No Nutritional Value: Constantine's Sword

[trinityvixen]

I feel sort of bad equating a documentary with a C-level tween vampire flick from the 1980s, but Constantine's Sword is (pardon the pun) so toothless and obvious as to be the documentary equivalent of unflavored rice cakes. Documentaries can be calorie-free, too

Comments

[linaerys]

I rather liked the book. I think James Carroll is a wonderful writer. It's definitely about the history and the opportunities the Catholic church had to change the dogma to help societies be less anti-Semetic. But it's also interesting as a book because it is from the perspective of someone who is a Catholic in a very deep way. So I think I mostly enjoyed seeing everything from that perspective. I didn't know there was a documentary though.

[trinityvixen]

The interesting piece to me about the author's background was that he couldn't be dismissed as Catholic-hating, although I'm sure, offscreen/off the page, he was. That appears somewhat fair--he did dislike the Church's practices so much that he left--but disliking the decisions is different from hating the institution. So he had to struggle not to reject the teachings he still, obviously, held to heart.

But what purported to be a "Why is this a persistent problem?" turned more upon the history. The history is fascinating, don't get me wrong, but unraveling that history into method of bias transmission would have been stellar. I shall have to read the book to see if it's more informative, but the documentary is a little light. Especially for well-read, informed people who know most of the history (if not the specifics) already.

[wellgull]

If you do read the book, let me know how it is?

I've a lot in the queue right now so even if I did secure a copy I doubt I'd get to read it for a while...

[trinityvixen]

If I remember to pick up the book, I will pass along a review or the copy, depending on how I come across it, no worries.

[ivy03]

Proper use of the word aspect FTW!

[trinityvixen]

Woo hoo!

Is that one people tend to use incorrectly? I'm suddenly channeling Heathers, where the one teacher doesn't care about the dead student except that she used "myriad" correctly in her suicide note.

[ivy03]

I had an English teacher who would take off a grade if you used "aspect" to mean anything but face or "facet" to mean anything but part of a jewel. Of course, both of those words are correctly used to mean "thing," it's just imprecise (and slightly sloppy) writing.

So I shouldn't say proper use of aspect, I should say use of original meaning of aspect. Which is still cool.

[trinityvixen]

Hey! I'm cool! I'll take it!

[slackwench]

What's wrong with male prostitutes?

[trinityvixen]

Nothing is wrong with them. But you just know that this supposedly upright, pillar of morality, who preaches so hard against the gay is secretly hankering for cock behind the scenes.