Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

I stopped off on my way home from preaching Sunday afternoon to see the movie "Syriana" at a nearby multiplex, and I'm still reeling from the experience.

Besides being reminded of what a powerful and very watchable actor we have in the seemingly under-utilized Alexander Siddig (Prince Nasir in "Syriana" and Dr. Bashir, of course, in DS9), I was left with the disquieting urge to stop driving my car, except for emergencies, in order to save oil and decrease my own contribution to the massively dysfunctional world "family" depicted in the film.

The theme (or so it seemed to me) of children's lives being wasted, and even thrown away, in order to serve the addictions of their elders or the will-to-power of faceless kingmakers was almost too much to take.

See this film, if you haven't already, but make sure you're in a pretty good mood when you go, because this is not a "pick-me-up" or "feel-good" movie, by any definition.

Oh, and I guess George Clooney and Matt Damon did good, too. But I mostly went for the rare chance to see Siddig on the big screen in an important and meaty role.