I wanted to be serious.

Short Version: But not so much.

Long Version: Because of pressing matters (hair!) I didn't give you a recap of my weekend yesterday as is my wont. Friday night was a casual night in that became a not-so-casual marriage discussion. Sometimes being married makes me want to hurl myself from the battlements, but after hashing out the problem, I'm back on solid ground again, ready to work on the problems that drive us to distraction. It probably helps that K was a total sweetheart the rest of the weekend. He's wiley like that. ;) Saturday morning was lovely and lazy. I got my hair cut in the early afternoon and we headed out to see Munich.

Wow. Seriously, wow. Part of the reason that I've been wanting a serious post is to tackle that movie, but I just can't seem to nail my perspective down. The way violence unravels a quiet, unassuming family man is just, well, it's got to be seen to believed. I've seen war movies that have bothered me less, yet the violence was being used to make a point instead of just being a way to put butts in seats. It seems so timely, too, in the wake of the ongoing question of the proper response to terrorism. If you can stomach it, you should see it. If you're not sure you fall in that category read this first, though, because you might need more warning than with most movies. I would be interested to read other people's responses to the film (if you've seen it).

Sunday night we had JB over. He and K had a grand old time fixing things up around the house, installing nerdy new features, and solving the ongoing mystery of the power to our bathrooms. None of the outlets were working and it was such an easy fix that JB has forever won a place in my heart for finding it and saving the day. I can't imagine calling an electrician and having him charge me $100 for the push of one, solitary button. GENIUS, I say.

So that was my weekend. It was good, but the one intellectual highlight of it has become an obstacle to serious inquiry elsewhere. I JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT I THINK about that movie. I mean, it was worth seeing. Undoubtedly. It might even be the great film that many critics are calling it. But its message about the destructiveness of violence and the unsatisfying/dangerous nature of vengeance is more Sophist than Socrates. I don't mean sophistic as in "deceptive," I mean it in the sense of negating a reigning philosophy but not offering another. Many a Sophist prided himself on his arguments against the existence of the Greek pantheon, but he didn't offer anything, even true atheism, in return (I'm forgetting where I read this before, but it's not my idea). Perhaps because he didn't have the answer, perhaps because he didn't feel it was within the scope of his film, but for whatever reason Spielberg doesn't offer us an alternative to the tit-for-tat approach to violence that current world politics seems to demand. I truly am not sure I comprehend an alternative, and neither do a lot of other folk I know. This movie did not convince me of this perspective but it did make clear to me what my position is lacking: considered alternatives and a sense that this matters, that my perspective should impact my life in some capacity. I am no decision-making mover of men, but I live in a society that gives me opportunities to make my perspective known to those who can make policy. I'd best get my mental act together.

And I think I just wrote a serious post. Who knew t'were possible?