Monthly Archives: December 2009
Cine o’ the Aughts
Like the other lists so far, this is a working list, subject to change when I finish my final. Also like the other lists, I will not rate the movies here. Unlike the other lists, I will have more than one film by a producer or director – largely because I’ve come to the realization that only listing one work by an artist if they deserve two or three is a foolish bit of self-mockery disguised as discipline. No, if someone had two truly great works of art, they should be acknowledged for it.
Thoughts on the Incarnation, pt. 2
God forsaken poor…”
Thoughts on the Incarnation, pt. 1
My friend Edith M wrote a beautiful (and brief, for which I’m jealous) blog post on a freshly relevant view of God’s incarnation as we Christians understand it. This idea that God-becomes-us, or God-with-us (“Immanuel“) has many, many implications for a human race that feels, in largesse, that it is abandoned by some distant, bearded deity. And yet so few of them are imagined in masses throughout the country, unfortunately. Maybe because we have not learned to lose, as my friend has. But I’d venture it would best work out the opposite direction – that when we can imagine that God has already walked as we walk, that he has already been through the muck, the mire, the deep shit that we wade through (real and imagined), when he knows hunger pangs, when he has seen skin falling off dead nerves, when he’s struggled looking for work along with other working class and servants, when he’s being suffocated by zombie-like masses and power-hungry sociopaths, when he’s felt urgent anger, and deep loss, when he fears for his immediate future – this is when we can better face tomorrow. This is when we can be connected to something bigger than ourselves.
Chicago Tuesdays – Co-op Review, Shadow Budget and Pursed Lips
- First off, I finally made it to my friendly neighborhood Co-op, the Dill Pickle (blog here). My take: It’s a local haven for people who crave a nearby Whole Foods, yet want more community involvement, ownership, and less of the SUV set.
- If you live in Chicago and have yet to read Ben Jarovsky and Mick Dumke’s take on TIF’s, please do yourself a favor and read, oh read Shedding Light on the TIF Budget.
In the case of the market, the City Council, at Daley’s urging, voted in 2006 to spend a total of $12 million in taxpayer money on construction of a new shopping area in the Ogilvie Transportation Center; $8 million of that sum went to the French Market. The project happens to be headed by a well-to-do, politically connected developer who’s contributed thousands of dollars to the mayor’s campaign coffers. And the city plans to spend another $23 million in the River West TIF district through 2011.
The more TIF districts are created, the more money goes into the TIF accounts and the more powerful the mayor becomes.
Back in the 1980s, in the early days of Chicago’s TIF program, Mayor Harold Washington said he would limit TIF districts to paying for specific projects in blighted communities that truly needed them. But the program has expanded over the years, and the administration and City Council have held almost no discussion of its evolving goals; now virtually any project in any community can qualify for subsidies. According to a TIF primer city officials distributed to aldermen this fall, TIF money can be used for program administration costs, property acquisition, rehabs of existing public or private buildings, construction of “public works or improvements,” job training, business relocation and financing subsidies, planning studies, marketing, building demolition, and the services of architects, engineers, lawyers, and financial planners…
As we like to say here at LeftCheekopia, and further, etcetera, etal…
- Another point of interest for me, at least, is the Reader’s story on the seemingly secretive CPS press agency. Yeah, if the last eight or so years have taught us anything, being opaque and secretive is the way to destroy your credibility and government.
Constitutionally Guaranteed Gun Rack for Your Bedside
A loaded rifle at the side of your bed, for when you groggily get up in the middle of the night for some water or ’cause your baby is screaming her head off and you just want to shoot something without even thinking of it.
News of the Weird – BATMAN’S DEAD!!!
Chicago Tuesdays
We have identified 50 families that we have been helping with food and clothes throughout the year. Almost all are from Goethe and Chase Schools. We ask our church members and anyone else that would love to help to bring new toys and/or items that they believe would be helpful for families. One church is giving us 120 coats. While we give away the toys or items that are designated to only be given, the toys and other items are sold at 15cents on the dollar. This does two things, it encourages the families who love the idea of “buying their children Christmas gifts” at a fantastically reduced rate and secondly, the money is used to buy more food for these same and other families in need.
The Global Warming Denier’s Anthem
Evangelicals, Markers and the World
We evangelicals are a people obsessed with badges and identifiers. It’s a way to tell, in a quick overview, if the new couple in the church are really saved, if we can hang with Sally and Joe even though they go to a different church. It’s a way of checking out, of making sure that they are us, but also of making sure that ‘us’ are exclusive and, thus, special. In some ways, it’s a leftover from the high tide of Fundamentalism’s knee-jerk reaction to Liberalism (yes, I’m using Capital Letters like some Nutwing…).
When we place our faith in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or being uncircumcised… You were running the race so well. Who has held you back from following the truth? It certainly isn’t God, for he is the one who called you to freedom. This false teaching is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough!** I am trusting the Lord to keep you from believing false teachings… I just wish that those troublemakers who want to mutilate you by circumcision would mutilate themselves.
So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law… What is important is faith expressing itself in love…For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Weekend Links We Like to Link to: ZOMBIES?
Keeping America safe from the threat of secret Islamocommie-in-Chiefs, Pastor and Jesus-lover J. Grant Swanky-Panky almost clipped out a few Muslims for their devil worship in the butcher shop. Jesus General doesn’t think that’s it’s enough to want to kill them, and called out a holy-hit on Swank. Eradicate the infidels and the cowards and let God sort ’em out.
Rush to Judgment
This guy loves heterosexual marriage so much that he’s doing it again and again. That’s three more times than the man we all want to fail, right, Rushie? You’re four times as dedicated to straight marriage than that ManChild in Chief, as you like to call him.