Things will be brief this morning. One of my evenings freed up, so I took the four oldest children to see The Nativity Story. I liked it. It dragged a little in the middle, but it brought together three strands--Mary/Joseph, Herod, and the three wise men--in a nice little story with a beautiful climax.
It gave me a lot more respect for the Jewish people, which was dashed this morning when I read this: "The highest legal body in Conservative Judaism, the centrist movement in worldwide Jewry, voted yesterday to allow the ordination of gay rabbis and the celebration of same-sex commitment ceremonies." Said one Jewish leader, "We believe in pluralism," which is, of course, pretty much the same thing as saying you believe in nothing, unless the pluralism is confined to its proper spheres. You can, for instance, accept the legal right of homosexuals to be homosexual, but that doesn't mean you have to give them a corresponding religious recognition. I can pluralistically tolerate the legal existence of promiscuous men, but I don't need to be so pluralistic that I let them bed my wife. It's all about spheres.
For some reason, this humored me: Hard Rock Café, one of the most recognisable brands in the world, is to be sold to a Native American tribe in a deal that values the restaurant chain owned by Rank at about $960m. I never considered Native Americans as cutting edge rock-n-rollers. I realize, of course, that the Hard Rock is hardly cutting edge anymore, but I can't think of one Native American rocker. I'm sure they're out there. Jimi Hendrix kinda dressed like an Indian at a full-blown ceremony. Does that count? That's the closest I can come (sensitive Native Americans: don't take offense, I'm just having fun; sensitive Hendrixians: don't take offense, I'm just having fun).
Ran across recently in my readings. Perhaps the best argument I've ever heard against the immortality of the soul: "[t]he vast majority are so dead while they live that one may suppose they stay dead when they die." Albert Jay Nock
