Category: Culture
-
May His Soul Be Bound Up…
This Memorial Day post is coauthored by my wife, Melissa, and relies upon her personal recollections and a recently received file from the Department of the Army. On September 6th, 1945, five American Servicemen in an unarmed B-25D Mitchell medium bomber took off on an “administrative flight” over the Philippine Islands. There were four crewmen…
-
Nonessential Funding
Daily Bible reading crashed into my news feeds today. So I’ll throw the mess at you and see what sticks. Here’s Steven Greenhut’s piece from “Tax Day“: It’s mind-boggling to think about how little we actually get for all that cash, especially here in California where the state government measures success by how much money…
-
Beware Less Efficient Shots
Too bad people tend to forget the true meaning of Easter. So texted a former coworker named Dan last night. Aside from feeling reflective he was feeling pretty good because his Colorado Avalanche scored a road victory over my hometown L.A. Kings. One reason – maybe THE reason – that so many miss the true…
-
Non-Hoops March Madness
Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea make a noise and all that is therein. Let the field be joyful, and all that is in it; then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice before the LORD. (Psalm 96:11-12, New Coverdale Version) We are in the annual tug…
-
Yes, There’s Evil
Yes, there’s evil. No, I’m not going to pelt you with a Walt Whitman-esque litany of all the ugly stuff, real, imagined or concocted for extra views & clicks, that you see every time your eyes veer screenward. The screen grab above came from an email I received from the Social Security Administration. I’m old…
-
You Need a Hero?
Ah, those golden days of Euro-made Steve Reeves Hercules flicks. Got to thinking about heroes the other night. I caught an episode of Law & Order, something I do less and less because the show’s become preachy about “issues.” But I still have a soft spot for it and record the episodes so I can…
-
…by his faith…
I imagined that decades of Holocaust documentaries, dramas, books and my own visits to Dachau and Yad Vashem had me innoculated against strong emotional reactions to presentations about the Shoah. I was wrong. Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein present a jarring look at the Holocaust in a global and in particular American context.…
-
Was 9/11 the Last Sign of “Christian America”?
The arguments fly back and forth about America as a “Christian nation.” On the right, it is an imagining of the past: an appeal for return to a once muscular moral order that, in the model of the Bible’s Book of Deuteronomy, brought national prosperity as the reward for obedience to standards revealed by God.…
-
DC Serves up Bovine Wine
Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine, and valiant men in mixing strong drink, who acquit the guilty for a bribe, and deprive the innocent of his right! (Isaiah 5:22-23)… Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, “Bring,…
-
Unbecoming
I watched the first season of Becoming Elizabeth on Starz. Well done, although the cruelty that is presented (necessary to the story as it conveys the events and the times) appeals less and less to me as I age. Maybe I’ve grown as a disciple of Jesus; maybe I’m just more sensitive to pain and…
Northern Plains Anglican 