Jun 6, 2015 | Uncategorized
Back before baseball, basketball and football became national pastimes there was boxing and horse racing, the most popular sports in America for the first half of the 20th Century. It’s hard to conceive of that now. Every May and June we get a little whiff of what it must have been like back in the day when horse racing was king, when the only three horse races most anyone knows about anymore are run. Of course I refer to the Triple Crown races of the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes, which takes place this afternoon. (more…)
Jun 5, 2015 | Uncategorized
Amanda grew up at Christ Church of Oak Brook outside of Chicago and began her early work in theater in the area. She received her B.A. in Theatre Arts from Azusa Pacific University in southern California, and has studied with the New York Drama Conservatory for the Dramatic Arts, Upright Citizens Brigade, the Groundlings, the Elephant Theater, Lesley Kahn & Co. and other studios.
Amanda is spending time this summer away from Hollywood studying with Chicago’s own The Second City. In case you are not familiar with what that is, many alums of The Second City have made their careers on Saturday Night Live. She is just one step away from the major leagues, where not many Christians have been before.
In addition to this great honor in the world of improv comedy, she has also been accepted into the Upright Citizens Brigade’s Advanced Program. Since most of us would not be familiar with what this is, and to give you a sense that this is also a very big deal, we read from their website:
The Upright Citizens Brigade Improvisational and Sketch Comedy Training Center is the only accredited improv and sketch comedy school in the country. Our highly trained faculty represents the best writers and performers working in comedy today. Over the last 15 years, the Upright Citizens Brigade (Matt Besser, Amy Poehler, Ian Roberts and Matt Walsh) have developed a unique unified curriculum that is constantly updated and improved by the best improvisers in the world.
fds
Jun 2, 2015 | Uncategorized
A surgically damaged man appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair, and the applause is mandatory. There are some who call this latest turn in the sexual revolution “radical” or “transformative.” Yet, in reality, the only thing radical about Bruce Jenner’s transformation into “Caitlyn” is the harm to his body, inflicted in a desperate quest to be something that he’s most assuredly not: a woman.
The transgender movement is but one small branch of the immense, self-regarding tree of the sexual revolution, and since it shares the same logic as such cultural catastrophes as no-fault divorce and abortion on demand, its acceptance by elite culture was and is a foregone conclusion. After all, if the sexual revolutionaries believe — with religious fervor — that personal fulfillment and self-actualization are so important that it’s worth inflicting a grisly death on a wholly innocent baby to preserve, then a little gender-reassignment surgery is just one more, small step for (person)kind.
David French–“Bruce ‘Caitlyn’ Jenner Needs Our Prayers, Not Our Applause”
Jun 1, 2015 | Uncategorized
Few principles have been so productive of false doctrine and immorality as the principle that all virtue consists in benevolence, that happiness is the highest good, and that whatever promotes happiness is right.
–Charles Hodge, Systematic Thedology
May 30, 2015 | Uncategorized
In 1905 Philosopher George Santayana wrote the now famous phrase, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” For some the study of history may be a dry and boring subject, especially in an age enamored of progress always pining after the latest and greatest, but history is the great book of the past that can teach us more than we can learn from the present.
History is not simply isolated facts, dates and events to be remembered as if it were a multiple choice test; it is a story, or very many stories, and for Christians it is ultimately His-story. History’s stories and the lessons we learn from them, have a profound impact on both present and future, or at least they should. We all know, or should, that the story tellers in a society have a significant influence on the manners and mores, the attitudes and beliefs of its people. This includes, importantly, the stories of history. History must be interpreted because it is not just brute facts. Partisan, philosophical, and religious divisions often afflict the meaning we assign to history. (more…)
May 29, 2015 | Uncategorized
For those of you going through “Mad Men” withdrawals now that the series has ended, and are in need of a ’60s series set piece fix, you have your wish in NBC’s new show “Aquarius.” But unlike “Mad Men,” this is a much darker look at the underside of the turbulent 1960s, mainly because one of the main characters is Charles Manson. Yes, that Charles Manson (played by Gethin Anthony). Here is the basic plot from an LA Times review: (more…)
Back before baseball, basketball and football became national pastimes there was boxing and horse racing, the most popular sports in America for the first half of the 20th Century. It’s hard to conceive of that now. Every May and June we get a little whiff of what it must have been like back in the day when horse racing was king, when the only three horse races most anyone knows about anymore are run. Of course I refer to the Triple Crown races of the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes, which takes place this afternoon. (more…)
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