Ignoramis of the world, untie!

Intelligent Design is being argued against by the ignorants.

Guess who gets the most public air?

The op-ed pages are filled with people who have no footings on science, philosophy or certainly religion yet feel a necessity to opine widely on the first and the last in one fell swoop, namely, thus: science has nothing to do with religion nor religion with science. I'm sorry, but that just breathes and breeds ignorami to the extreme. It insists that they are mutually exclusive and that the realm of one cannot overlap with that of the other. That's Docetic and imbecilic. It also very much belongs in the so-called Age of Reason. Yet, there was another half-witted excuse for a letter-to-the editor in the Chicago Tribune today, arguing that very same airless premise. I will post the article (you can find it here) and try to knock some sense into it while speaking in italics.

Religion should not be used to explain science

A.J. Warland
Published August 22, 2005

Clarendon Hills -- I was baptized a Catholic. One day at 10 years old, I asked my mother, "Why are there no dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible?"

She did not have an answer.

Ummm... yeah. "And the Lord smoten the T. Rex with a terrible infliction as he had the Canaanites." Or, maybe the Leviathan, mentioned in Job. How do you expect the Bible, an ancient manuscript, to describe dinosaurs, something only recently discovered and named in Latin, a language much older than modern English yet far younger than ancient Hebrew?

I knew something was terribly wrong.

Because his mother couldn't answer his curious but childish question? That's how empires fall!

I decided then and there that the Bible was probably written by some old guys sitting around a campfire trying to come up with good stories like one finds in Aesop's fables or other fairytales as a means to relate the rights and wrongs of behavior to the masses.

(Such are the thoughts of a 10-year-old.)

Quite hilarious, man. The remarkable thing is, the author still holds on to this theory. Un-flippin'-believable!

Unlike the ancient people of the deserts and forests, we do not need to invent gods to explain nature's phenomena anymore.

How quaintly 18th Century of you! Religion-as-a-natural-phenomenon-explanation.

We have scientific evidence derived via the scientific method of analyzing the world around us. Just because we have not yet found the "missing link" in the evolution of man doesn't justify the ridiculous suppositions of the creationists.

Creationists? Oh, I see. You've made that common mistake. That's where it all starts. Creationism and Intelligent Design are quite different creatures altogether. Creationism is an account (a supplementary one at that, that never supposes to supplant science) of the order of the physical cosmos and world starting from the presuppositions of the record of creation - and the few thousand years after the initial creation - rendered in the Bible (specifically, the first nine chapters of the first book, Genesis) and interpreted literally. Although it uses scientific elements, it cannot claim to be a science. Intelligent Design, however, is a more philosophical understanding of the natural world. It's stated implication is that the cosmos is too orderly to have been put together through chaos. It argues, often through mathematics and logistics (the law professor Philip E. Johnston being a sort of Godfather of the movement) that the scientific method on its own with its inherent omission of anything outside the natural to explain any of the natural (ergo, God nor his actions can neither be a possibilities or a probability within the natural world).

ID, however, is not theologically coherent or unified. In other words, most Creationists would be classified as conservative Protestants. ID, however, although popular in these camps (hence the confusion of people who don't know the first thing about religion) is much more broad in its base is supported by those who believe that the cosmos may have been , in some ways, crafted, created or helped-along by a Higher Being. A title, by the way, that would never be supported in my church.

Evolutionary evidence is bountiful. Look through a microscope. Witness how bacteria and viruses evolve to adjust to their environment as it changes due to chemicals we throw at them.

Look at the similarity of embryos of different animals. It shows how form and function have changed over millions of years.

And...? No one is arguing against micro-evolution. Intelligent design does not argue that there is no such thing as evolution, but it is guarded against an origin of nature that is solely guided by chaotic evolution.

Intelligent design? This should presuppose that it would be perfect. Unfortunately we have the visual evidence of disease and deformity. Why would "God" allow such imperfections? It makes no sense.

Why would you put "God" in quotation marks? Are you seeking to offend or trying not to offend? What kind(s) of arguments are you making here? Theology can answer those questions. But you argue for a utopia that would sustain itself as utopia (notice, 'utopia' means 'no place'. Although Christians believe in the perfection of the creation, we believe imperfection entered the scene when mankind messed it up. However, outside of theology, your argument doesn't hold up well. Why should everything be perfect in existence just because somebody designed it? Why should everything be understood? Cancer and viruses are not beautiful or perfect. But they are abnormalities. Most everything runs fine in and of themselves.

Evolution, however, does explain the miseries of life. Creatures all, struggling to adapt, is a testimony to "survival of the fittest" . . . it is the mechanism of evolution.

Now the proponents of intelligent design expect us to consider Noah's Ark had dinos onboard. Creationists have gone from ridiculous to insane. There is no science behind intelligent design. It's not worthy of even being a theory.

Oh, there's that confusion again. It gives me hope that I may, too, one day be published in the Chicago Tribune.

They have no geologic or archeological evidence.

They lack any form of "logic."

Really? Such as checking on the facts before opining? Ad hominem attacks? Straw-Man arguments? Please, stop me when you become familiar with your tactics, A. J. Warland.

Creationists should focus their discussions on people showing goodwill toward men and the golden rule of decency because many of their leaders (in all religions) have certainly fallen far from grace.

Some more moralizing. Thankyouverymuch.

That anyone in this day and age would even consider that an old man (though some now imagine it a woman) is sitting above the Earth in the clouds and that only 10,000 years ago decided to snap his fingers and create the enormous complexity of every living creature and plant in just six days is ludicrous.

"Old man"?? Speaking of presumptuous presumptions.

Let the creationists use religion to guide daily behavior with how-to-be-good guidelines. (Personally I and numerous people I know don't need religion to be some of the nicest and kindest people one could ever have the pleasure of meeting.)

Awwww, how nice and pleasant. If only Jesus was about being nice and pleasant. But I digress, namely because A. J. does.

Religion should not be used to explain science.

Amen. I'll back you on that. The truth is, that may be the function or purpose of ID in some supporting pundits' minds.

Besides science, I do believe in historical evidence. For that I do believe that someone named Jesus walked the Earth and impacted enough lives to prompt the fireside storytellers to create the Bible.

Apparently, you don't believe in historical evidence. All right, you need to read a book. Dan Brown's crap doesn't count. Countless men and women died for these "fireside storytellers" even during that period that you would think they were making it up. Sorry, history doesn't support you. The Old Testament was in wide circulation long before Jesus walked. The New Testament was completed (whole) within seventy years of his death. There are no fireside stories in any of the canons of the Bible. You must have the Bible confused with the supposed extra-gospels of "Thomas" or "Q", works which have no historical basis with first century A.D. Judaism, in which Jesus operated or "impacted."

I do have an important question for creationists: If God supposedly created everything, then who created God?

They have no answer because it lacks logic.

You are correct. Your question does lack logic.

Case closed.

(Unless, of course, they change their minds and decide that God is really an E.T. . . . but that's a whole other debate.)

Why not? You're on a roll, A. J.

Why, o why, doesn't the Bible mention me? Is it because I look fat? Am I too ferocious?

Freight Train to Nowhere

Vacation.

Starts tomorrow. I'm taking along my copy of The Idiot. Man, I am loving this book. A lot funnier than I thought it'd be. Imagine Jane Austin on steroids. Okay, now that I've repulsed you (weight lifting in those bikinis and hair growing under her lips): The Idiot is the story, at least in this first quarter, of an inter- and intra- familial tension arising out of an arranged marriage. At the center of it is a simple Prince musician, a man who has no place to call home, no money, is a foreigner in his own land, yet is of royal lineage. A man so stricken that people generally don't regard him, yet one who holds all (servants and generals alike) in the same genuine manner and is able to see them for who they truly are, and loves them - and protects them - all the same. Does any of this sound familiar?

I probably won't update much, if at all, during the next week. I had thought of plugging this site with more stuff to read, but, why the heck? Maybe by the time I come back, there'll be another posting at Further Up & Further In (maybe even done by one of the ladies!). Another week after that, school will start again here in Chicago, so I don't know when I'll be able to post or if on any sort of regular schedule. Until I get a laptop, at least.

I fully expect to be a full-time substitute teacher when the semester begins. Which'll be all right. I can make some headway into my debts again (about time!) while still spending time with my youth group. Although we're still expecting a new youth pastor to come in soon, there is no definite time schedule for that. We're looking for someone who'll come in for the long haul (five years) - no small feat for a youth worker in a fairly small urban church. But since our teens feel a sense of abandonment every time someone leaves a) the church, b) formal youth ministry, it's a necessary thing. Heck, I've been on month-by-month for over a year. They feel I'm abandoning them.

Oh, check out ol' boy Andy Whitman. He writes for Paste Magazine and has been with them since the beginning. I always enjoy reading his stuff, yet it wasn't until recently that I found out he's on blogger. Insightful, music lover (The world doesn't have enough honest-to-goodness music lovers who are short of music-geeks [the difference? I can understand one.]), heart-felt, Christian. Of course, his musical tastes run similar to mine.

I told you I'd post about N.T. Wright. nah nah na boo boo

The Right Reverend Father in God Nicholas Thomas Wright, by Divine Providence Lord Bishop of Durham. Boy, those Anglicans sure have a way with stuffy titles. (Of course, I'm used to the Baptist and non-denominational version. We call our pastors by nicknames. And, ain't nobody above a pastor - except, as the bad joke goes, his wife.) Bishop Wright (or, more commonly, N. T. Wright) is a student of the New Testament and studies both Jesus and Paul within the frame of their Second Temple-era Jewishness and a very frequent lecturer. The following excerpts are stolen from his speech entitled "Jesus and the Identity of God" expressly about Jesus' divine identity and self-understanding.

The death of God's son can only reveal God's love (as in, e.g., Rom 5:6-10) if the son is the personal expression of God himself. It will hardly do to say, "I love you so much that I'm going to send someone else."

The positive reason for studying Jesus within his historical context and using all the tools at our disposal to do so has to do with that still-neglected factor, the meaning of Israel within the purpose of God. If we are to be biblical theologians, it simply will not do to tell the story of salvation as simply creation, fall, Jesus, salvation. We desperately need to say: creation, fall, Israel, Jesus, salvation. If we ask the question of how this particular human being is the instrument of salvation and do not say as our first answer, “because in him God’s Israel-shaped plan to save the world came to fulfillment,” then we leave a huge vacuum in our thinking (and in our reading of scripture). I believe it is because of this vacuum that people have elevated minor themes, such as the sinlessness of Jesus, to a prominence which, though not insignificant, they do not possess in the NT itself. Thus it is not enough merely to say “earthly” or to allude to Jesus’ sandals, and then to proceed to construct a Christ-figure as a back-projection of a fully-formed theology. This approach is unacceptable for the same reason the approach of Crossan and others [The Jesus Seminar, a media circus run by non-Biblical scholars - many of whom would self-identify as 'Christians' - that purport to prove that the historical Jesus is vastly different than the Biblical Jesus, making claims such as Jesus was a simple revolutionary who died a rebel's death, Jesus never really died on the cross, but only passed out, he made no miracles nor claims to divinity, etc., etc,] is unacceptable: they call their Jesus “Jewish” while actually constructing a Jesus out of symbolic features of the wider Mediterranean world, ignoring many crucial elements of Jewish self-understanding. After all, it is precisely the cavil of the heterodox today that the Gospels themselves are the self-serving back-projections of a later, and perhaps corrupted, theology. I fail to see why we should provide such people with more ammunition than they already have.

At the human level, Jesus is like us precisely in this: he did not exist or think or feel or pray in a vacuum, but rather within a continuum, a web of socio-cultural symbolic resonances, a universe of discourse within which deeds, thoughts, and words carried layers of meaning. Orthodox Christians are frightened of letting Jesus belong to a world like this, precisely because we know that if he is like us in belonging to such a world, he will he very unlike us in that his world is not our world. We are therefore, eager to flatten his world out or to declare, it of little relevance, because we want to be able to carry him, his message, and his timeless achievement of salvation across to our world without losing anything in the process. In this eagerness we forget what the NT writers and above all Jesus himself never forgot: that salvation is of the Jews, not in some trivial sense, but in the rich sense that in order to save the world the creator God chose Abraham and said “in your seed all the families of the earth will he blessed.” It is precisely because Jesus of Nazareth is the fulfillment of this promise that he is relevant in all times and places. It is precisely because he is The Jew par excellence that he is relevant to all Gentiles as well as Jews. This is the ultimately humiliating move for Gentile and Jew alike, precipitating an epistemology of humiliation whereby all may know this Jesus as the living, saving word of God, as different from us in the way that makes him the same as us, as over against us and therefore relevant to us.

[A] central feature of Jewish expectation, and kingdom expectation at that, in Jesus’ time was the hope that YHWH would return in person to Zion. Having abandoned Jerusalem at the time of the exile, his return was delayed, but he would come back at last. Within this context, someone who told cryptic stories about a king or a master who went away, left his servants with tasks to perform, and then returned to see how they were getting on must—not “might,” must point to this controlling, over-arching metanarrative [of the returning YHWH]. Of course, the later Church, forgetting the first century Jewish context, read such stories as though they were originally about Jesus himself going away and then returning in a “second coming.”

Girl friends, are you paying attention?

These are not my words. Oh, how I love relevant magazine's complete cluelessness.

There is a shortage of something that is ever-so-important in this world. A lot of people have it, and others do not. I am a have-not, and I do not wish to be this way much longer. As I near my 23rd year on planet Earth, I hope to find it very soon. But perhaps it's rude to call a girlfriend an "it." My single brothers are familiar with my predicament. It seems as though there are no intelligent, fun-loving and moral girls available. Anywhere. Now there are plenty of perfect girls in relationships, but none are unattached. How is this possible? Did all the lovely young ladies come out of the womb already clutching hands with boys?

They're probably hiding from you, joe.

The point of the article is... Oh, I don't know. But he speaks of using girl friends to sharpen insights into the female mind.

Further signs of immaturity:

Always very clever and quick to laugh, women also possess an amazing sensitivity to others people's feelings. Now this may seem like obvious information to a lot of you, but it is news to me. You're dealing with an individual whose childish loathing of girls just recently died off. Believe it or not, I regularly said, "Girls sure are weird!" in all sincerity until only a couple of months ago.

Twenty-three, huh? Is he pulling ponytails, still? Of course, this is coming from a guy who wrote a poem called "cooties" about, well, you'll get the point if you read it a couple of posts below.

Adam, you need to write for them. Give 'em somethin'. A dose of reality, per se. (No offense, Destiny, but this site sometimes confounds me.)

In related news, Michelle, ma belle...

These are words that go together well,

My Michelle.

Michelle, ma belle.
Sont les mots qui vont tres bien ensemble,
Tres bien ensemble.

I love you, I love you, I love you.
That's all I want to say.
Until I find a way
I will say the only words I know that
You'll understand.

Michelle, ma belle.
Sont les mots qui vont tres bien ensemble,
Tres bien ensemble.

I need to, I need to, I need to.
I need to make you see,
Oh, what you mean to me.
Until I do I'm hoping you will
Know what I mean.

I love you.

I want you, I want you, I want you.
I think you know by now
I'll get to you somehow.
Until I do I'm telling you so
You'll understand.

Michelle, ma belle.
Sont les mots qui vont tres bien ensemble,
Tres bien ensemble.

I will say the only words I know that
You'll understand, my Michelle.

And it's for simple reasons like this that I love my girl friends, right? They're so understanding.

Yes, I created a new blog

I've moved to the dark side. This is the blog for when i don't feel like i need to worry bout punctuatation or spellign or none of that. well, maybe some of it. even in these sentances, i keep going back to rewrite what it is i'm wirting. well, nota alsways.

i write that sloppy. it's all in the editing, i swear.

chekc me out if you ain't scared of xanga and you just wanna hear what i'm sayin'. no what i mean, jean?

cooties

things i can't understand
freeness, newness, ampersand
the way of a woman with a man

the way she touches the hands,
the sweat glands pool and
puruse fingertips to tend the land

finds merely solely the chasm
warm undue, damp too fast
rome's raided, sword in hand

Heard about Heard? (hyuck-hyuck)

Finally getting around to listening to Sufjan Stevens' Illinois (Also known as Come on Feel the Illinoise - yep, a pun, and being a native Illinoisian, a bad one. Please, people, don't pronounce the 's.') Lovin' it. My man Adam has a... I don't know what you'd call it. Maybe you could call it a post. Anyway's he wrote a post on Monday where he reveals that he's been listening to too much folk-rock.

Gross...I fell headlong into folk rock...been listening to a lot of keaton simmons and denison witmer and Over The Rhine and Nick Drake and Sufjan Stevens <---his voice grates my nerves in large doses...

I kid you not. The night previous to this, I put in the order for some old Over the Rhine and new Stevens and Witmer. I also got Mark Heard and Bill Mallonee (not the Godfather of Bluegrass, but the man behind the Vigilantes of Love). I'm somewhat responsible for getting him on this trip. It's a good break from his sola rapa christiana dogma. I plan on getting some Bowie next (why I don't have anything from him yet boggles my mind). But then maybe Nick Drake won't be such a bad idea. Simmons, though? Too many weird Simmonses out there for my taste.

I'm spinning Sufjan's stuff for the first time. I'm liking it a lot. Even the voice. Maybe I'll give some short reviews later, after they've soaked in. (I don't have quite the demand others do for Cross Movement reviews, so I have to create the demand first, right?)

But I do want to speak of Heard's poetic lines, since I am familiar with those. They certainly put me to shame. Mark Heard died thirteen years ago. He was an engineer, producer, musician, thinker, artist, writer-extraordinaire and pretty darn funny. On Satellite Sky he had the privilege of working alongside David Raven (of the Swirling Eddies), Michael Been (the leader of The Call), Buddy Miller (Emmylou Harris' guitarist, and with wife Julie, right hand), and Sam Phillips (Singer-songwriter, T-Bone Burnett's ex-wife). Bruce Cockburn speaks indelibly high of him. But this is what I know. These dang, haunted lyrics.

There's an oasis in the heat of the day
There's a fire in the chill of night
A turnabout in circumstance makes each a hell in its own right
I been boxed in the lowlands, in the canyons that think
I been pushed to the precipice and dared not to blink...
Knock the scales from my eyes
Knock the words from my lungs
I want to cry out
It's on the tip of my tongue
(Tip of My Tongue)

I will rise from my bed with a question again
As I work to inherit the restless wind
The view from my window is cold and obscene
I want to touch what my eyes haven't seen
But they have packaged our virtue in cellulose dreams
And sold us the remnants 'til our pockets are clean
'Til our hopes fall 'round our feet like the dust of dead leaves and we end up looking like what we believe
We are soot-covered urchins running wild and unshod
We will always be remembered as the orphans of God
They will dig up these ruins and make flutes of our bones and blow a hymn to the orphans of God
(Orphans of God)

And, in case you think it's all sad-sack, Heard does recognize beauty-lost ("Long Way Down," which argues that the naked beauty of the world is "lies hidden on the teeming shores beneath the burned-out Chevrolets") and beauty-lived :

Scarlet is the color of her heart against the night
Prism of her innocence fracturing the light
She will take her stairwell down to dark and heartless streets
And spend her season singing songs to infidels and thieves
("Love Is So Blind")

Buy yourself a copy. Let's not bury this treasure. Send it sky-high.

Sorry this post wasn't funny either.
What's wrong with me??

The Waiting Club

I love it when I meet Christians with that simple faith. They can move mountains with that faith. People can be restored and healed and lost pennies and neighbors will be found.

Maybe I just know too much. Maybe I'm scared of feeling too much. Maybe I'm afraid of failure and what that would say about me and my God.

It's been a year and a half since I finally received my BA in Teaching of English. When I entered the program, it seemed a cinch. There was a definite need for teachers, especially in the inner-city. What, you mean I get to work with urban youth, teach them a thing or two about life and get paid decently?

Well, they still need teachers here in Chicago. If you can teach math or science, welcome to the Chi. If you're an English teacher without endorsements in Special Ed or Reading and are uneasy about your previous classroom management, welcome to the club. Registration's up front. Waiting area's around the corner.

The Waiting Club. Let me get your coats, make yourselves comfortable. Can I get you something? A drink? A magazine? Virgil, Socrates, Melville, Tolstoy?

I'm not completely let-down by being rejected for another teaching season. I almost expected it. But I am sad. I know that God's preparing something special for me. But I wouldn't have minded learning on the job.

Bono compared the Holy Spirit to women. Women, God bless you and your mysterious ways, but you're no match against the Eternal. I can't read your minds, ladies, but God is invisible (I can't see when I've upset him), eternal (He's certainly experienced more than all of the better half of the human species have), and omniscient (The crux of the matter. He knows what he's doing. We, not-so-scient, don't). But don't think that I'm completely settled and unbothered. I'm no Elie Wiesel (The holocaust survivor accused Job of letting God off too easily), but neither am I a Job.

Last night I found out when and where my brother is getting married. My parents and youngest brother live in Oklahoma. My oldest brother and I remain in Chicago. This particular brother (the fourth of five) is serving in the Navy, as is his fiance (whom he had a part in recruiting, of course). So, the time and place were - in this post-9/11 and highly secretive governmental times - up-in-the-air to the last minute.

Tonight, my mom called to see if I could somehow secure tickets for some in the family who wanted to go. She mentioned a few names, but I must have misheard her (Computer illiterate as they are, I was looking for a name of someone who knew how to work around a modem and keyboard), so I asked again who is going.

"Well, daddy. That's about it for now."

What the...? Dad didn't want to go to Brian's wedding originally. We had to convince him to come to that one with the rest of the family. Caleb (the youngest) was already in hot water. He may just not be able to cut it at this time (I swear, my parents don't know how to raise bad kids. They think we're all supposed to be respectful and stay away from trouble. Worked with the first two...) Chucky (the middle one) is on his way back to Chicago and will travel with us. Grandma and grandpa are gaining in age and fast losing money. They probably won't be able to make this journey this time.

So, the one important missing piece is mama. She's not coming?

"Um... no."

Why? Are you...? The truth is my mama has bipolar disorder. She has suffered this on and off for almost twenty years. Although the effects are no longer as extreme as they were in my teenage years, she suffers from it continuously now. She is constantly worried and guilt-stricken about a completely ridiculous situation that happened two decades ago.

"I'd rather not talk about it now."

My eyes were welling up and before long, the well ran down my cheeks.

"Well, I guess I better get going."

It was obvious that I stopped paying attention and my focus drifted.

Mama.

"Yes?"

I love you. And know that I'm praying for you.

And I am. But I don't know what to expect.

I also don't know what to expect for my new friend Timi. We only started talking and emailing the last couple months. But it makes me wonder how C. S. Lewis felt being with Joy, the brash young American he eventually married and lost shortly thereafter, recounted in A Grief Observed. Timi's got what she describes as a sort of domino effect on her health. Everything from her back to her internals (I feel bad that I always forget if someone has difficulties in their liver or their kidneys.) is acting up and one thing affects another and so on. It's chronic, newly developed and getting worse. And she loves football. She loves being active. And she loves God.

Or, there's Bruce Nelson. Bruce contacted a rare tropical fever while on a missions trip to India. His church eventually laid him off, with some difficulty and hard feelings. He could only be hired back as a janitor, which work was physically impossible for him. Apparently, his head pastor didn't want the children's pastor to ask the hard questions. Bruce, from the standpoint of the article at least, hasn't lost his faith. But he hurts, nonetheless.

There is a song that we don't sing enough in the church anymore. It is by a man who lost much of his family on a ship. While passing that spot over the choppy waters some time later, he wrote these lyrics:

It Is Well With My Soul

When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot Thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul

It is well (it is well)
With my soul (with my soul)
It is well, it is well with my soul

And Lord haste the day
When my faith shall be sight
The clouds be rolled back as a scoll
The trump shall resound and
The Lord shall descend
Even so it is well with my soul

I don't think he had it easy, either. "Sorrows, like sea billows, roll."

False Sense

the second floor facade

pushed out forward,

like a box some kid, anxious,
kicked from his
Hoovertown fortress

while silhouettes always in back
and tableaux move back in progression

Where does movement become inert?

and the subject become a lesson?

what grabs us
pulls us to push?
what forces us
to forward thrust?
what relieves us
to lend us to trust?

-a special realm
an ingrained belief relief-

"It was self-defense...," he says, not quite sure if he cares that i don't or do believe.

"Not what they say...," voice trailing in and out like morphine.

"...It was self defense..."

explains


"...I was a soldier in 'Nam."

Civil

What our knowledge does for us
forcing us to rent space in the back of the bus
burying new skins in old soil of a naked nation
rent in two by reluctantly rising emancipation

Mileage in the shotgun
Revolving a cause to Become.
As old as a whore
as American as Ford's
Given all we could piece,
Nature, she wants more

Releasing the hounds
Civility in bonds,

on the run

raging, making less with itself
than we could live without
For we have been in need
of all sons living freed
- prized in sheols we dug too deep

Knowing nothing but the hope
it won't be this time
Immersion in mercy
bathed in rouge liquid life

And this is why I don't play Madden or Soul Calibur

"We presume the cause of death was heart failure stemming from exhaustion."

????

From playing video games for fifty flipping straight hours. After having "recently quit his job to spend more time playing [video] games."

boink!

Poemic updates

Just looking through some of my unfinished (and still to be finished) works from the last couple months. I'll post updates within the day. Actually, I'm a bit more pleased with a few of them than I thought originally. "cooties" in particular; I like the playfulness more than I realized. I also added titles and made some fairly small changes to a couple of other works. The first draft of "False Sense" could be read here and the second draft of "Civil" could be caught here.

I missed it...

Sorry, Johan. I tried to spread the word. But when I wasn't working, I was sleeping, being interviewed (alas, not by Tyra Banks) or riding the train from one to the other.

Anybody catch my boy on the Tyra Banks show today (Tues.) can tell me how that went?

Edit:

I didn't miss it. I only thought I did. The show was taped and will air probably in September. Johan also divulged (in the juicy comments section), that he is also being bandied about for a NY Times article. Hey, that's diversity for ya!

In other news, mutual friend Darnell Weathersby (Older brother to three of my youth now. Yes, three [3]. Mentor to several others.) was on the front page of the Central Illinois Journal Star. Essentially, they were reporting on the fact that the school district covering Peoria (or, Caterpillaria, Illinois) is trying to hire more black teachers. The student population is about 60% African American while the teaching staff is about 7% black. And, with the addition of Darnell, the entire district has fifteen male black teachers. The article reports that, "[o]nly 1.5 percent of the state's classroom teachers are black males."

On that, Darnell says, "I'm an African-American male, and that's very rare in teaching, period. I'm learning that my role is a lot more than academic... [In regards to teaching in Peoria,] I have a heart for the inner city. I'm an inner-city product. I want to play an influential role for those like me."

In similarly unrelated news, I attended Darnell's wedding (reception only, unfortunately) in shoes that were impossible to dance in. I proceeded to make a fool of myself dancing to New Jack sounds. As white as can be.

Additional note:

Almost lost my religion looking for this image. I finally settled on searching for "Tyra Banks face."

First off, props to mi hermano Johan Khalilian. While preparing to come back from a summer trip to So. Cal., he was asked to speak on the Tyra Banks show about living and teaching purity as a young adult in a thoroughly modern setting. Hey, I'll never reach that audience. The show airs Tuesday. Check your local listings.

Second, my pics are fast fading. I don't know if it's my comps or not (Don't know enough about 'em, but this one's been acting scwewy like Elmer Fudd falling for Bugs Bunny in drag.) but my images are disappearing like Speedy Gonzalez from the public image (Can't say I blame Warner Bros. for trying to Politically Correct that cultural faux pas.). Does anybody know a free, easy-to-use image uploader that is compatible with blogger and will save images on to the site? Right now, I'm thinking of just saving images onto the computer and posting it using the Blogger image uploader feature thingy.

Isn't she lovely?

One more thing: I'm going to try to update a few of my old "poems" throughout the week. Not that you care. But I do. And this is my blog. So, there, sucka!

Dan Brown, Jesus loves you!

I've got way too much to read as it is (I'd name check, but I don't want to embarrass people, especially myself.) and I'm a slow reader. So, ya'll've got a month to get me some N. T. Wright, peeps. For those who don't know who this Anglican bishop is, I was hipped to him by Philip Yancey and by doing a cursory reading of Anne Rice's reading list. (Yes, Anne Rice. She is a devout Catholic now. And she's writing a book about the life of Jesus. I flippin' kid you not. The Godmother of Goth!) Anyway, if you are one who thinks that Biblical scholars are now convinced that the Bible is inaccurate and that the historical Jesus is a different being altogether from the one presented in the New Testament, this cat's for you.

He made a stop at Seattle Pacific University, gave four lectures and an interview. The following excerpts are from his speech entitled, "Decoding The DaVinci Code," in which he tackles the best-selling, and horribly researched, thriller - which alleges, among other things, that the true accounts of Jesus were the Gnostic Nag Hammadi so-called Gospels, including the "Gospel of Thomas" and the "Gospel of Philip," that Jesus was not divine, that the canon Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) were added and endorsed much later, specifically by rule of Emperor Constantine hundreds of years after Jesus died, that Jesus was basically a good and intelligent man who wanted to help people live good lives, and that Mary Magdelene had Jesus' love child and the Catholic Church is working hard to cover that fact.

What then about the place of Mary Magdalene, who, according to Dan Brown and some other writers, features strongly in the Gnostic writings, representing a goddess-figure, the embodiment of the "sacred feminine," the Holy Grail, the Rose, the Divine Mother? It is all pure imagination. (Well, it is at least imagination, certainly.) Mary Magdalene is mentioned in precisely three of the Nag Hammadi scrolls (as against "the countless references to Jesus' and Mary Magdalene's union" (333)). The "Gospel of Mary" is the report of a vision which sets the material world against the nonmaterial, seeing Mind as the intermediary of Soul and Spirit. This is fairly standard Platonic idealism; it is hard to see what it's got to do with the sacred feminine, but it's easy to see that it has nothing to do with a first-century Jewish prophetic movement such as that of Jesus. "The Gospel of Philip" is the one where Jesus kisses Mary - but the idea that a kiss was a key gesture of romantic attachment won't survive two minutes when we move away from Hollywood and into the real world of late antiquity. There is not the slightest sign, in Nag Hammadi any more than in the Dead Sea Scrolls, of Jesus being married to Mary and having a child by her. The "Gospel of Thomas" has one saying about Mary (51:19), in which "Jesus" states that "Mary will be saved if she makes herself male, because every female who makes herself male will become fit for the kingdom of God." That is hardly a ringing endorsement for the sacred feminine. If it's sacred femininity you want, you must look elsewhere, to various forms of paganism ancient and modern. These have become enormously popular in some strands of New Age and postmodern thinking. They have found their way into some revisionist versions of western Christianity. But they have nothing to do with Nag Hammadi and nothing whatever to do with early Christianity.

Dan Brown, apparently, can't be bothered to check his facts.

In particular, the resurrection of Jesus was central to early Christianity, though you'd never know that, either, from Dan Brown or from the many other writers who perpetrate the modern myth in its various forms... The early Christian gospel, which was then written up in the four canonical Gospels, was the good news, not that a new teaching about hidden wisdom had appeared, enabling those who tapped into it to improve the quality of their lives here or even hereafter, but that something had happened through which the evil which had infected the world had been overthrown and a new creation launched, and that all human beings were invited to become part of that project by becoming renewed themselves. In particular, this included from the start a strong political critique. Not the tired old left-wing harangue in Christian dress, of course, but a more subtle, more Jewish, more devastating critique: Jesus is Lord, therefore Caesar isn't. That is there in Paul. It is there in Matthew, in John, in Revelation. If the canon was written, or read, to curry political favor, it was dramatically unsuccessful. Those who were thrown to the lions were not reading "Thomas" or Q or the "Gospel of Mary." They were reading Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the rest, and being sustained thereby in a subversive mode of faith and life which, growing out of apocalyptic Judaism, posed a far greater threat to Roman empire and pagan worldviews than Cynic philosophy or Gnostic spirituality ever could. Why would Caesar worry about people rearranging their private spiritualities?

Indeed. Flippin' morons.

Oh, and can someone get me some Eugene Peterson? I already have most of The Message. I'd like Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, if you may.

Oratory Cheek debuts!

Was gonna mention this on the last post, but it got kind of stuffed with stuff I thought is more interesting. I started yet another blog. Now, this isn't the same as the collective blog, Further Up, that is fine quality work and that nobody is going to even though they should and start bowing before their screens in abject adoration. This is, more or less, a site for archiving my speeches and preachings and maybe some lessons, etc., most of which are just to long to accomodate here.

If you so desire, you may peruse my work. If you so desire, you may pilfer. (Genius steals.) I only ask that you ask and give credit where credit is due (I could set up a PayPal account quite easily.) No, it's free. (But seriously, I could use some donations!)

So, again, while I will continue to hype up Further Up And Further In, I will not continue to blow the horn for Oratory Cheek (Yes, talking and praying cheeks).

Once again, Further Up And Further In is here.

While Oratory Cheek is here.

That is all.

She's a bad mamma jamma

For those of us in youth ministry, the end of summer means the return of our daily lives. The semblance of sanity being restored. The voices of relentless and reckless kids slowly receding from our subconsciouses on otherwise comfortable nights. We can begin to evaluate, reevaluate, polish up our resumes, consider the costs of assuming new identities. All the post-partum depressive tendencies we tend to have at this season. (Just as those poor whiny teachers begin their lesson plans for next year - or mark off the days 'til pension rolls in and dream about their summer homes, yachts, and a world without children.)

One thing I've noticed, we are not naturally a reflective lot. We tend to be doers and not thinkers. Which is partially why I've loved this change of pace as a youth director. But, after trying it out for a year, I've realized this, it just ain't my style, baby!

I love being able to reflect. And I'm lazy.

Speaking of reflective youth workers, my man Stinger's come back from Venezuela and he's just starting to delve into his experience there. In the infamous and glorious words of Napoleon, sounds like he had "a killer time." Manos! Manos! Manos!

The Other Side of the Story of trips such as what Stinger (and a group from my church that just came back from Haiti) took can be viewed in the latest edition of the journalistic juggernaut, LarkNews.

Barbara Nicolosi was interviewed by the New York Times again, this time about the whole, "Christians don't like The Da Vinci Code? What's not to like?" flap. Read her entry here and the article here (NYTimes requires free registration). If you wanna see me in one of my angrier moods, click here.

One disconcerting exchange that she notes with the interviewer, however, is:

Barb: I heard that the studio execs behind The Da Vinci Code are worried that some Christians are going to put them on a hit list. Someone claimed to have gotten death threats during the making of The Last Temptation of Christ. It's so ridiculous. We aren't the ones who throw bombs.

NYTimes Reporter: (paraphrase) Well, there are as many Christians out there throwing bombs as Muslims. Look at all the bombings Christians do of abortion clinics.

Sometimes, I just feel sorry for people.

And, lastly but not leastly (because I actually got his permission), Victor Morton has a post on a radio commentary done over the CBC. You gotta love any post that begins, "From the soft tyranny to the north aka, the Soviet Socialist Republic of Canuckistan..." (Love ya, Christine.) Apparently, Bob Ferguson has a lot of opinions on what should be official Catholic beliefs, certainly those validated by the state.

If Catholicism were illegal,

Then it would be illegal to require a particular marital status as a condition of employment or to exclude women from the priesthood.

On State-controlled church doctrine:

Of course the Vatican wouldn't like the changes, but they would come to accept them in time as a fact of life in Canada. Indeed I suspect many clergy would welcome the external pressure.

[In all truth, would it be much different than the Canadian Episcopalian Church?]

We could also help the general cause of religious freedom by introducing a code of moral practice for religions. They will never achieve unity so why not try for compatibility? Can't religious leaders agree to adjust doctrine so all religions can operate within the code?

As part of this code of compatiblility, ministers would take standardized coursework, sign a pact on agreed-upon terms, etc. Are you catching this? He literally wants the state to "regulate the practice of religion."

It's a good thing that this engineering professor is humble and doesn't overstep his boundaries on things he knows nothing about:

I won't try to propose what might be in the new code except for a few obvious things: A key item would have to be a ban on claims of exclusivity.

And this pearl of swinery,

Religion is important in our lives, but it can become a danger to society when people claim that the unalterable will of God is the basis for their opinions and actions.

Yeah, we wouldn't want to base our ideologies on something we don't completely understand, do we?

And my favorite line goes to:

Now what is the point of proposing this? I do it because I am worried that the separation between church and state is under threat.

Thank you, Bob Ferguson. You've amused me to no end!

Good night!

Attention Deficit of a village...

Bought The Idiot today. Read chapter 1. Kept holding off buying Russian literature because, I reasoned, how would I ever teach it to inner-city high schoolers? Heck, forget them.

Throwing another barbecue at my brother's place. In the email invitation, I felt it was necessary to warn people to drive straight ahead and look like they know exactly where they're going - to the house of the only whites in the neighborhood, not to participate in the illicit activities the other whites are visiting for.

The post about the hot virgin is bringing some traffic to this site. Within the last three days, about five people Googled for Johan Khalilian expecting to learn something else about him or some pix or something. Ok, he was a communications major. He's a pretty effective communicator. His mother's Puerto Rican and his father's Persian. He likes Cross Movement and hip hop. That's it for today's gossip information.

The Paste Magazine CD sampler was hard as blood to get out. But worth it. Along with some John Hiatt, the Redwalls, Sun Volt, Death Cab for Cutie, and Frank Black, it's got some Denison Witmer. "East From West." And just like his crony, Sufjan, who along with the Innocence Mission's Don Peris (conspirators on this album) can talk avidly and simply about his Christian faith without the critical backlash. Or at least so much. Adam really seems to like it. So, I'll give it a buy after I drop Illinois in my CD bin.

Sam Ashworth, if memory serves, is Charlie Peacock's son. Paste doesn't rave about his music (3 our of 5), but Matt Slocum (of Sixpence None the Richer), John Davis (Superdrag - I think. I may have to research that), and Fleming McWilliams (wifey part - and supervocalist - of Fleming & John duo) really seem to like him. The song has the air of Peacock's Aim a Little Higher.

By the way, Timi is "Foine."

Meee-ow.

Want proof?

Isn't she hot stuff?

Even when she's concerned and worried about the trappings of life there's a sort of benign dignity about her.

Notice the way her lips curl. They scream, "You must know me, respect me, love me and my God. You must woo me and marry me before you get any smoochie-smoochie."

An honorable woman. A man who finds a Timi Allen (not the warmed-over comedian, but the warm, inviting and comely woman of God) finds a good thing.

Bookends

A couple quotes from Dostoevsky (why is it that everytime I see his name, it's spelled differently? They didn't have standard spelling in turn-of-the-century Russia?) and another from Tolstoy that I'm pilfering from Philip Yancey's The Jesus I Never Knew. Man, I miss writing quotes that I like. It's been awhile.

If anyone could prove to me that Christ was outside the truth, I would prefer to remain with Christ than with the truth. (p. 141)

The genuine realist, if he is an unbeliever, will always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous, and if he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would rather disbelieve his own senses than admit the fact. Faith does not... spring from the miracle, but the miracle from faith. (p. 163)

[Concentrating on the Sermon on the Mount, Leo Tolstoy says,] The test of observance of Christ's teaching is our consciousness of our failure to attain an ideal perfection. The degree to which we draw near this perfection cannot be seen; all we can see is the extent of our deviation. (p. 126)

And this is from an introduction to an interview with Cambridge professor (actually, "associate principle at Ridley Hall at Cambridge") and musician and conductor Jeremy Begbie.

Cultural forms [as in, art forms imbued within the culture] are not simply utilitarian or ornamental, but are expressions of an understanding of the nature of creation, specifically of human nature and human well-being. Cultural conventions usually take form at specific times and places because they’re compatible with a set of dominant assumptions about things. They are concrete crystallizations of abstract hopes, desires, and theories.

Friday I'm in love

I'm just kidding. Far from it. Ladies, you still have your opportunities.

Take me while ya got me.

It has been flippin' too much today. I'm gonna look for that great story-teller voice that is just aching to come out and tell today's events in an enthralling way (if not, I just may start another post I won't ever finish or I may just decide to bore you another way).

But I wanna hit - real briefly - on two small, peripheral points. One, it was kind of cool to see my boy, superboymodel Johan Khalilian (remarkably, I think I misspelled his name) on the cover of the RedEye today. I say "kind of" because:

1) the RedEye sucks big time. It's the equivalent of saying, not only can't our children read, but neither can adults ages 18-35. So let's give them an alternative paper (This one being published and produced by Tribune Company, which gives us The Chicago Tribune, WGN, half of the WB "network", and the Chicago Cubs.) that's really only a daily US Magazine with a farm league sports section.

2) the way they cover the story about grown-up virgins /celibates (the article apparently either doesn't know that last word exists or doesn't want to risk assuming that its readership does). I think the topic is good and it needs to have some light shed on it. It says that there are some of us still out there. (Hey, if you're 30 and still haven't gotten any, you're either extremely antisocial or serious about the business of celibacy.) The problem is, the focus (again, because of projected images of readership) was on the beautiful virgins (Huh?? They exist?), and was way too short to address the issue with any clarity or depth. Which is bad enough in a regular newspaper (especially Red State / Blue State qualifiers like the NY Times), but this is a rag which delivers the cover story in a two page spread where 1/2 of it is dedicated to photos and another chunk is given to seriously unrelated - read, garbage - sidebars. As much as I want to see The 40 Year Old Virgin later this year, it has nothing to do with a worldview of purity in sexual relationships. Neither, shocker, does Brittney.

Also, got a chance to shortly meet JR from the Cross Movement crew today. One thing I know is, if he hangs out with CM, he's got his head straight. But joe can sing, and produce. He's engaged, ladies, so sorry. (Of course, I'm still available and I ain't got all that baggage.) But he's dropping his latest in Oct.

Memory meme

Timi put me up to this. I still love you, sis.

Ten years ago: I was just starting college. And I was working part-time and I was paying out of pocket and saving money like crazy. Course it was a community college.

Five years ago: I think that's when I took a year off from school to decide my next major. Yeeeaaah, English Education!

One year ago: I was broke. Bum broke. Only ocassionally working. My friends were helping me out. But I was also getting ready to go to a terrific urban sports camp (KAA, you know!) with my brother, my good friend AJ (Happy Birfday, AJ!) and several loveable rugrats, two of whom are in Haiti this week. I love my rugrats. Oh, and I started working full-time for the church as an interim youth director.

Yesterday: We celebrated AJ's birthday. AJ likes to think of herself as a spy. That's ok, 'cuz we do too. For this surprise party, her roommates and best friends devised a fun little spy romp, where they'd leave little clues that lead to one another and lead to evidence (such as random pirate noises, etc.) that I had kidnapped them (hence, the Pirate Kidnapper text some of y'all got yesterday) and brought them downtwon to a factory (Cheesecake Factory, where the cheesecake is both really expensive and really rich. Honestly, I didn't eat dinner like everybody else did, and still I couldn't finish my slice. Course I had some burgers 'fore we left. But that was 5 hours before the cheesecake. And I, like Timi, LOOOOVE cheesecake!) where she could 'Declare our Independence' - meaning in the John Hancock building. She actually got the Cheesecake Factory reference, but somehow missed the Declaration of Independence reference, so she started looking for another room of some sort. Tracked her down like an animal. Lot of fun.

Huh? »

Today: Woke up before the alarm.

Tomorrow: Is Thursday. Baby steps, baby steps.

5 snacks I enjoy: Technically, not snacks: Cheesecake, Ice Cream, Doritos, Cookies, Frappaccinos. (I'm gonna be diabetic and lactose intolerant, I swear.)

5 bands that I know the lyrics of most of their songs:
Not all of the lyrics to songs, but a lot of them, and not all bands but, U2, Switchfoot, dc Talk (Sooo much shame!), Fred Hammond, Stevie Wonder & Cross Movement. 6, so what? They're all incomplete!

Stryper, eat your heart out!

5 things I would do with $100,000,000:
1) Get out of debt
2) Take care of my family
3) Buy a home
4) Use 20,000,000 to donate to World Vision, some other charities I believe in (KAA, Inner City Impact, my church). And yes, I do tithe now.
5) Start a company. It's the best way to get people work.
*This is all contingent on taxation. I'm figuring that I'll still owe the gov half even if I donate one-third and start a company with most of the rest. Now, if I started a corporation...

5 locations I’d like to runaway to: Hawaii. OK, I haven't the foggiest. I'm planning on going south in a few weeks in a rental car, so, we'll see.

5 bad habits I have:
1) Touch my hair.
2) Touch my face (oily skin I've got, can't be touching no face).
3) My bedroom's a super-duper mess and I always put it off.
4) I watch way too much late night tv.
5) Sarcasm.

5 things I like doing:
1) Writing
2) Reading
3) Having mixed intelligent/goofy conversations
4) Having someone make me laugh
5) Figuring things out (I'm pretty slow)

5 things I would never wear:
1) Skirt
2) Dress
3) Hot pants
4) halter tops
5) tattoos (I'm too beautiful to blemish my skin with ink)
Yes, the last three were Timi's, but they're applicable.

5 TV shows I like:
1) Simpsons
2) Letterman
3) Conan O'Brien
4) Buffy (It's been awhile, though. Don't laugh, it's got some of the finest writing, period.)
5) The Office *
*On DVD

5 movies I like:
1) Napoleon Dynamite
2) Hoop Dreams
3) Star Wars IV
4) Star Wars V
5) Magnolia

Don't lie, you thought I was gonna put an image of Napoleon, didn't you? What the heck is your problem?

5 famous people I’d like to meet:
They're dead. And they're the same ones others would say. And what would I say to them? "Wanna play me?"

5 biggest joys at the moment:
1) Spending time with my youth kids.
2) Spending time with my friends.
3) Alone time.
4) Writing.
5) Making someone laugh.

5 favorite toys: Toys? I can't afford toys!

Who's next?
I'm'a tag (and I know some are on hiatus and some ain't gonna want to do this, pero...) Adam Ant, Gabzilla, Alibabba, Destiny and - just for kicks - Micah, 'cuz he's bored out of his skull.

This is why I like reading Relevant Magazine online

After a fairly stale and unoriginal - though not without merit nor humorless - take on the death of the English language and its main culprit - the internet - several readers responded thanking the author of "The Impotence of Literacy," and a few tried to be witty.

But this is my favorite line of the week:

'it's also time the american people starting putting the u back into words like "colour"

language is constantly changing....'

Being mildly fascinated (paradox, I know) in linguistic history as well as an English teacher, I can attest that the responder is correct in that language is never static (For instance, double negatives were common in the English language - even in Shakespeare's time among the intelligentsia - until one brilliant man pointed out that double negatives in math equal positive equations, so therefore it should not work in language.) and, further, that there is no such thing as a correct English - besides what we confer as to being correct. But there is a huge difference between 'constantly' and 'radically' changing language.

The responder cannot, at will, change the meaning of words, basic punctuation, nor the function of syntax. There is no verb in that first sentence. Idiot.

Media-to-rare

Because I don't have anything clever to say today, these are the lyrics in entirety (without the obligatory labeling of chorus, verse, repeat, etc., and etc.) of Five Iron Frenzy's "Oh Canada." It is available on three different discs, of which two are live and of which I think I may own all three. But I will try to recollect solely from one of the live versions, sans printed lyrics.

welcome to canada
it's a maple leaf state,
canada, o canada,
it's great
people are nice here,
there's beef and stew
if you don't like it here
man, you sniff glue

the great white north
the kids say 'blah'
hosers say 'ah
it's not that bad.'

i want to be
where yaks can run free
where the royal mounties
can arrest me

let's go to canada
let's leave today
canada, o, canada
ay, s'il vous plait

they've got trees and mooses
and sled dogs
lots of lumber and lumberjacks
and logs
don't you think that it's kind of a drag
that you have to go in [?]
and get milk from a bag
they say "eh?" instead of
"what?" or "duh!"
that's the mighty power of canada

i want to be
where the lemmings run into the sea
where the marmasacks [editor: huh?]
can attack me

can you please
explain to me
how this all has come to be
we forgot to mention something here
did we say that william shatner is
a native citizen
and slurpees made from venison
that's here [?]

Thank you. Goodnight!

You think Leanor (the girl, of course) will accept my proposal...
for ice cream?

Followed by a courtship?

Speaking of girls (ok, I don't usually use that term, but, there's always exceptions to the rule), I'm liking Mary Mary's Mary Mary (sorry, already made that joke). Several scorchers toward the beginning are instant classics and hits just waiting to happen. Of course that may never happen for a few of the songs because of their self-referential nods to the '40s and '70s, two decades definitely not in favor with the Top-40 music crowd (and I use the term 'crowd' very loosely). Except for the clean-as-a-vacuum production and some latter-era Black Gospel vocal stylings, you'd almost swear some of these songs came out of that era, although "Heaven" does parch a riff from the 1970's. And of course, I'm embarrassed to say I don't even know who they copped, and that I've never heard of them. But even the instant hits begin to fit after a while, which is not something that I say often of female pop groups, or contemporary R&B. Mary, Mary quite contemplative. Yeppers.

The last stanza's a mess

While I was writing this simple little poem (Sometimes it's an exercise I do to clear my head so I can write some quality stuff. But sometimes it turns out quite all right on its own.) at the cafe, a couple were loudly and profanely demonstrating their grievances toward each other. And although it was almost funny at the beginning, it was also sad. Not for them. Forget them. It was sad for those of us enjoying the relative cool of the night (That day it surpassed a 100 degrees Farenheit, which is the scientific-equivalent term for So Hot You Can't Even Sweat No Mo') and trying to study/read/write.

how will i
will to do
what the few
choose to rule

cause matter
of the mind
still shattered
lingered time

never could
matter mind
take two pills
& grow a spine

The blogosphere is in danger of itself

I like the ideal of the coffeehouse setting, or what David Dark calls the Waffle House - an idyllic uniquely American locale where people of various opinion can opine, argue, inform and eventually - but not always - agree to disagree.

It occurs to me that, more than nearly any other sort of electric medium, the blogosphere (Or what I care to call the blogocosmos. Yes, you may borrow it. It'll satisfy my ego to no end to see that phrase everywhere in lights. And then I'll sue.) is such a place. It seems to fight against logic that blogs offer a respite for democratic civility, for 1) blogs revolve around the individual, rather than the communal and those that are set up for a sort of communal output - at least as far as the posts are concerned - do not tend to last long or be well-involved (cf. FurtherUP.blogspot.com) and 2) there are so many pages on the internet that those who carry a certain taste for a certain rhetorical polemical politicos can feasible feast solely on a staple of ideological ditto-heads.

Yet I see - and am involved in - several threads where maybe one person dissents to the small majority of faithful readers' opinion, holds up his or her own and is constantly rebutted by members of that online community in various opinions that belie as many differed opinions as shared. And in an atmosphere where the writer/replier can offer their opinion in the frame of several paragraphs while still holding interest of the reader/replier, the odds that intelligent dialogue is happening is greatly increased.

Contrast that to the endless gluttony of Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken fact- agreeants, whose diet is stable and malnourishing, at best. As a consequence, truth suffers for lack of vision. Although I am new to the blogging world, I have witnessed witnesses to democratic speech, people aware that others may not share their views and offer to share their own, usually in civility, with hopes of teaching and learning.

Maybe that sounds a bit myopic and severely naive. I've also seen environs of ridicule and meanness - the internet has long been infamous, for instance, as a place where violent and closet racists and child molesters can fester. But these are, by and large, places of anonymity, where one can enter and leave various chat rooms with a new identity intact and attached for each one, an electronic village of Sybils.

In order for bloggers to suffer our massive egos, on the other hand, anonymity must be kept at bay. We search other blogs not necessarily to find others that we may only agree with, but in search of friends - in the blogosphere and elsewhere, in search of people who can add to our blog as we do to theirs, usually out of joy, although sometimes out of boredom or sense of duty. Our identities, to a greater extent, certainly, stay intact with our personhood - or at the least, there is only one of each of us.

Add to that the newness of blogging itself. Although there are several veterans (veterans also being a relative term), an unscientific perusal finds that a good amount of bloggers are, like myself, neophytes, having done this for under a year. So, the blogocosmos is young, having just been spoken into existence. What we find, then, is a larger sense of community, a grouping of divergents coming together in defence of each other.

That thread of unity, however, may more quicky tear than we would desire. For disunity always starts somewhere, then feeds off itself until there is enough asexual reproduction to make any amoeba ashamed at its slowness. The cause, I believe, is not argumentation nor liberals nor conservatives. The cause, presumably, will not be over religious issues, but perhaps, over a false and pervasive religion that is spreading like a viral infection throughout at least the US - celebrity. (Who, after having seen Access Hollywood, E! Entertainment, or US Magazine can doubt the power of this strange cult of demigods?) Celebrities are now joining the tide and all reviews are heaving the thumbs down. Megalomania at its fiercist. What can Pamela Anderson offer the print and dialogical world? What possibly interesting tidbits of his life - that are not in his scripts - can Kevin Smith toss to his salivating fandom?

Pablum.

Real writers and journal-ists will not suffer more, will we? In order to take full advantage of our 15 minutes promised us by Andy Warhol, we will gladly rip the celeb-bloggers a new one. And in the process, the tearing of the fabric will begin and will not end.

Da- da -duhn!

Events

You know I don't like these "this is what's going on in my life" posts. Others, like Revolt, are really good at it. It's not much of my t'ang, y'all.

But, while I'm waiting for my resumes to print (stupid printer, stupid printer), thought I'd bore y'all too...

Finally bought Five Iron Frenzy's last, The End Is Here. They used to be one of my favorite bands. But personally, I'm not big on ska. I think it's a fairly limited musical form. Which is why I don't listen to much hard music. (By the way, if you don't own Arcade Fire's Funeral, what the heck is wrong with you? Pick it up. I said, "NOW!"). Five Iron, however, is a good ska band, and some great songwriters, in the tradition of - though not quite there yet - of a Steve Taylor or Terry Taylor. If you don't know who these two people are, what the heck is wrong with you? All right, I'll provide the links later.

But FIF is socially conscious and funny and fairly probing, in social, personal, spiritual and political matters (which, I think, is the way it should be). "Kingdom of the Dinosaurs" shall live on, mis gentes! I do have one more thing to say about it, at this point (Like I'll do a review on it. Puh-leeze!). Can somebody introduce me to Leanor Ortega? I think I want to marry her, or at least ask her to remove the court order.

I also picked up Mary Mary's Mary Mary, if for no other reason than to obligate myself to write the name Mary several times in a row. Actually, to my ears, it seems they avoided the sophomore slump on this, their third album. I wish they had also avoided it on their sophomore album. But dang, some Stax-like soul burners, a couple big band influenced torchers. A couple softy songs (not one for 'em, but their main demographic is girls so, go figure). Warryn Campbell is a genius (so much so he married one of them before I got the chance to even propose), although his rapping skills leave a bit to be desired. I still wish they'd take advantage of the skills of some of the finest rappers out there (hello ManChild, Ambassador, Coffee, Freddy Bruno, Pigeon... no, no Pigeon John. Sorry baby. Loose cannon.) And the sisters can sang, period. Especially in gospel music, they will just flat embarrass poseurs like Beyonce. But don't take my word for it, buy it.

I'll put links in later.

Oh, and tomorrow's the big day. Fly or crash and burn. If I don't get some bites at the Chicago Public School county/job meet & greet fair, I'm moving to the country. Skraight up, y'all!

Mars Ill is trying to kill me!

ProPain is the one album I've been looking forward to buying this summer. It was originally set to be released early in spring by Gotee Records. But there were some sample-clearing issues and Gotee wanted to push the record like it does with some of their other acts (Relient K is now on TRL. I didn't even know TRL is on tv anymore You know, like maybe it was on Kiss FM or something.) and/or something else.

But now the records being pushed back even further. And, to top it off, their site's still closed due to tech difficulties.

The news over at Deepspace 5's site is that the album was delayed by EMI, the evil distributor, for as-yet undisclosed reasons. In the meantime, listen to two new hots on their myspace (sorry, ladies) spot.

L.A. Symphony, apparently, is supposed to drop a fresh rec in Okt.

And apparently, getting a hold of Sufjan Steven's Illinois is hard to do - especially if you want a cover with Superman flying through Chicago (which I had always dreamed of) since DC Comics once again pulled out the cease and desist (just like they did for Capt. Marvel).

Flash Gordon, where are you? We need you!
5 points for both the references of that quote.

Edit: And check out their radio interview/performance.

Aslan is going to be played by...

Drumroll please....

...

...

...

Liam "Schindler" Neeson.

And the best joke (sorry I couldn't find the link, but credit goes to Peter T. Chattaway) I've heard about this so far, "This would make at least three films this year that Neeson has either given someone a sword and/or taught them to use it."

I see you still haven't learned to be aware of your bearings.

Lewisheads and fantasy film lovers: More Narnia news from ComicCon [Sorry, don't really know much about it. Kinda scares me. Comic book conventions, not The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, of which Aslan is the Lion.] available here. (If you haven't registered yet, what's your prob?)

People, I'm White!

I never did a John Walker-Lindh, I never pretended to be someone else. But some people have assumed (partially for cultural reasons, or the fact that I tended to have conversations with and about African Americans) that I'm Black. I'm not. In a sense, I'm not White either. But, I talk more about that here and in the near-to-distant future. In the meantime, I thought it just an excuse to post a picture of myself, but since I don't care for my pix, I decided to post a group photo. Thanks, Lori, miss ya kid.

10 points to the first one who guesses which one I am.

Graze

Once again, the poem of the week is an incomplete one. Which is okay, I suppose. I should start going back and complete some of them, or try to. Just as I should go back and complete some of the series and loose ends I said I would.

Pero, maybe I'll put some of them at Further Up & Further In, in a shrewd marketing campaign to draw people to that site (another one would be to pretty it up. But good things happen to those who wait.)

And for your reading pleasure:

so long

so far

so wide

i grazed

consumed

soil, grass

what's left

of it


so long

so far

i wade

on substance

that drips

like sweat that

glistens

the devil's back

Wim Wenders and projective space

Yes, that Wim Wenders!

OK, I won't pretend. I've yet to see Wings of Desire or any of his other films for that matter. But I loved the soundtrack for Until The End of the World, which inspired the Judas-kiss song of the same name by U2 and let us fans into their studio and minds months before they released Achtung Baby. It also gave us an acoustic peak at a song that T-Bone Burnett released on his brilliant and classic (but most likely out of stock) Criminal Under My Own Hat.

But he (Wimmy, that is) had some nice things to say in an interview recently about film and literature that I think are worth hearing (or reading). You can catch an abridged version here or you can go to the source (Again, my internet blocker's supersensitive spidey sense was tingling, so I didn't get a chance to read it yet). The gist of it, though, is that movies, like books and well yes, music, are best read between the spaces of the action and dialogue and happenings. The best stuff happens, he says, when you are allowed to "sneak in with your imagination, to dream on and to project your innermost hopes or fears or desires into what you see and thereby pushing it further." But of course, he says this in the negative, lamenting the passing of silent moments in the movie theaters.

Flame On!