Saying that I'm going on hiatus when I haven't posted in a little over two weeks may be a little redundant, but I'm still giving you a heads-up.  I'm officially back at work, and since I'm teaching two very demanding subjects and have several pressing matters going on outside work (and a family, who, I think, deserve more than the label of "pressing matter"), I'm simply not going to have much time to post.  Facebooking and MySpacing just take up less time than blogging on Xanga.

Plus, at least so far, I can access Facebook from work.

Take care!

I'm going to try to do another Bible study, if only to hash out my thoughts.  I'll post my first actual study later, but today I'm going to post the scripture.  Yesterday (8/3) in Sunday School, we went through the entire book of Jonah.  I was reminded that it contains a wealth of practical lessons, both on the surface and, more often, beneath it.  So, here is Jonah.  (I know you could look it up on Biblegateway or something, and I still recommend you do that, but I'm posting it here as well for easy reference.  Feel free to post any comments you have right now.

Jonah 1

Jonah Flees From the LORD

 1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me."

 3 But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD.

 4 Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. 5 All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.
      But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. 6 The captain went to him and said, "How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us, and we will not perish."

 7 Then the sailors said to each other, "Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity." They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.

 8 So they asked him, "Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?"

 9 He answered, "I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land."

 10 This terrified them and they asked, "What have you done?" (They knew he was running away from the LORD, because he had already told them so.)

 11 The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, "What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?"

 12 "Pick me up and throw me into the sea," he replied, "and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you."

 13 Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. 14 Then they cried to the LORD, "O LORD, please do not let us die for taking this man's life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, O LORD, have done as you pleased." 15 Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. 16 At this the men greatly feared the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to him.

 17 But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.

Jonah 2

Jonah's Prayer

 1 From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the LORD his God. 2 He said:
       "In my distress I called to the LORD,
       and he answered me.
       From the depths of the grave ^[a] I called for help,
       and you listened to my cry.

 3 You hurled me into the deep,
       into the very heart of the seas,
       and the currents swirled about me;
       all your waves and breakers
       swept over me.

 4 I said, 'I have been banished
       from your sight;
       yet I will look again
       toward your holy temple.'

 5 The engulfing waters threatened me, ^[b]
       the deep surrounded me;
       seaweed was wrapped around my head.

 6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
       the earth beneath barred me in forever.
       But you brought my life up from the pit,
       O LORD my God.

 7 "When my life was ebbing away,
       I remembered you, LORD,
       and my prayer rose to you,
       to your holy temple.

 8 "Those who cling to worthless idols
       forfeit the grace that could be theirs.

 9 But I, with a song of thanksgiving,
       will sacrifice to you.
       What I have vowed I will make good.
       Salvation comes from the LORD."

 10 And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

Jonah 3

Jonah Goes to Nineveh

 1 Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: 2 "Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you."

 3 Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city—a visit required three days. 4 On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned." 5 The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.

 6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. 7 Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh:
      "By the decree of the king and his nobles:
       Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. 9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish."

 10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

Jonah 4

Jonah's Anger at the Lord 's Compassion

 1 But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. 2 He prayed to the LORD, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. 3 Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live."

 4 But the LORD replied, "Have you any right to be angry?"

 5 Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. 6 Then the LORD God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine. 7 But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, "It would be better for me to die than to live."

 9 But God said to Jonah, "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?"
      "I do," he said. "I am angry enough to die."

 10 But the LORD said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?"

Well, I just saw the movie.  Most probably knew that I would.  I like comics.  Batman is my second favorite superhero.  Batman Begins gave me hope in the franchise again.  So I saw the movie.  My prognosis?

It was good.

As I said to the friend I went with, I'm not sure I can say it was better than Batman Begins.  I'm not sure I can say it wasn't, either.  The way I did it was to compare the movies to two classic (and literary) novels.  Batman Begins was, compared to this movie, relatively simple in its formula.  It was a well-made, solid movie that renewed my faith not only in the franchise, but in the superhero movie industry, which I thought had become tarnished with bloated mainstream extravaganza-fests like the third X-Men and Spider-Man movies (I know Spider-Man 3 came out later, but you get my point).  It was like Dracula.  It defined the Gothic nature of its core character and stayed truer to its source than any other superhero movie has done.  Any other one.  It was a foundation.

And The Dark Knight?

The Dark Knight is more like Stephen King's It.  Before you knock me for equating the two books (It and Dracula), I would first remind you that this is not necessarily an equation, and I would second recommend that you read them both and then look at the impact both have had on culture.  It helped redefine the horror novel.  It is also one of the main reasons that many people now have an irrational fear of clowns (the Joker is another, and the fact that both works have at their center sadistic figures masquerading as clowns is probably the main treason that It is ocurred to me as an appropriate comparison).  The Dark Knight will help to redefine the superhero movie and pave the way for what I think will be the genre's pinnacle - next year's Watchmen, based on the most literary graphic novel ever written, and the only one to be called a masterpiece by literateurs and fanboys alike.

But I digress.

Dracula is a classic of Gothic literature, but it was not that genre's pinnacle, and a lot of people don't consider Gothic literature to be that good any way.  It is a revolutionary moder fantasy/horror novel.  But that's just one niche in the multi-faceted world of modern pop culture.  Neither of these works are epic, or even great.  Neither is The Dark Knight.  As I said before, The Dark Knight was good just as Batman Begins was good.  I mean, let's face it - these are still movies based on comic books.  This is not Schindler's List.  This is not Ben-Hur.  This is not even The Lord of the Rings, Titanic or Brokeback Mountain.  It is a superhero movie.  Not even actors of the caliber of Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, and Michael Caine can keep this movie from being merely good.  But there is one aspect of this film that is great, and may even possibly be epic.

That aspect is the aforementioned Joker, portrayed most excellently by the late, great Heath Ledger.

I knew that Ledger was a great actor after I saw Brokeback Mountain.  But there were other great actors and actresses in that movie who also had great material to work with.  It was an all-around great film, written by a great author (Larry McMurtry) and based on good source material.  Ledger didn't carry that movie.  He carried The Dark Knight.  He kept the movie from just being okay.  (This, remember, is coming from a Batman fan).  I will not elaborate on exactly why he was an excellent Joker.  You will be able to read numerous reviews about that.  I will just say that he played the most iconic villain in comic book history with a fearlessness that was exactly appropriate to the character in question.  Just like the Joker, Ledger, in this role, was a chaotic force of nature.  As the Joker says to Batman at one point, he was "an unstoppable force."

Case in point.  There is a point in the movie in which the Joker is not wearing make-up.  I have promised no spoilers, so I will not explain.  But I will say that, at this point in the movie, the thought that occurs is not "Hey, that's Heath Ledger!"  It's "Hey, that's the Joker!"  Ledger immersed himself in this character, and he didn't just steal all the scenes he was in.  He stole the entire movie.  I thought perhaps that he'd be awarded a posthumous Oscar because of his work in this role in combination with the tragedy of his personal life.  I now hope he receives the award based solely on his merit as an actor.

I will finish with this thought.  When Jack Nicholson portrayed the Joker in Burton's Batman (a great portrayal, and the perfect one for that movie), there was no tragedy in the fact that the character died (sorry if no one's seen the movie - I said no spoilers, but I was talking about TDK).  The movie was self-contained.  There should have been no sequels.  There was no need for more Nicholson as Joker.  I think that, after The Dark Knight, there will be no other villain who can stand in Ledger's Joker's purple suit.  The closest one would have been Two-Face, but even Two-Face has a gimmick.  The Joker is not defined by gimmicks.  Only the Joker would have been able to carry another Batman movie.  Now, I am convinced, the only man who could have played the part in our generation is dead.  That is indeed a tragedy.  It is an insignificant tragedy compared to the fact that Ledger has been lost as a friend and a father, but it is a tragedy nonetheless.

And it means that the next Batman movie, if there is another, will have to be good on its own merit.  Otherwise, it will go the way so many other superhero franchises have gone: straight down the drain.

The Dark Knight: B

Heath Ledger: A+