worst show on television

truthfully there are too many shows that would qualify for such a distinction. but the object of my ire tonight would have to be csi:miami.
a few years ago when 24 was on mondays, my wife and i would switch from fox to cbs to watch the first five minutes of csi for just one reason. horatio caine's (david caruso) ridiculous one liners. this is the way every show starts off. sweeping shots of miami/south beach, a scene involving numerous scantily clad women and some studs in wife beaters. a murder. then horatio caine comes on the scene, dramatically puts on his sunglasses and says something ridiculous.

frank: he should have known.

horatio caine: (in a way too dramatic voice) "frank, knowing (pauses and puts on sunglasses) is half the battle" (cue theme music)

my favorite, the last one was made up, is: "you don't get up and run away after you fall four stories." Horatio: "you do...(pause, put on sunglasses) if you've got something to hide."

mmmm, mmmm, good

enough about politics. on saturday i went down to the soulard market. i was in heaven. the food, the people - city life at its best. anyway...i love food and if that picture doesn't whet your appetite than i don't know what would. by the way it comes from a web sight claiming to describe the perfect process for poaching an egg. i haven't tested it's claims yet, but i plan too.

the problem with politics

it's simple, all politics is driven by a misguided meta-narrative.
the political meta-narrative is this...we may be screwed up, but the only reason is that the proper person/persons are not in office. if elected, this person will... if passed, this bill will...

the biblical meta-narrative is this. we are fallen, and this fallenness extends to every area of our life and thus brings a brokenness to bear in those areas as well.

some folks i know might say, "that is why the founding father's created a system of check and balances." forget for just a moment the historical problems with such a statement...my answer to that...so what? even if i were to grant you that point for a moment, what difference does that make now? even if that were true, it has no affect on whether or not the current narrative driving the political machine is one that has as its foundation a decidedly un-biblical stance.

discuss...

the messianic character of american politics

so...there's a group of guys from my church that gather together every wednesday night at a local pub near tower grove park and we drink and smoke and talk shit. all the guys that currently comprise the group are also in the small group that i co-lead with my wife and another guy. this past week we were rehashing some political talk that we had been tossing around during our small group. earlier that day i had been thinking about christians and politics and whether or not we should even be involved at all...this is my theory: the expectations placed on politicians are messianic. and thus idolatrous. by participating in the process christians run the risk of being idolatrous themselves.
i realized that this theory is problematic for a number of reasons, but this is what is driving my thinking. it is not simply secular liberals who have a messianic expectation of politicians, but christians do as well. what do i mean, messianic expectation? "if we could just get so and so in office, such and such would be changed." "the only way our country can be healed is to have so and so elected." these kinds of statements and millions more like them which are made every day, by christians and non-christians alike speak to the messianic expectations we place on politicians. this is in short a form of idolatry. i fear that christians, unless we simply back out of the process, will continue to be caught up in this kind of thinking. at the very least, we need a moratorium on political involvement and then use that time to rethink what it means to think christianly about politics and what that means for our involvement.
it has been said before, and by far more articulate folk than me, but the church has sold its soul for the lure of political power. we have replaced gospel suffering with political maneuvering. in attempting to get a seat at the table of politics we have sacrifice our prophetic voice in the culture.
politics stands alone as a unique danger area to christians, because the basis of political action is power. and power is in fundamental opposition to new testament ethics. what i mean by that is power consistently eschewed by the figures of the new testament. we are not to pursue it, we are not praised for having it, it gives us no advantage in the economy of the kingdom. what does this mean then for political involvement in the here and now? what about our responsibility as citizens? what does it mean to render to caesar?
so...i threw out this messianic expectation thing on wednesday night. i came home to read this about obama. and then i saw this today. it would be easy to say that obamamania captures everything that i am talking about, and it does, to be honest, represent messianic expectation more clearly than anything i can remember in the past twenty years of electoral politics. but it does not stand alone. it is only the most recent, and the most extreme example of our tendency to deify those who we place our hopes in.

another reason...

here's another reason why i think huckabee's a hoot...

huck and chuck

i surprised myself today. i was decided prior to today's vote, i was going to vote mccain. but, i voted for huckabee. i don't know. i figured in so many ways it was a free vote if that makes sense. plus, i just like the guy. perhaps you heard about this...he has managed, as an evangelical candidate, to appeal on some level to the late night crowd.
not to mention he has had a budget of zero. he spent, in winning iowa, 400,000 dollars in comparison to romney's 8 million. holy smokes people.
okay, the reason for this post. this one just takes the cake.

Super Tuesday

for the politically inclined today is an historic day. it is the first time in the history of electoral politics in this country that a nation wide primary has been attempted. 24 states in all are participating. regardless of where you come down politically, even if you find politics completely irrelevant or corrupt it is still a fascinating drama to watch.

i have a brief thought on immigration and the current imbroglio that has been stirred up by the mccain bashing regarding his pro-immigration stance. the first political act regarding immigration was the naturalization act of 1790, and somewhat infamously offered naturalization to "free white persons." Obviously this was designed to leaved out slaves and other africans/blacks that might otherwise gain naturalization. this law wasn't changed until 1870, which allowed blacks and former slaves to become naturalized citizens. and the final change came in the 1950's which allowed asian peoples to become citizens. clearly the element here is that the immigration issue has always been run through with a racist and racially motivated element. it stands to reason that the current climate of anti-immigration is similarly fueled by racist/racially motivated reasons. i realize that things are often more complicated than we allow them to be, but i think that because of the substantive historical legacy of race informing our immigration policies it is undoubtedly informing and influencing a large portion of the debate now.
amnesty makes sense. i don't know the financial numbers on this, but i would assume that the cost of "rounding up" illegals would be prohibitive. where as simply processing those already here makes the most fiscal sense. to be honest the amount of ambiguity on this issue is pretty profound. as for me, i am continuing to wrestle with what is just and what is compassionate regarding this issue...
enough for now.