Posts Tagged ‘the chosen’

Under the Fedora: Jonah Goldberg and the New Rules, Pride Month Savings on Sports, The annual Business ritual, More Utilitarian Candidates, What Bread of Life Discourses?

Posted: June 3, 2024 by datechguy in Blame Trump, business, catholic, culture, election 2024, elections, politics, Sports, under the fedora
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This weekend Jonah Goldberg noted that a lot of people on the right were comparing Trump to Christ and weren’t taking into account the idea that he cheated on his wife with a porn star.

Well there are two things I’d like to say to that. While Jonah is of course free do disagree on the merits of either verdict the fact is we compare Trump to Christ because Trump we believe both were found guilty unjustly, not of sleeping around but of a completely made up bookkeeping felony, so like Christ he was unjustly found guilty. Nobody (with the possible exception of Laura Loomer) on the right compares Trump to Christ’s divinity.

Second while I do in fact find it plausible that a really rich guy decided to bang a porn star and tried to keep it quiet (frankly I’d hate to have my performance in bed judged by a professional) folks like me who under the old rules thought such things should be disqualifying were massively outvoted on said rules so until the left decides to go back to said rules we aren’t either.

We’re in the middle of a baseball season where the Redsox have a great crop of young players and at the end of a basketball season where the Celtics are in the finals with a solid shot of winning and least we forget the Pats have a new 1st round QB and an old Brady era vet to mentor him. All these things are strong temptations to have me pony up for one of various sports packages from NESN to MLB to NBA etc etc etc…

…and then June roles around and all the professional teams go out of their way to remind me that they are not on my side in the culture wars and suddenly radio and hitting a local bar/restaurant to watch a game rather then giving these guys my money becomes an attractive alternative.

My thanks to various leagues for helping me appreciate the joy of free sports.

Oh and the annual ritual of business shoving gay pride down our throats in the west while making it a point to avoid the same in the middle east continues as always, with BMW actually admitting what we all know that it’s all about the risk and reward of the mob.

Of course in a new years the Ghastly Tom Hagan math will catch up with the west and when it does the west will drop their pride campaigns faster than the Democrats dropped Israel

Speaking of a lack of principles there are quite a few GOP candidates who had been pushing their pro-life credentials in the past who suddenly find themselves willing to compromise on life to gain higher office.

Now there are no shortage of Democrats who run as republicans in red states or republican who run as dems in blue states to get power nor is there a shortage in either party of people whose primary principle is to advance their political power. And the reality is that given the number of honest men & women in politics you likely can’t get a majority without these sorts.

So when there is no other choice by all means elect them but keep such folks away from the true levers of party power because people willing to sell out their principles or their God will have little trouble selling you.

Finally episode one of the Chosen is available free and those who expected to see the aftermath of the feeding of the 5000 and the calming of the waters which closed last season might have been shocked to see they went back to Luke Chapter 1 to the Visitation as their lead.

Granted they decided to knock off John the Baptist in episode one but if there is one thing you could always be sure of in any protestant movie about Christ skips the 6th chapter of John once it reaches verse 26 the beginning of the bread to life discourses. The only exception being word for word adaptions of Gospel.

Given that The Chosen is a TV series rather than a movie there would have been more than enough time to include them but as Catholic as Jonathan Roumie is, he does not have creative control so the bread of life discourses had to go.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a good episode and I liked the juxtaposition of the Canticle of Zachariah (the Morning Prayer of the Catholic Church) with the scenes of John’s end and the reaction to it but some things never change, and if you were expecting to see The Chosen break that mold you will be mistaken.

Oh and I’d watch it via the youtube live stream because the loading time of the app seems to be very slow likely due to the sheer number of people trying to watch it there.

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

(more…)

Jonathan & Jesus Let’s Talk REAL Pressure

Posted: January 8, 2024 by datechguy in catholic, entertainment
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Abraham Lincoln: [speaking to a old freed slave who dropped to his knees before him] Don’t kneel to me, that is not right. You must kneel to God only, and thank Him for the liberty you will enjoy hereafter.

Richmond April 4th 1865 surrounded by a group of newly freed slaves

This trailer dropped from the folks at the Chosen:

In one respect this isn’t odd, you might recall from your movie history Cecil B DeMille’s silent movie King of Kings, the first movie adaption of the Gospels. It’s available at Youtube:

At the Turner Classic movies the lengths that DeMille took to keep things on the “right” path:

Cecil B. DeMille did not want to take any chances with the film. His two stars, ‘H. B. Warner’ and ‘Dorothy Cummings’ , were required to sign agreements which prohibited them from appearing in film roles that might compromise their “holy” screen images for a five-year period. DeMille also ordered them not to be seen doing any “un-biblical” activities during the film’s shooting. These activities included attending ball games, playing cards, frequenting night clubs, swimming, and riding in convertibles.

and Turner also reports that DeMille had some serious damage control to do:

Lead actor H.B. Warner, who played Jesus, was involved in an off-camera scandal with anonymous woman who was determined to blackmail Cecil B. DeMille by ruining the production. It is believed that DeMille paid the woman on the condition that she leave the U.S.

IMDB.com claims the woman was made to back off after being threatened with arrest. It also states that the pressure that Warner felt playing Christ was so intense that it brought back his drinking problem.

Now consider, this was one movie released in 1927 at a time when movies were not universal. Warner was already an established actor with a ton of credits behind him and decades of credits ahead of him (you might best remember him as Mr. Gower the druggist in It’s a Wonderful Life)  

The Chosen has now been around for over four years. It has been seen by hundreds of millions all over the world. It is a global phenomena. Furthermore if you look at IMDB you will find that while Jonathan Roumie has credits dating back to 2001 you will see nothing in a significant staring role that might cause him to be memorable before the Chosen. His entire fames comes from playing Jesus and there are, I suspect, many particularly in a post Christian culture that have not known the Gospel before and are rediscovering faith for the first time, for whom he is the only Jesus they have ever known in their lives.

Imagine the pressure of playing the son of God under those conditions and add to that the aditional pressure when you consider Jonathan Roumie is a devout Catholic who is very conscious of the dangers of the sin of Pride and that his performance and how he carries himself in public could have a huge oversized effect on people trying to find God. An actor might worry about the effects of his words and actions hurting a production, a devout Christian would worry about his actions and their effect on souls.

And we haven’t even touched on those who despise this message and the messengers who deliver it, both natural and supernatural. I’ve written and spoken about how the clergy and particularly the higher ups are targets for the devil, that comes with the job. Jonathan Roumie is an actor. I suspect that Satan has painted a target on his back bigger than the one on any Bishop.

That he is able to function at all, let alone as a man of faith and devotion speaks volumes and by the time the final season of the Chosen has wrapped, if he didn’t have a complete understanding of redemptive suffering he’ll know it first hand.

I admire him for this task which I would not want for all the gold in the world.

I haven’t watched this documentary yet, but you can bet I’m going to.

Update: Apparently it’s in four parts and available on Amazon. Watching now

Speaking of Gold in the world this is the final day of Christmas and thus the final day of our fundraiser: We remain stuck $2345 away from our goal. I suspect we won’t manage that today but I’d be really delighted if we could get that number below $2000 before I get home. If you would like to help please hit DaTipJar below or to the left:

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

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