If you're looking from something new to watch

I've currently been working my way (via Netflix) through the Canadian TV series Flashpoint, a police drama telling the story of Greg Parker and the SRU (Strategic Response Unit), a SWAT-like team of highly trained officers proficient in everything from sniping to forced entry to computer hacking.

There are enough guns and car chases and evil bad guys and complicated good guys to make any lover of cop dramas happy (and to make the anabaptist in me just a little nervous), but there's one thing that sets this show apart - and is probably the reason I've come to enjoy it.

Unlike most police dramas (be they TV or bigsceen), in Flashpoint, violence is used only as a last resort. Flashpoint focuses on the psychological aspects of criminal behavior, and thus paints a more nuanced view of the Bad Guys. Rather than just being one-dimensional super-evil people, most of the criminals in this show have other issues that lead to their behavior. Parents trying to save sick children, young men with psychological issues, broken people simply trying to make sense of a painful world - their stories are fleshed out in ways you rarely see in American police dramas. And because of that, the SRU crew usually find ways to get through to said perpetrators, talking them down peacefully rather than using superior firepower to win the day.

In other words, unlike most police/military shows wherein the day is won by the good guys because the good guys have better and bigger weapons, which they inevitably use to blow away the bad guys, in Flashpoint the SRU crew find ways to understand and reach out to the bad guys, using things like empathy and understanding to diffuse the situation and bring peace at the end of the day.

Not every time, mind you. Like with real life, sometimes the bad guys just won't go down nicely, and lethal force is required.

But usually.

And so you're left with the message that:

a) most "bad guys" are real people with real problems who are broken in their own ways, and are behaving in ways that, while wrong, do at least make some sense. And are therefore deserving of a little bit of empathy and understanding.

b) there are ways to solve violent situations without resorting to more violence. Often, a little empathy, understanding, and time to listen and really hear is all people really need.

So I'm left to wonder whether this is all because the show truly is trying to paint a different picture than most dramas, or is it just because Canadians are generally nicer than the rest of the world anyway?

Also, the more I watch, the more I think I want to visit Toronto sometime.

Andy Griffith (1926-2012)

Although the Andy Griffith show first aired before I was living on this earth, I still grew up with it. Somehow I missed most of the more popular shows of the day - the A-Team, Simon and Simon, Riptide, and the like. Instead, I was drawn to the simplicity of Andy, Barney, Gomer, Opie, Aunt Bea, Floyd the barber, and all the rest.

You probably all know what I'm talking about. There was, and is, a lot of noise and chaos on television. Lots of excitement and duplicitous characters. To watch Andy Griffith was always like leaving all that behind, and returning home to sit for a spell. Joining Andy and Barney on the front porch, singing a simple tune, waiting for Aunt Bea to come out and announce her hot apple pie.

At the risk of baring too much personal information, in the late 90s I was fired from my youth pastor position, and went about four months unemployed before finding new work in Oregon. I spent most of that time either working at finding new work (you know, stuff like sending our resumes, going to interviews, working contacts and the rest), or doing the occasional substitute teaching job that came along. It was a depressing time, a time of grief and fear and doubt. And the one constant during that time was watching the Andy Griffith show, every morning at 10 a.m. (well, unless I was called to be a sub that day, but you know what I mean). And for that 1/2 hour, the world was a good place, problems were manageable, people were predictable, and you know that good things were coming.

What always stood out the most to me about Sheriff Andy Taylor was his unflappableness. You know what I mean. Barney is bouncing off the walls spouting gibberish about the current crisis, bullets are flying through the windows, hardened criminals are on the loose, Thelma Lou is upset about their cancelled dinner plans. . .and Andy would just sit there, waiting for it all to calm down. And then he'd go out and deal with the problem in his own way. Almost always without threat or violence or force. Just his wit and folksy wisdom.

Somewhere in the recesses of my soul, I've come to understand that perfection must be sitting on Andy's porch, sipping lemonade, watching the world go by.

And the best part of it is this, from Mark Evenier: The best thing I can tell you about Andy Griffith, who has just died at the age of 86, is that I never saw or heard any reason to think he was not like the characters he played on TV. I never saw that.

 Truly, he was one of a kind. Sadly, that world is passing with him - a world if innocence, of friends just sitting and talking, of fathers who love their sons (for that matter, of fathers who seem to have a clue), of hanging out at the fishing hole, of having time for the stranger who comes along.

So thanks, Andy, for your sense of humor, your love of the craft, and for being a good guy in a cutthroat world.

For the moment, I think I'm going to go fishing.

Stuff worth sharing (sort of)

Bruce and Katy's trip to southern Mexico.

How about a church that reads through the entire Bible together, not once but four times?

One of the songs we have on tap for the Saturday night show. Except we're doing it without the organ.
 
In the "nothing is ever at it seems" department, a recent episode of the Fox show Fringe took place in Noyo County, Washington. But Noyo is a river and region in Northern California, not Washington. Then again, the whole thing is filmed in Canada, so who cares, eh? It's a little like the outside scenes they shoot for The Office, where you can occasionally see palm trees in the background (since it's filmed in L.A., and not Scranton, PA).

Anyway, one day in Iceland we found ourselves conversing with a group of Icelandic teens in one of the lovely geothermal pools in Reykjavik. Another American was taking part of the conversation; it came around to entertainment options in Iceland. They mentioned that they were fans of "Dr. House." Our American friend, who lives near Princeton, mentioned that almost every day he drives by the hospital used as the front for House. The Icelandic teens were more than a little excited by that factoid. Until our American friend said "but it's not really a hospital" and I said "and it's all filmed on a sound stage in Los Angeles, 3000 miles away." They seemed a little disappointed.
 
Speaking of which, it's amazing how much San Francisco looks like Vancouver, Canada, in that other new Fox show "Human Target."

A Post on Theology and the Writer's Strike

On a message board I frequent, somebody asked about the Hollywood Writer's Strike; specifically, they asked whether or not unions "line up biblically." This was my response. What do you all think?

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I find that questions like this are too broad to create much conversation on the subject. You can't find any verse or passage that speaks directly to the topic, so unless you define some issues, there's not much to discuss/debate. To that end, let me propose three smaller issues that might point us toward an answer to the bigger question.

1. Is there a justice issue involved? Is there an injustice being perpetrated that unions might be able to stand up against? In the 20s and 30s, this was the case. Sweat shops, virtual slave labor, paying a pittance for backbreaking work, fatcat corporate owners getting wealthy on the backs of the poor, uneducated, illiterate, immigrant population. Unions stood up for the rights of those who suffered greatly, and brought about great reforms for the working masses (sadly, many churches fought against the unions in the misguided belief that God had ordained capitalism, and unions seemed inherently socialist). So, are unions today seeking after justice and fair treatment? Or are they after vain power, liberal politics, or excessive monetary gain? wrt the hollywood strike, are the studios being unjust toward the writers (note: unfair and unjust are not the same thing)? Is the writer's union striving after justice for its constituents?

2. Is it even fair to talk about injustice toward writers, when so many others are truly suffering? How does the suffering of Hollywood writers compare to the suffering of the immigrant mother working as a hotel maid at the Travel-lodge? Is it right for somebody who's making a livable wage in Los Angeles to demand more, even strike for more, when a lot of people are struggling to survive on minimum wage or worse? How does God feel about writers demanding more, when the rest of the world is surviving on a couple cents per day at best? Does any American Middle-class worker have the right to complain, when all over the world people are still in slavery, in deathly conditions working in Chinese coal mines or African diamond mines, when families are selling their daughters into prostitution just so they can eat?

3. Considering the garbage that Hollywood continuously spews forth, are any of these the right questions to be asking? In other words, "do unions line up biblically" may be a non-issue, when the writers have proven that they have no intention of "doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with their God." Considering the incessant glorification of violence, the normalization of aberrant sexuality, the objectification of women, the fame and glory given to every kind of sin, the commercialization of everything decent, the unhealthy attention paid to Paris and Jessica and all the American Idols, and considering the mockery of Christianity and God's ideals (love, justice, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, etc.), is the strike really an issue? Or is the entertainment system so broken, so diabolical, so ungodly, so anti-christian, that God couldn't care less about whether or not they have a union? Perhaps his only desire is that they learn what it means to proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord.

You know the other place it happens?

Regarding my post a couple days ago. . .the other place this shows up is in the DVD extras of movies, when they interview the cast and crew of the movie.

"There's really no other movie like this out there."
"We think people are going to be blown away by the action in this movie."
"He's the greatest director in the world - I'm so fortunate to be able to work with him."
"It's like nothing anybody's done before."

And my observation is, the worse the movie, the higher the people involved speak of it.