Via DYL, I came across this early review about the forthcoming Passion film that was written and directed by actor Mel Gibson.

I've been very curious about this movie because of the controversy it's already generating. The top complaint made by critics is that the film will generate more anti-Semitic sentiments in a time where such feelings have been increasing in Arab/Muslim countries and even in Europe because of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, prompting firebombings against synagogues and attacks against Jews in these regions.

However, early reviews from evangelicals seem to be very positive.

All right, so the Jews were responsible for killing Jesus.

So what?

Unless you believe in replacement theology, that will always remain a fact. Jesus was a Jew. Jesus's parents were Jews, direct descendants from David. The crucifixion of Jesus occurred on a little hill called Golgotha (basic meaning: "skull") outside the city of Jerusalem. The court that condemned him was Jewish. The crowd that cried for his death was most likely Jewish.

Before you lambaste me for trying to stir up anti-Semitic feeling on this website, read the Bible. His death and resurrection were foretold in the Book of Isaiah. Yes, that's right - one of the Jews' own prophets of old actually foretold the death of this Nazarene, this carpenter's son. Unless you're a history revisionist or you just like to twist Scripture to fit whatever interpretation you want to make of it, you can't do away with this fact.

And if you like playing the blame game, as some people liked to do in the Middle Ages, when popes instigated pogroms and persecuted the Jewish people incessantly, all I have to say to you is that the only reason Jesus was crucified by the Jews was because our eternal redemption was at stake.

So what if the Jews were responsible for his death? What does that have to do with the real reason Jesus came to the earth? Why do his killers matter so much to you? What about the more important fact that Jesus was killed by his own people so that YOU might truly live?

I don't hate the Jews. I've been fascinated by their culture and customs for nearly five years. I've known about the general aspects of their history practically my entire life, and I'm still learning more.

I don't hate the Jews. They have always been God's chosen people in my eyes. Sure, maybe that has made some modern-day Jews arrogant and hard to put up with for some people, but no hatred here. (Note: the key word in that last sentence was maybe. Read my lips: MAAAAAYBEEEE.)

Paul said in Romans that his heart's "desire and prayer" was that his people - the Israelites - would be saved. It's happening now. It's going to continue to happen. Nowhere in the Bible do you see Jesus's followers blaming their fellow Israelites continually for Jesus's crucifixion. Most likely it's a Gentile thing, I don't know.

So - am I going to see Mel Gibson's film when it's finally released? Yes.
Will it make me appreciate more the pain Jesus had to go through to save my soul? Yes.
Will it make me dislike the Jews?

No.

I think I first saw a List like this at Jenn's, and then I saw it at Ash's, before it was picked up by Hannah. Now it's my turn.

What you may find in the following List is either supposed to A) surprise you, B) annoy you, C) make you go, "Hmmm. Interesting." D) or all of the above. Of course, this List doesn't completely describe me, but hopefully it gives you at least a clue of who I am and what I'm like. Some items on this list may look familiar to you because I've mentioned them before here. If anything, I'm posting this because it fills up blog space rather nicely. So enjoy.

1. I express myself best through writing.
2. My name means “princess.” I so enjoy that title.
3. I have two sisters and one brother.
4. I hate being the oldest.
5. My dad was a sergeant in the Army. No wonder why he hates being called “sir.” And no wonder why our house was called "boot camp."
6. I’m a late night owl and a late riser in the morning.
7. I used to hate poetry in high school. Now I can’t get enough of it.
8. I love science fiction.
9. I also enjoy reading historical fiction and history.
10. I used to hate science, but now I’m intrigued by chemistry and quantum mechanics.
11. I’m thinking of joining the military after I graduate from college.
12. I want to write for a news magazine, as well.
13. It’s that or I’ll start my own magazine for young writers.
14. I dislike open-toed shoes, though I’ll wear flip-flops on occasion.
15. I don’t like swimming.
16. My dream car: the Honda Civic Coupe.
17. I am not a kid person, but I do make exceptions.
18. I’m known for sarcasm in my family…
19. …to the extent that I can twist an innocent observation to make the observer look bad.
20. I can be vindictive.
21. I maintain an even temper most of the time, but watch out when I’m angry.
22. No, I don’t get scared easily.
23. I enjoy chase scenes in movies.
24. And contrary to popular opinion, I am NOT ticklish. (One poke in the ribs will make me jump, true, but the second poke will hurt. And that might give me an excuse to swiftly retaliate.)
25. I am a chocaholic.
26. I am not a coffee drinker, generally speaking.
27. I can be unpredictable.
28. I’m willing to try new things: food, styles, clothes.
29. One day I want to get a really short haircut. Think Halle Berry.
30. I am rarely bored. (The term for bored in my vocabulary is “restless.”)
31. I want to get a kitten someday.
32. I like to learn new things.
33. I’ve met fivesix online friends.
34. I hate Dr. Pepper. (Mountain Dew, y’all. Down with cherry-flavored medicine!)
35. I love chocolate-peanut butter ice cream.
36. My favorite color is scarlet. (Been hanging around them Spartans too long.)
37. I’ve never broken a bone in my body.
38. I don’t freak out when I see spiders or rodents.
39. My dream vacation spots: Israel, Ireland, Australia.
40. If I won the lottery, the first thing I’d do is pay off my school loans.
41. The second thing I’d do is set up a $10 million retirement fund for my parents.
42. The third thing I’d do is pay the rest of their mortgage.
43. I’d then give half of my winnings to my church.
44. Actually, let me reverse the order of Items 40 through 43.
45. I’ve finally figured out what libertarianism is.
46. Did I vote for George Bush in the last presidential election? Yes.
47. Would I vote for him again in 2004? Yes.
48. Don’t hate me for it. I just hold views on politics that are different from yours.
49. And that does not make me a “Bushie” or a “Nazi.” Don’t even go there.
50. I prefer public transportation over driving.
51. I don’t have my driver’s license. (I will by this August.)
52. I don’t have a car, either.
53. My favorite numbers: 12, 7, 21, 5, 2 and 40.
54. My favorite kind of jewelry: rings. Not toe rings, finger rings.
55. I used to hate silver, but now I prefer it over gold.
56. I have moved four times since I started college.
57. I am a perfectionist when it comes to grammar, spelling and punctuation.
58. Having a crush on a guy is easier than falling in love, it seems.
59. Translation: many past infatuations, but I'm learning what true love is and isn't.
60. I like rap music. (Hey, everybody has personal vices, right?)
61. But worship is my favorite music most of all.
62. My favorite kinds of movies: epics, comedy and suspense/drama.
63. I’ve never had allergies.
64. I love to cook and bake.
65. The only things I collect right now are books.
66. Nearly all of my close friends were homeschooled.
67. On the other hand, I’ve gone to public schools during my entire school career.
68. My favorite kinds of food: Mexican, Chinese, Samoan and American.
69. I’m very random sometimes. (As if you couldn’t tell from reading this list.)
70. I don’t watch TV. I do have a TV, however, to watch movies on video/DVD.
71. My multitasking factor has been shot due to excessive usage.
72. I enjoy a good theological/political/social discussion.
73. I’m content to lurk or do things behind the scenes.
74. I love snow. (Though I’ve only been in Snow Country twice.)
75. Winter is my favorite season.
76. I prefer simplicity over complexity.
77. I enjoy playing photographer.
78. I don’t like having my picture taken, however.
79. I’m a quiet person.
80. I tend to mumble when I’m talking.
81. I have a deep voice.
82. Because of that, people have mistaken me for a guy on the phone.
83. I don’t like wearing sunglasses.
84. I have a very active imagination.
85. Drawing is a recessive talent, compared to my dominant writing abilities.
86. I don’t drink soda that much. (Unless you wave a Mountain Dew under my nose.)
87. I’ve never tried smoking before. I don't think I ever will.
88. This doesn’t stop me from liking the smell of cigarette smoke, though.
89. I’d like to travel someday. (Cross-country trip, anyone?)
90. I try to be as straightforward and real with people as I can.
91. I have a difficult time when it comes to swearing. (The serious implications of “Do not take the Lord’s name in vain” haven’t registered yet.)
92. I like to eat my Oreos with peanut butter.
93. I started writing when I was eleven.
94. I was in a choir once, but that stint didn’t last long.
95. I’ve been going to church since Day One.
96. I take my Christianity seriously…
97. …but I try to leave judging others to God.
98. The only person I judge is myself.
99. Christianity to me is real, personal and intimate. God and me. Oh, yeah.
100. If it were possible, I’d love to time travel.
101. For me, character development is the funnest part of writing fiction.
102. Research is a close second.
103. The oddest things make me cry.
104. I’m not always a good editor.
105. It’s often hard for me to read other people. (Maybe it’s because most people have a hard time reading me.)
106. I’m a left-handed person.
107. I also like hard rock music.
108. I’d like to learn how to speak and write Arabic, Hebrew, French, German, Russian, Modern Greek and Samoan.
109. I like hunting for unique names.
110. I also like learning what names mean.
111. My idea of a good outfit: relaxed jeans, sneakers, tee.
112. I try to carry a pen on me when I’m out and about.
113. I’d like to learn how to safely handle and shoot a firearm someday.
114. When that does happen, I will also try to get a CCW permit.
115. I can be very mysterious at times.
116. I’m good at keeping secrets. Most of the time.
117. For the most part, I’m comfortable with who I am.
118. I’ve never learned to play a musical instrument. One day I’m going to take acoustic guitar lessons, though.
119. I enjoy fellowship with others.

Just don't take a cue from these fellows.

This is What Not To Say As A Presidential Candidate 101. I can understand wanting to make an impression with potential voters, but I don't think some things said at this gathering will go over well...unless you really really want to see Bush kicked out of office next year. In that case, you should go to How To Lose The 2004 Election 101.

"When I'm president, we'll do executive orders to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow or any other day," said Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri.

This guy's heard of the system of checks and balances before, right?

And in case you think this is a misquote, you can fact-check me and the CNN article I linked to above and watch the C-SPAN video to hear Gephardt make this idiotic comment for yourself. (Fast forward to 45:50)

...when the County Fair comes to town.

Since last night was the opening of the annual affair, we were treated to a spectacular fireworks display. I certainly hope the July Fourth celebrations live up to this one!

No rides, just lots of sightseeing and eating.

Oh, and no dancing pigs, either.

It's been impressed upon me many times through sermons and even through the unlikeliest circumstances that anything I put above God can become an idol. Yesterday, the subject of personal idolatry was money (and, in some ways, it still is).

Today, though, it's writing.

(Via Dean Esmay)

Today Michael Totten posted about how he arrived at his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and I think he did it rather eloquently. In fact, there's a portion of his post that I'll copy here, if only because I echo his sentiments:

...When I knew next-to-nothing about the Arab-Israeli conflict and I saw photographs of Palestinian kids throwing rocks at Israeli tanks, it was a no-brainer to side with the kids. I’d do the same today without apologies if I didn’t have more information.

When I learned a bit more, it was still easy to sympathize with the Palestinians. Here’s a group of people who kinda sorta live within Israel, yet are not Israeli citizens and are not granted the right to self-government. They want their own state, and it’s a grievance that someday must be redressed. It looks to the uninformed observer a bit like the apartheid regime in South Africa. It’s the civil rights revolution all over again. Or so it appears on the surface.

I never excused the terrorists. They were undermining the Palestinian cause, and they made it difficult to support them. But I didn’t think it right for extremists to discredit the majority. Even after September 11 I maintained this view. A friend once asked me in an argument whose side I’d be on if a full-scale war erupted between them. If push came to shove, I said, I would have to choose Israel. I sympathized with Palestinians, but I knew very well that Ehud Barak was elected because he promised a permanent settlement. Arafat was a dictator, and he rejected Israel’s offer. If a war were required to settle it, it would not be right to blame Israel.

Still, I knew I was unfairly biased. I didn’t understand the Israeli view. So I read Thomas Friedman’s From Beirut to Jerusalem. He is fair to both sides, and that’s why I picked him. When I finished the book I was no longer biased. Though he tilts toward Israel himself, Thomas Friedman put me in the middle. I gave each side a hearing and split the difference.

I kept reading, and I kept learning. I discovered that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are not fighting for a state in the West Bank and Gaza. They are fighting for a Taliban regime “from the river to the sea,” including all of Israel. They say negotiation is treason, and that means war. I learned about Arafat’s education system, which glorifies suicide murder.

In a nutshell, the more I learned, the more I leaned toward Israel.

At the time I was a centrist who leaned towards the left of the political spectrum, and I thought the IDF was responsible in more ways than one for instigating the string of suicide bombings occurring in Jerusalem and in other Israeli towns. I went so far as to think Ariel Sharon was sanctioning the murder of his own people by showing no mercy towards the Palestinians and thus perpetuating the cycle of violence that's continued since September 2000.

The more I learned about the Palestinian side of things, however, the more aware I became that worldwide sympathy for their "plight" may as well be the same as saying that Mugabe is God and Zimbabwe is the Promised Land. And he isn't and it ain't.

That doesn't mean I always agree with what the Israelis do to deal with their brand of terrorists (i.e. rounding up young men who probably had nothing to do with the bombing in question and interrogating or even torturing them to force them to make false confessions). You cannot lump together an entire population and label them as "enemies" simply because a few extremists on their side of the line are making them look bad and are making life where they are go from bad to worse. HOWEVER, when a huge majority of that same population supports suicide bombings to further the goal of forming their own state...and when the education system of that same population indoctrinates their young so that the idea of blowing yourself up to kill a few Jews is one of the highest honors worth attaining...why would I want to support a people who have adopted a culture that glorifies death in that manner?

I wasn't a natural at this sort of thing, so I waited to see which hand he'd take. Right one. Okay, so left hand goes on the shoulder.

"This is only my second time," I whispered. When he politely bent his head, I repeated what I had said.

"This is only your second dance or this is the second time dancing?"

"Second time dancing. Ever." I nodded to his friend, swaying with his own partner several feet away. "He was my first."

"Really?" He look me over. "Well, you're doing good so far."

I stepped on his toe and winced. "No, I'm not."

"Well, just do this. Slide your foot this way, heel down, then slide your other foot over, heel down, then slide that foot back... That's it," he added encouragingly as I followed his instructions. "Not bad. Keep doing it and you'll be a pro."

The second time he pulled me onto the floor, he asked, "How come you never danced before?"

"I never went to any of the dances at school," I answered truthfully. By this time, following his steps wasn't hard at all. "So I didn't bother to learn."

"You're doing better," he assured me with a cheerful smile. "Me? I don't know how to dance, either."

I sort of tightened my arm on his shoulder a bit so that my hand settled closer to his neck than before, and smiled up at him. "You could've fooled me."

The party was almost over...but that didn't mean the dancing had to end. And it didn't.

Crazy weekend ahead. Graduation ceremony+festivities, wedding, and Father's Day packed into three days - which translates into, "serve lots of guests, entertain guests, and try not to kill myself in the process; go to wedding and try not to get lost on the way to the wedding; don't pick on Dad too much and remember why we celebrate Father's Day." Some poetry to end the week and start the weekend:

Look behind at what was
You will only see the oblivion of the Past
Turn to the left and right
You will only see the futility of man's directions
Consider this world's offerings
You will make Lot's wife proud
Your tears for its gain will be your eternal cage

The grinding thunder plummets in cavity and blackness
as, Alas! another falls
And they cry and wail
"ashes to ashes, dust to dust"
But the one they mourn
only feels painful bliss under gravel and marble

It was the mortar that took him
Delivered from the hands
of one so alike
The same dark hair and starlit eyes
the same deep laugh and grace
One returned to earth and ash, the other turning to his brother
And coolly, almost lovingly, cutting flesh from bone
With steel and gunpowder

And you ask "Why?"

And the dead rise to regard you with scorn
As their oppressor walks away,
Seeking another unfamiliar face to black out
From the attendance rolls of humanity

And the dead reply,
"Why not?"

03.09.02

Bene Diction emailed me the link for a letter that's worth reading. The letter's from one of Bene's colleagues, who recently made a two-week trip to the city of Basra in Iraq with Operation Blessing to help the local hospitals there. Check it out.

Hatred begets violence.

After the Jerusalem bombing, Rantisi told The Associated Press from his hospital bed: "The Zionists will pay an expensive price for all of their crimes." The bus attack "took place at a time when the Zionists were on utmost alert, more evidence that our people will not be defeated," he said.

Jamil Hamdia cried as he carried his 11-year-old wounded cousin through Shifa Hospital and denounced Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, who has called for Palestinians to stop attacking Israelis.

"Where is Abu Mazen to come and see?" wailed Hamdia. "Are we cheap, to be killed like this? If that makes him a good leader I think his place is not among us."

Restlessness does something funny to you sometimes.

Take music, for instance. I could be listening to a song that I have on repeat, and suddenly the words, the beat and the melody sound completely foreign and strange to my ears, even though the order of the song and the lyrics seem familiar.

Or I'm traveling somewhere on foot, and suddenly with a start I realize the trip's unnecessary and the destination is no longer certain.

I wouldn't call this doubt or forgetfulness. Maybe I'm just tired of this comfort zone.

It's time to discover something new.

I normally don't read The San Francisco Bay Guardian, but I made an exception when I came across this interesting story. Two 'graphs in this article caught my eye:

Despite the jovial atmosphere, the assembled group was dead serious about the threat of hate crimes against queers in San Francisco, and about their right to arm themselves. All of them said they had no qualms about using a firearm to defend themselves against would-be attackers, either at home or on the streets.

San Francisco is the toughest city in California, if not America, in which to be granted a CCW permit. Currently there are only five permits issued to non-law enforcement personnel in the city.

(story via Red Letter Day)

RhiainGDI: it's June 4 today, right?
L8NiteWriter2: yes ma'am
RhiainGDI: must post soon, I think
L8NiteWriter2: you think
L8NiteWriter2: it's been a whiel [sic]
RhiainGDI: since I've thought or since I've posted?
RhiainGDI: wait
RhiainGDI: don't answer that
L8NiteWriter2: LOL!

That says everything about my mental capacity for the moment, don't it?