The baby borrowers?

I really enjoyed the new hit movie, Juno. It’s kind of like Napoleon Dynamite (including all the anachronistic props and costumes) … except better. Basic storyline without giving away the ending: Juno is a high-school student, who gets pregnant and needs to figure out what's next. The storyline evolves in a not too surprising way, yet the movie is never predictable and the humour is ingenious. One thing I really loved about this movie is that it was NOTHING like a Degrassi episode (i.e., some over-simplified, politically correct attempt at social engineering).

The story was written by Diablo Cody (real name = Brooke Busey-Hunt), who is most famous for the autobiographical Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper. Diablo deserves a Rock 'n' Roll Preacher blog post of her own. Her genius is unmistakable, but she has a marked inability to take trauma at face value. Flippancy is a form of denial. Describing a year of stripping in a seedy Minneapolis club as "fun" and an "adventure" is flippant. Her Juno character is similarly flippant about the challenges of teen pregnancy ... at least for most of the story.

Flippancy aside, the only real downfall of Juno is one the screenplay shares with most of what comes out of Hollywood these days: the movie is all about the warm-up, not about the workout. Romantic comedies always tell the tale of how a couple meets, form mistaken impressions of each other, and finally discover they were always meant for each other. The end. But that's not the end. It's just the beginning. The real work begins when you decide you're going to be in a relationship with somebody.

Pregnancy is a 9-month warmup for a lifetime workout called parenting. By leaving the baby mostly out of the equation (even in the title of the film), Juno conveys the seriously mistaken notion that pregnancy and parenting can be easily separated. Real-life Hollywood is even more absurd: Jamie Lynn Spears, Nicole Richie, and a growing list of nubile celebs are making "baby bumps" the latest fashion accessory. Fashion accessories are bought, displayed, and discarded. The world is in trouble when we start looking at children as Gucci handbags.

Here's the bottom line: in pregnancy and parenting, it's all about the baby, not the baby-makers. Perhaps that's the point of NBC's new reality series, The Baby Borrowers, where teenage couples borrow infants, toddlers, etc. to find out what it's really like to be parents. It promises to be an entertaining and enlightening show. But let's remember it's ultimately still a show. In real life, we don't get to "borrow" babies (and return them).

A closing note of appreciation for my friends, Brad and Terri Wright, who've devoted their lives to helping people become great parents. This past year, they launched WRight Parenting to show us how to go beyond being pregnant to being parents who understand the importance of values like safety, consideration, and responsibility. I hope they get a TV show.

Anything less than open and honest ...

Some days, I can't decide if terrorism is a coward's cheap shot or a way for the little guy to level the playing field. We talk of just wars. Are there just terrorists too? Should we consider their demands? Or should we simply dismiss them outrightly?

Terrorism of a less violent, but not inconsequential, form made an appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show last week (January 7-10, 2008). The backgrounder to the story is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur named Mitch Altman. Altman is the inventor of the TV-B-Gone, a fob device that can turn off any TV in its aim. Altman allegedly invented the device to reduce the time he wasted watching TV at home. However, he quickly expanded his mission to include waging a covert war against TV's in restaurants, sports lounges, laundromats, etc. One click and the TV's go down.

The Consumer Electronics Show is rife with televisions: huge, flat-panel TV's, mounted by the hundreds to form video walls and video pyramids displaying corporate logos and product demos to passers by. During this year's show (January 7-10, 2008), all the TV's began shutting off. The misadventure was masterminded by the staff of Gizmodo, which is one of the best electronics blog sites out there. It's also pretty much run by teenagers, which might explain why they not only hatched the idea of sabotaging the CES with a TV-B-Gone, but also broadcast their dastardly deed on YouTube.

The Gizmodo "terrorist" who pulled the prank was barred from the rest of CES 2008 and barred for life from any future CES Events. Legal action against Gizmodo may also be forthcoming, but some have defended Gizmodo's stunt. They argue that the Consumer Electronics Show has increasingly focused on consumerism at the expense of innovation in design, productivity, etc. For these people, the Gizmodo stunt was a breath of fresh air -- a reminder that show should be more about great products and less about glitzy presentations.

This month, the GodTalk Radio Show endured its own bout of "teenager terrorism" at the hands of prank callers. Like the Gizmodo crew, the pranksters are some of the brightest minds out there, but instead of lending their gifts to the show, they come off as juvenille ... even a little demented! At the GodTalk Radio Show, we give listeners an opportunity to join an open and honest conversation about God. It has to be both open and honest to be worthwhile. Terrorism is ultimately neither, which is why it never adds anything enduring to the human experience.

Last week, I downloaded We Will Not Be Silent on iTunes. The album is a multi-artist collection of songs created for worship at St. Benedict's Table, a postmodern congregation in Winnipeg. Renowned artist, Gord Johnson, offers a typically solid contribution to the project, but the real standout is Jenny Moore. (Moore is no longer worshipping at St. Benedict's Table as she is currently attending art school in London, England.) I Am Coming for You might just be the most evocative communion aria ever written. Jenny says her guitar has been mostly packed up on a shelf since she moved to England. Get that guitar off the shelf, Jenny: "do not neglect the gift that is in you"! Let's hope we see Jenny Moore back in Canada soon.

Oh Canada!

It's no secret: I like Starbucks. I like their choice of coffee beans, I like the way they roast, grind, and brew their beans, and I like the great service I receive (almost) every time I walk into a Starbucks store.

But Starbucks doesn't merely succeed at the level of goods, commodities, and service. Its greatest achievement is the ability to provide customers with great experiences ... maybe even the best experiences of their day. Whenever I visit a Starbucks store, my baristas connect with me in meaningful ways. They might talk about my choice of coffee, the music playing in the store, or family/school/job. They might offer to press a new coffee blend for me at no charge or ask if I'd like to sample one of their featured foods. Some baristas even include me on their learning journey to become coffee masters.

At Starbucks, baristas are mentored by their peers and supervisors to be "welcoming", "genuine", "knowledgeable", "involved", and "considerate". These five foundations ensure my Starbucks experience is more than just good coffee. It's good coffee combined with consideration, appreciation, education, etc.

Starbucks gets it. The world doesn't really need more good coffee ... it needs more great experiences.

Patriotic Canadians are quick to argue that Starbucks is a U.S. company and that we should support home-grown coffee corporations. They typically champion Tim Horton's as the pride and joy of Canada -- the emblem of Canadian culture. If it is, Canada is in a lot of trouble.

Today, CanWest News Service reports that Tim Horton's employees have created a Facebook group called Tim Hortons Rules of Ordering and More. The group was created by Timmie's staff who are fed up with customers who "don't know what they want or how to order properly". The site contains a wealth of insulting and inane information, such as

• When you want a coffee with NO sugar, DO NOT say "no sugar" -- it sounds like your saying "one sugar".
• We only carry one kind of milk so don’t ask for something dumb like homogenized milk -- we don’t have any.
• If you want a decaf coffee, don’t say, "I would like a large coffee 2 milk 1 sugar DECAF"; say "Large DECAF coffee 2 milk 1 sugar".
• When you drive up to the speaker box, have your order ready -- we don’t carry "Give me a second's" or "Hold on's".
• DO NOT yell, "Hello..." as soon as you reach the speaker box.
• When you receive everything at the window, leave immediately -- don’t just sit there.

This is the pride and joy of Canada? I don't think so. Canadians are respected around the world as "welcoming", "genuine", "knowledgeable", "involved", and "considerate". Let's stop selling ourselves short. We're a Starbucks kind of country. We just don't know it yet.