Office Space

Watched 'Office Space' last night. It's such a good movie. With such lines as "no-talent-ass-clown", laughter is inevitable. (click here for the script.)

It's snowing right now, as I write this. The first real snowfall of the year. It's collecting on the cars in the parkinglot. It's also collecting on the parking lot. Strangely enough, it's only collecting on our parking lot, not that of the neighboring unit. I guess thickness/colour/composition of the assfault must be different. Deep thoughts indeed.

I read a really good article in Harper's Magazine yesterday, called "The Christian Paradox: How a Faithful Nation gets Jesus Wrong." It's mostly about American Christianity, but I think there's things in it that are valuable to Canadian readers such as myself. I'd suggest taking a few minutes to at least skim it. Here's a brief sample:

Only 40 percent of Americans can name more than four of the Ten Commandments, and a scant half can cite any of the four authors of the Gospels. Twelve percent believe Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. This failure to recall the specifics of our Christian heritage may be further evidence of our nation’s educational decline, but it probably doesn’t matter all that much in spiritual or political terms. Here is a statistic that does matter: Three quarters of Americans believe the Bible teaches that “God helps those who help themselves.” That is, three out of four Americans believe that this uber-American idea, a notion at the core of our current individualist politics and culture, which was in fact uttered by Ben Franklin, actually appears in Holy Scripture. The thing is, not only is Franklin’s wisdom not biblical; it’s counter-biblical. Few ideas could be further from the gospel message, with its radical summons to love of neighbor.