Daily Update: Rebuilding the Temple Edition

On Thursday night we left the comfortable lair of Blax Alternate to venture out to a little church off  the main roads in an industrial section of Phoenix to catch a viewing of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. A small crowd of mostly women sat in the church's dining room, eating chips and sandwiches and popcorn while a laptop and projector placed Jesus up on the wall in the darkened room. Reaching for chips while Christ is being flogged to death creates vaguely guilt inducing feelings; I struggled to appear appropriately disinterested with each potato chip I placed in mouth.

Most people of course have come to love or hate this film, or just be indifferent entirely to the religious theme, but I am always impressed at the personification of evil in the film where both Satan and demons make appearances as tormentors of human souls. The presentation of evil being sourced from beyond the human mind is probably the film's most important feature, and a daily reminder tthat Jesus and Satan were once bros in heaven, and know each other's tricks, and work daily upon man to sway him one way or the other.

If you believe that sort of thing. We won't linger, atheists and Thomases no doubt among us thinking it all absurd. Though not nearly as absurd as Arizona State University being discinlined to give President Obama an honorary degree when he comes to speak at the school for graduation.  Something about lacking stature or achievement:

Something strange is going on at Arizona State University, which was fortunate enough to land President Obama as a commencement speaker only to snub him by withholding an honorary degree. “His body of work is yet to come,” spokeswoman Sharon Keeler, who probably can't believe she's being forced to defend this decision, told the AP. 

(New York Mag)

New York Magazine finds this all a bit political, as though someone, somewhere (McCain), might have his day dulled by the better than A.S.U. Ivy grad Obama being warmly toasted by one of America's premier institutions of non-learning (as in partying).

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NY Mag also has a short piece on web news pioneer Matt Drudge, whose long running conservative and liberarian commentary may only be superceded by his long running alleged homosexuality. If such is truly the case, it would be just another reminder that whole swathes of the political right need to be purged for hypocrisy. The Republicans, especially, need to remake themselves by matching moral talk to moral action, and by expanding their policy prescriptions beyond the mantra of cutting taxes.

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And finally, and in the same manner that Christ died and rose in three days, Time magazine implies the same for U.S. banks. It takes a little faith to travel with them on this, and it all reads a little naive, but they are probably right.

What banks are earning from the difference between the cost of capital and the income from lending is now great enough for the banking system to be self-sustaining again.

What will happen at this point is that bank stocks will not go up much more, but they will not dive sharply down either. There is enough evidence in comments from the CEOs of Citi and B of A and in the Wells Fargo earnings to show that the idea that banks are insolvent and probably in need of nationalization is no longer part of the consideration of how the problems with the system  will be settled.

(Time)

The piece actually says a bit more, suggesting the cleanup process will continue for many years, but we would agree with the fundamental assessment that the worst is over.