Passengers

In line with the films, The Sixth Sense (1999) and The Others (2001), Passengers (2008) centers on the (hypothetical) question of whether the walking dead have to be convinced that they are indeed dead rather than still living. In all of those films, and even Ghost (1990), the dead who stick around as ghosts rather than immediately pass on to another realm have something to come to terms with, or work out. The astute viewer of these films is apt to wonder whether in the story-worlds of the films, as well as in real life, all that is going on is really just in the dying brain of the dead person, which is the case in Jacob’s Ladder (1990). We know that a dying brain secretes a hallucinatory hormone. As for whether there is even an actual afterlife, such a question is still beyond our reach, at least before death. I contend that Passengers hinges on whether the entire movie takes place in Claire’s mind. The answer hinges on the nature of the existence of the other characters who are dead. If they have their own agendas rather than are around to help Claire come to terms with the fact that she is actually dead—that she was on the plane that crashed with no survivors—then the film posits the existence of ghosts in our world rather than just in dying brains. The issue, in short, is existential and metaphysical.

The full essay is at "Passengers."

The Seventh Sign

Carl Schultz’s film, The Seventh Sign (1988), centers on the theological motif of the Second Coming, the end of the world when God’s divine Son, Jesus, returns to judge the living and even the dead. In the movie, Jesus returns as the wrath of the Father, which has already judged humanity as having been too sinful to escape God’s wrath. David Bannon, who is the returned Jesus in the film, is there to break the seven seals of the signs leading up to the end of the world, and to witness the end of humanity. Abby Quinn, the pregnant wife of Russell Quinn, asks David (an interesting name-choice, given that Jesus is of the House of David in the Gospel narratives) whether the chain (of signs) can be broken. How this question plays out in the film’s denouement is interesting from a theological standpoint. Less explicit, but no less theologically interesting, is what role humans can and should have in implementing God’s law. The film both heroizes and castigates our species.

The full essay is at "The Seventh Sign."

Statehood for Canada: Hardly a Merger

The U.S. Constitution includes an open invitation for the accession of Canada into the U.S. as a state. The invitation was made before Canada spread across from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. So, were Canadians to seek statehood in the American union of states (i.e., the U.S.A.), they would have a good argument for Canada being split in to a few states rather than just one. This is qualitatively different than a “merger” between the two countries; the latter ideological conjecture is predicated on a category mistake. Such a mistake would say, for example, that Singapore and China are of the same genus politically even though the former is a city-state and the latter is on the (early modern) empire-scale. Just because both Singapore and China have foreign policies and are member-countries of the UN does not mean that a city-state is to be treated more generally as if it were the same as an empire. By “empire,” I am referring to China itself, rather than any territories it might have beyond mainland China. The Qing emperor Kangzi expanded mainland China to include some central Asian kingdoms, thus making China an empire (of kingdom-level/scale subunits). Similarly, the U.S., as well as the E.U., are empire-scale/level polities of (kingdom-level) polities, whereas Canada does not have enough such polities to qualify as being on the empire-scale, for an empire contains many kingdom-level polities.

The full essay is at "Statehood for Canada."

Flight

With utility and consequences valued so much in Western society at least as of 2012, when the film, Flight, was released, the story-world of the film may seem odd in that doing what’s right comes out on top, even at the expense of knowingly losing benefits and incurring costs personally. In other words, deciding on the basis of conscience even at the expense of good consequences for oneself is possible even in a culture in which “saving one’s skin” rather than doing what is right is the norm. By immersing viewers in a story-world, a narrative with well-developed characters can highlight a societal blind-spot, and thus potentially result in a better society in which people make the effort to re-value their ethical values to the extent that their dominant values support consequentialism above standing on principle even though bad consequences for oneself can be anticipated. In the film, 96 out of 102 of the people on board survive the plane crash even though the metal bird had been in an uncontrolled vertical fall from 30,000 feet. How could the captain not be seen as a hero? If all that matters are results, 96 out of 102 is not bad at all, and being able to get out of a dive even as the tail stabilizer keeps pointing the plane downward is extraordinary.

The full essay is at "Flight."

Russia’s President Putin: Political Realism with Lies

As a former KGB agent, Russia’s President Putin could probably write a book and teach a course on the art of lying, or fabrication, as means of doing foreign policy, which manipulation being the not so subtle subtext. The tactic can be reckoned as being expedient, with the loss of value in reputational capital being assessed to be a cost worth incurring. That Putin lied to U.S. President Trump in Alaska in 2025 on the Russian’s intention to “put an end to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine” should have caught the American off guard, if the claim made by Kurt Volker, an American envoy to Ukraine that Putin had indeed lied to Trump about being willing to meet and negotiate with the Ukrainian president is true.[1] The American president was, in short, naïve even in being willing to meet with his Russian counterpart, especially without the president of the E.U. present too, at least to serve as a reality-test regarding Putin’s real game, for Europe had more to lose—more on the line—than did America from incursions from the east. Political realism is the theory that best fits the Russian president.

The full essay is at "Russia's President Putin." 

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1. Sasha Vakulina and Shona Murray, “’Putin Lied to Trump and Made Him Look Weak,’ Former US Envoy to Ukraine Says,” Euronews.com, 6 October 2025.

On Arjuna's Vision of Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita

In chapter 11 of the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna reveals his real form to Arjuna. The chapter seems like a departure from the surrounding chapters, which focus on bhukti (i.e., devotion to Krishna). For example, in chapter 9, Krishna gives Arjuna the following imperative: “Always think of Me and become my devotee.” Unlike seeing the deity as he really is, sincere devotion to that which is based beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and emotion is possible without being given “divine eyes.” The metaphysically, ontologically real is an attention-getter in the text, but it is the devotion, or bhukti, that is more important from a practical standpoint. Even theologically, the experience of transcendence, of which the human brain is capable, can be said to be more important than “seeing” divinity as it really is because the latter, unlike the former, lies beyond our grasp. In fact, seeing Krishna as he really exists is not necessary, for in chapter 10, Krishna says, “Here are some ways you can recognize and think of Me in the things around you [in the world].” This is yet another reason why the devotion rather than seeing Krishna as he really is, ontologically, should be the attention-getter in the Gita.

The full essay is at "On Arjuna's Vision of Krishna."

Why Evangelical Christian Americans Support Israel

The Christian “belief in the ‘rapture’ of believers at the time of Jesus’ return to Earth is rooted in a particular form of biblical interpretation that emerged in the 19^th century. Known as dispensational pre-millennialism, it is especially popular among American evangelicals.”[1] This biblical interpretation is based on the following from one of Paul’s letters to a church:

“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”[2]

Presumably the “trump of God” in the King James version of the Bible is distinct from Trump as God, for that eventuality would raise a myriad of questions and difficulties, and at least two difficulties pertain to the verse and, moreover, to dispensational pre-millennialism as a Christian doctrine. That it was constructed only recently by Christian standards raises the question of why the idea did not dawn on Christians closer to Paul’s time. That Paul does not represent himself in his letters as having met Jesus prior to the Resurrection and Paul’s use of mythological/Revelations language, such as “with the voice of the archangel,” also provide support for not taking the passage literally. After his resurrection in the Gospels, Jesus does not have the voice of an archangel. With Paul’s passage viewed figuratively or symbolically, rather than empirically and literally, the underlying religious meaning would of course remain unperturbed: keeping the faith is of value and thus in holding on to one’s distinctly religious (and Christian) faith, this strength will be vindicated even if no signs of this emerge during a person’s life. In other words, faith in vindication is part of having a religious faith, which is not limited our experience. The Resurrection itself can be construed as vindication with a capital V, regardless of whether Jesus rose from the dead empirically and thus as a historical event. In fact, a historical account or claim is extrinsic to religious narrative even though the sui generis genre can legitimately make selective use of, and even alter, historical reports to make theological points. The writers of the Gospels would have considered this perfectly legitimate, given that they were writing faith narratives and not history books. Making this distinction is vital, I submit, to obviating the risk that one’s theological interpretations lead to supporting unethical state-actors on the world stage, such as Israel, which as of 2025 was serially committing genocidal and perhaps even holocaust crimes against humanity in Gaza. In short, the theological belief that supporting Israel will result in the Second Coming happening sooner than otherwise can be understood to be an unethical stance based on a category mistake. American Evangelical Christians may have been unwittingly enabling another Hitler for the sake of the salvation of Christians, while the Vatican stood by merely making statements rather than acting to help the innocent Palestinians, whether with food and medicine, or in actually going to Gaza’s southern border (or joining the flotilla) to protest as Gandhi would have done.

The full essay is at "On the Ethics of Dispensational Pre-Millennialism."

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1. Robert D. Cornwall, “The Roots of Belief in the 2025 Rapture that Didn’t Happen,” MSNBC.com, September 25, 2025.
2. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 (KJV)

The United Nations: Weak Even in Defending Itself

Besides its humanitarian work, the UN can boast of providing a situs in which officials of national governments can talk to and with each other. The best opportunity for in-person speeches and conversations annually is during the opening of the General Assembly. Even granting there being value to such communicating. the UN was not founded for this purpose; rather, it was founded to end war, and neither speeches nor in-person meetings, typically not directly between warring nations, so obviously have failed to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s occupation and genocide that may even be reckoned as another holocaust. All this aggression has come with impunity, and in this regard, the UN has failed. Even a UN official’s attempt to defend the international organization during the 2025 session of the General Assembly was weak. At the very least, the UN needed to hire some public relations firms, but even a patina of efficacy only goes so far. The staying power of such an institution is itself, I submit, a problem in that organizations tend not to get “the memo” on when it is time (and even past time) to close up and urge that another, different organization be established.

The full essay is at "The United Nations." 

A Drone Wall for the E.U.: Russian Aggression Assuages Euroskeptic States

Speaking after his meeting with U.S. President Trump in Alaska during the summer of 2025, Russia’s President Putin said that if no agreement is reached with Ukraine, the force of arms would decide the matter. In other words, might makes right, or at least military incursion is a legitimate way to decide political disputes between countries. I would have hoped that such a primitive mentality would be antiquated in the twentieth century, but, alas, human nature evolves only at a glacial pace undetected within the lifespan of a human being. In September, 2025, the United Nations was under attack from within the General Assembly because of the continuance of the veto held by five countries in the Security Council; the U.S. had just vetoed a resolution for an immediate cession of Israeli destruction in Gaza. As a former deputy secretary of the UN had admitted to me during the fall of 2024, the veto itself renders the UN unreformable; a new international organization would have to be established sans vetoes for efficacy to be possible. Even so, absent a real enforcement mechanism, such as a military force, a resolution even of a vetoless organization would merely be parchment. The impotence of the UN is one reason why NATO, a defensive military transatlantic alliance, has been valuable in the face of military threats by Russia. Yet in September 2025, after Russian drones had flown into four E.U. states, E.U. President Von der Leyen felt the need to take the lead by again stressing her proposal for a drone wall along the E.U.’s eastern border; she was not deferring to any international alliance, much less to the United Nations. I submit that Von der Leyen’s initiative is yet another means by which the E.U. can be distinguished from international “blocs,” alliances, and organizations. Unlike the latter three, the E.U. has exclusive competencies and is thus semi-sovereign (and the same goes for the state governments).

The full essay is at "A Drone Wall for the E.U."

The Aryan Couple

The matter of group-identity is salient in the film, The Aryan Couple (2004), which actually centers around two couples: Joseph and Rachel Krauzenberg, and Hans and Ingrid Vassman. The Krauzenbergs contract with Himmler, the man whom in Nazi Germany was tasked with riding the Reich of its Jewish population, to exchange the Krauzenbergs’ asset-rich and sprawling conglomerate for safe passage of the entire Krauzenberg family out of Germany to Palestine instead of being sent to a concentration camp. Joseph and Rachel are Germans, and yet, quite artificially, they refer to Germans in the third person, and to themselves as Jews. It is precisely this error that I submit may have contributed historically to the ostracism of the Jews in Germany even before Hitler’s rise to power, hence contributing to setting the stage for a final, horrific solution. Film can thus be used to widen people’s thinking on historical and political events, and thus play a deeper role than merely to entertain.

The full essay is at "The Aryan Couple."

The E.U.’s Proposed Sanctions Against Israel: Excessive Reliance on the State Governments

To leverage the combined power, or united front, that is possible in Europe, the European Union was established in the waning years of the twentieth century. Roughly thirty years later, the power of the state governments at the federal level still compromised the leverage, especially in foreign affairs and defense. Even in sanctioning trading partners, even qualified majority voting in the Council of the E.U. can be said to have negatively impacted the ability of the E.U. Commission, the executive branch, to leverage the political muscle of the E.U. against other countries. State-level political agendas could essentially hold any possible leverage hostage. It may be worth thinking about why a qualified majority vote in the Council of the E.U., which represents the state governments, rather than in the E.U.’s parliament, which represents E.U. citizens, was necessary for trade sanctions to be applied to duty-free imports from Israel. That state-level political or economic interests could possibility trump applying economic leverage to stop Israel’s genocide and holocaust in Gaza, as well as Israel’s military attacks on other countries in the Middle East can be an indication that the state governments have too much power at the federal level. For if the E.U. is only an aggregation of states, without the whole being more than the sum of the parts, then the whole sans the aggregate cannot very well enact leverage on foreign actors abroad, even those whose behavior has been nothing short of atrocious.

The full essay is at "The E.U.'s Proposed Sanctions Against Israel."

Belgium Eclipses the E.U. on Frozen Russian Assets

Even though the U.S. has compromised the health of its federal system by consolidating so much governmental sovereignty with the Union at the expense of the reserved and residual sovereignty of the states, pitfalls exist at the other extreme too. In the E.U., as long as the states can exercise their sovereignty in foreign policy without respect to the Union, the risk exists that any one state could put its distinct political and economic interests first even if that forestalls united action that the EU could muster on the world’s stage. The risk is aggravated when government officials of a state presume to speak for the entire Union as if they were federal officials. That undercuts the point of having a union of states. The adage, Either we all sail together or we are done for, seems not well known in the state capitals, and even in the European Council and the Council of the European Union.

The full essay is at "Belgium Eclipses the E.U." 

Amid Scandal and Political Protests: A University President Goes Down

Beyond legitimately taking credit and assuming blame for a myriad of things, a university president ought first of all to be an academic scholar, which comes with the credential of a doctorate in a field or school of knowledge. Rather than a specific body, or school, of knowledge subject to research (and thus growth) being directly applicable to the position, I contend that the process, which includes being enculturated in academia as a scholar, of getting a doctorate is valuable and thus should be requisite to a candidate being selected to lead a college or university. In short, a university president is not just a manager. It would be expedient, in line with committing the “sin of omission,” to have a corporate executive, or, even more expedient, a lawyer, run a university. The governing board of Northwestern University in Illinois committed this “sin” in hiring Michael Schill, a law instructor, as president of that university. Just three years after assuming the position in September, 2022, he abruptly resigned. A memo to that board upon his resignation announcement could read: “Memo to the Board: Yale Law School trains lawyers, not university presidents.”

The full essay is at "Amid Scandal and Political Protests."

The UN in the US: Trump Bans Abbas

Should the UN’s General Assembly and Security Council be located in New York City? Both New York and the Union in which New York is a member-state have assumed the obligation of being proper hosts to people from around the world who come to the UN for its business. Even though that international organization has displayed an impotence in the face of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Israeli military incursion that has decimated Gaza and its residents, having an international forum in which talking can take place is not for naught. As an open speaking club of sorts, the United Nations permits adversaries and allies alike to make their views known to each other and the rest of the world. Even though the very existence of the vetoes in the Security Council styme action, that members of the UN so easily get away with violating resolutions renders the entire resolution-process de facto nugatory in real significance. So essentially, the UN building in New York City enables diplomats and heads of governments alike to speak out and with each other. It is vital, therefore, that the US take an expansive approach to issuing visa-waivers so institutional members of the UN can be as well represented as they desire to be. In this regard, the host—the United States Government—should refrain from applying its partisanship in international disputes by restricting the waivers to cover the bare essentials of personnel coming to the UN in New York from abroad.

The full essay is at "The UN in the US."

Russia Damages E.U. Diplomatic Offices: Implications for International Law

Even though the Vienna Convention of 1961 includes protections for diplomatic and consular properties in active war-zones, Russia’s attack of 629 missiles and drones on Kiev, Ukraine, came within 50 meters of the E.U.’s diplomatic offices there late on August 27, 2025, severely damaging them but killing nobody in the E.U.’s delegation. The two bombs that hit nearby were enough to give the Europeans the impression that President Putin of Russia did not consider himself bound by international law in war. To the extent that fighting between two sovereign countries, Russia and Ukraine, fits Hobbes’ infamous state of nature, international law is really not law at all, for jurisprudence, including mutually acknowledged rights, requires an overarching polity to enact and enforce laws. So the E.U. could not enjoy a right to be sparred death and destruction at its diplomatic offices in Kiev during the war there, but the Union could claim another right at Russia’s expense within the E.U.’s territory.

A The full essay is at "Russia Damages E.U. Diplomatic Offices."