On a Sunday Morning Chatfest in a Parallel Universe

If this world were a just one, my friend Don Washington (aka, Mayoral Tutorial) and others like him - interested and knowledgeable about the public good, not the laughable rotting riot of clueless pundits and warmed-over politicians - would be welcomed every week on Sunday morning talking head shows, not (just) on public access tv.

Not that there's anything wrong with public access, except for the exposure. If it weren't for Public Access TV, we wouldn't have this, for instance. This being an informative and rather delightful discussion about the public good and the need for a space and a government that is specifically looking for the public good (which is not happening in our city and certainly not with our mayor). There is also a brilliant deduction by Don as to why we need to raise the minimum wage several times over: We're paying for whatever we don't fund directly anyway. But, the typical mainstream media once again shows little-to-no-regard for the lives of poor people, so they keep running to business leaders (who do not want to pay increases and so will tell you how something that is good for the working poor is automatically bad for business).

Which is why such alternative, non-commercial news is so important. Not to mention insightful and sometimes even delightful. As it is here.



If you haven't had the chance to, check out Mayoral Tutorial - as a blog and a Facebook page.

Carnage Reporting

With all this scrutiny of the Muslim world again come some chances for typically Christian Americans to redeem ourselves in the Arab and Muslim world - to restart a rather tenuous and falsified relationship. Broken Telegram has a great post on that here, exploring the rise of democratic revolutions in majority Muslim nations recently (and what that means for a society that tends to think of Muslims and Arab people in purely racist terms).

And then comes this startling revelation - for many of us, anyway - that perhaps the best place to get reportage on the goings-on in Egypt and Tunisia is through Al Jazeera English (which, btw, is basically censored in the US. Although you can get it via internet live feeds, it is not available on any cable networks here, unlike in say, Canada). As one Facebook friend-of-a-friend reminded me, Al Jazeera is primarily known as an anti-American, pro-terrorist network that showed beheadings of American citizens and Osama bin Laden's (postmortem?) "Death to America!" tweets.

Of course, Al Jazeera English isn't quite the same as the older station, but there is enough of an obvious linkage that the initial question, "Isn't that the station that showed Americans' head getting cut off?" needs to at least be acknowledged. My response follows:

That's a good question. I found the fact that they would do such to be abhorrent. From a Western point of view, it seemed like a snuff film, or one of those barbarous hangings/lynchings for general amusement from our recent past.

But then I think and wonder, is the focus of news to be entertainment or is it to be the truth? If it's truth, then aJ has done a shameless job in showing the devastating after-effects of the US-led war on Iraq.

While American media was shunned from even showing the caskets of returning soldiers, al Jazeera was showing the bloody streets where 'smart' bombs killed and crippled civilians.

To honestly critique aJ for showing such footage, I wonder if I can put myself in their shoes. What if it was my state, my country, my neighborhood that was being attacked, besieged, and occupied.

What if I lost my wife and daughter to such a war? Wouldn't I want tne world to know the effects that the invading country left us with? Wouldn't I want the whole world to share in my suffering?

Being Purposefully Grateful

The cousin of my good friend was just murdered. Another good friend is going to Liberia again to help set up an NGO to help former boy soldiers - those that have fallen between the cracks of systems that try to catch those who've fallen between the cracks in countries like Liberia (the third poorest in the world) that seem to be made of nothing but parched, burned earth.

photo © 2011 Al Jazeera English | more info (via: Wylio)
And, across Northern Africa, thousands upon thousands are risking their lives for a more democratic form of power- and resource-sharing.

Meanwhile... my family just moved on the boulevard, across the corner from our preschooler's private school. Meanwhile... our families and friends really pulled through to help us with the funds, brawn, baby-sitting, and moral support necessary to make this move.

And for this - and hosts of other reasons - I'm grateful.

But that's got me to thinking about what it truly means to be grateful. Does having gratitude just mean that I thank God that I am not like that person? Or is there something more to it than that? Is it just a bit of self-absorbing acknowledgment? This idea that God must love me because I have a fairly stable job, my community isn't riddled with violence, I was born into a politically stable country with rich resources (made even richer by exploiting others with rich resources but political instability).

photo © 2009 Alan | more info (via: Wylio)Would being grateful also mean that I acknowledge that I have the power and ability to effect change? That even though I have more, even though my life is fairly stable, even though I have a gorgeous child and easy access to the internet and food, doesn't mean that I shouldn't do what's in my power to make sure that others can as well?

Work, call, phone, vote, bug, march, organize so that my neighbors aren't being displaced, so that quality jobs and education can reach ALL the neighbors and families in Chicago. So that each child can eat and eat well. So that my country would stop propping up bogus and oppressive leaders in SouthEast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America.

Recognizing my blessings, how can I not work to make sure others are similarly blessed? Wouldn't that be the true meaning (or at least the meaningful meaning) of gratefulness?

Where's the Thanks?

A recently-ended siege in India ends after over 170 civilians die. A post-election riot in Nigeria kills over three hundred. A temporary Wal-Mart worker gets trampled to death underneath a shopping mob right here in the US of A. And the economy is in the tank pretty much everywhere. What is there to be thankful for?

Seriously, count your blessings:

Jesus (beautiful, wonderful, majestic, love, self-sacrificing, teaches me how to be the image of God, how to be a father, how much God loves me)
God the Father (one with Jesus and the Holy Spirit, righteous judge, everlasting love / wisdom / shalom / justice, sanctified and sanctifying, the Father from whom all other fathers derive their name)
God the Holy Spirit (one with God the Father and Jesus, peace, comfort, guides into all truth)
Wife (generous, considerate, activist, Jesus-loving, green and gorgeous-eyed, wide-smiling, funny)
Daughter (joyous, inconsolably cute, attentive, curious... did I mention really, really cute?)
Extended family (three of them! that's three times the fun!)
Home
Affordable rent
Love
Available internet
Sonseed
Clothes, lots of clothes especially for the baby. So many clothes that we trip over them in our room.
Coffee
Flavored creamer
Steady, free, clean, delicious water
Plenty of food (this may go into negative pile, too)
BubbleLand, (decent) Bank, and Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins right across the street
Christmas
Wonderful friends (from current and past churches, in community, friends of family, friends of friends,
Facebook (which allows us to keep in contact with friends and family)
The funny
Classic Al Green; and neo-classic Al Green
Readily available public transportation (we live not far from downtown; we live a block away from a train station, we live off three major arteries - Fullerton, Milwaukee and Western) and now, thanks to our friend Roland, we have use of a car (and we live a mile from a major interstate)
Living in the Golden Age of Comic-Book-to-Movie adaptations
A working, cozy kitchen
The English language
My small group
The New York Times online
The kick-off of Nexus Foundation (more on that later)
Short, sweet, well-crafted one-liners
Turkey meats
Being paid for writing (hopefully, more of that later)
Pizza
Being insured again
Wife's new full-time job
Finding free and affordable (but guilt-free) music, including long out-of-print albums I used to own (on cassette, of course)
Good health
"Let's Spend the Day in Bed" by Over the Rhine
Trip to Colombia this year
Education
Our church
Zooropa
Available money
Drastically lowering debts
0% APR introductory rates for credit transfers (heck, anything lower than 24.99%) into our own bank
"Sentimental Heart" by She & Him
Obama as president (a black man as president. Someone who's actually been and worked with/for the poor in the White House. Yes, I'm excited)

What else?
I'll keep updating as I think of more. But, please, feel free to put a list of your own as well in the comments.

Update, mid-February

• I'm going to try something new for the next couple weeks or so. I'm going to try to write some fiction. Possibly short stories, but honestly, I'm not sure at this moment. I really just wanna see where it takes me. I will post a short piece two to three times next week - just a first draft and kind of see how they taste. I am asking you, my two faithful readers, to leave honest, critical feedback. I'll give the stories some tweaking, re-write the pieces or jettison them all together (or some combination thereof) within the next two to three weeks (I may just have the working pieces stashed away on another blog in the meantime). I did something like this once, with poetry. That turned out pretty well (links up later). But I'm not much of a fiction writer - if at all - and most of my recent stuff has been non-fiction, memoirs and essays and etc. that I'm trying to figure out how to tell better. I kind of think that writing fiction may be a good way for me to be honest about myself and allow myself to tell a good story. But I could totally suck at it too.

• Just finished some baking (not good, since Jen gave up sugar for Lent. Good for her, but we didn't decide until the last minute what we were gonna give up for the 40 days. My wife's is much more adventurous and advantageous than my sacrifice. Yeah, red meat. Like I didn't already discover how to make turkey burgers taste almost like the real thing). It's for a bake sale (my first ever) at our church tomorrow. The cause? Send my wife and I (and about 16 others) to Colombia this summer. This is our first out of several planned fund-raisers. Hope it does well (of course).

• My wife and I both lost our jobs on Friday. Not a good day. We both knew that our present jobs were closing in on us and that we weren't good fits at this moment in our lives for them. But the timing of it really sucked. It could've been worse, though. We didn't have any money in January. Please pray for us, that we'll find the jobs where God wants us to be, that we'll be able to pay off our debts and afford health care and all of that.

Peace.

News

• I may never have liked the idea of CleanFlix. I may have thought that the originators of this idea (where the naughty bits in movies are edited out by a machine) should have picked another way to fight what they felt was indecency in film. And I would have definitely suggested that Christians should either watch movies that they believe in or not (or just show some discretion in how much they inundate themselves with and when it's ok and when it's not), but I never would have figured what a creepy flippin' perv one of the [Edit] alleged co-founders is. (Apparently, there's some confusion about what role this man has had or does have with Clean Flix, especially since it opened up a new service once the government called it illegal censoring.) There's a special ring for him... [h/t to Peter Chattaway]
  
• My wife wants ice cream again. She's nuts! It just snowed a foot within the last week. Half a foot within less than a day. I should just mutilate some snow, plop it on a cone and tell her it's a new flavor.
  
• But I won't. 'Cuz I love her.
• Voting is by Tuesday. I have to make a decision soon. And I'm stuck between the fighting pugilist and the optimistic dreamer. It's almost like choosing between LBJ and JFK. We know who got things done, but we also know who's vision it was that fueled Johnson and his energies. Also, what I fear is that this country is too conservative to elect a black man or a woman (especially one as demanding - to put it nicely - as Clinton) at this point. Which means that I think the all-consuming, post-9/11 vote-of-fear will go to whoever gets the Republican nomination. So, I'm wondering if I should cast my vote for McCain now. Although I do like Huckabee (probably because I don't know too much about him). You know what? I'm just glad Giuliani's out of the running. I think I can breathe easier now.
• We won't let these knuckle-heads babysit. But if they want to stick their tongues in a socket on their own, who am I to judge?
  
• The Bulls are super-sucking. I haven't blogged about them all year because they're badder than bad.
• In Brazil, and just in time for Carnival, police entered into Rio's shantytowns of Jacarezinho and Mangueira with automatic weapons and armored vehicles and killed seven alleged gang members. It's nice to know that the tourism industry turns the fascism crank in South America too.
• While we're talking about the poor, some really are eating dirt. And please don't tell me that what we do here with our money doesn't affect how other people live - or die. I don't wanna live a guilty life, but I don't want to pretend anymore.
  
• This town is either stupid or crazy. And no, I wouldn't want to live in a small dairyville that would try to arrest the president or vice-president of the United States of America, in the United States of America, until he can be "extradite[d] to other authorities that may reasonably contend to prosecute them." I'd rather not die in a hail of bullets.
• Apparently, Britney Spears is mentally ill. We had our suspicions - to say the least - a long time ago. But we kept watching her fall from grace with binoculars, endangering her children and everyone else near her - including herself - for well over a year. And the trailers I've seen for Remember the Spartans movie (besides overall sucking and not doing anything new) are, well, mean-spirited in that they highlite her erratic behavior.
  
• That's enough preaching for today.
  

So, uh, what's going on?

Thanks for asking, Peter. Let's see:

• After this weekend, not only am I going back to work, but so is the Mrs. And she's taking the baby along with her.
• I finally hung up some shelves for our micro-kitchenette.
• My wife and I have been sharing a computer for over half a year now. First mine went ka-put, then hers. She should be getting hers back in about a week. Thank God. The A/C chord on my machine is acting all loosey goosey.
• My brother's 28th birthday is today. His girlfriend has been planning a surprise party for him for well-over a month. She told him about it several weeks ago.
• Joss is teething. Bad. And the usual suspects (including Baby Orajel) aren't working, or at least not for any measurable moment of time. But we found that the Baby Einstein videos do work. And I know that I've criticized them in the past (lack of vocab for viewers, according to a study), but we try to watch it with her and interact with her when we can.
• And it's only until this horrendous period passes, right?
• And it'll pass any moment now, right?
• I'm leading Bible study for our small group on Monday for the next three weeks. We'll be talking about Jesus and the Kingdom. Gospel of Matthew.
• The CEO of my district is coming in on Monday. I just found out today. I am so scared.
• I'm trying to get at least a post up each day. So that way, I can soon have an audience in the millions like Scot McKnight has. And then I can sell books too.
• I got some work done on my memoir/collection of essays that I've been working on & off with since the summer. I feel good about it. I may post some stuff soon. Especially if I can't think of anything else to post.
• We moved Joss to the other bedroom. There's a monitor in our room. This way, we won't bother her when we go to bed. Unfortunately, she can still bother us.
• My computer's AC adapter is broken. New one coming by the end of the week (hopefully). So this kind of delays my plans to write a new piece every day.
  

Cause someone around here has to sleep all day

and get fed for doing nothing... (says the summer vacation teacher daddy)

The little one is Jocelyn. Welcome, little baby.

Update I:
I'm going to try to keep as many people updated as I can about our baby and her condition(s) as I can, so I may be a little lagging in the info department here at times.
Our little miss chubby cheeks is hooked up to the oxygen tube here (and some other gadgets and vials) because she had some trouble breathing, she had/has some discoloration issues going on (at times looking like a little Smurfette, which is not as cute as it sounds, Jossie being human and all), and she was throwing up some mean stuff. So, she's on antibiotics and she may remain at the hospital for another week. Hopefully, nothing worse is happening, but the staff is constantly checking up on her and monitoring her and everything.

Today, she had another tube going down into her mouth, and the staff has been directed to not feed her for awhile.

And it's difficult being in the Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit and seeing our relatively healthy and full-term baby and not feeling a little 'wowwed'. And we are grateful. We can, for instance, hold her. But it also hurts deeply to see our little precious one in all these tubes and crying out of frustration, a very hurt cry.

We ask and hold on to your prayers. Thank you.

Update II:

Mama and I are traveling a lot between here and there now. We can say that based on this evening's visit, our little pumpkin-head is doing so much better. She still has an infection (around the lungs, I believe), but everything else seems to be working fine and on-schedule for development (sounds like a project, eh?).

Still, we miss her here and long for the time to bring her home and hold her w/o worrying about popping off a tube or something.

Update III (July 20th):

On my way to an important (and always frustrating) teacher's fair, so I'll be quick.

Baby's doing well enough to allow her into a private room, which means that mama and/or I will have to be with her consistently until she's released (probably Tuesday, maybe slightly later). Which is terrific because mama's in recovery mode and shouldn't be doing so much traveling anyway. It also means that we may get to have a few more visitors. But, please, wipe your hands and blow your snotty noses before ya come in! (*wink*)

She's a feisty one, kinda like her mama, she even furrows her little and wide forehead like her beautiful mama.

Hopefully, I can get some pix of her and mama all cuddled up. They were running the tests on her when I came in this morning, so she was busy crying, which meant that she had the little eye-boogers on her (Joss, not Jen). Not the most photogenic, but I didn't have our cam w/ us anyhow. I'll have to steal Jen's. Jen's much more photogenic than me, but she's still cam shy. Yet how can you NOT look good cuddling next to that precious little pumpkin-head? She even makes me look good!

Update IV (July 21st):

So much I want to say, so little time. But since pictures are worth a thousand words...

Notice what's missing.
Mama and I are a little concerned about some blockage in the nasal passages, but she's off the O2 tubes, among other things.

One of the rare, valuable shots featuring the recovering mama. She's cute.

A really old picture of Jocelyn.

She's got large, spider-monkey feet.
The good news is, this is one of only two tubes left on her as of last night.

Yes, I know. We're planning an intervention.

I want to thank AJ and Therese for coming by yesterday and taking five million great pictures. (The first two pictures were courtesy Gramps Fronz and Jennie, both via the brilliant photographic capabilities of the Virgin Slver). Of course, I also want to thank Granny Fronz for exquisitely helping Jennie and the baby during the afternoon transitional period, and for Unky Chunky for coming by and bestowing his blessing on the other side of the pregnancy (Btw, Jocelyn is the first grandchild for both of our parents and obviously the first niece/nephew for our kin, so congrats to them too).

I also want to thank friends and family for their prayers, care and concern and stopping by here regularly for updates and images. I think our biggest areas of concern left are just in this transitional period (bringing her home w/o a boatload of expert staff at our every available whim for our slightest scare) and any concerns that we may/will most likely have in terms of insurance and payment.

Update V [The next one will be called Update Balboa] (July 22nd):

Not much to say. Or at least, not enough time to say it (promised Jennie I'd be back soon). But I will mention that we got news last night that we may be able to go home as early as tomorrow, Monday. She's eating well, but all of our hopes of putting her on some sort of schedule (and feeding straight from the source) seem to be flying out the window right now. O well, she's in a constant state of flux right now. We'll get it together soon and she'll pull herself up by her li'l booty straps before you know it. (You can tell I used to be a Republican?)

A picture I've been waiting to take for a while.
Don't know about you, but it makes me smile.

Update VI: A New Hope

We're still not home, after hoping to be released earlier today (although good news may come along at any given moment, I doubt they'll release us within the day). But Joss is doing well. She kept mama up all night (which I understand is perfectly normal for newborns and teenagers alike). She's also actually gained weight since birth (2 oz's. This just after we were told that she lost all-told two ounces since birth. That's a gain of like 4 ounces in one or two days. Just like her fat daddy!) - usually the babies drop that weight in the first week since they're padded with extra protection for that necessary sleep time. But at this point, we're just playing it safe. She drinks almost two ounces (the magic number, apparently) on average every three hours.

I've got more errands to do (including a trip to UPS on the other edge of town, if I can). So, I'll talk more later.

Update VII: Return of the Jossi (July 24th)

The moment we've all bee waiting for. The end of Jabba the Hut and the final confrontation with Darth V....

Sorry, wrong dramatic sequence.

I gotta go. My baby (and Jennie and myself) are coming home!

Update VIII: The Quest for Freedom (July 25th)

Look, colors!

I'm gonna clean up and feed my baby. Thanks for all your concerns, calls, texts, emails, prayers, etc.

Update IX (Jossie in Space).

We took little Joss to her first post-release doctor visit. She's not only fine, she's great. The doctor was thinking that she wasn't necessarily sick, but just threw up some milk (either mama's or the similac type stuff). Her little body (over?)reacted to defend itself and the hospital staff (overre?)acted in accordance to their policies to help the baby defend herself. But, honestly, I'm not knocking anybody. Better safe than sorry.

She's also actually gained weight already. And she's very peaceful. She can cry to stop a train, but generally speaking, she sleeps a lot, eats a lot, and poops occasionally.

BTW, I've been checking out the sitemeter to see who is interested in the news about our precious little bundle, only to find that a large contingency of international people who have visited (like, four of the ten) recently came for some insight (which I highly doubt they received) on biting beetles.

Is there something going on that I'm not aware of? (Zombie Roaches?)

Update X (The Papa Decree)

OK, and for those who just can't get enough Joss (I'm talking to you, family), we've got Flickr and Picassa slideshows above. You can get and copy pictures, I believe, just by clicking on the images.

Peace out.

Because everybody keeps calling...

in good nature, of course, we've yet to have our little bundle o' joy.

But I did get a new laptop. Almost as cool. And I have to do less reorganizing to set this little baby up.


We just moved. And we're trying to fit everything into this much smaller apartment. We buying a lot of shelving units (enough so that the landlords should be paying us, but probably will use as an excuse to raise the rent on the next dwellers).

Oh, and did I mention our new place is right next to the El? Like literally next to the Chicago Transit Authority flippin' El?



For non-Chi-townies, that's short for Elevated. A beautiful tapestry that works mightily through the structure of our grid-based town when it's working right. A perfected version was erected (and then destroyed) in Batman Begins. It was driven on some Billy Crystal/Gregory Hines buddy-cop drivel in the 80's. And Doc Ock tried to play the Speed game using one of our trains in Spider-Man II. We live in the Blues Brothers' apartment.

And it's loud.

Like a freight train running through your head loud when you're not so used to it. And hearing it every two-to-twenty minutes in your bedroom or living room (or across from your potty) can be a bit unnerving.

By the way, her name is Jocelyn Carissa. And she'll be beautiful. I say this because I have faith that she'll look like her mommy. And not so much like her daddy.

Update

• Yes, the Bulls lost the first two games to Detroit in some doozies. And without a brawl to write home to mommy about. Yet, we still have faith in 'em in Chicago. Win tonight, or start a fight. I don't care if Zeke is in NY now.
• We're looking for a new apartment in the range of two-to-three bedrooms for under a thousand a month -which is difficult in Chicago. This would save us a lot of money that we'll need once the baby is born and we switch to a one-income family. It's too bad, though, since we really made this little cozy place our own and fallen in love with it. And the move will probably happen a couple weeks after the baby's born. Yeah, I know, I know. Not cool. Dread these summer-babies, though. Should've planned the pregnancy around the lease.
  
• Taking a grad school program for teachers nearby. Like the saying goes, "Takes money to make money to burn money."
  
• I'm also looking for a new school to teach at (more on that in the next month or just after).
  
• Summer blockbusters (or semi- or pseudo-blockbusters) that I've seen without the wife so far: 2. Watch the tally rise. But for now, all I'll say is, a little disappointed in both Spider-Man III (as you're probably aware by now, too much happening; but then again, I plan on seeing it again and maybe again) and in Hot Fuzz (which I thought was a tad disrespectful to the genre it was trying to pay hommage to by interspersing it with a genre the filmmakers had already masterfully spoofed - goredom). If you missed the first, you're dead. Or my wife. According to the box office returns at least. If you missed the second, and can handle a bit of gore-ish violence (actually, not too much), you need a good laugh. Watch it (and while you're at it, rent Shaun of the Dead. Again.)
  

Let's Play Catch-Up!

• Apparently, Ol' Bessie (aka, Cheap Acer - the term-of-no-endearment Mrs. jasdye gave her) was running on empty. The old hard drive just ain't what it used to be. An expensive inpatient stay at the Geek Squad informed me of that. Now I have to try to figure if I want to spend another couple bills fixing her or just start from scratch and buy a more reliable machine. Which I may or may not take with me to work (why should I endanger my machine for their work?, I keep asking myself. To no avail. I make a lousy conversationalist). In any case, I'm really concerned about my iTunes. Can I transfer all those tunes via my iPod into another computer? How does that work with the DRM's? Does anybody know? Stupid, stupid, stupid. I need to back everything up from now on out eight times over.
• I also lost my phone. I'm turning into Homer Simpson in things digital. Funny thing is, I haven't stored most of the numbers there anywhere else and I barely remember my own number. AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!! I'm such a block-head.
• Mrs. jasdye and I have been looking for a new church now for a bit. Which has been hard for me, since my old church is like family. Old family, in quite a few cases. But, we're both really liking this church. It's about a mile from our house, it's multi-cultural (in some ways more so than our last - which is hard to find in the Evangelical tradition), has a congregation that is social/economically-mixed (also like our last church - with a mixture of homeless, yuppies, college students, hipsters, etc.), is laid back but mixes high-church liturgy (which is a mix that I'm pretty comfortable with and have been trying to get my old church to embrace), and speaks our language in terms of the redemptive work of God in the whole of the world through Jesus' death and resurrection. The one weak spot that we've noticed is that we would be considered in the older end of the church's spectrum, that being a very small window for the most part. But, like ourselves, it seems like the church is also booming out some babies and young'uns. So, we'll see and try to keep posted.

Rednecks and Redstone, Unite

OK.

A couple bits in the free daily yesterday caught my eye. One is that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said that homosexuality is immoral - akin to heterosexual adultery - and, therefore, homosexuals shouldn't be allowed in the U.S. military. This was in response to questions about the "Don't Ask / Don't Tell" policy.

A few questions: Is that to imply that anyone who has ever committed adultery should not be allowed in the U.S. military? Or would that be more of a 'grey area' (i.e., if the adulterous affair had stopped within a period of time, or was committed outside of the jurisdiction of the United States, or was done before the parties joined the Forces)? Or, rather, would the implication of adultery ("lust of the eyes") be enough to injunct the wrath of the U.S. Air Force?

But, better question (IMHO): Is the Head of the U.S. Armed Forces - which, in effect, teaches grown men to kill other grown men (and women, and children) - saying that gay people need not show up for the party? That those with a preference for their own gender (or a shared preference) should rightfully be ostracized?

I'm all for morals. But I kinda doubt that the morals of making a living by killing somehow trumps the rights of those who are identified by their sexuality.

The second article that made my eyes bug had to do with Viacom suing YouTube and parent megaCorporation Googe (caveat: Google runs Blogger and Blogspot, as well as my all-time favorite, gmail. So, I don't wanna say anything bad about sweet, sweet Google. Ha ha, Googe!) for running clips from its various networks including, most infamously - at least for me - Stephen Colbert. But this includes stuff from MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, BET, and CBS. I'm sure there's more, but who cares? (They also own Blockbuster, which shows you how generally clueless they are.) And they're suing them for 1,000,000,000 dollars!



But why, o Why, would you want to tear down free publicity?

I'm all against piracy. I'm sorry. I think it's stealing. So, unless the artist comes out and says, 'Get this however you get it' or whatever, I'd rather go through the proper channels and try to pay those who put in the work. But YouTube isn't piracy. It doesn't work (generally speaking) as blanket bootlegging. I could see if they posted entire hour-and-a-half long movies. Maybe. But the sound and visual quality's so bad that, if I could, I would prefer to get them through other, higher-def, channels. But Colbert/The Daily Show, etc., generally isn't available through those channels. And Colbert's earned his name and fame in a way unprecedented 10 years ago.

Through YouTube.

Exsqueeze Me?!? Too religious?

A couple of weeks after reading sociologists Christian Smith's excellent piece on horrendous number-crunching by evangelicals, I come across this trite, strident piece of garbage on my Yahoo! front page. Apparently, evangelical Christians aren't the only ones playing fast and stupid with numbers, or questions. To ask, "Is America too religious?" (as the people behind this poll/blog by Yahoo and ABC News did) is extremely problematic, divisive, polemical and, let's face it, bigoted.

I'm sure we could all think of different ways to phrase that question that would expose what a fraudulent way of thinking that is.

The problem with such polemical questioning is multidimensional. At its base, firstly, it's a yes/no, either/or, question, offering a simplistic take on such a wide-range over-laying topic. You either side with religion or you don't, the question assumes. It's almost mathematical, a type of modernist dilemma. In-or-out, true-or-false. But religion is a man-made construct, a vehicle, if you may. It's like asking, 'are there too many comedies on television' (with the assumption that they're all Two and a Half Men, without acknowleging a Cosby Show, a Seinfeld, a Simpsons), 'are there too many websites on the internet' (with the assumption that most of them are hokey or pornographic, without regard to many useful blogs, uploaded literature and resource pages), 'are there too many books in the world' (with the assumption that they're all Harlequin romances) - without regard to the quality or diversity of those in question.

Secondly, the question is constructed (even with the bottle-neck yes/no at its apex) too broadly. Is the issue at hand related to politics (as suggested in the introduction - the fear of some sort of unchecked theocracy falling upon the American public by the current incarnation of the Religious Right in the White House)? To the morality struggles played out in public (think of an outed mega-church pastor and leader being 'cured' all of a sudden)? To the effects that religious morals have had on our laws and ethics (or, as Dwight Eisenhower has said, "I don't care what religion America has, we just need one.")? To personal and communal piety performed in the public square (the Amish response to the madman killer)? To daily offices? To liturgical practices? To eschatological views (Left Behind anyone? Please?)? To ecclesiology (should the nation be concerned about who are the new and next pastors?)? To ecumenicalism (the gathering of various faith-traditions)? To the perceived threat of holy wars? In other words, what aspect of America is under seige here, is under the possible threat of being too religious? And secondly, what is meant by the term 'religious'? This general vagueness is a sort of double-threat. And I could understand why people may read and respond to this vagueness in a defensive manner - whether pro or con.

Thirdly, I can't help but see the phrasing of this question as being anti-Religious, whatever that may mean. Try rephrasing this question with another topic in mind. "Has America become too terrorist-friendly"? "Has America become too baby-killer friendly"? "Has America become too racist"? "Has America become too...?" What? If the term that you imagine isn't already negative, it becomes a negative by way of association. A sort of triple threat, I suppose.

The real question should be, Are there too many idiotic and inept questions proffered by the mass media?