not going so far to say, as some like Gregory Boyd have, that we need to leave politics alone. Some of us may feel a pull in the direction of politics, and that's fine. There's nothing wrong with government. It's a necessity, and the Bible does not disparage it. But it is not the means of salvation. It is only a retaining wall (and a flimsy one at that) to check human evil.

Now, I have a feeling all that I've written (and in the above paragraph especially) can be reduced to the tenets and talking points of one or two of the political parties out there. But I dare you to try to fit Jesus into the party platforms of the big three and see what happens. He wields power like a neocon in a crusade on terror, but the terror he fights is metaphysical; yet he demonstrates love like the democrats who fight for the rights of those who have no voice.

Is Jesus red or blue? Thankfully, it seems that he, like any good artist, doesn't restrict himself to the use of one color or the other, and if the parties involved would take a closer look, they'd probably find a myriad other colors in there that defy political duplication.

Gary Wills has written a phenomenal opinion piece in the New York Times that deals with this subject as well. Check it out: Christ Among the Partisans.

What's So Special?

Where is the special effect?

I've been workig on a movie for about a year now. I wrote the original script in December of last year, and I've been pecking away at the thing ever since. In the last few months Jim and Scott have been helping me shoot it. The other day we finished a scene that takes place at a gas station. It's a montage of me pumping gas, and one of the shots shows the credit card reader as I swipe my Visa. The white outline of a visa insignia set against the black metal of the card reader is visible in the shot, and I got to thinking about what I would need to do if I had to remove the symbol. Technically, it wouldn't be that difficult; it would just take a lot of time (for me, at least. I know some kid half my age could probably do it in 15 minutes, but it would take me a few hours, as I would have to take each frame into Photoshop and paint the thing out).

If I did that, I feel confident you wouldn't be able to tell. It would be as if there never had been any insignia visible in the shot. So in this case, the special effect is not designed to draw attention to some detail, but to make the shot nondescript.

It got me thinking that the best special effects are those that don't draw attention to themselves. They're special not because they look special, but because they look real. They fool you into thinking that no sleight of hand has taken place.

An example: The two images shown above both contain special effects. In the photo at right from Matrix Reloaded, Neo fights a few Agent Smiths, and while it's some nice eye candy, we all know it's fake. Our suspension of disbelief (if it's still intact in this case) compels us to forget that it's fake. On the left we have a single frame from Citizen Kane. In this case, it looks as if nothing much is going on: no CG, no gliding through the air with keyed-out wires, but there is a special effect. In actuality, Orson Welles in the foreground is not even in the room at the same time as Joseph Cotten and Everett Sloane in the background. They had a scheduling conflict that prevented all three actors from being present at the same time, so in this case the special effect was used to make it look like they were all there together. And for me it worked. I would not have ever known that the three actors weren't together if I hadn't been the uber film nerd that listens to Roger Ebert's commentary on the film.

It may seem like a leap, but my next thought deals with God. I thought it was interesting that we always hear people demanding signs from God. We want to see something special that will prove He exists. We want miracles. It all of a sudden seemed a bit ironic that we demand flashy signs from God, when (if He is as creative and powerful as the Bible says He is) there should be no hint of unreality in His work. What's special about His creation and His work is not so much the miracles of healing or walking on water, but the miracle that the human body works in the first place or the incredible wonder of the laws of physics and hydrodynamics that make things like reflections in a lake or the grandeur of pitching barrels at Pipeline possible.

These "mundane" things-the chemical, physical and biological processes that make things work-are so special, so miraculous, because in spite of all their complexity and intricacy, we take them for granted as being normal.

Grave of the Fireflies

I watched a movie on Wednesday that hit me in the gut: Isao Takahata's Grave of the Fireflies. It's not an easy film to watch. Like any good Indie, it has a quality about it that is kind of slow and contemplative. It sure isn't a date movie, but it is well worth watching for a number of reasons.

First of all, it introduced me to something in our history that I knew nothing about. We've all heard of the bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which have been cited as primary causes of the end of the war, but I had never heard of what came before: firebombings. Firebombing had been used in Europe in the bombing of Dresden, but it was the U. S. General Curtis LeMay who would perfect the procedure in the Pacific arena (B-29's over Korea).

The concept was utilized a number of times before LeMay decided to outfit the B-29 bombers with more explosives, and on March 9-10, 1945 the tactic was eployed to devastating effect over Tokyo . The death toll from that one night range from 80,000 - 100,000 people in one night (see: The Atlantic, B-29's over Korea, Wikipedia, AP story).

"The conflagration caused by the incendiary bombs quickly engulfed Tokyo's wooden residential structures, creating a firestorm that replaced oxygen with lethal gases, superheated the atmosphere, and caused hurricane-like winds that blew a wall of fire across the city. As a result of the attack, 10 square miles of eastern Tokyo were entirely obliterated, and an estimated 250,000 buildings were destroyed. " (from The History Channel).

I feel cheated that I never learned about this. I consider it to be a dark blot on our history, and I'm no pacifist. But when innocent civilians are massacred in a hellish inferno I think that's a pretty dastardly deed! So we didn't have concentration camps, but what the hell is this about anyway? Who are we? We're the frickin' United States-land of the free and home of the brave. I'm not saying this to cast doubt on our nation, but to to remind we who may one day have some say in the bigger goings-on to remember that even though war is necessary, the killing of innocents is intolerable. We get pissed when a few terrorists kill under 4,000 people on September 11. We are incensed when less than 3,000 people are killed in a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, but we never even hear or care about one night in which our forces slaughtered over 80,000 people-the large majority of whom had nothing to do with the war effort!!!!

I could go on, but you get the point. The firebombings continued over Japan until June and proved to be quite "successful," destroying the urban centers of some "66 Japanese cities" (The B-29 Strategic Air Campaign Against Japan
by Henry C. Huglin, see p. 232 and following under Incendiary Strikes from The Strategic Air War Against Germany and Japan: A Memoir, by Haywood S. Hansell Jr.).

Grave of the Fireflies chronicles life in the shadow of these raids. It follows an orphaned brother and sister and how they cope with life in such a climate. Some might consider this movie anti-war or anti-American propaganda, but after reading the facts on the issue, they seem to have played the material pretty straight. In fact, the film in no way lets any one off the hook. More screentime is dedicated to showing the villainy displayed by the protaganist's own countrymen and, unfortunately, by the protagonist himself.

The movie's great. The way Takahata portrayed the little sister, Setsuko, was so inspired. I saw my daughter in that little girl, and even though the movie seems to plod along at times, like life, you get to the end of it and look back, and those little moments that seemed insignificant mean so much more than the explosions and one-liners we like to pretend really matter. The film taught me something new about history, and in a gut wrenching scene toward the film's end, reminded me that pride can be just as devastating as the worst firebombing.

Fighting Taxes

I just saw a video headline on Yahoo about an Indiana man who fought his rising property taxes in a creative way. See what you think:

AP video

If the link goes bad, check out the story Here.

New Videos

I've been on hiatus a while, so now I'm making up for it:

First, here's a short clip showcasing Andy's frontside layback. While I've been told we're f***ing horrible at skating, I still think Andy has a nice layback:



The next two are from our youth group's trip to Costa Rica. These are just little shorts giving a taste of what we did down there.

The first shows the village we visited outside the capital city of San Jose:


The second shows our youth group giving surf lessons in Jaco, Costa Rica.


And finally, the video that five of you have been waiting for: the cricket video, also known as "WWJTBE?" or "What Would John The Baptist Eat?"-


Alright-tell me what you think!
Ford

Snake Alert

I'm visiting my sister-in-law and her family in Alabama. Tonight all the kids were outside playing, and one of the neighbors' kids ran over screaming that he'd seen a snake. I thought it was a false alarm, but we all trekked over just in case.

Sure enough the kid wasn't telling any tales. It was a scary looking snake with a tell-tale triangular shaped head letting us know that while he wasn't a rattler he was poisonous. Kevin, my brother-in-law, retrieved his .22, but I convinced him to let me try to catch it.

My niece Rachael got a cloth bag and I rounded up a push broom to pin his head down. The plan was to put him in the bag and twist the top of the bag so he couldn't get out. Then I'd take him to some remote location without curious dogs and young children nearby.

My first attempt at pinning him down brought out him down only ticked him off and he emitted an odor that would make a skunk wince. It took me a number of attempts to finally pin him down and to muster the courage to grab his neck with my hand. I've never tried to catch a poisonous snake before, and I was a bit sheepish.

I managed to get him in my hand, put him in the bag and release my hold of him without him getting a hold of me, but the bag was a bit smaller than I'd thought it was, and he was quite a bit larger, so within a few seconds he'd escaped and with him went all my drive to make a second attempt.

So Kevin shot him. I felt kind of bad. I really wanted to catch the thing, but, quite frankly, the thing freaked me out.

We're pretty sure it was a Cottonmouth-odd since we're nowhere near water. Of course, with the massive droughts we've all been having as of late, I guess it's no wonder.

Here are some pics:

Satya Sings Happy Birthday

Inside Man

Inside Man is a heist caper with a twist, which should come as no surprise since heist capers generally exist for the twist. Nonetheless, Russell Gewirtz’s script provides a twist that is both satisfying and largely unexpected. Clive Owen is great as Dalton Russell, the man behind the heist, and the script keeps you guessing about his intentions. This is not to say that the whole movie follows suit. Sloppy and clichéd characterizations of the main characters including those played by Denzel Washington, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Willem Dafoe weaken the movie considerably.

For instance, in an attempt to make Washington’s Detective Keith Frazier look like a real man, the writer gives line after line of uninspired verbal foreplay between Frazier and his girlfriend. They are static throughout the film: sex-crazed over each other at the beginning and sex-crazed over each other at the end. Though there is little actual screen time devoted to this relationship, the time that is spent with them makes the film feel immature.

Some of the comic bits come off as forced, much of the time the music doesn’t seem to fit what’s onscreen, and some of the choices in cinematography stick out like a pair of sore thumbs.

Before I get into my complaints about the camerawork, let me preface this by saying that I have been reading some books on film in the last few years, and they list all these rules about what types of camera angles should be used, and what makes for a “good” shot, etc. Like most everyone, I kept asking, “Well, why does it matter?” But it wasn’t until I saw this movie that I realized that these rules do make sense. So please forgive this momentary trip into the theoretical, but the two following examples taught me something about camera use that I had never really considered before.

The first is a montage of Russell (Clive Owen) after the heist is in full swing that climaxes with an orchestral flourish and a very overt shot that employs a rotating camera around Russell standing in the vault. My wife and I looked at each other wondering, “What was that about?” There was nothing new or climactic about the moment, but the importance with which it was handled made you think it had some special significance. Another such use of odd camera work was found in a scene between Jodi Foster and Peter Kybart, designed to further establish Jodi Foster’s character as one tough cookie. This scene, too, uses a revolving shot; this time around Foster and Kybart. And it’s just distracting. I see this revolving crap used a lot these days, and very rarely is it used in a way that actually adds something to the scene at hand. A simple separation sequence between person A and person B would work just fine, but it’s as if directors and cinematographers are convinced that every shot needs to look cool. The problem with this practice is that when striking moments are needed, you’ve already depleted your arsenal of striking shots, so the real climax is now robbed of some of its grandeur by irresponsible use of dramatic camera work when it’s unnecessary.

This same scene with Foster and Kybart is also filled with explicit language that shrunk my suspension of disbelief to the size of a mustard seed. And now, I’m going to follow one more rabbit trail to a long-held pet peeve of mine. When Jack Nicholson is onscreen in The Departed spewing the F-word over and over, I believe it. I mean the guy means business. I may not agree that this kind of language is good or proper, but it does make sense in context. It doesn’t feel contrived or forced. But, sometimes people throw expletives in to make them sound cool, and it just doesn’t work. Even in Pulp Fiction, as soon as Tarantino shows up on his cussing binge, he’s lost me. He’s not a realistic cusser. He sounds ridiculous. His writing is incredible, but his delivery of it is just not credible. The same goes for these two here in this scene. It’s not believable. It reminds me of a kid who’s gone to a Christian school all his life then shows up as a freshman at a public high school and starts trying to impress people by cussing. As before with the camerawork: if you’re going to use striking language, use it when its convincing and actually adds some punch to the narrative line or adds some color to the characters.

In spite of all these negatives, I was impressed by the overall narrative and theme, and this is a testimony to the fact that the screenwriter’s role is very important. Without the clever plot, the movie falls apart, and even with all its foibles the movie succeeds (at least partially) because the screenwriter had a good idea and wrote a good story. He didn’t write necessarily the best dialogue or protagonist character development, but overall, I’d say he did a pretty good job. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a great little bit in the middle of the film in which a captive boy shows Russell his new favorite PSP game. The game looks very similar to Grand Theft Auto, and we get to see the action as Owen directs his character onscreen to shoot someone. After the opponent has been reduced to an unconscious heap on the side of the road, text pops on screen that says, “Kill that N****!” a command he obeys as the character’s head explodes. Russell looks up at the boy in wonder as the kid congratulates him for robbing the bank. Russell responds: “I have to talk to your father about this game.” Now, that’s some good social commentary!

** out of ****

The Inevitable Destination

Ron Hart used the following quote in an editorial he wrote attacking government that thrives on the people’s dependence upon it and its dangers (you can read his whole article here: The Dual Threat to Freedom.

from bondage to spiritual faith;
from faith to courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to complacency;
from complacency to apathy;
from apathy to dependence;
from dependence back into bondage.

Hart emphasized the step involving liberty and gave a plug for his particular political persuasion as a Libertarian. It’s an interesting application of the quote, but I think the quote itself has much more to say to the human condition than just advocating a burgeoning political party. Historically this little apothegm has so much going for it, and though I think its message is pretty simple it is clear that no matter how obvious the truth can be, it will nevertheless be forgotten, especially once we’ve turned the corner on liberty and embraced abundance. From that point there just seems to be no stopping the juggernaut of human lust; not until we’ve run headlong into slavery. The Tao Te Ching has it that the best way to rule a people is to “empty their minds and fill their bellies, weaken their wills and strengthen their bones.” Let’s try to remember that when organizational entities of any kind (whether they be governments, corporations, religious institutions, et al.) dangle carrots before us. They’re not doing it out of kindness, though they may think they are, but out of their nature as humans to careen toward bondage.

Faith and the Fall

The following passage was taken from Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. While the book did keep my attention, I felt a bit cheated at the end (kind of like watching Season 3 of Lost). Not only did it have a certain deus ex machina quality, but it also seemed to devolve into an overt racist parable. Poe totally lost me, so if any of you can shed some light on his true intent in this story, I’d appreciate it.

In spite of my confusion at his unwieldy resolution, I really appreciated the following passage, which gives a vivid description of the fear of heights. And like many of Poe’s descriptions of human sensation and emotion, this one really illustrated, for me, an ingrained part of human nature, which I discuss below. So, put on your 1837 thinking cap and give it a look:

It was some time before I could summon sufficient resolution to follow him; but I did at length attempt it. Peters had taken off his shirt before descending, and this, with my own, formed the rope necessary for the adventure. After throwing down the musket found in the chasm, I fastened this rope to the bushes, and let myself down rapidly, striving, by the vigor of my movements, to banish the trepidation which I could overcome in no other manner. This answered sufficiently well for the first four or five steps; but presently I found my imagination growing terribly excited by thoughts of the vast depth yet to be descended, and the precarious nature of the pegs and soapstone holes which were my only support. It was in vain I endeavored to banish these reflections, and to keep my eyes steadily bent upon the flat surface of the cliff before me. The more earnestly I struggled not to think, the more intensely vivid my conceptions, and the more horribly distinct. At length arrived that crisis of fancy, so fearful in all similar cases, the crisis in which we begin to anticipate the feelings with which we shall fall – to picture to ourselves the sickness, and dizziness, and the last struggle, and the half swoon, and the final bitterness of the rushing and headlong descent. And now I found these fancies creating their own realities, and all imagined horrors crowding upon me in fact. I felt my knees striking violently together, while my fingers were gradually yet certainly relaxing their grasp. There was a ringing in my ears, and I said, ‘This is my knell of death!’ And now I was consumed with the irrepressible desire of looking below. I could not, I would not, confine my glances to the cliff; and, with a wild, indefinable emotion, half of horror, half of a relieved oppression, I threw my vision far down into the abyss. For one moment my fingers clutched convulsively upon their hold, while, with the movement, the faintest possible idea of ultimate escape wandered, like a shadow, through my mind – in the next my whole soul was pervaded with a longing to fall; a desire, a yearning, a passion utterly uncontrollable. I let go at once my grasp upon the peg, and, turning half round from the precipice, remained tottering for an instant against its naked face. But now there came a spinning of the brain; a shrill-sounding and phantom voice screamed within my ears; a dusky, fiendish, and filmy figure stood immediately beneath me; and, sighing, I sunk down with a bursting heart, and plunged within its arms.

A month or two ago I climbed up the 9-foot half pipe at our local skate park, and was preparing to drop in. All the little groms and gromlets nearby gathered around to watch the old guy in action, and for some reason, with all the attention and the exaggerated altitude of the first person perspective, I couldn’t handle the pressure, and I fell. It’s like I didn’t even try to skate down, I just…fell. I’ve had that feeling before, and it’s not always tied to heights. It’s this kind of irrational panic that I get when faced with something that could cause physical pain, or a challenge that I’ve failed at before or a temptation that, though destructive, I feel incapable of resisting. It’s like I just freeze, and as Poe describes above, give myself over to this hopeless acceptance of what I feel I am meant for. Maybe you don’t have this problem, but it resonates with me: our desire to fail and to descend into the depths. I believe it is part of us, and it is something we must face, because if we want to live good lives, we are going to have to recognize that there’s a part of us that wants nothing to do with what is good in life, but is hell-bent on destroying us.

It’s a tough battle to win, to be sure, because we can’t just kill this little traitor once and for all; we have to keep it around until we die, a kind of real world Gollum who’ll be with us until the end. And for me, that’s become first priority in my goal to make the world a better place. Because, no matter how much I think I succeed in the world, if I have failed here, at this first level, it will ultimately undermine everything I set my hands to.

But I have come to the conclusion that I cannot win this battle alone. This is one of the primary reasons that I have embraced the belief of my youth, and accepted as true the words of the Christ of the Bible. It may seem strange that I find further confirmation in Poe’s passage and in my ramp experience for my decision to embrace the notion of God in the received Christian understanding, but I think it’s because these influences have given flesh and bones to one of the Bible’s most enigmatic abstractions: faith.

Why does the main character let go? Because he can’t help but believe that the bad guys will win, that he’ll fall, that death will consume all. I believe that this is mankind’s struggle in a nutshell. We have God telling us that everything will be okay if we just look at Him, but what we see contradicts that. Since we can’t see Him, how does he expect us to look at Him? So we look at our surroundings, and lose faith. The Bible makes it explicit that faith has its own eyes, and if we are to beat this little traitor, we’re going to need to learn to use them.

I've Got Some Thinking to Do

Proverbs 25:8
Do not go out hastily to argue your case; Otherwise, what will you do in the end, When your neighbor humiliates you?

I certainly have this tendency, whether it's in traffic or while reading the local paper, but I'm trying to take more time to explore issues and think them out with more patience and openness than I have in the past.

I've been reading a lot of the media coverage of the Virginia Tech tragedy, and some of the opinions and reactions that have been circling have provoked me to respond, but I've decided maybe it would be best if I, instead of adding to the noise, sat back for a few weeks and let all this sink in before airing my feelings and opinions. Maybe if I wait for a while longer I will come to a better conclusion than if I simply post what's rattling around in my head right now.

It's a luxury I have that obviously the media doesn't have. It is after all their job to comment on the goings-on in the world. But I think the feeling that we must know everything about events like Columbine, 9/11, or the most recent tragedy make it easy for people in the media to jump to conclusions or find scapegoats or form talking points that try to explain these complicated and sometimes unfathomable events with a sentence-fragment headline. It's as if the media acts like one of those friends or family members that approaches you in a time of grieving and says something like, "He's gone on to a better place," or "God's watching over you," or "It'll all be alright."

But now, in the wake of the worst shooting of its kind in American history, maybe we should just take a while to think, pray, and meditate before we launch into judgment calls and quick-fix schemes.

Bradley is the Man

In case you haven't seen any of Brad's Hong Kong videos, you should check them out. His newest made my day.



Check him out at Homebody Abroad