You Can't Get There From Here

I am on the train, returning home from AAR. Previously I mentioned that I would perhaps do some sort of liveblogesque posting from the conference but I was not going to pay the outrageous $13 per day they were asking for internetsitivity.

There are things I will pay too much for- booze... um... I guess that's it. Oh- a house in California- The Bean (shortened) and I will probably end up paying too much for that. So, there are things I will pay too much for- booze and real estate- but not the internets.

Though now that I write that I realize we are all paying too much for internets. I mean, it's the same internets we're all paying to have poured into our homes individually. We could just as easily have a big pile of internets in the middle of the street and share the cost with our neighbors but the prince of the power of the air has such a hold on us we mostly think that's stealing. So I guess I do pay too much for the internets. And from that, it looks like I/we will sell our souls for too little. But that's not as bad as it sounds. After all, we only really use our souls at Christmas. So... whatever.

Anyway, no internets this weekend and hence no experiment in online-diarying, but I can still share with you the highlights from this weekend. I stalked academic celebrities. I dazzled Emilie Townes with my wit. At various points, I felt what I imagine other people must be feeling when they raise their hands at church. I made some excellent connection$ for my dissertation work. The most important thing, though, was my trip to the Institute for Creation Research in Santee.

The Institute for Creation Research is exactly what the name suggests. It's an institute where they do creation research. Duh.

It's interesting to me that the title suggests creation concretely or abstractly and that the research that is performed and produced concerns the act of creation or that which results from a creative act. That struck me as particularly honest. They're not like those liars at the Discovery Institute who want to call creationism some type of science or give it some fancy name that makes people think they're doing something like science. These folks at the ICR make it clear from the get go that they are not doing science, rather they are doing creation research.

So, like I said, it struck me as particularly honest. Then I learned that they will award you an advanced degree in science.

An advanced degree in something called science.
Really.
Not so honest and a little silly.

Whatever- as fufilling as my time at AAR was, I felt the trip would be incomplete without a trip to the relatively nearby ICR. Even though it meant I would miss at least one session, a discussion of cultural identity in shifting environments, I figured I might be able to take something valuable from a visit to The Institute.

The Institute is as far from the AAR conference you can get on the San Diego Metro System- it is literally at the end of the line. Well, literally about a mile and a half beyond the end of the line. I guess we'll say that means something. It's also probably something that of all the religious events AAR hosted beyond the seminars, panels and receptions themselves, not one included even a mention of the ICR. You could go on an AAR affiliated visit to see the Dead Sea Scrolls. You could tour historic religious sites in San Diego, including the many nearby missions. You could even go to the zoo with AAR. I was the only one going to ICR. Go figure.

So I made the journey from the relatively cosmopolitan and somewhat manufactured urbanity of the San Diego Convention Center region swarming with its Gaslamp hipsters, downtown anti-hipsters, moneyed hotel and waterfront condo dwellers, resident homeless folks, tourists, conference attendees, other drunks of all stripes, and the rest of the cacophonous mix of people, languages, stinks, and colors all the way out to the soft pink stucco and tile roofs of Every Other Suburban Development, Southern California.

At the Santee Transit Center, I was supposed to take Line 854 a brief way and then walk a bit to the ICR Museum. At least that's what all of the Metro Maps indicated. Instead, when I arrived at the transit center I found that Bus Line 854 no longer existed- No- Wait. I'm sorry. It still exists as Bus Line 854- only it went to none of the places that it went to in its previous incarnation. In fact, no bus goes by the creation museum, even though the Metro Maps say otherwise and it lies near the heart of pink stucco Santee.

Thanks, jerks.

Really. Thanks. Even if it is pretty jerky of YOU to not make sure YOUR maps reflect where I can actually go using YOUR busses (or buses- both are correct). YOU helped me realize something that I may not have known had I easily visited the museum and snarkily took pictures and conversed with employees.

This can't really be something that means anything to me. If I took them seriously, I likely would have walked another thirty or so minutes to the museum. Even if I took them seriously only as some type of academic investigation, I probably would have walked the rest of the way. I would have trekked with my suitcase and computer bag up the hill to the storefront graduate school and museum. I would have spent time pretending this means something to my faith. As I disagree with it, find it confused and shallow, and fret over its influence in THE CHURCH, I would pretend there was something worthwhile to engage there. I guess I really just don't care that much. At least I don't care enough to go that extra distance. Or the there there is not worth the effort to get there.

There are many much more important things to deal with.

I guess.

So I went back to the conference.

And now I get to return home with and to what really does matter to me.

Tell Me, What Do You Do With Witches?

There are certain things I tell myself to avoid if I don't want to spend more time shaking my fist at the sky yelling, "I try to believe in you and now this?!"
So when a friend told me Chuck Colson wrote a tossed-off apology for torture I thought I would avoid it. But the wind blows wherever it pleases and I was led right to it. Here it is:

Justified Under Some Circumstances
"Centuries of Christian ethical reflection would lead to the answer 'no.' Inflicting bodily or psychological harm on a helpless captive would be inconsistent with the Christian understanding of human dignity. But as with all moral obligations, there may be circumstances for exception.

It is well understood in Christian tradition that while we are supposed to obey the law, there may be times when there is a higher obligation (see Aquinas, Augustine, and Martin Luther King). To rescue a drowning person, a Christian would be justified in disobeying a 'no trespassing' sign.

So it is with torture; if a competent authority honestly believed that this was the only way to get information that might save the lives of thousands, I believe he would be justified. That is not moral relativism. It is making a difficult decision when human life and dignity will be affected either way. The Greeks called it prudence."

Tossed-off indeed.

This isn't the intro to it. This isn't a reference to a more thorough explanation elsewhere. This is it.

Centuries of reflection would lead one way. Four sentences later, we have something else. You have heard it said, "Blah blah blah," but I say to you, "Torturing someone is like rescuing a drowning person."

Accept for a moment that not torturing someone is based on some general Christian understanding of human dignity over anything else. Accept also that moral obligations can be understood like signposts we sometimes follow and other times disregard. Accept the premise that Christians are supposed to obey something called "the law." Get over any objection to the idea that someone who would torture someone is doing something akin to what Martin Luther King Jr. did. Accept too that a "competent" (let alone legitimate) authority could possibly believe that a tortured person would reveal anything useful. Never mind that this is a complete misunderstanding of the virtue of prudence. Disregard every deadly thing that is swimming in this stinking and dripping necrotic sore and just accept it as it is.

See that it is.

There was a time when some were saying that it could not possibly be true- that we would never torture anyone. (wink) Then some said, maybe some people were tortured, but if they were it was by a few bad apples, and it certainly is not likely to happen again. Later, we had to say that some harsh and ugly things are inevitable in harsh and ugly times, but we are not as bad as the worst and we certainly don't think what we do could be called torture. Then we find ourselves at a point where we say, "It looks like a duck, smells, tastes, acts, quacks, and everything else like a duck- but I would not call this duck torture." And before you knew it, we're saying, "Yes, we torture, and it is good."

You get that, don't you? That's what this is. This is a Christian, a Christian you may look up to- certainly a Christian that someone in your congregation looks up to- saying, however thoughtlessly, "Torture is good. It is noble. It is something that the truly prudent would do." He is not saying, "The world, in its worldliness, has people that will torture others." He is saying, "The truly wise and judicious Christian knows they do good by torturing."

-Sigh-

We suck our teeth at those backwards Dominicans who strung up every Jew and Muslim in sight. With every high school production of the Crucible, we wag our heads and thank God we live in better times now. We're happy knowing that we're not the kind of Christians who would try to sanctify slavery. We look at the Christians of fifty years ago and ask how they could have ever justified segregation with a straight face and how others could stand by and watch. Whatever the embarrassment, we say it was in the past and now we know better.

But here we are, choosing the wrong side of history. And fifty years from now others will look back at us and see that we chose sides. They'll laugh at how absurd we were and wonder how we could not see as plainly as anything else this was not where we should want to be.

It was bad enough when we simply held theologies that said this isn't something we needed to care about. Looking at boobies, lying, stealing- those rise to the level of worry. This? Torture? M'eh, it's not really something we need to worry about.

It looks like somebody's been worrying about it, and this is what they came up with.

We are the Body of Christ and this is not a problem. We are the Body of Christ and we're saying this is consistent with what that could mean.

Okay. I guess. Though I feel like I should be sitting in a fireplace right now.

This New Learning Amazes Me, Explain Again How Sheep's Bladders May Be Employed To Prevent Earthquakes
Low Light- Pearl Jam
Light and Day/Reach For The Sun- The Polyphonic Spree
Baby You're A Rich Man- The Beatles
Shoplifters of The World Unite- The Smiths
The Trial- Pink Floyd
Days Like This Keep Me Warm- The Polyphonic Spree
Master of Puppets- Metallica
Super Bad- James Brown
Ego Tripping At The Gates of Hell- The Flaming Lips
Shrink- Dead Kennedys
Happiness Is a Warm Gun- The Beatles
La Vie En Rose- Edith Piaf

I Palindrome I

I was raised Catholic but got out of practice in high school. I was dogged by skepticism that wouldn't allow me to believe bread and wine really turned into flesh and blood. I could pretend that happened. I could also believe that while we pretended it happened we were remembering or contemplating something more significant, but I was told that would not do. I had to believe that bread and wine turned into flesh and blood. After all, people had been waterboarded for less. We were living in the twentieth century and no one was likely to torture me over issues of Catholic dogma. Still, I couldn't be Catholic and not confess the reality of transubstantiation.

But I had been an alter boy, I saw first hand where the bread and wine came from. They were just bread and wine. I saw that bread and wine stayed bread and wine no matter how many spells were cast on them. I tasted bread and I tasted wine. I tasted flesh (in small quantities); I tasted blood. All different. I never in all the Masses I attended saw anyone ever grimace or react as if surprised because they tasted flesh or blood. I can say as plain as anything, I never knew- have never known- bread and wine to change into flesh and blood- in any circumstance. Perhaps if this were to happen to me today I could have a more sophisticated understanding of "believe," but as it was "two roads diverged" and all that.

So as much as it's possible, I was no longer Catholic.

Providentially, at that time there were pretty girls at the Friends church that were not too proud to date some schlub clearly beneath them. So that's where I was, but my recent encounter with the lies that undergird religious truth and the deep suspicion of Protestants my in some ways proper Catholic upbringing inspired suggested I should look into these people called Quakers. That's what I did, and I liked what I found. I first read Barclay's Apology and then George Fox's Journal. I looked over Quaker histories. I dated demonstratively affectionate girls. I found answers to questions I couldn't quite articulate and a hope for what something called "the church" could be. This was what Christianity was supposed to be. Things made sense to me. (And what's religion if not some system that simply affirms our sensibilities and fits well with our temperament?) Not the kind of sense that Intelligent Designers or Talbotesque Apologetics want religion to make- it made a kind of spiritual sense. It didn't put the known and unknown universe into some coherent order. I didn't suddenly believe things I couldn't believe. It seemed to just fit with how I had known God and myself. For what that's worth.

Time would show me there is always a gap between what a people could be at their best and what is- a gap between where we are and what is actually possible given desire and imagination. But for the most part I liked what I lived and I liked the potential.

So... this is to say: I am decidedly Quaker. What that means has grown but remains the source material for how I understand me and "its" relation to a community. Perhaps that puts me into some circle where my understanding of what is Quaker feeds my sense of who I am that depends on what it means to be Quaker to know who and how I am, but it's a circle that something I call Quaker is uniquely able to understand and it's not necessarily the proverbially vicious circle. This being Quaker is important and true, so I am concerned with our Annual Conference, erstwhile Yearly Meeting, and its desperate search for something that resembles life. Of course a desperate search for life can be a good thing, but in our case, perhaps for the sake of some type of growth- so we could build forty churches in five years- because big equals true- because bigger is more real- it seems we are building and embracing some dummy Christ- some generic Christianity stuffed with straw and rags. Perhaps it's because of something else, but it seems like window dressing all the same- a mannequin rather than a living body.

Maybe it is real. Maybe there's a life in it that I can't see. But I can't lie and say I see a life where I don't.

It certainly was easier when I could simply taste what wasn't real.

Speak Roughly to Your Little Boy
and Beat Him When He Sneezes
He Only Does It to Annoy
Because He Knows It Teases.

Alec Baldwin can call anyone "a rotten little pig" if this actually happens.

And though it's neither here nor there, to be fair, Alec Baldwin's daughter may be a pig.

But At Least We're Having the Conversation OR I May Not Agree With Your Decision to Be Horrible But I will Defend With My Life Your Right to Try to Be Horrible

Freedom is an odd thing. No...

More precisely, our sense of freedom is an odd thing.

Or maybe it's our sense of liberty that is odd- maybe I think of them as the same thing.

Maybe I'll slip back and forth here... That's what you can expect.

It seems that we think of freedom as some unconditioned will; in order to be free I have to be able to do whatever I want. There can be nothing that determines what I will do other than my will. Save except for those things that force us to exist as human, we are only free if we are Hercules at the Crossroads- free to choose good or bad.

If that were really the case, I would hate us for our freedom too. But I don't think anyone really lives that way- well no one that we wouldn't call crazy lives that way.

It's something else. It's more about saying "You're not the boss of me." Saying, "You're not the boss of me," corresponds to the way we seem to live our freedom, but saying that means, "I'm the boss of me," and meaning, "I am totally in control," might relate to something we like to say we have but it certainly assumes much more volition than any one can actually know.

It seems we are the boss of us, and knowing who we mean by we, the greater the group that is we, and the more whatever collective-singular-inflective pronoun that reflects the collection of components that constitute that sense of us fits here-awareness there is, the greater a sense of freedom there is.

Maybe I should just have written "self-awareness."

Of course that's just me...

Who else could it be?

Anyway, with that, there are things that just do not correspond to greater freedom.

God's favorite Senator, Russ Feingold, peace be upon him, has stated that he will vote against the nomination of Mukasey for AG. Questions about warrantless wire-tapping, executive power, and torture are foremost for him. He seems to think that it's not enough that Mukasey say waterboarding is despicable or that he hems and haws on the balance of power among the branches of government. (In case you forgot since high school: congress is not subordinate to the president).

These, especially the waterboarding, are not "agree to disagree" or "we'll hash it out later" things; they get right at that sense of who we are.

There is little value in the discussion itself. We shouldn't be happy that at least we're talking about these problems because a.) we're barely talking about them and b.) that's not freedom. Freedom is not in the possibility or ability to talk about or do these things and any sense of freedom that rested on the possibility to choose this or, worse, on its use, is a cheap freedom.

Certain things are beyond the pale. Knowing what those are and being clear about it is where we see who we are.

Hey, maybe in that sense, some people really do hate us for our freedom.
Some of them act badly because they've had a hard life, or have been mistreated... but, like people, some of them are just jerks
Love Minus Zero/No Limit- Bob Dylan
Ever Fallen In Love- The Buzzcocks
Hotwax- Beck
Pressed in a Book- The Shins
Strange Brew- Cream
Excuse Me Mr.- Ben Harper
Watch That Man- David Bowie
Harrowdown Hill- Thom Yorke
Surfwax America- Weezer
Gaite Parisienne- Offenbach
Solbury Hill- Peter Gabriel

Cosmic

Previously on Through A Glass Dimly I mentioned there was a hole in the internets because I didn't find what I expected to find when I did the Google at "Footprints Mugs crossed with Psalm 23 incubated in Thomas Kinkade's colon." I don't know what exactly I expected- only that there wasn't a there there.

Now the there there just refers back to this.

I guess I'm the expert on Footprints Mugs crossed with Psalm 23 incubated in Thomas Kinkade's colon.

If that's the case I guess I should get cracking at making this a better resource for that.

Ceci N'est Pas un Potiron

I participated in our annual church pumpkin carving contest this Halloween. Many years ago, at our first ever, my partner and I won with a very scary, monster-headed, jack-o-lantern. It wasn't the typical triangle eyes, circle nose, big grin jack-o-lantern; think a terrifying Minotaur with glowing orange features and flaming eyes.


From the beginning, participants pushed the limits of what a jack-o-lantern could be (should be?). It was great. But as time passed people realized there were certain strings you could pull to easily win. Soon, the winning pumpkins were maudlin Bible scenes, hearts and crosses, and Jesus. Lots and lots of Jesus. The judges were unnatural selection, causing our pumpkins to evolve into a sappy pile of Footprints Mugs crossed with Psalm 23 incubated in Thomas Kinkade's colon.

I just Googled that.

Nothing.

There's a hole in the internets.

I think this video gives you a sense of what I mean though:

They might as well have been unicorns soaring over rainbows.

Anyway, when I participated I would try to break the barriers of pumpkin carving. I was trying to blow minds, man. I transgressed the boundary between viewer and pumpkin. I made people acknowledge their role in creating the idea of jack-o-lantern. I forced us to question the very concept. I pushed the physical boundaries of pumpkin... ness?- blowing one up, shooting flames out of another, leaving one blank pumpkin jack-o-lantern pumpkin jack-o-lantern pumpkin jack-o-lantern pumpkin jack-o-lantern pumpkin jack-o-lantern pumpkin jack-o-lantern pumpkin jack-o-lantern pumpkin jack-o-lantern pumpkin jack-o-lantern pumpkin jack-o-lantern pumpkin jack-o-lantern pumpkin jack-o-lantern pumpkin jack-o-lantern pumpkin jack-o-lantern pumpkin jack-o-lantern pumpkin jack-o-lantern pumpkin jack-o-lantern

Needless to say, I wouldn't win. I was doing it all for fun, but it's certainly more fun to win.

So to win, I did this:

Layers upon layers.

Were I truly an artist, I would have raised my pumpkin high over my head, yelled, "To create is to deny!" and thrown it to the ground smashing it to bits. Instead I brought home my first prize- a huge bucket of candy, pumpkin puree, and pumpkin frisbees.

I promise to enjoy it all ironically.

And though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, Ma, I can make it.

Did You Know There Is a GodTube? I Just Learned That
Narcolepsy- Ben Folds Five
Youth Culture Killed My Dog- TMBG
Radio Song- REM
Sunny Afternoon- The Kinks
Ran Can Can- Tito Puente
Circle- Miles Davis
Robochacha- Kid Koala
The Love Cats- The Cure
We- Descendents
Bone Machine- The Pixies
Bullet In Your Head- Rage Against The Machine
Strange Fruit- Billie Holiday
Yes 'em to Death- The Coup

Do I Even Have A Computer Anymore?

I have become so undisciplined- doing all manner of things besides keeping up with my interwebjournal- or rather, keeping you up with my internetwebjournal. Of course by you, I mean the internets.

There've been a number of things I could've written about. There was the anniversary of the Treaty of Westphalia. That's worth commemorating because it marked the end of religious conflict and perhaps the beginning of Modernity. No one has killed anyone since then so it's a good thing to remember. Still, I never got around to that. I also thought about writing about how hard it is to hate Man U when Tevez and Rooney are playing. I'm sure there was some sort of "love the sinner hate the sin" lesson in that. Complaints about FSC are on my mind. The silliness of our "Forty Churches in Five Years" mantra keeps interrupting happier thoughts. I've been impressed by my Tues/Thurs AM students. I've been wondering if something called THE CHURCH can exist. All kinds of stuff just this past week- yet no posts.

What's wrong with me?

Well if I can't post something on Halloween, I don't deserve all of the candy I will be eating. So here's some creepy for Halloween:


And...
And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll
Woe oh oh oh oh oh

I also promise to write something about tonight's hoe-down and this weekend's Dia de Los Muertos festivities. Maybe I'll even do another live-blogging experiment from AAR.

That's All We Need

What's this? A blog posting. Hmmm... weird...

Just a few months ago, the Dominionist/Reconstructionist theology websites I read were all a twitter with the hope of Cialis user Fred Thompson making a run for the Republican Presidential nomination. Now that he has, and since he's been speaking more and more, his name doesn't come up so much. There is a lot of talk about MY PRESIDENT, though- about how he's lost his mind, how he's not a real convert, how he was never really a conservative. You know what they say about broken clocks. Add his position on the Armenian genocide resolution to the mix and there are a lot of panties in a bunch. Really.

All in all, there is a lot of panic and anger among the radical clerics on the right. I should be clear and differentiate between the panic of the Rushdoonian party and the chagrin of the Dobsonians. I should, but I won't. Broadly, all of a sudden, MY PRESIDENT isn't good enough for them. Suddenly, they can't carry his water. Now the last six years seem imperial and not eschatological. Now people want to know where the intersection of belief and action is (even if that action is rounding up the gays or jailing kids for having sex). Maybe, among Frederick of Hollywood, the Gay (well, Crossdressing and Lived with Gays) Divorcé, and the Mormon Frankenstein, it's hard to see any millennial or messianic continuity and there is some serious soul searching going on. Or maybe it's a bit more cynical; they just want to be asked to dance again. Whatever it is, there's now a lot of, "Well, we never liked him anyway," and "This party's not what it used to be" a la "Did we really say Jesus would return on that date? What we meant was..."

I see this as a good thing. I mean, that Thompson, and now no one, was their great hope rather than, say, Huckabee, makes the political cynicism of the militant Christianists a bit more transparent and may cause some serious and thoughtful reflection on everyone's part. Even their fear of women and black men can't bring them together, and don't be fooled, White Maoi, 9/11 in Drag, and Those Aren't My Grandchildren really want you to remember a women- a Clinton woman- could become president.

And this wholesale abandonment of the electoral process doesn't necessarily mean anything positive for the Democratic hopefuls. You cannot overstate how much most of America hates women, black people, and men who comb their hair.

But all of this was before today- before the Nobel Peace Prize announcement. If you're a lunatic afraid of persecution and the novus ordo seclorum, doesn't this prove there is some liberal global cabal? WE are alone in the world- an autocephalic light for Christ. And now with the General Secretary of the UN speaking of his faith and quoting scripture (gees, Anti-Christ, how about some subtlety) there may be enough motivation on their part to come together to save America.

This is their kairos. Maybe.

"a women"? Nothing for two weeks and "a women"? Nice.

An Open Letter to the Kid Sitting Not Far Enough Away From Me

Dear Young Person Who Seems to Just Have Fallen Into a Pool of Axe And Most Probably Nearly Drowned So Has Not Yet Had The Time or Mind To Bathe- Or Not:

You may be forgiven for believing so much advertising that presents the great game of romance as little more than tit for tat and the smell of Axe Body Spray as a whole lot of tat. If your other senses are as dull as your olfactory and the amount of Axe you use is proportional to your desperation, I deeply sympathize and offer three bits of advice as constructive guidance:

First, you must find someone who loves you enough to tell you to not leave the house stinking like a gasoline-doused brothel.

Secondly, you need to know that the sudden turns of the head or twisted faces you encounter at every turn are not standard for everyone. Try using less spray and see if you notice that people's expressions have changed as you cross their path.

Thirdly, remove the base layer of Flaming Hot Cheetos residue and four weeks of dried football practice sweat before adding another scent to the mix. A simple rule to remember with deodorants and colognes: after shower, not instead of.

Of course I offer this advice knowing that I may be completely wrong; you should know that as well. As intensely repelled as I am by your smell, as wholly unappealing as you seem to me, that may be how attractive you are to the still-developing adolescent female brain. That said, the fact that you are still sitting here alone, frequently looking up at the girls who walk past your table but never stop suggests at least that Axe doesn't work the way it's advertised. My advice couldn't hurt.

For what it's worth-
skybalon

Where's Your Cowboy Now?

I've often wondered about this. I guess now I know.
Not a single horse at the Texas Villa... and only five cows.

Who would've guessed the Andover Cheerleader- I mean the Texas Cowboy- doesn't like horses?

But I'm Just One Person, What Can I Do?

Do you ever wonder what you can do to SUPPORT THE TROOPS? Is your car already losing too much gas mileage from the weight of so many yellow ribbon magnets?

Maybe, this is something-

U.S. Military Cemetery Running Out of Space
U.S. Sens. Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts, both Kansas Republicans, on Thursday sent a letter to William Tuerk, the under secretary for memorial affairs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, urging for full funding for a new cemetery for Fort Riley...

...Fort Riley can bury bodies on top of other bodies if family members want to share a plot, said Kohler.

Reuters

This seems like the kind of thing the church- I'm sorry- THE CHURCH can get behind.

Sponsor a grave.

Sure, it's not as supporty as extending tours of duty or using up the loyalty of those people that serve in the military by forcing them to sell broken policies, but THE GOVERNMENT will do what they can do and we'll do what we can do- and never the two shall meet.

In fact, sponsoring a military grave seems like the perfect symbolic action for THE CHURCH right now.

Married? MARRIED!*

Marryourduaghters.org is a site that allows you to sign up your daughter to be married off- for the right price. It's just a listing service. They don't make any negotiations or guarantees. That's up to the families and individuals involved. Though there are no guarantees, there is a hope. It's the same hope that pays the tuition at many small Christian liberal arts colleges: the hope that daughters will stay virgins a little bit longer or be married before girls have to be seen as adults. (I'd have said "women" there, but I don't know if that would suggest the human agency I mean for that term to have.)

Marryourduaghters.org is funny because it could be real. If it was real, it would be tragic. It would be tragic in the same way a lot of the actual attitudes Christians have about women, gender, marriage, and sex are tragic. In this case, instead of being tragic, it's funny- funny in a way that might cause someone to examine their attitudes about women, gender, marriage, and sex, so the real tragedies can be minimized. Isn't that clever?

(In case you're still not sure- Marry Our Daughters is a joke. Though I wouldn't say it's not real.)

I often hope that Jesse Duplantis and the Gold Chair channel will reveal themselves to be hoaxes or some type of performance art with a purpose parallel to Marry Our Daughters: a critique. But in this case, they are a critique of our attitudes about what the church, worship, religious language, and God might be about. I hope my hope is not in vain.

*The title of this post is a quote from Sixteen Candles, so you have to read it that way. I also think I've used it before... So lazy.

It's Ramadan, Sucka'

You have nine new messages. Message one, Monday September 10 8:25 AM -THE BEEP
Hiiieeee- it's Osa- uh mm Terry- I'll be in town this week. Give me a call if you want to get together. Talk to you soon.

Message three, Monday September 10 10:33 AM.-THE BEEP
Haaeeeyyyy, it's me. I have a meeting with my lawyers today but I should be done early this afternoon. Let's get together for dinner or something. Call me.

Message five, Monday September 10 3:40 PM.-THE BEEP
Hi, I'm -- my mee--- ingth ---- ulveda--- weak si---- ca--- shr---let me know when y---

Message six, Monday September 10 3:55 PM.-THE BEEP
Hey I had a bad signal I don't know if you got my last message- I'm heading back to th---

Message seven, Monday September 10 3:55 PM.-THE BEEP
Sorry- I'm done with my meetings- give me a call.

Message eight, Monday September 10 4:22 PM.-THE BEEP
Where you at?! ah you know like that phone- Where You at?! Heh- Okay call me.

Message nine, Monday September 10 5:03 PM.-THE BEEP
Hey do you know if Chili's is Halal? Hmmm... Do you want me to go ahead and order you something- you can pick it up on the way over? Do you like the ribs? Oh wait, what kind of ribs are those? Let me know what you want... Call me.

Phone rings
skybalon-Hello
Osama- WHERE YOU AT?! haha
skybalon- Hey
Osama- Get it? WHERE YOU AT?! Like the commercial
skybalon- Yeah, I know.
Osama- WHERE YOU AT?!
skybalon- -So, Noam Chomsky huh?
Osama- I know- I can't believe it, and there's nothing I can do about it. My lawyers say I'm a public figure and satire is protected speech, so even if I knew who released it I couldn't do anything about it. I hate your country so much.
skybalon- That's still pretty funny though.
Osama I don't think it's funny at all- I don't ramble like that and it doesn't even look like me.
skybalon I think that's part of the gag. It's like Chevy Chase playing Gerald Ford without doing any make up or anything, and you do kind of ramble.
Osama I don't ramble
skybalon You rant-
Osama I speak with passion if that's what you're saying
skybalon Well it's a parody so it's supposed to be a bit over the top.
Osama- Anyway... I got you the Fajita Trio plate- I already paid for it, just pick it up. It's there in your name.
skybalon- Oh no, I can't make it over there tonight.
Osama- What? I already paid for the dinner- Didn't you get my messages?
skybalon I just got in the door, you should've waited for me to call y-
Osama I just thought- I'm in town maybe once a year and when I'm around you would make the time to come see me.
skybalon Uh- I've got a lot of reading and grading to do-
Osama You have to eat, why don't you just come over, bring your work.
skybalon I'm not coming over; I've got too much to do.
Osama I've already ordered the food, it's gonna go to waste
skybalon So don't waste it, go get it or give it to somebody
Osama What am I going to do? Walk in there and pick it up? Seriously. Now I can't eat because you're too busy? That's great- I don't eat. I've been fasting all day and now I don't eat.
skybalon All right- that's up to you.
Osamma ...
skybalon ...
Osama (sigh) I don't know, [skybalon]. I've been doing a lot of thinking. Am I making a difference? I mean I left my family, my money, everything- to do this- to be a servant. And now... what? I'm the butt of a joke?
skybalon If it helps, most people here don't think the video is a joke
Osama That's better? Nobody knows me, or what I'm trying to do. I'm like the Saint Francis- I gave up wealth and power to serve God, but everyone's against me. Maybe it has to be that way. Maybe I am the only one who understands what I must do, but I must do it even if no one is with me.
skybalon Even if only your wife and Barney are with you...
Osama What?
skybalon It's just an expression- you know- A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do-
Osama That's it isn't it?
skybalon I don't know
Osama No, tell me, what do you think?
skybalon (Unintelligible)
Osama Really, tell me.
skybalon Well, what did you give up- and what is it you think you're doing? You just kind of took on roles other people gave you. You weren't a good student but your rich family had your back and set you up in business. You failed at that and made yourself a kind of man's man freedom fighter but all that was an act. You were completely supported by the US and took credit for the Soviets collapsing on themselves in Afghanistan. You've set yourself up as this Muslim folk hero even opposing the Sauds, but that's a total invention of other people's power and vision. And now what? Now you're even more desperately committed to this fiction so you can avoid facing how hollow it really is-
Osama Are you saying your imperialism is a fiction? Are you saying you didn't destroy the Caliphate 80 years ago and carve up our lands?
skybalon I know. You're so brave, taking on the West. Single-handedly making right what went so wrong almost a hundred years ago. Why do you claim that story?
Osama Because that's what happened!
skybalon Maybe. Lots of things happened- why that story?
Osama Because that's what matters-
skybalon Why does that matter?
Osama Okay- why?
skybalon It's just the motivation for another role you're playing- another role you're playing so you don't have to confront who you might be. You're wholly committed to that story- selling yourself as the freedom fighter- hoping that other people will keep buying it so you don't ever have to confront who you might be without it. You're strong, you're brave, you've got resolve and won't back down from any fight- not from the Soviets, not from Saud, not from the West. It doesn't matter if the video is you or not- it's the same caricature. If you really are experiencing a crisis it's because you realize what you're pretending to be might not be what you are.
Osama So what am I?
skybalon What are you?
Osama I'm asking you- what am I?
skybalon You're asking someone else to tell you who you are... again?
Osama Whatever, like I said, I've just been thinking a lot.
skybalon About Noam Chomsky?
Osama ...
skybalon ...
Osama So are you coming over?
skybalon No

Spare Any Change?

"As a jailed Ricardo Rolon awaits arraignment with three others on suspicion of killing a Pico Rivera grandmother when she tried to stop a tagger, his mother, Carmen, sprang to his defense Friday, lashing out at authorities for portraying him as an out-of-control gangster...

The truth is, Carmen Rolon says, that her son was extremely drunk on the day Maria Hicks was gunned down in her car after flashing her lights at a tagger to try to get him to stop spray-painting a wall in Pico Rivera.

'He had a job, he was a good worker, he has two (young) sons, he went to school, he has a certificate of completion -- but they've never said anything about that,' she said."

SGV Tribune

She'd have been better off if she had tried this at the beginning of the credibility year. Maybe then there might have been enough in the budget to go for this, but I think most people, most of the people she'd want to reach anyway, are already running a BS deficit. What with wide stances and successful surges, a lot of people are already giving everything they can to believe.

It's not like it's impossible, or even unheard of, for us to make sense of the supposedly senseless. Afterall, she's using some very good points: we don't see the whole picture, the media are one-sided, we should focus on the present and not past mistakes- unless past mistakes can be viewed as someone else's responsibility, we need to support abstract ideals like MOTHERHOOD and CHILDREN, we need to fight them over there so we don't fight them over here. No wait- that last one's not hers, but it might work... No, I suppose not. Okay, the point remains; we are quite adept at making the pieces fit- at least to individual satisfaction.*

Maybe there are better things for a father of two young children to be doing than getting drunk, tagging, and being involved in shooting an old lady, but now's not the time for playing the blame game, rehashing mistakes, or questioning the decision to pay for Palo's defense when Carmen is homeless and $25,000 in debt from a previous legal case. Right now the only thing worth focusing on is how to support her boy's defense.

Maybe there's something to that, but Carmen's timing is a bit off. People aren't necessarily tired of crap. We just don't have the capacity to work with too much at once. General Petraeus will be giving his oral report tomorrrow, bombs keep blowing up, and with every American that dies, we're deeper into the pot. We're tapped out with just war, let alone pro-family politicians that aren't into their spouses, trying to believe in something like FREEDOM and the GWOT, or just all the day to day garbage we have to reconcile with who we think we are.

It's a lot to ask; yellow ribbons are on backorder and already committed to another purpose.

*I like to pretend that Iraq is a wonderful missions field- not to the Iraqis of course. I mean it's a place where American service personnel have the opportunity to really examine their lives and come to a personal relationship with Jesus. That's how I sleep at night.

Tainted Love
Black Boys on Mopeds- Sinead O'Connor
Vancouver- Violent Femmes
Beautiful World- Devo
Misterioso- Tito Puente
Do Ya- ELO
C for Conscription- The Almanac Singers
Is This Love?- Bob Marley & The Wailers
Helium Bar- The Weirdos
Bodies-Sex Pistols
Message From The Underworld- The Weirdos
She Came In Through The BAthroom Window- The Beatles
Painter Song- Norah Jones
Just Another- Pete Yorn
C-C- Tom Vek
Bailey's Walk- The Pixies

Care Less

When I go back over my internetsjournal the errors sometimes stand out like... I don't know... like something that stands out. I don't mean errors of judgment regarding content or analysis- those are always as they should be. Of course, by that I mean errors of judgment regarding content or analysis are there but exactly as they should be. How could they be anything else? What are not as they should be are the errors of grammar, syntax, and diction, except for those times when they are.

I think I left out a whole word two posts ago. Where was my brain? Transposing words? Misspellings? Come on!

There are those who seem to craft their blogs with a deliberation and delicacy that I... Envy? ... No that's not the word. I admire? ... No it's not quite that. What is it I do? Oh- I know- There are those who craft their blogs with a deliberation and delicacy that I view with derision.

That's what it is. Derision.

I'm Sure That's Caesar's Or Some Such

I have heard Christians suggest that if THE CHURCH did what it was supposed to, THE STATE would be unnecessary. That's a pretty big "if" though. Forget for a moment what that assumes about the nature of a state and the institution of the church, it is a bit of a dodge isn't it? It seems like a way for a stripe of Christian to say, "If only we could be more church, all these political things could be ignored," or, "Less government is better because it allows me to work on being more churchy" (though this seems a more ideological claim than spiritual). So in pursuit of that "if" some Christians might separate their Christian identity from any type of cultural or political identity.

Maybe that's something, though it seems a weird split. We hope to remain untainted by politics, wether they be the dirty political decisions of others or our own unsavory political leanings that we have trouble reconciling with our Christian identities (I seem to be assuming that many see politics as something that dirties). Maybe we think x is bad because it's political so we stay away from it. Or maybe we think x is itself bad, but we separate it from who we say we are as a Christian so it does not taint us as we possess it. Or, it may simply be a matter of not wanting to tell someone else what they ought to do, so we are politically circumspect. That is, politics must be something the community does not address. After all, if there's one things Christians resist, it is saying anyone ought to do anything, right?

Maybe that's thinking it's more than what it is. Maybe what people have meant by that is just the suggestion of some anarcho/libertarian paradise wherein everyone does what they ought so no form of governance is necessary (other than one's totally sanctified, though isolated, reason).

In any case, they're each a part of a Christian identity and a political position. I find all of those problematic though better than claiming unequivocally that I know exactly what it means to be a Christian that has fully integrated the practices of my faith into my desire for theocratic governance.

If I had to choose... if I got to choose I would opt for someone like the above than the following:

"Two organisations, Veterans for Common Sense (VCS) and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), demanded an investigation Tuesday of Daniel Cooper, President George W. Bush's undersecretary for benefits at the Department of Veterans Affairs...

Their complaint stems from an appearance Cooper made in a fundraising video for the evangelical group Christian Embassy, which carries out missionary work among the Washington elite as part of the Campus Crusade for Christ.

In the video, Cooper says of his Bible study, 'it's not really about carving out time, it really is a matter of saying what is important. And since that's more important than doing the job -- the job's going to be there, whether I'm there or not.'"

IPS News

Good

D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries and the Reclaiming America for Christ movement is dead at the age of 76.

He supported Israel, opposed abortion, protected marriage, condemned gay, and kept the shaggy DA employed- how could he languish for 10 days and die?

I yuss keeeding

I know someone was waiting for something like this- or a lightning bolt- in response to the so-called Land Letter.

Oh, and by the title I mean it's good that he's in heaven of course.

She Couldn't Help Thinking That There Was Little More To Life...

... somewhere else.

American Girls' Suicide Rate Highest in Decade

I didn't even realize that was a part of the story arc for even one of them, let alone many.

ATLANTA — The suicide rate among preteen and teenage girls rose to its highest level in 15 years, and hanging surpassed guns as the preferred method, federal health officials reported Thursday.

The report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests a surprising reversal in recent trends.

The biggest jump _ about 76 percent _ was in the suicide rate for girls ages 10-14 from 2003 to 2004. There were 94 suicides in that age group in 2004, compared to 56 in 2003. That's a rate of fewer than one per 100,000 population.

Suicide rates among all American young people, ages 10 to 24, fell 28 percent from 1990-2003. But in 2004 it shot back up by 8 percent, driven largely by increases among females aged 10-19 and males aged 15-19.

AP/Huff Post

Oh that's what they mean.

ed.- good grief, I kept screwing this one up.

Apply Liberally

I'm a liberal.

I know this because a helpful internets typology quiz has come my way and told me so. That label may need a good deal of conditioning, but, as far as I'm okay with labels, I am okay with being called a liberal.

Jerks, and by that I mean hyper-nationalist jingos (I guess I am pretty okay with labels) have been generally successful at making it a term of opprobrium, or if not scorn, at best it is a way for them to say, "La la la- I can't hear you." It's an odd thing to defend America from liberals or accuse liberals of being America-Haters when in actuality the term is at the heart of the American ideal (if there is one). For good or bad, liberalism is Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, The Bill of Rights et al. It's also Voltaire, Rabelais, and other priests in the cult of the individual for which America, or at least Americana, is its Zion. If there is an ism that undergirds American constitutional democracy it is liberalism.

Strangely, this is the weight of the label I would be most uncomfortable bearing. All of that Do What Thou Will faith in the individual and reason should seem unsavory, if not impossible, to anyone that has spent more than a day with a human being. I embrace being a liberal, but not to the degree that I think the individual alone is anything that is worth pretending exists.

That might not matter though. That's not the kind of liberal that people mean when they accuse someone or something of being liberal. I think they mean something like, "For some reason I disagree with you, but I don't want to figure out why that might be so I'll just say, 'You're a liberal.'" And really, that's just a genteel form of "gay"-

"You believe in not-for-profit healthcare? That's so gay."

Nonetheless, I embrace the label, as far as it is embraceable. And it doesn't stop with politics; I embrace it as a description of my spiritual outlook.

When I was applying to graduate schools I received a lot of helpful advice about what schools I should attend- or at least which I should fear. By helpful advice, I mean furrowed brows and whispers that seminaries are really cemeteries (get it?) and that secular schools are designed to destroy my faith. If I wanted to have anything worth believing at the end of the day, I'd better choose a conservative school.

I discovered I could know which schools were conservative if they held scripture in high regard. And because liberal schools might sneakily pretend they value the Bible, I had to be careful. There is a test to see how highly a school, or even a congregation, regards scripture. Only truly conservative schools hold scripture in such high regard, that, when it comes to women in positions of church leadership, they know to ignore the whole of the Bible and focus instead on two verses from two books of the New Testament.

I can't swing that way. I'm a liberal so I chose a liberal school. But I like to pretend it's more than a matter of how I swing. It seems that God's work in history is incredibly subversive. A lot of scripture seems to be almost insurrection. Israel seems to be constantly struggling against God (go figure), and God seems to be constantly over-turning their institutions of rule and dominance. That seems a strange position.

If there is a thing we call god, it seems like it should be something central and dominant. If we knew what this god wanted, followed its rules, and demonstrated intense loyalty, almost by necessity, we should be in positions of favor and control. We'd get to be this god's attorneys general, representatives to the UN, and presidents of the World Bank. Our houses would be big and our churches would be mega. I mean if a god is worth being called god, it seems the least it could do is set up some sort of universal order of tit for tat or provide the clear bureaucratic means for expanding our territory and living a life driven by purpose.

It seems instead that the God described in the Bible is a God of the fringe that stands apart from these institutions of power and undermines them. Even if they are set up for him or his people, this God doesn't seem to particularly care for them and these institutions of power don't seem to particularly care for him.

God seems to have a sort of oppositional relation to the way things are, even the way things are in the Bible. It kind of makes sense that his body, as it is present in the world would also have this oppositional relation to the conventional powers of the world. It would be fringe rather than central, subversive rather than dominant. It would challenge the assumptions and conventions of whatever historic conditions it is found. Of course by this I mean it would not bathe, have dreadlocks, and play hacky sack all day. Or something like that. I think in order to buck convention I will leave it at that.

Like I said, as far as labels go, I could be called worse things than liberal.