At the start of The Godfather: Part II (directed by Francis Ford Coppola), we see a grim exchange between a corrupt politician and the head of a Sicilian Mafia family. The politician, a reputed senator, denies the Mafia Don’s request for a Vegas gambling license, saying: “I despise your masquerade, the dishonest way you pose […]
Told the devil that I’m going on a strike Told the devil when I see him, on sight I’ve been working for you my whole life Told the devil that I’m going on a strike I’ve been working for you my whole life —Kanye West, ‘Hands On’ In the 1991 film ‘The Doors,’ Oliver Stone […]
The secret to discovering a well-disguised tyranny is to understand the mind of a serial predator. The 1944 psychological thriller Gaslight, directed by George Cukor, is reminiscent of the Hitchcockian thrillers that were very popular during the war and post-war years, though the move itself is not directed by Hitchcock. It is also perhaps one […]
I recently came across an article published by an Oxford University journal which made the following claim: “… The Bhagavad Gita has proven to be an accurate guide for living a fulfilling life—a life aligned with dharma… Krishna’s advice to Arjuna was simple. Being a warrior committed to protecting his people, Arjuna’s only dharma was to fight, and not worry who he was […]
In ancient societies, people would collectively vent their anger and frustration within a fixed time on the calendar, and they would unleash their violence as a collective on a single victim in the form of sacrifice. These times are what we know today as carnivals; the subject is addressed at length by David Gornoski and […]
I am blown away in discovering Jesus’s seemingly hyperbolic symbolic aside at the entrance of Jerusalem is actually a prophecy: Luke 19:37-40: “As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works […]
“The past cannot be undone”. I don’t know how many times I have heard this. I generally dislike it. Of course the past cannot be undone, which is why I’m unsure why I recently used the phrase in a motion to the court asking for compassionate release. I am a non-violent, first time offender serving […]
This article originally appeared on The Aquila Report. It’s time to acknowledge simultaneously that we have come a long way from where we once were, and we still have a long way to go. These are not only consecutive narratives, they are concurrent narratives of the racial journey we are on in this country. If […]
Now it happened, as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way […]
“The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” ~Fyodor Dostoevsky Before the Gospel revelation, justice consisted of directing the guilt of the entire society against a single victim. It was widely experienced, just as it is today, that shifting the blame onto another is an effective way of postponing […]