Now, This is What I’m On About

By Lex, on Sun – May 8, 2005

Haven’t seen the Kingdom of Heaven yet, but plan to.

With some trepidation.

Anything from Hollywood that goes looking at warfare between Christian crusaders and the forces of Sala a’din’s Islam has to deal with some fairly freighted context, given the current world situation. It doesn’t help when that context is also saddled with willful historical ignorance * – according to Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood Reporter,

” ‘Kingdom’ fulfills the requirements of grand-scale moviemaking while serving as a timely reminder that in the conflict between Christianity and Islam it was the Christians who picked the first fight.”

I bet it felt smugly superior to have typed that. I bet ol’ Kirk pushed himself away from the keyboard with a satisfied smirk. That’ll get ’em going in Jesusland, won’t it?

Well, yes. Yes, of course it will. And some of us here in California as well.

Credo

"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me."

— John Paul Jones

"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature"

— George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

— Friedrich Nietzsche

"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."

— Edmund Burke

"Μολὼν λαβέ"

— Leonidas

"Blogito Ergo Sum"

— Neptunus Lex