tim merritt [dot] net

A prominent Republican breaks ideological ranks in a New York Times essay:


“The historic principles of the Republican Party offer America its best hope for a prosperous and secure future. Our current fixation on a religious agenda has turned us in the wrong direction. It is time for Republicans to rediscover our roots.

John C. Danforth, a former United States senator from Missouri, resigned in January as United States ambassador to the United Nations. He is an Episcopal minister.”

Though I’d really like folks to be able to leave comments on the site, I’ve had to delete dozens of spam comments. I’m lucky they’ve been innocuous p o k e r and c a s i n o messages, and not what I call “biology in action.” What that means is, if you want to comment on something you find here, or you want to contact me, you’ll need to put my address in your email by hand (horrors):

tim [at] timmerritt [d o t] net.

With time, luck, and some reading and tweaking I don’t yet know how to do, you’ll be able to have leave comments on a specific post. Just not yet.

Some claim Bush’s politics approach fascism; it’s not, says George Monbiot, it’s Puritanism.

Religion of the Rich
“The enrichment of the elite and impoverishment of the lower classes requires a justifying ideology if it is to be sustained. In the United States this ideology has to be a religious one. Bush’s government is forced back to the doctrines of Puritanism as an historical necessity. If we are to understand what it’s up to, we must look not to the 1930s, but to the 1630s.”

At one point, Monbiot writes that “Fascism recruited the elite, but it did not come from the elite. It relied on hysterical popular excitement: something which no one could accuse George Bush of provoking.” I find that dubious. The “Godly man” cult coupled with the apocalyptical end-times rhetoric among many Bush supporters seems to me to border on hysteria. N0netheless, Monbiot makes much sense, and has annotated the post with footnotes.

My friend Al asked me to join him at a preview of Danny Boyle’s Millions, a wonderful movie about saints, trains, a 7-year-old Manchester boy, the huge amount of money that literally lands on him, and all the complications that ensue.

I had heard nothing of the movie, but Al told me that the NY Time’s Manola Dargis was [lavish in her praise](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/11/movies/11mill.html?ex=1268283600&en=d2ae0e0c64627fdd&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland), and I agree with her. We found some nits to pick, and Al’s friend Bob (who got the passes we all used – thank you again) had a reservation about the ending, with which I respectfully and forcefully disagree. I recommend it heartily to any and all.

A nice pull quote from the Times review: One of the pleasures of the film is there’s never any doubt that this soulful child feels as deeply as any adult: Damian may be a squirt, but he is also an existential hero.

Aah, but best for last: Danny Boyle was at the screening for a Q&A session afterward. The boy who played the lead, Alex, was found after a search (in England, Boyle said, trying to cast a child is called “kissing the frogs). Boyle said that when Alex walked into the room, seeing him out of the corner of his eye, like tickertape, the words “I’ll bet that’s him” flashed before his eyes. Boyle was reluctant to look at him for fear he was wrong, but he wasn’t. In virtually every scene, he carries the film wonderfully.

Millions opens in Atlanta April 1st.

[Update: Found [this link](http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/interviews/dannyboyle.html) to Christianity Today’s interview, by Jeffrey Overstreet. Good reading.]

The Dunwoody Wrestling team has a new site. Coach Sanchez will host a wrestling camp this summer; more info to follow there, with a link to an entry form.

This Sunday at NDPC we’ll be discussing Pieces of April.

I always try to check the New York Times’ Minimalist columns. They’re simple recipes with sophisticated ideas, and this one is no exception. Some of the folks in our house aren’t big on olives, though, so we’ll have to make them cheeseburgers or something. (I include the whole recipe because the fine folks on Times Square have a mistaken idea about this whole web thing.)

Spare Ribs with Olives, Lemon and Rosemary

Time: About 1 hour

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
3 or 4 cloves garlic, peeled and lightly smashed
2 or 3 sprigs rosemary, or 1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 dried red chili
2 pounds pork spare ribs, cut into small pieces if possible, into individual ribs if not
Salt and pepper
1 cup dry white wine or water
1 lemon, washed and sliced as thinly as possible
1 cup oil-cured olives.

Put oil in a deep skillet or casserole over medium-high heat. Add garlic, rosemary, and chili. When they begin to sizzle, add ribs. Brown ribs on both sides, for a total of about 10 minutes, sprinkling lightly with salt and pepper as they cook. Add wine or water and allow it to bubble away for a few seconds, then add lemon and olives.

Cover and adjust heat so mixture simmers as gently as possible. Cook, turning ribs every 10 minutes or so (if mixture threatens to dry out, add a little more liquid). When ribs are tender, after about 30 to 40 minutes of cooking, serve them, with olives, lemon and sauce spooned over them.

Yield: 4 servings.

For the Sunday School film class, we considered Super Size Me (IMDB listing, review at SpiritualityHealth.org), a documentary in which a young filmmaker tests McDonald’s claims about the nutrition of their food by eating nowhere but McDonald’s for 30 days. McDonald’s here is but one componont of the food industry, and there’s considerable information in the film about the pandemic of obesity in the U.S., what’s in mass-produced food, especially fast food, about how it’s marketed, its impact health in general and in particular on children, and much more. It’s engaging and enlightening, and after hearing Terry Provance’s talk about Oikocredit, the growing gap between rich and poor and the impact if microloans, this film seems apt. Please consider watching it.