Wonderful Matters

Last night Barack Obama gave his first State of the Union address, a celebrated affair in which he boasted about what a great president he is at fixing things. It was peppered with lots of Americanist platitudes meant to inspire, and I guess there's that. I just wonder if he's so Johnny-on-the-spot ready, willing, and able to make this country oh-so-wonderful again, what is it precisely that he's going to do that gazillons of potentates through the ages have failed to do already? How'd he get so wise? I didn't exactly hear that part. Ironically this is the week the finance bigwigs from all corners of the globe are gathering at the Davos pow-wow to hash out economic things. If there was a place where the truly helpful wisdom would emerge, this has to be it. But, yeah, they've been having it every year for however long. We still had bad bad economic things happen very very recently, certainly since their last meeting. Oh well. As I browse all the World punditr...

I saw Avatar last night with my two sons, and after hearing everyone who's seen it offer up the quite elaborate response of "Wow," I can see why they say that. I could go into great detail of every item of note regarding this groundbreaking picture, but I just want to briefly touch on two things. One is about the production itself, and the other is about something in the story. First, the production. The 3-D effect has certainly come quite a long way. It has become so advanced that many more films, particularly those with the kinds of special effects that were in this one, will be adopting this format. The key thought I had regarded the boundary of our vision, that is, the 3-D effect was limited within that rectangular box. In some sense I felt I was watching a motion dynorama, you know, like those scenes you'd create in the second grade with the cut-out shoebox containing little plastic figures and cotton and pipe-cleaners. Avatar was just like that except every...

A whole lotta Christians of some renown have gathered to issue an official proclamation of their desire to continue to do things their way no matter how much the federal government hints that they comply with them. It's called the "Manhattan Declaration," and it says three key things. One, we won't refuse to yell against abortion. Two, we won't refuse to yell against same-sex marriage. And three, we won't refuse to keep yelling. That last one was really an insistence on religious freedom, but what it really means is that they want to keep doing their thing and at the same time keep getting nice tax breaks for being otherwise good obedient tax-exempt non-profit congregations. Sadly, if these people were truly heeding Christ's words they wouldn't have to make such a proclamation. All they'd have to do is live out Christ's words . They'd then blow away so many people that seen in all His glory would be Christ, instead of a batch of off...

I recently read an economics piece about the opportunity cost of a certain Christmas tradition. The writer--some young financial wonk somewhere--lamented the abject inefficiency of gift-giving, going into great detail about the real value of the practice. His argument went something like this. Aunt Gladys gets you a $50 sweater when she really could just hand you the $50, at which point you could get what you really want. But because she gave you something you really don't  want, the value to you is no higher than $30, graciously considering that even if you don't really like it, it may be serviceable for having on when picking an avocado off the tree on a mildly chilly morning. So it's not just $0, let's grant that it is something. Making a valiant attempt to think like an economist, he concedes that there may indeed be a value to the simple fact that Aunt Gladys got you a gift, and tacks on another $30 for that, making the value $60. (If he were to be even more pr...

Last night I finally went to see 2012, the film with the boffo special effects of the utter destruction of the earth. There has been lots of water cooler talk about whether or not the world will actually end in 2012 like the Mayans supposedly said it would. I'd even noticed a number of books on the shelf at Borders all about how justified the concern should be. Whatever. The one book I read about all things significant is the Bible, and it pretty much has everything right there. It categorically says that the world as we know it now will indeed end . When that is only God knows. Sure he gave us some hints, but none of them amount to enough for anyone to say things like, "Yep, there it is, it'll happen on December 21st 2012 yessiree..." The one thing that is for sure is that God will hold on to those covered by the blood of His Son, and whatever value that has for anyone depends on whether or not they simply put their faith and trust in Him. When you watch this...

I was recently amused by a headline in the Los Angeles Times, but it was certainly not surprising considering the media are simply the spokesholes for Cain, indeed themselves a vibrant part of the World System's decision-making processes. Sometimes, though, your attention can be drawn to the folly revealed in their pronouncements. It seems that all the money used to bail out important people "appears" to be paying off. It  appears that things are getting rosier for important people. The article does mention a lot of things that are not going well with the bailout plan, but hey, it's best if things appear to be going well. But this is the World speaking. Treasury Secretary and once New York Fed President Tim Geithner once said that the appearance of a powerful financial institution and its activity is most important for sustaining confidence, calling it "theater." At least it's entertaining! Never mind that it is actually real . Never mind that pe...

Yesterday's New York Times' featured front page story was about how close the U.S. is to being unable to service its debt. It's no big deal when that punky kid who always asks for lunch money keeps putting off paying it back, as long as he coughs up some interest every once in a while. It starts to get dicey when he can't even do that. It gets really scary when the lender is a big mean Asian dude. Front page story. In top World megaphone holder The New York Times . I turned on the news this morning to check out the expansive coverage of this quite boggling progression of events. Guess what the networks featured at the top of their 7am morning-show news? Barack Obama has all the information he needs to make and then announce his new strategy regarding Afghanistan. As I watched the newscasters (and I flipped to two different networks to catch essentially the same thing) blap about how valiant Obama and his "war council" ( their term) have been to stay o...