RUMINATIONS ON THE PEOPLE OF FAITH . . .

"Elected officials shouold not be portraying public policies as being for or against a people of faith," saith the Reverend Clifton Kirkpatrick, a top official of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.

Senator Bill Frist, Senate Republican leader, is a member of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., and Rev. Kirkpatrick doesn't like his shenanigans -- trying to eliminate the filibuster of judicial nominees by claiming that those who opt to filibuster conservative judicial candidates are against the people of faith. Rev. Kirkpatrick thinks it's entirely inappropriate for Senator Frist to be submitting a videotaped statement for "The Filibuster Against People of Faith," a telecast sponsored by conservative Christian groups to be shown this Sunday -- a day weirdly labeled "Justice Sunday." (The funniest thing about the premise behind Justice Sunday is that Republicans and Christian conservatives are saying that Democrats who want to block judicial nominees who oppose abortion rights on moral and religious grounds are discriminating against those nominees. Oh please. Don't you talk to me about discrimination.)

Dr. Bob Edgar, who is the general secretary of the National Council of Churches, further states that "[t]o say that some group of Christians has a monopoly on the ear of God is especially an outrage to Presbyterians." Well, I don't know what Presbyterians as a group have to say about that, but I would certainly personally agree. The hubris that some believers exhibit ... dang, have we learned nothing of humility from Jesus?

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and the organizer of "The Filibuster Against People of Faith," says if people are going to be offended, they don't have to watch the telecast. (Don't worry, I won't, and thanks for the permission to ignore it, Mr. Perkins.) He also says that when it comes to judicial activism, "we are talking about issues that people of faith care about deeply." Well, in that one point, I have to agree with him. I, as a person of faith, DO care deeply about the issues that come before our nation's courts. I just happen to not close my mind against the reality that 'conservative' judges are JUST AS ACTIVIST as 'liberal' ones. DUH.

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TAKE ME . . .

I want to see "The Interpreter", starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn.

The United Nations, Secret Service agents, international intrigue. This movie is my latent dream come true.

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IS THIS WEIRD? . . .

Remember back a few years ago when little kids in Japan were having seizures while watching some kiddie cartoon on television because of all the flashing lights and stuff? (I have to confess, I laughed and laughed when I heard the story, imagining vacant-eyed children, mouths hanging open, staring stupidly at the boob tube, then falling over with the shakes because of some brightly-lit animated action sequence.)

Well, I just heard something even more bizarre, and am wondering if it's ever going to happen to me. Apparently, somewhere in France, a whole host of people fell over in similar seizures, and no one knew why. After some amount of investigation, officials determined that a most unusual occurrence had transpired: these people had all been exposed to particular rooms (conference or other common rooms, if I remember correctly) where the rays emitted from some halogen-type bulb had interacted with the pigmentation in the particular color of paint on the walls, and triggered some weirdo brain activity that caused the seizures.

What the ... and the best part is, they named this bizarre interaction, and decreed that those people had suffered from (or are suffering from) Fluoro-Chroma Syndrome, a/k/a FCS.

Seriously. What will they think of next?