Published by Bill on 24 Sep 2010
E-pistle September 24
God Never Sleeps
Twenty-three years later Michael Douglas is returning to his role as Gordon Gecko, a corporate raider last seen in the film Wall Street. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps opens tonight.
You can read the reviews and watch the trailers all over the Internet. I haven’t seen the movie, though whether it is at the theater or when Netflix delivers it, I probably will.
No spoiler here, but apparently the plot revolves around Douglas’ Gecko character, newly released from prison for some crime of the Bernie Madoff/Martha Stewart sort, and a young Wall Street player, Jacob Moore, played by Shia LaBeouf. The Atlantic magazine review describes Jacob Moore as “a young trader teetering between idealism (his fiancée calls him "Mr. Green Energy") and avarice ("the only green is money," he retorts).” Continue Reading »
We live in a “give me” culture. We speak in the imperative with self as direct object. That is, we want what we want and we want it now. Not only do we want it, we are pretty sure that we are entitled to it. Advertisers and politicians, preachers and snake oil salesmen all play to our “give me” culture. And we buy, vote, worship and are suckered because “what’s in it for me?” is question that the message of the day is crafted to answer. 
Who knows how this insane story will have unfolded further by the time you read this. The media-inspired international crisis that has put us on the edge of who-knows-what took a turn for the better yesterday when the Florida pastor with his tiny congregation and sign board on a country road outside Gainesville said he probably won’t go through with his planned Quran burning on Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks. 
As I entered the hospital room yesterday afternoon, the patient greeted me and then turned back to watching the television. Though she had some medical concerns that were serious enough to warrant a stay in the hospital, she was much more concerned about Hurricane Earl and the damage he might do as he lumbered towards the Outer Banks of North Carolina.