Left behind in Wrigleyville

First thing: The Left Behind series, which has now sold upwards of 65 million copies so far, is finally coming to a close (although with the franchise it has built.... not really). Whether or not it's truly over, the sixteenth final installment of the series, "Kingdom Come" is ready to ship. After detailing all-American pilot Rayford Steele's (yeah, I know... he sounds like a tv private eye) battle against dashing foreign-ass secretary general of the UN Nicolae Carpathia, and the installment of Jesus in his thousand-year reign, the breathless thriller-style telling of the Book of Revelation is over.

Having read but two of them, I can't say I'm a total expert on the series. Nevertheless, I found its formulaic thriller tropes to be a bit too familiar. When you're retelling arguably the coolest book of the Bible (when the writers go absolutely mystical bonkers with wild visions), you should probably try to give it a bit more polish than a tossed-off frivolity populated by characters named Buck Williams and Mac McCallum (seriously). Left Behind demonstrates the danger of turning the Bible into pop culture, like Christian rock and The Omega Code. In doing so, the reverence for the original material is lost, just a momentary fad in a wave of "Jesus is my homeboy" pop Christianity, but with a hint of apocalyptic milleniarianism.

Maybe I don't have much of a say on this topic, not being a Christian and all, but I can tell you that this genre of pop Christianity doesn't exactly make me want to rush to church. May the Left Behind series rest in peace. Hopefully, its passing marks the end of an era of evangelilcal hysteria and not the beginning of a longer trend... but I'm not holding my breath.

OK, on with the bullet points:

• In French news... Yeah, THAT'LL show 'em. A half-day strike by Airbus employees to protest job cuts. News flash: if Airbus didn't fire a bunch of people, it would've gone under. Then everyone loses their jobs. Yay! In fact, because of the international cooperative nature of EADS, they worked really hard to make sure job cuts didn't hit one country more than others. So, instead of pissing off one country's workers, they pissed off everyone's workers. Great. Oh, France.
• Cubs start season in last place. At least we're tied with St. Louis. Cubs are also to be sold after 2007 season... I'm at least a little concerned. Not so much about the new Cubs owner, because, whatever, MLB won't just let some schmuck buy one of its most profitable franchises. What I am worried about is that despite its current long-term contracts with WGN and Tribune, the Cubs may one day soon no longer have the nationwide coverage of WGN's Superstation or the home team call of Pat & Ron. And that would make me sadder than a Jew left behind during the Rapture.
  
• Rep. George Miller (D-California) wants to reform higher education. Most of the interview is standard Democratic boiler plate (more money for loans, more pell grants, etc.). Probably the most important reform that we hear about rarely is the necessity of reforming the byzantine system of securing FAFSA money through loans. Maybe we don't need to give more money away so much as we have to make it a little easier to get.
• Watch as the Bush Administration keeps dragging its feet on this one. A Supreme Court ruling has never compelled the Bushies do much of anything.
• So remember when Bill O'Reilly cut the mic of a guest on his show was "saying it's America's fault" that British soldiers were captured in Iran? Well... maybe it is our fault. You try to kidnap our nationals? We'll kidnap yours. Sheesh.
  
• Speaking of Iraq, when does the Mahdi Army snap? LATimes story today says soon. This is particularly worrisome since the bulk of the "surge"'s limited success has been based on keeping the Shi'ites reined in despite a Sunni offensive. At some point, not even al-Sadr will be able to hold back his followers, and all the success of the surge will have been lost. We can only hope that doesn't happen.
• The upside to colorblindness? Speculation for sure, but maybe Trevor will be really good at hunting out guys in camoflague. (via reddit)
  
• Scott Karp writes about the importance of journalism in the blogosphere world of innuendo and rumor. It's basically my column in the IDS for Wednesday, but, you know, better. Key quote:

  What I AM saying is that without clear and consistent principles, there is no chance for trust, and without trust, you’ve got nothing — or worse still, the downside can exceed the upside. So, yeah, it’s great that blogging software has empowered so many people, but with power comes responsibility. If bloggers want Journalism to get down off its high horse and take them more seriously, they need to demonstrate that they can first, do no harm.

• From the latest drawergeeks about The Sandman (Marvel), a fake movie poster that isn't that funny, but at which I laughed a lot.
• And finally, the video that's sweeping the web, Alanis Morrissette sings "My Humps." What will you do with all that ass, all that ass inside them jeans? (Good God... one is reminded of Hua Hsu, who said that "My Humps" was "so bad as to veer toward evil.") Anyways, this is Alanis' attempt to at least use its parody for good.