Why Tea Partiers are idiots...

I am shamelessly reposting this from the comment section at this link:

How many of you have seen this:

You didn’t get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.

You didn’t get mad when Cheney allowed Energy com­pany offi­cials to dic­tate energy policy.

You didn’t get mad when a covert CIA oper­a­tive got outed.

You didn’t get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.

You didn’t get mad when we ille­gally invaded a coun­try that posed no threat to us.

You didn’t get mad when we spent over 600 billion(and count­ing) on said ille­gal war.

You didn’t get mad when over 10 bil­lion dol­lars just dis­ap­peared in Iraq.

You didn’t get mad when you saw the Abu Grahib photos.

You didn’t get mad when you found out we were tor­tur­ing people.

You didn’t get mad when the gov­ern­ment was ille­gally wire­tap­ping Americans.

You didn’t get mad when we didn’t catch Bin Laden.

You didn’t get mad when you saw the hor­ri­ble con­di­tions at Wal­ter Reed.

You didn’t get mad when we let a major US city drown.

You didn’t get mad when the deficit hit the tril­lion dol­lar mark.

You finally got mad when.. when… wait for it… when the gov­ern­ment decided that peo­ple in Amer­ica deserved the right to see a doc­tor if they are sick.

(From poster named Stock)

This corporate funded astroturf movement deserves all the disdain and namecalling that the left can throw at them.

It's so easy being right wing!

All I have to do is be willing to lie and distort truth in order to get heard on TV. I am only "for" something until President Obama and/or the Democrats are "for" it. As soon as the President embraces it - I'm against it as a socialist, communist plot to take over the government.

This is the case for heath reform. Obama gave a key statement on health reform today and now is the time of the final push to give Americans what they desparately need: health care without the threat of bankruptcy. For too long the insurance companies have rationed care and denied coverage and this must end before the US bankrupts itself due to health care costs.

The complete lack of support from the Republican side of the aisle demonstrates their complete lack of moral guidance and lack of conscience. They have literally sold their vote to the Health Insurance lobbyists.

For some reason many in the so-called "mainstream media" are saying this is political suicide for the Democrats and Obama. This is nonsense. Once people get a taste of having good health insurance at a fair price without the threat of financial ruin, they will never want to go back.

Come this November, I'm sure many of these Republicans will discover that it was political suicide to say no when people's lives were on the line.

A great clip from Rachel Maddow demonstrating the utter hypocrisy of the GOP:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The best plan for voters? Come this November I believe it would be a good idea to only vote Democrat - vote straight along the party. This would, perhaps, let the GOP know that their gamble with American lives is evil and just plain heartless.

London 2012: The Worst Olympics Ever!

It seems that some, probably The Daily Fail...um...I mean, Mail, of course - are saying that the Vancouver 2010 Olympics are the "worst ever". They began saying this about 4 days after the Olympics started.

I've decided to begin a satirical campaign of one to call the London 2012 Olympics the worst Olympics ever. I don't need any facts or the fact that they haven't happened yet to get in the way. I can just SAY it. That's all the New Atheists, Faux News, the GOP, Dick Cheyney, Sarah Palin and assorted Christian Fundamentalists do and they get air time! "Religion is behind all evil events." "Obama is going to slaughter you." "We are against the stimulus." "Waterboarding acheived good results." "I resigned my governership for the good of the people of Alaska/the country." "The earth was created in 6 24 hour days." (All of those things in quotation marks are factually untrue, for those unsure of my meaning!)

Quick - INTERVIEW ME!! I can make things up, too! Did you know that the English Olympic Committee is the same committee that planned 9/11? The Founding Fathers revolted against the BRITISH, ya know, so this is why it's unAmerican to support the London Olympics? It doesn't have to be TRUE or anything to get air time. I can be completely made up history, like Dick Cheyney and that former Bush speechwriter have recently begun to do with some airhead on ABC.

It's hard to believe that anyone can think of something as the "best" or the "worst" when it's just started and not finished. You cannot evaluate any event or historical person "in the moment". Faux News began to relentlessly lie about President Obama as soon as he came on the public scene and then repeat the lies and now we have the so-called "liberal" media beginning to allow "birthers" to get away with fabricated nonsense. (They ignored the birther talk at the National Tea Party convention and pretty much ignored the racist/bigoted remarks made by Tancredo. The last I checked only 600 people showed up for this "national" convention. Why does the media give attention to these nut jobs anyway?)

So it doesn't matter if it's true - it only matters if you SAY it: The London 2012 Olympics are (not will be) the Worst Olympics Ever! Those Brits don't know what they're doing and they all have bad teeth! Let's have another Revolution against the Brits!

Manhattan Declaration: Why I Cannot Sign It

I'm really struggling with this Manhattan Declaration. I cannot condone the legislation of morality and still believe in a country that is truly free.

Basically, the MD has three principles that it elaborates upon:

1.the sanctity of human life
2.the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
3.the rights of conscience and religious liberty.

I will probably take days to elaborate and work through this in my head, but I must remain true to what I believe is the specific teachings of Jesus Christ. In some ways, I think the MD is right on, but in others, it doesn't go far enough. For example, if the sanctity of human life is such an issue: Why aren't Christians as a group crying out about the death penalty? Or condeming the Bush administration's throwing away of American and Iraqi lives in Iraq?

It says that the declaration is not partisan, which I don't believe for a minute.

If we believe in religious freedom and have extended that to believe in freedom and equality for all, why the obsession with marriage? Even if a group believes that an act is sinful, does that mean that it needs to be legislated as sinful?

Religious freedom implies freedom to not be religous. The document does not really endorse a free lifestyle, but a severely restricted one. I do believe that sex outside of marriage is not right, but I don't want it legislated to be illegal to have sex outside of marriage. I can't understand how allowing gay marriages will destroy society like a bad disaster movie.

I also am puzzled by the lack of "standing up" for important Christian values like grace and truth.

Where is the condemnation from Christians over the out and out lies being perpetrated by supposed Christians like Sarah Palin or the pretend Christians on Fox Noise? When are Christians going to condemn the name of Christ being peddled in the US as an exlusively right wing Republican product?

As I read the gospels, I see very little about sex and marriage from Christ. The only real statement that Jesus makes about government may be found in the often quoted "Give to Caesar what is Caesar, and to God what is God's". He even acknowledges the corrupt Roman governor, Pilate, as being appointed by God:

8When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, 9and he went back inside the palace. "Where do you come from?" he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer. 10"Do you refuse to speak to me?" Pilate said. "Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?"

11Jesus answered, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin."

12From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jews kept shouting, "If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar."

from John 19

What am I trying to say here? Christianity should have nothing to do with politics. The church I grew up in may have been fundamentalist in some ways, but I can't recall being told that to be a Christian, I had to be a Republican.

I'm pissed off about the Catholic bishops putting conditions on their charity work, which is not Christian at all. Grace, a central tenant of Christianity is being ignored by the majority of Christians and it must be reasserted.

Love, Grace and Truth: That's what's missing in the Manhattan Declaration.

FOX vs White House: It's about the TRUTH

I have been spending more time than I should on trying to understand the "war" between the White House and Faux News. The White House simply says what is a well-documented and carefully illustrated truth: FOX creates the news through its commentary and repeats it as news on its "news" coverage. I don't need to document this here for it is already well documented by Media Matters. Now that idiot Sean Hannity says he doesn't trust mediamatters, because it is liberal. The White House's main point is that they don't trust FOX, and nor should anyone else, because they are just a propaganda machine for the conservatives. The White House's response to any criticism from FOX is simple now: "It's not a legitimate news organization. We've made that clear. We can't trust the source, so come back to us when you have facts to back up your criticism that are not FOX-based."

This video is spectacular in how it illustrates the FOX bias and agenda:



The White House is calling a bully a bully. They don't really need to do or say anything else. As for the argument about Fox's increased ratings: that's a red herring. It doesn't matter if Faux's ratings are through the roof. It's all about truth - which is not something that happens by majority vote: Truth just is.

Fox lies, distorts and manipulates the truth to serve its own conservative agenda. The White House is simply stating that. There is no "attack" on FOX: They can still broadcast. They have the freedom to say whatever they want. They insist on the freedom to say whatever they want. It's a shame they don't want anyone to have the freedom to oppose their destructive agenda.

More on this debate

Why I'm Stuck?

I stumbled across this article: The Lost Art of Reading. This exactly describes my predicament with writing papers. I'm too restless and have noticed some of the same difficulties with the act of reading.

David Ulin states that he, like me, grew up reading constantly:

In his 1967 memoir, "Stop-Time," Frank Conroy describes his initiation into literature as an adolescent on Manhattan's Upper East Side. "I'd lie in bed . . . ," he writes, "and read one paperback after another until two or three in the morning. . . . The real world dissolved and I was free to drift in fantasy, living a thousand lives, each one more powerful, more accessible, and more real than my own." I know that boy: Growing up in the same neighborhood, I was that boy. And I have always read like that, although these days, I find myself driven by the idea that in their intimacy, the one-to-one attention they require, books are not tools to retreat from but rather to understand and interact with the world.

Now, it's different - always thinking you're missing something, which has especially seemed more relevant since 9/11:

So what happened? It isn't a failure of desire so much as one of will. Or not will, exactly, but focus: the ability to still my mind long enough to inhabit someone else's world, and to let that someone else inhabit mine. Reading is an act of contemplation, perhaps the only act in which we allow ourselves to merge with the consciousness of another human being. We possess the books we read, animating the waiting stillness of their language, but they possess us also, filling us with thoughts and observations, asking us to make them part of ourselves. This is what Conroy was hinting at in his account of adolescence, the way books enlarge us by giving direct access to experiences not our own. In order for this to work, however, we need a certain type of silence, an ability to filter out the noise.

Such a state is increasingly elusive in our over-networked culture, in which every rumor and mundanity is blogged and tweeted. Today, it seems it is not contemplation we seek but an odd sort of distraction masquerading as being in the know. Why? Because of the illusion that illumination is based on speed, that it is more important to react than to think, that we live in a culture in which something is attached to every bit of time.

Here we have my reading problem in a nutshell, for books insist we take the opposite position, that we immerse, slow down. "After September 11," Mona Simpson wrote as part of a 2001 LA Weekly round-table on reading during wartime, "I didn't read books for the news. Books, by their nature, are never new enough." By this, Simpson doesn't mean she stopped reading; instead, at a moment when it felt as if time was on fast forward, she relied on books to pull back from the onslaught, to distance herself from the present as a way of reconnecting with a more elemental sense of who we are.

I have insomnia at times and can't read for long before I begin poking at the internet, seeing what I'm "missing." It is important, though, to force yourself to enter into the writer's world. Ulin mentions it may take longer and sometimes it takes him at least 20 pages before he is in the state he used to be in when younger and in his pre-internet days. His conclusion:

These are elementary questions, and for me, they cycle back to reading, to the focus it requires. When I was a kid, maybe 12 or 13, my grandmother used to get mad at me for attending family functions with a book. Back then, if I'd had the language for it, I might have argued that the world within the pages was more compelling than the world without; I was reading both to escape and to be engaged. All these years later, I find myself in a not-dissimilar position, in which reading has become an act of meditation, with all of meditation's attendant difficulty and grace. I sit down. I try to make a place for silence. It's harder than it used to be, but still, I read.

I completely agree. I need to just work harder at it and realize it's a new kind of discipline to be a reader in this internet age.

I don't get it...

I just saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince today, expecting to be at least midly entertained.

I was wrong.

I was bored out of my skull. Bored with the moodiness, the lack of humour the damn teen angst. Has Twighlight even scared the makers of the HP movies?

I love the books. Can't read them enough. Have read them all at least twice, as I recall. I love the humor, the adventure and the not so hidden Christian message in the whole series. A scholar of children's literature, Jack Zipes - Marxist and athiest - said after only three or four of the books were out that this series was following the pattern of the Christian knight. I didn't believe it then, but after book 7, I saw it loud and clear. This profound idea is lost to the idea that we need to just show a string of scenes from each book.

The movies? Don't own or want to own any of them. I find they're more to appeal to fans who want to see "certain scenes" on screen. Unlike Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I feel the makers of the Harry Potter movies have lost touch with the spirit of the stories. Jackson added, deleted and manipulated the key events in the story to fit cinema and illustrate his own interpretations, but I don't feel that we lost Tolkien's original themes and ideas. Harry Potter tends to be scenes from the books, without the ideas that propel the story. I guess, in a sense, I felt the same way about Star Trek (2009) - something was lost in the translation to the big screen.

Although, like ST, perhaps in 20 years we'll get the "reboot" of the Harry Potter movies. I wonder what Jackson is doing after producing The Hobbit?

EDIT: Yay! Here's a review of the movie that I agree with! And it's from Philly!

No more Twitter for me...

You may have noticed I attempted to add a Twitter account, but I've deleted the account already. There were two problems that I discovered rather quickly. The answer to the question "What are you doing?" seemed too difficult for me to come up with, which demonstrates that this writer's block I've been experiencing is pretty deep rooted by now.

Also, I really got the account to follow "breaking news" kind of items and started following about 14 different accounts. Well, apparently, I did something wrong because all 14 accounts "disappeared" within 24 hours and it said I was following 0 accounts. I discovered that I didn't want to play yet another online game with the non-existent support staff at yet another website (Due to negative experiences with both Ebay and amazon.ca, I will never deal with either again).

Most of the time there are no problems with sites and they can go on automatically and rake in the money without actually having to work. For the few times there are problems the person who has the problem only gets automated responses (amazon.ca does this) and it is very difficult to get a person. When you do, finally, (after 10-20 emails) get a person, they simply continue to repeat what the automated responses say, no matter what. The people do not even attempt to think on their own, which is becoming a larger and larger problem with society as a whole.

Ebay committed the worst "sin" in my opinion. When you file a "grievance" (I never received the book I ordered despite repeated emails from the seller that he sent it), ebay automatically gives your PHONE NUMBER to the person you have a problem with. The guy calls me AT HOME from far, far away and wants to "solve" the problem over the phone!! I immediately stopped going to ebay after that. Within a few months the automatic emails stopped (it's not possible to "unsubscribe" apparently)

Well, these two experiences made me delete my twitter account. I've learned that if you have problems, that is the best way to deal with websites. Don't even attempt to contact them. There's no point.

But it's not Star Trek...

Ok, I saw the movie and I was impressed with the special effects, I laughed and I thought the opening sequence of Kirk's father's death was well done. I can see why the numbers are there and I can see why this will go down in history as a successful "reboot" of the series. It will make tons of money and that's just the way it is: I get it. I'm going against the grain by writing this, but Star Trek was supposed to be about going against the grain and perhaps it never should be "new, hip and uptodate." However, I can't get past the feeling that this is not really a "reboot" as others have been done. Let me try to organize my thoughts and explain why. I will also warn anyone out there that there will be spoilers coming. See the movie first and then come back to this.

Batman, Battlestar Galactica and James Bond have also done the "reboot" thing and started anew, but none of them betrayed their roots like this movie has done. All three of these franchises had something in common: they all kind of fell into "campiness" and silliness at some point and people just lost interest in the goofiness of it all. All three reboots did the same thing, though: they looked to the roots of the stories, stripped them to essentials and began again. The basic story of all three - the foundations of all three - stayed the same. This is important because it is in the foundations that we discover what brought us to these stories in the first place.

About the "nuTrek" as some are starting to label this movie: it has done what no other "reboot" has done - attacked and destroyed foundations by destroying Vulcan and betraying Vulcan culture with a kiss. It basically has eliminated all the TV series and movies that have gone before it with its time travel plot. It is an alternative universe, which is fine with some, but not with me.

Spock's character as revealed during the movie is not Vulcan in his behavior, which is just not consistent with who Spock and Vulcans have developed into over the course of the many shows and movies. Vulcans never - repeat NEVER - display affection in public. It is completely alien (drum riff) to their way of life - it would never even occur to them it is so distasteful. I have no difficulty with Spock/Uhura having a relationship, but openly kissing in front of not only others, but a superior officer is not going to happen. This single event took me out of the movie and wrecked that "suspension of disbelief" I have. It is especially unrealistic in light of the destruction of Vulcan and the death of Amanda, Spock's mother. If I have learned anything about human nature, it is that in times of extreme crisis we tend to cling to what we know and even have a tendency to become more fundamentalistic about our beliefs. Spock would not kiss Uhura in public - that is not Spock.

Star Trek, ultimately, is about characters and challenges to our ways of living and thinking. It is not a space opera like Star Wars. It is a way of exploring what it means to be human and the alien races on the series were ways of exploring different parts of human nature. I feel that this movie gave up on the thought and character development in favor of the quick joke, the grand special effects, and something that would appeal to a wider audience. The question that I have then is: Was Star Trek ever supposed to appeal to a wider audience? Maybe not.

Bad Movies

I guess the official protocol is to say: "Spoilers ahead!". However, I will be doing you a favor. Don't ever watch this movie: Swordfish. It's been a while since I sat through a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad movie. In a funny way....I feel a bit refreshed by it. No need for seriousness in thinking about this. No Nietzschian metaphors within the bad guys like The Dark Knight. No serious commentary on society's rejected ones as in Monster. No thought provoking commentary on the war in Iraq like In the Valley of Elah.
Nope! This movie is just so bad, it should be illegal to have "making of.." featurettes on the DVD like this one does. You know the ones, where the actors and others involved in this semi-crime against humanity talk up the movie like it's the next Citizen Kane. And the actors? Well...we're talking some of the best actors out there in this movie: John Travolta, Halle Berry, Hugh Jackman and Don Cheadle. I guess when there's too many good actors, that should be a sign of some kind?

Apparently this movie is trying to make a STATEMENT about how terrorism is to be handled. You see the key is (I am not making this up): Hit them back harder!!!!! TAKE THAT! That's what settles for profound thinking in this movie. Travolta says that the first few pages of the script are what sold the film for him. Basically the movie begins with Travolta explaining what is wrong with Hollywood films. Big long attempt at Tarantino-esque dialogue. Kinda ironic - an incredibly bad movie talking about....but I guess that was unintentional. This movie is so bad that their idea of a chase scene involves actors rolling after each other down an incredibly steep hill. I'm not kidding - rolling down a hill. It was an excruciatingly long chase sequence, too. Really.

Travolta is posing as a bank robber in order to be a terrorist of terrorists (like Dexter, but poorly edited and with lots more explosions). He's supposed to be our American hero, although we just think he's really a crazy bad guy, but is Halle Berry a DEA agent or is she just his main squeeze after all and we get to see her topless for no other reason than guys can go around and say they saw her topless. That's the movie...a big long run-on sentence. Oh, and Travolta randomly kills people in the middle of LA and gets away with it. I guess that's not as much a stretch as I thought it was initially.

Anyhow - Berry's topless. However, the filmmakers don't seem to understand that in well made movies, there is a reason for things like toplessness or shooting up senators or blowing up LA. In this movie, there's really no reason for any of it. It's so choppily edited that it seems more like a highlight reel and a poorly made highlight reel at that. Now there was toplessness in In the Valley of Elah, too, but it made sense and revealed something about Tommy Lee Jones's character(No, he wasn't the one that was topless. Sorry, ladies.) I won't tell you about it because that would entail spoiling a good movie.

Another test of a bad movie suddenly came to mind: I bet everyone who saw Swordfish remembers that HB was topless for all of ten seconds or so. I also bet that everyone who saw In the Valley of Elah and has been reading this is thinking: "I don't remember any toplessness in that movie...." That's a sign of a good movie - even boobs don't distract from a well made film.

I didn't watch the Oscars...

What's happening? I've stopped watching TV and now I've actually NOT watched the Oscars for the first time in at least a decade. I was talking to the principal of the school I work at when I'm not taking a year off for grad school and he was talking about Rick Mercer. I haven't watched one Rick Mercer this season!!! I don't even watch the last season of Corner Gas (Although I will by the DVD in Oct/Nov when it comes out.) The time for the Oscars came up, I looked at the clock and decided I wasn't interested. I haven't watched any of the Best Picture nominees this year, although I'm sure "Slumdog Millionaire" deserved the honor. I know just from reading about the movie that it was the one to root for - anything about an underdog is fantastic to me. I was miffed at the exclusion of "The Dark Knight" for nomination. I knew Heath Ledger would win for the Joker, but it should have been at least nominated for original screenplay and director.

That wasn't the reason I didn`t watch and it wasn't because I was too busy with school work. The stuff I've been reading in grad school is actually changing the way I think. The way I view things and I'm not sure what to think about that...

What to do?

Here I am...I'm still here, but I've hit a big time writer's block. It's called procrastination. For some reason I think that I need a completely written paper in my head before I begin writing it. I am using this blog to help me get over that, so I hope you'll forgive me for my rambling. I've allowed the assignments to pile up and I need to really push to get some done, because I've started new courses and for some odd reason they all have writing assignments too! (That was sarcasm, which I've never figured out how to properly convey in the writing of a blog) I have to keep in mind the line that one of my profs gave us: "Graduate school is more about persistence than intelligence." I must persist! For the very brief time that J.R.R. Tolkien drove a car he would just fly into traffic with a cry something like: "Charge ahead and they'll make way!" His family must have been relieved when he gave up driving due to the way the construction of roads was destroying the English countryside. I need to charge ahead!

Time for a new metaphor??

Now that Obama's in (was there ever any doubt?) there are a few commentators - the conservative types - who are saying stuff like - "Well, he can't keep his promises on taxes, especially to the richer types - that would be disastrous!" One of those commentators is Michael Campbell - big time financial guru here in BC - who can't even pronounce Obama's name correctly. Imagine: O-BAM-AH. If Canadians keep this pronunciation up, I will retaliate with CAH-NAY-DAH!
Anywhoo... I was thinking about Obama stating that we need to get rid of this old ecomomic model of "trickle down" theory. This, I believe, was started by Reagan (who Obama has thoroughly studied and I believe admires in some ways -- wait : a president who STUDIES something, as in, READING???? What a difference!!) This 'trickle down' theory is a tired metaphor. If you try to hold water, some of it always trickles down. The problem is, there is no trickling....the economy has nothing.
A better metaphor may be of a glutton. The glutton is at the table, slamming down all the food he can get his hands on. As he eats quickly, food flies off the table: We are just getting the crumbs. This displays the need for a different system: We need to take some of that food off of the table and actually give it to the poor souls on the floor. The trouble with 'trickle down' is that it doesn't take into account human greed and the creativity of the human to discover ways (loopholes) for keeping the most food on the table.
This is what we've had and the system is collapsing due to human greed. The gluttons at the top are crying over the loss of food. That's all there is to it.

USA: Obama is the only choice left...

I'm addicted to watching CNN election coverage. It's gotta be the most entertaining TV at the moment. I love all the talk of polls and 'close call' -- it's hilarious!! I have a hard time believing that there could be any kind of 'close call' - this is the choice, America: More of the same, or the chance for something different. I voted already - for Obama, of course - and my reasoning has really not much to do with all the complicated platforms and rhetoric. It's simply the point of view that the Republicans had their guy in the White House. He blew it: BIG TIME! It's time to give the other guys a chance, no matter what the platforms are. Some people are talking the election like it's about the salvation of the country or something. Well, it's not. You - individual people - are what really matters. The president won't change who YOU are, so go do something about improving the country. Let the party not in power have a chance and go out and give a poor family a nice Christmas.

Some other random thoughts concerning the US election in no particular order:

• The US looks 'bad' in the eyes of the world. John McCain's mere presence in the White House will do nothing but confirm to the world that the US is REALLY 'bad'. So think on that.


• The election of Barak Obama will potentially enact a profound change in the American psyche. Suddenly, people will realize that people from other races are actually, well, people. I can't really put my finger on it, but we can't afford to have another old white man in the White House at this time....


• Palin - Great punchline and she'll be nothing but a joke as VP. We will yearn for Quayle if she gets in.


• This whole 'test' idea: The new president will be tested, I would think, by some idiot fundamentalist somewhere on the planet. Biden was right. McCain - you've never been President, so you can't say you've been tested. You're on the same page as Obama in that regard.


• Abortion: I hate abortion. I'm not thrilled with most 'pro-choice' rhetoric, but I know Obama gave the most realistic answer on abortion ever during the conversation he had with Rick Warren. No, he wasn't 'decisive': it's called thinking carefully. If you want 'decisive': we had that for the past 8 years, ya know!! I want a President who listens and thinks carefully and weighs all the options. Abortion is an issue that will require a lot of tact and insight. John McCain's answer was decisive and textbook 'pro-life',i.e., he's gonna totally ignore the issue when he's in the White House.


• You know why Colin Powell supported Obama, besides that Obama is the only choice. Bush stabbed him in the back and pushed him out of the White House. I'd be shocked if Powell supported McCain. THAT would be news! And please notice other Republicans are supporting Obama. What does that tell you?


• Advice to Obama: Hilary Clinton for Secretary of State. Think about it - not that you haven't already!

Well, that's the end of my ramblings. I like rambling on the blog - keeps me sane since I have to be so organized in writing for graduate school. I bet you can tell that's quite a challenge for me!!

We're Better Off...

Ok, it's official. Canada is also going to have a federal election in the fall. However, there isn't much of a choice and everyone knows it. This is even obvious in the Conservative slogan (I'm not making this up): We're better off with Harper. I must say I find it slightly...dismissive? Is that the word for it? When do we say "we're better off" in every day life? Well, we have two ways to go somewhere: "We're better off going this way because the other way has more potholes or traffic lights or is more congested this time of day, etc." It's almost saying "You don't really have a choice and we know it..." Why would Stephen Harper call an election? Well, he's hoping for majority government, of course. It must be mind bogglingly dull to write about the Canadian election this season. There really is no other choice. The other guy, Stefan Dion, is, well, nothing. He's a nothing. A wisp of smoke on the political scene. He couldn't challenge a five year old for a spot at the play dough table. It's the complete opposite of the US election. We're talking celebrities. Obama has rhetorical flair - he's not easily dismissed or put aside. McCain has a solid story rooting him in history. They are, like 'em or hate 'em, characters. I'd read books about either one of them. Now, we have the Canadian side. I can barely read the tiniest article about either Harper or Dion without needing a caffeine jolt of some kind. If Obama was in the same room as I was - I would strain to see him....perhaps try to shake his hand. If Dion was in the room, well, I wouldn't even know it. I could walk right up to a potential prime ministerial canidate and, squinting my eyes and tilting my head, I would ask, "Hey, I know you from somewhere....Where you ever a guest star on Star Trek?"

The Dark Knight: There's a Metaphor....somehow..

Ok, I've been totally not posting. What a whirlwind! I'm taking a leave of absence from teaching in order to work on my Masters degree and just getting my classroom packed up, doing report cards, helping Ruth with getting a full-time job AND finishing the paper that I needed to write since Fall (It was cool - don't know if it was written well or not, but it was on the idea of Monsters and forgiveness...)

Anywhoo, I'm just putting this out there: The Dark Knight is an incredible movie that has got to be a metaphor for something....something modern.

I should be profound, but I kinda get all the profundity wrung out of me by contemplating JRR Tolkien and the Inklings ~click on the word if you don't know what it means...

The Joker is an incredible villian in this movie. He is Chaos personified - Anarchy without the subtle wit. He has not interest in money or power - just destruction. Why? It seems to be more than he 'just likes to blow things up'. I definitely want to see this movie a few times (own it on DVD, too). Everything in this movie seems to be a Statement About Something. I know there's a connectiong with the Inklings - Dare I bring up movies in yet another grad paper????

Subtle Fundamentalism

I spent a lot of time thinking about Fundamentalism over spring break - Yes, I think it's fun...why do you ask? - Anyway, I wrote a short summary paper about fundamentalism. Looking at the current so-called "war on terror", Craig Unger points out that this war is really a war about religious fundamentalism (both Islamic and Christian) versus the modern world. Terry Eagleton points out that fundamentalism is a "textual affair" - it 'worships' dead text. The very act of preaching should negate fundamentalism, because as soon as we open our mouth - we are interpreting in a new way. Paul Ricoeur shuddered at the very idea of a "sacred text" - because Christianity is supposed to be about worshipping Christ, not the very text that speaks of him.

Fundamentalism is often characterized as obvious - thundering, smashing its way through society. However, I'm beginning to realize how subtle it can be. I stumbled upon this quote in a magazine for Christian school teachers:

"If Christianity is truth, then Christian education is the only true education and therefore the only practical education. There is no education, no truth - nothing - without God, the eternal author of reality."

(quote is attributed to David Claerbaut, Faith and Learning on the Edge)

Oh, really? It seems like a nice comfortable, perhaps pithy kind of quote, but I will contend that it is an example of how subtle fundamentalism will be.

Let's unpack it a bit by looking first at its conclusion: no education without God, no truth without God... Right away, I begin thinking that the rain falls on the evil and the good, doesn't it? If this is true, then isn't this quote a slap in the face of any kind of public education. Does this mean that Muslims could never make an important discovery or speak truth - ever? Obviously, that cannot be true. Not every invention, every innovation, every insight on this planet was initiated and completed by a Christian.

Wait a second....let's back up to the If...then statement...

If Christianity is truth.....

Interesting assumption. The obvious question: Is Christianity truth? Well, I'm not so sure about that. What is Christianity? A belief system...worldview...an interpretation. Christianity is practiced by those who claim to be following Jesus. Christianity look, sounds, and is experienced differently by different people in different cultures in different ways. How can the practice of following Christ by truth?

Christ never said this. He did say: "I am the way, the truth and the life..." Perhaps we are proceeding from false assumptions or am I being fundamentalistic in my interpretation? *shudder* Well, let's put that aside for now....

So Christ/God is TRUTH. So it must follow that truth is embedded in Creation and all people, who are created in God's image, will respond to it in different ways. Therefore, an atheist may discover a deep, hidden truth that, yes, even Christians can benefit from.

Is Christian education the only 'true' education....nope, can't be. Well, at least it can't be based on this line of reasoning. Sometimes in the intense competitiveness between schools, we need to 'sell' the Christian school to make it 'look' better. Perhaps this kind of thinking is a result of that - for fundamentalism is, ultimately, a fear of non-being, of death, according to Eagleton. Some schools are just not able to compete against the government funding of public schools and are fighting for survival. Fundamentalism, ultimately, never works, though. Clearer thinking is needed.

Sign of the Times???

I'm currently struggling with writing assignments in grad school as well as trying to write report cards, so therefore I suddenly had an urge to post something here. I wonder why....

Anyway, I was working on report cards, when I noticed one of these "smart tags" appear under the word "ART" on the student checklist. These are little letter i's that appear under names and things in Microsoft Word. Apparently, they are supposed to be useful, but they are basically distracting to me and I see them and end up posting here or doing some other thing that keeps me from continuing to work.

Now, why would an "i with a circle" - which is how I think of them - appear under ART? Would it give me a link to the Metropolitan Museum of ART, the Louvre, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, etc???

Nope.

It gives me links to stock quotes and financial exchanges. It looks like a bunch of these companies say ART in their titles!

I'm not so desparate (yet) to see what these companies are really about. Although you could ask me in a week closer to the report card due date and see if I have.

Is this the sign of the times? Art is reduced to stock quotes???

Perhaps there's a paper for grad school in this somewhere, after all....

Connections

I started watching The Gospel of John and I saw the part where Jesus was calling his disciples. Now, this is done by the Visual Bible People, so the only dialogue is the actual Bible. They do, however, show visually some different things that one doesn't always have pictured in one's head. I always pictured Jesus calling his disciples, you know, at random or something. Like they didn't already know each other. In this version, it shows the different disciples connecting and getting others that they knew already. I never realized it, but it is in the text, itself:

(from John 1, NIV)
35The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. 36When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God!"
37When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. 38Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, "What do you want?"
They said, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?"

39"Come," he replied, "and you will see."
So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour.

40Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. 41The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ). 42And he brought him to Jesus.
Jesus looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas" (which, when translated, is Peter[j]).
43The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, "Follow me."
44Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. 45Philip found Nathanael and told him, "We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."

46"Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?" Nathanael asked.
"Come and see," said Philip.

47When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, "Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false."

48"How do you know me?" Nathanael asked.
Jesus answered, "I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you."

49Then Nathanael declared, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel."

50Jesus said, "You believe[k] because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that." 51He then added, "I tell you[l] the truth, you[m] shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."

I just thought it was neat how one goes to the other and brings that person that they already knew to Jesus. Maybe this is a pattern that many modern day Christian kind of don't realize. They just sit and wait for Jesus to do all the calling, when we're supposed to run around telling others. Hmmmmmm......

Maybe Scrooge has a point....

*****RANT ALERT!!!****

I'm gonna let it out how sucky this past month has been right here and right now. Every person in my family has been sick at least 2 times this past month with stomach flu and/or strep. Meredith is just getting over Scarlet fever. Now, if that's not enough, there was the inevitable stress that Christian organizations insist on doing at Christmas. (Then they all turn around and practically ignore Easter by comparison). So, of course, I got sick from all the stress and pressure. I've been sick most of the month and was horribly ill this past week. On Monday, the car goes into the shop and needs new brakes...$700. Then, while I'm home sick on Wed., Ruth is diagnosed with strep throat and the car won't move. WELL...it's spewing fluid over the driveway and we can't turn the steering wheel. SO...the car is towed away to get a new hose...$170!!. Then, we think things are calming down...NOOOOOOO!! The water heater is flooding the basement. This is actually the second time our basement is flooded this year. The first time is when were were at the "Happiest" flippin' place on earth and became a major insurance claim. We paid our $500 deductible and the floor was replaced. Now, at least, I was home when this happened, so the floor should be ok, but I ain't going away for the holidays, I'll tell you that.

Dennis Leary said it best: "Merry &%$&##@ Christmas!"