The young-but-reliable-and-smart Nick Milne saw an advanced viewing of The Golden Compass. Here's his review. He also put together bullet points especially interesting to Catholics and sent it to Ignatius Insight.
Note: Both links contain spoilers.
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Anthony Esolen, author of the forthcoming Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization, has put together a Top 20 List of Underrated and Underread books. It's pretty good. A few I've read, a few I've wanted to read, a few I've never heard of.
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Kinda neat, kinda stupid, kinda sultry with a few scary shots: kind of a mosaic of leading ladies from the beginning of Hollywood to today.
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Talented Joe Queenan turns his attention to My Sharona. Good piece. Excerpt:
What makes My Sharona so special, so archetypal, so perfect is that the lyrics never get in the way of the song because the lyrics are purposefully moronic: "Come a little closer, huh, ah will yuh, huh. Close enough to look in my eyes, Sharona." The only word that matters in those two lines is the polysyllabic "Sharona," which has a nice, euphonious, ring to it. But My Sharona doesn't mean anything; it could just as well be Hi, Sharona!, Bye, Sharona! or Why, Sharona? Nobody is really paying attention; until last week, I thought the song was about a compact car.
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Man, talk about stiff competition: The 50 dumbest people in Hollywood. Other than the PC de rigueur inclusion of Mel Gibson, it's a pretty good list.
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AMID much publicity last year, the National Geographic Society announced that a lost 3rd-century religious text had been found, the Gospel of Judas Iscariot. The shocker: Judas didn't betray Jesus. Instead, Jesus asked Judas, his most trusted and beloved disciple, to hand him over to be killed. Judas's reward? Ascent to heaven and exaltation above the other disciples.
It was a great story. Unfortunately, after re-translating the society's transcription of the Coptic text, I have found that the actual meaning is vastly different. While National Geographic's translation supported the provocative interpretation of Judas as a hero, a more careful reading makes clear that Judas is not only no hero, he is a demon.
Read the article. A fascinating story of academic dishonesty and sloppiness . . . and reported by the New York Times no less. National Geographic has much-deserved egg on its face.
