When I saw The Seventh Seal, I had already "moved beyond" my catholic upbringing, read Nietzsche (among others), and accepted the logic and reason underlying modern theories of evolution, and the purely physical, material basis of life.

So in seeing this movie, I felt no profound realizations about the existence of god, or the "meaning," or more accurately the lack thereof, in the finality of death. But I was entertained, and enjoyed the movie all the same. Just because I had already accepted some of the existential realities The Seventh Seal identifies, doesn't mean I was ready to dismiss it as "lowbrow" or "middlebrow."

I suspect some of the religiously minded are repelled by the movie because of the questions it asks, and the self-doubt it awakens in them. Maybe some on the other end of the spectrum who dismiss it for intellectual reasons just can't get beyond the feeling that Bergman is pandering to them?

Without regard to whether the underlying philosophy is shiny and new, or old and dull, I liked it because I felt the dialogue throughout is fantastic, especially the scenes where von Sydow battles Death, or the Squire dispatches the village scoundrel after an attempted rape. Bergman really was an auteur, and here he is simply doing what he does best.

And as an odd-sidenote, I gained a new appreciation for Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. Those guys may come off as dumb, but they actually BEAT Death... unlike Bergman/von Sydow.

... Ruthie was so nice to Gloria at Sunday tea!!! Now all these jerks in the media - let's just assume they're male and run with it - have to drag her through the mud!

Do Howard Kurtz and the goofs at Politico still consider the media to have a "liberal bias" then?

Or is this a crack in the edifice? This story SHOULD be the final nail in the coffin for this way of thinking...

I was in undergrad at MICHIGAN from 98-02, and later law school, which I financed entirely through loans, and a "drop in the bucket" academic scholarship.

It would be nice if the Feds would help stimulate the economy through some sort of loan forgiveness...

...OR AT THE VERY LEAST, allow a full deduction for student loan interest in taxes. I pay thousands of dollars in student loan interest every year. I don't see why homeowners are entitled to deduct mortgage interest in full, while I am penalized...

As it stands now, the deduction for student loan interest is phased out from people earning between 60,000 & 75,000 per year, and totally unavailable for people earning over 75,000. It would be a huge boon to the economy if people like myself could get some of this back; maybe then I could afford to buy a house... or take a economically stimulating vacation...

I agree with you, Mr. English. Any other Senators wanna take on Time-Warner, AT&T, Viacom, etc.?

Lesson learned?

Siding with the people is never smart; they never know you stuck your neck out for them, and the powers that be never forget.

The fact that Dodd may have gotten a cushy mortgage deal from Countrywide is meaningless in light of his attempts to fight the good fight. The opposition he provided to the PAA, and telecom immunity far outweigh the pittance he received from the mortgage industry.

Are voters too dense to weigh these factors? yeah, probably.

I was under the impression that the concession to locate the U.S. capitol in Virginia was directly related to the decision to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

Although Madison was already on board(writing the Federalist Papers with Hamilton), Jefferson and the rest of the southern politicians were not. By agreeing to keep the capitol south of Philadelphia and New York, they won the South over. I didn't think it was solely a compromise over banking issues.

Of course, as a consequence, Hamilton's powers as the Sec. of the Treasury for a stronger federal government allowed him to centralize the banking system, but the main reason for the compromise was the ratification of the Constitution, which also allowed for so much more than just the banking & finance issues.

...does the sentence "[t]he decline of fiction has weakened our faith -- our ability to suspend disbelief -- and has created an imaginative vacuum exploited by religious dogma and intolerance" not make any logical sense?

Religious dogma and intolerance florishes because of faith, not in the absence of it.

This book sounds interesting, but this guy strikes me as the "annoyingly quirky" artist. I'll withhold judgment until I actually read something he has written. Sometimes, pointlessly odd-ball behavior is a substitute for actual talent.

They keep repeating this phrase. Isn't this somewhat of an oxymoron?

Urban-suburban is a pretty big demographic split. Like from the shopping malls of the Schaumburg, Illinois to the ghettos of SouthSide Chicago? I think their message might get a little confused if they try to lump them all together.

Along with the bipartisanship myth, the GOP has attempted to spin Obama's electoral triumph as more of an Affirmative Action thing, than any sort of large scale rejection of the party and its policies.

Think back to McCain's concession speech: at the time, I was surprised he made such an emphasis on what a monumental thing it was for America to finally have a black president. I thought it was pretty disengenuine to stress this over the fact that your opponent ran a better campaign than you, and the majority favored his policies more than yours.

Then you have Michael Steele nominated as the head of the RNC, along with his comments that the GOP had to get more "hip hop" to appeal to the "urban suburban" crowd.

...

No... you just need to stop enacting policies that enrich a small segment of the American population at the expense of the vast majority. Ever consider that?