Pixar's Inside Out: Herman's Head Redux?

Have you seen the teaser trailer for Pixar’s next release “Inside Out,” coming out June 19, 2015? If not, check it out:

Pixar takes you inside the mind of 11-year-old girl Riley, where her emotions Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness are anthropomorphized.

If you grew up in the ’80s, “Inside Out” will remind you of a sitcom called “Herman’s Head.” Compare:

In this show, the personified emotions are: Intellect, Sensitivity, Anxiety and Lust.

Although it may appear derivative, Pixar’s movie I’m sure will surprise us all and offer a completely different take on this cranial theme.

Rely not on ourselves

“…we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.”

2 Corinthians 1:8-9

Happy Birthday, CSS!

It’s CSS’s 17th birthday today! Mention of “imperative” and “declarative” (indicative) in the linked article makes me think discussing theology (law/gospel) to webdevs ain’t that hard.

What does it mean for a husband to be "the head of the wife"?

Headship implies laying down one’s life to serve another. The apostle Paul could not have made this clearer when he said:

Ephesians 5:23-24 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church… wives should submit to their husbands in everything. (25) Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…

The Bible always explains that by headship it means acting like Christ. The Lord Jesus constantly knows our every need, our every thought, our every feeling. He literally understands us better than we understand ourselves. Not only that, our crucified Lord spares no pain or effort or humiliation to satisfy our needs and bring us comfort. Our eternal happiness means everything to him. He guides, and yet allows us to make mistakes. He has power, but never abuses it.

Guidance stemming from a passion to thoroughly know your wife as Christ knows you, and a sacrificial devotion to her happiness, is what the Bible means by being the head. It means Christlike gentleness and selfless preoccupation with identifying and meeting a loved one’s needs.

from Marriage Counseling? No Way!

I'm no longer married to my phone…

This video pretty much sums up why I’ve quit social media.

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/e5y2GKk6sOI

Propaganda’s “Be Present”

Practical Peacemaking

From Ken Sande’s Resolving Everyday Conflict

Peacemaking applies the gospel and God’s principles for problem-solving to everyday life. Practical peacemaking involves asking four important questions, four questions answered by principles called the 4 Gs. They are:

How can I focus on God in a situation?
G1 – Glorify God.

How can I own my part in this conflict?
G2 – Get the log out of your eye.

How can I help others own their contribution to this conflict?
G3 – Gently restore.

How can I give forgiveness and help reach a reasonable solution?
G4 – Go and be reconciled.

Not My Pandora Account

For the record, this is not my Pandora account. This is.

Grace and Karma

In what I think is a response to the brouhaha over Sharon Stone’s calling the recent China quake “bad karma,” Yahoo! today links on its homepage the HowStuffWorks article, “How Karma Works.”

I post here an excerpt from a 2005 interview with another celebrity, Bono, highlighting the difference between Karma and Grace:

Assayas: I think I am beginning to understand religion because I have started acting and thinking like a father. What do you make of that?

Bono: Yes, I think that’s normal. It’s a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma.

Assayas: I haven’t heard you talk about that.

Bono: I really believe we’ve moved out of the realm of Karma into one of Grace.

Assayas: Well, that doesn’t make it clearer for me.

Bono: You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It’s clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I’m absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that “as you reap, so you will sow” stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff.

Assayas: I’d be interested to hear that.

Bono: That’s between me and God. But I’d be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I’d be in deep s—. It doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for Grace. I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own religiosity.

Assayas: The Son of God who takes away the sins of the world. I wish I could believe in that.

Bono: But I love the idea of the Sacrificial Lamb. I love the idea that God says: Look, you cretins, there are certain results to the way we are, to selfishness, and there’s a mortality as part of your very sinful nature, and, let’s face it, you’re not living a very good life, are you? There are consequences to actions. The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That’s the point. It should keep us humbled… . It’s not our own good works that get us through the gates of heaven.

Tolkien Ticked

In principle I object as strongly as is possible to the ‘translation’ of the nomenclature at all (even by a competent person). I wonder why a translator should think himself called on or entitled to do any such thing. That this is an ‘imaginary’ world does not give him any right to remodel it according to his fancy, even if he could in a few months create a new coherent structure which it took me years to work out. […] May I say at once that I will not tolerate any similar tinkering with the personal nomenclature. Nor with the name/word Hobbit.

Tolkien, on the progress of the Dutch and Swedish translations of the Lord of the Rings, especially as it related to proper names (via wikipedia).

Hypocrite

I’ve always prided myself in taking the straight and narrow when it comes to such things as intellectual property. All the songs in my iPod and computers are either ripped from CDs I own or bought from services like the iTunes Music Store or eMusic. Every single piece of software on my computers is licensed, paid for either by myself or by my employer. I have uninstalled and blocked all peer-to-peer apps from my computers so as to hinder the temptation of downloading music and movies (among other things).

I have never “theater-hopped” in my life. When I rent DVDs I don’t copy them for my own personal collection. I don’t own pirated DVDs from third-world countries or from the streets of New York. The DVDs that I own are mostly bought used from places like Amoeba, Blockbuster or Hollywood Video. The films I really like I buy new (I search for the best bargains either online or at stores). I don’t have a lot of money for such things but I pay for them because it’s the right thing to do. That probably also explains why my movie and music collections are not enormous.

Recently, I was told of a website where one can watch newly-released theatrical movies online for free (I don’t recall the name — was it davidsmovies.com?). My reaction: another website to avoid.

I mean, I refuse to even watch a pirated movie that’s playing at some house party somewhere (it’s the poor quality of the copy I object to mostly). So why should I start now?

Yesterday, someone dear to me pointed out something that challenged my consistency in this area. This person was asked by someone if he/she had seen the latest UFC fight. The person dear to me responded, “Yes,” and that I was the one who showed a clip of the fight to him/her from a website that immediately posted the event soon after it was broadcast on Pay-Per-View. The other person’s reaction was: if I were so opposed to pirated stuff, why did I watch it and even invite someone to see it?

I reasoned that it was quite different from pirated movies and the like. The event had already finished and the opportunity to pay to watch it had already passed. And it’s not like I haven’t paid for Pay-Per-View UFC events in the past. Then it was pointed out that such events get released on DVD, which people pay for. I countered by saying that they get broadcast on TV a couple of months later anyway.

Although that seemed to end the discussion, it gnawed on me that what this person was trying to point out was true. I was rationalizing. I also conveniently forgot that UFC charges for replays on UFC-On-Demand.

So I stand corrected.

Now you may wonder why I would break the monotony of posted del.icio.us links on this blog with this quite candid post. Beats me. To keep myself on the straight and narrow, I suppose.