Devout paleoconservative Tom Paitek offers an astonishingly thorough analysis of “The X-Files” series and how conservative (read traditionalist) it really was. Worthwhile reading for any fan of the series. A small excerpt:

The series ends with Mulder and Scully on the run from the conspiracy and its friends in the government, hiding in a hotel room in New Mexico. These are the final lines spoken in the series:

Scully: “You’ve always said that you want to believe.  But believe in what Mulder?  If this is the truth that you’ve been looking for, then what is there to believe in?
Mulder: “I want to believe that the dead are not lost to us. That they speak to us as part of something greater than us—greater than any alien force.  And if you and I are powerless now, I want to believe that if we listen, to what’s speaking, it can give us the power to save ourselves.”
Scully: “Then we believe the same thing.”
Mulder: “Maybe there’s hope.”

Lest the viewer have any doubt about what is being discussed, the camera zooms in on the tiny gold cross Scully has worn throughout the series. In discussing this ending with (a friend), he told me that it contained the most pro-Christian sentiment he had seen in a mainstream television show in some years.

So we (myself and two of my friends/emps) just got done watching “Black Gold”, a documentary about Ethiopian coffee farmers, the prices they get paid for coffee, and how those prices affect their lives. I can’t really distill the movie, but I’ll share a few of the salient points, along with my reactions.

“How much do you think they pay for a cup of your coffee?” This question is posed, at the beginning of the film, to a group of coffee farmers from a man named Tadesse, who runs the coffee co-op which sells all the coffee these farmers produce. They react with absolute astonishment when he tells them that a cup of coffee is about $2.50 (I’m assuming he meant in New York or L.A.), whereas it sells there in their community for about 15 cents.

“We pray, oh God, that you would raise the price of coffee!” These words are spoken in earnest, by Christian men who grow coffee for their livelihood. The coffee market took a dive about 10 years ago — and Africa has been suffering ever since. Some men try to battle through it, continuing to grow the coffee and hoping that their luck changes. Tadesse, for his part, travels the world, attempt to sidestep the “coffee market,” which (like the stock market) determines every day how much the big corporations (Kraft, Starbucks, Nestle, Sara Lee) will pay for their coffee. He explains that these companies are only the last link in a chain with about six or seven stops, the price increasing (or decreasing, depending how you look at it) at each link. He makes deals with independent roasters, selling his co-op’s coffee directly to them. This means something like a tenfold increase in the price that can be paid to the farmers themselves — men who are using the profits not to build houses or buy cars, but pool the profits in order to build A school for A community.

“We are more interested in trade than in aid.” The film also shows a massive, U.S.-owned plant in Africa which bundles grain, which is then given to the African people as humanitarian aid. Yet they are not looking for this aid; rather, they want to see fair prices for their products. The contrast, though, is startling: We give billions in aid every year to the Third World, and at the same time we negotiate at the World Trade Organization to keep prices low. This is shown as well: African delegations essentially being shut out of the trading process, getting no voice whatsoever over what they will be paid for their products.

I took a few pots of Ethiopian Harrar — quite possibly made from bea grown by those in the film — and it struck me that I’m selling something precious. The coffee is grown by these people, it’s picked by hand, sorted by hand, washed by hand, bagged by hand… then it’s shipped to Nashville (yes, I work with a roaster who buys directly from the co-op), roasted when I order it, and shipped to me the next day. And what do I do with it? I throw it around, I grind and brew and don’t even think about how many people are truly affected by this thing that, ultimately, I am selling to people who do not appreciate their work. They don’t KNOW the work… hell, it’s hard enough for me to remember.

Where’s the balance? How do I explain to people the importance of fair-trade coffee, without sounding like a zealot or bleeding-heart liberal or whatnot? How do I explain why Starbucks is a shameful place, when they give their employees such good benefits? How their “fair trade principles” mean only that they buy 1-2 percent of their coffee fair-trade, so that they can use it as a label and make yuppy consumers feel better about what they’re buying, which is mostly NOT fair-trade? How do I not sound like a prick, seriously?

My heart was touched, at least, by the fact that many of these people are Christians, brothers and sisters of the Almighty that I worship… they’re not nameless, faceless people, but images of God as I am an image of God. And for that reason, I can’t sit idly by and let fellow Christians live in ignorance, going off the assumption that it’s JUST a cup of coffee. There’s a holy God who watches over these people, and through ignorance we do them a great disservice — no, an INJUSTICE — by allowing ourselves to walk through life, drinking Maxwell House or Millstone or Starbucks or whatever, simply because it costs us $9 a lb. with our Kroger Plus card instead of $12 a pound at our fair-trade coffee retailer. And this is not about me… I doubt I will ever make a significant income from coffee. But I do intend to make some sort of a difference, from this day forward, on behalf of Jesus Christ, who died for me, for you — and just as much, for Tadesse and all his farmers.

NEW INFO: I had guessed it already, but I can now confirm that the Ethiopian coffees I serve are from Tadesse’s co-op… which means we were drinking coffee from the very farms featured in the film! Pretty cool.

You all know I’m a top-notch post-rocker… a mediocre pool player (you may think YOU are also a mediocre pool player. But you aren’t.)… a political junkie, a Mac enthusiast and a wonderful dad.

What you may NOT know is that I’m also an amateur filmmaker. I present you, now, with “Hydration Nation,” a sort-of PSA on the virtues of keeping one’s self hydrated in these hot days.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whoU7fnUlVg]

ADDENDUM: Here is the first film I made in the 21st Century. It doesn’t go anywhere.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4mGcwNhIRc]

Fargo. The Big Lebowski. Raising Arizona. O Brother. These are among my favorite movies of all time. What do they have in common? They were all written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen.

Sadly, the brothers have really dropped the ball in the last few years… first by delivering the subpar romantic comedy “Intolerable Cruelty,” and following that up with the absolutely terrible remake of “The Ladykillers.”

Well, my faith was almost gone. But it’s starting to well up again, thanks to this:

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=SN9L3czFoOg]