Tuesday, July 13, 2004

"Misunderestimated" by Bill Sammon

Well, I guess seeing "Fahrenheit 911" had some positive effect on me.

That, and a discussion on the ezBoard community Have Theology, WILL ARGUE, provoked me to go out and get some books on the Bush administration (I mean, REAL books, not rants and raves by the likes of Coulter, Hannity, O'Reilly or, for that matter, Moore or Franken...)

I tried to pick some that received generally favorable reviews and that contained positive comments (in Amazon) from both sides of the partisan divide. (Man, oh man, was it TOUGH to find four semi-positive books about Bush... :-)

Actually, not all the books I looked at are easy to classify - most giving some type of nuanced evaluation for Bush.

At any rate, I'm starting with "Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, John Kerry, and the Bush Haters" by Bill Sammon, Senior White House Correspondent for the right-leaning Washington Times and political analyst for the more-right-leaning Fox News Network.

I started with it for the same reason you learn to eat your spinach before your desert - it goes down a little better that way :-)

I'm about a third of the way through the book and, to my surprise, am finding it an enjoyable, well-written and informative read despite the author's obvious enthusiasm for George W.

One of the incidents he recounts (so to speak) in the early part of the book is a fund-rasiing talk in Portland, OR where his motorcade was surrounded by maniacle Bush-haters and where he spent the evening (along with the high-rolling speach attenders) under a state of siege.

Ridiculously enough, Bush and his Republican conventioneers were sharing the hotel with "hundreds of homosexual men who were in Portalnd for the Gay Softball World Series".

The protestors, who - according to Sammon - were beyond any sort of reason also attacked and intimidated the gays trying to get to the hotel leading to a surreal discussion between Ari Fleischer and some of the gay leadership commiserating on what a shame it was that everyone just couldn't get along :-)

More reports as I continue through the book, but so far I give it a big thumbs up. (I don't necessarily AGREE with the spin he puts on events, but at least the events are laid out in a clear and even entertaining fashion.

This blog will be posted to both The Salon (in the Kingdom of Morovia) and City of God in The Secular City in Have Theology, WILL ARGUE and we'll see what kind of discussion we can provoke.

Sunday, July 11, 2004

Original Sin

Ah, yes, what better way for a Christian to spend Sunday morning than thinking about sin? :-)

Actually, I was thinking about Original Sin which - at my Unitarian Universalist church - is even more objectionable a doctrine than sin in general.

But it seems to me that sin is putting our own interests first, with the interests of others being somewhere between "second" and "nowhere".

Original sin says that this characteristic attitude is universal - that is, none escape it.

The doctrine of Total Depravity doesn't mean we're all raving sex maniacs or something. It simply means that there is NO ASPECT of human experience that escapes this tendency to sin.

Considered this way, Total Depravity is a useful warning against the idea that SOME aspects of creation (usually some aspects that are near and dear to our hearts, like our church or our nation) are immune from the effects of our fallen nature.

Total Depravity is a good doctrine to remember when President Bush states that America (not Christ) is the light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it (as he did on 9/11/2002 in a speech at the Statue of Liberty).

Friday, July 09, 2004

WIL WHEATON DOT NET

Wil Wheaton writes (in "midnight ravers":

"I know that it's not the first time I've said this, and it certainly won't be the last . . . but I want to thank everyone who has read this lame website over the years, and everyone who supported Dancing Barefoot, and Just A Geek. None of this would have happened without you guys."

I've not been by Wil Wheaton's very entertaining site for awhile and I'm happy to see it's still going strong and that he still finds (well, makes) the time to attend to it personally (rather than by hiring people to ghostwrite it as do some other celebs).

He's a great actor, a great writer and a great human being - and his books can now be found at Amazon.

Check out his blog at WIL WHEATON DOT NET!

This is all new to me...

Attempted to respond to The Standard, the Kingdom of Morovia's newspaper blog and in registering was prompted to create my own blog.

Haven't a clue what to do with it, but I'm sure I'll think of something :-)

Bill Bekkenhuis
bekkenhuis@fast.net

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