Jonathan's blog

By now you've probably heard about the autistic high school kid Jason McElwain who got a chance to play in a game and in three minutes sank six three-pointers and another shot, for a total of 20 points. You can read the stories and watch the videos at CBS News and ESPN. It's a feel-good tear-jerker.

On Tuesday I finished watching A Walk to Remember (2002,PG-13). The portrayal of a character with faith that wasn't compromised was interesting, but ultimately the cheese factor was too heavy. I give it 3 out of 5. From wikipedia:

A Walk to Remember is a 2002 film set in mid-1990s Beaufort, North Carolina, based on the eponymous 1998 novel by Nicholas Sparks. The movie stars pop singer Mandy Moore and Once and Again actor Shane West. The movie was directed by Adam Shankman and produced by Denise DiNovi and Hunt Lowry. The movie was critically panned but was embraced by the respective fanbases of both actors. It began the movie career of Mandy Moore. The movie revolves around the lives of two opposite Beaufort High School teenagers: the daughter of a Baptist minister, Jamie Sullivan (Moore) and a jaded, aimless high school senior, Landon Carter (West).

If you want to do so, it's a breeze to find a multitude of reasons to be depressed. Folks in Nigeria and Iraq murdering each other daily in the name of religion. Yesterday, Travis Stanley posted some excerpts from a NY Times article about the on-going genocide in Sudan. Yesterday I read an article about Uganda by J. Carter Johnson from ChristianityToday.com:

Sixty years after Allied soldiers liberated the Nazi death camps, the world stands silent in the face of another holocaust-one so horrifying that U.N. officials call it "one of the worst human-rights crises of the past century." The perpetrators commit atrocities with such malevolence that even the most irreligious people familiar with their acts describe them as "unrestrained evil." The targets of the butchery are children. They rape, mutilate, and kill them with a rapaciousness that staggers the imagination. Worse, they compel children to kill one another and their own families, fighting as "soldiers" in an armed force deliberately composed of children. Perhaps the greatest atrocity is teaching these children that they spread this carnage by the power of the Holy Spirit to purify the "unrepentant," twisting Christianity into a religion of horror to their victims. It is spiritual warfare at its very worst, and it could not be more satanic.

The Lord's Resistance Army (what a name) is to blame for the atrocities in Uganda. The most depressing thing is that it is hard to imagine what can be done to fix these problems. Here are the suggestions from the ChristianityToday article about Uganda:

The people most familiar with LRA terrorism agree that the best hope for ending the carnage is putting it on the radar screen of the Western world. Akello Lwanga, a physician, spent two years treating LRA victims at an internally displaced persons camp in Pader. "If Americans saw this on TV as often as they see the Middle East," he said, "it would stop." "People need to see what's happening in northern Uganda," said U.S. ambassador to Uganda Jimmy Kolker. "The suffering of these children is unimaginable. Absolutely, it is important for the public to know about this as a step toward bringing it to an end." Ordinary Christians can help stop LRA terrorism. Presenting the issue to churches, continuing in intercessory prayer over the conflict, donating to Christian agencies that work with Ugandan children, and pressing government officials for action all work to save LRA victims. Michael Oruni, director of Uganda's Children of War Rehabilitation Center, told CT he was urging Christians to get involved: "Imagine your own child taken away, being raped as your family is killed in front of your eyes. If it were you, what would you feel like? "Kids in Uganda-kids just like yours-are taken every night and enslaved, raped, mutilated, murdered. You can make a difference. Talk to your government. Help us."

According to a Reuters article on MSNBC.com, it looks like Jamaica is going to get its first female prime minister, Portia Simpson Miller. From the "Worldwide Guide to Women in Leadership," a summary of the current female heads of state and government:

There are 191 members of the United Nations and a few independent states outside. 17 have got female leaders. Of the monarchies, there are reigning Queens in Denmark, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom - and the latter is represented by female Governor Generals in Canada, New Zealand and Saint Lucia, who function as their countries' de-facto Heads of State. The 5 female Presidents are in Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Liberia and The Philippines. And a President-Elect in Chile who takes office in march There are also 5 woman Prime Ministers; in Bangladesh, Germany, New Zealand, Mozambique and São Tomé e Princípe and women are designated to take over as chiefs of government in both Jamaica and The Netherlands Antilles.

Today I finished watching Sunset Boulevard (1950,NR). From Wikipedia:

It stars William Holden as down-on-his-luck screenwriter Joe Gillis, and Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, a faded movie star who entraps the unsuspecting Gillis into her fantasy world in which she dreams of making a triumphant return to the screen.

I was enjoying it quite a bit as the plot thickened but then felt like it lost all of its steam at the end, so I give it 3 out of 5.