Posts Tagged ‘scripture’

Not so Quick Chosen Season 4 Thoughts Under the Fedora (Lots of Spoilers)

Posted: March 2, 2024 by datechguy in catholic, entertainment
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Well I’ve now watched the entire season 4 of the Chosen at the theatre several thoughts.

Maybe it’s because I live in Massachusetts but there were less people at most of the shows I went to. The best attended was a Saturday Matinee. The worst was a Cold Sat Evening. Yesterday’s Friday Matinee was meh.

The local theatre has switched to all recliners and table service. Got to maximize the revenue and with so much streaming you need to give folks an excuse to leave.

I suspect that the bad economy hurt attendance since everyone knows the shows will be streaming in a month.

Lot’s of faith based movies pushed in previews the biggest being Cabrini which looks like it will be great. The irony is that the whole “strong woman in a world of men” theme that the left loves is cancelled by the fact that because of her deep catholic faith she would not be given charge of orphans in NY or any blue state these days.

Ok spoilers follow so if you don’t want to see them don’t

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The Feast of The Passion of John the Baptist Playing Out Daily in America Against an Army of Woke Herodians

Posted: August 29, 2023 by datechguy in catholic, catholic devotions, culture, Uncomfortable Truths
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Today is the feast day of the passion of St. John the Baptist.

As a rule the Catholic Church celebrates the feast day of saints on the day they die. John the Baptist is the only saint where this is not the case, like Mary and Christ himself both his birth day and the day of his death (or in Mary’s case the Feast of the Assumption) are feast days of the Church. We celebrate St. John the Baptist’s birth in June and his death today.

It’s very fitting to ponder the feast of the beheading of John the Baptist because he was slaughtered for the same crime that many in America are now being punished for: Telling the truth.

You see John called out Herod for marrying his brother’s wife while he was still alive. This was a pretty good deal for Herodias as it gave her power and position and she never forgave John for publicly calling Herod out. Meanwhile even though Herod imprisoned John he not only didn’t kill him, but would go to the dungeons and listen to him. He didn’t have the courage to release him, nor did he have the courage to repent and give up his elicit marriage but he understood John was right.

So when Herod in front of his entire court made a injudicious promise to give Herodias’ daughter anything she the daughter at her mother’s prompting demanded on a platter the head of John the Baptist and Herod knowing it was wrong but not having the wisdom of Abe Lincoln who said: “Bad promises are better broken than kept.”, promptly had him executed and the head delivered to the girl who gave it to her mother.

Put simply John was executed for publicly saying aloud the truth that threatened the power of Herodias and Herod went along because he feared for his public reputation more than he honored truth.

This is America today.

We have not reach the “promptly executed” point in the US but if things don’t change it’s only a matter of time.

You see when we say basic truths like:

  • No amount of surgery can make a man a woman
  • A child is not competent to make life altering decisions about themselves
  • It’s a good idea to jail people who rob and loot and support police when they enforce the law
  • People should enter the country legally and the federal government should enforce the law
  • Children should not be sexualized
  • If you make it easier to cheat in elections they can’t be trusted
  • The government should not be used to jail their political enemies
  • If you’re going to give billions of dollars to someone they should be accountable
  • Drugs that have already been approved for people are safe to use vs COVID

We find an army of woke Herodias’ outraged not because those statements are false but because those statements challenge their delusions or their profits or their power bases and that army of woke Herodians put pressure on an army of Herod who they have granted their political, financial or even in some cases sexual favors to in their quest to get what they want.

Thus many institutions or pols, or business knowing that those making those statements are right but fearful of the wrath of the army of woke Herodians buckle. but not all.

There are still some who either because they still retain some backbone or fear the masses of the people more than the army of woke Herodians (who are actually much smaller then they appear) decide to reject them and side with the people and each time they it strikes fear in the hearts of the woke Herodians because they know their power is dependent on the fear of their Herods and the indifference of the masses.

There are John the Baptists out there. Tucker Carlson who faced the wrath of the woke Herodians but thrived despite it, Riley Gaines who refuses to bend the knee to Transgender Inc. Joe Rogan who talked openly about ivermectin to be used in Covid cases, Ron DeSantis who didn’t give in to either the COVID hysteria or the Disney/woke crowd on sexualizing children and yes Donald Trump as well who refused to bend the knee even as he is treated like an enemy of the state for being an enemy of dishonest elections.

I’m sure when the tyranny falls as all eventually do, first slowly and then all at once, millions will suddenly declare that they were with us just as many Frenchmen declared they were with the resistance as soon as the Germans were gone but till then who do you wish emulate? John the Baptist who spoke truth aloud and is remembered by two feasts of the church or Herodians who would with Herod would eventually die in exile?

Choose wisely.

Update: Tucker Carlson nails it:

Five Under the Fedora Truths Homeless for Fun and Profit, All Beers Look Alike to Me, Breaking a Twitter Habit, The Chosen Speeding Up and Biden Economy expectations

Posted: August 16, 2023 by datechguy in business, culture, economy, education, entertainment, tech, twitter
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Glenn Reynolds notes the shock of some that passing a law concerning homeless camps and actually enforcing it has caused camps to vanish. This is a disaster for some NGO’s in the sense that they get a lot of government and state money to solve a problem that can be solved by just enforcing the law.

Key quote:

We get urban decay because we tolerate it. And as for the nonprofits/NGOs, homelessness is far too lucrative a problem to solve.

There is no incentive to solve a problem that is both a profit center for you and allows you to claim virtue.

Speaking of profit centers there is a 2nd post at Insty today on a man who will be teaching about the Budlight fiasco at business school. It’s is certainly a subject worth scholarship but it that had a line that likely floated under the radar to most people that I found absolutely hilarious:

He emphasized that beer is essentially the same product, and what sets it apart is the power of its brand

I would submit and suggest this is pretty much true. I suspect a lot of brand loyalty in beer is all about habit. Break that habit and you break that brand.

And Speaking of Breaking the habit as of Today Tweetdeck is no longer a free service when I tried to access it today I was redirected to a screen offering me a blue subscription check for $80 a year.

The real point is Twitter’s value basically comes from addicting people to multiple streams of data and giving folks who want to reach a maximum size audience (advertisers etc) access to that stream. This move gives an incentive for people to walk away from the stream and once people are broken of the addiction your done.

While Elon Musk should of course make the best possible business decision for his product I submit and suggest this is rather foolish. Tweetdeck makes twitter useful because it allows you to view multiple streams in the same window. Without it twitter involves too many tabs and simply isn’t worth my time. I might keep a tab with my DM page available and I might answer embedded tweets I see elsewhere but if you want to get me to see something by putting it on twitter odds are starting today I’ll miss it

On a totally different note I was shocked to see that season 4 of the chosen was going to include the razing of Lazarus from the dead.

Given that this is the last big miracle before the entry into Jerusalem I figured we would see it till at least season 5, particularly since we are going to get the beheading of John the Baptist this season which comes much earlier.

That suggests that either season 7 is going to be all passion and resurrection, with season six all Jerusalem

(Don’t be surprised with the number of characters there is plenty of material for this to be the case) and Season five everything else OR that Dallas plans on moving up the Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ and having a large chunk of season seven covering a big chunk of acts.

Either way it will be interesting to see how he handles it.

Finally we have regularly been getting short weeks at work. Last week was 30 hours, the week before 32 and the week before 30 which is a great incentive to burn vacation days for people and unpaid time off has been offered which can be tempting on a really beautiful summers day.

Yesterday on the drive in all of us in the car agreed that we would be lucky to end up with four hours although one of us was optimistic enough to suggest me might manage 6.

Much to my shock and everyone else’s as well there seemed there was plenty of work in my department and by moving some people to it during the day ( and letting a few go home early who wanted to ) all of us who stayed managed to our delight a full 8 hours of work which guarantees us at least a 32 hour week.

That’s how bad the Biden economy is, it’s so bad that getting a full days work in the middle of a work week on a day you’re scheduled to work a full day is a pleasant surprise worthy of note

Serious Irony Alert Rapture and Bronny

Posted: July 25, 2023 by datechguy in catholic, Church doctrine
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Today I was thinking on what I was going to write when I saw yet another story about people thinking the “end times” or “rapture” will be this year.

Back in the 1970s, I used to joke that someone was going to write a book titled, Jesus Is Coming Back in the 1970s, only to publish a new and revised edition a few years later titled, Jesus Is Coming in the 1980s.

Little did I know that on January 1, 1988, Edgar Whisenant, a former NASA engineer, would publish 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988. Hundreds of thousands of books were sold or given away, creating a national frenzy.

There is actually a long history of this (think the Millerites who became the 7th day Adventists when they stopped predicting the day the world would end) you would think that Christ explicitly saying:

But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.

Matt 24:36

would have put an end to this but it hasn’t so the foolish and the grifters continue to play “the end is near” game.

When I saw that piece I tweeted out what I always say to those preparing for the end times and the great tribulation:

If you are practicing your faith properly then the end times will have no fear. So stop worrying about the world’s end times and live the type of life that prepares you for your own.

Less than one minute after I tweeted that out News broke:

For those who don’t know Bronny James is the son of LeBron James the greatest playing in NBA history who is currently active (I’d take Bill Russell over him as the Goat). His father is one of the richest and most famous athletes in the world. Thanks to his skill and hard word he has achieved great things ins sport and was in the posittion to give his family all the best of everything. It’s been widely assumed that he was staying in the NBA so that he could play his final year with his son after he was drafted.

I suspect he would give all of that up to reverse today’s breaking news.

I wish the best for young Mr. James and his family but let this be a big reminder that not a single one of us, no matter how rich, how connected or how famous is promised tomorrow so the best advice in the world remains this: Get Baptized, Go to confession! Get yourself right with God today because it may be too late tomorrow.

Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven.

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