As I write this, the American Friends Service Committee, Mennonite Central Committee, World Council of Churches, Quaker United Nations Office and Religions for Peace are set to host an “international dialogue” on the topic “Has Not One God Created Us? The Significance of Religious Contributions to Peace” at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Manhattan. Their Very Special Guest? Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you, Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Is this for REAL? [Read more…] about Well-meaning. But stupid.
When I was a kid, my father (who had turned pro at the age of four, and literally grew up in show business) used to tell me that the biggest stars (or at least the ones who’d been in the business the longest) were the nicest people. He attributed this to the fact that “you meet the same people on the way down as you do going up,” and therefore the successful artists were the ones who were nice to everybody, and made few enemies on the way up. I’ve seen that hold true in my own experience. I’m not talking about the “overnight success” types – poptarts like Britney Spears. I’m referring to people that start in the business when they’re young, usually with either a parent (or two) in the business, or a mentor that has years of show business experience. These are the people that, regardless of their fame or fortune, remain “real” – genuinely nice people, who treat everyone well, without regard to who they are or how they can benefit from a kindness. I recently had the privilege to exchange a couple of emails with one such person, and I’d like to tell you about it. 
Giving young actors a budget of a couple of million dollars and telling them to go make a movie is a lot like giving a four-year-old a pair of scissors and telling them to practice those naiscent running skills…the results are not gonna be pretty. Allowing some actors a budget to make the political equivalent of potty jokes (in one case, quite litterally) is just completely irresponsible.
I’ve always loved to read. It’s relaxing. I read a lot – mostly tech books, but I try to read some recreationally, both to relax and to expand my horizons. I was watching Glenn Beck on Headline News a couple of weeks ago, and he had author Andrew Klavan on, pitching his latest, Empire of Lies. Sounded interesting, so I filed it away to a slot on my list of “books I want to read.” This past week, I thought about the book, but had a hard time remembering the name or the author. It finally dawned on me that I could use Amazon’s “if you like this book you might also like” feature to find it. Sure enough, I was able to remember the general look of the cover. I’m not always into instant gratification, but for some reason, I really wanted to read this, and I had some time on my hands, so… 
I am sorry to report that