Books
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Bah. Psycho Christian death cult. Obviously I'm prejudiced, but I didn't think it was a very good story even apart from the annoying specifics. The episode is called "Before the Frost," and is based on a novel of the same name. Aside from compliments to the actors and photographers, I really have only one good…
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W.E.B. Du Bois: The Souls of Black Folk Some months ago I saw a copy of this priced at fifty cents or dollar at a used book sale, thought "I really should read that sometime," and bought it. Well, I was right about that, more or less: I should have read it a long time ago.…
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I watched the second episode of season 3, The Dogs of Riga, a couple of nights ago. I think I liked the first one a little better. This one shared the atmosphere of the other, but is more gruesome and has more action and suspense–several people are tortured and murdered in a rather horrible way,…
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I was vaguely aware of the existence of the series of murdery mysteries featuring this Swedish detective, but have never read one. The local PBS network has begun showing the BBC productions based on them, and I watched the first one a couple of nights ago. I say "first" but it's actually the first episode…
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Here's some actual testimony in support of my view that people do see in Rand's novels something much less sinister than is exhibited in her philosophy as a whole. Following are excerpts from the comments thread on this CNN story, which itself is a pretty conventional view. Just to make it clear: I think Rand's…
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"Because you really do love God," [Caryll] writes to one friend, "your suffering, bitter though it is, is healing the world's sorrow. Don't think of it in terms of what is unbearable to you, but when a specially bad hour ends, even in sheer weariness, think, 'That is a drink of water to someone dying…
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When praying for someone else, I often find it hard to know exactly what to pray for. I pray for the other's salvation, of course, and that whatever is going on in his or her life will bring him closer to God. And surely it's okay to leave it at that. But sometimes I want…
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The Quiet American This is about both the movie and the Graham Green novel. A few weeks ago the movie was shown on one of the cable channels that broadcasts movies uninterrupted (it wasn't TCM, so it must have been Sundance). On an impulse of curiosity I recorded it. I had read the novel some…
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Nobody knew better than Christ that people to whom everday things like holding a job or interacting with another human being are never-ending sources of torture and anxiety are exactly the ones most in need of healing. A guy who hung out with lepers, paralytics, the possessed: this is someone I can trust. We don't…
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The news is not unlike the storm, breeding a mood, feeding anxiety, promising the worst and then rolling off into some kind of electronic distance before hammering us. I attempt to bring some balance to my despair of it with such rationalizations as 'Had it been possible in 1599 or just 99 to report what…
Light On Dark Water 