McCain-Palin Campaign On Hurricane Gustav Aftermath

ST. PAUL (BS) -- In a Saturday preview of their campaign, Sen. John McCain and his running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin tried to head-off the Democratic presidential ticket with vows to help anyone struck by incoming Hurricane Gustav.

"Our opponents will promise to shovel millions of federal dollars to you, the future victims of Hurricane Gustav," McCain said.

"But I will come down there and shovel debris from your yard," he said.

"And look at Gov. Palin over there. Now there's a woman who can clean a house."

The Palin-cleaning-house comment caused an immediate surge in approval ratings among evangelicals.

-Colin Foote Burch, who fabricated everything above

The Simpsons and Rev. Wright

Warning: Offensive language involved.

Two thumbs up for this Red Stripe beer commercial

Hysterical Red Stripe beer commerical

'The Silver Chair' by C.S. Lewis

The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
This might be my second-favorite of the Narnia books, after The Horse and His Boy.


View all my reviews.

I loved Steve Martin's 'Born Standing Up'

Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life by Steve Martin

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I loved how Steve Martin recalls his creative development, his artistic development, from small-time vaudeville to big-time comedy. His growth, his peak, his wise decision to re-invent himself toward film, along with his spare family life (if redeemed toward the end). This is book is also and outstanding example of what the genre of "creative nonfiction" or "literary nonfiction" can be. This works very well as a book, and ends where it ought to, although being a big fan of "L.A. Story" and being completely selfish, I wish the chronology had extended to the writing and making of that film.


View all my reviews.

Great moments in childhood

Maggie, age 8, just after her mother closed a Hammacher Schlemmer catalog:

"Mommy, why do you need an underwater pogo stick?"

Russian writers & the Archbishop of Canterbury

I interviewed Lesley Chamberlain not so long ago, when two of her major works on Russian intellectual history were about to be published in the United States.

Now, Chamberlain has interviewed Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, about the work of Russian novelist Dostoevsky.

Here is a key excerpt from Williams' comments:

Dostoevsky famously said: "If there’s no God, then everything is permitted." It’s a view the west might consider more often. Dostoevsky’s not saying that if there’s no God then no one’s watching us and we can do what we like. He’s really asking: what’s the rationale for living this way and not otherwise? If there’s no God, then there’s no shape to our lives. Our behaviour needs to be in tune with something. If there’s no divine tune, how do you know where to go, what to do? To believe in God is not a business of rewards, but an ability to make sense of things.

The objectives of metaphysics, the objectives of science

“If the objectives of metaphysics are spurious, then they cannot be fulfilled by science any more than they can be by metaphysics.”

-Jeff Coulter and Wes Sharrock, Brain, Mind, and Human Behavior in Contemporary Cognitive Science (2007)

The evening news with WMBF, Myrtle Beach's first NBC affiliate

Danner Evans is the right woman for the anchor seat in the WMBF local news operation: she's crisp, quick, charming and attractive.

WMBF is the new -- and the first -- NBC affiliate in the Myrtle Beach-Florence market. Friday (August 8) was the local news operation's first day on the air.

But even with Evans' solid handling of the co-anchor position with Michael Maely, the WMBF 11 o'clock news on Friday evening(running late due to the NBC coverage of Olympic opening ceremonies in Beijing) brought these questions to mind:

1. The segment with the Internet reporter is a smart idea, but will the camera get close enough to the screen, or will the screen become big enough, so that the viewers can see what is on the displayed Web sites? CNN has an Internet reporter who does the same thing, and it can be an effective and useful segment, but the CNN screen is larger, and the viewers can see what is on the Web sites.

2. Tonight's opening report, regarding the Olympics, was broadcast live from a local sports bar. The report had only one bar patron talking on camera; the rest of the report was a voice-over of the reporter talking while the viewers watched mundane shots of the people sitting around inside the bar. Will WMBF generally avoid mundane footage?

3. Was everyone a bit nervous tonight? The introduction to a segment on counterfeit bills was awkward and repetitive. Another segment about air quality in Beijing included a fumble with graphics and video. That's all understandable. After months of build-up, the big day was here, and the folks in the newsroom knew they were riding the NBC legacy. It was truly a big day. Brian Williams, reporting from Beijing, gave a shout out to the new WMBF during NBC's Nightly News.

All that being said, hats off to Justin Felder for two good stories about local Olympic athletes -- crisp reports with charm.

And, WMBF's graphics, color schemes, and set are appealing and engaging.

Only good can result from another news operation in the area.

The new NBC affiliate will make WPDE and WBTW work even harder -- and that's important when broadcast journalism's usual crib sheet, the daily newspaper, in this case The Sun News, has gone through a recent round of counterintuitive layoffs and belt-tightening.

Maybe the cuts were not so counterintuitive. Maybe locals just prefer TV news (the short version with bright, spiffy graphics) to newspapers (the in-depth, and best-reported, version), but Horry County, the so-called Independent Republic, needs all the public accountability it can get.

Even if every report ends with the reporter saying "live, local, and late-breaking." Which brings me to:

4. Will WMBF really end each and every report with "live, local, and late-breaking"? Really? I mean, time is everything on television, right?

#

Newcomers to the area might not understand the significance of a local NBC affiliate. Since I moved to Myrtle Beach in 1996, I have had both the Columbia, S.C., and the Wilmington, N.C., affiliates available on my local TimeWarner cable box. Meanwhile, WBTW 13 (CBS) and WPDE 15 (ABC) both have been covering the Myrtle Beach-Florence market for several years now.

#

Late update: Conan O'Brien just did a shout-out to the new WMBF on his Late Night with Conan O'Brien show.

-Colin Foote Burch

Here's another thought

"To ask how I would think if I were brought up outside any particular society, is as meaningless as to ask how I would think if I were born in no particular body, relying on no particular sensory and nervous organs."

- Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge

Here's a thought

"What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.... The real discovery is the one that makes me capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want to."

-Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

Solzhenitsyn's short, brilliant aesthetic statement; honoring the most famous lecture of late Solzhenitsyn

With the passing of Russian Nobel Laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (obit here, and here), it is only fitting for me to praise a short hardback book I found at a used book store years ago -- perhaps the smallest hardcover with a dust jacket that I had seen to date.

Solzhenitsyn's Nobel Lecture on Literature stimulated my mind, blessed me, invigorated me. The book is still one of my greatest treasures. He was not able to deliver the lecture in person -- another cruelty in his life.

Here are some excerpts from Solzhenitsyn's lecture that I have kept in a separate file of quotations that are important to me:

And even more, much more than this: whole countries and continents repeat each other's mistakes after a while; it can happen even now, in an age when, it would seem, everything is clearly visible and obvious! No indeed: what some peoples have already suffered, considered, and rejected suddenly turns up among others as the last and newest word.

The artist is only given to sense more keenly than others the harmony of the world and all the beauty and savagery of man's contribution to it -- and to communicate this poignantly to people.

It is in vain to affirm that which the heart does not confirm.

Art opens even the chilled, darkened heart to high spiritual experience. Through the instrumentality of art we are sometimes sent – vaguely, briefly – insights which logical processes of thought cannot attain.

However, there is a special quality in the essence of beauty, a special quality in the status of art: the conviction carried by a genuine work of art is absolutely indisputable and tames even the strongly opposed heart.

One can construct a political speech, an assertive journalistic polemic, a program for organizing society, a philosophical system, so that in appearance it is smooth, well structured, and yet it is built upon a mistake, a lie; and the hidden element, the distortion, will not immediately become visible. And a speech, or a journalistic essay, or a program rebuttal, or a different philosophical structure can be counterposed to the first – and it will seem just as well constructed and as smooth, and everything will seem to fit. And therefore one has faith in them – yet one has no faith.

In contrast, a work of art bears within itself its own confirmation: concepts which are manufactured out of whole cloth or overstrained will not stand up to being tested in images, will somehow fall apart and turn out to be sickly and pallid and convincing to no one.

Works steeped in truth and presenting it to us vividly alive will take hold of us, will attract us to themselves with great power – and no one ever, even in a latter age, will presume to negate them. And so perhaps that old trinity of Truth, Good and Beauty is not just the outworn formula it used to seem to use during our heady, materialistic youth. If the crests of these three trees join together, as the investigators and explorers used to affirm, and if the too obvious, too straight branches of Truth and Good are crushed or amputated and cannot reach the light – yet perhaps the whimsical, unpredictable, unexpected branches of Beauty will make their way through and soar up TO THAT VERY PLACE and in this way perform the work of all three.

Solzhenitsyn, a great artistic and prophetic voice, falls silent in the hour we might need him the most.

-Colin Foote Burch

Beer-food pairings article now archived online

Everyone talks about wine pairings, but not as many talk about beer pairings.

If you've ever wanted to know what beer to have with a certain food -- or what food to have with a certain beer -- I've got you covered.

Here's the link:

http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/static/weeklysurge/2008%20archives/072408%20archives/main072408.html

Enjoy!

Article on beer-food pairings now archived online

Everyone talks about wine pairings, but not as many talk about beer pairings.

If you've ever wanted to know what beer to have with a certain food -- or what food to have with a certain beer -- I've got you covered.

Here's the link:

http://www.weeklysurge.com/2008%20archives/072408%20archives/main072408.html

Enjoy!