There are a lot of reforms that would save money—guaranteed housing for the homeless over shelters, reforms that focus on rehab over imprisonment, etc.—but we always avoid them because people, by and large, prefer that the “underprivileged” suffer. So much of this is part of the toxic legacy of the “prosperity gospel.”

You’ve really only scratched the surface. Ever want to know how British vowels sound with an American accent? Watch Canadian news sometime. Everything from “pasta” to “Islam” to “Mazda” and “Fiat” is pronounced differently from the American convention.

I grew up pretty much in the same overall area as her, and the Catholicism there, at least at the time, was perceived as moderate-to-liberal. Sure, you had your ultraconservative traditionalists, but they didn’t necessarily dominate the discourse. I can see why Katie would have felt the way she did, as I had felt the…

The intent, obviously, is to distract. By putting the focus on “banning porn,” they’re hoping that they’ll gain support from people who would otherwise perhaps be displeased with “billionaire tax cuts.” That’s all the culture wars have ever been for the GOP.

Lest we forget, though, Jobs also approved these design abominations.

Hah...good to know. Yes, I clearly missed that reference!

For the record...

The problem is that there’s nowhere to watch it. A lot of these old series aren’t available for streaming anywhere, and only the first season of “Murphy Brown” was ever released on a now out-of-print DVD set.

Pre-Norman Britain was pretty much shared between the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse. There was the Danelaw that existed around 800 up until the Norman Conquest in the mid-to-late 1000s, plus there was even a relatively brief period where Norway, Denmark and England had the same king. If it weren’t for an untimely death…

“Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor.”

Technically, in Christianity, Jesus is 100% God and 100% man. You’d be surprised how many theological fights, excommunications and schisms were involved in reaching this orthodox conclusion—“all God,” “all man,” and “half God, half man” are old heresies.

It also sounded identical to the studio recording from 1989. I’m wondering if the aforementioned performance with the Chromatics was simply cut altogether? Admittedly, while watching it, I expected more too.

The other side of the Nietzsche coin is that he felt that nihilism, while being characteristic of the modern age, was something meant to be overcome. The “death of God” (that is, the death of the theology and metaphysics that defined the West from Antiquity through the Middle Ages up to the Industrial Revolution) was…

And to be clear, I’m very frustrated with South Park’s take on politics, because I think it helps drive the larger nihilistic idea that “cool kids don’t care about which direction their country is going”.

8 years of Bush and not one harsh word about him.

Obvious pun aside, long-term demographic changes might push this along too.

Agreed, although the prosperity gospel not entirely “new.” It is an outgrowth of the 19th century Gilded Age and New Thought religious movements, which sort of shifted “the divine” from external intervention to personal effort—thus, an implicit emphasis on the power of the individual over the randomness of fate. Of…

Maybe, maybe not. We’ve been predicting the death of cinema since the advent of television, and it’s still here. I think a lot of it is going to come down to how much Hollywood is willing to adapt to changing tastes and expectations.

Truth is that the wider the audience for a film, the greater opportunity it has to find distribution and make money.