I haven’t read the Dark Materials book series and now I want to. The movie seemed like the Da Vinci Code – the book was pretty good, but the movie didn’t do justice to the background information. I feel that I’ll learn quite a bit by reading the Dark Materials.

Anyone have any advice about this? Thanks,

Rich

Ventura County has some great hiking in its foothills and along the beach.

p.s. This weekend was gorgeous in LA! I walked the beach coast from Marina Del Rey to the start of Malibu. Soooo lovely.

Enjoy the week, Danah!

I couldn’t help being reminded of Cruella de-Ville when I saw Mrs Coultard though, even though Cruella never seemed nice for even the smallest moment.

I have to confess, though, that the kids accents rather grated on me; they sounded as if they were put on. (I imagine they were!), but maybe that’s only because I’m from the UK. Perhaps to someone from California they sounded more authentic.

Good luck with the data analysis – and I hope that you get out of the house a bit more this week.

- the Catholic church who though the Golden Compass was a “lavish, well-acted and fast-paced adaptation”,
(http://www.usccb.org/movies/g/thegoldencompass.shtml)
a “tepid endorsment” indeed,
(http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-compass8dec08,0,7431269.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials)
but no boycott; a gesture of respect I would say considering the original book is an open charge against the Church;

with distint organisations, “catholic” only by name, like:

- the Catholic League, an association who openly doesn’t endorse key elements of the Gospel, like Matthew 5 (“If someone hits you on the left cheek [. . .]“);

- or the American Catholic Church of the United States: “catholic” meaning universal, either they never heard of Christopher Colombus or Pax Americana is a lot more based on colonialism then what I though.

Should one accept that fascists like the C. League steal the name of a proeminent association and spread hateful lies about the key values of one billion people? – Not unlike what you went through when the BBC “reused” you thoughts on MySpace, Facebook & classes and forced you into justifications about things that you could never have said. – The answer has been no, clearly but with clemence. Because Bishops wanted to be clear, they seperated themselves from liars: they took the right to say who was following the key aspects and who was out.
This authority can be a threat, and was criticized by authors like Pullman or Luther, sometimes with fairness. I don’t think their are only two sides in this debate – but I do beleive that people who encourage confusion are on the wrong path. But I do beleive that behind the PR stunts, there are important aspects about self-representation: if I say that I am part of a religion, how can I disagree with it’s authority? Can I speak in their name?