Opus Dei and the Modern Media World

ROME — In what is being touted as Opus Dei's answer to "The Da Vinci Code" Italy's Lux Vide and Opus Dei are developing a theatrical biopic about Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, the onetime secretive Catholic organization's founder.

Project was unveiled by Opus Dei in Rome in an office packed with publications about Escriva de Balaguer, who founded Opus Dei in Madrid in 1928. The organization, whose name means "The Work of God," has about 85,000 members, most of whom are laymen.

Screenplay is being penned by "Pope John Paul II" scribe Francesco Arlanch, and by Armando Fumagalli, an academic at Milan's Catholic University.

The Opus Dei founder, whose credo was that everyone is called to become a saint, died in 1975 and was canonized a saint in 2002, the fastest canonization in Catholic Church history.

Ah, the power of the pen...or in the case the video camera.  What does Opus Dei want to tell us?  What does the Pope want to tell us since his scribe, Francesco Arlanch, is writing the screen play.  I wonder if I will be able to see this video thanks to the internet..  Fifteen years ago, in my small town in Michigan,  something like this would have only been shown in the basement of a Catholic Church at the discretion of the local priest.  Since, I am Protestant,  I am only guessing, but I'll bet that is true.  Now, well I will just have to wait and see.

Tags: Opus Dei, Lux, Francesco Arlanch, Armando Fumagalli, Escriva de Balaguer

Link

Powered by Qumana

New Energy Source Found

Powered by Qumana

Engineers perfecting hydrogen-generating technology from PhysOrg.com
Researchers at Purdue University have further developed a technology that could represent a pollution-free energy source for a range of potential applications, from golf carts to submarines and cars to emergency portable generators. [...]

    This has the potential to change a great deal in military applications.  It can generate electricity for energy based weapons and power for the various types of motors and engines used since the beginning of the age of mechanized warfare to enhance the power of the soldier. 

Tags: hydrogen, Purdue, internal combustion engines, fuel cell

More on the North American Union

By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

Despite having no authorization from Congress, the Bush administration has launched extensive working-group activity to implement a trilateral agreement with Mexico and Canada.

The membership of the working groups has not been published, nor has their work product been disclosed, despite two years of massive effort within the executive branches of the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

The groups, working under the North American Free Trade Agreement office in the Department of Commerce, are to implement the Security and Prosperity Partnership, or SPP, signed by President Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox and then-Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Texas, on March 23, 2005.

Tags: SPP, Security and Prosperity Partnership

Powered by Qumana

The Amero

Tags: Amero, dollar, North American Currency
What, the end of the dollar bill.. This is certainly a cultural change for North America. We might want to pay attention to the development of the Euro. We also might want to find out who want this and why.

A North American Union

This video certainly says a great deal about culture in America today. It reveals the fears of many common people and it reveals some of the possibilities that are out there. The proposed North American Union and its combined currency, the Amero, is certainly a large change of society on this continent.

Tags: North American Union, Lou Dobbs, Amero

Norman Corwin

All I saw was the end of a program on the documentary channel when I caught the name "Norman Corwin". Never heard of him. A quick trip to Google changed that. Oh, I have heard his legecy. Remember the speeches by Jimmy Stewart in 'A Wonderful Life'. We have all heard them and they sound like Corwin to me. He certainly influenced our culture and is a voice to remember.

Charitable Choice: Should We Help Via the Marketplace or Via the Church?

Someone came to me with an interesting proposal recently: for my church to sponsor an African native in the U.S. while he gets Information Technology training for two years.
There are several unique pieces to this proposal. First, we would sponsor someone who is a Christian, but not someone who is officially engaged in the life of the church in Sierra Leone, where he’s from. In other words, he’s not a seminarian, missionary or pastor. Second, that we would not only give some money to help someone in need, but we would full-scale sponsor a person with only the hope that he would proclaim the gospel in Africa through his business. And this is no small proposal; the total would be at least $50,000 for the two-year program.

This is an example of how churches help people in need all over the world.  It might also be an example of how churches mis-use money given to them with too few questions and not enough oversight.  It takes a great deal of boldness to ask an institution for a gift of $50,000 with no obvious list of reasons that the recipient has any particular merit.  Who is this guy? How did he get such special connections?  Can he succeed? What guarantees that he won't get a degree and stay in the US rather than return to a poor African nation that the church is trying to help.  Churches often to great work through charity.  The people in those churches are often robbed by the same means. 

Tags: charity, africa, religion, church, faith

Link

Powered by Qumana

Trica's House in Texas

Flickr: Photos from user225937
I was looking over my pictures tonight. This one of Trica's home in Houston, Tx caused me to think how much we are influenced now by the distance between some of our family members. Thank God for the phone and for all the new ways to communicate, like this blog.

When I was in the Navy in 1970, I felt that I was in a remarkable time. That communication was cheap compared to what it had been. That was true but look at it now. Then a call home from Virginia cost $.50 per minute. Now, it is free.

Some things get better.

Video Camera Teaches Robot to Dance

August 14, 2007—The mighty Transformer Optimus Prime might be able to save the universe, but who's going to teach the Autobots to do the Hustle?

Enter HRP-2, a humanoid robot designed by Japanese researchers that is programmed to reproduce dance steps with the practiced grace of an electronic geisha. The 5-foot-tall (1.5-meter-tall) robot is seen here at a press demo at the University of Tokyo's Institute of Industrial Science on January 12, 2005.

(Video: Watch the robot dance alongside a human counterpart in this undated footage from Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, a co-developer of the automaton.)

To teach HRP-2 its groove, the researchers devised a new approach that transforms motion-capture video of a human dancer into data for the robot's sequence of limb motions. A report on the work appears in this month's issue of the International Journal of Robotics Research.

"This study especially focuses on leg motions to achieve a novel attempt in which a biped-type robot imitates not only upper body motions but also leg motions including steps," the authors write.

Teaching a robot to perform on this level with only a video camera is truly remarkable.  Obviously, jerky robot dances are so 'twentyeth century'.

Link

Tags: Robots, Folk Dance, Japan, Robot Instruction, HRP-2

Powered by Qumana

RISE OF ROBOETHICS

In April, the government of Japan released more than 60 pages of recommendations to "secure the safe performance of next-generation robots," which called for a centralized database to log all robot-inflicted human injuries. That same month, the European Robotics Research Network (EURON) updated its "Roboethics Roadmap," a document broadly listing the ethical implications of projected developments like robotic surgeons, soldiers, and sex workers. And in March, South Korea provided a sneak peek at its "Robot Ethics Charter" slated for release later in 2007. The charter envisioned a near future wherein humans may run the risk of becoming emotionally dependent on or addicted to their robots.

This article details the need to deal with the relationships humans and robots are about to have for the first time.

Link

Powered by Qumana

The Base of "Clash of Civilizations"

Online Videos by Veoh.com
This video give the background of the term "Clash of Civilizations". It is extremely interesting.

The '300' and 'the clash of civilizations'

In celebration of the success of the motion picture 300, Warner Bros. Records will release "300: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack - The Collector's Edition" to coincide with the DVD on July 31. The limited edition will include three unreleased tracks from the movie -- "First Battle Push," "One Wild Night," "Blood Drunk," and Philip Steir's "Sacrifice to Sparta" of "To Victory" Remix. The CD will be encased in a 42-page color hardbound book with epic scenes from the film and a personal commentary from composer, Tyler Bates.

I listened to some of the clips from this release on Itunes.  Wagner and Germany in the 1930's comes to mind.  Not simply from some simplistic point of view but from  the point of appeal to some fundamental thing in western culture.  Does this movie appeal to some need for myth that we all share.  Does it relate to the current struggle between the West and Iran, the descendants of the Persians.   The Greeks fought for the freedom of their world.  We fight for the values of the modern age.

Tags: 300, clash of civilizations, Xerxes, Sparta, Persian Wars

 

Link

Tags: 300, battle of thermopylae, king leonidas, spartans, spartan, leonidas

Powered by Qumana