ADDED (2am): Just remember, if 538 more Florida Democrats were actually capable of using a punchcard ballot, we would have been spared this whole ball of wax. Anyway, in case you were wondering, I figured out what caused the 2001 recession. That’s right, I’ve uploaded three of my papers for ease of distribution. You can also read my Master’s thesis on the effects of jurisdictional fragmentation (if you want to waste an hour and/or are a policy wonk), as well as my insights into Delaware’s capital city not having much of a clue about economic development.
First: Roman Catholic bishops voted to change a lot of translations to meet the Pope’s edict that Mass must match the old Latin liturgy as closely as possible. If the move is approved by the Vatican, the congregation will reply not with “And also with you” in response to “The Lord be with you,” but instead “And with your spirit.” The Communion prayer will change from “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you” to “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.”
My take? It seems like the Catholic Church is trying to be like freetranslation.com. Can someone explain how making sentences more disjointed and similar to a dead language brings one closer to Christ? After all, Latin was the language of an empire that killed Jesus, then acted like Christianity was their thing all along. (It is a bit like white people and rock ‘n roll.) It’s things like this that brought around this whole Reformation dealie. Believe it or not, people actually want their religious teachings to make sense. The reason that all of the incredibly dumb new age phenomena that the Vatican despises have taken hold is because they purport to deliver faith in an easy little package. Of course, easy and meaningful are incompatible, so that’s why we’re all going to hell. Or something.
Second: The American Film Institute released its list of the 100 Most Inspirational Movies of All Time. Number one? It’s a Wonderful Life. Yeah, that was kind of an obvious selection, wasn’t it? A lot of the movies I would have picked are there: Rocky, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Miracle on 34th Street, Apollo 13, Hoosiers, Field of Dreams, All the President’s Men, Star Wars, Rudy, Hotel Rwanda, A Beautiful Mind, and Chariots of Fire all made it. (One would think that Cinderella Man would have made it as well, had there not been a requirement that all films under consideration could not have been released after 2004.) However, the AFI’s definition of “inspirational” apparently differs from mine:
#7 was Grapes of Wrath. The only redeeming thing about Steinbeck’s novel is that he didn’t go for the happy ending. The movie did. On top of that, the book takes pains to paint the characters as deeply flawed and not particularly worthy of admiration in any way. Automatic disqualification for phony inspiration derived from destroying a canonical novel (even if Steinbeck co-wrote the screenplay himself). Then again, you couldn’t use the book’s ending in a 1940 film. Eh, still disqualified.
#32 was Casablanca. It was a great movie, no doubt, but does it really qualify as inspiring? Maybe I just take the film differently from everyone else … I don’t see it as a love story as much as it is an ahead-of-its-time postmodernist psychological examination. I suppose the fact that Rick puts himself out on a limb for Ilsa and Victor could be seen in an inspiring light, but the potential consequences hang over him for about thirty seconds. I see it as more of a product of a tortured soul than a virtuous sort of self-sacrifice.
And finally: #47 was 2001: A Space Odyssey. Seriously? The one that Kubrick directed, or some alternate universe version? Again, great movie, but … no.
