Jonathan's blog

Feb 6

family movie night = Coraline

Feb 5

New Palin e-mails reveal 'First Dude's' influence in Alaskan government: Nearly 3,000 pages of e-mails th... http://bit.ly/bu6pjt

Content of our character: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stirred up lots of controversy recently when ... http://bit.ly/b6Wf4U

Feb 4

AT&T Finally Lets You Use SlingPlayer with Your iPhone Over 3G - http://bit.ly/cy7rgs

Feb 3

Fists for Jesus - THE WEEK: A small but growing number of evangelical churches are using mixed martial ar... http://bit.ly/c9I8HN

824,000 Jobs Will Disappear on February 5th - Bloomberg.com: TV and Radio: http://bit.ly/drUerB

Websense fail. http://www.tentsandtarps.org/ "This Websense category is filtered: Potentially Damaging Content." #tentsandtarpsforhaiti

Left-right want Obama 'question time': Group launches campaign for regular, televised conversations like ... http://bit.ly/9KfaLJ

BBC News - France refuses a citizenship over full Islamic veil: The French government refuses to grant ci... http://bit.ly/dxqVlc

Obama Acts to Engage G.O.P., Testing Party’s Intentions: The outreach is a marked shift in White House st... http://bit.ly/dlIxcd

1 argument vs "we must do wrong since right doesn't work" is to show that doing right works http://nyti.ms/cLOSll http://bit.ly/a7yeu5

The Greatest of These is Love: Another thought on faith, doubt and Christianity.In I Corinthians 13, the ... http://bit.ly/94dCsw

Feb 2

Getting real about Congress: "No single vote by any single senator could possibly illustrate everything... http://bit.ly/95UPxi

How Reaper would have ended, straight from the creators  http://bit.ly/bO23VN

Feb 1

"Velvet Elvis" by @realrobbell is free for Kindle (or kindle app for iphone or your computer) today: http://bit.ly/cMI2qK

Poll: Republicans Think Obama Is A Socialist, And Palin More Qualified To Be President: A new Daily Kos/R... http://bit.ly/bd44FW

Faith and Doubt After "The Cognitive Turn": In my second class on doubt at church I focused on what I cal... http://bit.ly/9FoCCn

Palin PAC Spent More On Books Than Candidates: Ex-AK Gov. Sarah Palin's (R) PAC spent more money buying c... http://bit.ly/aFlIeJ

watching Big Love jump the shark. too many wacky plot threads this season

Today we watched Coraline (2009,PG) for family movie night.  From ScreenIt!:

A lonely and bored preteen discovers a tunnel in her new house that leads to an alternate reality where most everything is the same, save for attentive parents who have buttons for eyes and want her to join them there.

Finn needed some convincing ahead of time about watching a movie that had people with buttons for eyes.  We convinced him to give it a chance.  The boys enjoyed it.  Finn said, "It wasn't scary.  It was creepy.  Indiana Jones was scary."

I give it 4 out of 5.

Tonight I finished watching Body of Lies (2008,R).  From Screen It!:

A Middle East based CIA field operative clashes with his supervisor back in the states as the two try to find and stop a terrorist ringleader.

We started it last weekend.  Lisa gave up on it pretty quickly with all of the non-stop gunfire at the beginning.  She missed the romance in the middle before the violence returned at the end.  It was OK...reminded me of The Kingdom. 

I give it 3 out of 5.

"Do you ever get the feeling that you want to tell everyone in the whole world that you love them?  I usually feel like that - kind of all soft in the tummy like milk."

Saginaw, MI, was recently named the most violent city per capita in the U.S. (link), keeping alive its 6-year run at the top.  Flint, Detroit, and Pontiac all made the top 11.  The news about Saginaw sparked a couple of local college students to publish the following comic in Delta College’s student newspaper:

From the Saginaw News (link):

The comic in question depicts a person making visits to Midland, Bay City and Saginaw. After receiving gifts of art and alcohol in Midland and Bay City, the character travels to Saginaw and is handed a bag of drugs by a man in a black mask.

“Welcome to downtown Saginaw. We have the most violent crimes in the U.S.,” the comic strip reads. “Here’s a bag of drugs to thank you for stopping by.”

In the next frame, the masked man pulls out a knife and says: “OK, now give me all your money ... and drugs.”

Among those outraged by the illustration is Rev. Larry Camel, co-founder of the city outreach group, Parishioners on Patrol.

“It’s very negative,” Camel said. “We’re going to be talking out about it because it’s racist. It’s really a slam on Saginaw.”

Camel said the black bag slung over the cartoon criminal’s head represents black people.

Marchlewski Bachleda pointed out that, while the bag is black, there is no color in the criminal’s skin.

Camel said he and other religious leaders in Saginaw may visit Delta on Thursday to address the issue.

“We want to nip this in the bud,” he said. “We don’t want this reputation.”

Hmmm.  The F.B.I. has named you America's most violent city 6 years in a row, and you're worried a comic in a college newspaper might ruin your rep?  Well then, raise a ruckus.  What do you know?  The story ends up featured in the popular online column of The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto (link) and thousands of readers across the nation read about your dubious honor from the F.B.I.  Yep, your reputation is safe now.