Glorious Pieces of Steaming Schlock from the Interweb

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.

I usually don't cotton to Baptists...

but the video at the introduction to this sermon is incredible.

I don't necessarily follow his hermeneutic, but the pastor is correct--abortion, like slavery and institutionalized racism, is an issue of basic human or civil rights.



Pharaoh vs. Embryo from Russell Moore on Vimeo.

Two Recommendations

Graham Greene's excellent "The End of the Affair." It's beautiful, painful, moving, and Sarah's character and experiences mirror some of my own when it comes to faith.

Clint Eastwood's fantastic "Gran Torino." You can catch Clint delivering lines that no one but Clint can deliver, against the backdrop of Detroit's racial tensions and changing economy. It's quite a story. Caution: excellent banter with really strong language, in the way cool way only Clint Eastwood can growl. And a hundred different excellent deliveries of "hrrrm." Go and see.

And, congratulations President Obama. May you strengthen civil rights and the rule of law and finish the wars abroad.

Love of Self, Love of Others...

I think Clive Lewis would be the first to note that the easiest way to love yourself clandestinely is to love another for your own sake. And Graham Greene would be there to show you how it is done. The End of the Affair is an exquisite chronicle (so far...I am only a third of the way through) of the unenviable state of a soul which has nothing but itself to care about. Perhaps this is why human love is necessary in our reconciliation with our lives, the world, and God--we learn how much better it is to love another than one's self alone. So our surrender in the finite readies us to surrender and embrace the infinite. Losing ourselves in another is a good lesson for permanently surrendering our deep and abiding concern for ourselves. And this is necessary for our salvation.

Hooray for rediscovering the Houghton College Library! Free books...it's almost better than Amazon!

"The sense of unhappiness is so much easier to convey than that of happiness. In misery we seem aware of our own existence, even though it may be in the form of a monstrous egotism--this pain of mine is individual, this nerve that winces belongs to me and to no other. But happiness annihilates us; we lose our identity."

"As long as one is happy one can endure any discipline; it was unhappiness that broke down the habit of work. When I began to realize how often we quarelled, how often I picked on her with nervous irritation, I became aware that our love was doomed; love had turned into a love affair with a beginning and an end. I could name the very moment when it had begun, and one day I knew I should be able to name the final hour. When she left the house I couldn't settle to work. I would reconstruct what we had said to each other; I would fan myself into anger or remorse. And all the time I knew I was forcing the pace. I was pushing, pushing the only thing I love out of my life. As long as I could make believe that love lasted I was happy; I think I was even good to live with, and so love did last. But if love had to die, I wanted it to die quickly."

--Graham Green, The End of the Affair.

The Second-Best Christmas Gift

Francis Schaeffer was a pretty big figure in the evangelical world that I grew up in--he was a lion of a figure, a man of incredible intellect and a sweet goatee who founded a community called L'Abri in Switzerland.

His son, Frank Schaeffer, wrote a book about growing up at L'Abri, about his struggles with faith and family, and about how he ultimately left what he calls the "Religious Right." Somehow I conned Ian into getting me that book for Christmas. It's excellent--Crazy for God--and it's his memoir of a dizzying life as an early mover and shaker in a movement that ended with the identification of the Republican Party and conservatism with evangelical Christianity, his disillusionment with the movement and his faith.

I like it because it's personal--the conservative evangelical intellectual world was my world and Frank's world too, and his story jives with my story and there aren't many people out there with whom I can identify. And it tells the backstory on idolizing and isolating your heroes, getting lost in the heady feeling of belonging to some movement both critical and eschatological, and about questioning your faith without losing your mind or ending bitter and angry and burnt out. Frank's deep loyalty, love and admiration for his parents and their faith shines brilliantly in the midst of his own struggles with faith and criticism for the movement which embraced their family.

It's still probably good reading even if you don't identify with the memoirist, due to excellent passages on education, childhood, family, and a beautiful chapter dedicated to his love for his wife. Francis the Younger is, after all, a novelist at heart, and it shows up in the hurricane force five-page ode to the love of his life. Or, you could just read the interview here at the Rutherford Institute, which leans a little more towards exploring the world of politicized evangelicalism and is an interesting read on its own. Or you could listen to the interview on NPR's "Fresh Air" that got me started on this whole journey back in the beginning of December.

Encounters With Jesus From The Other Side

Can leftist lesbian journalists from San Francisco find Jesus? Or, in the more fun parlance, Will It Blend?

Also, some good reflections from Garrison Keillor.

And, of course, I have to agree with Mr. Keillor on the importance of proper spelling, because I'm uptight like that.

I [heart] Top Gear

Jeremy Richardson and Richard Hammond, while driving a Lamborghini through the stacked switchbacks in the Italian Alps.

Hammond: "The drops! It's impossible! If you go over the edge, you'll have time to phone the insurance company on the way down!"

Richardson: "Not like Playstation, this: you can't just press the "reset" button when you get it wrong. You just go straight through the pearly gates...on fire!"

Some High Falutin' Church Worship For Your Masses

Meditating on the icons has long been a way to contemplate Christ and His Work through the arts. So here is my favorite musical piece of all time, set to iconography--although I wish it did not change so quickly. I guess iconography can fall prey to limited visual attention spans even if there are no commercial breaks...

See! Via the internet, even a hillbilly in Wesleyan Countryfolk Heaven can experience some of the grandeur of a full church choir and high church art!

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additional note: in pondering the other day with Ethan, over fine beverage, it occurred to me that the happiest memories of my life are those of communal singing. So great thanks to brother David, for helping me startle all those tourists in Frankenmouth with robust carol singing.

Sufjan sings the same. Also, "For the Widows in Paradise, for the Fatherless in Ypsilanti."

Merry Christmas from the Night Shift!

I'm totally wearing some awesome Christmas Carhartt bib overalls while listening to BNL's "We Three Kings." Merry Christmas and yeee haw!

please please please please please

If anyone knows the whereabouts of my CD case with years' worth of collecting excellent music from excellent people, my iPod died and I need it back so I can listen to awesome tunes again...

Napoleon Confounds Mathematicians

The "strangely polarizing" 2004 comedy film "Napoleon Dynamite" counfounds programmers attempting to algorithmically predict people's taste in film in order to improve Netflix's movie-recommendation software. Apparently, it's difficult to predict people's reactions to Napoleon Dynamite.

Read Well...

"I am not a well educated man except that I have educated myself, and,
because I have educated myself, what I say will not stand up, for lack of recognized authority. This in turn leaves me free to say what I will, in the hope that, like those small forces that do not threaten empires and are thus not fully pursued, the things in which I believe can survive in some high and forgotten place until the power of empire subsides.

"And although I know that few will listen to or credit this, I think we are in a lost age, in which holiness and charity have been traded for the victory and penetration of knowledge, though all the knowledge in the world has not brought us any further than where we can go without it even in the outermost halls of grace. I believe that more is to be known and apprehended from the beauty of a face than in delving, no
matter how deep, simply into how things work, no matter how marvelous that may be. The greatest substance of the world is immaterial, the province of the heart, and its study cannot be forced or reasoned. Merely to touch upon the edge of things in parsing their mechanics is to forswear their fullness, for the entry to this fullness lies not in science but in art. I cannot prove this, for it cannot be proven, but I claim, assert, and have seen it."

— Mark Helprin, found here. Read his excellent, touching and well writ essay on humanity in the technological age here. No, seriously, take fifteen or twenty precious minutes and read it...it will give you perspective on your soul. It's about accelerated tranquility. It's got a sweet description of the life of a British civil servant from the turn of the century. It's not idealistic. It's better than good information--it's got wisdom.

Laugh

This is pretty funny.

--edit--

heh heh...from the Pittsburg Post-Gazette:

"...Ms. Donnelly, who heads the nonpartisan Center for Military Readiness, argues that ordering women to serve in combat is lowering standards and creating resentment among male soldiers. "There are differences between men and women where physical strength is an issue."

That's a point Ms. Manning, a Navy veteran, disputes.

"There are some pretty strapping women out there," she said..."

Tactfully put, Ms. Manning.

Classy Speech

Senator McCain shushes the booing crowds and gently rebukes the rancor and divisiveness of the long campaign. Very statesmanlike. Honorable. Classy. This is a McCain who impresses me. He plaintively asks his booing audience "Please, please..." and I wonder if he is occasionally saddened that the nation for which he endured war, prison and torture so easily descends into indecency, suspicion, bitterness and hatred, and if the necessities of campaigning warred against a basic sense of honor, patriotism, and friendship for his fellow Senators.



When Senator McCain takes the responsibility for failure of the campaign, I think he is speaking of his failure to set an example as a statesman--his failure to match President-Elect Obama's marriage of firm convictions with civility, tranquility and faith in democracy. He did an excellent job of not playing the victim. Obama seemed to rise above anger, bitterness, and spite, and encouraged his supporters to hope and believe and act. McCain didn't manage to do that--I think he got lost in a campaign of fear, rancor, self-importance, arrogance, excitement, and the odd emotions of a stubborn, beer swilling reverse-elitism.

The Old King Is Dead...

Long Live the King! errr, ummm...I mean, congratulations and best wishes, President-Elect Obama! May you lead wisely, govern capably, and promote justice and peace in the land.

Thoughts from the post-election sandy-eyed dreary blur:

-I haven't successfully slept more than four hours on a presidential election night since H. W. was in office. I am and always will be incurably a political animal. I "just stopped by" the campus centre for a few minutes between working out and getting to be on time for work this morning, and started talking...and got to be at around one-ish.

-I earnestly feel bad for my most earnestly liberal friends: nothing crushes revolutionary high hopes like winning the revolution. I mean, we had a Republican Revolution and all we got was a couple of messy wars, the death of compassionate conservatism, deficit spending, government intrusion into the financial sector and the serious erosion of civil liberties. The only thing more frustrating than being powerless is being in charge when your high aspirations and messianic dreams meet the harsh limitations of reality.

-Hoooray for America! 225+ years of violence-free elections. Three cheers for the rule of law! And good for us, the land of equal opportunity, where Austrian bodybuilders can call themselves the REAL Americans and a Harvard educated, extremely articulate, very-palatable-to-white-culture son of a white woman can be hailed as the first black president. What exactly are the qualifications for being the first "black" president? Could he have been the first black president if only his grandfather, instead of his father, was black? Great-grandfather? (Is there some sort of black-ness test, involving ability to dance, general sense of "cool"...was it that fist-bump thing?) Is Obama really African-American, considering that his father was a bona-fide African, and his mother was a white American, so neither of his parents were actually African American. And was that really bona-fide country music I heard blaring at his victory party in that Chicago baseball field? What is the significance of Michelle Obama's hairstyle? At any rate, let's take a deep breath and be proud of our country, where President-Elect Barack Obama can be judged by the content of his character. As Mike said, "there is no question that I am proud of America for accepting the leadership of someone who 50 years ago wouldn't have been allowed to ride the same bus with his Vice President(-elect)."

-'Kay, time for a question--I know what Obama's opponents thought he would do as president. What do you, my friends who voted blue, think his first hundred days will look like?

For All Those Dutifully Kow-Towing to the TSA

..."I once asked Michael Chertoff, the secretary of Homeland Security, about this. 'We actually ultimately do have a vision of trying to move the security checkpoint away from the gate, deeper into the airport itself, but there’s always going to be some place that people congregate. So if you’re asking me, is there any way to protect against a person taking a bomb into a crowded location and blowing it up, the answer is no.' ”

A journalist decides to see how easy it is to smuggle prohibited items onto commercial flights.

old skool

Steve Taylor, on Greed. This quirky early CCM singer-songwriter (he broke his ankle jumping off a stage at Cornerstone...in 1984) was a satirical genius...Too bad he wasn't quite polite enough to make it as a CCM artist. He's a done a lot behind the scenes, however, including writing and producing for the Newsboys and Sixpence None The Richer.

He penned the lyrics to this song, one of the better songs the Newsboys ever recorded, before they lost John James, and his edgy honesty, to a battle with drugs and alcoholism. Ten years after I started listening to Newsboys, and I still know every word to this song.

It's tough voting Republican...

in a world of completely unethical Republicans. Perhaps you have received an email detailing the number of deaths in the armed services year by year since 1980, coming to the conclusion that, under the Clinton Administration, 14,107 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines died, while only 7,932 died under good ol' dubya, bless his heart.

This is, naturally, contradictory to "common sense," which is the point of this email. The numbers even come with a source. So I read the source, and it was pretty impressively researched. It had lots of food for thought. But, the numbers in the email were sometimes significantly different than the ones in the report (see chart, page 10). I ran a quick tally with a calculator, and verified my results with two other reports.

Clinton: 7,500 active duty military deaths.
Bush: 8,792 active duty military deaths, not counting 2007 or 2008.

Which is still pretty impressive, considering that Bush is waging two wars. Apparently, there are a good number of deaths by accident/illness/homicide even in off-years. But, seriously, did you really believe that 2000+ American soldiers died each year in 1995, 1996, and 1998 (more than died in any year of the wars in Iraq/Afghanistan?)

Hey, well, real numbers doesn't make down-home, righteous, self-assured Republicans feel better about their war. Believing something because it makes liberals out to be stupid, incompetent, unpatriotic, sniveling, add your descriptor of choice, does.

So, Americans everywhere. Could we find a way to elevate our discussion of public policy to something better than lies and vilification? Let's start here.

I, Dan Holcomb, pledge not to be gullible when someone walks by waving the flag and selling an a feel-fear/feel-good/feel-superior agenda. I pledge to take seriously the governance of our society, which is an inheritance of great value passed down to me by ancestors both conservative and liberal, and which has no legions of liberal-American-hating/conservative-reactionary-war-loving enemies but actually is constituted of a lot of people like me, except with different unfounded and often reflexive opinions. I pledge to not believe something because it fits what I already believe or want to believe, but to ask to see some real evidence. I pledge to resist actions and thoughts that come from lazy conditioning and emotional impulse.

And foremost, I pledge not to feel superior to someone else because of my ideology. I will, instead, feel superior based upon my actions--the things I actually do to make my city, my county, my state, and my country a better place, not just by voting so that someone else can be my moral scapegoat, but by doing it myself.

--

ps--for those of you involved in education, the armytimes.com article about this email would be an excellent discussion-starter on the importance of doing your own research and getting solid sources and then checking the addition and subtraction yourself instead of believing an email just because it claims to use data from a reputable source.

--

pps--I am accepting 500-word submissions at reifiedbeans+comedy (at symbol) gmail.com. Topic: creative explanations for the "mistaken" numbers in the email in question.

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also, is anyone reading this? I've been posting a lot lately, but...no comments. Am I obnoxious? Uninteresting? Under the radar? Send me some love. Cheers!

sweet t shirts

oh yeah

also: cool stuff...

five dangerous things you should teach your children to do. I like the emphasis on empowering children, inspiring inquiry, and engaging with the world in a way that involves breaking it down into knowable bits. In spite of my initial skepticism after his admission that he has none of his own. Love the introduction to civil disobedience in the last one. Even law-abiding citizens shouldn't be mindlessly so.

alternatively, you could just go full-Bedford and model cliff jumping

finally, someone besides Daniel Quinn who questions the belief that agricultural societies are, as a whole, better off than hunter-gatherer ones, but with more evidence. [edit: well, more anecdotal evidence--no sources].

finally, don't mess with the Indian Navy. they will use their tiger torpedoes on you.



from the big picture.

oh, and, because of my love of all things post-apocalyptic--apocalypse as pornography.

and one more thing--all the people in the world, represented by grains of rice.

--edit again--
As you might be aware, the top five of my google reader shared items are available on the upper lefthand corner of my little blogsite here. Basically, it's interesting reading. I've updated the header there to link to a page where you can see all my google reader shared items, and I think even comment on them, which would be cool. There's some good reading there. And I chose the "ninja" style, because they didn't have a pirate one. So check it out!

Ahhhh, Jon Stewart...

You Are So Painfully Funny (With Russian Subtitles, For Extra Irony and Human Impact)

found here (warning--there are a few very obviously dead bodies in some of the other posts)