Entertainment

Last night Lisa and I celebrated her birthday with dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings and a movie. We saw Amazing Grace (2007,PG) (ScreenIt! Review). We probably would have seen something else, but there seemed to be nothing else interesting showing. The Adam Sandler movie, maybe, but it seemed to be getting tepid reviews. So, we went to see Amazing Grace. It was good...an inspiring story of a long fight for the greater good that finally won out. I also couldn't help seeing parallels with today...talk of lives wasted in a war gone bad and a tendency to allow our principles of decency to be violated in war time (tolerating slavery then...tolerating torture now). From the Wikipedia entry:

Amazing Grace is a 2007 film directed by Michael Apted about the campaign against the slave trade in 19th century Britain, led by famous abolitionist William Wilberforce, who was responsible for steering anti-slave trade legislation through the British parliament. The title is a reference to the hymn "Amazing Grace" and the film also recounts John Newton's writing of the hymn.

I give it 4 out of 5.

Via Mike Cope, this video of Craig Ferguson is worth watching: "Craig Ferguson speaks on his past problems as an alcoholic and why he will not ridicule Britney Spears and her shaved head crisis."

From an article of the same title in the LA Times by Stephanie Simon:

A struggle for control of the evangelical agenda intensified this week, with some leaders declaring that the focus has strayed too far from their signature battles against abortion and gay rights. Those issues defined the evangelical movement for more than two decades - and cemented ties with the Republican Party. But in a caustic letter, leaders of the religious right warned that these "great moral issues of our time" were being displaced by a "divisive and dangerous" alignment with the left on global warming. A new generation of pastors has expanded the definition of moral issues to include not only global warming, but an array of causes. Quoting Scripture and invoking Jesus, they're calling for citizenship for illegal immigrants, universal healthcare and caps on carbon emissions.

The public dispute began with the release of a letter signed by several men who helped transform the religious right into a political force, including Dobson, Don Wildmon of the American Family Assn. and Paul Weyrich of American Values. The signatories - most of them activists, not theologians - expressed dismay that an evangelical emphasis on global warming was "contributing to growing confusion about the very term 'evangelical.' " In religious terms, an evangelical is a Christian who has been born again, seeks a personal relationship with Christ, and considers the Bible the word of God, to be faithfully obeyed. But Dobson and his fellow letter-writers suggested that evangelical should also signify "conservative views on politics, economics and biblical morality."

White evangelicals are more united against abortion than any other religious group, including Catholics, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. A 2005 poll found 15% in support of a total ban on abortion and 53% in favor of only narrow exceptions. By contrast, global warming is deemed a "very serious" problem by less than 30% of white evangelicals, according to a 2006 Pew Forum poll. Less than 40% accept the scientific consensus that human activity, such as burning coal for energy, is responsible for the Earth's rising temperatures.

When he preached recently at a conservative evangelical college, Wallis said, he was besieged by students furious at the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who recently described global warming as a satanic plot to divert Christians from more pressing moral issues, such as spreading the Gospel.

From Boing Boing:

The most awesomest scifi show on television just launched a fun online experiment. The team behind Battlestar Galactica is providing fans with a web clipboard of special effects shots, sound effects and music tracks so they can create their own BSG videos. Executive Producer David Eick will pick the best one, and it will air on the network during an upcoming episode.

While riding the stationary bike yesterday I watched the most interesting documentary that I've seen in a while. It was part of PBS' Independent Lens series titled "HIP-HOP: Beyond Beats and Rhymes." The filmmaker Byron Hurt examines the issues of violence, misogyny, and homophobia in hip-hop and rap music. The musicians themselves tended to make the excuse that they were only responding to market demands, giving the people what they want...or at least giving the record executives what they will pay for. Its sort of a chicken or egg question since we know that marketing tends to shape public demand as much as public demand drives what content companies market.