The court scholar serving Hermann of Thuringia.

The court scholar serving Hermann of Thuringia.
The scholar

2016/02/21

Can we speak ill of the dead now?


I presume that the desire to not speak ill of the dead comes with a time limit after which it's perfectly okay. In updating prawnworks, I came across this piece from early this January. The late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia advocated an absolutely dreadful idea, that government should take the side of religion over non-religion. 

Sorry, but I see a very short, steep and slippery slope between religion vs non-religion and, say, Roman Catholic vs Baptist. People might recall that, back in the old days, being declared a heretic, a non-Christian, someone who was Christian, but believed the wrong things, or was a witch, led to many people being burned at the stake and executed in many other ways.

2016/02/12

Pride, Prejudice and Zombies


Had a hard time choosing what film to see tonight as usually, Michael Moore is like Quentin Tarantino, if I learn he's putting out a film, that's reason enough for me to see it. But I had the feeling PPZ was kind of a boutique film, one that wouldn't be in the theaters long. Sure enough, on the film's second week at 8:00pm on a Friday, the film was in a back theater and there were only about 10 other audience members. 

Awesome stuff, though! I read all of the major Jane Austen novels for a course back in the 80s and the film was very true to the spirit of the novels while having lots of fighting (The characters have a connection to both China and Japan, so the heroes get to use the long, curved, samurai swords). I thought I recognized our heroine, Lily James, and sure enough, it turns out she played Cinderella in 2015.