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Morality and Decency Conference Speakers
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Newsletter Updates
January 4, 2008
 Christian filmographers will take a detailed look at the widespread cultural impact that Science Fiction has had through film during the Fourth Annual Christian Filmmakers Academy (CFA) to be held January 5-7 in San Antonio, Texas. Following a year that saw Science Fiction movies account for 2.5 billion dollars of the 3.7 billion grossed by the top twenty films in the US, the CFA faculty will break down the great science fiction films of the past, even as they cast a vision for how Christians can rightfully employ this genre in the future."In 2008, Sci-Fi rocketed out of the basement to become a sci-cult phenomenon that is significant to the cultural history of the United States," noted Doug Phillips, founder of the Christian Filmmakers Academy. "And movies are just the tip of the rocket. Fictional science in the billion-dollar video gaming, computer gaming, comic book and cable TV world is changing the thinking of an entire generation."
The "Symposium on Science Fiction and Christian Filmmaking" will focus on the theology of Science Fiction, analyzing how the worldview conveyed through Sci-Fi films has shaped cultural priorities. Sci-Fi movies of the last fifty years have provided America with more than Hollywood entertainment," Phillips remarked. Read On |
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State of the Borders  If you think the bad economy has "solved" America's immigration problems, welcome to your end-of-the-year reality check. It's certainly true illegal crossings from the south are down and that many foreign workers are returning to their native lands as work dries up. But border chaos, haphazard enforcement, massive backlogs and deportation negligence remain the order of the day. A half-million citizenship applications have been pending for more than nine months. Some 700,000 illegal alien absconders -- fugitives from deportation like Barack Obama's aunt Zeituni Onyango -- are free. An estimated 4-5 million illegal visa overstayers from around the world remain in the country. Both Big Business and left-wing ethnic groups have colluded to prevent an employer verification program for workers' citizenship status from getting implemented nationwide. And the borders are still largely borders in name only
In June, the White House pushed through a $1.6-billion border security spending plan ... for Mexico and Central America.
While our own border fence remains incomplete, taxpayers shelled out for helicopters, surveillance Read On |
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Dead Husband Leaves Lotto Ticket On the day that Donald Peters died, he unknowingly provided financial security for his wife of 59 years and their family. Peters bought two Connecticut Lottery tickets at a local 7-Eleven store on Nov. 1 as part of a 20-year tradition he shared with his wife Charlotte. Later that day, the 79-year-old retired hat factory worker suffered a fatal heart attack while working in his yard in Danbury. On Friday, his widow cashed in one of the tickets: a $10 million winner which, in her grief over her husband's death, she had put aside and almost discarded before recently checking the numbers. "I'm numb," Charlotte Peters, 78, said at Connecticut Lottery headquarters in Rocky Hill. Donald Peters usually bought the tickets for 10 weeks at a stretch, so the winning ticket he bought Nov. 1 for the Dec. 2 drawing was among several that Charlotte Peters put aside as she, their three children and two grandchildren coped with his sudden death. "I was in the grocery store and I had it checked and they told me I was a winner," she said. "I had no idea how much it was." She said she thought she had won $6 million but was surprised to learn from lottery officials she'd won $10 million.
Charlotte Peters has 60 days to decide whether to take a $6 million pre-tax lump sum payment or stretch the winnings into 21 yearly payments of almost $477,300 each. Read On |
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UP-SWING IN DOW Would that it were as simple as turning a page, laying aside with 2008's calendar all the year's
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Israeli ground troops and tanks cut swaths through the Gaza Strip early Sunday, bisecting the coastal territory and surrounding its biggest city as the new phase of a devastating offensive against Hamas gained momentum. Israeli defense officials told FOX News that an estimated 30 Hamas militants had been killed in the incursion so far, though precise numbers are hard to pin down. Hamas said it had captured two Israeli soldiers Sunday, Reuters reported. The Israeli army, however, could not confirm the report. Israeli leaders said the operation, known as Cast Lead, was meant to quell militant rocket and mortar fire on southern Israel. Thousands of soldiers in three brigade-size formations pushed into Gaza after nightfall Saturday, beginning a long-awaited ground offensive after a week of intense aerial bombardment. Black smoke billowed over Gaza City at first light as bursts of machine gun fire rang out. TV footage showed Israeli troops with night-vision goggles and camouflage face paint marching in single file. Artillery barrages preceded their advance, and they moved through fields and orchards following bomb-sniffing dogs ensuring their routes had not been booby-trapped. Read On |
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Family Concerns |
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tribulations and placing faith in our personal and collective prospects for a more prosperous new year. Alas, Friday's stock-market action notwithstanding, putting paid to history is never that easy. This week's news from the Gaza Strip was a suitable demonstration. As Chuck Lieberman of Advisors Capital management cautioned, the market's scars of 2008 are unlikely to be fully healed for some time. Hear more from Lieberman in the After the Bell Report from the MarketWatch Radio Network. Still, Session 1 of 2009 featured virtually across-the-board stock gains, with buyers seeming to gain conviction as the day wore on. The main indexes ended near Friday's highs, with the Dow industrials (