C.S. Lewis was one of the biggest influences on my basic and essential Theology growing up in addition to my Grandfather, the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the 24th Psalm. My mother had read the Chronicles of Narnia to me as a child and while doing so had recorded them onto tape. The tapes themselves have worn out into nothing, not from the magnetic decay of age but from the constant playing of them well into my late teens. I knew the books by heart. It should then be of no surprise that every rendition of The Chronicles of Narnia were greatly disappointing. Be it the animated version I saw in the early '80s or the more recent live action BBC version, they all fell short of by understanding of the books, let alone my expectations.

The Lord of the Rings rendering by Peter Jackson was similarly disappointing mainly because Jackson, being a complete non-Christian, was clueless to the themes that Tolkien conveyed. So naturally I was reluctant to think that great special effects would make up for any new rendering of the Chronicles of Narnia.

A couple days ago I was listening to the radio and caught a brief snippet of a review about SWe3 - RotS. It was talking about how wonderfully the Cannes Film Festival in France applauded the movie for supposed Anti-American Sentiments. George Lucas' response was also interesting but not because he straight out said: "yeah, it's Anti-Bush" but because he was so vague about it. The reviewer read it as being politically oriented towards Anti-Bush so that he pleases the French and keeps the Americans happy and viewing his film. This may or may not be true, but the there are only a few instances that it seems to be Anti-American in so far as anything against absolutism could be considered evil.

On March 11th, over 200 Spaniards died in a series of well co-ordinated terrorist attacks showing the classic hallmark of Islamic terrorism. While the Spanish government readied to blame the ETA (a Basque terrorist group similar to the PLO and IRA), it has become clearer that if they were involved it was with the aid of Al Qaeda. It also appears that the timing of the attack was meant to influence the results of the Parlimentary elections. To that effect in addition to terror, it has had grave impact.

The government in Spain, up until the elections, has been very supportive of America in her fight against terror - despite many Spaniards being against that support. To the extent that Spain offered just over 1,000 of it's own troops to help in Iraq, the support has all but vanished as a new government was voted into office due to this terror attack.