Heaven on their minds

I’ve been listening to Jesus Christ Superstar recently.

Although I generally prefer Godspell, there’s something about the character of Judas that compells me, both his lyrics and the fact I can match the voice range well. Hey, I like to sing in my car.

But one song in particular really resounds with me. It’s the second song in the opera, right after the overture, titled Heaven on their Minds. Although the ensemble usually dances with that song, Judas is the only singer in the song, and it really defines his character from the onset.

Judas issue with the Jesus’ movement in the Opera ironically resounds with me as some of the major problems in mainstream Christianity. Too much Heaven on their minds.

Let me explain. One of the more common accusations towards Christians, much less religion in general, is that for people who proclaim and swear by a certain code of conduct then go and deny it out in their daily lives. More specifically, I’m talking about the type the can shout and wail about how much they love God and Jesus, but turn right around and ignore the basic level of compassion indicative to basic Christianity.

They focus too much on the life yet to come, but will ignore or even worse, berate and condemn the homeless man who stands on the street, the girl who stumbles into a teenage pregnancy, the immigrant trying to earn a living to support his family, or sometimes, even their friends for disagreements.

Too much heaven on their minds; too little concerns for their neighbors.

A rant against Glenn Beck

Is it bad that every time that Glenn Beck cries on air, I honestl hope he does this country a favor and goes full out emo and commits suicide on air?

Oh, I kid, I kid.

In all seriousness, I have grown seriously tired of this hackjob. Beck views himself, in his own words, as a entertainer, a rodeo clown, someone who is more out to get ratings than prusue true journalism.  Yet, I’m betting his target demographic honestly believes that he’s a credible editorialist. 

No credible journalist, much less editorialist cries on air. Yet that’s when Glenn Beck does. He weeps for his country, because “they” have stolen it from him, from us, the American public. His latest bile-filled cry for justice includes that of returning to the 1950’s style of Americana, of morality.

To which I say; Go cram it in your Happy Cake oven, June Cleaver.

The 1950’s weren’t some sort of golden age, even if Beck readily admits that. If anything they were just as despoiled as we are – only their social troubles of racism, chauvinism, and discrimination of gays wasn’t as subdued, as swept under the table as ours are.

To make matters worse, Beck and his equally-if-not-more-so caustic entertainer friend Rush Limbaugh keep rallying against social justice. While they have every right under the free speech mandate to say what they truly desire, declaring that social justice is tanamount to communism and/or facisim, is like a declaration of war to me.

I truly believe in the common good of all human beings; that we as a society have a duty to aid the down trodded, those who have fallen on hard times, and fight the powers of tyranny and injustice where they may arise. I’m not asking the people to swear allegiance to a political doctrine, but what I do ask, is to Beck, Limbaugh, much less their counterparts on the left; When was the last time you volunteered in a soup kitchen?

Helped paint a house? Helped your neighbor rake her yard? When was the last time you got out there, got your hands dirty, and made a tanglible difference on someone’s life, not because of a chance to look good for the press, but doing good works for their own sake?

Once you have done this, then, and only then, do you have the right to criticize social justice, Beck.

Should old acquaintance be forgot

I listen to Christmas Music outside of the Christmas Season.

Surprised?

It’s not the full repitore of my Christmas collection, but only a few songs I care to listen to now and then, outside of December. Mostly, it comes down to three;

“O Come, O Come Emmanuel” by Charter’s Chord

“Silent Night” by Sarah McClanahan

“Grown-Up Christmas List” by Michael Buble.

With occasionally little bits of Twisted Sister’s Christmas album, because the guitar rifts are awesomesauce. The three I’ve put down is mostly because either their tune, such as the first two, or the lyrics such as the last, stick with me year round. Besides, should we really limit ourselves to only one season a year for music?

No internet makes AnonCollie go something something…

*twitch*

I should see a doctor about that tic. The last two weeks or so, I’ve been in the wilds of my home city at a residence going through condensed teacher training. Then on August 2nd, I moved across the state to another city. The city I’m teaching in.

The good news is that I’m out of retail. The bad is that the house I’m staying in has no internet. None. No wireless, no hardline. If I need to jump on the webs, I have to walk over to the school I’m teaching at,  or as I’m doing right now, hop over to a coffee shop and siphon their connection.

That is if this Starbucks hadn’t struck a deal with ATT that makes non-ATT users pay 2 bucks per hour of Internet use. PHOOEY!

The two weeks of training were…eye opening, I’ll say that much. I know what I was doing wrong in PSR, and that was mostly becoming embittered with my students’ parents over their absolute lack of interest. (Except the kids who’s parents were other PSR teachers.)

I wasn’t showing the interest in my kids that I should be; unless you’re a tenured college professor, you have to show interest in your students’ lives, otherwise any credibility that you have will be shot. The challenge for me is showing interest in the kids that will give no value to my theology course, or try and challengee m in class. Believe me, I know the type; I saw them in my own high school theology courses.

But part of me is very glad to be involved with the same religious order that taught me in High School and in College. It’s an enviroment I know, that I can work readily with, and most importantly, it’s one where most, if not all, educators and students want to be there.

It’s not like college or what I’ve been told some public schooling is like, where apathy can run wild, but my students will be trying to at least make the grade in my class, and it’s an oppotunity to pour more than just knowledge into their heads.

Beats retail, any day of the week.

AMDG

Theology Musings: KJV vs the World

There are a lot of Bible Translations out there. Most theologians have their own prefered translation they use for their work, and each version has it’s own nuances and reputation. Personally, I use either one of two versions, the New Revised Standard Version or the New American Bible.

One of my hobbies is keeping tabs on some of the more…virulent types of Christians. Not the ones I would have normal thought provoking discussion of theology with, the type that would demand I convert to their line of thinking. While I don’t like to engage said people in discussion, I do study their thought patterns and arguments.

Besides the fact I like being prepared for arguments thrown my way, I guess it’s born of a more desire to watch train wreck of logic.

One of the more popular arguments with said groups is a almost fanatical devotion to the Kings James Version of Scripture. (or KJV) I have done little work with the KJV, aside from a passing interest.

Ordered by it’s name sake, the translation was worked on from 1604 to 1611 translating the Greek and Hebrew version of that day, into a English version. While poignant for the day, especially in the light of the Protest Reformation, the KJV today is regarded by theologians as outdated,  but also with a sense of historic poetry.

Nevertheless, there are sects, most notably in the infamous Jack Chick, who profess that the King James Version is the only version for Christians, sometimes to the point where they will deny all other translations in English, much less the original Greek and Hebrew texts. In their viewpoint, only the KJV matters, for a myriad of reasons, but their fantacisim for the translation reveals one of the biggest flaws in their ideology.

Theology is a constantly evolving subject. As time goes by, new histroical or anthropological data can become apparent, or new theroies of old relevation can come forth. Theology’s responsiblity is to move carefully but steadily with these new circles, because to move too fast is to invite error, to move to slowly or not at all is to become stagnant.

What defines patroitism?

Happy belated Fourth of July to all of my U.S. readers; all five of you or so.

Something interesting was in the local Associated Press paper here yesterday; a nonprofit group took out a whole page, color advertisement to promote their viewpoints. In the PR business, they’re called advocacy ads – and while a whole page ad, not to mention on in more than one color’s cost would be phenomenal as it is, the idea behind these things is to get your message on a particular issue or incident out without the filter of the local journalists.

This particluar group published an ad that ran at the top, “In God We Trust” in three colors; red, white and blue in gradients from left to right. This was done over a subimposted, blurred image of what one would presume is the Decleration of Independance, and had smaller sub headings smiliarly possesing Ye Olde Generic Curvisve  script and the gradient red, whites and blues. As I looked at the add, I could just see the printing bill rising – so that’s why the newspaper chose to run it. The profit would have been enormous.

Under each subheading were quotes from “statesmen” ranging from Founding Fathers to slightly behind modern times. All of these quotes, plus the imagery of red, white and blue, over the Decleration of Independence had one purpose – to hammer home the idea that the United States is a Christian Nation.

I sighed, realizing the ad’s intent. The targeted audience was two fold. The first, was preaching to the choir, to the fundamentalist subset who equate faith with patriotism, who to be against their view of America, is to be un-Christian. Sadly I know the type all too well, but more to come on this in a second.

The second targeted audience, was the obvious neutral middle, those who can vote either Democrat or Republican, who special interested groups vie for support both in and outside of politics, those without the well defined convictions of others. If the right sort of advertisment strikes a chord with them, they will respond to it and adopt it’s message.

The Fourth of July always stirs mixed feelings in me. On one hand, I do appreciate the freedoms guarenteed by both society and the Divine, to  do and say as I choose, so long as I am within the bounds of the law. I do see the United States as overwhelmingly blessed with literacy, economic prowess, and I am gratefull for having luxuries like the ablility to stand up to injustice as I percieve it, without the fear of executive crackdown, as long as I protest peacefully.

But on the flip side, I see too many people embrace the holiday to spout red, white and blue streamers, whlie being decked out in similarly colored attire, to go absolutley  bonkers and over the top in celebrating the holiday. To me, these people aren’t being patriots. They’re just being parrots, repating a hundred or so cheap slogans to somehow show their support for their nation.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for celebrating. But I prefer a quiet, sort of dignified style of proclaiming one’s devotion to nationalism.  To me, an educated voter, who takes time to seriously consider issues and canidates and develop convinctions accordingly, a person who writes into a newspaper to address an issue in the court of public opinion, or a person who exercises their right to peacefully protest and does so with dignity – all three of these are far bigger patroits than anyone who insists on shooting off their own fireworks on the Fourth of July.

Internet lulz v.1

While she was still updating, I was a regular fan of Violent Acres.com. V, the author of that site, besides being provocative and funny often found other blog writers who were either worthy of mock or praise. One of these was Dick Masterson, the author of the website Men are Better than Women.

Masterson is deliberately offensive and chauvinistic, and hilarious in his own right. I don’t visit his site much; but for the hell of it, I decided to see if someone had started a competing site from the feminine perspective. So I typed http://www.womenarebetterthanmen.com into my browser bar and hit the enter key.

Masterson bought that domain and directed it to his site.

Lulz.

~AnonCollie

Why movies like “Borat” suck

A few years ago, the movie Borat disgraced theaters with it’s presence and so-called humor. I refused to see it, despite several former friends of mine insisting that I do. There were several reasons behind my resolve back then, mostly based on the trailer.

When I watched the trailer, I didn’t laugh. Sacha Baron Cohen’s portrayal of a eastern European man that was completely culturally unaware of the world around him but was supposed to be one of the more educated men in his country, was complete bullshit. I won’t deny that there are parts of the world that are culturally isolated, but there’s no way a former Soviet Republic would be quite so intellectually bankrupt.

Against my better judgment, I did  watch the first five or ten minutes of the movie later on, when it finally came to DVD. It didn’t take much for me to stand up and walk away.  I took particular offense at his hyped up Anti-Semitism – having people of a village chase down a caricature of a Jewish man and woman as part of a festival

Borat apologists will tell remind you that Cohen is Jewish himself, and thus it is self-parody humor. Okay, sure. He can make fun of country based Easter Europeans, and suggest that they’re Anti-Semitic. He can also interact with real Jews later in the movie, and suggest that someone of Borat’s prejudices will assume that a Jew can transform into cockroaches.

There’s a point that even irreverent humor becomes tasteless, and Cohen crosses it more than once. Mel Brooks manages to balance making fun of his own religion irreverently while keeping it into good taste.

Mostly my biggest problem with the movie is that Cohen doesn’t use a script or paid actors. While that’s fine for some films, such as stand-up comedy or documentaries, in this case  it just comes off as wrong. Borat interacts with real people, and films their interactions as humor and in contrast to stand up comedy where the audience knows how to react to the star, in this case, you have people reacting for real. And their reactions is what drives Cohen’s humor.

In short, it’s an offshoot of Reality TV; and it’s just as bad.

What’s worse is that he’s coming out with another movie, based on the same basic premise, only a new character stereotype. Some metrosexual European model, or some other crap like that, and he’s out to interact with Americans again.

Bruno,  I think is the name of the movie. Send Cohen a message – don’t see it. Don’t tolerate bad humor.

~AnonCollie

Arguing like adults

I watch the Daily Show on occasion. Don’t worry, I’m not the type to get my news solely from a comedy program.But I do enjoy the commentary on some of the banal dreck that passes for news in our modern society.

Last night, on the Daily Show, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee met with John Stewart. The main topic was abortion.

Yes, that topic. A topic that brings so many people’s blood to a boil, and unfortunately the modern political litmus test for both parties. Either you’re with the Republicans or the Democrats on this issue, and heaven help the man who tries to seek a sane middle ground. My opinions on the matter are my own, and I might share them here one day, but the important thing you need to know with me is that I have been cast out of friendships for holding to my opinion on this.

I just absolutely taken aback by the debate on the Daily Show last night because it lacked some of the major yelling matches of we’re used to seeing with the normal talking heads on this issue. Or hell, even discussion about this in our own lives; people feel so strongly on the issue that they really can’t keep their voices down when it comes up.

Both John Stewart and Mike Huckabee talked like human beings last night. Both of them didn’t raise their voice. Both of them didn’t resort to personal attacks against the other. Instead, they presented their views, their reasons behind them, disagreed on some elements, but were both looking for a sane middle ground consistent with their own personal codes.

More importantly, both men did not resort to a religious based argument to argue their stance.  Using religion would have rendered their argument null and void to either side; with anti-abortion crowd, they would have said that his religious interpretation was wrong, with the pro-abortion crowd, any mention of religion and they ignore the speaker.

The two men talked from common sense, from philosophy, from their perception of natural law, to try and find their own views and a perception that they could agree on.And that’s what modern news commentary should be.

Not Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’ Reilly, or their counterparts on the left side; real news should be by people who can hold their emotional state and act like adults, even if their beliefs conflict on the most basic of levels. That’s how adults act. How children act is how Limbaugh acts. Disagree and he’ll insult your personal dignity, rather than try to calmly disagree and refute your arguments; Ad Homenim fallacies at their finest.

We, as media audiences should be demanding better news, but instead, we are complacent with fearmongering.

~AnonCollie

Music that gets stuck in your head

Originally, I stumbled on this piece by the folks over at “Least I Could Do,” a very irreverent webcomic that can be over the top, but hilarious nonetheless. Produced by Blind Ferret, an animated series of the comic was one of their original ideas, but it never materialized.

Here’s Consequence Free by the band Great Big Sea