Category: Media

You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out!

Tis the season for the Sojourner Class at our church to watch some Christmas movies and try to unpack a few spiritual lessons. Last year, we spent a few weeks watching It’s a Wonderful Life, and so far this year we’ve viewed and discussed clips from Miracle on 34th Street and The Bishop’s Wife.

christmas_story_c.jpgThis Sunday we’ll be watching A Christmas Story. As you might recall, that’s the one where little Ralphie Parker (played by Peter Billingsley) sets his heart on the mother of all Christmas presents: “an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle, with a compass in the stock and ‘this thing’, which tells time.”… Read the rest

Evidence of Humanity on Planet Earth

It’s been quite a week. If you’re like me, you might be feeling a little world-weary.

We’ve had increased violence and more death in Iraq, more nuke aspirations in the Middle East, a ratcheting up of pre-election rhetoric and shenanigans, a “botched joke,” and now a nationally renown evangelical leader who admits that he bought meth but “never used it” and called a gay “escort” for a “massage” but “no sex.” And if all that weren’t enough, we only had 10 trick-or-treaters stop by our house.

Enough quotation marks already! All in all, it’s enough to make you want to crawl back under the covers.… Read the rest

I Am Not a Prude. Am I?

churchlady1.jpgI am not a prude. Nor am I a teetotaler. Not even close. I believe God made the body– “and it was good.” I would have made a horrible Gnostic.

Still, some of this made me blush (be sure to watch the video clips and Joe Beam’s interview with MSNBC’s Lester Holt–who, by the way, attends the Manhattan Church of Christ).

A necessary and overdue corrective to the church’s longstanding “bury thy head in the sand” approach to human sexuality or just a little too much information, thank you very much?

Like a lot of things, I guess, it depends on who you talk to.… Read the rest

Hoover High Lights

om.jpgWhenever we Alabamians hear that our beloved Yellowhammer State is in the news, our first reaction is to usually to cringe–“what now?”

Well, for better or worse, Alabama has made it again, this time in the form of MTV’s “Two-a-Days” a reality show which documents the fortunes of the Hoover High School (near Birmingham) Buccaneers football team, winner of four of the last five state 6-A football titles and the current preseason #1 in the USA TODAY Super 25.

We know a little something about Hoover High up Huntsville way. Our Grissom High Tigers are usually the ones who make the first round of the state playoffs only to be served up as Buccaneer bait.… Read the rest

Correction–It’s the Doughboy!

Thanks to Scott Freeman, we now have some new information to mull over this morning regarding the Burger King-Antichrist connection.

In the comments section of yesterday’s post, Scott chimed in with this pearl:

“You know the founder of Burger King was COC right?”

I replied:

“Get out of here! Really? No, I wasn’t aware of this, but that does thicken the plot considerably.

Well, now that you’ve piqued our curiosity, we’re waiting with bated breath to hear more. Do you happen to know if he was premillenial or amillenial?”

Then he shot back:

“I may be wrong. But during my first youth ministry gig I worked with a former missionary to Brazil.

… Read the rest

Is He the Antichrist?

creepyking-775233.JPGThere is much ado about what day it is, you know, that day. And of course, the discussion invariably comes around to who is the Antichrist. A long list of famous people have been nominated over the years, but as I survey the cultural landscape these days, a leading candidate to me is that creepy monarch fronting for the international fast-food chain, Burger King.

There’s already been a good expose written on “The King” elsewhere, and many other scary details can be found here. Despite the fact that I rarely eat there (I prefer to receive a month’s worth of fat and cholesterol over the course of at least 15 days as opposed to one sitting, thank you very much), I just can’t get this guy out of my mind.… Read the rest

Dear NPR–Look No Further, I’m Your Man!

radio_microphone.jpgDear Anonymous National Public Radio (NPR) employee,

Thank you for stopping by Ocular Fusion at 1:49:04 PM on Thursday, June 1, 2006. I noticed that you didn’t reach my blog via a referring link such as a search engine or another blog. That probably means that you either had my site bookmarked or perhaps emailed to you by one of the many talent scouts whom you’ve no doubt commissioned to scour the highways, byways and backwoods of America for fresh, emerging commentators and writers such as yours truly.

I’ll try to overlook the fact that you didn’t browse through any of my posts and that my stat counter indicated that you stayed approximately “0 seconds” before moving on.… Read the rest

Search Me!

pat down.jpgI’m really not begging for a pat-down or anything like that. It’s just that folks who Googled a topic like “Huntsville High prank” or “Nancy Grace and Churches of Christ” are being caught up in the “rapture” and transported from my old site to Ocular Fusion 2.0.

If you’re one of those chosen ones, then rest assured that the article that you’re looking for is here. You can always use the “Search” function located at the bottom of the sidebar if need be, or just click the links above.

I’ve noticed that many are coming here looking for pictures of the Northwestern University women’s soccer team’s hazing party.… Read the rest

The Great Golf Conspiracy

In a brilliant display of investigative reporting, the paper of record, The New York Times, discovered recently that the CEO of Morgan Stanley, John Mack, is maneuvering to place certain golfing buddies on the board of directors.

Coming soon: the NYT’s blockbuster report on the late Pope John Paul II’s suspected dabbling in (gasp!) Catholicism!

Obviously, the Gray Lady’s reporting of a story which is, well, so obvious, is deserving of a send-up of the highest magnitude. For that task, there’s no better person for the job than my favorite sports commentator and writer, Frank Deford. Mr. Deford is rightly concerned over this development and it’s impact on our country’s future.… Read the rest

Calling All Angels

“Sometimes God calms the storm. Sometimes he lets the storm rage and calms the child.”

–from a memorial plaque at Goshen United Methodist Church, Piedmont, Alabama

She emerged from the church ruins–split beams and shattered bricks, bits and pieces of altar and broken pew, palm leaves and dust-covered hymnals–all strewn about like Lincoln logs carelessly dumped by a child. Her left eye was nearly swollen shut, and she moved clumsily through the rubble, still dazed and unbelieving. In her right hand she clutched a palm frond like the one she had waved the day before in commemoration of Jesus’ arrival. But Jesus had not come–only a strong, swirling wind, a falling sky and the bewildering fog and acrid aroma of senseless death.… Read the rest

Monday Morning Musins’

The weekend has come and gone, and things are, well, different, than they were just a few days ago. For one thing, we are back on daylight savings time and although I awoke at my usual “rise and shine” 5:30AM the clock says it is actually 6:30AM, and therefore I don’t have my usual amount of time to write and post. So, in the interest of time and our short 21st century attention spans, I’ll go about this in bulleted fashion. If you sat through an Hour of PowerPoint at church yesterday, please accept my apologies beforehand.

  • Nancy Grace has given up on her Church of Christ cult hunt (not enough “traction” apparently) and has turned her keen journalistic eye and prosecutorial Death Ray from the Winkler case to the Duke Lacrosse Team
… Read the rest

Dr. Eyeguy, Culture Warrior

When I woke up yesterday morning, I was just regular “Mike the Eyeguy.” But then I went and wrote a post on Nancy Grace and the Church of Christ, grabbed my cuppa morning Joe, and settled into my usual rut and routine, expecting just another typical day.

Soon massive internet search engines kicked in, sorting through the roiling blogosphere for terms such as “Winkler,” “Nancy Grace and the Church of Christ,” “Church of Christ cult,” and “Rube Shelly, psychology.” By the dozens, they treked to my humble “basketball and life blog” which on a good day receives around 50 “hits,” just enough to maintain a modicum of respectability and convince me that I’m not completely wasting my time.… Read the rest

Nancy Dear, I Have One Word For You

The Church of Christ blogosphere has been abuzz the past week since one of its own ministers, Matthew Winkler, was tragically shotgunned in the back by his wife in Selmer, Tennessee. She has confessed to the crime and a motive, but so far only authorities close to the case know what she said and to date they haven’t shared that information with the rest of the world.

Of course, that doesn’t prevent folks from speculating on the “why” (after all, these things must make sense, right?) and everyone from the greeter at Wal-Mart to such paragons of journalistic excellence and integrity as Nancy Grace has their own theory.… Read the rest