For your purview, gentle readers, I submit:
Josh Harris' brothers, Alex and Brett, have to win a lifetime achievement award for poorly chosen names. This is what happens when you take yourself just a little too seriously for just a little too long...you launch a conference tour on your gag-reflex-inducingly christened "rebelution" website to promote Christian teen countercultural virtue and you call it...
The Do Hard Things Tour. WIN! Michael Scott on line 1, what's that Michael? That's what who said? I can't hear you!
And, thanks to youtube, we have this wonderful example of, like, awesome. Her inflection is spot on! Brilliant! Perfect delivery! I so want to buy her DVDs! I'm sure this is the wave of the future! No more airports! I'm off to Tahiti, in the Spirit! Perfect solution for our economic AND environmental problems. God is soooooo neat, ya' know?
But now to what I'm really interested in. Dear self-professed President Obama enthusiasts...[cough, cough, Shaffners, ahem, Dierckses, hrmmmm, Perrine]...I'm hearing a stunning lack of commentary on...well...on this stunning piece of church-camp-esque adoration:
I mean...wow. These are all, I grant you, mostly good things, and the world will be varying degrees of a better place if they get around to doing them. That guy, for instance, pledging to "consider myself an American, not an African-American"--with total sincerity, I applaud that most excellent and important idea. And we're all glad that Diddy is turning his lights off, and that that other guy has enough money to buy a hybrid. Planting trees, and volunteering in the community are excellent, excellent things that we all should be doing, regardless of who the president is. Maybe it was taking it a bit far to have Ashton Kutcher utter the words dignity and respect in a serious venue, but, hey, the kid's got to grow up some time.
But look at the narrative focus: a renewed sense of hope, personal betterment, and a false sense of personal attachment to/identification with a faraway impersonal powerful figure (You Are Not Alone!? He's rich, powerful, successful, and highly educated--he's not really needing my sympathy!) That's either religious enthusiasm or a cult of personality, Idi Amin-style. Seriously--this is pretty schlocky for the iPod set. Where's the cynicism? C'mon, folks, I expect better of you than this. In all honesty, and I ask this of my liberal friends--because I know my conservative friends' views already--how would you respond to this if it was Charlton Heston promising to teach children marksmanship and gun safety?
So, my friends who voted for our new President--what do you think of this millennial euphoria sweeping across the nation? What is it, from whence does it come, how long will it last, and what will be the end of it? Please, email me, I'd like to hear what this looks like from your point of view. Everyone else, feel free, I suppose, to comment away about Hitler youth, socialism, the end times, the ongoing ministry of what is turning into the Harris dynasty, and how really, really, really awkward that extreme prophecy lady is for people who, well, believe in prophecy and the Holy Spirit and all that.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
lol@do hard things
Really, I think the Obama adoration is mostly in response to 8 years of misery and hopelessness under Bush. Now we've got a guy who at least talks the talk, and we're willing to give him a chance to walk the walk.
If Charlton Heston wanted to teach children marksmanship, I would call him a traitor to zombiekind, because all it takes to stop a zombie is a clean shot to the head.
Also, I wonder if the "rebelution" of "doing" "hard things" includes any saddlebacking?
Ah, the new orthodoxy. Help me, now, I forget, which is the greater sin, using plastic bags, or consuming petroleum distillates?
These are statements of faith, not wisdom statements. "Claiming themselves to be wise, they have become fools..."
so i only skimmed this post because i am multi-tasking to the extreme right now (and still in my pjs) but the whole obama-is-the-messiah thing gives me a great sense of foreboding. it is dangerous to make a living person an icon.
we like obama and what he stands for and i am anticipating good things, but am trying to keep my expectations in check. (although i admit to shedding a few tears of joy listening to npr the day after the election.) i am just watching the video right now (hadn't come across it before) and think that obama himself would probably have a hard time watching this with a completely straight face, especially in light of the other videos i will not link to that came out during the previous administration. not sure if this is more a "yay, obama!" or a "take that, bush!" it's probably equal. the hollywood liberals are giddy with excitement.
to quote obama (re: the death of harold washington), "...people preferred the dream to the reality, impotence to compromise." i am afraid that this is what will happen with obama supporters if he fails to deliver just the way they'd like or, heaven forbid, spends too much time pursuing bipartisanship. the bar has been set quite high. but i guess this video is a pledge that they will be loyal. ha ha.
wrong place to do this, but have you read "Dreams from My Father?" the fact that he is the president (and a bit of pithiness) aside, it is an excellent, excellent read and brings up a number of issues i find particularly interesting being a mixed-race immigrant and also having lived in e. africa. i just almost wished i had read it BEFORE the obama worship began.
(another quote re: harold washington's death that is somewhat related: "By the time of the funeral, Washington loyalists had worked through the initial shock. They began to meet, regroup, trying to decide on a strategy for maintaining control, trying to select Harold's rightful heir. But it was too late for that. There was no political organization in place, no clearly defined principles to follow. the entire of black politics had centered on one man who radiated like a sun. Now that he was gone, no one could agree on what that presence had meant."
watch the video again and chew on THAT.)
BUT having read "An American Wife" (Sittenfeld) recently, cringing through the portrayal of Bush, reading a book actually WRITTEN by the current president--and written well--is an experience, indeed.
longest post comment ever.
and why are you blogging lots again after a year or two of silence?
Post a Comment