|
lesterman1
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: Dave
Country: United States
State: Washington
Metro: Seattle
Interests: Jesus Christ, theology, film, hiking, white water rafting, and the Seattle Mariners
Expertise: uhhhhh...get back to me in a few years.
Occupation: Business Insurance Agent
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
2/21/2005
|
|
| Blog changeYou can now catch me on my blog:
http://theologiandave.blogspot.com
Stop by for talk about religion, politics, occasional film reviews and updates on my life.
You can also add me as a friend on Facebook.com to keep up with my life.
I wish you all wellness and encourage us all to love Christ and love our fellow people in this world.
Sincerely,
Dave
| | |
| The Coen bros are the kings of moviemaking absurdism! Such is the above film. An extremely funny send up of the lies and deceits that are all to common in the Washington DC culture. The film features a great cast...especially an uproarious performance from Brad Pitt (!). This may be the funniest (as in laugh out loud) Coen Brothers film and is most definitely the funniest movie I have seen all year. The scene where Brad Pitt and John Malkovich are talking in the car is a riot!
"Growing up oftentimes means that imperfection and weakness and evil are all part of the human condition as much as joy and happiness and good are...It's not pessimism. One of the things I am always trying to reject is a false choice between blind optimism and despair and cynicism. What I at least am always after is a hardheaded realism that does not extinguish hope." -Barack Obama as quoted by Newsweek editor in chief Jon Meacham. Newsweek, July 14th, 2008, pg. 28 | | |
| Fishtown USAI'm still here in Philadelphia for another two days. It's been a really great trip catching up with my old college friends.
Today, we went to an inner city ministry called Urban Hope. One of the guys that I new back in my college days, a guy named Jason, works full time at Urban Hope and has since 2001. The ministry is located in the ghetto of ghettos. Walking down the streets of this section of Philadelphia (Kensington) made me feel like I was in a different world. The feel was very sad as people here are impoverished compared to other people who live just 15 minutes across the city.
Of course, the stereotypes are somewhat true. Most of the people in the Kensington neighborhood are Puerto Rican and the next highest percentage is African-American. The people who live across town...in more wealthy or middle class neighborhoods are predominantly white.
Why exactly are things this way? Millions of books have probably been written on the topic and I definitely can't do all of them justice. Racism seems like the obvious cause and no matter how conservatives might argue, it seems more than circumstantial that many minorities would live in poverty while whites enjoy the nicer neighborhoods.
Lack of education (or rather the quality of education) probably factors in substantially to the poverty. My friend Ryan was explaining how bad the public schools are in Philadelphia and especially in inner city Philadelphia. Of course, this is also fueled by racism to a degree that the ghettos are given the worst of schools and slim pickings when it comes to obtaining great teachers.
Poverty is a vicious cycle. An unforgiving cycle that thousands of families can't seem to break no matter who the politician is or what party they are from. (See the long list of big American cities who have had Democrats in power in the respective cities BUT people still live in the same poverty they did 40 years or more ago even though Democrats have been predominantly in control for most of those years).
And the cycle continues. When the only good jobs are selling drugs or women selling their bodies as a means for people to pay their rent or buy groceries, how are people going to break this cycle?
I'm no expert but what I saw today was really disturbing. | | |
| On the streets of Philadelphia...I'm in Philly visiting some college buddies of mine...one of which I have not seen in 5 years. So far, we've done some hiking, catching up and hanging out at a few bars watching some football games. It's been really great. Today, we are going to the Philadelphia art museum where Rocky famously ran up the steps. I should have some pictures posted in the coming weeks on my facebook page.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Bill O'Reilly (God loves him) is a complete jackass and reinforces my opinion in this interview with Barack Obama. O'Reilly asks some good questions but his tone and interjected opinions seriously made me cringe.
Bill's Interview with Obama
I really did appreciate Obama's responses and I think he is on the right side of this foreign policy stuff.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
| | |
| I'm in my new condo and slept there last night for the very first time. The atmosphere was very quiet and peaceful so I had a very good night's rest. I'm still in the process of unpacking, not that I have a lot of stuff but I just got it all in, so now I'm organizing books, DVDs and even kitchen items. Don't tell ANYONE...but I actually shopped at Bed, Bath and Beyond which has to be some kind of degrading of my masculinity. I bought a cool shower rod, a black shower curtain, liner and a black rug. Yes, bachelors like BLACK. True story. My parents came up yesterday to see my new place for the first time. My mom decided to bring their ten pound, anklebiting, pesky dog named Casey. My mom carried the dog into my place, put here down while she was looking around and the dog scrampered off to my bedroom. The instant I saw this happen, I knew this situation could not be good. I rushed into my bedroom to find the little Yorkie squatted over and dropping a load in the middle of my bedroom floor. Haha. I guess when you buy something expensive and go 30 years in debt, you just can't take that seriously. Dogs can put things into perspective I guess. At any rate, I'm excited to not have to move for awhile. Moving stuff around and changing addresses frequently gets to be annoying. | | |
|
