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The Weblog at The View from the Core - Sunday, February 29, 2004
   
   

Self-Described Liberal Skewers Hollywood's Hypocrisies

Concerning Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, by Richard Corliss at Time, Feb. 27:

.... Somebody, and I guess it’s me, has to remind movie-studio bosses that Gibson is one of the world’s top stars, whose last 10 major-studio films (since his Oscar-winning “Braveheart”) have grossed a cumulative $1.27 billion at the North American box office and a similar amount abroad. He is also the guy who made what could well prove to be the biggest independent, foreign-language hit in American movie history. Could, perhaps, the moguls be a tad annoyed with themselves that they turned down a sleeper hit they could have nabbed for peanuts last summer?
Decades ago, Hollywood regularly produced religious films: “The Song of Bernadette,” “the Bells of St. Mary’s,” “The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima.” The bosses who financed these pictures may not have liked them or shared the beliefs expressed in them, but they had their reasons for greenlighting them. One is that they often made money. Another is that the mood of the country was more pious. Today, a fervent Christian conviction — so often aligned with belligerent conservatism — is, to many in the media, a threat or a joke. They don’t understand religious devotion, at least in what Hitchens would define as “the less attractive sense” of the term. They are much more comfortable producing anti-religious entertainment (all the comedies that make mock of God, Jesus and the clergy) than some sweet sappy “Nun’s Story.”
The attitude goes beyond religion. For better or worse, the current tone is skeptical, derisive and gross. Years ago, “American Pie” replaced American piety. A lot of movie people don’t respect Gibson’s obsession with his “Passion” project; they are offended by it; fear it. And I’ll bet, since the movie could earn huge profits for Gibson and his distribution partners, they resent it....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 02/29/04 06:53:08 PM
Categorized as Media.


   
   

Vietnam Veteran vs. Kerry at Snopes

An old friend writes to let me know that Snopes has a webpage responding to the FrontPage Magazine article on John Kerry (quoted here).

Snopes brands the claims in FP's Kerry article as "False". That seems to me to be stretching quite a bit. Especially seeing as how Snopes relies substantially on the Boston Globe — hardly an unbiased source.

But I've noticed something funny. The Boston Globe was the original source of the George Bush Was AWOL During National Guard Service smear rumor. If you have been paying attention to The Blog from the Core, Faithful Reader, you know that the BG has already backed away from its original reporting on that defamation issue. In fact, by more recent reporting, the BG itself has called into question the veracity of its original fiction reporting.

Funny thing is, Snopes has not one word about all of that. In fact, not one word about the entire George W. Bush "AWOL and/or Deserter" smear.

Not one word.

Don't you think that's funny?

Look. I'm in no position to determine which charge and/or counter-charge concerning Kerry is true, or false, or truer, or more or less likely to be truer. I'm not really in a position to even ask any questions that anybody is going to hear. And the folks who are in a position to ask questions that will get heard, and maybe get closer to some real answers, aren't asking the questions at all.

The slightest hint (no matter how indirect) of a suggestion (no matter what the motivation) that there might (or might not) be something negative in George W. Bush's past to report to the public unleashes a relentless, round-the-clock hounding until the smallest, most faded, barely legible scrap of paper still to be found has to be dug up and exposed for examination.

Why doesn't mainstream media respond similarly when a Democrat is the target?

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 02/29/04 12:05:38 PM
Categorized as John Kerry & Political.


   
   

Three by Madeleva V

Sonnets by Sister M. Madeleva, C.S.C.

Patrins

Yes, I shall leave these patrins as I go:
Plucked grasses here, a few blown blossoms there,
To tell you, though I've gone, how much I care;
To tell you, also, should you want to know,
The way I've taken, my beloved, so
That you can find me, find me anywhere.
Be still, my heart! You know he does not dare
To follow dreams; have you no signs to show?

Only the wide, white comfort of the stars,
And strange, lone rest within the arms of dawn,
And love that binds, and truth that sets me free.
Why should you fear such infinite prison bars?
The wild and wistful way that I have gone
Leads but to peace. Beloved, follow me.

(from Penelope)

On This Condition

Oh, do I love you? Yes, to be brief and plain.
But from my window, if the day is clear,
See that far mountain, lonely and austere,
Flush into gradual wonder, where has lain
Passionless, pallid snow. Almost like pain
Rose-splendid radiance wraps it in beauty sheer
As the sun kisses it—wait, wait, my dear—
And passing, leaves it virgin white again.

When we have reached those heights of calm surrender
Where white integrity and love are one,
Then you may compass me with utter splendor,
Nor shall we need to wish our joy undone;
Then you may kiss me, love, or tense or tender;
Then you may shine on me, being my sun.

(from Penelope)

Ultimates

Although you know, you cannot end my quest,
Nor ever, ever compass my desire;
That were to burn me with divinest fire;
That were to fill me with divinest rest,
To lift me, living, to God's living breast.
I should not dare this thing, nor you aspire
To it, who no less passionately require
Love ultimate, possessor and possessed.

You who are everything and are not this,
Be but its dream, its utter, sweet surmise
Which waking makes the more intensely true
With every exquisite, wistful part of you;
My own, the depths of your untroubled eyes,
Your quiet hands, and your most quiet kiss.

(from Penelope)

The Four Last Things: Collected Poems (1959) pp. 44f, 45, 47.

See also Three by Madeleva IV: Poems by Sister M. Madeleva, C.S.C.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 02/29/04 08:33:28 AM
Categorized as Literary & Sunday Poetry Series.


   

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