Wednesday, September 27, 2006

goooooooogle

just in case you needed another reason that google rules all. i typed in "how many cups are in a quart?" [just to check, i swear...] and there it was! amaaaaazing.

the yelling show

"coming up: the baseball cardinals are doing badly. sad story, or kinda cool?"

i heard this line randomly when the boys were watching espn and i was half-tuning out the yelling [it was PTI today, not the actual yelling show, which is around the horn] to read this pretty awesome blog on notre dame football. i'm always impressed when bloggers are completely on the ball.

and i'm always happy to hear the cards are losing, even if i wish they were losing... not to the astros? maybe everyone in the NL central could just lose?

bahhh words

okay, i don't know if i'd call this moderate... there must be a better word for people who are trying to see all the social causes their faith calls them to support, especially in a typically conservative environment...

sr. helen prejean (of dead man walking fame) blogs on God's politics today. check it out.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

season 2 premiere on dvd

so i'm linking amy sullivan's blog post on john kerry because it's cool and because i haven't seen the speech yet. and i know i have very little perspective and i read just about one interesting blog and one news site. [and sometimes i listen to npr. local politics in pennsylvania, today. or PA, as a certain former roommate would say.] and sometimes i post things on my blog just so i'll remember them later.

what, it's not like you're reading this. er, that is...


"i'm mcdreamy. i'm tall, i'm handsome, i like to lean against things and ponder the difficulties of dating beautiful women." - bailey, dry and perfect. season 2 rules all.

i love it when the cardinals lose, but...

WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH THE ASTROS. i mean, seriously.

Monday, September 25, 2006

potentially the best thing ever.

soooo abc and nbc both have their shows replaying online for free. i'm not saying that it, you know, works well... or that they update it right away... but still.

there's a copyright violation

"is this a joke?"
"we're counting on it."
"no!"

dear aaron sorkin, do you think we've never seen any of your other shows? because we're all watching studio 60 only because we're sorkin fans. only. and you've used at least two west wing lines [government camp, and something about... oh, i forget] and one west wing joke [she forgot the NAMES because she's NEW] halfway through this episode. and there's the talking about someone for a long time so that the other person knows you're in love with them! classic!

do you think that, when you're brilliant, you can quote yourself by accident? i mean, i quote the west wing all the time and i used to think that monica and chandler were my actual friends. so is aaron reacting the way i react when i've watched too much of one show?

it's surreal, though, seeing lines i know delivered by a different character on a different show. and there are several sorkin seasons i've never seen...

Saturday, September 23, 2006

madonna and veggie tales in the same article. maybe she could do a song for them?

okay, i know this isn't the first thing on many of your minds, but there's this controversy over airing veggie tales on NBC without the explicit references to God. the thing i think is interesting is that the creator of the show is being so awesome about it. it's hard to be civil and reasonable when people are tossing around words like "satan" and "apostate" and calling you a sellout - especially when, apparently, all this wasn't your choice anyway. he's standing up for someone else's choice, using the bible (which is really, really important to his audience) to back up his argument, ultimately leaving the judgment up to his critics, and altogether coming off really really cool. you all may know that i don't really agree with the "christians are strangers in this world" stuff that ends this post - i think it can be a really dangerous line of theology, especially when i see it used with young people who already know that there are good things about the world, too. but props for faith and reason, mr. veggie tales creator.

in the nytimes article about this, there's also an interesting quote from madonna about her controversial NBC concert - "I believe in my heart that if Jesus were alive today, he would be doing the same thing." are any of her critics reading this and, you know, respecting it? thinking that maybe she makes a valid point? i'm not saying madonna is my new spiritual director, but i don't really think we can say who God is and isn't speaking to.

i think my favorite grey's is "the self-destruct button" - the one that starts with meredith's roommates finding out she's sleeping with mcdreamy and has all the tiredness and anger and the patient who had his friend shoot him.

Friday, September 22, 2006

charity and justice are the two feet of... something...

"But charity is not justice – that’s where good public policies come in."

favorite things about grey's last night:
1. christina's "he's standing there all mcguilty and all he has to say..." i love christina's constant indignation, and i love how she defends meredith even when meredith is annoying.
2. how everyone in the show is always, always talking about something other than what they seem to be talking about. the patients are all so profound, and the doctors speak in secret codes about their life problems and the people they love... i don't care, i love it. :)

"you are my joy" by reindeer section is still the best song grey's has used yet (season 1, "winning the battle, losing the war") but i loved mat kearney's "all i need" last night.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

baseball?

on the katie couric piece - you can tell which one of them is a well-known writer and speaker and which one is not. "30 million children are living in poverty" sounds better than "more and more people agree with us on the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage," and "america is searching for a new moral center" sounds better than "the center is where you usually find the dead cats and skunks that have been run over." and i don't think it's just because i agree with one

these things scare me:
IDs for voting, so that poor people stop coming to the polls.
christianity forced on the army, because what? yeah, let's separate church and state, except for in the people who fight to keep us free.
i know the nytimes editorial people pretty much play on fear and being bitter mcbittersons, but still.

and i'm not really sure what to say about them reds. i realize that my blog name, once again, is a lie - i haven't talked about baseball, nor have i talked about much except religion and politics lately. grey's update later? smiles?

church parking lots!

"maybe at the very least it'll spark discussion in a few church parking lots after bible study or choir rehearsal." jim wallis (God's politics and sojourners) and tony perkins (family research council) are going to be on cbs evening news tonight. i'm glad katie couric has such a high opinion of this topic's importance. she did say that she's going to start talking about her own faith - anyone know what it is?

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

kick in the butt

oookay, so it turns out that some of the land intended for the anti-immigration wall of america is actually tribal land, and the tribe isn't having it. for lots of reasons - but who sees karma from another time we denied rights to people who are different? anyone?

here's some badass church and politics stuff. i think anti-war is okay, but not so much mentioning candidates. we were just talking about this at lunch - you have to be consistent, not partisan. you have to speak against both abortion and the death penalty.

everyone's going liberal! one of the few things i remember from AP US history is that a midterm election is always a referendum on the current president.

sorry about the generally sloppy writing. i'm off my game.

but i thought the UN fixed everything...

"The intensifying war of words between Iran and the United States reached the floor of the United Nations last night when the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, accused America and Britain of violating international law." well crap.

"If people have a position on something and you try to argue them into changing it, you're going to strengthen that position. If you want to change people's ideas, you shouldn't try to convince them intellectually. What you need to do is get them into a situation where they'll have to act on ideas, not argue about them."
- Myles Horton [from sojourners]

something else you might want to check out from sojourners is jim wallis's God's politics blog. you know, if you're into that kind of thing.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

the aroma of the heart

"Firmly deploring all forms of violence, His Holiness hopes that the blood shed by such a faithful disciple of the Gospel will be a seed of hope to build an authentic fraternity among peoples, in mutual respect of the religious convictions of every one." [zenit]

well, i hope so, too. and i swear, someone gave the pope instructions like "i don't want to turn on the tv tomorrow morning without hearing you talk about your comments." [i think that line's from the west wing. likely? yes.] he talked about it at the UN, it was translated into arabic - and i'm sure this will be the last time he gives an academic lecture that leaves anything unclear.

here's an interesting issue that i heard about today. the movie facing the giants was apparently given a PG rating for "explicit religious content" - or for mentioning depression and infertility, depending on who you talk to. and now they've changed it, i think to "explicit thematic content," which means nothing. obviously many people are saying things like "evil hollywood censors religion more than sex or violence." anyway, it's an interesting issue. should parents be warned that their kids are watching a movie that [again, depending on who you talk to] is either trying to convert them or accurately portraying what christians are like.

you can google your own opinions on this - they're varied. trailer looks good, though.

Monday, September 18, 2006

this is what blogger searches are for

"crusty but benign"
"substituted quality for intensity"
"will eventually be left heart-broken"
"a homerun"
"i'm in love with amanda peet"

and oh man, i love blogging because it led me to this obama article - from this post by a blogger who clearly understands that the best politicians are the good looking ones.

for a little heavier reading, here's the new yorker article on studio 60. thanks, blogfriends.

studio 60

you know what aaron sorkin knows how to do? he knows how to write male friendships. i want to be a guy and be friends with his characters.

i'm a little worried that jordan is too perfect, but you know what? i'm ready to love her.

you may reuse material when you are aaron sorkin. that is all.

[this is an approximate transcript of the conversation i just had with melly. we're freaking out a little bit.]

9/11

it's a little late, but this, i love.



[requiem aeternam dona ets, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ets.]

of note...

couple things:

first, i've been avoiding the pope story, but this is a pretty good summary. [you can find the full text of the address and apologies at zenit.] i mean, i think it's a mistake - not everyone understands professor language, and you just can't say things like that. whether you're visible or not, i don't think you should say anything that could seem to be such a criticism of another religion. but i have some faith in benedict. i get frustrated when people doubt the intentions or motivations of church leaders too much - i mean, they do pray sometimes. they are at least sort of moral.

i know this is an op-ed, but have we seriously not considered talking to the taliban?

“We’re human beings, with the blood of a million savage years on our hands. But we can stop it. We can admit that we’re killers, but we won’t kill today.”
i like this, and i don't even like star trek.

as always, i'm interested in faith and politics and what's going on with this. dear relgious groups, please please be non-partisan. please? and this is both interesting and, well, potentially inflammatory. take it how you'd like...

Friday, September 15, 2006

i mean, he's probably my soulmate

this stranger understands my love of fonts. laur and i have this plan where we're each going to name all our kids after fonts. garamond? lucida? trebuchet? timesey? dinner!

paul and i just watched the boy meets world where shawn and angela break up - but don't they do that a lot in the college years? seriously, i love every boy on that show still. except cory, most of the time.

now we're watching grey's because the disney channel started playing stupid shows, and hello. best show ever and they've made every single person in the universe download "how to save a life" by the fray. life forms on other planets, even.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

this is from a sojourners article about an immigrant woman who is seeking refuge in her church. i was a little confused about the opinion of this writer - he sets up the reasons she should be deported and then counters with her biblical argument. mad props for mentioning isaiah:
Israel's scripture is relentless in its demand that God's people care for the
sojourner. This is not just an obscure law barked by a distant deity-it is a
command rooted in Israel's own experience as a mistreated foreigner in Egypt:
"You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you
were aliens in the land of Egypt" (Exodus 23:9).

and here's the really interesting part, i think:
Mainline liberal churches are not noted for their literalist view of
scripture. Generally it is "conservatives" or "evangelicals" who attend to the
letter of the Bible, and liberals who prefer its "spirit," to gain some wiggle
room out of uncomfortable moral positions like scripture passages on
homosexuality. But in this case the liberals are attending strenuously to the
letter, and conservatives are blithely and arrogantly ignoring it. Perhaps the
very categories "literalist" and "liberal" fail, and we should speak now of
different portions of scripture to which each seeks to be faithful. Some of us
would maintain that we could all be faithful to all of it-as long as we learn
also to forgive each other when we fail, as we will often.
yeah, i think the bible will continue to challenge us more than we think it
will. and i'd say [in a simplistic way, i know] that this is why we have the
church, if only to help us sort out the messiness that comes with this big of a
challenge...

i heart obama

Obama has an important message about the need for Democrats to reach out to people of faith in America and not make concessions to the right-wingers who claim moral superiority.

woot!

i'm not saying that democrats need to co-opt religion, but i also don't think democrats should keep acting anti-religious when they're not. i mean, i think that the democrats have moral superiority on a lot of things. there's no reason to act like we just enjoy being evil people.

What? Friends listen to Amazing Grace in the dark.

i know this isn't much overall, but a few of the ones at the end... wow...

"electricity-based lighting"

from kristen: "i love that it goes 7 paragraphs before the 'disclaimer,' and thencontinues another 500 words." i agree, this is definitely blog material - i mean, is this the times or people magazine?

republicans win by losing. seriously? is this the best case scenario? booo. this sounds like something (no offense, guys) that a conservative frat boy would say, but it still makes me frustrated about the political climate, you know?

"I’m not one of those people who like to blame the French for things, especially now that the French turned out to be so very very right about Iraq, but there’s no question this trend began in France, where they’ve always had a weakness for dessert spoons." ahhh, nora. thanks for this.

i don't know why you all even READ THE TIMES when you could just be READING MY BLOG.

and this, from today's 1 corinthians 7 reading:
If you marry, however, you do not sin, nor does an unmarried woman sin if she marries; but such people will experience affliction in their earthly life, and I would like to spare you that.

hehehehe affliction. laughing out loud in church at that one...

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

and he's in the movie business

mark likes this movie. so should you.

the science of sleep. do it.

and join the facebook group.

i know that you're all convinced because my blog gets so much traffic.

7 days

i haven't seen this yet, but i'd like to, so here you go...

7 days in september on google video.

and there's the politics

from here:
The battle over the anniversary resolution reflected just how politically
charged the day has become.
Congress has passed a resolution every year. In
non-election years, the resolution has simply noted the valor of rescue workers
and extended sympathies to families.
But in election years — 2002, 2004 and
now 2006 — the Republican-controlled House has included language heralding
accomplishments in the war on terror. This time, the Republican version of the
resolution applauded the reauthorization of the legislation known as the USA
Patriot Act, as well as the tough immigration
bill passed in the House.

i MEAN. these things are not related. quit it.

"it is almost like bush is frantic."

i found this interesting:
“I do have a bit of mistrust,” said Mr.
McBride, who said that he twice voted for Mr. Bush but that he is now
disappointed — a sentiment he said is shared by many in his Bible study group.
“The whole thing about W.M.D. and that Iraq is somehow tied to 9/11, I just
don’t believe it.”

and have all of you heard mozart's requiem live? i swear, he worked out his own salvation writing that piece. i forgot to post it last night - don't want you all to think i'm cold and dead inside.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

it's a meta-something

If there is a single quality that separates those in their late teens and early 20’s from previous generations of young people, it is a willingness bordering on compulsion to broadcast the details of their private lives to the general public.

i'm ironically posting this on my blog. see how it is?

crikey!

i love this, from the times:
For Mr. Irwin, wild nature was something to wonder at, and he did so with an enthusiasm indistinguishable from love. Animals — even deadly ones — are good, poachers are evil, and, crikey, that’s pretty much it.

Call that simple-minded, call it dumb, but it resonates. Future environmentalists and conservationists have to come from somewhere, and if the energetic wonderment of the Crocodile Hunter has seeped into the brains of significant numbers of children — as it did that of Sean, who went trick-or-treating as Mr. Irwin last year, who turned 6 with a crocodile cake, who wears khaki and boots and fills notebooks with meticulous drawings of reptiles — then Mr. Irwin used his 44 years remarkably well.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

what's been going on

a few articles for you, friends, on faith-politics-literature-whatever. you know, things i like.

from commonweal, is being spiritual enough? commonweal is always well done, you know? and obviously it's something i've been thinking about and i'm glad other people are also thinking about it and not, i guess, jumping to immediate conclusions about it.

recommended by rose, dappled things. i haven't really looked at it much, and i can't fault it for saying it's orthodox... right? :) [oh seriously, what kind of a person judges things on this basis? who am i?]

[okay, this makes it worth reading.]
If only I could hear His voice, I think,
Uplifted in some strange immortal tune,
I might learn hope amidst my doubt and sin�
But sometimes it's enough to see Him wink.

also, there is some predictability here, but zenit on democracy is pretty interesting. in case you were wondering where a lot of political stuff comes from in the catholic world, or at least one take on it.

and have you heard about google book search and how they put up out-of-copyright books? yes. you have to click on the "full view books" radio button. but you can get the whole thing! and while i don't know if i want to read on my computer all the time, it seems exciting. although i will still stick with adelaide, if only because of their sweet virginia woolf collection. check out "middlebrow" and we can chat about why i wrote my thesis.



"you can't date a vet. he's not even a real doctor."

ang and i just had a simultaneous "awwww" when danny came onscreen. yayy reruns.

more like mcmarried...

i'm watching the episode of grey's where meredith tells her friends that mcdreamy's married, and i love it - he walks up the next minute and starts acting like everything's normal, then meredith storms out, then all her friends block his way when he tries to follow her. like one at a time, all casual-like. they're fabulous. will you guys do that for me sometime? um, if i ever... need it...