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Author Archive
Joe Biden appeared on the Sunday morning talk shows last week to defend the Obama administration from Dick Cheney’s disgraceful attacks, which appear to suggest his earlier bloodlust has not yet been satisfied, despite everything his time in the White…
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Tags: afghan, Afghanistan, bad guys, brokenness, conscience, culpability, culture, deaths, Dick Cheney, diplomacy, enemy, Film, good guys, Joe Biden, lament, Lent, martin scorsese, metaphor, shutter island, Taliban, talk show, Terror, terrorist, Violence, War
 It’s that time of year again — you know, when Clint Eastwood releases a trailer for a movie that looks fascinating and completely different from the last thing he did, and your trio of reactions run something like this: 1)…
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Tags: activist, biopics, cliche, clint eastwood, culture, Film, glenn beck, gran torino, hmong family, jail, leadership, letter from a birmingham jail, Martin Luther King, Materialism, metaphor, militarism, MLK, moral authority, morgan freeman, nancy pelosi, Nelson Mandela, peace, pop star, prison, Racism, racist, talk show, talk show hosts, Violence, World Cup
I know it’s been a week and a bit, which in the contemporary mode suggests that ancient history has already passed under the bridge since the Nobel Committee announced its decision, but I wanted to comment about Obama’s prize. I…
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Tags: activist, bomb, bush administration, Catholic, Election, Emperor, george w bush, grass roots, henry kissinger, History, Human Rights, killing, legacy, Messiah, Middle East, nobel committee, nobel peace prize, Northern Ireland, Paramilitary, peace, presidency, President Obama, protest, scapegoating, vengeance, Violence, weapons
I’m reluctant to comment regarding film-maker Roman Polanski’s arrest and the attempt to extradite him to the U.S. to face charges stemming from his admitted sex offence against a 13 year old girl in 1977, because the issues are complex…
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Tags: accountability, california, compassion, consumer culture, Criminal Justice, dialogue, Film, healing, Holocaust, justice system, morality, movie, public conversation, rape, reconciliation, restorative justice, righteousness, Survivor, Tenderness, trauma, vengeance, victim
I have friends in the UK who are doctors, men and women who work in intense, busy careers. Like many salaried positions, things get exponentially better the longer you’re in the system. And, like their counterparts in the U.S., UK…
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Tags: American, average salary, basic health care, busy careers, consultant doctors, General Motors, government, Health, health care, health care costs, health care industry, health care provision, Holiday, Immigrant, imperfect system, malpractice awards, malpractice insurance, myth, national, national health service, nice cars, nice houses, Northern Ireland, personal health care, President, private health care, private hospitals, provision, routine operation, salaried positions, salary, social security, uk doctors, uk health, uk national health service
Regular readers will know that in the past year, I embarked on a genuinely life-altering journey. I emigrated to the United States, got married, and now make my home in North Carolina. I love this country – its culture, its…
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Tags: activist, AIDS, America, class, debate, Ethics, farmers markets, free health care, grand theft auto, greed, Health, health care, health care provision, Healthcare, HIV, hiv test, huddled masses, Immigrant, Immigration, immigration authorities, immigration purposes, individualism, industrial wastelands, martin scorsese, middle class, national, national health service, Northern Ireland, oppression, pay, Privilege, provision, self interest, service, socialism, Stephen Colbert, system, uk national health service, United States, universal health care, White
Let’s get one thing straight: I have no idea what war is really like. I’ve seen ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and ‘The Thin Red Line,’ I grew up in a place colonized by a long-running civil conflict, and I’ve been to…
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Tags: action cinema, action film, activist, addiction, al capone, America, american men, bomb disposal, brutality, Change, civil conflict, de niro, deep focus, Film, Hope, humility, Iraq, jeremy renner, kathryn bigelow, kind word, men, men and women, mortar shells, movies, Northern Ireland, opinion, peace, Politics, redemption, relationship, saving private ryan, shot, soldier, Stories, thin red line, thoughtful action, untouchables, Violence, War, war in iraq, war movie
Sometime in the spring of 1974, my world was somewhat disturbed by the event of my conception, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. When this became obvious to my parents, they went to see a doctor, employed by the UK National Health…
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Tags: birth, cancer, class, Family, Health, health care, Immigrant, justice, medical bills, medical prescriptions, national health service, Northern Ireland, state, Taxes, uk national health service, United States
Tags: Abortion, abortionists, ambivalence, anger, attack, belligerence, Catholic, catholic church, Change, civil debate, cold blood, conflict, conversations, courage, debate, domestic terrorism, dr george tiller, dr tiller, engagement, fetuses, Frank Schaeffer, hate, Huffington, justice, keith olbermann, killing, killings, late term abortions, leaders, Liberal, Liberals, Media, murder, Northern Ireland, o reilly, Personal Responsibility, Pro-life, rachel maddow, Religious Right, Republican, rhetoric, roman catholic church, shooting, Terrorism, terrorist, Violence, Women
A couple of weeks ago on Glenn Beck’s talk radio show, a woman called in to suggest that because President Obama appears to be raising the tax rate to around the same as what it was under President Clinton; is exercising…
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Tags: allusions, book of revelation, boris pasternak, candidate, Christ, doctor zhivago, Election, fact, Film, films, fundamentalism, future events, glenn beck, God, healing, humility, John, justification, movie, Northern Ireland, Obama, opinion, opportunity, power, President, president clinton, President Obama, prophecy, public conversation, Religion, Revelation, sin, speculation, talk radio, Terror, world
Yesterday, under the headline ‘Obama’s Apology Tour’, FoxNews.com, in typical sneering style, published the following story [alas, they did not opt to print my not always entirely serious commentary alongside, which I have included below in parentheses for God's Politics readers]:
During…
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Tags: America, apology, attack, Barack Obama, bush administration, CIA, common security, crisis, diplomacy, Drugs, Economic, Election, Empire, enemy, engagement, enhanced interrogation techniques, fox news, friendship, George W. Bush, Global, Hillary Clinton, History, humility, interrogation, Islam, Israel, JFK, journalism, Kennedy, Mexico, Mexico City, Muslim, muslim world, perspective, Politics, priorities, prosperity, Republican, Republicans, security, state, Story, Terrorism, United States, weapons
Tags: andrew gumbel, anniversary, Christian, christian faith, columbine murders, crime, hate, journalism, killing, marilyn manson, martyr, Media, media distortion, metal music, murder, Music, nihilism, perpetrators, school, shooting, victim, Violence
 Imagine a world in which a human being developed godlike powers and put them to military use. War might soon be a thing of the past. Imagine this world also tolerating people who dress up in costumes to avenge crime…
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On Saturday night, two young soldiers preparing to go to Afghanistan were murdered in Antrim, Northern Ireland. Four other people, including two men delivering pizzas, were injured. The people who carried out the attack — members of a group that…
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Tags: attack, belfast agreement, british occupation, british security forces, Catholic, civil conflict, compromise, conflict, context, free ireland, Good Friday, hate, Human Rights, human rights legislation, illegal paramilitary groups, IRA, irish republic, killing, mainstream ira, Military, murder, Northern Ireland, occupation, occupation forces, Paramilitary, Parliament, peace, Peacemaking, pizza delivery, police, prison, progressive, progressive police, Religious, security, settlement, soldier, UN, union, unionist, United Nations, unity, Violence, Vote, War
With the bad economy leaving people without a lot of extra money, many of us have been hunkering down at home with a movie and homemade popcorn. Also, the Oscars are coming up, so I thought it would be a…
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Tags: church, churches, conflict, healing, IRA, justice, Military, Northern Ireland, Paramilitary, peace, police, security, vengeance, Violence, War
 The other day I heard a 78-year-old man sing, through a cracked voice, one of the most moving and gentle jazz melodies, as the iconic image of a fetishized sports car being driven into the sunset was projected. And, not…
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Tags: blood work, bridges of madison county, clint eastwood, coen brothers, Film, flags of our fathers, gran torino, high plains drifter, letters from iwo jima, million dollar baby, movie, movies, mystic river, Nonviolence, tommy lee jones, Violence, violent revenge, War
I’m always somewhat suspicious of “top 10″ lists, despite the fact that I’ve written one. Too often they become reasons for people not to see films that aren’t included, but I suppose I err on the side of offering the…
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Looking back on the year’s movies, I’m struck by how many of my favorites featured the theme of family and community — perhaps this reflects only my current personal concerns, or maybe there’s a bigger invisible hand at work. For…
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Bill Maher is that rare thing: a media figure unafraid to say what he really thinks. When he intervened in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, suggesting that it’s better to deal intelligently with terrorism than to indulge in absurdist name-calling,…
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