no recession

Abbyisms

My daughter Abby is growing up so fast--she just turned two and she is already talking in (mostly) complete sentences. She is growing out of some of her babyisms that Genna and I think are so cute. Here is a sample:

kuppich: ketchup

I miskit: I mixed it

blana: banana

buppy: banana

uppa-sy-down: upside-down

mooback: vacuum

pita putta: peanut butter

pockapitta: caterpillar

vee hungee pockapitta: very hungry caterpillar (a book)

fickits: fix it

samommy: salami

sababy: small slice of salami

gee bup!: get up! (out of bed)

duts!: I'm stuck!

fribeez: frisbee

Passion reviews

The early reviews of Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ are in, and as expected, they fall on the ends of the spectrum without much representation in the middle.

Some of the comments are interesting. Most of the pans are because the reviewers were uncomfortable with the movie's violence, but I am sure that it is not the violence per se, but the fact that the film's violence flies in the face of out culture's desire to view Jesus as a gentle moral teacher. From the above article:

Newsweek's David Ansen said, "Relentlessly savage, 'The Passion' plays like the Gospel according to the Marquis de Sade. The film that has been getting rapturous advance raves from evangelical Christians turns out to be an R-rated inspirational movie no child can, or should, see. To these secular eyes at least, Gibson's movie is more likely to inspire nightmares than devotion."

I don't understand this criticism; it is no secret that the film is R-rated and no-one is suggesting that children should see it. However, much more important that whether one wants to think of Jesus as having died a horrible death is in fact whether he actually did. No one in their right mind would look at the pictures of mass graves and victims of the holocaust and criticize them because they made them feel uncomfortable--that is, in fact, the point of seeing them. The revulsion one feels is necessary for a proper understanding of the events themselves.

The film Gladiator (best picture 2001) graphically depicted the violence that Rome inflicted on its subjects and it did not generate the emotional reaction that this film has. But there is an offensiveness inherent in the story of Jesus, and this movie tells that story. The only difference between this and other attempts is a large budget and modern, sophisticated filmmaking. This has predictably amplified the offensiveness that the story of Jesus has always incited: if Jesus was who he said he was (and if he is who Mel Gibson believes he is), then why did he have to die like that?

seize them!

Since I now own every movie Disney has ever made on DVD (I have a two-year-old), it is funny the things that I notice when I watch cartoons now that I did not notice when I watched them as a child. In particular, I have been driving my wife crazy repeating the kind of phrases that sound perfectly normal in cartoons because we're used to hearing them there, but perfectly ridiculous anywhere else. In fact, the list should properly be extended to movies in general. I have compiled a short list, and I welcome your favorite additions in the comments section.

Phrases heard frequently in movies but never in real life:

1. "seize him!" (her, them)

2. "it's no use"

3 "...you fools!"

4. "you won't get away with this!"

5. "I've got it!" (with index finger in the air, when one has an idea)

It's not as bad as you think--it's just your genetic pessimism

I really enjoyed this recent article from Opinion Journal. If you think of yourself as a concerned Christian, you really ought to give it a look. I have always thought that the problems that our generation faces, while serious, in the scope of human history, are relatively good problems to have. Our focus on global environmental problems is a luxury that many in the developing world do not have (they rather are focused on more local problems that are actually lilling people by the millions--for example, parts per million of arsenic in water is a hot political topic even though we have no evidence that it has harmed anyone. Water in many parts of the world, however, is so tainted with feces that you can taste it, and people are dying from the diseases it causes). The book that this article reviews argues that we are genetically programmed to inflate whatever problems we face into epic perportions without comparing them to problems that other generations have faced.

This comports with a lot of what I have learned in my limited but enthusiastic study of behavioral economics. This paper (pdf) argues that many of our errors in maximizing utility (which traditional economic theory assumes we do) stems from incorporating the past into the background of our lives and being overly focused on the present. For example, why do we continue to think that our upcoming purchase will make us happy when we have been wrong about that so many times in the past? What we often do is incorporate the last thing that we thought would make us happy into the background of our lives and look from something to replace it. It makes sense then that we would do that with our problems as well as the things we want.

Junkmail for Blankets

A good friend of mine, and one of the most talented people I have ever known, is now on chattablogs. Please check out Jeremy Huggins's Junkmail for Blankets. It's certainly not "blog lite" though--be sure to give your self some time and enjoy.