First Word

I found this movie a bit annoying the first time. Fortunately, I saw it again. It has grown with every viewing. Now, it is Butler index material.

A youngish couple live in a small apartment, and they have taken on the husband’s mother as well. The tension between the two women (more…)

For the last half-century, Americans have exhibited a genius for putting opposite parties into control of Congress and Presidency.

Even the exceptions prove the rule. (more…)

A romance/crime thriller in the manner that only Bogart and Bacall ever truly mastered. (more…)

This movie began as a silent, then the producers decided to switch to sound. Some scenes are still silent or pseudo-silent (voices without need to lip sync). But one can watch it as comfortably as a normal talkie, as most of the scenes, and all the critical ones, have (more…)

Alfred Hitchcock silent, based on Noel Coward play.

The opening title, “easy virtue is society’s reward for a slandered reputation,” declares the theme of the movie.

Larita (Isabel Jeans) is falsely but understandably accused of adultery by alcoholic husband. Convicted in court, she tries to start over, but can she escape the hideous past? is the question.

Undoubtedly meant as a critique of bourgeois morality, read: hypocrisy. This is a favorite theme of twentieth century playwrites. (more…)

On the occasion of a colossal failure of judgment, immoral behavior or abortive attempts to achieve certain goals, politicians, business leaders and even clergy often utter the words, “I take full responsibility.” These words, fine in themselves, are rarely followed up with resignations, terminations, restitution, discipline or any other action which gives evidence of taking responsibility. In fact, after these magical words are incanted, the failures and sins of those who recite them are deemed to be, by both the utterer and many of the hearers, purged away and removed as far as the east from west. And the hapless man who dares ask for more than words is labeled a nitpicker, a malcontent, a Shylock after his pound of flesh.

Upon analysis, the words, “I take full responsibility,” when used in such a way, mean nothing of the sort. Rather, a string of phonemes that sound like the otherwise meaningful sentence, “I take full responsibility,” has been vocalized. As such, the sounds are as vacuous as the men who utter them.

Distasteful as it is, we are approaching yet another election season.

At least, no one can plausibly suggest, “we just need a few more Republicans to get the job done.”

Since 2001, the Republicans have owned both houses of Congress and the Presidency. The Supreme Court is now 7/9 Republican appointees.

• Row v Wade is still firmly ratified
• Government spending is higher than ever
• Yet another cabinet department has been created
• That department, the Heimatsicherheitsdienst, is laying in place everything the Gulag was about, just waiting for the implementation.
• Two wars have been waged that cannot be defended by Christian just war theory.
• War has been declared against an abstraction (The War on Terror); war has not been declared when we actually go somewhere and kill people.
• A citizen surveillance act has twice been passed, with the insulting “Patriot Act” given as its name.
• The President has repeatedly told falsehoods about the grounds for his wars, lied about the extent of citizen surveillance, and thumbed his nose when questions about constitutionality are raised.
• For the first time in American history, the use of torture is openly discussed and defended.

In short, we stand and watch in horror at what the Republicans are turning our country into.

To be fair, however, we need to recall the previous decade.

• Row v Wade was still firmly ratified
• A bunch of unpopular religionists were incinerated at their gathering place in Waco, Texas.
• The President adulterously abused young girls in his administration
• Then, he lied about it.
• Miss Lewinsky’s War was waged, equally unjust as the Bush Wars, but even more shameful because waged against a Christian, European nation.

In short, we stood and watched with a sense of shame at what the Democrats were turning our country into.

That is our choice this November: Shame, or Horror.

You are not shirking your Christian duty if you opt out of having to make this choice.

This is the second sequel to the original sensational crime thriller silent of 1922. Like the original, it was produced by Fritz Lang, after he returned to Germany after a wartime stint in Hollywood. At least five more were made, and a couple spin-offs.

The first three (if not all) the Mabuse films are “revelation of the method,” i.e. they are crime stories in which the super criminal, Dr. Mabuse, is successful by playing with people’s heads. And the way he plays with people’s heads is laid right out there.

The name “Mabuse” (pronounced: mah boo’ sah) is generally unknown in America, but in Germany evidently has the same kind of recognition as “Frankenstein” here, evoking both a character and a concept.

This one is done more after the fashion of a Ray Chandler mystery, with lots of false leads and confusion created: who is the victim, who the perp? who naive, who self-conscious? is the voyeur admirable or not? is an act heroic if it was manipulated from start to finish? is the supernatural involved, or just mind games and exploitation of people’s weaknesses?

It can be enjoyed as pure entertainment, or as food for thought.

Full title: William Lane Craig. Time and Eternity: Exploring God’s Relationship to Time (Wheaton (more…)

This is a biography of Cole Porter, the great popular song writer of the first half of the 20th century.

The story is framed by a theater scene which sets up the rest of the movie as a flash-back, and the framing idea is rather clever.

This is not enough to rescue the story, however. The life of this debauched epicurean (more…)

1. Every airport is perpetually undergoing major renovations.

2. In the past, check-in was usually a disagreeable experience due to the surly agent awaiting you behind the counter. But at least she was a homo sapien. Now you have to deal with a surly automated check-in machine.

3. The routine physical by the family doc in a closed room can be a bit embarrassing. The routine strip search conducted by the TSA thugs in an open arena is psychological torture. (more…)

It turns out the expression “Ecclesia reformata semper reformanda,” though often imputed to the Reformers, was probably never enunciated by them at all. At least, no one has been able to give me a citation.

Here is an invitation to the world: send me a documentable citation, and I will reholster my revolver.

(One internet doctor claims Voetius, but could not give a citation in response to my email query. Not that Voetius counts as a Reformer anyhow.)

Let’s think about the slogan. I give my dynamic-equivalent translation: “The Reformed Church should continually be formed again” (lit. “is always to be reformed.”)

If the expression were merely saying that all councils and creeds are in principle subject to err, (more…)

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.

– Aristotle

In the end, more than [the Athenians] wanted freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free.

– Edward Gibbon

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary

– H. L. Mencken

Sometime back a non-Christian friend asked me to explain my general political and cultural outlook. Because of the position I was arguing for she mistook me for a libertarian. Below is my reply. It is somewhat simplistic, but since she was unfamiliar with some of the basic teachings of Christianity I wrote it intentionally so.

Please forgive this lapse into autobiography. The aim of First Word is to be issue-oriented not personal. But some feel for the outlook of the writers on this blog may be helpful in orienting those who have no familiarity with us.

One last thing. I write in sweeping terms which often lack nuance and qualification. Understand that I have no particular person in mind nor do I believe there are no exceptions to my generalizations. I am also aware of my own hypocrisies regarding many of the things I write. (more…)

Since we are well into another tedious election cycle and are subjected to non-stop political propaganda some wisdom concerning an overused and often misused word is refreshing.

 ”My country, right or wrong” is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying “My mother, drunk or sober.”

– G.K. Chesterton (more…)

When encountering adherents to Eastern Orthodoxy, the issue of authority is pivotal.  Orthodoxy and Rome agree, at least formally, with Protestants on at least this much: God is the final authority and only he is in a position reveal himself to mankind.  Thus if we are to know anything about him –– or, indeed, anything about ourselves and the world around us –– he must reveal himself to us.  The doctrine of divine revelation necessarily plays a central role in all Christian traditions. But where is this revelation to be found?  The Protestant answer is summarized in the Westminster Confession of Faith:

“Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of His will, which is necessary unto salvation.  Therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal Himself, and to declare that His will unto His Church; and afterwards for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the Church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing; which makes the Holy Scripture to be most necessary; those former ways of God’’s revealing His will unto His people being now ceased.” (more…)

It is about time a clear and articulate defense of torture was made.  Watch this pundit give one tightly reasoned argument after another.  When finished, chances are you will be pro-tort too.

Japanese animé. Fairy tale/romance.

DVD includes choice of English voice-overs, so you don’t need to read subtitles and listen to the Japanese staccato.

Full of beauty both natural and personal. Really enjoyed this. Good entrée into animé for Western movie viewer.

A Noel Coward play.

This is the original chick-flick; and a chick-flick in its most evil incarnation.

Married woman with successful but boring husband meets boyish and romantic doctor in train station.

They meet again…and again.

It is 1945, so nothing actually happens (though it comes shockingly close). But she wants it to; sort of; well, not really; but maybe; yes; no; well if you really love me.

The writing pours it on with things chicks love:

• The Man with an exuberant exposition of his calling — “you’re just a boy!”
• Man competently helps Woman (he gets the speck out of her eye).
• He confesses that something irrational has happened; then demands that she admit to the same.
• He wins her over by a gush of words.
• She gets to “surrender”– several times– but yet always gets to qualify it by her inner “reluctance.”

Noel Coward eventually came out of the closet as a homosexual. Weininger was also homosexual, who had explained the theory of the masculine as “interpreting the henids” of the feminine. There is some primal truth to this theory. But in the hands of a homosexual, it becomes perverse. There is too much insight into both sides of the divide, but with a twist: or should I say, twisted.

For purely historical and sociological reasons, some may want to view this.

(1) The metric system is statist.  It was imposed during the French Revolution.  Almost every other country in the world was “forced” to accept the metric system over its indigenous units of measurement.

(2) The Revolutionaries knew what there were doing.  They knew that the way a society measures things is very much a religious practice.  Look at the attempted calendar reforms of tyrannous governments.  The Soviets moved away from a seven-day week.  The French revolutionaries did something similar (each 30 day month had three ten-day weeks ending with a rest-day, the decadi).  The calendar was revised to begin the year count with the beginning of the Revolution.  Look at the use of “CE” and “BCE” in academic literature.

(3) Aside from religious motivations, centralized states used imposed “systems” to rule over their serfs more efficiently.  They love numbers and statistics and use these to further enslave their populations.  The bureaucratic state must be resisted at every level. (more…)

Jon Stewart reports on a disaster that the Feds heroically averted.

In response to the transcendental argument for God’s existence (TAG), Michael Martin has offered what he calls the transcendental argument for the non-existence of God (TANG).¹ Before responding to the details of his argument, some understanding of TAG is helpful.

TAG asserts that only the Christian worldview provides the necessary preconditions for the intelligibility of human experience. That is, only the Christian view of God, creation, providence, revelation, and human nature can make sense of the world in which we live. So, for example, only the Christian worldview can make sense out of morality since it alone provides the necessary presuppositions for making ethical evaluations, namely, an absolute and personal Law Giver who reveals His moral will to mankind. It does not make sense, however, for the atheist/materialist to denounce any action as wrong since, according to his worldview, all that exists is matter in motion. And matter in motion is inherently non-moral. That is, since the world according to the materialist is totally (more…)

Today the city of Philadelphia passed a no-smoking ordinance, thereby joining numerous other states and localities that have already done so. 

The libertarian criticism emphasizes property rights. Specifically, if the owner of a tavern wants to allow or forbid smoking, or find a third way that makes both kinds of customer happy, then he should have the right to do so based on the right of ownership. 

There is certainly some validity to this criticism, provided it is hedged in, in a way that a strict libertarian would not approve of. I do not think, for example, that a restaurant should be allowed to set up a booth where, for a small fee, customers could sniff glue. And I would sustain my opposition to this even if it could be shown there was no harm done to non-participants analogous to the “secondary smoke” phenomenon of tobacco smoking. (more…)

According to a report by British Parliamentarians (Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry Into Antisemitism, September 2006), an anti-Semitic incident is one in which a person’s actions are “perceived” to be anti-Semitic by the “Jewish community.”  In other words, it does not matter whether somebody’s speech or actions are anti-Semitic, it only matters whether they are perceived to be anti-Semitic by Jews.  So like Berkeley’s world, to be is to be perceived.

This reminds me of a scene from Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall.”  After a tennis match Allen asks his partner:

“Did you hear what that guy we were playing against said to me?” 

“No, what.”

“I asked him if he ate yet and he said: `No. D’you? Did Jew eat? Jew?’  “How could he say that?”

Norman Finkelstein offers a fuller analysis of the Report.

In a previous article I overviewed the history and theology of Eastern Orthodoxy. In this article I shall expose some of the common fallacies that Eastern Orthodoxy apologists commit when arguing for their position.

1. The first it what I shall call the Antiquity Fallacy. This is the fallacy that appeals to the antiquity of a position to prove its truth - the older the position, the better. This type of argument is fallacious because the age of an idea or position is irrelevant to the truth of it. There are innumerable positions that are at the same time ancient and false just as there are many discoveries that are recent and true. And so to assert that one’s theological perspective is true on the basis that it has been around longer than any other view (assuming that it can be factually established) is to use flawed reasoning. Thus even if Eastern Orthodoxy has antecedents that pre-date any other tradition - and this is something that is runs counter to the historical evidence - it does not follow that Eastern Orthodoxy is true. (more…)

The execution of the law is the life of the law

All societies, whether savage or civilized, have norms which govern the intercourse between men. Law is unavoidable. When two are more people live in proximity to one another some standards of conduct must be recognized, even if tacitly, if they are to experience (more…)

Framework hypothesis advocates are sensitive to the related charges that their interpretation of Genesis 1 is novel and that this novelty is, at least in part, due to making concessions to modern scientific timelines of the age of the earth. The charge of novelty is a serious one. If the framework view is so apparent in the text of Genesis 1, as some advocates have contended,¹ how could the church have missed it for so many years? This is tied to the next question: why is it that this view of the text did not arise until after the arrival of modern geological, astronomical and biological theories of the age of the earth?

In response to these questions, the framework proponents trump Augustine as an example of an early advocate of the view. Henri Blocher, for example, contends, “… the framework theory, is not, as is too often imagined, an innovation of the modern age. Augustine…constructed a brilliant and startling interpretation of the days in De Genesi ad litteram.”² Lee Irons is even more adamant. “The framework interpretation in its modern form builds upon Augustine’s view and is in fundamental continuity with it.”³

The claim that Augustine’s interpretation is a precursor of the framework hypothesis is highly contestable, but for the sake of argument, let’s assume that Augustine’s interpretation of Genesis 1 is indeed a forerunner to this view. This granted, the claim that the framework hypothesis is novel is proved false and the suspicion that it arose in order to allow the Bible to comport with modern scientific dogma is less credible. (more…)

Because epistemology is at the heart of apologetics, and because there continues to be significant disagreements between men over epistemological questions, the apologist must begin with a clear and firm understanding of his own position as a Christian–in particular, his distinctive Christian conviction touching matters of epistemological importance. If he is muddled or mistaken about these basic issues touching on the Christian faith, he can hardly raise a clear and effective defense of that very faith. He is more likely to resort to argumentative tactics which do not epistemologically comport with the system of truth he seeks to vindicate.

- Greg Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic

Throughout the history of the church, apologists and theologians have adopted (sometimes consciously, but often unconsciously) epistemological views from pagan and secular sources in an attempt to defend the truth of Christianity. But as Greg Bahnsen has warned us, these epistemologies need to be investigated in order to discover whether they comport with Christianity. Sadly, this has rarely been attempted and thus Christian apologists have rarely had a completely biblical epistemology with which to defend the faith.

Though many examples could be cited, I will illustrate the problem of employing non-Christian epistemologies in apologetics by examining the traditional Roman Catholic approach as represented by Thomas Aquinas and a compromised Reformed approach as represented by Charles Hodge. (more…)

With due credit to Lewrockwell.com on Sept. 12 for this line:

Eek, there’s a Mexican Southerner Spaniard German Japanese Russian Korean Vietnamese Arab under your bed.

Part paean, part apologia, part theater of the absurd.  The “great Americans” who listen to Hannity and religiously watch “The Factor” may take this book seriously.  Few others will. 

Here are some surprising things that are justified or glossed over in this volume:

How imperialistic crusades that only benefit big petro, big pharma, the industrial-military complex, and the criminal regime quarted in Tel Aviv are justified on ”national security” grounds.

How $2 billion per day deficits and lax monetary policy have “jump-started” a sustained economic recovery that our grandchildren will enjoy (provided that are not drafted as cannon-fodder in the current Hundred Years War).

How increased funding for Planned Parenthood through Title X and the allocation of grants to the W.H.O.’s African sterilization program is consistent with Christian principles of family values. (No surprise here; G.W.’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, was the Treasurer of Planned Parenthood, New York.)

How pushing for corporate money grabs such as CAFTA and the FTAA is consistent with U.S. sovereignty.

How the Department of Homeland Security, empowered by the “Patriot” Acts, only resembles the German Stassi (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, lit. “Ministry for State Security”) on paper, but is no actual threat to our civil liberties.

The book could be excused if the authors left the impression that they were laughing as they wrote it. Propaganda with a wink and a wry smile can be entertaining if handled adroitly. Unfortunately one soon realizes that the writers are as serious as TSA officials frisking down nine month old babies at air port terminals (an outrage my youngest child was subjected to).

After finishing the book, one comes to realize that he should not, excuse the paraphrase of our Malaprop-in-Chief, misunderestimate the Bush cult’s ability to disassemble.