Category: Media

Thank God for Incarnation–and iPods

People cross this world
Over and then back again
Never even one time lift their eyes
Or think of what they say

But I hear it in your voice, love
Like someone sweetly willing
The hope of all these years,
the prayer of a time
that we don’t even know

But it’s a hard road that we follow
The saddest cities, and the darkest hollows

But I hear it in your voice, love
The strongest sound
I’ve ever heard
Like water from a well
so deep in the ground
I’ll never thirst again

–“Hollow” from Hem’s “Eveningland”

And if God doesn’t get your attention with a good joke, them maybe some music will do the trick.… Read the rest

Eventually Saban Provides National Title

With the resurging Tide catapulting back into the Top 25 for the first time since 2005, ESPN College Gameday will be broadcasting live from Tuscaloosa tomorrow morning. That should give Number One Son a good reason to roll out of the sack long before his usual Saturday wake-up time of twelve noon. It’s my understanding that many will be camping out tonight in the hopes of getting some face time with Chris, Corso and Herbie, but Number One says he will not be among them. As a result, he will likely be more toward the back unless he gets up really early (highly unlikely), and that means he’s going to need a large-print, creative acronym sign in order to leave his mark on a national TV audience.… Read the rest

Darmok and Jalad at Tenagra

Eyegal rightly pointed out to me that I left a very important show off my list yesterday. “Why, we used to rock Number One Son (she didn’t actually call him that but used his real name instead) to sleep while watching Star Trek: The Next Generation!”

And that we did. In fact, I used to think that I called him Number One because of the old Charlie Chan movies, but on second thought, maybe it was because of Lt. Riker (Picard–“Make it so, Number One!”).

Our two favorite episodes:

  1. “The Inner Light.” The Enterprise is confronted with an alien space probe which shoots a nucleonic beam thingy at Picard, causing him to fall into a deep sleep.
… Read the rest

Totally Lost

It’s not often that Eyegal and I get hooked on a TV show. Usually, we’re much too busy in the evenings to become regulars at anything, but I can think of three times it’s happened in the past:

1) Thirtysomething. This was a show about angst-ridden yuppies in their 30s with young kids living in Philadelphia in the late 1980s. We watched this show during optometry school when we were poor twentysomethings who looked forward to the day when we would have enough money to be angst-ridden yuppies. It all looked so good at the time, but reality is rarely as good as the dream itself.… Read the rest

Harry Potter 1, David Beckham 0

Potter v. Beckham:

harry-potter.jpg

david-beckham.jpg

Are you ready to rumblllllle?!

Actually, with Potter already rolling across the internet and Becks hobbled by a bum left ankle and unlikely to see action v. Chelsea, this one was over before the opening whistle. Maybe Becks should consider taking up Quidditch. Less stress on the joints and all.

Final Score: Harry Potter 1, David Beckham 0

… Read the rest

So Go Ahead. Woo Me

Gender bending is something that we don’t even talk about in the Deep South much less practice, so you can imagine how my eyes bugged out when I read this. Apparently, the rest of the country may not be ready to talk about it either.

I’ve always suspected that Hillary had a pair of big brass ones (metaphorically speaking, of course) and that Obama, with those lithe fingers and fine threads, was the embodiment of the modern metrosexual man. Now I have confirmation.

By the way, I would like to announce to the stable of Presidential candidates out there that my vote is officially up for grabs.… Read the rest

Interesting Religious Reads

USA Today starts the week off with two interesting religious reads.

First, a report on the growing New Sanctuary Movement, a coalition of houses of worship which is providing shelter and protection to illegal immigrants.

Second, it seems at least some boomer offspring are outdoing their parents when it comes to faith and fervor.

I find the notion that sacred space might still exist and that it might be recognized by civil authorities in this post-everything world intriguing. During the Civil War, Union cavalry soldiers commandeered local Huntsville churches to serve as stables and barracks.

Well, except for one. Above the front door of the Episcopal Church of the Nativity is a marble inscription–“Reverence My Sanctuary”–taken from Leviticus 26:2.… Read the rest

Camille’s Back

There is the endless drone of the mainstream press serving up bland portions of the same o’ same o’, and then there is Camille Paglia.

I have a confession: I dig a lot (but certainly not all) of her stuff. Yeah, I know, I know, she’s a gay-atheist-feminist with a fetish for homoeroticism, but nobody’s perfect, right? Still, apparently beholden to no one, she writes things that others are too wimpish to even think, and does so with a vim and verve that are a rare sight in today’s media landscape.

She’s taken some time off, but Camille’s back. And just in the nick of time to make things interesting.… Read the rest

One Man, One Slide

John had always told me, “Mike, when you walk into a room, you’ve got to make them believe that you’re the biggest gunslinger in the bar.”

He was referring to the way that I carried myself as I walked into the exam room. I guess he must have noticed the deer-in-the-headlamps expression on my face and the way that my jaw dragged along the floor as I encountered a dizzying array of eye disorders and diseases in those early days of my residency; nasty, often bloody, blinding stuff that never looked (or acted) quite the same way as the atlases and textbooks said it would.… Read the rest

PowerPointless in Huntsville

PowerPoint also conditions worshipers to act and react in visceral ways, so that the character of their bodily actions and emotional responses are at times downright Pavlovian. The screen, not the altar or cross, becomes the all-consuming center of attention, an object of intense fixation which triggers predictable reflexes and behaviors. When PowerPoint malfunctions, for instance, people become nervous and lost; they become conditioned to worry that it will malfunction. They find themselves thinking more about the screen and the technician at the soundboard than about the God whom they’ve come to worship and the larger worshiping body of which they are a part.

… Read the rest