Category: Culture
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On Interstellar — and Super-humanity
Read more: On Interstellar — and Super-humanity*Spoilers ahead* ‘We are the bridge!’ ~ Cooper I had been reading Nietzsche for my Christmas/New Year ‘holiday’ reading this year, and when I heard the above line when I caught the last showing of Interstellar (as highly recommended by Jamie Smith earlier on this blog) in the cinema, I had somewhat of a shiver…
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Exodus: Gods and Kings
Read more: Exodus: Gods and KingsWarning: This post contains spoilers. If you want to see Exodus: Gods and Kings (E:GK) for its surprises and twists, best to go see and read this later. Ridley Scott’s latest epic is definitely that. There are plenty of scenes filled with stunning special effects, powerful storm clouds, and confrontations involving characters with wild eyes…
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Why I Don’t Say the Pledge of Allegiance
Read more: Why I Don’t Say the Pledge of AllegianceI’ve debated writing this post for months out of fear of being misunderstood. So before I get into the gist of it all, and before you write me off completely, hear what I’m NOT saying in writing this post. I’m not saying that America is evil or that it is the worst country in the…
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On Movies of 2014 — and Humanity
Read more: On Movies of 2014 — and HumanityMuch could be said about the movies of 2014: from talking about the Biblical adaptions (or from the book of Enoch) of Russell Crowe’s Noah in Noah and Christian Bale’s Moses in Exodus: Gods and Kings, to musing about Scarlett Johansson’s becoming super-human in Under the Skin and Lucy, to making some kind of pseudo-intellectual…
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Christmas Presence
Read more: Christmas PresenceWe just finished watching Home Alone, a Christmas tradition. If you haven’t seen it in a while, please allow me to refresh your memory. Kevin McCallister, played by Macaulay Culkin, is a pint-sized troublemaker, the youngest of five children in a house teeming with relatives all preparing to leave the country in the morning and…
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Anxiously Advent-ly Waiting
Read more: Anxiously Advent-ly WaitingI appreciate the season of Advent – not just for the joy of Christmas parties, decorations, carols, eggnog, gift-giving and receiving, and celebrating the holiday with family and friends, but also for the longing and anticipation that comes with the Advent season. I’m grateful being reminded that the joy of Christmas and the reality of…
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Torture and the Culture of Pragmatism
Read more: Torture and the Culture of PragmatismA couple of weeks ago a US senate committee released a report confirming what has already been old news for a while: the CIA tortured terrorist suspects in its (on-going) attempt to win the “war on terror” and protect American lives from terrorist attacks. On this side of the pond, at least, the news of…
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Don’t Kill the Baby Jesus
Read more: Don’t Kill the Baby JesusMy uncle is a pastor. A few years ago, on Christmas day after sharing an enormous meal and opening all our presents, I asked him what he had thought of our Christmas service. His reply stuck with me. “It was good, other than the fact that they crucified the baby Jesus. You don’t kill the baby Jesus.”…
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There Are Some Things I Just Can’t Tell You About
Read more: There Are Some Things I Just Can’t Tell You AboutThis piece can now be found on The Los Angeles Review of Books. Click here to go to a new, updated version of the article. Thanks for your support of The Two Cities.
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Ferguson, Racism, and Advent
Read more: Ferguson, Racism, and AdventI feel very unqualified to even write on Ferguson and racism and yet I think to remain silent would be even worse. As I wrote in an earlier post, I do not have the best track record when it comes to awareness about issues of race and privilege. And in that blog, I noted that…