Denzel Washington on Providence and Promise

There are a lot of things for which Hollywood is known.  If Hollywood culture is to be encapsulated by a single word, a few examples come to mind.

 "Extravagant" might be a universally applicable word.  "Progressive" or "enlightened" might come to mind if you're of a leftish bent, "privileged" or "aloof" might come to mind if you're a conservative.  But regardless of which end of the ideological divide you occupy, it's pretty safe to say that one thing Hollywood is not known for is the humility of its prominent denizens.

That is not to say, however, that humility does not exist among them, exemplified by singularities so rare that they warrant shock and awe.  Such a singularity is Denzel Washington.

His latest is a profound message by any standard.  

It is a message to aspiring young actors about the "power of hard work and the importance of faith:"

I pray that you all put your shoes way under the bed at night so that you gotta get on your knees in the morning to find them.  And while you're down there, thank God for grace and mercy and understanding. We all fall short of the glory, we all got plenty.  If you just start thinking about all the things you've got to say thank you for, that'll be a day.

He goes on:

True desire in the heart for anything good is God's proof to you sent beforehand to indicate that it's yours already.  So the desire you have, that itch that you have to be whatever it is that you want to be... that itch, that desire for good is God's proof to you sent already to indicate that it's yours.  You already have it.  Claim it.

I won't try to dissect these quotes and assign political or spiritual meaning to them.  His words speak enough.  And regardless of what meaning you take away from them, it's difficult to deny -- these words are a powerful expression of conviction and humility, worthy of respect.

Thanks, Denzel.  If nothing else, it's a reminder of a simple truth that I, for one, too often forget.

See the video here.

William Sullivan

TIME Magazine Fails Again

It seems that TIME magazine does everything it can to capitalize on trending popularity, truth be damned. And thanks to a rising tide of conservatism in this country and the fact that the magazine is pot-committed to the Obama administration, they’ve stooped to a new low with their latest cover, “Why Obama [Heart] Reagan,” which shows smiling images of each president enjoying a friendly embrace.

Obviously, this is meant to capture the attention of young liberals that love Barack Obama, and validate their suspicions that he desperately seeks bi-partisanship with Republicans. Perhaps TIME expects that young liberals will buy just about anything if it’s said in the right tenor and from the right pulpit, and given the fact that a relatively unknown community organizer and junior senator became president on the wave of popularity among this group, I can’t say I blame them. But as far as older liberals and all conservatives, it’s amazing that TIME could have thought they could get this one by the goalie. It is nothing less than an insult to our intelligence, so inarguably untrue that it could only be the result of deliberate fabrication or the innocent result of the TIME editors' stupidity.

Any sane person could go on for hours about the differences between the two. Obama is a proponent of expansive and powerful government, while Reagan viewed such a government as the most dangerous threat to American liberty, and particularly when it comes to the healthcare industry that Obama just consigned to federal administration. Reagan believed America had a responsibility to foster the notion of individual freedoms and limited government by globally exercising "leadership through strength," whereas Barack Obama believes that he should bow to foreign diplomats and apologize for America’s arrogance by quietly homogenizing our position with the rest of the globe.

The two could not be any more different, and even if Obama did "learn" something from Reagan as this cover implies, there is not one shred of evidence that he implemented any of it. If TIME really wanted to correlate Obama with a figure of the late twentieth century, and if the magazine had an ounce of integrity, that cover would have read, “Why Obama [Heart] Carter.” It would be far more believable, and Americans would not have to look past the crisis in Egypt to see the parallel. Both have vocally demonized American-friendly regimes as “enemies of the people,” and both have effectively opened the door to allow fundamental Islamic theocracies to take power in opposition to Western freedoms and Israel.

William Sullivan