Wonderful Matters

I opened up the newspaper on Friday to see another supposedly stunning revelation regarding the government’s brazen invasion of the people’s privacy. This one has the U.S. Treasury keeping tabs on all of our bank accounts, unbeknownst to us, those scoundrels . The thing I can never understand about all this is why any of this is news. Hey, all of you who actually think you have any privacy, news flash: The government can get any information about you any time they want . What is so stupefying is how dismissive they are of the fact that they themselves make it so this happens. By signing so many worldly contractual agreements, they hand over that "confidential" information and then act startled when the big bad giant creature called The Government has their paw prints all over it. It's even funnier when you see that Treasury Secretary John Snow blithely confessed that when they asked the banks for only a slice of information to follow particular terrorists leads, the bank...

I just noticed that the Dallas Mavericks will face the Miami Heat in this year's NBA Finals series. I don't watch it any more because once pro sports so consumed my psyche that in 1998 I stopped giving any attention to it, cold turkey. Therefore, it was just today I caught which two teams made it. I am somewhat interested in who's playing in the NBA Finals though, because I noticed something four years ago that was quite interesting, and I use this statistical piece to help make my case that pro sports manipulates competitive integrity so that the economic viability of the given sport is sustained. That is, because teams from the larger metropolitan areas can always generate more revenue for the entire league than teams from smaller ones, those larger teams are given certain advantages to aid their success. When the inherent integrity of sports is exploited through such items as free agency, it is indeed no different than giving one team three points per basket whereas the ...

I noticed that tonight there is yet another episode of "To Catch a Predator" on NBC's Dateline . I'd written a blog post about the practice of television network shaming a couple months ago, and I'd like to address a few other things in light of NBC's programming approach here. First of all, is it the thinking of NBC execs that doing this on a regular basis would actually put a dent in criminal molestation? That by sending correspondent Chris Hansen out to bait more of these guys, many of them would stop for fear of walking into the trap? I mean, I really don't know the answer to that question. I do know that unless any given individual does not allow Christ to take out his sin, he is always prone to do all kinds of wretched things. A proficiently wide-spread "Scarlet Lettering" can't change that. Any one molester who Chris Hansen can't stop will still destroy the life of someone. Furthermore, what will NBC execs do when enough people who...

Tonight the NBC News national evening broadcast opened with a tease featuring two successive items: sleep disorders for a large number of Americans, and The DaVinci Code "backlash," what people are saying about the controversial film opening this Friday. I couldn't help but think. People would sleep better if they simply had their full daily compliment of relationship, discovery, and accomplishment . That is, they knew people around them loved them, they saw events that were wonderful in whatever way they happened, and they did things that they were confident made the world a better place. But in the Catholicist Nation, many people put themselves to bed at night with the following in their psyches: They firmly believe that no matter what people around them may say, they are not loved, indeed they may even be targets, by anyone from wild-eyed terrorists to a bitter spouse. Not quite relationship . They witness horrific acts of violence of all types, and if they should...

Right after it was revealed that the National Security Agency is paying phone companies for copies of all of their customers' phone records, using them to look for "patterns" to help them fight terrorism, the Washington Post took a poll and found that 56% said "it was appropriate for the news media to have disclosed the existence of this secret government program." I took this stat from Tim Rutten's media column in Saturday's LA Times. Rutten makes the case that, really, it is up to the people to decide, but gives a great deal of credit to the press as a sort of clearinghouse for what people are to know about government. Thing is, as much as Rutten tries to objectively detail today's conditions of information dissemination, he doesn't admit that he and the media is a critical part of what the government does. He may even think he is an unbias reporter, sworn to serve the public as a check against tyrannical government, but he is actually a pawn i...

Every once in a while I pick up the news monthly Christian Examiner , a newspaper publication that addresses issues of concern to evangelical Christians. It is actually a pretty good paper, and I like to peek around at what they're all thinking about. With the film The DaVinci Code due to come out next Friday, lots is being said about it and across the top of this month's Examiner is a banner headline, "The DaVinci Code: Irreconcilable with Christianity." The instant I saw this I thought, great, another pitiful postmodern concession. The point is that the headline should read "The DaVinci Code: Irreconcilable with Truth ." Instead we make it seem like the film (and book) just don't jibe with our particular brand of religion-slash-philosophy-slash-lifestyle. The fact is, people read that headline and think--as they should--that all the huffing and puffing is merely the result of a spat between clubs. Here's the DaVinci Jesus-was-married-and-had-child...

My latest take on the pandemic Catholicization of the world is at my website The Catholicist Nation . I look at four motion pictures that are out and about, three of which you may see at the temple--or as it is more commonly known, the movie theater; one of which you may view in the convenience of your own home after slipping it into your image and sound machine at your humanist alter--or, okay, better known as the DVD player at the home entertainment center. The films are Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Thank You For Smoking, United 93, and The DaVinci Code . All shout from the rooftops the virulent humanist dogma. Of course, shouting from the rooftops isn't required anymore when you have the temple and millions of congregants in attendance.