Coarse Gold

The hymnography for Palm Sunday indentifies the Church with the exultant crowds of Christ's entry into Jerusalem--we are to greet Christ as the "Hebrew children" did. My first thought is the eschatological role of the Body of Christ welcoming the Savior in the last days... but there is another, more obvious, way in which to take the identification, which becomes more humbling as the drama of Holy Week unfolds.

For anyone who felt the Wabash Fault quake this morning, I encourage you to fill out this form with the USGS.

Happy Easter to my Gregorian brothers and sisters.

As prester_scott mentions, today may be a critical moment in the history of freedom. I'm not as pessimistic as Scott is, either. I think that the court will either take a lame out or (more likely) say that the 2nd does, in fact, provide for an individual right, which should clear up that particular issue--an issue that should have never been one. This is one of the rights of the constitution that are supposed to be protected against democratic infringement like the DC handgun ban.

Liberty! Liberty!

The better movie won the Oscars this year. It doesn't usually happen that way, so enjoy.

I didn't watch the awards, but I had sbroadway to interpret them for me.

The full Orthodox Study Bible was recently released, with its rendering of the LXX Old Testament text into English, which marks the first time that has been done in a non-academic form (to my knowledge). While I'm not entirely sure about the reductive nature of reducing patristic exegesis to footnote-commentary, or the project's generally ex-Protestant character, the thing as a whole is invaluable, for the OT text alone. The OT text is not a new translation in whole, but a mash-up of the NKJV, a 19th c. LXX translation and a few corrections by the OSB's team. While I'm not crazy about the NKJV, I understand the reasons the OSB people used it for the NT in the first place (it's the only recent translation still based on the Textus Receptus). In any case, I'm thrilled to have it, and plan on spending a lot of time with it.

No Country for Old Men over There Will Be Blood. Hands down.

There Will Be Blood had great scoring, great cinematography, great acting, great moments. But it was decidedly less than the sum of its parts.

This restores my faith in the can-do, innovative spirit of America.

And it's organic!

"On Tuesday, millions of Florida voters will head for the polls. Being Floridians, many of them will become confused and drive into buildings, canals, cemeteries, other Floridians, etc. But some will actually make it to the polls, where they will cast ballots that will play a crucial role in the presidential election. Or, in the case of Democrats, not.

It turns out that the 2008 Florida Democratic primary doesn't count. Florida will be sending the same number of delegates to the 2008 Democratic convention as Uzbekistan. This may seem unfair, but there's a simple, logical explanation: The whole primary system is insane. Consider the process so far..."