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“What’s odd about all this is that the more I see these movies, the more I become convinced they could have been used in happy little object lessons about how God wants only to save us. That includes Tron, a mostly mediocre-to-awful film with some fascinating ideas about the nature of divinity and the relationship between God and humanity rattling around in its empty little skull. At the time, I wasn’t allowed to see it, because it placed computers at the same level as humans. Now that I’ve actually seen the film, it’s hard to see how it could be mistaken for anything other than pro-human propaganda. Go us! (And by extension, if you swing that way, God!)”
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“So in addition to PNC Bank’s annual true cost of “The 12 Days of Christmas” holiday exercise, I propose we start a tradition of calculating the total true cost of all the items listed in Robert Earl Keen’s “Merry Christmas From the Family.” Those items also have the advantage of being readily available for comparison shopping at your local convenience store, which is where the characters in the song are sent off to buy them during a low-brow, but apparently loving and festive, Christmas celebration.”