Avengers Infinity Wars: Exciting, but Plot Sucks.

The Avengers are running away from terrible scriptwriters, but were unsucessful.  

Spoiler Alert!   Avengers Infinity Wars is not a movie, it is a trailer for the sequel, much like Star Wars 2 (Empire Strikes Back) left the bad guys pretty much in control, awaiting something great to happen in Star Wars 3.  

This movie also assumes that a complex plot is a good plot.  Doc Strange establishes that there are millions of parallel universes, plus the possibility of time travel, so whatever complicated terrible thing happens in Avengers 4, it can be undone in Avengers 5.  So I don't give a rat who they kill off in Avengers 4, and neither should you.

The action scenes are great however.  I watched this one in 3D and it is very exciting, even if I don't always know who is fighting or what side they are on.  Even here we have problems that bothered me however:

1.  When attacked by a horde of super powered aliens, it doesn't make sense to counter them by having Black Widow and Captain America wading in practicing kung fu. A machine gun is a better idea, although here it's surprising that ordinary bullets can work against these creatures. Conversely, a squadron of A-10s would definitely rid the earth of these pesky aliens. 

2.  Since the 3 Musketeers, good guys love to make wisecracks and exhibit a subtle sense of humor during battle.   However, you can't have the superheros make jokes while civilians are dying in the background. 

Honestly, my advice is to not see this movie.  Just wait for Avengers 5, and at that time read an online summary of Avengers 4 (which you will have to do anyway, given the plot is extremely complicated and difficult to follow).  

Why We Raise Our Hands in Divine Praise

  Why do we raise our hands in worship (or even better, isn't it okay for me to just sit stoically and intellectually absorb the worship service?  Do I have to "get down" like a Baptist?  Oh puh-lease.....

I was stunned by a recent experience at a Chris Tomlin concert, in which Rev Darren Whitehead presented a very clear biblically-based explanation for why we praise the way we do.  Whitehead comes from a non-demonstrative tradition but was persuaded that that is not the best way to worship.  

My mistake is in thinking that worshipers are trying to cast a spell of sorts.  I figured, that by raising their hands, they think God is going to be specially impressed and give special blessings to the good little worshipers who do this.  "Bad" worshiper who just sit there are not going to get as much of a blessing.

Well, that's not it at all.  Whitehead goes back into the scriptures to learn how the ancient Israelites worshiped.  Psalm   Not that you should do everything that ancient Israelites did, but let's start there.   The Psalms tell us several times, that worship is to be musical. 

Psalm 98.5:    "Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music; make music to the Lord with the harp,

with the harp and the sound of singing, with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn—shout for joy before the Lord, the King."

It doesn't say to sit there stoically and intellectualize.  

Psalm 145:  

"Praise God with drum and dance!  Praise God with strings and pipe!  Praise God with loud cymbals! Praise God with clashing cymbals!  Let every living thing praise the Lord!"

More to the point, there are another bazillion passages that clearly indicate that the Israelites worships by raising their arms:

Psalm 134.2:  "Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord."  

Psalm 63:4

"So I will bless You as long as I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name."

Psalm 119:48

"And I shall lift up my hands to Your commandments, Which I love."

Psalm 28:2

"Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry to You for help, When I lift up my hands toward Your holy sanctuary."

Psalm 141:2

"May my prayer be counted as incense before You; The lifting up of my hands as the evening offering."

You see, it's not just the Baptists.  The ancients had been doing this for thousands of years.  It's not about appeasing some whim of God's.  But it is about making a decision to follow in a tradition of worship that is thousands of years old.  And, if you are at a concert like I was, it's the time to remind your self, as well as your spouse and children that you have chosen to follow in the footsteps of this religious community.  For me it was an affirmation that this was not only the path of the ancients, but also my path, and that I am a member of the community represented in the concert arena.  

.  

All this comes straight from Darren's message.  When it sunk into my thick skull, I looked around, a little tearfully.  And I raised both of my arms and sang as loud as I could.  

AMEN.

Do Democrats Love President Trump?

   Do Democrats love President Trump?

    Yes.  This thought has occurred to me more than once, but it was brought home the other day when I was talking to my Dad, who at age 92 is a staunch Democrat who loves to watch left-leaning MSNBC which day after day expresses outrage at President Trump and the various impending cataclysms that he will likely cause.  The TV is blaring all the time about the latest Trump scandal, and my Dad is all psyched to find  the latest foible that might propel the President out of office. Conflict of interest!  Lying!  Collusion! Disgrace!  Sex crimes! Racism!
    So, I mentioned to my Dad that I was seriously thinking about volunteering for Governor Kasich's 2020 Presidential campaign, and what do you suppose he said?  He was peeved with me.  "Well, you know he's rather conservative." 

    What?  You mean you're pretty much okay with sex crimes, lying, collusion, disgrace, racism and conflict of interest, so that the opportunity to replace him with a "rather conservative" person doesn't appeal to you? 
     It's not just my Dad.   I don't know how many times I've suggested to my liberal friends, "Well, you know if 19 Republican Senators are willing to vote him out, he can be impeached and replaced with Mike Pence."  Pence of course, is very far right, but one who respects the Constitutional process, and one who has been willing to take on the Republican establishment. The answer is almost always, "Oh my God!  Pence would be worse!" 
    How can he be worse?  You mean being a staunch conservative is so bad, you can tolerate President Trump's antics rather than have him be replaced by someone politically further right?  At least until now, I had never heard Mike Pence's patriotism called into account, nor his desirable to do what he believes is morally correct and honorable.  Now however, many of my friends just spew cuss words when asked to compare Pence and Trump.  Wow.  

    In fact, as an experiment I googled some verbatim phrases.  This perhaps is not very scientific, but nevertheless I think it is an indicator of what people are saying on the internet.  Here are the phrases I tried:

   "Pence would be worse than Trump." 11300 hits
   "Pence would be better than Trump." 1650 hits

   "Pence would not be worse than Trump" 741 hits
 

     Using  Google as a crude yardstick it appears that Donald Trump is preferred over Mike Pence by something like 7 to 1 or higher.   How can this be?

     Perhaps just as Conservatives were addicted to blaming all problems on President Obama, President Trump is beloved by the left, but in a dysfunctional way.  In fact at least one fellow blogger points out that the Trump defense takes a similar form to that used by violent spouses:  excusing one's own actual dysfunctional behavior by comparing it to some other worse but hypothetical  behavior.

  http://lauraplusthevoices.blogspot.com/2017/01/no-pence-would-not-be-worse-than-trump.html

One of the best predictors of future elections may be the Las Vegas oddsmakers because of the great incentives for getting it right.  They currently show Donald Trump way out in front, with 1 chance out of 3.  That sounds low, but the next highest candidate, Elizabeth Warren, is rated at about 1 in 8, and it gets worse from there. 

    One of my reasons for predicting that Trump would win the election (which I first committed to writing in early 2016, but which I had believed since earlier than that), was that he was so effective on TV with his hit show The Apprentice.  Trump understands better than anyone else how to cultivate a brand.  FDR once berated his staff on his desire for news.  I don't remember the exact quote but it was on the order of "I want headlines!  I don't care if they are good or bad headlines, just get me headlines."  Like FDR, Trump realizes the importance of media exposure, and moreover generates huge revenues for American news media companies. The news media needs Trump in order to maintain their standard of living 
     The President has realized the importance of being "Entertainer in Chief."  Like everyone else, the Democrats are thoroughly entertained and excited by the President.  I believe they are addicted to the emotional rush they get by criticizing him.  My guess is that the addiction will win out, and somehow the Democrats will work out a formula to ensure that they will keep the President in office, and also blow the 2020 election.