Monthly Archives: March 2006

Friday Fundamentals in Film: Luther

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This week’s movie might be controversial for some since it looks at the events leading up to the Protestant Reformation by dramatizing the life of Martin Luther. Though I’m not Lutheran or Catholic the interpretation I got from Luther is that it was about a man trying to save his faith, not start a new one. Even without the spiritual context, however, this is a compelling story of a basically timid and politically naive man trying to stand up for what he thought was right against incredible pressure and then trying to come to grips with the consequences of his actions.

It is also a very well made movie featuring an all-star cast that includes Joseph Fiennes, Peter Ustinov in his final movie, Alfred Molina and Bruno Ganz (who I loved in “Wings of Desire”, the German movie that was the basis for the Nicholas Cage/Meg Ryan “City of Angels” movie.) The movie is briskly paced (sometimes too briskly as you might miss the significance of some statments and political explanations) with evocative scenery and settings that really communicate the era.

As the movie was about Martin Luther you can expect that Pope Leo and the cardinals don’t fare well or have much chance to present their positions sympathetically, but the movie appears to take pains to present Luther’s conflict as being with the leadership of the church and not with the faith itself. Indeed, just as the early Jews who followed Christ still considered themselves Jews, not Christians, it occurred to me that Luther and his followers would still have thought of themselves as Catholic (or at least catholic). From my experience and observation, the faithful of every religion and denomination have to constantly be on guard against elevating the traditions (and “wisdom”) of man over the word of God, and the compelling part of this story for me wasn’t Luther resisting the Catholic hierarchy but resisting his own inner fears and self-doubts so that he could later rise against his physical fears and doubts.

Luther is an inspiring and thought-provoking movie that will stay in your mind for days after you see it.

Questions to answer:

  1. What was the stumbling block for Luther in his understanding of God at the beginning of the movie? How and when did this begin to change?

  2. Fr. Johann von Staupltz was Luther’s “spiritual father”. What do you think his purpose was in sending Luther first to Rome and then to Wittenberg?

  3. What was Luther’s original intent when he reported the practice of selling indulgences to the Pope? What led him to believe the practice was wrong?

  4. What is the disturbing realization that Prince Frederick the Wise experiences when Rome sends him a gilded rose? What does it change, and why?

  5. Dr. Carlstadt claimed he was a supporter of Luther, yet his objectives were ultimately something different. Describe.

  6. Who said, “Before I let anyone take from me the word of God and ask me to deny my belief I will kneel and let him strike off my head,” and what was the significance of that statement at that time?

Points to ponder:
Consider the turmoil and violence in Germany after Luther left Worms. What, if any, similar schisms do you see in today’s world? Are the differences spiritual or political at their core? Why do you think so?

Great Quotes:

  • “Those who see God as angry do not see him rightly, but look upon a curtain as if a dark storm cloud has been drawn across his face. If we truly believe Christ is our Savior, then we have a God of love and to see God in faith is to look upon his friendly heart. So when the devil throws your sin in your face and says you deserve death say, ‘I admit I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know one who suffered and made satisfaction in my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, son of God. Where He is, there I shall be also.'”
  • “I am Yours. Save me.”

Road Trip!

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I’m baaaack….

Did you miss me? Or did you even realize that I was gone?
Never mind, don’t answer that.

Anyway, last Saturday two of my cousins and I took a road trip to Galena, IL. We took our time driving and stopped in Dubuque, Iowa for the first night where we had fun trying to find somewhere to eat. Lindsay was driving and we somehow managed to end up in a little maze of backroads that were mostly one-ways. Oh, it was also really dark. We finally ended up at a Ground Round. Yay, us!

When we got to Galena the next day the first thing we saw was a Walmart. That just seemed wrong to me somehow.

Anyway, we drove down a cute little windy road, checked in to a cute little B&B, and went to check out Main Street. Which was cute.

There were so many shops, even I was almost overwhelmed, but not quite.
Main St. had three chocolate shops, and one candy shop which also carried chocolate. We visited all of these at least 3 times. I bought some truffles for myself and my parents, and I got Tiger Lilly some Oreo Bark. She was happy. Souvenir shopping was pretty hard when it came to guys, though. Galena is very girly.

We ate lunch one day at Vinny’s Italian Bistro, and it was really cute. The food was good, too, and there was quite a lot of it. We didn’t eat dinner that night.

We took some time just to drive around the cute little neighborhood, and we saw one house that had the top of a church steeple sticking up out of their back yard. It looked kinda weird and I took some pictures of it, so if they turn out I’ll post them.

So, in conclusion, Galena is a very cute town, and I ate too much chocolate and spent too much money. Yay, me!

Hail the longly-weds

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I’m leaving for Missouri tomorrow so I can celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of my Uncle Bob and Aunt Joyce with the rest of my family. I’ve got a lot to do today before I leave however, including finishing tomorrow’s Fundamentals in Film offering, so this may be my only post today.

My kids call Uncle Bob “Uncle Bubba” and they love visiting Aunt Joyce because they get to make homemade doughnuts and other treats. To me though they don’t seem old enough to fit the picture I have in my mind of what people married 50 years look like; they’re just people I’ve known, literally, all my life. If I do the math however it adds up irrefutably and reminds me that my own parents will hit their golden anniversary at the end of this year as well. No doubt there are a lot of profound things to say about the times and seasons that go into this accomplishment, and no doubt these will all occur to me over the next couple of days. For now, though, I’m simply reminded of a poem by Leah Furnas that I came across last year and set aside.

The Longly-Weds Know
That it isn’t about the Golden Anniversary at all,
But about all the unremarkable years
that Hallmark doesn’t even make a card for.

It’s about the 2nd anniversary when they were surprised to find they cared for each other more than last year

And the 4th when both kids had chickenpox
and she threw her shoe at him for no real reason

And the 6th when he accidentally got drunk on the way home from work because being a husband and father was so damn hard

It’s about the 11th and 12th and 13th years when
they discovered they could survive crisis

And the 22nd anniversary when they looked
at each other across the empty nest, and found it good.

It’s about the 37th year when she finally
decided she could never change him

And the 38th when he decided a little change wasn’t that bad

It’s about the 46th anniversary when they both
bought cards, and forgot to give them to each other

But most of all it’s about the end of the 49th year
when they discovered you don’t have to be old to have your 50th anniversary!!!!

“The Longly-Weds Know” by Leah Furnas, from To Love One Another © Grayson Books.

Bob and Joyce also made an appearance in this post from last spring.

I must protest (though you probably won’t hear about it)

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Oppressed by your corrupt, immoral, lying government? Angered by intolerance, prejudice and hostile legislators? Then take it to the streets where your passion and cause can be covered by the media for all the world to see!

As long as it’s the right (or left) passion and cause, of course.

In the days where people riot in France to protest work rules for jobs they can’t get in the first place and illegal aliens in the U.S. rally to be treated like the citizens they aren’t, others are left to suffer and protest in relative silence. As MacStansbury points out:

While you were at the rally for illegals, here’s some other things you missed out on, some other stuff you could be protesting:

There was a pro-freedom of expression rally in London. In a country with a constantly growing Islamic population, this was a demonstration of a disparate group of people who were united in the idea that a cartoon is no reason to set a city on fire.

Speaking of cities on fire, “Protesters confront police at Belarus rally.” A line stolen from Gateway Pundit: I believe they are talking about these protesters here. Publius Pundit has the full story of the people resisting a hardline government, and being attacked, physically, for it.

Speaking of getting the full story, see that picture over there? Freedom Folks was the first to point out the Minutemen who were attacked at an Indiana protest. I can understand how you would miss this one, since it was a mutual fight. Right?

Not according to the pictures. More rant-y goodness from our in-house ranter.

While the big money coverage was in LA, somehow everybody glossed over another rally of 25,000 Christian youth in San Francisco. Maybe you missed it because, in the words of Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), “they’re loud, they’re obnoxious, they’re disgusting, and they should get out of San Francisco.”

And, finally, you probably never head about Guillermo Fariñas Hernandez. No, you haven’t heard about him. It’s too painful to hear. He is a man, starving himself for freedom.

Where he protesting the Evil Capitalist Bush Adminstration™, he’d be on the cover of every magazine, every newscast. But he isn’t calling for the troops out of Iraq. No, he is voluntarily starving himself for freedom…in Cuba.

If Mark Leno were a conservative politician in a major city in a red state and his “they’re loud, they’re obnoxious, they’re disgusting, and they should get out of San Francisco” statement had been about illegal aliens instead of about a Christian group (Ron Luce’s “Battle Cry for a Generation”) the story would lead the news for days and probably lead to further protests.
Or not. Perhaps Leno, if he was a conservative, would merely be dismissed as a harmless, lone flake? (And wouldn’t it be fun to hear a group take up a chant such as, “We’re Loud. We’re Obnoxious! We’re in your Face!”) Oh, but wait a minute, Leno is an official in San Francisco, the same city where the city’s Board of Supervisors offered an official resolution condeming the Christian rally, describing it as an “act of provocation,” intended to “negatively influence the politics of America’s most tolerant and progressive city.”

Where is the outrage? Where are the two-minute TV news segments from the sober-faced blow-dry-flies on “The New Intolerance”? Instead, you heard nearly nothing outside of a pretty even-handed article in the San Francisco Chronicle. It’s an illuminating read, with photos that portray an interesting contrast between the “Battle Cry” protesters and counter-protesters.

European vacation, or international incident in the making?

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Later this spring we’ll be taking the whole family on a 3-week trip to the U.K. and Europe. About all we know right now are our departure and return dates and times and that London’s Gatwick airport will be our portal coming and going (I moved quickly to take advantage of a short-term offer that leveraged my frequent flyer miles). Plus we’re timing our trip so that we’ll be in the vicinity if Uncle Ben needs to be bailed out of jail.

Beyond that we don’t have a firm, or even gelatinous, itinerary. Negotiations are ongoing. I thought all along that what we’ve been talking about is a trip to England and Scotland, but now the girls want to see Ireland too, and the Reverend Mother is saying since we’re that “close” she wants to see the Champs de Elyse, the Eiffel Tower and Greece, and she’s heard that Geneva is really nice, too. I will admit to a desire to visit the Normandy beaches and surrounding area. My deepest desire, however, is to not have to set a pace that takes us to 42 cities in 20 days. Pray for me.

I spent a semester in England back in ’79 with stays in Falkirk, Scotland and Paris so I have a comfort level with getting around and we have a couple of good guide books, but I’m open to travel tips and suggestions from folks who have more recent experience. What are your thoughts on 3 1/2 Britrail/Eurail passes vs. renting a vehicle big enough to haul the Mall Diva’s luggage and paying the cost of “petrol”? Know any nice cottages or B&Bs slightly off the beaten path but still conveniently located to attractions? Is airfare on the Continent as reasonable as we’ve heard? What is the prevalence of wi-fi? (I’d like to bring my laptop and blog our trip, but I don’t want to carry the extra 5 pounds around if I can only log-on twice.) Do you think we’ll get to Paris before they burn it down?

And then there were 31,499,999

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Kathy at the Cake Eater Chronicles blog is going on hiatus. As Doug notes, she’s not the only one to fall away or at least take a step back lately:

We had Mr. Sponge closing down his previous blog to start Minvolved.com, only to quit Minvolved.com when creepy stalkers made it less fun than he’d anticipated.

We have Gerry Daly who’s Daly Thoughts blog had been promising his imminent return since last December 13.

We’re about to put Swiftee from Pair O’ Dice on a milk bottle.

The MAWB Squad has been out of action for weeks.

And we STILL have no word from Whiskey at Captain’s Quarters.

Let’s face it, the bitch-goddess of the blogosphere is an angry mistress. She chews you up and spits you out on a daily basis offering only enough tantalizing promise of reward to draw you close enough for her to take the next bite. People who get into blogging because they think they’ll become successful in monetary or popularity are doomed to crash and burn.

I share Doug’s regret at Kathy’s decision as well as his understanding of why she’s doing it. And I most certainly understand Doug’s confession of his own thoughts about backing away from the keyboard. I think the “How much longer can I do this?” question keeps a suite in the back of your mind whether you’ve been blogging for three years or for a week. As he noted, money and fame are scant and I’ll add that the hours can be long and notoriety capricious: you can work hours or even days in perfecting a post that reflects your passion and best powers of persuasion and not even draw a flame in your comment box, and then the next day the toss-off piece of drivel or fluff that you put out because you had to write something gets ‘lanched around the world.

I’ll disagree with Doug about the bitch-goddess of the blogosphere, though; I think she’s simply oblivious, not angry. She endlessly repeats the Tralfamadorean greeting, “Hello. Goodbye. Hello. Goodbye,” while keeping the merry-go-round rotating as we jump on and off. (As those on Tralfamadore also say, “And so it goes.”)

So, why do we continue? What benefits have I gained from the last 13 months of amateur punditry? They are surprisingly tangible.

Friends.

My wife and I were talking the other day about how many people we’d have likely never met and come to know if not for blogging; people who have added things into our lives and also given us the opportunity to add into others. (It has also given me the unexpected benefit of re-connecting with friends from long ago, and the Mall Diva has picked up a couple of big brothers – a foreign experience she otherwise would have missed out on.)

I suppose the same thing happens if you join a quilting club or take up any new hobby or sport, but the very nature of blogging means we get to know others on a more profound level than most casual acquaintances. I also suppose these people would continue to be my friends if I quit blogging (and some day we will find out), but I hope it’s not too soon.

I also enjoy the mental exercise, the chance to test and challenge my own thinking and ability to articulate, and to wake up in the morning without a clue of what I will write about that day and then seeing what has turned up by the time I log off that night. Still, it is wearing and would grind my bones but for the “cartilage” provided by the new relationships I’ve made.

Coming from NFL Films: March of the Poison Pill

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Cue the John Facenda music (Bwa-dup bwa bwa ba ba bwa-dup bwa bwa) and voiceover:

“There was no March wind to blow through the Board room like a blitzing linebacker, yet the woolen-clad warriers huddled behind their laptops and lattes, squinting with steely eyes at spreadsheets and rosters while their wingtips pawed restlessly at the thick carpet. Normally there is a kind of brotherhood between the personnel directors and caplogists even though they are men who wear their team colors in silk around their necks. Though the grunts and screams of the playing field are replaced for them by the clicking of calculators and the ringing of cellphones, they know what it is like to be bloodied, to see the red ink pooling at the bottom of a ledger and they share the mutual respect of all those who wield the long knives. But not this day as two teams that didn’t like each other squared off: the purple Norse raiders against the predatory birds with their hawklike eyes on the ledger. This time there would be no talk of pensions or pinot noir, but of poison pills and guaranteed money. This time it was personal as they fought in the trenches for the prime real estate known in the NFL as cap space.”

So the Vikings tricked up an unmatchable offer to get restricted free agent and prize left guard Steve Hutchinson from the Seattle Seahawks and then the Seahawks turn around and do the same to get Nate Burleson away from the Vikes, even going so far as to make the total dollars in their offer identical to what the Vikings paid Hutchinson. I guess that’s an accountant’s way of saying “in your face” and you can bet there’s some playful towel snapping going on in the ‘hawks corporate locker room tonight.

Net it out, though, and you essentially have a trade where the Vikings get Hutchinson and a third-round pick for Nate Burleson and you’d have to say the Vikes got the better end of that deal even though Burleson is a talent. What you also have is the Vikings with, unofficially, a first round pick, two seconds and two thirds in this year’s draft as a result of recent deals. They’ve also indicated they’re looking at packaging some picks in order to move up, ostensibly for a chance to draft one of the top three quarterbacks (or, in my opinion, linebacker A.J. Hawk). If they are thinking of making a trade for a QB, however, I’ve got a better and cheaper option for them than going after Leinert, Young or Cutler.

Trade a second and a third or whatever combo it takes to get Matt Schaub from the Falcons. Originally a 3rd round draft pick two years ago, the kid can flat out play and is probably a better quarterback for the Falcons system than Michael Vick. He’s big (6′-5″, 235 lbs.), runs well (he just looks slow compared to Vick) has a strong arm and best of all has shown poise even in his rookie year. He’s also played in nothing but the West Coast offense going back to his college days at Virginia. His salary this year is $385,000, and he already has NFL regular season experience (including 3 TDs and nearly 300 yards against the banged up Patriots last season). I’ve liked him for awhile but didn’t think the Falcons would even consider parting with him until I read this. It won’t be cheap to get him in a trade, but he’d still be a great value.

Any of the top three college QBs is going to cost $20 million and take at least a year to develop. Schaub could compete for the starting job this year and, based on what I’ve seen of him in two regular season and one pre-season game, “gets it” better than Mike McMahon, though they are similar players physically.

Granted, I don’t have the film resources of the Vikings brain trust, but it’s a lot more interesting to think about him playing for the Vikings than it is to read about board-room grudge matches.

What Monty Python can teach us about manly wines

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Oenophile Doug at Bogus Gold laments the absurdity of certain winemakers trying to market “manly” Merlots. I’m sure Doug was well below the legal drinking age in 1972 when Monty Python released the definitive description of macho vintages, but you’d think the wine industry would know its own history. As with Perth Pink, the message is, “Beware.”

Australian Table Wines
A lot of people in this country pooh-pooh Australian table wines. This is a pity as many fine Australian wines appeal not only to the Australian palate but also to the cognoscenti of Great Britain.

Black Stump Bordeaux is rightly praised as a peppermint flavoured Burgundy, whilst a good Sydney Syrup can rank with any of the world’s best sugary wines.

Château Blue, too, has won many prizes; not least for its taste, and its lingering afterburn.

Old Smokey 1968 has been compared favourably to a Welsh claret, whilst the Australian Wino Society thoroughly recommends a 1970 Coq du Rod Laver, which, believe me, has a kick on it like a mule: 8 bottles of this and you’re really finished. At the opening of the Sydney Bridge Club, they were fishing them out of the main sewers every half an hour.

Of the sparkling wines, the most famous is Perth Pink. This is a bottle with a message in, and the message is ‘beware’. This is not a wine for drinking, this is a wine for laying down and avoiding.

Another good fighting wine is Melbourne Old-and-Yellow, which is particularly heavy and should be used only for hand-to-hand combat.

Quite the reverse is true of Château Chunder, which is an appellation contrôlée, specially grown for those keen on regurgitation; a fine wine which really opens up the sluices at both ends.

Real emetic fans will also go for a Hobart Muddy, and a prize winning Cuivre Reserve Château Bottled Nuit San Wogga Wogga, which has a bouquet like an aborigine’s armpit.

Challenging Word of the Week: pecksniffian

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Pecksniffian

(pek SNIF ee un) adjective



This wonderfully expressive word is applicable to any hypocrite endeavoring to impress upon his fellows that he is a person of great benevolence or high moral standards. It comes from a character named Seth Pecksniff, in Martin Chuzzlewit (another great name) by English novelist Charles Dickens (1812-1870), who described Pecksniff as having “…affection beaming in one eye, and calculation shining out of the other.” The American writer and critic H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), in The American Language, called Philadelphia “the most pecksniffian of cities.” He was quite the inventor of words; for example, bibliobibulus, menaing “one who gets drunk on books” (biblio-, as in bibliophile, plus bibulous, addicted to drik): “There are some people who read too much: the bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as other men who are drunk on whiskey or religion.” This passage is from his Mencken Chrestomathy.





From the book, “1000 Most Challenging Words” by Norman W. Schur, ©1987 by the Ballantine Reference Library, Random House.



My example: The candidate’s call for impeachment was a blatantly pecksniffian move to energize potential supporters.



I post a weekly “Challenging Words” definition to call more attention to this delightful book and to promote interesting word usage in the blogosphere. I challenge other bloggers to work the current word into a post sometime in the coming week. If you manage to do so, please leave a comment or a link to where I can find it. Previous words in this series can be found under the appropriate Category heading in the right-hand sidebar.

That left a mark

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Sometimes humility hits you right between the eyes.

Yesterday I went up into our garage attic to get a few small things I needed. I get into the attic by pulling down a panel in the ceiling to reveal a segmented ladder/stairs, the bottom third of which pivots so as to reach the garage floor. After retrieving my items I descended again with these carefully balanced in my left hand.

Refolding the ladder and closing the attic is usually a two-handed operation, but I did’t want to set anything down so I used my right hand to refold the bottom section, then shifted my grip to the bottom of the panel so I could hoist it back in place. In so doing, however, the lower section of the ladder began to swing out and down again. That was not what I wanted to see, but I quickly repositioned my right hand so that it grasped one of the steps in the ladder.

Unfortunately, in my haste, I grabbed one of the fixed steps in the ladder, leaving the hinged section to continue its downward arc, which I witnessed up close and personal-like as the lowest step gracefully impacted my forehead, smack between my eyebrows — which for the next few days at least will look like one long eyebrow.

Sweet magic 8-ball, I should have known that would happen. I seem to have escaped serious damage (there’s a reason why the forehead bone is the thickest one in your skull) but my brain hurt the rest of the day. Serves it right for falling down on the job.

(Create your own Einstein message here. H/T Uncle Ben.)