Thursday, December 05, 2002

Coffee

My coffee mug from KPCC 89.3 FM is stamped with a copy of an article titled "Fresh-Brewed Coffee May Hold Hidden Health Benefits." A UC Davis professor, Takayuki Shibamoto, "suggests that chemicals in fresh-brewed coffee may form potent antioxidants, similar to vitamin C or vitamin E, which are believed to help prevent cancer." Thus I reassure myself each morning as I gulp (no dainty sipping here) my hand-ground Italian Roast from Peet's Coffee. [Note to manual coffee grinder users: Peet's Coffee Italian Roast is a pleasure to grind because it is so oily that it grinds like butter. I've not tried other Peet's Coffee roasts, so I don't know if the oiliness is a feature of Peet's Coffee in general or only of the Italian Roast.]

Movies

I saw the movie Bowling for Columbine. It was very provocative. The underlying theme, that Americans are afraid and that this fear is prompted and promoted by television news, advertising, and American culture in general, challenged me to think about what a Christian response to fear might be. Even in the apocalyptic readings for Advent, "wars and rumors of wars...famines and earthquakes...and then the end shall come," we are told, "See that you are not frightened" (Matthew 24:6). And the phrases "Do not be afraid" or "Fear not!" are found throughout the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and in the New Testament.

The next movie on my list is Personal Velocity. I'm intrigued by the title, especially because a movie of my life would be titled more realistically Personal Inertia.

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