MyQuest | my thoughts on life's journey

Margin Call

While folding laundry and sorting receipts, I watched Margin Call this afternoon.  It lived up to the reviews and positive comments I'd heard/read about it.

The basic plot is a Wall Street firm, circa late summer 2008, during the 24 hours in which they realize they don't have the capital to cover their projected losses.

It is tightly constructed, with some fantastic dialogue, and a marvelous cast.  This is one of those films everyone should watch in order to understand more about the period we are living through.  I'm surprised it hasn't done better this awards season.

4 popcorn kernels
3 1/2 film reels 

Bishop wrong on religious liberty

Lincoln's Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz has declared about the new HHS ruling that "Our American religious liberty is in grave jeopardy."  Read the full article here.  

What he has gotten wrong is that the ruling actually protects the religious liberty of employees.

The new rule requires all employers to provide health insurance that pays for birth control, female sterilization procedures and "the morning after" pill.   It does not include abortion (unfortunately).  It exempts churches and other institutions whose primary purpose is to foster religious belief and that mainly employ people who hold those beliefs.  It does not exempt religious hospitals, universities and church-affiliated social services agencies because these businesses and institutions often employ people of different faiths and no faith.

And here is where the ruling actually protects religious liberty and the pluralism of America.  It protects the religious liberty of the employee without in any way coercing the church or church members to change their position or doctrine.  It follows from already existing law which says that an employer cannot discriminate against an employee on the basis of religion.

The bishop's remarks are so over-heated as to be ridiculous and absurd.

If they want to participate in American life, they cannot impose their religious beliefs upon others who believe differently.

Mozart & Sibelius

A delightfully good program at the symphony last night.  Jeffrey Kahane was the guest conductor and was fun to watch.

The concert opened with Sibelius' Lemminkäinen’s Return from Lemminkäinen Suite, Op.22, a piece I did not know.  From the opening notes, it drew me in with its magic and epic qualities.

Next up was Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 25 in C Major, K.502, with Kahane playing piano and conducting.  That was fun to watch him stand and sit, stand and sit.  He played very well.  This piece has some nice melodies and moments, but is rather pedestrian as far as Mozart goes -- the third movement drags out too long.

After the intermission a very short piece, Sibelius' Valse triste from Kuolema, Op.44.  Just as I was settling in to really listen, it was over!  Very good, and it left me wanting much more.  

Which I received with  Sibelius' Symphony No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op.82.  Wow!  An excellent piece of music, very challenging in places, played very well.  I wasn't the only person humming the tune from it as we left the concert hall.

The Adventure of the Victorian Vulcan

The Adventure of the Victorian Vulcan by P. Whitney Hughes
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Sitting at a church dinner one night, I learned something new about one of my congregants -- he has published some Sherlock Holmes fan fiction. He brought me copies soon after.

This one is a mash-up of Star Trek & Sherlock Holmes. This is not the first time that fan fiction has speculated or played with the idea of Holmes as a Vulcan.

The book was fun and playful, and the author did an excellent job at copying the writing style of John H. Watson.

View all my reviews

Second Class Citizenship Denounced

A great It Gets Better music video

Apple's horrible Chinese working conditions

Did you hear the This American Life about this a few weeks ago?  It really turned me off to ever wanting to buy an Apple product.  I had hoped to get an iPad, but I'm nt sure I will.

A NYTimes article details the horrible working conditions in Apple's factories in China.

Apple's own audits found that hundreds of its supply factories in China require employees—some as young as 15—to work more than 60 hours a week, or more than 6 days a week, sometimes in deadly conditions. Yet fewer than 15 suppliers have been terminated for transgressions since 2007, according to former Apple executives. “You can either manufacture in comfortable, worker-friendly factories, or you can reinvent the product every year, and make it better and faster and cheaper, which requires factories that seem harsh by American standards,” a current Apple executive told the Times. “And right now, customers care more about a new iPhone than working conditions in China.”

I care, and you should too.

I need to preach about this.

Tomasky responds to Sullivan & Frum

And I think gets the criticisms correct, or at least my criticisms.

Dorothy Day -- the disturbing Holy Fool

A good, short blogpost on why Dorothy Day is so important -- she disturbs us.

Mary Jane Haley has died

Someone who knows me has died.  She knew me and cared for me.  We had connected in the way that you don't connect with absolutely everyone.  

Partially, that connection because I had been there during a dark moment in her life.  I had been able to help bear her through it.  I preached about this, told this story, last March.  You can read that here.

"Being born through the dark nights of our lives is NOT something we can do on our own. We must bear each other."

One of those people I could rely upon to bear me, because she knew me and cared for me, has died.  And I am sad.  Very sad.  I have cried and would really like to let loose and wail.  I will find the opportunity to do that.

Last autumn her daughter Mary Ann told me they had put Mary Jane in hospice, and I told Michael I wanted to make one last visit.  I tried to fit it into my fall schedule, but it seemed so full.  Then I thought maybe I'd make it over there during Christmas vacation, but the timing didn't work.  Everyone once and a while I thought of it again and the need to make some trip to NW Arkansas, to see others as well.  I regret I didn't actually make it happen.  I could have made it happen.  Oh well, I must simply let that go.

Is it funny that a twenty-something young man should find such a deep friendship and connection with an eighty-something widow?  One of those relationships that doesn't need regular communication to sustain it, but simply is rich and deep and full of joy whenever you see one another.

It shouldn't be funny.  It is part of our humanity, part of our Christian faith.  

She was so wonderful to Michael too when I introduced them at lunch a few years ago.  Such a delight to spend that time with her that day at AQ Chicken on our way through Fayetteville.  How long ago was that?  I wish she could have made the wedding, but she wasn't travelling distances by that time.

In a children's sermon I once asked her why she still went to church after all these years.  She looked at me aghast.  There wasn't even a question.  This is simply what one did.  It was important.  I loved the response.

She was stubborn and loyal and faithful and sharp and witty and opinionated and hopeful and a lover of music and my friend.  And I grieve her death.

Business Argument in Favor of Marriage Equality

With Microsoft supporting a marriage equality bill in Washington, CNBC writes about the business argument in favor of marriage equality.

SOTU Responses

I like this critical one from Peter Beinart who feels that the president didn't address sufficiently the core issue at debate in the election -- the role of government.

Michael Tomasky didn't like the ending and the SEAL story.  I thought the story fine, even a little exciting, but I understand the criticisms he and Beinart both mention.

David Frum gets at a point that annoyed me and Michael during the speech -- Obama's proposal to do more social engineering via the tax code.  I despise social engineering via the tax code.

The speech whipsawed between complaining that the corporate tax code was too costly and too complex—and then promising to render the corporate tax code even more complex with new deductions, credits and penalties according to where and how the corporation sited jobs.

Andrew Sullivan hated it and called it Clintonesque.  I felt the same way; that it was like a Clinton speech.  Clinton's state of union addresses were ridiculously long laundry-lists of nanny state projects.

Conor Oberst & other Omaha musicians support non-discrimination efforts

Conor Oberst, the lead singer of Bright Eyes, and other Omaha musicians have written to the state legislature opposing Sen. McCoy's effort to block Omaha from expanding employment non-discrimination protections to include sexual orientation and gender identity & expression.

Read the letter and see all the signers here.

Mitch Daniels -- yikes

Gosh, his speech sounds like something Calvin Coolidge might have delivered, and I don't mean that as a compliment (He kinda looks like Coolidge too).

This speech sounds incredibly out-of-touch.

Also, I'm confused why they are doing it in the Indianapolis War Memorial. When I visited it, especially the room at the top, I was frightened. It was the most fascistic space I'd ever been in -- and I was still a Republican back then.

Is Michelle Bachmann giving us another Tea Party response this year?

Problems with Empathy

From Proverbs of Ashes:

Empathetic connection to another is not necessarily life-giving or life-saving. The empathetic bond can hold a human being captive to another's unjust demand. Our ability to feel of another can become an unholy bond in which the other's obligation to feel for hmself, or feel for herself, is ignored.