Divinity, Incarnation, and the Strange Body of Jesus in Horror Films

Through an analysis of a number of horror films or films with horror-infused aspects, such as The Last Temptation Christ, Passion of the Christ, Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, Jesus, and Fist of Jesus, the author uses theology to reflect not only on the horror genre but also on the doctrine of the Incarnation

Minds of Metal and Wheels: Tolkien and Lewis on Science and Faith

J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis expressed a view of science in relation to religion that resonates with the views of many conservative Christians today: an association of modern science with anti-humanist convictions and totalitarian control of nature and human life. However, Kugler argues that Tolkien and Lewis’s view was rooted in personal and scholarly commitments to pre-modern literary worldviews. These were then confirmed by their experience of two world wars, the rise of the welfare state, and the threat of totalitarian barbarism in the first half of the twentieth century. If their world is arguably not ours, need we share their understanding of science and religion

Historical Movies, Historical Disciplines, and Getting What We Want and Deserve: Tarantino’s \u3ci\u3eInglourious Basterds\u3c/i\u3e and the Satisfactions of Historical Reflection

Movies claiming to represent historical events remain popular. Historical films, however, differ from a disciplined study of the past, which is constrained by evidence from the past. Looking for an evidence-based historical argument in historical movies misses what they do best. A case in point is Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. This film combines two genres--exploitation films and World War II films. With Hitler and Nazis, argues the author, we viewers want justice achieved through vengeance—and Tarantino’s film gives us that. Historical movies in general give us the simpler past we want. They seldom, however, help us consider the full costs of gaining justice, especially in light of the Good News

A Rural Nebraska Boy’s Comic Strip Narrative of World War II

The comics drawn by James “Jimmy” Kugler (the author’s father) when he was 13 in 1945 and living in Lexington, Nebraska provide a microhistorical perspective on at least four things. First, they offer a glimpse of an adolescent boy’s life in small town America during the mid-twentieth century. The strips took local buildings and situations and turned them into something strange, reflecting some of Jimmy’s loneliness and alienation. Further, they “back talked” the adults in charge of school and town. Second, they manifest the power of a dynamic American popular culture at the time. Jimmy’s war comic strips depict fairly simple characters, cinematic perspectives like close-ups or long distance, and framing from newsreels and combat films. The Frogs that he created reflect elements of cartoon figures of the era, including Ub Iwerk’s “Flip the Frog.” Third, they illustrate how a child’s imagination transposed a distant yet hard-to-escape war into a reflection of aspects of a world marked by authority and violence. The media portrait of World War II gave Jimmy authoritative permission to revel in mayhem, brutality, and spectacular destruction. The local coverage of the war reported more on the Pacific war with Japan than the war in Europe, and the behavior of Jimmy’s Toads in their war with the Frogs generally echoed common media portraits of the Japanese. Finally, Kugler’s war comic storytelling readily reshaped itself after the war into stories of violent crime and horror, paralleling how comic book taste more generally was moving in similar directions

AIOps for a Cloud Object Storage Service

With the growing reliance on the ubiquitous availability of IT systems and services, these systems become more global, scaled, and complex to operate. To maintain business viability, IT service providers must put in place reliable and cost efficient operations support. Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations (AIOps) is a promising technology for alleviating operational complexity of IT systems and services. AIOps platforms utilize big data, machine learning and other advanced analytics technologies to enhance IT operations with proactive actionable dynamic insight. In this paper we share our experience applying the AIOps approach to a production cloud object storage service to get actionable insights into system's behavior and health. We describe a real-life production cloud scale service and its operational data, present the AIOps platform we have created, and show how it has helped us resolving operational pain points.Comment: 5 page

Ökologischer Landbau in Sachsen von 2015 bis 2019: Statusbericht

Der Ökolandbau in Sachsen entwickelt sich weiter und entwächst der Nische. Weiterhin deutlich sind jedoch traditionelle Schwächen, wie z. B. geringer Viehbesatz oder Marktferne, die die Entwicklung bremsen. Künftige Herausforderungen sind die Anpassung an den Klimawandel, Ernährungssicherheit mit hohen Ökoanteilen, Verbesserung des Tierwohls und Umweltleistungen. Für die ab 2021 geltende EU-Verordnung zum Ökologischen Landbau werden die Kontrollverfahren angepasst. Der Bericht ist für Landwirte ebenso wie für Entscheider in der sächsischen Agrarwirtschaft von Interesse. Redaktionsschluss: 26.06.202