I have been a ghost denier most my life.
But now I’m going to have to rethink everything I thought I knew.
These paranormal investigators are the real thing. I’ve seen a lot of real fakey “ghost hunting” shows but none reaches the bar set by the Westside Apparition & Paranormal Society for scientific rigor and journalistic excellence.
This show will be gaining wide circulation soon and I can’t wait to see more from WAPS.
As for myself, with the newfound knowledge I have, I’m going to have to do some hard soul searching to figure out if I’m going to have to change my religion.
Here is a statement lifted directly from ProtectMarriage.com:
http://protectmarriage.com/why-marriage-matters
“Traditional marriage is the foundation of society and has served our state well for centuries. California’s constitutional marriage amendment exists to strengthen society, encourage monogamous and loving marriages and to provide the optimal environment to ensure the well being of children. Thirty-one other states, including California have voted on this issue and every single one decided against legalizing same-sex marriage and instead upheld traditional marriage. California has voted on the issue twice and the people’s voice has been resounding: marriage is between one man and one woman.“
I want to break down that paragraph but before I do, I ask that you notice that in no way does it argue from to Justice, the Constitution or basic precepts of our founding fathers, compassion, or the virtues of a secure, harmonious society. It does not, nor can it, be supported by the progress of expanding freedom and equality which marks our nation’s history nor does it appeal to the core of our great historical faiths.
Please allow me to break it down a bit. “Traditional marriage…”
Whose tradition? Even if humans revealed to have a universal and consistent behavior or cultural expression, American ideals and virtues of law have never and could not successfully uphold it. Suppose that all people around the world from the dawn of recorded history said that marriage could only be recognized as one man and woman at a time (which is not so) that could not compel our laws to enshrine it.
But marriage isn’t a social construct that is consistent from people to people, religion to religion, or over time. When someone says “traditional marriage” a person of good conscience and thoughtful disposition may counter with “whose tradition? Are you operating from an imagined and mythic model? And are you further supposing that that one figment of your redacted and reductionist ‘history’ shall apply to all people in California despite their ‘traditions’?”
“is the foundation of society…”
Slavery was the foundation of America’s society, culture, and economy for over a hundred years and segregation for many more. What ‘foundations’ of our society are inherently worth keeping? Is religion a foundation of our society? Many might argue ‘yes’. Should religious feelings or expressions be mandated?
Some might say that compassion, equity, law, and neighborly love are foundations of not only ‘society’ but a ‘healthy civil society’. To those that would say that, America’s history bears out that you are correct and that is the due course of our nation’s promises.
“and has served our state well for centuries…”
You mean California? A state where violence against people based on their identity still is pervasive?
Jessica Hansen-Weaver writes:
“…Avy Skolnik, a coordinator with the New York-based National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, noted, ‘Anytime there is an anti-LGBT initiative, we tend to see spikes both in the numbers and the severity of attacks. People feel this extra entitlement to act out their prejudice.’….“
http://socialistworker.org/2009/01/19/anti-gay-hate-crimes
Can California not improve? Could it not be possible that when a state upholds law, the Constitution, and moves towards the equal treatment and non-discrimination of any people civil goodness will surely follow?
Anytime a person says “Things are going pretty well. Let’s not change anything!” A person disposed towards justice will ask: “What unfair privileges of race, class, religion, gender, or hetero-normativity do you enjoy? What are you protecting? Justice or your privilege?”
“California’s constitutional marriage amendment exists to strengthen society, encourage monogamous and loving marriages and to provide the optimal environment to ensure the well being of children…”
Note that it only notes the stated intention of the amendment. It cannot truly and honesty state that it is effective towards these ends. I challenge anyone to demonstrate how Prop 8 has in any way ‘strengthened society’ since its inception. I dare someone to (with a straight face) argue that monogamous and loving marriages are encouraged. Let’s call Charlie Sheen and ask him how his marriage has benefited so far. Let’s ask the thousands upon thousands of couples that file for divorce or sneak around hiding their infidelity. Let’s ask the children of LGBTQ folk who cannot get married how well they are because their parents can’t marry. This statement above challenges hardens the heart and sears the conscience.
“Thirty-one other states, including California have voted on this issue and every single one decided against legalizing same-sex marriage and instead upheld traditional marriage. California has voted on the issue twice and the people’s voice has been resounding: marriage is between one man and one woman.” What they don’t mention are the instances of states and nations that have afforded full protection of all people without discrimination.
Are these examples against the law? Criminal?
How are Norway, South Africa, Spain, Sweden revealing the negative results of equality? Iowa? Has the media turned a blind eye to the social destruction that has occurred in Vermont?
What this statement affirms is that while there are no negatives to equality before the law, there are still people who wish to discriminate in some places of the world. The good news is that in California, the slim margin of those who wanted discrimination barely won and their numbers are melting away each day.
The largest affront to American ideas, ethics, justice and the conscience is the insinuation here that “majority rules”. This is not the American way. Even if a vote were held today in America where the resulting action took away women’s right to vote, would that make it Constitutional? Just? Ethical?
America has and always will have the promise of protecting the minority from the majority. Might does not make right.
Thankfully we live in a country where, albeit slowly and hard fought, justice expands.
I live in California and I want all people here to have equal treatment before the law. I want the courts to be a safe haven where reason, fairness, and good conscience rule the day. I want to be able to look at my friends and loved ones from LGBTQ communities and not be ashamed of my state protected privileges over them.
I am a proud Catholic and I will not stand idly by and watch my neighbor come under the oppression and marginalization of a uncompassionate law. Rather, I am determined to love my neighbor as myself and seek greater justice by strengthening the bonds made of human dignity and profound faithful love.
I love thinking about technology, and until my recent breakup with coffee had many tooth staining mornings doing just that. I just finished reading Edward Tenner’s “Our Own Devices: How Technology Remakes Humanity” and found it a fun (albeit sometimes repetitive) friendly read. Tenner is right on the money as far as I’m concerned in revealing technology as an expression of humanity’s ‘grip’ unto the world. The web of tools at humanity’s ever creative disposal is more the force of gravity that holds societies and human self-understanding together or the fingernails letting us ‘hold onto’ meaning and existence.
Tenner brings it all home by exploring the sometimes easy to forget technologies that we take for granted because they’re liable to not have a product placement shot in your favorite Bourne movie. With the intention of initating a reflection upon how each individual, society, and the course of human history is intimately bound to technology Tenner has thoroughly researched shoes, chairs, glasses, helmets, and baby bottles.
Tenner’s work is very useful in the distinction he makes between technology, “modifications to the environment”, and technique, “how technology is used in performance”. From this he follows Marcel Mauss in explicating the concept of ‘body techniques’ which are the direct bodily impacts of interfacing with the technology permeated environment. Even this last sentence gives strength to the false premise that the environment is other than human and their tools.
You’ll hear some people complain that “Computers are creating a situation where they are a crutch. No one is thinking anymore.” And I would answer, in a way that I feel Tenner would support, “To say that something is a crutch is to assume there is a correct, natural, or normal way for humanity to be expressed. That is simply not so. Humanity as comtemporary theories go was literally born out of the control of fire technologies. There is only change and transformation as organic and nonorganic elements converge.” If one is wont to charge technology of being a crutch, Tenner would lead them to confront the everyday technologies of shoes and chairs. Both are technologies that our bodies were not and are not designed for. Though we hear about advanced “ergonomic” shoes and chairs they will continue to cause inordinate strain and body adaptation. They are as Tenner says, machines whose primary if unintended effect is to produce more dependence on them. They are, like most perennial technologies like Cracker Jack’s: “The More You Eat The More You Want”. Shoes and chairs create modifications to the actual structure and function of one’s body. You need not get a penis splice to enter into ‘body modification’ (bod mod) clubs.
So what about my title? How is a body a ‘learned artifact’? Well, the body is an interpreted and socially constructed material. It is used to produce, entertain, reproduce, consume, eliminate. And yet very little we ‘do’ with our bodies is involuntary or unlearned. The ways our bodies interact with surroundings particularly the technologies are our body techniques. These techniques are as defined to the time, context, and culture as any Hopi blanket.
What was especially interesting to me was the way that our body techniques can continue to flourish while operating under less than maximum performance results. I came up with three categories that Tenner does not use but came to me while reading “Our Own Devices”: 1) ‘successful bad ideas, 2) delayed effective techniques, 3) non-ideal conventions.
First, successful bad ideas are those things which for whatever reason seemed to have their reign even though bodies were reporting (even unto death) their ineffectiveness. In this category we could include the use of oils and various powders for household minor burns even though we know that the body responds best to simply cool water. The American Red Cross will now advocate running a minor burn under tap water, but even when I was young my mother who is a nurse had me put corn starch on a burn received while being stupidly patriotic (redundancy?) with a firecracker. Vaseline, as Tenner points out, was classicly sold as a burn relief in its incipient years. Speaking of the Red Cross, one can have a grand time looking at some of their archival pictures of lifeguard training for proto-CPR. Pushing on the back, rolling over a barrel, pumping legs, etc. all were used at one time. Even within the last few decades there have been changes to the Red Cross guidelines and famously they differ from American Heart Association. Of course we know that new EMT and hospital information and statistics come in each year and new techniques can be tweaked and explored, but what do we make of the historical procedures which seem to encourage a speedy death? I see some people doing a common iteration of this idea when they blow into the eye of someone who has dust or an eyelash in their eye. I saw a mother recently hold her young crying son’s eye open and blow heartily into it. “There. Now rub it.” She said. What?! Hot air filled with more dust and possibly Doritos in an eye and then rubbing it? How did this ever catch on?
Secondly, Tenner does a great job pointing out events in sports which revolutionized them. The Fosbury Flop, and the Front Crawl introduced to Europeans by Flying Gull and Tobacco are just two examples of Delayed Effective Techniques. These are body techniques which seemed to lag behind (at least for some) what was certainly possible but perhaps never imagined. The Jump Shot and Slam Dunk are other examples from sport. My father told me how when he was in High School Terry Kunze wowed the whole conference and could bring a gymnasium to its feet just by dribbling behind his back.
Lastly there are Non-Ideal Conventions of body techniques including birthing (laying on back with feet restrained in stirrups or more humanely of late within the hands of loved ones) or bottle feeding rather than breast feeding. There is also the convention of how many brush their teeth. No matter how many times our dentist tells us: “Brush softly and in small circles” we are determined to brush our teeth like we’re trying to buff out a scratch on our Honda. And I am sure there are many who could add to this list popular sexual ‘moves’ whose existence is mysterious if not troubling. How these conventions arise and how they are encouraged is yet to be explained to me.
I will conclude with just a thought of applying our body operations failures and limitations to how we think of gender and sex. Looking back at how bodies have and are now continued works in progress without ‘natural’ perameters of ability or a ‘given’ scope of performance how can we expect the social construct of gender and sex binaries to change in the near future? Maybe we will be able to identify across mainstream contemporary American communities that gender/sex binaries have been a ‘Successful’ Bad Idea, and a Non-Ideal Convention. Perhaps also we will look to current Trans and GenderFuck individuals and communities as bringing a long-awaited paradigm shifting prophetic voice to allow bodies to learn a more full and more honest mode of being in the world.
Tenner, Edward “Our Own Devices: How Technology Remakes Humanity” (New York: Vintage Books. 2004)
“Up In The Air” is a lemon merange pie that your neighbor who drinks too much and has open sores around their mouth made. It was made to please and has all the seemingly right ingredients but something’s amiss and it smells like Red Stripe.
And that may sound good to some people, so to those who enjoy rancid saccharin–go for it.
Otherwise, stay away from this Oscar-begging, chock full airsickness bag.
I know that it must be hard translating a novel about most people’s least favorite ‘locations’: hotels, airplanes, dismal corporate offices, and Wisconsin. Reitman had his work cut out for him and I think he failed. How can I say this? Isn’t this supposed to be “Oscar Buzz” stuff?
Well, that’s exactly part of the problem. It seems determined to please the Oscar Usual Suspects: old white douchbags. It parades like its ‘timely’ because it discusses the global economic collapse but that’s just a backdrop to frame its gimmick: The lead character’s job is to fire people. That’s compelling right? That kind of thing got “Sunshine Cleaning” made!
The movie gets confused on the point of how it wants to deal with this issue also. Is this a character study about Clooney or is it a statement to our beatdown nation where many have been laid-off and only more are just waiting for the axe? The first seems the natural answer, but there isn’t much character to study here. The one scene of transition comes wrapped up in a cliche: “I’m here to tell you about my old philosophy…but wait….my new philosophy might just make me act on it right now and I’ll have to run away to the airport to do something really romantic!” It also muddies the water by spending as much time as it does on the characters being laid off and then for some unknown reason….(actually the reason to appear populist and to appeal to jerkoff Oscar voters who actually got suckered in for the ‘Crash’ schmaltz)…the film includes a number of “real life” confessionals of people who had lost their jobs. Why? Who are they talking to? How do they in any way fit into the movie? Don’t ask. Just gape and say “how timely! How true to real life!”
What Oscar could this be in the running for? Not script (cliched sentiments, bad jokes and phony dialogue) or directing. Certainly not acting for who’d get a nod? The either lifeless or high school drama class acting of Anna Kendrick? (her crying scene is laughable in the way of: ‘did the director tell her to mimick Lucille Ball?) Or is it the nothingness of Vera Farminga (whose character is as empty as Clooney’s apartment)? Or is it Clooney doing…..Clooney? (And what else would he do? He shows up on set, flings the charm and goes home. Which is not a bad thing per se. I’m just saying charisma does not good acting make. Notable exceptions include Jack and Tom.)
Somebody said that this is one of the most depressing movies of the year. I wish I could give it that compliment. If it really dwelled in hard places and took a tough stance or any stance at all, that could be true. But its just boring and unmoving and uninspired. Insipid? Maybe. A waste of time? Yes.
Of note: The movie was exacting laughter from the theatre–only the laughter came exclusively from the middle aged set. The younger people I saw in the audience were absolutely listless. Is this the mid-life white folk who love “According To Jim” and Jay Leno? Most likely. And that means this movie will garner some Oscars.
Final Word: A paint by numbers movie unsure of what its doing with unlikeable characters who make no changes with a ‘climax’ consisting of a “Grey’s Anatomy” bad episode scene and hokey jokes. Oh and George Clooney is sexy.
My name is Ryan McGivern, I am a faithful Irish Catholic and I wanted to share that your comments on the appointment of Amanda Simpson as Senior Technical Advisor within the Commerce Department were hurtful to many Christians.
I wonder what ‘political correctness’ means to you. Does it mean being compassionate towards others?
Or are you using ‘political correctness’ in the false understanding it bore in the 1990′s to discredit justice work along racial, gender/sex identities, and other social constructs?
It seems from your statements, you are belittling the success of this woman, and not giving her the same integrity and respect you would to any other woman.
I love Christ and I love transgendered people. I know a number of Trans Christians and we have worshiped alongside each other and I am glad to share in the same Spirit.
I leave you with this question: What would happen if the love of Christ was so real that it could celebrate all peoples’ successes and applaud the labor of each person?
Would that be a scary thing?
The progress of Trans folk in America will not be diminished with ‘political correctness’ rhetoric.
Yours, Ryan McGivern
Contact J. Matt Barber:
jmbarber@liberty.edu
434 592 5300
Thus saith the Bard: A short time ago in a sea far, far, away there was an island named Ithaca. It was not so very different than any other place. There were the normal goings about that occur in any city where the inhabitants secretly hate each other yet rally around the shared greater hatred for foreigners. People could say that it was a shining city on a hill if it weren’t for the coal ash besoaked walls and low lying anthrax clouds.
The whistle from the factory each day heralded another venture to the bar which softened the hard blow of returning home and the church bells signalled the rush to the colosseum to find out what the score was in the big Bears vs. Martyrs game. Life there was as simple as life can be which is to say it was as wretched and demeaning as ever, but supplied with enough wine and denial to keep procreation an acceptable life choice.
Days went by without a care in Ithaca, at least within the privileged class. Afternoons found many a goat-fattened bottom planted in a dais, perched upon a veranda watching the wretched of the earth below. They drank their mint juleps and nibbled cucumber sandwiches while deciding which human emotion to seal off from their perview. Theirs was the life of luxury and they were envied by none.
In the shadow of their haciendas were the ever hunched and squatting masses, set about in their toilings and common violences which were the inspiration for religious saints and the subject of newspapers’ neglect. The poor of Ithaca were as the poor of anytime or place to theologians: But a dream appealed to feigning piety and a nightmare revealed by prophets to their shame. To the politician before the election they were the banner and after the election the toilet paper. To the middle class, they were their unadmitted equals, to the upper class their moral superiors.
Ithaca was a quiet place, a tranquil haven for respite and reflection during the breaks between army-conscription raids and parades honoring the glorious dead and unfortunate injured. All was well on the heavenly isle, the site of many epic poem and love ballad.
Of Ithaca it was said,
“There is a mountain there, which a public works project aimed to craft into a volcano
high Neriton, covered in forests. Its discharge rather than lava was to be the city’s effluvium
for its citizens nary minded being shat on so long as it was in grand style.
Many islands lie around it, very close to each other,
Doulichion, Same, and wooded Zacynthos–all a bunch of losers just sitting on unused oil–
but low-lying Ithaca is farthest out to sea,
towards the sunset, and the others are apart, towards the dawn and sun.
It is rough, but no one promised you a rose garden.”
Yes, there were many a song that left the lips of trollops concerning that wonderous land granted by Providence, espousing Liberty, and granting Hard Knocks.
To potential visitors, the chamber of commerce called gilding the lily what actual residents called polishing the turd. It was a stunning place to see and many who lived there couldn’t shake the stun from their faces.
There were many great monuments and gods and statues putting form to virtue but no greater figure existed than the living icon of the Great King, Majestic and Beardy.
He was a self-parodying simulacrum of ‘kingness’, a former Hollywood actor of chimp-hijinks cinema and baseball team owner. He was a modern cowboy and an anachronism in his own time. He stood as tall as a candy machine and dispensed Snickers when gut-punched.
He was King Ulysses S. Groan, man of little words and short sentences.
Born and raised within the 45 square miles of his home, he never intended to leave it.
And though he was a grand schemer, we all know about the best laid schemes of mice and men…
they’re gang aft a-gley.
Hello I’m Brit Hume. I’m not a theologian, pastor, or even a remotely thoughtful person.
But I know what’s right for you and your most intimate soul-searching questions.
Why would you listen to me?…Just some ol’ hack that’s ended up on the scrap heap of tv ‘news’?
I’ll tell you why: because I love Jesus almost as much as I love judging people and telling them what to do.
Britney! You need Jesus.
Tony Danza, Repent!
Woody Allen: I’ve scheduled your exorcism.
I’m so glad that Tiger Woods was exposed to be doing what a large majority of married men do!
It gave me the opportunity to chime in on his personal life, perceived failings, and spirituality.
Think of the situation Tiger would be in if he hadn’t been caught cheating! He would never had the chance to hear about the Saving Power of Jesus from me, Brit Hume.
You can thank me later, Tiger. After you’re baptised that is. I don’t want the thanks of a heathen.
This is perfect timing for you to come to Jesus. Everybody gets a touch of the Jesus Crazy when they’re publicly shamed for something they probably really enjoy.
Doing meth and sucking off male prostitutes? No problem.
Embezzlement, conspiracy, theft, murder? Just start talkin’ Jesus and all your problems will go away.
Tiger, if you only would have been busy worshipping the God of my specific sect, you would never have come into these problems. But since you’re there now, listen to me, Brit Hume: Come get some of this red hot blood of the Lamb buddy. Jump right in. Everything floats down here.
Its hard being me. No one hardly ever listens to my spiritual direction. When my neighbor complained about my overgrown hedge blocking their sunlight and I told them to get right with God, they continued being Episcopalian! I’m praying for them.
People who listen to me never regret it. I listen to me all the time and I’ve never said a thing I didn’t like yet.
I love listening to me so much. Jesus must love to listen to me pray.
And I’ll be praying for you Tiger Woods. You’re on my Prayer List.
Also on my prayer list: A Vikings Superbowl win this year. Go Vikes!
