parresia

Tolkien's accolades

Lord of the Rings' Oscar Merit

Congratulations to Peter Jackson and the entire cast and crew of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. In my opinion they deserved all eleven of their Oscars, plus some. There should have at least been a 12th, I think it was a shame that Sean Austin was not even nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Samwise Gamgee.

Let’s remember that very very easily the adaptation to film of Tolkien’s epic masterpiece could have been a disaster (just look at what Lucas did with the SW prequels). Jackson, the writers, the cast, and crew were all so devoted to staying true to “the spirit” of Tolkien, and that’s what shown through most clearly. I’m thrilled that the public’s influence was able to convince Hollywood of it’s true Oscar merit.

anti_semitism

A note on “the passion” surrounding The Passion

For one reason or another there are many who are worked up about the latest “Christian” movie. One of the issues that I find somewhat interesting is the accusation of anti-Semitism being levied against the movie makers (more truthfully against the Roman Catholic Church), which evidently has replaced the Pope with a new spokesman: Mel Gibson.

The Biblical record is rather clear:

11Meanwhile Jesus stood before the [Roman, Gentile] governor, named Pilate, and the governor asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?" "Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied. 12When he was accused by the [Jewish] chief priests and the [Jewish] elders, he gave no answer. 13Then Pilate asked him, "Don't you hear the testimony they are bringing against you?" 14But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge--to the great amazement of the governor. 15Now it was the governor's custom at the Feast to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd. 16At that time they had a notorious prisoner, called Barabbas. 17So when the crowd [of jews] had gathered, Pilate asked them, "Which one do you want me to release to you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?" 18For he knew it was out of envy that they had handed Jesus over to him. 19While Pilate was sitting on the judge's seat, his wife sent him this message: "Don't have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him." 20But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed. 21"Which of the two do you want me to release to you?" asked the governor. "Barabbas," they answered. 22"What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?" Pilate asked. They all answered, "Crucify him!" 23"Why? What crime has he committed?" asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, "Crucify him!" 24When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. "I am innocent of this man's blood," he said. "It is your responsibility!" 25All the people answered, "Let his blood be on us and on our children!" 26Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.

As you can see the historic record reveals not a berating of the Jews but rather a true life account of a crowd of people (mostly Jews) who were swayed by the rhetoric of the Jewish leadership such that they called for the crucifixion of Christ. It was not the Jews alone that killed Christ, but also the Roman government who aided and facilitated the execution. The Christian response to claims of anti-Semitism on account of the crucifixion of Christ has always been that though the Jewish leaders were the principal agent (with the Roman government as a willing accomplice) in Christ’s crucifixion, it is mankind that ultimately bears the responsibility for killing Christ.

Some other facts
It’s matter of historical record that the majority of the people actively seeking Christ’s death were Jewish people, under the influence of the Sanhedrim (Jewish leadership). However, today, people making the anti-Semitic accusations seem to overlook a glaring simultaneous fact: not all Jews were actively seeking Christ’s death; in fact, the vast majority of Christ’s followers were indeed converted Jews. Moreover, there were some Jews who at most were neutral in their opinion of Christ, or had no opinion of Christ at all. The text itself refers to “the crowd” gathered there, not each and every Jew alive at that point.

Further, it is not unimportant to recall that Christ’s crucifixion was not against His will. Christ himself told his apostles many times that he MUST be delivered over to be killed (in that it was the very predestined plan of God):

From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
~~ Matthew 16:21

the point
It is a mischaracterization of the text and of Christian belief to claim that the description of the events surrounding the crucifixion are anti-Semitic. If The Passion presents an angry crowd, and a organized Jewish leadership that plotted and eventually succeeded in having Christ executed, then it would be depticting nothing but the truth. That however is a far cry from anti-Semitism which would paint all Jews as evil, and murderous. If the movie follows the text (as it claims to) then it would seem only a superficial understanding of the movie could lead to one believing it had an anti-Semitic message.

So aside from the fact that most of the “hoopla” surrounding the movie is just plain ridiculous and ill-informed, the claims of anti-Semitism are particularly unfortunate.

great painter

Another Brilliant Russian

The Event: Depiction of Ivan the Terrible holding his dead son in his arms, a murder that Ivan committed himself.

The Painter: Iliya Efimovich Repin is known for his ability to show emotion on the faces of his characters...

Truly amazing.

comments

FYI

The comments are up and working; i.e., you can now post your thoughts at will. Enjoy.

foreward: elie wiesel

Francois Mauriac

This is an excerpt from the forward to Elie Wiesel's masterpiece Night.

Watching the hanging of a Jewish child a Jewish boy asks “where is God? Where is He? Where can he be now?” and a voice within me answered: “where? Here He is-- he has been hanged here, on these gallows.”…

And I, who believe that God is love, what answer could I give my young questioner, whose dark eyes still held the reflection of that angelic sadness which had appeared one day upon the face of the hanged child? What did I say to him? Did I speak of that other Israeli, his brother, who may have resembled him-- the Crucified, whose Cross has conquered the world? Did I affirm that the stumbling block to his faith was the cornerstone of mine, and that the conformity between the Cross and the suffering of men was in my eyes the key t that impenetrable mystery whereon the faith of his childhood had perished? Zion, however, has risen up again from the crematories and the charnel houses. The Jewish nation has been resurrected from among its thousands of dead. It is through them that it lives again. We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear. All is grace. If the Eternal is the Eternal, the last word for each one of us belongs to Him. This is what I should have told this Jewish child. But I could only embrace him, weeping.

grand inquisitor

Man would rather be enslaved with bread than to have freedom and starve...

Dostoyevsky here speaks not of temporal food and choice (merely). Here the heart of man is shown rejecting God because of the fact of suffering in the world. We'd often rather worship idols (including self worship) than worship the true God, because idols challenge us not, and when we feed ourselves we are quite easily convinced it is we who deserve the congratulations.

"Thou wouldst go into the world, and art going with empty hands, with some promise of freedom which men in their simplicity and their natural unruliness cannot even understand, which they fear and dread -- for nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom. But seest Thou these stones in this parched and barren wilderness? Turn them into bread, and mankind will run after Thee like a flock of sheep, grateful and obedient, though for ever trembling, lest Thou withdraw Thy hand and deny them Thy bread." But Thou wouldst not deprive man of freedom and didst reject the offer, thinking, what is that freedom worth if obedience is bought with bread? Thou didst reply that man lives not by bread alone. But dost Thou know that for the sake of that earthly bread the spirit of the earth will rise up against Thee and will strive with Thee and overcome Thee, and all will follow him, crying, "Who can compare with this beast? He has given us fire from heaven!" Dost Thou know that the ages will pass, and humanity will proclaim by the lips of their sages that there is no crime, and therefore no sin; there is only hunger? "Feed men, and then ask of them virtue!" that's what they'll write on the banner, which they will raise against Thee, and with which they will destroy Thy temple. Where Thy temple stood will rise a new building; the terrible tower of Babel will be built again, and though, like the one of old, it will not be finished, yet Thou mightest have prevented that new tower and have cut short the sufferings of men for a thousand years; for they will come back to us after a thousand years of agony with their tower. They will seek us again, hidden underground in the catacombs, for we shall be again persecuted and tortured. They will find us and cry to us, "Feed us, for those who have promised us fire from heaven haven't given it!" And then we shall finish building their tower, for he finishes the building who feeds them. And we alone shall feed them in Thy name, declaring falsely that it is in Thy name. Oh, never, never can they feed themselves without us! No science will give them bread so long as they remain free. In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us, "Make us your slaves, but feed us." They will understand themselves, at last, that freedom and bread enough for all are inconceivable together, for never, never will they be able to share between them! They will be convinced, too, that they can never be free, for they are weak, vicious, worthless, and rebellious. Thou didst promise them the bread of Heaven, but, I repeat again, can it compare with earthly bread in the eyes of the weak, ever sinful and ignoble race of man? And if for the sake of the bread of Heaven thousands shall follow Thee, what is to become of the millions and tens of thousands of millions of creatures who will not have the strength to forego the earthly bread for the sake of the heavenly? Or dost Thou care only for the tens of thousands of the great and strong, while the millions, numerous as the sands of the sea, who are weak but love Thee, must exist only for the sake of the great and strong? No, we care for the weak too. They are sinful and rebellious, but in the end they too will become obedient. They will marvel at us and look on us as gods, because we are ready to endure the freedom which they have found so dreadful and to rule over them- so awful it will seem to them to be free. But we shall tell them that we are Thy servants and rule them in Thy name. We shall deceive them again, for we will not let Thee come to us again. That deception will be our suffering, for we shall be forced to lie.

"'This is the significance of the first question in the wilderness, and this is what Thou hast rejected for the sake of that freedom which Thou hast exalted above everything. Yet in this question lies hid the great secret of this world. Choosing "bread," Thou wouldst have satisfied the universal and everlasting craving of humanity -- to find someone to worship. So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship. But man seeks to worship what is established beyond dispute, so that all men would agree at once to worship it. For these pitiful creatures are concerned not only to find what one or the other can worship, but to find community of worship is the chief misery of every man individually and of all humanity from the beginning of time. For the sake of common worship they've slain each other with the sword. They have set up gods and challenged one another, "Put away your gods and come and worship ours, or we will kill you and your gods!" And so it will be to the end of the world, even when gods disappear from the earth; they will fall down before idols just the same. Thou didst know, Thou couldst not but have known, this fundamental secret of human nature, but Thou didst reject the one infallible banner which was offered Thee to make all men bow down to Thee alone -- the banner of earthly bread; and Thou hast rejected it for the sake of freedom and the bread of Heaven. Behold what Thou didst further. And all again in the name of freedom! I tell Thee that man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born. But only one who can appease their conscience can take over their freedom. In bread there was offered Thee an invincible banner; give bread, and man will worship thee, for nothing is more certain than bread. But if someone else gains possession of his conscience -- Oh! then he will cast away Thy bread and follow after him who has ensnared his conscience. In that Thou wast right. For the secret of man's being is not only to live but to have something to live for. Without a stable conception of the object of life, man would not consent to go on living, and would rather destroy himself than remain on earth, though he had bread in abundance. That is true.

Tu Pac: poet

Tu Pac: poet of a generation

Not many positive things came out of the "gangsta rap" time of dominance on the rap world; however, Tu Pac proved able to transcend the common lyric of "murder, drugs, sex, and money" by finding the nervous system of minority communities. Here's one such rap. (I bolded some of the most poignant)

I see no changes wake up in the morning and I ask myself
is life worth living should I blast myself?
I'm tired of bein' poor & even worse I'm black
my stomach hurts so I'm lookin' for a purse to snatch
Cops give a damn about a negro
pull the trigger kill a nigga he's a hero
Give the crack to the kids who the hell cares
one less hungry mouth on the welfare
First ship 'em dope & let 'em deal the brothers
give 'em guns step back watch 'em kill each other
It's time to fight back that's what Huey said
2 shots in the dark now Huey's dead
I got love for my brother but we can never go nowhere
unless we share with each other
We gotta start makin' changes
learn to see me as a brother instead of 2 distant strangers
and that's how it's supposed to be
How can the Devil take a brother if he's close to me?
I'd love to go back to when we played as kids
but things changed, and that's the way it is

Come on come on
That's just the way it is
Things'll never be the same
That's just the way it is
ah yeah

I see no changes all I see is racist faces
misplaced hate makes disgrace to races
We under I wonder what it takes to make this
one better place, let's erase the wasted
Take the evil out the people they'll be acting right
'cause both black and white is smokin' crack tonight
and only time we chill is when we kill each other
it takes skill to be real, time to heal each other
And although it seems heaven sent
We ain't ready, to see a black President, uh
It ain't a secret don't conceal the fact
the penitentiary's packed, and it's filled with blacks
But some things will never change
try to show another way but you stayin' in the dope game
Now tell me what's a mother to do
bein' real don't appeal to the brother in you
You gotta operate the easy way
"I made a G today" But you made it in a sleezy way
sellin' crack to the kids. " I gotta get paid,"
Well hey, well that's the way it is

(Talking):
We gotta make a change...
It's time for us as a people to start makin' some changes.
Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way we live
and let's change the way we treat each other.
You see the old way wasn't working so it's on us to do
what we gotta do, to survive.

And still I see no changes can't a brother get a little peace
It's war on the streets & the war in the Middle East
Instead of war on poverty they got a war on drugs
so the police can bother me
And I ain't never did a crime I ain't have to do
But now I'm back with the blacks givin' it back to you
Don't let 'em jack you up, back you up,
crack you up and pimp smack you up
You gotta learn to hold ya own
they get jealous when they see ya with your mobile phone
But tell the cops they can't touch this
I don't trust this when they try to rush I bust this
That's the sound of my tool you say it ain't cool
my mama didn't raise no fool
And as long as I stay black I gotta stay strapped
& I never get to lay back
'Cause I always got to worry 'bout the pay backs
some buck that I roughed up way back
comin' back after all these years
rat-tat-tat-tat-tat that's the way it is

life...

Law School is a test of much more than your intelligence...

Apropos Dickens:

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else..." my life will show.

...That's just the way it is.