Consequences: Gun control

As sure as thunder follows lightning, April follows March, and the paparazzi follow scandal, you can bank on (poor choice of words) the gun control reactionaries to follow any tragic shooting with apoplectic cries for more stringent gun control.

In the past few weeks, America witnessed a number of lawless individuals unleash their evil upon the innocents. They happened to use guns. Wait for it. Wait for it. Ah, there it is. Faster than a bank bailout, stronger than the Treasury department, able to leap Barney Frank in a single bound, John Kerry to the rescue with his call for greater gun control (here).

Why, why, why, Delilah, do they continue to restrict the acquisition of weapons for those who purchase them through lawful channels?

The Democratic Party continues to be hostile toward gun ownership in our nation which is why if you go to any outlet that sells weapons or ammunition, you see the shelves picked clean. When folks anticipate scarcity, they make a run on that product. Before hurricanes, folks stock up on the staples, food and water. When citizens anticipate the government legislating away weapons and ammunition, they will load up (good choice of words) on handguns, rifles, shot guns, and pea shooters.

The logic staggers. The drug cartel in Mexico scoop up guns in the U.S. If we outlaw them in the U.S. to prevent the cartel from acquiring them, they will get them via other means. The final outcome is that we have disarmed our citizens thereby preventing them from protecting themselves against the lawless ones coming across our borders.

The problem is not the guns. The problem lies in the heart and soul of the people wielding the guns. Wickedness. Immorality. Evil. Lawlessness. It doesn't matter if it's a person singular or a person in a group or cartel, the outside can only reflect the inside. These people exhibit man's natural rebellion against God. Taking their guns away will not change a corrupt heart.

I hear thunder. And it bodes ill.

Constitutional overreach

The President has audaciously overstepped his constitutional bounds by strong-arming the GM CEO, Rick Wagoner, into resigning (here).

Since when does the head of state have the people-given authority to ask a company head to step down? Let the tyranny begin.

Movie Review: Monsters v. Aliens

Didn't see it...yet. Thought this quote piercing, though.

If Pixar provides scrumptious, lovingly prepared meals, DreamWorks serves up a fast-food alternative: crude, indelicate, pandering. In a pinch, their offerings will tide you over, but they almost always leave you wishing you’d had time to sit down for a real meal.

Peter Suderman (review here)

QotD: Hannan revisited

"...You cannot carry on forever squeezing the productive bit of the economy in order to fund an unprecedented engorgement of the unproductive bit."

Daniel Hannan, British Parliament

His statement, "You cannot buy yourself out of a recession or spend yourself out of debt," came on the heels of the above quote. This latter quote is the one the media is keying on. This is the tactic currently employed by our President to solve our economic predicament. These two statements together expose a portion of this tactic unconsidered by many.

Our government produces nothing.

Granted, the former quote speaks of "legal plunder" by the government. And sure, government provides services, but unlike the private, productive sector of our society, the services do not produce wealth. When the government spends the dollars to provide that service, it spends my dollars and your dollars, and the money is gone.

Government, by its nature, takes money from its citizenry (you and me) to fund itself. As the government grows, so too grows the taking (stealing) from the productive for its own survival or to fund the unproductive.

Pretty soon, as the productive segment of society withers under the weight of the bureaucratic behemoth, there will be nothing left to take.

QotD: Rover

Tomorrow, my bride is attending a Bible study with a bunch of women (though that doesn't bear on this tale). The topic: Abraham's bride, Sarah. Back then folks lived longer than we do today. In the earlier pages of Scripture, they lived a really long time. Amidst the conversation, my son mused,

"I'm pretty sure they lived in dog years back then."

Would that mean Moses carried around the Arf of the Covenant?

Orator par excellance!

This clip has been out and about for three or four days now. You might have seen it already. Watch it again. If you haven't seen it, take three minutes. It's the most powerful political oratory I have heard in my life. The pain, passion, and anger are real and not merely the theater of false Greek columns and false rhetoric.

Ladies and Gentleman, without further ado, Daniel Hannan of the British Parliament at the European Parliament:


Where are the Hannan's in our House and Senate? Where are the Hannan's in our communities? Be that man!

Top ten reasons for a global currency

10. Now we'll get money with pictures of those wacky internationlists like Joe Stalin, Chairman Mao, and Idi Amin. Perhaps one of the lovely British queens like the Canadians have.

9. No more of that silly American bravado. The international community will finally be able to coerce the United States (if that's what we're still called) to bow to its will. If they don't like what we're about, then they'll apply the financial whammy. If our peasants aren't making enough brick, "Whammy!"

8. No more ACLU lawsuits since "In God We Trust" will be nowhere found.

7. The blood, sweat, and tears of American workers will not only prop up their own free-loaders and bailout recipients, but we'll be propping up dying and dead economies like North Korea and the Sudan.

6. Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon and Alec Baldwin might finally move off American soil.

5. New pro sport names. In baseball, the Cincinnati Red Menace. In football, the Detroit Lenins, and the New York Jihadists. Oakland will simply keep the Raiders. In hockey, Montreal will have to lose its jingoistic "Canadiens" for something a bit more palatable. Perhaps the Montreal Impotent Members of the UN or I.M.U.s for short.

4. No more national independence. We'll all get to kowtow to whatever the whoevers tell us to do. Kyoto? Here it comes. International Rights of the Child? Just cede your kid to the state.

3. No more having to sweat who gets to host the Olympics every other year. If we're all singing Kumbaya, who cares if we clock the Ruskies in hockey. We're all on the same team.

2. No more multi-language nonsense. If we're going for one currency, we might as well all speak the same language. I'm pulling for English.

And the number one reason for a global currency.

1. No more pennies!

Beruna

One of the surprise delights of parenthood has been the movies. I have seen every Pixar movie in the theaters (and many times more on DVD). But I didn't have to wait until the line was empty, race to the counter and whisper through the glass, "Two for Monsters, Inc." I didn't have to wait until the hallway was empty to duck into the theater. With kids in tow, you get to see some great flicks without the skulking!

Another delight has been reading. When I was a child, I never read The Chronicles of Narnia. None of them. Nope, not even my English teacher, Iola Kludt (scout's honor), made us read them. Since I've been married, I've read them through at least four times. All of them. One time it was just me and my bride...shhhh.

I have the pleasure of embarking on read number five. My daughters, six and four, have come to love the Peavensie children and we are only on book two, Prince Caspian (btw, you must read them in the order Lewis wrote them and NOT in the Narnian chronological order which is how some nitwit decided they must now be published. It makes a mess of things. Trust me).

One more aside: Dad, if you've never read TCoN to your kids, go buy the set and get at it. And you must create different voices. Your kids won't know you had it in you. Maybe they will.

Anyway, near the end of Prince Caspian, after Miraz is defeated, Aslan goes on a romp with Susan and Lucy and with Bacchus, Silenus and all their party in tow. And yes, it was a party. As they go from town to town, starting near the Fords of Beruna, Aslan begins sticking his nose in places. The majority of folks scream and flee in terror most having never seen a lion and if they had, not one of His stature. A few folks understand who He is, they know that He is the One they have waited for their entire lives. The relief, joy, peace, and release they exhibit as they fall in with the celebrants stirred my heart in glee and in grief.

The allegorical message bounced plain from the page. Christ came that we might have joy and have it to the full (John 16:17-20). The folks who followed the Lion knew the fullness of joy. Those who fled the Lion, smelled the stench of death and oozed hatred (2 Corinthians 2:15-16, John 15:18-25).

I would love to live in a world of Bacchus and Silenus and Aslan and revelry. But our world is under the spell of the usurper Miraz. He sets himself up to be king; he is no king. The world has forgotten the blessings wrought upon it when they followed the Lion. Today, the trees no longer dance. The animals no longer speak. They have forgotten how and have become wild. One day the Lion will return and all will be set to right. Then, oh, the party!

Here is why I write. When I first began posting, it stemmed from discussions with men in my church on Wednesday nights. Not having enough time to discuss all the issues of the day from a biblical perspective, I began to highlight what was going on in science, politics, entertainment, etc. that exposed the deception of Miraz (Satan) and to exhibit in all of these that God's word proved true, excellent, and wonderful

Perhaps in so doing, I have not focused enough on the joy and delight found in knowing Christ as King for it is incomparable. At the same time, it would seem wholly inappropriate to fiddle a tune while my country and friends went up in flames about me. Balance and perspective are desperately needed. My Netflix queue bears that out much better than the sum of my posts.

I look forward to seeing you at "Up" in a few months. Until then, my girls and I will be at sea in the pages of "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader."
----------------------------

(Add-on: Thanks to all who have hung with me through this the 400th post. You deserve a medal! Thanks for your encouragement and your scrutiny)

Animal House?

Michael Ramirez Copyright 2009

My only problem with the above cartoon is that it's too restrictive. How about, "Beneath the dignity of the Office of the President, not only during an economic crisis, but EVER!"

I admit some disappointment when one of the first photos of President Obama on duty had him at his desk in the Oval Office sans jacket. After Bill Clinton's eight years of soiling the carpet in the most powerful office in the free world, George Bush never removed his suit coat in that room. He did so out of respect for those who had gone before. He did so out of respect for the job that he held. Symbolic? Yes. But symbolism speaks volumes.

It seems the new administration's idea of change you can believe in, apart from economic catastrophe, is a 24-7 frat party atmosphere. Howzabout a bi-partisan Super Bowl party (not that Arlen Specter qualifies for either adjective)? Who you got in your Baracket? I'm particularly hurt that in stooping to NCAA publicity, he didn't pick the Frozen Four.

What say we pull a page out of the junior high school playbook and pitch at least one barb at the former administration in every single speech, much like a fifteen-year old tart sucking up to her new BFF by explaining her old BFF is a hormone-enraged idiot.

Leno? LENO?!? How many international leaders would love an audience with the President of the United States of America, and after a whopping two months in office, our President takes a seat in the chair warmed by whatever celubutard is hocking their current movie/book/athletic endeavor? Abasement. Desecration. Cigar, anyone?

Then we have Robert Gibbs, the White House Press Secretary, and Joe Biden, the Vice President, who feel it necessary to do stand-up comedy anytime the microphone gets near them? Kind of twisted, though that VP Biden not only cuts up on the former President and Vice President, he dogs his own boss! What a card, huh?

"In case you missed it, Keith, BO and JB are normal people!" Yeah, yeah, I know it. But when normal people are fortunate enough to find themselves in extraordinary situations, do they rise to the occasion or take the opportunity to wallow and slather in their fifteen minutes of fame (or four years? Or eight years?)? It's not about how they don their trousers; it's about whether they keep them on and where they take them.

Fame. Power. Celebrity. Should they come your way, will you exhibit dignity and restraint? Or will you party like it's 1999+10? Me? I'd prefer to have a man of great gravity in the White House (success or fail) over one who plays to the ratings. It seems somehow pornographic.

After two months, that's my take on the change that we've bought. Here's hoping it gets better from here.

The blindness & deafness of Hollywood

When it comes to movies, folks speak with their dollars. Were the Academy Awards given to what the masses (you and I) believe were the best picture, best actors, etc., none of this years winners save Heath Ledger would have hoisted the little, golden man.

That's why it comes as no surprise to us, the rank and file, that Race to Witch Mountain (RWM), the tame, Saturday-afternoon popcorn fare that harkens back to yesteryear, ker-shwacked The Watchmen at the box office this weekend.

RWM stars the Rock, the former wrestler who now makes movies that don't assault the family (i.e. Gridiron Gang). It's got special effects. It's got chase scenes. It's got aliens. Why it stands atop the box office, I believe, is not because of what it's got; it's because of what it doesn't have. What it doesn't have is what The Watchmen has in spades.

The Watchmen film grew out of the graphic novel written in the '80's. By graphic novel, I don't mean graphic novel, something prurient that you would hide from your mama. It's a comic book on steroids, deep in plot and characterization. Because of its size, graphic novels appeal more to adult audiences and tend to cover topics of a more mature nature. (Words like adult and mature are good words coopted by the porn industry to try and put frosting on manure. I use those words in their classic definition and not euphemistically for salacious waste.)

Where the novel, which for full-disclosure I have not read, uses greater discretion in language and sex, the movie slathers itself in it. And the winner is...Race to Witch Mountain.

Is Hollywood listening? Did they miss last summer? The Dark Knight and Iron Man, both dark films with tormented characters, rocked the box office. The difference? Foul language minimized and gratuitous sex avoided (though Iron Man had a few risque' moments). Parents are much more willing to let their teenage children go see movies (or likely join them) where the plot and the characters raise difficult questions or pose dire dilemmas.

I don't need to be assaulted with foul language to understand the corruption of a soul or that he faces an intense situation. Show me that with style, with acting, with nuance. I don't need to see copulation to understand passion. I've written about it before (here, here, and here), but I'll say it again, I've had my heart pounding with nary a button popped or kiss consumated. You call yourself a director? Then show me your art with a dabble and not a dumptruck.

Hollywood doesn't get it. If they had their druthers, they'd keep cranking out the guano for which they give each other awards. Ah, but the rabble (you and I) pay for their ability to make pictures that jab a stick in the eye of mid-American sensibilities. So until such time as money grows on trees, expect the producers to pitch us a Scooby-snack from time to time by giving us a good ole edge-of-the-seat family friendly flick like Race to Witch Mountain, and we'll keep flocking to the cineplex. Meantime, we'll continue to avoid The Watchmen and its type like a cold sore.

Yet Hollywood continues to shake its swollen head and wonder why. Pass the Blistex.

QotD and such

A bit more than quotes today, but stuff I've stumbled across in recent days.

Quotes

"If we're not a third world nation by the time 2012 rolls around, it won't be for lack of trying."

Burt Prelutsky, Townhall.com

"Science has everything to say about what is possible. Science has nothing to say about what is permissible."

Charles Krauthammer, linked below

Articles (click the link)

Praying for Obama: Paul Edwards gives biblical perspective about how Christians should pray for our President.

Appeasing Terrorists: Jonah Goldberg explains why buckling to the demands of Islamic influence in our nation is not the best plan.

Proceed with caution: Charles Krauthammer, a man who would favor fewer stem cell restrictions than President Bush imposed, watched with horror as President Obama unfettered scientists of any government restrictions.

Seeing the light in the dark: Andree Seu has an uncanny ability to be used of God to abrade and hone the rough edges of my soul. How shall I accept the cards the Almighty has dealt me?

One final perspective

Gary Varvel, March 2009

Almost unalienable rights

Chuck Asay, Creator's Syndicate 2009

The ebb, Part II

When last we met, I shared that I believe the increased irreligion in America can be attributed to our untethering ourselves from the Bible. One of the creepiest and most honest commentaries on the atrophy of religion in America comes from Cathy Lynn Grossman, a USA Today columnist. After pondering the comments of the ARIS study that highlit the spiritual slide, she noted:

"The researchers described Americans as preferring their religion without particulars. No requirements for moral action. No restraints on personal pleasures. Few communal obligations."

I noted (here) that Michael Spencer also believes that this that spiritual erosion within evangelical America stems from their increased distaste for orthodoxy. He believes it will only get worse, that evangelicalism will fade into the night, but he suggests another major reason with which I disagree.

Point #2 (his first): Political involvement has harmed the evangelical church. Many Christians believe that political involvement soils the gospel message. Cal Thomas, syndicated columnist and Christian, agrees. In a 2008 column, Thomas asserts:

"Too many conservative Evangelicals mistake political power for influence. Politicians who struggle with imposing a moral code on themselves are unlikely to succeed in their attempts to impose it on others. What is the answer, then, for conservative Evangelicals who are rightly concerned about the corrosion of culture, the indifference to the value of human life and the living arrangements of same- and opposite-sex couples?

"The answer depends on the response to another question: do conservative Evangelicals want to feel good, or do they want to adopt a strategy that actually produces results? Clearly partisan politics have not achieved their objectives. Do they think they can succeed by committing themselves to 30 more years of the same?"

Thomas, a man passionate and outspoken about politics, believes that the only way to bring about real change is through the heart and not through law. And he's right.

But law is not for the compliant and obedient. Law is not for the righteous. Law is for the lawless. If our laws are not lawful in themselves, then we begin to call good that which is actually corrupt. For this reason, I believe Christians must not mute their voices in the political arena. Track with me a moment.

The chief discussion bandied about following the whuppin' the Dems gave the Reps in November went like this, "What does the Republican part have to do to regain ... (fill in the blank)?" The House. The Senate. The White House. Etc. Talking heads argued for returning to Reagan. Some spoke of distancing themselves from the Religious Right. Others thought fiscal conservatism would have won the day.

But notice, the chief end argued was a return to power. This is the thing that sticks in Cal's craw. This is the thing that has caused many a Christian to compromise his convictions.

Here's the deal: It doesn't matter if Republicans regain the White House in my lifetime. I don't care if they never see a majority in the House or the Senate. What matters is God's honor. If his principles are forsaken, it matters not who wins because we will be traveling a path destined for failure (despite possible short-term successes).

It gets down to rule of law, a concept B. Obama speaks of with great reverence (as he does most things), but something for which he appears to have no understanding. Is there an immutable bedrock upon which law is founded and against which all other law must be judged? The Founders seemed to think so. You've heard it before, "We are endowed by Creator with certain unalienable rights..."

The Founders had no reticence acknowledging God as the source of human right. To them, it was fundamental and foundational to our nation's establishment. Law makes a moral judgment. It's intent, according to Fredric Bastiat, is to bring to bear the collective force of society for the protection of the God-given rights of the citizen.

Here is the beauty of the America built by the brilliant boys of the late 18th century. While founded upon God's principles, the godless could still abide within that nation, reap the benefits of that nation, and yet never once bow the knee to the God honored by its law. Godly principles do not mandate worship of God. At the same time, adherence to God's directives, since, by the way, he's the guy who created us and knows best how we work, brings about blessed civilization.

The greatest nations regarding prosperity and freedom that the world has ever known, the United States and Israel, were those which founded their civilization upon such principles.

Why on earth should the Christian be silent in the political realm when he is permitted to have a voice? Who to speak out on behalf of the innocent (abortion, embryonic stem cell research)? Who to stand against the erosion of the created social structure (homosexual marriage)? Who will indict the government for coercive stealing (illegal plunder through taxation and social programs)? Who has the moral authority but the one who stands on the unwavering unchanging principles of God, principles that flow from God's very nature?

What makes a principle repugnant simply because someone avers that it comes from God? The Christian did not received a vision in the night. He is anchored in the most extraordinary book in history.

So it doesn't matter if such principles win a majority. They are right and must be advocated. Pragmatism and utilitarianism lead to compromise to bring about the "best" end, but the God who created us is as concerned about the means as he is about the end.

If the Church is an embarrassment to both political parties, so be it. It must not stand by as the churches did while human beings were bought and sold in the marketplace. It must not fiddle while people groups are imprisoned, butchered, and burned for simply being from a particular heritage.

The Church must stand. The Church must speak. Come what may.

The ebb of Christianity's tide in America, Part I

Pick a news website, any news website, and with a few key strokes you'll find some article on the recent American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS). What the articles will tell you is that Christianity is dying in America (USA Today has a whole smorgasbord of giddy articles). What the articles won't tell you is that most evangelical denominations and Roman Catholics have increased their total numbers, but against the total population, the percentage of religious proclaimers has dwindled.

Okay. I didn't need a survey to point out that which comes alive in spades anytime I look for a parking spot at the local mall. Or when I get out of my car, walk to the door, and have the person who enters in front of me let the door shut in my face.

Or on my way home, I see it when the tiny dot in my review mirror becomes a streaking SUV with a cell-phone-occupied driver who has to pass as many drivers as he can before entering the road construction and grinding to a halt only to get home 37 seconds faster than if he'd merely merged where he had been in the flow of traffic.

Or when I boot up the computer to dip into Drudge, Fox or CNN and see it in vomitous color, live from Washington DC.

No, it doesn't take a doctorate in theology to determine we've stiff-armed our Deity.

Michael Spencer tackled this topic in a recent essay, examining evangelical Christianity specifically (here). He believes that the evangelical Church in America will shrivel and die in what remains of century twenty-one. He gives a few peripheral reasons, but two of them deserve attention, one with which I agree , the other with which I don't. I'll deal with them in separate posts for the sake of size (and your time).

Point #1 (his second): Abandoning orthodoxy has hobbled the church. Christ Himself made it clear. You build on the rock, your house stands. Build in the goo, and all bets are off. Higher criticism birthed in Germany in the 19th century infected the Church in America in the twentieth. It gutted the Bible. Professors started staring over their reading glasses and telling the rabble that they just couldn't understand the Bible and much of it was suspect anyway. Problem was, they had no basis for such assertions. The archaeological evidence and the manuscript evidence (ancient copies of Scripture) pointed to a Bible as accurate as the day it left the writers' pens. The internal evidence points to the fact that what the writers recorded was the very word of God.

This increasing irreverence for the Bible has led to the increasing impotence in mainline denominations in America. Lutheranism and Methodism are all but dead. Few strong remnants remain. Those that do have clung tenaciously to the veracity of God's word. Evangelicalism grew strong in the 1900's because of a for God that grew out of knowing him in and through his word. That was the beautiful fruit of the Protestant Reformation. Man could read the Bible himself. As the evangelical church abandoned that biblical foundation and sought passion and relationship through entertainment-worship or through experience, they grew anemic.

When it's my opinion versus yours, religion becomes a matter of choice, but when the creature seeks to know the Creator through what the Creator has revealed, choice evaporates. We either choose to bow the knee or go our own way.

You want to know God? He's revealed himself in his word and in the Word, Jesus Christ. You start getting off that foundation, you end up creating God in your own image. Not a good idea.

Tomorrow: Church and politics - for good or ill?

Hope and change, but not if you're unborn

The week of his inauguration, Herr Obama untethered federal funds from going to overseas abortion providers, something George Bush had blocked.

Then the President (current) dismantled the wall that George Bush had erected that permitted doctors who received federal funding from not performing abortions for reasons of conscience. If you get the money, then you'll do the dirty work and figure out how to salve your soul some other way.

Today El Presidente continued the onslaught against unborn Americans continued with demonic passion. In an "effort to separate science and politics," your tax dollars and mine will now go to dissecting human embryos for the purpose of medical advancement (clinically termed "embryonic stem cell research").

Oh, but wait! It gets better. Our elected leader drew a moral line in the sand. No human cloning! From Fox News (here):

"We cannot ever tolerate misuse or abuse. And we will ensure that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction," Obama said. "It is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society, or any society."

Pray, tell, how did the man say that with a straight face? It's okay to dismantle the most helpless and innocent human beings in the hope (hope, mind you, no guarantees) that some day a cure might be found for one of the many diseases that plague humanity, but it is morally reprehensible to wicker with "conception," to create a fashion baby?

Don't get me wrong, both situations blemish humanity. Foul. Morally reprehensible. I hope I'm not equivocating too much. Ethically bankrupt. I'm dumbfounded, though that President Barak Obama finds human cloning troublesome but has such serene certainty about experiments that Mary Shelley never imagined.

It seems our President has found his pay grade. He crushes religious argument by appealing to science. He will not permit doctors protecting themselves on a theological basis. He deceives by asserting that he has taken the politics out of the science.

But he has not. Au contraire! He has plunged the political knife deep into the heart of science. Could someone elighten this dim bulb as to when science got a free pass on issues moral? Even the President can't live consistently with what he says and what he does for by feigning outrage over cloning, he injects politics and morality into that issue. That's just goofy.

And what's worse, by giving government's rubberstamp to embryonic stem cell research, he's unleashed the furies and has made us all culpable.

The unborn have no voice but ours, and it would seem our voice is no longer welcome in the White House. But our pockets will be picked to pay for this putrescence.

All of this on a day when the media headlines the decline of religion generally and Christianity specifically in America (here and here). There's a shock.

Abraham stayed God's fury until his nephew and family had beat feet out of town, but the Lord's holy and just wrath ultimately incinerated two towns in southern Canaan, two towns that had rotted themselves in self-indulgence and gravitas.

What is holding God's hand back today? How long before his justice buries our nation? What will become us?

No place like Rome

I love classic movies. Toss in Cary Grant, Gregory Peck, or Jimmy Stewart, Ingrid Bergman or Audrie Hepburn, and you've got me riveted to the tube for a couple of hours.

I know that's a nebulous term, and "classic" is in the eye of the beholder. I ranted on the regular appearance of Citizen Kane on classic lists in an earlier post, but that film goes to show you that one man's classic is another man's clunker.

One thing I love about the classics of fifty years ago was their anchorage in a clear understanding between right and wrong, good and evil. Many of those movies could not be made today because Hollywood cannot fathom the concepts. Roman Holiday exemplifies that notion.

The premise: Audrie Hepburn (there's that name) stars as the princess of a notional country paying a diplomatic visit to Rome, Italy. While there, her frustration with the confinement of royalty has her pitching kittens at the smothering nature of her life. An opportunity presents itself for her to get away and she takes it attempting to blend in with the beauty of Rome.

Enter Gregory Peck (there's that name). He's a down on his luck reporter stuck in Rome (I know, sounds like an oxymoron, but no script is perfect) whom Providence has just dealt the story of a lifetime. The princess, whom he recognizes, drops right in his lap. Eddie Albert of Green Acres fame plays a superb sidekick photographer (a precursor to Steve Zahn in Sahara) hungry to take advantage of the oblivious princess. They have hit the journalistic jackpot. A story worth thousands...until Mr. Peck falls in love with his prey.

Why won't you find this film coming out of Hollywood in 2009?

• Chivalry. When Mr. Peck finds the highly drugged and gorgeous then-unidentified woman, he does everything he can to get her "home." When that fails and he's left with no recourse but to bring her into his apartment, he leaves while she changes into his pajamas. Despite having pointed her to the sofa, he returns to find her in his bed. After a comic toss to get her onto the sofa, now adjacent to his bed, he lays his head at the foot of the bed and thereby at her feet, so as not to present the image of any impropriety during the night when she awoke. Does that sound like anything Owen Wilson or Vince Vaughn could pull off?


• Discretion. Hollywood today thinks that you have to go full-frontal with more action than the WWF to get the audience's heart pounding. Alas. The romance that blossomed between Peck and Hepburn burned up the screen. The kisses, passionate and brief, without making it look like they were slurping oysters on half-shell.


• Selflessness. The ultimate good in Hollywood today is the consummated relationship. Nuts to your family. Nuts to your antiquated mores. Nuts to your duties or your obligations. As long as you end up in the sack, Hollywood is happy. Not so Miss Hepburn. Not so Mr. Peck. I'll not spoil the ending if you haven't seen it, but "self" plays nowhere in one of the most intense and satisfying endings I've seen in film.

Perhaps movies like Roman Holiday are escapist, a burying of my head in the sand longing for an era of which I was never a part. Perhaps. But such films exalt whatever is true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report. What better movie to enjoy with the family than one that lauds such virtues?

So tell me, what should I watch next weekend?

In the tank

Okay, okay. The honeymoon between the media and President Obama has to be close to an end, right? Not so much.

Imagine the following poll about George Bush:

"Who do you find more compelling?

a. The President
b. The First Lady"

HAH! Had it been a poll initiated by CNN or MSNBC, they would certainly have included a third option:

"c. None of the stinking above"

CNN really did run that poll today, but it was about President Obama and his bride. They included the poll with this purile love-letter from "hard-nosed" talking-head Jack Cafferty (here).

So who's left to challenge what's coming out of Washington? Is it any wonder Rush Limbaugh's speech this weekend so resonated with America?

By the way, I'd take c.