at the closing of the year

• Susan + I celebrated Christmas and our 35th anniversary at Disneyland
• Rich Van Pelt + I have a new book: The Parent's Guide to Helping Teenagers in Crisis
• I'm on my way to Ethiopia + Tanzania to shoot a digital movie about malaria interventions for Compassion + Youth Specialties
• There is precious little peace on earth but we're chipping away at it
• The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed yet (Wm. Gibson)
• I am dazzled by the beauty and horror of it all

Here's hoping...

don't rearrange the deck chairs...

speechless

Advent | Christmas + people who claim to know something about God

Without the Nativity, we become a sort of lecture series and coffee club, with not very good coffee and sort of aimless lectures.

— Garrison Keillor, Salon, 12.05.07

24 | present day

Jack Bauer can save the world from anywhere



Now that we know he noshes from time to time, is this the day Bauer takes a potty break?

The Lazarus Effect

things worth waiting for

This is a metaphor (among many, I suppose) for my spiritual experience, courtesy of the good folks at... well, you'll see.

24 | The Prequel

What if 24 first aired in 1994 . . .

on the record

Here's the ad The One Campaign is running in Iowa (and here are the ads for New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada) asking every presidential candidate to go on the record with his or her plan to make poverty history. 

What if we all put ourselves in this picture?

what's not to like?

biting the hand that feeds me (i think...maybe)

Here's a chicken and egg conundrum courtesy of filmmaker Robert Greenwald whose point couldn't be clearer: Fox News may well be more sexually graphic than its self-identified entertainment sibling Fox Broadcast — all behind the guise of outrage at the sexualization of American media culture.

To prove this Mr Greenwald shows graphic examples from the Fox News feed — some of which are quite simply crazy (like the bump and grind Spring Break footage that dominates the screen while reporters in a little box cover a bit of serious news about a murderer in South Florida.

So...full disclosure...I've written several books published a company now owned by a company owned by a company owned by the company that owns Fox News and Fox Broadcast (home of The Simpsons!). I'm not entirely clear what that makes me.

And I'm offering you the opportunity in the frame below to view the offending footage from Fox News in Robert Greenwald's exposé. I'm not certain what that makes me either.

You can get back to me with clarifications if you have them...

Warren Buffet's call for tax reform

Congress is voting on tax reform tomorrow, November 9, 2007. 

Today and tomorrow would be a good window to email your Member of Congress to say that  his or her future in government might ride more on this vote than on how much money lobbyists pour into increasing the wealth of the already wealthy (at the expense of everyone else).

Warren Buffet — one of the richest men alive — surveyed his office and found that he pays a lower tax rate than anyone in the company, including his receptionist. He doesn't think that's fair. Neither do I.