PicoBlog

The Chosen, a multi-season streaming series about the life of Jesus told through the lens of the people who knew him, is a fascinating and curious piece of storytelling that aims to appeal to both Christians and non-Christians and reverse some of the negative preconceptions many people hold about Christian art as a whole. In many ways, it does exactly this - but the show (and the cultural influence that surrounds it) is sometimes as frustrating as it is refreshing.

My friends, the Church is facing an epidemic. I learned this just now, from social media. And this time, it’s not one of those COVID-type epidemics; it’s one of the porn ones. What exactly does this entrail? Do any of us even know what porn is? It’s like I’m always telling the restoration committee: sometimes you can sin, dozens of times, without even realizing it. If you go to the Greek, the word porn is short for the word pornography, which translates to “pictures of porn.

A recently declassified CIA memo identifies for the first time a clandestine operative who read the mail of accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald for 20 months before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. His name, reports the New York Times, was Reuben Efron, a career employee who staffed the Agency’s illicit “mail intercept” program in … ncG1vNJzZmiilqCzoq%2FTrGWsrZKowaKvymeaqKVfpXy1tMRmmqKZXaKur3nWoaZmqpWWsW670rCYpZyjYrqitcs%3D

It’s easy to forget the players that weren’t Hall-of-Fame caliber, or even former All-Star selections. The bigger the name, the easier it is to recall the indelible mark they left on the game of basketball. So you’d be forgiven for not remembering much of Marcin Gortat’s NBA stint. After all, he won’t be making the Hall of Fame. He wasn’t an All-Star, either. Gortat started 587 games during his career, but you would have never considered him an upper-echelon starter at his position.

If you follow combat sports online, you’ve no doubt heard more than you ever cared to about “the bag,” that metaphorical sack of money waiting at the end of the rainbow for successful athletes and promoters. Who got the bag? Who fumbled it? Just how big was this bag anyway? What does that thing weigh? In our world, at least, you can trace the concept back to 1964 and the great Muhammad Ali sitting on a literal pile of cash like the world’s prettiest Scrooge McDuck.

I will tell you my personal and professional experience with Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco. In 2017, SFPD Captain (now Assistant Chief) David Lazar invited me to join the new Community Police Advisory Board on Homelessness. I was honored. This subject is close to my heart, not just because I hate to see so much suffering and want to be a positive force in my city, but because members of my immediate family have been homeless.

This week’s newsletter is about Fernet — why you should like it, and how to learn if you don’t. But it’s also about good cocktail bartenders and the value they provide.  When it comes to taste in cocktails, I always try to maintain a sense of openness and neutrality. Not all cocktails are good, and not all bottles of booze are delicious. But drinks and bottles that people like probably contain some sort of good idea.

Coercion in abusive situations promotes confusion for the sake of control. Confusing situations, therefore, are always easier to navigate and endure when you can name what you are experiencing, give it a description, and anticipate what might be next. Such insight can provide you with signposts to help orient yourself when the coercion leaves you disoriented and give you options for moving forward. Education brings clarity and with clarity comes a greater ability to choose for oneself.

Got to love a dramatic title. The film and television industry is not collapsing, but now and again it seems to enjoy acting like it might be. We've had a pandemic and then a writers/actors strike and now we're in a period of consolidation as big companies gobble up small ones, and once-big companies flounder and break apart on the rocks. None of this i… ncG1vNJzZmiclauyrbvPppynrJiaua160q6ZrKyRmLhvr86mZqlnpJ2ybq%2FOpaOaqKOaerCyjKGmpaSprLywsA%3D%3D