Still Eggplant

Darren Barefoot has a really fabulous idea about how bloggers could donate to charities. He suggests that bloggers get together and donate all of their advertising revenue from one day to charity. It would garner lots of attention if done properly. And it would also publicize some great charities/nonprofits.

Let the meme begin!

Technorati Tags: donate, nonprofit, one days take

Yesterday, I did what millions of other people around the world did. I went to see The DaVinci Code. I’d read the book a couple of years ago on a plane trip to Paris. I was engaged by the story, and as a result read the other books Dan Brown wrote. Yes, I agreed with many critics that it’s a horribly written book. But, by golly, it’s a damn good story and a quick read.

That whole story thing is something that’s too often missing from today’s literature and movies. I’m in the midst of reading Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee. In it, he laments the lack of good story in today’s movies. He talks about how literature has gone on from honoring and teaching story to teaching language — what he terms interior vs. exterior aspects of a work of literature (in terms of a movie, he’s meaning the script here). I would agree with that. While Brown’s prose is fairly awkward, he churns out a good story. Even my most snooty of friends have read the book and enjoyed it.

As you’ve probably read, the Church has been a little bit up in arms about the whole Opus Dei portrait in the book and potentially from the movie (though no one had a chance to screen the movie until a few days before it became public). Opus Dei went on a full-on media blitz trying to get people to understand a bit more about itself — to open the kimono a little bit.

But that, to me, is not the huge controversy of the book/film. What it does is it puts a few doubts into the reader’s and watcher’s mind. How did the New Testament get decided? Were there actually competing pictures of Jesus around that time? What happened to all of those other faces of Christ? Does this perhaps explain some of the inconsistencies in the Bible? And, isn’t it entirely conceivable that the Catholic Church would suppress information that would be dangerous to it’s theology?

Basically, this book and movie might make people think a little bit. It might send someone off to research the origins of the New Testament. That’s the truly subversive nature of this phenomenon.

Technorati Tags: Bible, Catholic, Dan Brown, DaVince Code, Jesus, Robert McKee

Click on the link above and find out more about the Persistent Vision Conference. It’s for queer filmmakers, theorists, producers, exhibitors, distributors and anyone else who loves gay/queer film.

David Plotz at Slate is reading the entire Torah (or rather Old Testament to Christians) and blogging about it.

That’s a fantastic enterprise. I’m going to be reading this series avidly whether it takes weeks or months (I suspect it will take months, but that’s just me). I read it when I was in high school along with the bonus section of the New Testament. Reading it all at once made some of the symbology of Jesus make a lot more sense, by the way. But I suspect David will have many of the same reactions I did. Like “Wow! That’s in the Bible?” and “Oh my God! God sounds like an evil person there!” Then there were the moments when I nearly fell asleep with all of the begats and laws and other lists. But then, there were the really extraordinary moments.

It should all be an interesting read.

Technorati Tags: Bible, David Plotz, Slate, Torah

Everybody’s talking about the Democratic Party and its future these days. It looks to be able to get back some control in Congress in the upcoming mid-term elections. But the focus on the party’s prospects has just highlighted the divisions internally.

Technorati Tags: consultants, crashing the gate, daily kos, democratic party, democrats, establishment, markos moulitsas, netroots, powers that be, lieberman

Continue reading Stop the Madness, Please!…