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Day: September 15, 2010

Tough Love

September 15, 2010 / / 0 Comments

In an address by Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk to members of the Nicean Club at Lambeth Palace a couple of days ago. (The Nicean Club is a group of Anglicans who seek to strengthen relations between Anglicansim and the Orthodox churches.)

Why do the Churches, both East and West, still remember the Fathers of the Nicean and later Ecumenical Councils with such gratitude? Why are the great theologians of the past, the opponents of heresy, revered in the East as ‘great universal teachers and saints’ and in the West as ‘Doctors of the Church’?  Because throughout the ages the Church believed it to be her principal task to safeguard the truth. Her foremost heroes were those confessors of the faith who asserted Orthodox doctrine and countered heresies in the face of new trends and theological and political innovations …

All current versions of Christianity can be very conditionally divided into two major groups – traditional and liberal.  The abyss that exists today divides not so much the Orthodox from the Catholics or the Catholics from the Protestants as it does the ‘traditionalists’ from the ‘liberals’. Some Christian leaders, for example, tell us that marriage between a man and a woman is no longer the only way of building a Christian family: there are other models and the Church should become appropriately ‘inclusive’ to recognize alternative behavioural standards and give them official blessing. Some try to persuade us that human life is no longer an absolute value; that it can be terminated in a mother’s womb or that one can terminate one’s life at will. Christian ‘traditionalists’ are being asked to reconsider their views under the slogan of keeping abreast with modernity …

… we feel that many of our Anglican brothers and sisters betray our common witness by departing from traditional Christian values and replacing them by contemporary secular standards. I very much hope that the official position of the Anglican Church on theological, ecclesiological and moral issues will be in tune with the tradition of the Ancient Undivided Church and that the Anglican leadership will not surrender to the pressure coming from liberals.

It is a longish address, but well worth reading. I doubt many Anglicans will.

What’s Wrong With Machete

September 15, 2010 / / 1 Comment

I like a good action movie.

I suspect that the action movie demographic is primarily us rednecks.

Liberal hippie types seem to like nancy movies like The English Patient. I watched that. I even tried to like it. But for heaven’s sake…

Then there was Sex and the City, Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, Steel Magnolias, etc, etc, etc, ad infinitum. Meaningful stuff, apparently, about relationships and stuff.

Us blokey conservative types like movies where things actually happen, where there is a story.

So Machete, which features Danny Trejo and Robert de Niro, should be a must on the viewing list. Maybe not a blockbuster, but a solid box office performer.

Nope.

Unfortunately, Machete is another example of a Hollywood director forgetting why people pay money to go to the movies.

To be entertained. Not to be lectured.

I’m not the only one who thinks so:

“Machete,” which opened nationwide Sept. 3, is as politically charged as a film can be without the words “Michael” or “Moore” attached. It doesn’t just argue in favor of letting illegal immigrants become U.S. citizens. It paints politicians who support enforcing the borders as cold-blood killers, sub-humans we should squash like insects.

And that’s … OK. My biggest beef with the film is that it’s borderline awful. Being a right-leaning film critic means you get used to absorbing film messages that clash with your own principles. You see it, note it, and then move on.

Yep. There are lots of well made films with political messages I don’t like. There are even video games with messages I don’t like, but still play.

I love Flower, for example. That is about as nancy a game as you’ll ever find. You are a petal, floating about bringing colour to tired landscapes, setting windmills in motion, etc. But it’s fun.

But no film can be fun when everything grinds to a halt every few minutes so one of the characters can nag you about how dreadful America is, and how it should let anyone in who wants to come, granting them full benefits and rights of citizenship.

Note to Australian directors: If you want people to watch your films, stop nagging!

She Wants to Look Attractive

September 15, 2010 / / 0 Comments

She goes out of her way to look attractive. Her employers reward her for looking attractive.

But woe betide any man who finds her attractive.

NFL security officials are investigating the conduct of New York Jets players after complaints by Reporter Ines Sainz that players wolf whistled and hooted at her when she interviewed team members in their locker room.

This is she:

Ines Sainz Annoyed at Men Looking at Her

So let me get this straight.

A woman who goes out of her way to look attractive to men goes into a locker room where men are getting changed, having showers, etc, and then is outraged and her feelings hurt because some of the players whistle at her?

This comment from Lori Ziganto:

She chooses to look attractive. She wants to look attractive. Being attractive is, in fact, part of her image and it is actively pursued by her employer and Sainz herself. Yet, we are to be outrageously outraged – when men find her attractive? Here’s an estrogen-insider secret for all the politically correct, totally aghast at human nature people: most women want to feel pretty and they want to hear you say it. Hence, her clothing that accentuates all her, um, “positives.” It doesn’t make men evil and it doesn’t somehow magically remove the woman’s ability to do her job.

Teachable Moment: If you truly don’t want to be ogled and whistled at, don’t, you know, go into a male locker room sporting a camel toe.

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