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30.11.10

Soapbox: "Those who can't do, teach."

Every so often on the internet...Okay, ALL THE TIME, when I'm online and I read an article, I'll scroll down and read some of the comments. Most of the time, the comments thread (especially on sites like Huffington Post, CNN, and MSNBC) gets derailed off into left-right political bickering, even if the article is about a relative innocuous, bipartisan topic (it's amazing what people will bring into the discussion when it's completely irrelevant).

I suppose I do this partly out of habit, and partly to keep an eye on what certain discourse is happening. Occasionally, an astute commenter will point out something I hadn't noticed that changes the meaning of the piece. Sometimes, comments will reinforce my initial reaction to the piece, affirming that I hadn't read it incorrectly and that I am not alone in my opinion. Most of the time, debates are just really, really fun to read.

Today, however, I made the mistake of reading the comments on a Media Matters article about Glenn Beck's stance on the Food Safety Modernization Act that just passed Congress (and how he's misrepresented the debate, but that's old news). Media Matters debates usually end up being kind of fun, so I scrolled down and wasted ten minutes reading comments.

I became extremely upset and frustrated when one person began attacking one of the sources used in the article on the basis that he is a professor. This was seriously the person's argument: " An expert in macroeconomics is an expert in macroeconomics. When I get advice on running companies and profits I will get it from someone who is in that business. Not some professor." Later on, this same poster claimed that "A university professor ... has no real world experience."

Now, that's outrageous enough, but I don't ordinarily get so frustrated at random commenters on the internet that I want to write a blog entry about their argument. No, that desire came a few comments later, when this same person (who was arguing back and forth with some other commenters) commented, in defense of their argument, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."













There is a large portion of people who have a propensity to whip out a cliched saying as though that satisfies the burden of proof, then sit back and watch their "wisdom" sink in. More often than not, it is greeted with a facepalm (see above). That poor argument style is nothing new. In fact, this is not the first time I have seen precisely this aphorism used in a debate (the first time was when it was used against me in a discussion of plagiarism in the classroom, of all things).

My problem is with the complete and utter falsehood of the statement itself.

To imply that a person's argument or professional opinion should be discounted because they are currently employed as a professor, and therefore aren't good at the "real world experience" of the thing they are teaching is to perpetuate an anti-intellectual, anti-education, and anti-elitist attitude.

Let's just look at the complete and utter inanity of such a statement: If you're being taught writing, for example, wouldn't you want to take a class from someone who knows how to write? If you're being taught research-oriented science, wouldn't you want information from someone who's actually got experience developing and testing various experiments? If you're learning to play guitar, wouldn't you want to be taught by someone who knows what they're doing? For goodness sake, if you're going to be taught theology, wouldn't you want someone who has experience as a pastor?

Fundamentally, in order to be good teachers, most teachers (especially at advanced level) have experience in that field, not just in the area of teaching. People have this misinformed conception of teaching that all it consists of is walking into a classroom, picking up a textbook, and reading from it, expecting the students to absorb information.

And maybe that is what many people experienced with teachers growing up. But that is not a good teacher.

A good teacher is someone who not only knows how to do the activity at hand, but someone who can explain it in the simplest terms possible.

A good teacher is someone who not only can do the goal of the class (whether it be writing, guitar, science, what have you) well, but knows enough to connect with a student when he or she is not understanding the concept, and be willing to go over it again and again.

A good teacher is someone who not only can tolerate shoddy workmanship, but is able to tell the student how to improve, and have that advice actually work.

A good teacher is someone who gives their time, their money, their sanity in order not to perfect their own craft, but to give others the skills they need to pursue that same craft.

A teacher is someone who takes it upon herself to lead others into the skills she enjoys, to put their improvement ahead of anything else, and to make sure that they leave her class better at the task than before they came in.

In short: "Those who can do well, and can pass on that skill to others should teach."

Being a professor does not discount a person's opinion about an issue, simply because they have chosen to teach about it. Indeed, being a professor reinforces the authority of that opinion because it usually means that they know their topic well, they have worked within that field in "the real world" and they are now passing on that experience to others.

Teaching is so often degraded, especially in American society, where teaching is one of the lowest paid professions. There's an anti-education strain in society that comes out virulently in debates about expert witnesses and expert knowledge. Let's face it: We've all met teachers who are fantastic doers, but terrible at passing on the wisdom that they have. But I have yet to meet a teacher who couldn't actually DO what they were teaching me - whether it be writing, pastoral ministry, shop class, journalism, historical study, debate...whatever.

Teachers don't teach if they can't do. On behalf of teachers everywhere, let's drop that stereotype once and for all, shall we? Those who can say that teachers can't do were never teachers (and probably shouldn't be).

24.11.10

New Projects and Other Stuff

I have a lot of new and exciting stuff going on, so I apologize for the lack of posts, and I apologize for the lack of cohesion in this one. This post is a sort of catch-all of things going on.

1. I have a new writing gig (thus my most recent absence from this blog). I am working with my friend Travis and his friend Justin on a theology and church culture online magazine, The BlackBird Press. I find the discussion that goes on in those comments to be stimulating, insightful, and interesting. The conversations that spring up are not ones that are easy to walk away from, and frequently challenge me, which is something every one needs once in a while. I have most recently written an article on John and Stasi Eldredge's Captivating, the female companion to John's quite famous Wild At Heart. It's an exegetical and gender-biased nightmare, and I am incredibly excited to have had the opportunity to write this article on it. Would you look at that: HERE IT IS.

2. I'm going home in a month! I will be flying into Sioux Falls at 10:20PM on December 20th, after 15 hours of traveling from Tokyo (not to mention the five hours it's going to take me to get up there by shinkansen [bullet train]). I am STOKED to see Sioux Falls again, and stoked to meet my niece for the first time! If you live in Sioux Falls, and want to get some coffee while I'm in town (from the 21st to the 2nd of January), shoot me an email or leave me a comment.

3. I have a lot of disordered thoughts about the TSA, the Korean conflict, the NZ mine explosion, DADT, Afghanistan policy...etc. Needless to say, a lot of different things concerning world politics have been pinging around in my head of late, but my mind hasn't settled on one singular thing to talk about, so, I apologize for lack of commentary on specifics. The TSA has, of course, been on the minds of most Americans, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hoping to have some sort of TSA story after my international traveling next month. But that's neither here nor there.

4. I've been reading a lot. Besides Captivating, I have a book on Arminian theology by Roger E. Olson (of Truett Seminary fame) headed my way, and I'm stoked about it. I'm also picking up All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy again, and hoping I can get past the first few pages this time.

5. Harry Potter VII Part 1 is out. I went to see it Friday night with a friend, and loved it. It was very faithful to the book, but still made me jump out of my skin at points, which is always a good thing. Very well done, and I'm glad I got to see it opening day (in fact, mine was just starting as midnight showings in America were finishing. How's that for cool?) Sioux Falls friends, I am definitely up for another viewing!

6. I have an absolutely adorable niece, and she has really awesome parents. I'll close today's post with a picture of my dear Vera and her tuckered out daddy. And no, not that Vera (fast forward to :41).

I hope this finds you well!

10.11.10

10 Reasons I'm a Terrible Evangelical

I discovered a new blogger tonight, Rachel Held Evans. Evans is a "liberal" Christian, an Arminian, and a social justice advocate. Needless to say, we have a lot in common. I was glad to discover her because she is writing as I would want to write. In that vein, one of her posts inspired me to do a similar thing over here.

10 Things That Make Me a Terrible Evangelical*:

1. I tend to swear a lot. In fact, I had to restrain myself from including in the title of this list the generally unacceptable synonym for poop. My mother would be shocked, but I'll be honest, I've got a bit of a potty mouth sometimes.

2. I have a love/hate relationship with Paul. I love what he did for starting Christianity off, but some of the things he says are just mind-blowingly strange and frustrating. Sometimes I even wonder if he might have been wrong about some stuff.

3. John Piper makes me violent. Maybe that's just a personal issue and not evangelicalism as a whole, but he is at the forefront of a lot of these things. When he blamed the tornado in Minneapolis last year on the ECLA meeting to discuss ordination for homosexual pastors, he kind of went in my "you're crazy and I will flip off the computer every time I read something you write just to relieve my frustration at the wrongness" box.

4. I really hate "Christian" movies and most of the movies I own are R-rated. It really sucks that "Christian art" is synonymous with kitsch, Thomas Kinkade, and just plain out terrible work. I much prefer the Coens, Danny Boyle Wes Anderson, and Christopher Nolan (all of which are notable in part for their frequently dark and twisted themes and humor) to say...Kirk Cameron, or that movie Rebecca St. James was in.

5. I cheered when Neil Patrick Harris and his partner adopted twins. Maybe it's the fact that I have several bisexual friends. Maybe it's just that I know a lot of gay people. Maybe it's my pro-adoption happiness outweighing any qualms about homosexual parents. Maybe it's the influence of MTV. Whatever it is, I really don't have a problem with you being allowed to marry and adopt kids if you want.

6. I read Harry Potter and other fantasy novels voraciously. I'm also against banning books. Then again, I read Stephen King's It when I was 13, so...

7. I really, really hate Contemporary Christian Radio. There was a time when it was all I would listen to. My music library on my computer, my CD player in my car, the music on my iPod were all tuned to contemporary Christian music - the likes of the Newsboys, Leeland, Audio Adrenaline, Everyday Sunday, Relient K, etc. Then I discovered Radiohead, and now CCM leaves a bad taste in my mouth, metaphorically speaking.

8. I like President Obama and will vote for him in 2012, especially if Palin or Gingrich are running against him. 'Nuff said.

9. I don't believe in the concept of Biblical inerrancy. I'm fine with Scripture being the Word of God and authoritative at that, but without error? Not so much. The four gospels are enough to show us the major problems with that.

10. John Green put it best: "There is no them. There are only facets of us." If anything is at odds with modern evangelical Christianity (see explanatory note below) it is this: the idea that there can be no us vs. them. That there is no them - there is no Other, at least not insofar as it is encapsulated in our fellow human beings. The things that we see in them that we like or dislike are reflections of what makes all of us human, and to set up any sort of us vs. them dichotomy is to tell a lie about what the group you are talking about is as human beings.


*This list is meant to respond to the general characterization of Evangelicalism in society, which tends to consist of conservative Republicans, Calvinists, and rigid fundamentalists. I realize that not all who self-identify as "evangelical" would agree with such a characterization, but, in my experience and impression, and I think in the impression of America in general, these sorts of things listed here tend to be litmus tests for belonging to the evangelical church as currently characterized. That said, this list is hyperbole for humorous effect, all except for point #10. That is, indeed, one major problem I have with both conservative evangelicalism in America and the neo-Calvinists (coughJohnPipercough) who are so influential in it. And I realize that some of you would argue that in attacking Evangelical America, I am myself setting up an us vs. them dichotomy, but I don't believe this is the case, as I am responding both to a caricature in the group and the general attitude I have encounter. My theology is not based on an us vs. them dichotomy - I still see "them" as fellow Christians, though "they" may not see me the same way. And therein lies the difference.

6.11.10

This is going to surprise some of you, but...

I didn't vote this year.

And I didn't vote in 2008, though that was more laziness than anything.

This year, it was a combination of laziness (I had no idea where to find a notary public necessary for the absentee ballot) and being upset with the choices my state was giving me. Were I registered to vote in Delaware, Nevada, Texas, Michigan, or maybe even Wisconsin (Russ Feingold!), I very likely would have voted. In South Dakota, however, the choices were somewhat dismal, and the ballot measures even less so (I will get to this later). So, I didn't bother voting.

Let me establish something first: Derek Webb writes that a Christian is called to do one thing only when it comes to performing civic duty, and that is to approach it in a way that is in line with one's conscience. "No party can co-opt a vote that isn't cast," he says. "Voting is a legal right, like carrying a gun or having an abortion. And I can abstain from doing anything I have a legal right to if it violates my conscience." Our conscience is the guide God gave us for following things not explicitly laid out in Biblical law (as Paul outlines in Romans 14). We talk a lot of having a "conviction" about certain issues, and even within the church, we are flabbergasted when people have different convictions about issues than what we ourselves feel. For example, I feel a conviction to help the poor, so much to the point that it would go against my conscience to vote for someone who does not have the same attitude. I feel a similar conviction about war - I cannot put my vote behind a candidate who wants to send an 18 year old to die in a self perpetuating cycle of violence. And I will be honest: I do not feel the same conviction about typically Evangelical issues like abortion, gay marriage or guns.

So I didn't vote. In fact, I haven't voted since I turned 18, and, frankly, I wish I hadn't voted then (in case the math is hard, I turned 18 in 2004, and cast a vote for George W. Bush, and, in the state of South Dakota, for John Thune, both of which are votes I wish I could take back).

Now, I do a lot of discussion of politics, as regular readers of this blog will note. Which is why I know that some of you are a bit surprised to hear that I didn't vote. Having had this discussion several times with different friends (thus the motivation for writing this particular blog entry), I can hear the response now: "But if you don't vote, you don't have a right to complain about the results of that election."

Let's examine that particular objection. It comes, quite specifically, from my Australian friend Justin. In Australia, they have two main parties, but they also have several smaller parties one could vote for if so inclined, which is somewhat similar to the US, but that's where the similarity stops. Australia has compulsory voting, which means that you get fined if you don't vote, and they vote for parties and party platforms in the major elections rather than the leaders, which is, understandably, similar to the UK system.

I'll be honest: I do have a bit of a problem with compulsory voting - I want the right to abstain as much as I want the right to vote if so inclined; so sue me, I like having choices. But, if I was functioning within a system that gave me the choice to vote for the party that most closely aligns to my issues, and not necessarily the person, I might have less of a problem. As it is, though, such an argument is merely academic, as the US has neither compulsory voting nor party elections.

If we take a look at the State of South Dakota, my home state and the place I am registered to vote (as an independent), we see that compulsory voting would be a terrible idea. This year, our junior Senator, John Thune, ran uncontested. There were two major ballot measures: medical marijuana, and banning smoking in bars and other places. The race for our singular representative in the federal House of Representatives was either an incumbent Democrat who voted against the health care reform in a solely political move (in other words, voted against her own conscience on the issue) and voted to put us in Iraq. Or, we had a newbie Republican with very little political experience, but who is anti-abortion, pro-war, pro-guns, anti-gay marriage, and pro-repealing the health care reform (tea party lite, in other words).

Those races and ballot measures are the ones I cared about the most, and I wasn't given very good choices. I always pay attention to South Dakota's ballot measures because there's usually some sort of anti-abortion law. Apparently this year there was almost a measure similar to those taken in Colorado and Arizona, which dictated basically that the health care reform law did not apply to that state. Had that measure been on the South Dakota ballot, you bet I'd have made a greater effort to vote, because that is something I feel a conviction on. However, as it is, I don't really care about medical marijuana, and I don't really care about smoking in businesses.

I would have loved the opportunity to vote John Thune out of office and undo some of what I did when I helped to vote him in. But, he was unchallenged, so voting wouldn't have mattered.

In the house race, I had the choice between voting for someone who shares some of my personal convictions but won't vote for them in office, and someone who is basically antithetical to a number of my convictions. It would mean casting a vote for someone who wasn't going to perform as I want them to, or voting for someone who doesn't share my convictions at all.

That's not really a choice. And I like having choices.

So, instead, I choose to abstain rather than vote in a way which would not honor my conscience, or be in line with my convictions.

Does this mean I now lack the right to complain about the vote?

To quote Sarah Palin, "HELL NO."

I have other means of "performing my civic duty." I can write letters to the Congressmen and women in order to alert them to issues I care about. I can participate in protests and lobby Washington. I can, as I am planning on doing, get a job at a non-profit and participate in the political process that way. And I can still complain, comment, and wax poetic about the results of the political process because by abstaining, I am still voicing an opinion.

How?

I am saying that I refuse to participate in a system that only offers me paltry choices that are not really choices, and doesn't allow me to participate in the choosing of those people representing each party (South Dakota has closed primaries).

I am saying that I will not vote for candidates who I know violate my conscience. The lesser of two evils is still an evil and we need to give up on the stupid idea that voting for the lesser of two evils is somehow committing a good just because you voted.

I am saying that my duties extend beyond the voting booth, and that I can still participate in the political process even without doing this "civic duty." As a citizen of the "Christian nation,"* I am not obligated to vote, but I am still obligated to love my neighbor, which I can do by not voting.

I am saying that I refuse to do a "duty" solely because I am an American and I have a right to do it. I am approaching my choices with the conviction and knowledge and understanding that every American should carry into the voting booth, but rarely happens because we emphasize duty over knowledge.

Think of it this way: When I purchase food for lunch, I am putting my body behind what I buy. I am, with my dollars and my stomach, trusting that food to work for my body, and to hopefully benefit it. In a good system, I will be able to choose for something that, while not perfect, will still be somewhat in line with what I want to eat that day and will be good for my diet - saying, I have the choice of eating a Caeser salad with all the dressing, fried chicken or macaroni and cheese. They may not be the best choices for my body, but at least they'll give me some nutrition. This would be an ideal political system - candidates who align with some of my views but maybe not all of them, available for me to vote for.

What our current system gives me, however, is the choice between a poisoned sandwich, and a poop-filled piece of cake. Sure, the poop cake might not kill me, and it's definitely better than a poisoned sandwich, but I'm still eating poop. This is what happens when we "vote for the lesser of two evils."

And I should have the choice not to eat poop if I don't want to. This doesn't mean I don't get to complain about it when all my friends start throwing up around me.

Grisly image aside: In the midst of elections and campaigns, we hear "VOTE VOTE VOTE DO YOUR DUTY." We gasp at infringements on peoples' rights to vote (think of the controversial Sharron Angle Univision ad which was telling Hispanics, in Spanish, not to vote). We become so concerned about participating in the political process that we never stop to step back and think about whether or not we should. Maybe, just maybe, there are times when abstaining is the right choice. In this midterm election, my choices were terrible, and I refuse to vote for something that goes against my conscience, something that would poison the system more. Sure, I may be hungry for a little while waiting for something better, but in the meantime, I can talk to the chef, and I can hope to motivate change in other areas.
________
*By Christian nation, I mean God's Kingdom, not 'Murrica.
^Picture stolen from my friend David Kosmak.

2.11.10

Another Reason to Love Harry Potter

The Harry Potter Alliance, a non-profit that grew out of the love for all things awesome and Harry Potter-y, has started a campaign that runs from November 2010 to June 2011, the time span between the release of Deathly Hallows Parts 1 and 2. The approximately 7 months will be spent attempting to effect some change for good in seven Horcruxes (bad things, for the non Harry Potter folk) in the world.

This month's is the Starvation Wage Horcrux. At that link, you'll find a petition that adds your name and comments to emails to Warner Brothers studios, asking them to make a change in the chocolate sold as Harry Potter trademarks. That change? To make it completely fair trade.

How awesome is that?

I urge to surf on over, check it out, and sign away! You can also found out about Lumos Parties, which are being held in the time leading up to the release - a Mary Kay sort of Harry Potter to promote the cause of fairly traded chocolate.

The fact that people are using Harry's name to change the world for the better is a testament to how awesomely good and important these books are. I mean, there aren't many books that could be said to spawn a movement that's about doing GOOD, are there?

30.10.10

"Sometimes it's just New Jersey."

Now, I had every intention of repeating what I did with the Glenn Beck rally and staying up until 4AM to watch the livestream of "Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" as it happened live in Washington, DC, this past Saturday. I set my alarm for one AM, full intending to go to sleep for a couple of hours, wake up, watch the rally, and then go back to bed until noon.

That didn't happen. I fell asleep around 10:30, and sometime around 12:30, I shut off my alarm and fell asleep until 7:30AM.

Oops.

But I feel okay about that. I knew this was a rally I would much rather have attended than watched live through my computer. And I knew that if Jon Stewart was going to say something meaningful, it would not be an hour long speech detailing a plan for America, but rather something short, sweet, and probably funny. And it turns out I was pretty darn right.



Closing out the rally, Stewart gave a ten minute speech in which he extolled the virtues of working together, and realizing that the person the next car over on your commute to work is probably someone with radically different views, but that doesn't make them any less human. Basically, Stewart said things I've been saying for months. To reiterate what he said would be to simply repeat myself.

And then he closed with an interesting sentiment.
"Because you know, instinctively, as a people, that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light, we have to work together. And the truth is there will always be darkness, and sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn't the promised land. Sometimes, it's just New Jersey."
Now yes, he's making a joke at the expense of his home state, New Jersey, following through rather brilliantly on an illustration he had used throughout the speech. But, at the risk of sounding like an academic who reads far too much into simple jokes and one-liners, New Jersey here is not just New Jersey. Or rather, it is and it isn't.

In politics, the rhetoric is grandiose, verbose, bombastic, and lofty. "Yes We Can!" "Country First." "Yes, America Can!" "Prosperity and Progress." "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow." "It's Morning Again in America." "For the Future!" "Peace and Prosperity!" "A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage!" "Vote yourself a farm!" (All of these are genuine campaign slogans from presidents ranging all the way back to Lincoln).

We talk often of "restoring honor," of America being the "greatest best country," of idealism and progress, of helping people and saving the world, of hope and change. And then we're sorely disappointed when we don't get it. One of the reasons Obama's approval rating dropped when he came into office was not necessarily Republican backlash (though that was part of it). It was that whatever he did, it would not live up to his own rhetoric.

He, as a politician, can only do so much.

Congress, as men and women, as elected representatives, can only do so much.

Our governors, schools boards, military, and regulations can only do so much.

There comes a point when we realize that putting our hope in the government to make things completely entirely right is mere foolishness. Now, this is not to say that we cannot work within the government to attempt to make things better - it is almost always better to be actively fighting oppression and helping people through what means we have available (which I would contend includes the government) than to sit back and let oppression, poverty and pain run free.

But pinning all our hope and change on a man who is just like us - a man who, though he wields considerable power, is still just a man - is just as foolish as thinking that imposing a theocracy would be somehow better.

And that's what Jon Stewart is exactly right about. Politicians and the media who serve them promise us the world on a platter, promise us hope, change, and a savior on capitol hill.

They promise us a light at the end of the tunnel, when really, it's just New Jersey.

And that's okay. I've been to New Jersey. Most of it's pretty nice. I just wouldn't confuse it with heaven.

27.10.10

storytime: a medical check up.

Last week when I received a note in my mailbox that I would need to be at school at 8:30 for a medical check up for insurance the next Wednesday, I was a little nervous. I haven't been to a doctor in about three years, unless you count going to the free clinic to get shots for my India trip, which was hardly a physical examination. I haven't had an actual physical in about 5 years, either, because my activities in college didn't require medical check ups.

Needless to say, I was nervous. Moreso when the note dictated that I not eat or drink anything after 9:00PM the day before. I'd never had a physical that required something like that, and I didn't know exactly what to expect. My experience with physicals in the US was that a check up meant checking height, weight, blood pressure and other things. I don't think I've ever had a cholesterol check or anything of that sort.

Walking into school this morning, then, I wasn't sure what to expect. I dutifully had not eaten or drunk anything but water since 9PM, which was pretty okay since I went to bed at 10. Skipping breakfast, though, I thought could turn into a problem, so I packed an emergency juice box in my purse, just in case. After some messing about with forms in which I desperately tried to figure out whether or not I'd gained 10kilograms since being 20 years old (having no idea what kilograms is in pounds [I know now, of course]), I was led through a series of tests that made me feel like an astronaut in training.

Besides the typical height, weight, and blood pressure tests, they also drew blood, took a urine sample (which, this might be too much information, but I had to drink an entire bottled water to get myself through), a chest x ray, and this weird electric test where they attached suction cups to the area around my heart and these odd clips to both my wrists and one ankle. I still have no idea what that test was, and I hope I don't have to repeat it any time soon.

The most terrifying moment for me was when they drew blood. For those of you who don't know, I'm hypoglycemic, which means I naturally have low blood sugar (which the doctors will probably discover when they examine my blood). When I was about 2 years old, I was hospitalized because I was having seizures, which were caused by severe drops in my blood sugar. Since then, it's been largely self regulated, with only one or two major incidents. When I was a freshman in college, I was getting some warts on my hands removed, and I hadn't eaten a thing all day. The combination of seeing my hands all bloody, not having food, and being in a closed space of the doctor's office with the elevated stress level that naturally brings caused me to pass out and seizure.*

It almost goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway: The prospect of having blood drawn terrified me. It's not that I'm scared of needles (I mean, I have one tattoo and plans for at least one more), but rather I was terrified of losing blood and having the same result as I had my freshman year. I looked away and concentrated on a box on the table while the nurse stuck the syringe in the crook of my elbow, and was pretty okay until I made the mistake of looking. Now, the amount of blood drawn probably wasn't actually that much, but I rarely see that much blood at once, much less coming out my own arm.

I had to take a few breaths to steady myself, and I think I must have gone pale or something, because the English-speaking nurse they had assigned to help me out asked me if I was okay. I managed to pull myself together and made it through the rest of the battery of tests, buoyed partially by my sheer confusion at the thoroughness of each test.

It was a strange experience. I don't know what Japanese health care is like, and I don't wish to be in a situation where I have to learn. But if this first experience is anything to judge, the doctors are just like any doctor anywhere - professional, kind, and concerned about doing their job well.

Yet another way in which people are people, no matter what country they happen to be living in. A seemingly empty sentiment in this world, (especially America), where things like health care, food, and shelter are commodified and sold, right along with the people who bring them to us, but each new experience reminds me that those around me are not commodities, and though they may be nameless, they are not worthless.

_________
*Friends of mine will also remember about 7 months later when I passed out after breaking my toe - I don't consider that blood sugar related, as I'm just a weakling and that was the first bone I'd ever broken. Also, many of you are familiar with my time in the emergency room in India, which was a combination of dehydration, low blood sugar, and a bad reaction to some food. Again, not solely caused by low blood sugar.

22.10.10

Sometimes I post stupid videos.



Re-discovered these tonight. Too good not to repost. I cannot believe I didn't find a way to incorporate this into my thesis.

13.10.10

A New Definition

Yesterday (CST, today for me), I took on a new and different role within my family. Having grown up with almost no change in the roles I played in the lives of my immediate family (I have always been sister, daughter, cousin), the first major change to that structure came when my brother fell in love with and married a wonderful girl named Carrie, during my freshman year of college. I suddenly had a new label - "sister in law" - which I suddenly had to learn to adjust to. Having grown up with only brothers, I had to learn how to be a sister to a sister, but I love having Carrie in the family.

Last February (a few days before my birthday, in fact), Marc and Carrie informed me of a new label I'd soon be taking on, this one a bit scarier: Aunt. That label took hold yesterday/this morning with the birth of Vera Elizabeth, a tiny little 7 pound 5 oz baby girl.

I'll be the first to tell you that children scare me a little - I'm always afraid of doing something wrong around them, and I think it would just be better if they had the sense to timewarp from womb to fully grown 19 or 20 year old people right away. But unfortunately, life doesn't work that way. And I have to emphasize: while being an aunt does scare me a little as dealing with small children is not something I do often, I am incredibly excited to be an aunt. Marc, Carrie and I have already agreed on certain roles I will play in their kid's life. For example, in a few years, I'm going to start a savings account in her name so that when she turns 18 (and graduates from high school), my graduation present to her will be a trip anywhere she wants to go in the world. And if she, for some odd reason, is not a traveler (pshaw, MY NIECE? Perish the thought!), then the money will go toward her college funds.

Even though it's 18 years off, this is something I feel I can do for her right now - I can set down the goal of instilling a sense of the fullness of the world she lives in within this new life. I want her to be aware, unlike so many, of the world beyond the borders of her country, to see that there are people everywhere, stories to be told, friends to make, adventures to have. I want her to be encouraged to break out of the mold and take challenges as they come and to adventure whenever and where ever she can. I feel like that is a good legacy I can give her.

Because, let's face it, with my travel history, the chances that I'm going to be the aunt who lives across the street are probably going to be very slim. And I'm pretty okay with that - she will know me as the aunt who's living in Japan. The aunt who is off studying for a story in Russia, or helping people recover from the sex trade in Cambodia, or working to promote fairly traded products in Australia. The aunt who sends her presents after hiking around Ayers Rock, after drinking a beer at Oktoberfest, after sitting in the sun in a park in England. While I may not be there for her physically (right now, I'm looking at pictures from 9,000 miles away, having trouble believing that all this is real), I can be an example, a person she can look up to and say "Now that's the type of embracing the world and experiencing life that I want to see in my own life."

Granted, it'll be years before she gets to that level of self reflection, but in the meantime, she can still get some awesome presents.

10.10.10

How to Combat Modern Day Slavery



This video is well worth the 20 minutes it takes to watch it. Please do.

6.10.10

an economy of mercy.

Classes have started again, and I have been busy planning, preparing, writing and going. I try to blog about once a week, but lately the words have not been coming.

Or rather, I should say, the words have been all the wrong ones. I wanted to do a blog about Glenn Beck's flagrant linguistic cheapening of the concept of slavery, which he compares it to government regulation of the insurance companies (meaning this regulation is metaphorical slavery of the middle class), and states that slavery actually ended with the Civil War, perpetuating a myth. I wanted to write that blog, but even thinking about it just makes me angry; the words would have been wrong.

I wanted to write about Jon Stewart's Rally To Restore Sanity, and how it is weird that one of the most level voices in American media today is a comedian who is not even a journalist. This may have included musings on how television news itself tends to be a bad format as it moves so quickly and runs only in soundbites, so it shouldn't be a surprise that stuff gets edited, cut, and twisted to fit a narrative. But that just made me tired.

I wanted to write about the concept of gender and contemporary literature, and why boys aren't reading, but that took me too far afield of what I feel at least a large part of the narrative of this blog is.

And that got me thinking: What is the narrative of this blog? What is, by and large, the narrative I run my life by? I like to hope that this blog has become a space for a Christian response to the world at large, particularly America and American politics, because those are the things that can affect how I love my neighbor. But as much as it is about the big things, it is about the small things as well. We need to be thinking about how we love our neighbor in our own daily lives, as much if not more than we think about how to create a system that keeps our neighbor from oppression. We need to look not just at the narrative of the bigger picture, but of the individual blocks that create the quilt. And vice versa - if we concentrate on too many individual blocks, we lose sight of the entire picture, and importantly, what the other blocks are showing us.

For example, this video has been making the rounds on Facebook and various social networking platforms. I was pointed to it by a pro-choice friend who wanted to know my thoughts. As my position on abortion is heavily nuanced (as I believe it should be), watching this video was hard. Not because I was moved emotionally or anything, or because of any particular effect of the speaker, but because there is so much of the narrative left out. For those of you not inclined to watch the video, it is a 16 minute speech by Gianna Jessen, a woman who was born alive from a third trimester saline abortion in 1977, given in Australia on the eve of a vote about abortion. Her position is clearly pro-life, as is understandable for a woman in her position.

But I cannot help but think that there is a lot of the narrative that is left out. A little research will tell you that her parents were 17 at the time of her birth, and they gave her up for adoption because of cerebral palsy and various other complications Jessen had developed (likely as a result of the attempted abortion, but there's no real way to tell and I don't have enough information here). Jessen tells us that "she was hated from conception," but apparently not enough not to be carried through 7 and 1/2 months of pregnancy. She claims that neither the doctor nor her parents understood or knew the love of Jesus Christ (implying, by proxy, that all pro-choicers are atheist, a narrative not borne out by the statistics, or even, the demographics of women who get abortions every year).

There are many holes in the story and many questions left for the skeptical listener. Jessen has created a narrative in which she is the hero and her birth parents, the doctors, and even most of the nurses are the villains, because every good story needs a villain.

But what if? What if we saw those villains as the real people they are? What if we widened the lens of our story, the lens of the narrator, to include the backgrounds of all the characters? Do we find a scared, confused 17 year old mother in 1977 who wanted this baby but was possibly told bad information by her doctor, leading her to seek out a likely illegal 3rd trimester abortion? Do we find a doctor who listens, empathizes, and keeps young woman from doing such a procedure themselves (illegal at home abortions killed thousands of woman in the years before Roe v. Wade, and this birth happened just four short years after the legalization)?

Do we find human beings, sinners, flawed and trying to live their lives as best they can? Do we find real people?

When we skew the narrative, when we allow certain people, races, religions, classes, or, indeed, sexual orientations, to become either villain or hero, we do a disservice to all the humans involved in the story. We do a disservice to our neighbor.

In the recent rash of suicides as a result of anti-gay bullying, bullies have been skewered, vilified, and all but roasted on a spit above a fire lit from their schoolbooks. Now, before this gets taken wrong - I am not defending the actions of the bullies. I think they are wrong, despicable, cowardly, and very much culpable in the deaths of their classmates. They have committed an injustice against people who are just like them. Believe me, these past weeks have found me thinking "Lord, save us from your followers" more than once. But before we get too rabid-foaming-at-the-mouth-persecute-the-religious-right liberal here, we also must remember that they are people. The bullies are people inasmuch as their victims are people.

The narrative that the evangelical right has developed, in which the nonsensical "love the sinner, hate the sin" reigns, [a concept I am afraid is espoused even by my beloved CS Lewis (but he's a dualist too, so I actually disagree with him on a number of levels)], has created a world of inequality, a world in which children bully children for even the perception of being different, and these same children feel so much despair that they feel the need to take their own life.

But in the same vein, we cannot let the pendulum swing too far the other way - the religious right is a frequently vilified, scorned, and outright abused group of people. While I feel that the religious right (exhibited especially in the abortion and gay marriage debates) tends to skew the narrative so that liberals are quite literally conspiratorial villains hellbent on taking our "hard earned" money and jobs, the left tends to do similar work in skewering the religious right. Too often the narrative is filled with the Fred Phelps', Terry Jones's, and anti-gay bullies of the world, while ignoring the Jim Wallis's, the Mother Teresas, the Jon Foremans, Stephen Christians who are so prevalent in giving Jesus a good name again.

The narrative on both sides of the aisle fails to see the forest for the trees.

One of my favorite songs right now is "The General" by The Dispatch. While I was visiting the Korean War Memorial in Seoul, I walked amongst the tanks, planes, battleships and guns that stood as reminders of a war that tore brother from brother, and thought of reunification, and I listened to this song. The song tells the story of a decorated general in combat, who wakes up on the morning of battle and announces to his troops that he does not ask his troops to follow him into battle, saying, "I have seen the others, and I have discovered that this fight is not worth fighting. I have seen their mothers, and I will no other to follow me where I'm going. ... Go now, you are forgiven."

The General in that song has filled in his narrative. He has finally personalized the Other in his story - he gave his villains a face, a name, a story. He filled in those mis-imagined people, and realized that he could not ask others to walk into such a fight without allowing them the same benefit of knowing who it is that they are fighting. He refuses to allow young men to sacrifice themselves without having the full story. He knows that the only fight worth fighting occurs only after all the gaps in the narrative have been filled in, after the Other has been given a name, a face, and a voice, and it is then that a fight seems downright ridiculous.

It is only when we consider our enemies as human beings - with a story of their own to tell - that we can learn what it means to love our neighbor. Because your neighbor is the gay kid who hanged himself in his own backyard. Because your neighbor is the bully who harassed him every day in English class because he feared what was different. Your neighbor is the abortion survivor, the woman who tried to abort her, and the doctor who helped her do it. Your neighbor is both the man who wants to burn the Koran, and the man who sees the Koran as the holiest of books. Your neighbor is also the man holding a [ironically] rainbow striped "God Hates Fags" sign, and the grieving father of a soldier killed in Iraq whose funeral is being picketed. They are all human, all people with a past, a present and a future. And they are all your neighbor.

At the risk of a potentially blasphemous statement, committed in the name of poetic license:

"Go now. You are forgiven."

25.9.10

Dear 15-year-old Self:

Put down the Tolkien book right now and listen up.

You're not going to be a lawyer. You're probably never going to be rich and you probably won't marry rich either. You may or may not get published and a lot of things in your life are going to change by the time you're 25. For one thing, Crossfire is going to get canceled in favor of more political coverage that is just yelling back and forth. Quit that pipe dream right now because you don't want to be one of those yelling crazies featured over and over in videos on the Internet (and yeah, videos on the Internet will become a really big deal).

Participating in debate is going to give you a lot of good research and logical skill, but don't let it go to your head. There will always be people smarter than you, and there will always be people dumber than you. The trick is to realize where you fit on the spectrum and listen to those on both sides and then decide for yourself where your ideas fit and what those ideas are. You'll do yourself a big favor if you stop parroting your elders' positions now and learn how to think for yourself.

9/11 just happened. Remind yourself: the taking of a life to avenge a life stolen is never a good idea. A lot of people will use this tragedy to justify a lot of politics in the future - this is your generation's Pearl Harbor. Mourn the lost, but remember to let reason speak in areas emotion can't.

You probably haven't heard this term yet, but "megachurches" aren't all they're cracked up to be. Find a church, now, that challenges you to be a better follower of Jesus, not just a better "you." This church will likely be small and unassuming, and that's okay - you'll like knowing everyone's names and being able to react to the sermon right then and there. It'll be okay.

Also: There are some times you should just stop talking. Learn to identify those times as quickly as you can and you'll save yourself a lot of trouble.

Your friends are not mini-yous. Stop trying to make them that way and let them be themselves. You may not like anime, but you'll be living in Japan someday (I know!) and you'll wish you'd paid closer attention when they tried to introduce you to things like Fruits Basket and Dragonball Z.

You're never going to be as "cool" as you want to be, and the sooner you learn to embrace your nerdiness (hint: Are you wearing your Lord of the Rings "One Ring" replica on a chain around your neck yet? You're a nerd), the better. You'll be a lot happier if you just be the nerd you are and quit trying to like things you don't like just to be "cool." The "popular" kids aren't going to give a rat's patoot where you end up. Be concerned about where you, yourself, are going, and only you should have input on that. You'll end up with an awesome life anyway.

Doubt is okay. It happens. Roll with it. Showing doubt about things shows that you're thinking about your life and not accepting things at face value. Be afraid of the moments you stop asking questions.

Sincerely,
Your 24 year old self.

PS: Oh yeah, and Harry Potter? Yeah, it's not as bad as you think. Just read it already.

-----
Inspired by Vlogbrothers

20.9.10

listen to this.



"Lover" - Derek Webb (starts at 3:00).

This song came up on shuffle today.

I have nothing more to add except the lyrics. Take a few minutes, listen, and appreciate everything that God - the Great Lover - has done for all of us, and will continue to do.

Like a man comes to an altar, I came into this town
With the world upon my shoulders, and promises passed down.
And I went into the water, my Father, he was pleased.
And I built it and I'll tear it down, so you will be set free.

Yes, and I found thieves and salesmen livin' in my Father's house,
And I know how they got in here, and I know how to get 'em out.
I'm turning this place over from floor to balcony,
Men, just like these doves and sheep, oh, you will be set free

'Cause I have always been a lover, from before I drew a breath
Well some things I loved easy, and some I loved to death.
See love's no politician, cause it listens carefully.
So of those who come, I can't lose one,
So you will be set free, oh, you will be set free.

Go on and take my picture, go on and make me up
I'll still be your defender, and you'll be my missing son
And I'll send out an army just to bring you back to me.
Cause regardless of your brother's lies, oh, you will be set free.

Cause I am my beloved's, and my beloved's mine
So you bring all your history; I'll bring my bread and wine
And we'll have a set party, where all the drinks are on me
And as surely as the rising sun, you will be set free.

17.9.10

Hope and the DMZ

Last Friday, I woke up absurdly early, ate a quick breakfast of pre-packaged Danish donuts I bought at 7/11 the night before, and hopped on the subway in Seoul, and rode two stops over to the Samgakji station near the Army base. I had to be there by 7:00AM so that I could ride on a tour bus for an hour and a half up to the De-Militarized Zone between North and South Korea.

A little background:

Shortly after WWII, war broke out on the Korean peninsula between North and South Korea. This war, which the US got heavily involved in, in the attempt to beat back the march of communism in Asia, is often referred to as "The Forgotten War," overshadowed by its cousin, the Vietnam War, which occurred about 15 years later and was also about beating back communism. However, in this war, 33,000 American soldiers and 152,000 South Korean soldiers were killed in action - not a small war by any means.

I became interested in Korea about a year ago when my internet friend, Kelley, came through Waco on a tour she was doing with a charity, and needed a couch to sleep on. I was able to give her a place to stay, and I attended the movie that she was there to show. The nonprofit - LiNK (Liberty in North Korea) - is about 1. Political action for the US to pressure China to recognize defectors from North Korea as political refugees, and 2. Aiding these refugees when they come to the United States. The film that they showed was incredibly eye-opening as to the situation happening in North Korea right now - political prisoner and labor camps, nationwide famine, and an oppressive regime run by what can only be called a crazy person.

Looking on a map, you can see that North Koreans only have a few places to go: down into South Korea, a journey which would take one through the heavily guarded and somewhat harsh 2.5 mile wide zone known as the DMZ. The other options are up into freezing cold Siberia, or over into communist China, which is sympathetic to the regime, and therefore, if you're found out without the proper papers, you get deported right back to North Korea, where, if you're not executed immediately, you get put in a political prison camp.

The situation is not good for the North Koreans, especially not for those who wish to leave.

So, it's almost needless to say that the DMZ was something I absolutely had to see when I visited Korea. When I asked a couple of friends who had lived there before, one who had been in the military, stationed at Seoul, told me not to muck around with hotel tours, but instead to sign up to go with the USO. Because it's associated with the US military, the USO tour allows you to go further into the DMZ than most hotel tours - those will just take you to the spots you could visit anyway: the 3rd tunnel and the lookout points.

Instead, with the USO, you get to visit the Joint Security Area, or JSA, which is an area that was a previously neutral zone on the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) plop in the middle of the DMZ. Yes, that's a lot of acronyms.

Back when it was first established, the JSA acted as a neutral zone between two technically still warring countries (North and South Korea only signed a cease fire - they never actually ended the war). Because the neutral zone spread over the MDL (the line marking the border between North and South), buildings belonging to each side were built all over the compound. Part of the problem arose when North Korea built checkpoints on the South Korean side - particularly three checkpoints surrounding just one South Korean one - checkpoint three. One day in 1976, near checkpoint three, some South Korean (ROK) and US soldiers and officers were working to cut down a giant Yew tree that was blocking the view from checkpoint three to checkpoint four. They were ambushed by North Korean soldiers and two US officers were killed.

As a result of the incident, the zone, while still "neutral" reverted back to country borders - the MDL now became of extreme importance, and so the line was, quite literally, marked through the camp. Part of the issue here was that there were several buildings sitting directly on the line. Therefore, concrete slabs were positioned along the MDL, between the buildings, to mark out where the border is. You can see just such a slab in this picture:


So, by being able to visit the JSA, I was able to get as close to North Korea as I could without having to go through the troublesome visa and screening process (which I doubt I'd ever pass, considering my views about oppression). For a few minutes, I got to actually stand in North Korea, and for several more, I got to stare across the way at North Korea soldiers who were staring back at me. For me, it was quite sobering - to think that 20 feet away from me is a regime known for oppression, terror, and propaganda filled with lies. We were specifically told not to wave, smile or do anything that could be used in North Korean propaganda.

Coming to Korea as an, I'll admit, somewhat ignorant American, I was surprised by how much South Korea actually knows about North Korea and the conditions there. In the War Memorial, there was an exhibit marking the 60th Anniversary of the establishment of the DMZ, and a large part of the exhibit was about the current conditions in North Korea. There was a lot about the history of the Korean War, and then a section that was simply "North Korea since the war." There were charts pointing out where each of the political prisoner and labor camps are. Pictures depicting how far the nuclear range of North Korea actually is (for my US readers - they would be lucky to hit Alaska), and others talking about the famine and food problems. Displays showed conditions in the political prisoner camps and what the cells are like if you're sentenced to death (they are so small that you can't even sit properly). It is, all in all, remarkable how much information is available, and was just sitting on display in the museum - for only the admission price of 5,000won (about $4.50US).

To go to that exhibit, learn about the DMZ, and then to go visit the actual DMZ - seeing not only North Korea, but the Bridge of No Return, the two towns that exist inside the borders, the site of the Yew Tree that was the catalyst for the axe murder incident, and the living statues that are the ROK soldiers who are the front line against North Korea - made the conflict very real. There is no doubt that things are very tense between the two countries and that it will take a lot of work for things to cool down.

But, however, as one walks through the war museum, and looks at things at the more "touristy" areas of the DMZ, there can be no doubt that there is a hope for reconciliation. South Korea exudes this hope of ending the war, of being able to embrace the North Koreans as brothers and of seeing freedom for their neighbors to the North.

After a tense morning at the JSA and staring across at North Korea, and an interesting hike down into a tunnel which North Korea had been digging in the 1970s in the hopes of ambushing Seoul, and visiting a lookout point where, were it a clear day, we would have been able to see the treeless mountains of the borderlands of North Korea - treeless because they don't want to give defectors any cover - we went to Dorasan Train Station, which is the last possible stop on the South Korean train line - Gyeongui - going North.

Here, in an almost deserted train station basically in the middle of nowhere (this station is, indeed, at the very edge of the DMZ), the sense of hope is almost palpable. There are reminders everywhere of what should be a bustling train station, but instead one that sits nearly empty except for those who happen to go through for work up in the Industrial City just inside the border of North Korea, which means mostly freight trains - there is no passenger service, if I remember correctly. There is a large, billboard sized poster that confronts the visitor when they enter the train station. This poster shows train tracks disappearing toward the horizon amongst green fields, with lettering in the blue sky above it, first in Korean and then in English: "Not the last station from the South, But the first station toward the North."

There is a sign lit up above doors leading to the tracks that says "To Pyeongyang," which is the North Korean capital. Another large poster on the wall displays the eventual map of an intercontinental railroad crossing through Europe, Russia, China and North Korea to connect Portugal and South Korea.

These are big dreams, big plans. And they all depend on the reunification and reconciliation of two nations divided. Despite the fact that it has been 60 years since the war and the separation was solidified between North and South, despite continually bristling tensions between the two countries as North Korea looks for excuses and threatens and tests their nuclear weapons, despite the propaganda and the lies, fighting and the strain exhibited so obviously at the JSA ... despite all this, there is hope.

And that, my friends, is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

12.9.10

small moment in korea

For those of you who didn't know, I just now returned from a 10 day vacation in Korea. It's the first time I've taken a vacation really for just myself, by myself. Since we are so close to Korea, I decided to simply take the ferry over to Busan, and then have a train ride up to Seoul. All in all, the trip took 12 days, and it was a fantastic time. Rather than give you a big ol' update that would be the equivalent of trapping you in my living room to show you slide after slide of photos of the same thing, I'm just going to bullet point favorite moments. I will do a post later this week on the DMZ/JSA/North Korea and reunification later this week.

So here goes, some brief highlights:

-When I got to Busan, it was raining, and I had to walk across a parking lot (a BIG parking lot) to get to the metro. When I was still about 20 yards from the metro, this complete stranger - a Korean lady - came up and held her umbrella over my head. It was completely unexpected and kind.

-I met a Buddhist priest in a coffee shop and he showed me the temple where he works and we talked about New York, which is a place in the US he has been.

-I discovered that my hotel in Busan was, quite literally, across the street from the beach, and that said beach is much less populated in September than in August.

-I found out that Dunkin' Donuts is nearly as popular in Korea as it is in Boston. I think I had it almost every day for breakfast.

-I went on a long hike that ended at a large Buddhist Temple, where I drank water from a mountain stream (and no, I didn't get sick - it was over a week ago and I'm still fine).

-I listened to every single "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me..." and "This American Life" podcast (both GREAT NPR shows) on my train rides around town - I seriously spent that much time on trains. It's actually a good thing because I love riding trains.

-I found a cute little bakery by Haeundae Market that had the most delicious Gateau chocolate cake I have ever tasted. Also in said market, I found socks with Obama's face on them. They made me laugh, so I bought them.

-I saw dolphins - real, live, in the wild dolphins - surfacing in the ocean, while I was riding on a ferry ride just off the beach in Busan.

-I rode on a high speed train through the countryside, going 300km/hr.

-There's a Taco Bell in Seoul. Enough said.

-I got to see the World Cup Stadium (and the field) where the 2002 final was played. It. Was. AWESOME.

-I had delicious Katsu-Don (battered and fried pork served over rice) in a random restaurant I just walked into and sat down.

-I found Harry Potter in Korean and discovered that the books are split up into volumes, so I had to buy two - volume I and volume II of book I.

-I walked in on a private function in the Seoul Art Museum, only because no one bothered to stop me. The museum was actually closed, but I couldn't see that right away (because of the event going on, there were a bunch of people around).

-I discovered that the Korean National Assembly Building is NOT like US Capitol buildings where you can just wander in. Oops.

-I found an English language bookshop called "What the Book?" that played Wilco. It was awesome.

-My taxi driver in Seoul was extremely kind when he realized he didn't know where the hotel was, and pointed me in a direction where I could maybe find it (and I did). We did well for as little English as he knew and the complete nonexistence in my knowledge of Korean.

-At the Korean War Memorial, I met a very nice security guard who took my picture for me.

-I found a cat cafe in Seoul. Yes, it's a cafe where you pay ten bucks to sit around playing with cats and drinking coffee. Uh-mazing.

-I stepped foot in North Korea.

Most importantly, on this trip, I learned how to travel alone, and how to love it. I pushed myself to do more things than I might have done if I was with someone else. I took some risks, and they paid off. It was, all in all, a fantastic trip. I learned a ton about Korea and the Korean war, and the De-Militarized Zone between the two Koreas. It's a very interesting story, one which I hope to tell later this week.

What are some of YOUR favorite vacation moments?

28.8.10

hey, megalomanaic

I'm very sleepy today. It's afternoon; I'm still not entirely dressed. I woke up just before noon. I have my reasons though, and though it wasn't an exciting match of England vs. the United States that kept me up until all hours, nor watching a movie with friends, I'm rather glad I stayed up.

Last night, I was up watching a stream of Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" Rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Now, frequent readers of this blog space will know that I do not like Glenn Beck. Or rather, I don't like his philosophy and influence: his rejection of social justice in the church as a front for communism and Marxism is a ridiculous stance I have discussed at length (above).

That said, I also believe in giving those I disagree with a voice, as long as it contributes to productive discussion. So with that in mind, I settled into bed last night, computer on my lap, snarky twitter on full blast, ready to listen and think. (For the record, I tend to respond better to people I disagree with, at least on a political level, if I get all the snark out of the way while I'm listening to them - that way it doesn't color my eventual analysis. This sounds weird, I know, but it seems to work for Glenn Beck and O'Reilly - I'm a Jon Stewart kind of gal).

And what Beck had to say scared me. Beck's "Restoring Honor" Rally is an entity that no one is really sure what it was about, other than possibly Beck himself. It's supposedly a non-partisan, non-political, rally to raise money for a charity benefiting ... I think war veterans? But Beck's discussion of it leading up to it confuses things - there is much talk of "reclaiming" the civil rights movement, whatever that means, and "restoring honor" to America, again an unclear term. Many of its attendees clearly thought it was a tea party rally, and the blogosphere often referred to it as such. I'm still not entirely sure what it accomplished, other than giving Beck an enormous platform from which to lay out his entire political philosophy.

However, if there was any doubt of Beck's stance on the line between church and state, no one can wonder anymore after his sermon yesterday. That sermon - one of the longest and vaguest arguments for an American theocracy I've ever heard - should have scared every single one of Glenn Beck's viewers who identifies with the Judeo-Christian tradition, and with Jesus Christ as the Son of God. In short, the man is a heretic.

Here's why.

Beck began the lead up to the rally 40 days ago when he asked his audience to get on their knees and pray - to pray for America, to pray for our government, to pray that we get back on "the right track." Before he took the stage, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's niece, Alveda King (who is not, as she calls herself, a doctor - she has an honorary doctorate, but has not earned the title she uses), spoke about accepting prayer back into the public square and back into schools. There was no doubt that what was meant by prayer is prayer in the Judeo-Christian tradition, not any other sort. This is one of the first signs we have of the "America turn back to God" thesis of the rally.

Then Beck stepped up to the plate. No transcript has been posted yet, so I am having to go based on quotes I have culled from other online (reliable) sources, and my own notes. But what he had to say should cause every Christian viewer of his to rethink their lockstep march to his drum.

In the first section of the speech, Beck told us the story of Moses and his fight for the people of Israel against Pharaoh. He repeated several times that we Americans need to "pick up our stick," ostensibly to show the honor of God/America, as Moses did. We need to stand up and listen to what the founding fathers/the burning bush told us to do - it was unclear what exactly was meant as he jumped from burning bush to founding fathers so rapidly I didn't quite catch the connection.

Beck also believes that America is the world's savior. There is no doubt about this, as he said so in his speech. He also commented at several separate points to the extent that "America has set man free," saying so directly at one point. Within the first few minutes, he referred to the Constitution and the founding documents as "American Scripture." He told us in the rally yesterday that we all need to go to "God Boot Camp," so that we can be the Americans who "rush in at the last second to save the world."

It's all beautiful rhetoric - take back the country for God, God wants us to be this and that, America is specially blessed.

But it's all wrong.

Beck would like to imagine us (Americans) as the Hebrews and himself as Moses, pick up the staff that God had touched and rallying his people, shouting at the scary big government, "LET MY PEOPLE GO." Beck's exegesis here, however, is severely lacking. Moses was not reclaiming the people of Israel so that they could get out from under the thumb of big government. He was reclaiming his people so that they could know who they are as God's chosen. It's a subtle difference, but a difference nonetheless.

Moses's gathering of the people resulted in them being nomads, wandering government-less in the desert for a whole generation. Even after that, the Jewish people have rarely had a time when they had a free country to themselves to rule. Jesus was born into the regime of Herod, after the Jewish people - God's chosen, and the only people who have EVER been identified as God's chosen - were scattered in the Diaspora. Granted, my Jewish history is a little fuzzy (it has been 4 years since my last class on the subject), but I do know that the Jews never really got their promised land - they're STILL waiting, still waiting for that promise of God's chosen to be fulfilled completely.

And let's not forget: we have to keep in mind that when the Jews did have a government, it was a big one - one that dictated taking care of the poor, that used money taken in the form of taxes to help the less fortunate, that, every fifty years, made all private property revert back to the original owners, and celebrated the idea that private ownership is a figment of the imagination - if everything is God's, then I cannot possibly own it.

What Beck has done, then, is ignore all that Jewish history, look at the Moses story, and supplant "Americans" for every mention of "Hebrews." It's some quick sleight of hand, but it's important to note for the rest of his heresy.

With Americans taking the place of the Hebrews, and the Exodus now turned around into the story of getting out from under the thumb of government rather than being reclaimed as God's people under God's law, a dangerous idea begins to take hold. If Americans - true Americans being those who follow an undefined, but probably Judeo-Christian God - then we must reclaim the country for God. America is clearly blessed by God, and our lives show his enriching. Government becomes the evil in the story, rather than the hardness of one man's heart. Government becomes the whipping boy for all that is bad, conveniently forgetting that the Jews then set up a vastly complicated and invasive theocracy in which they were the ruling class. Government is evil, and therefore we must take back the government for God.

America, then, is painted as this divine being that has been shoved off track by those who want to expand the government, by those who want to use the tax money for helping the people on whom this government depends. America becomes both victim and savior.

That's a scary thought.

What Beck has created and espoused here is no less than a civic religion, a nation worship, in which America playing the part of God. The idea that we could possibly have God on our side specially blessing our country, and guiding us to be the savior of all is a megalomaniacal, ethnocentric complex of extensive proportions.

America is just over 200 years old, a baby in western civilization's terms, even if you take the extremely conservative estimate that the Earth itself is only 6,000 years old. Who was saving the world before now?

Oh right. Jesus.

And here is where everyone should have bristled: By painting America as the savior of the world, Beck causes us to forget that kingdoms of this world are transient things, wiped away as so much dust. Massive empires have come before and fallen before, and many will come and fall after us. None of those - many of which were declared to be eternal and live eternally - are still standing. The Babylonians? Gone. The Romans? Gone. The Turks? Gone. The Brits? Failed. The Mongols? Gone. Napolean? Dead and rotting. Alexander the Great? Long turned to dust. Constantine? Dead, ages ago, right along with his government.

Every single Emperor and Empire that has existed before us, and who will come after us, has thought they had God on their side. In Ancient Rome, Caesar is a God.

Each and every single one of those empires is now gone, barely remembered by the high school students who are taught about them, relegated to the study of PhD's as academic interest.

America will be no different. Now, whether we fall in a 100 years or a 1000, there is the one thing that is certain: We will fall. We will become a relic of the empire we once had.

We are not God's kingdom.

We never were. The founding fathers knew that when they were writing - they were smart men - and that is why they attempted to give us plenty of freedoms and to give citizens a voice. They did not seek to install a theocracy, as that was what they just left. And they were just men - they were not the divine hand of God giving us a means to save the rest of the world. Beck's own faith (Mormonism) came after the separation of church and state, a faith that was only allowed to develop because of the separation Beck's beloved founding fathers so carefully set up. Having America be pictured as "the savior of the universe," then, supplants the founding fathers careful declarations with a theocracy of Beck's own choosing.

Jesus tells us quite clearly in John 18:36: "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world” (ESV).

If we were fighting for an earthly kingdom, as Christians, we could willingly take up arms, install an oppressive theocracy, and invent our own definition of justice, which involves private ownership, prayer in schools, and no abortion.

But that is precisely what Christ cautions against: He does not want us fighting for that which will pass away, as every earthly kingdom does. He does not want us viewing government as anything more than a means to an end, and He certainly doesn't want us to view anything but Him as savior of the universe. He did not come to install a civic religion. Instead, He came to teach us how to love one another, to be peaceable people, and to live for eternity, not for a quickly passing empire.

Glenn Beck: you are not my Jesus, and America is not my God. I will not stand for this civic religion that supplants my all loving, all sacrificing, communal, Trinitarian, personal, timeless, all knowing, and all powerful Lord of the Universe with a piddly government that was created by men and is run by men. My God is so much bigger than your America, and his justice is not yours.

As was oft-quoted by people in your rally yesterday, Mr. Beck, I repeat the words of the big government supporting, freedom shouting, everyone loving, possibly socialist man who would have ended up on your blackboard if he was alive today: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Freedom from government means nothing if you're starving in the street. And in helping that person, whether it be through transforming oppressive institutions that harm their rights, even if it means rejecting private ownership, I will do it. Gladly.

That, Mr. Beck, is where my honor lies. Where is yours?

23.8.10

cabbage and community.



Alex Day, a vlogger on Youtube I follow and find absolutely hilarious [click here for some hilarious stuff on Twilight (language warning in some of the videos)], is being more awesome this week by taking a trip to Zambia with World Vision. The above is his first real update on the trip, and the particularly important part is at the end.

Alex makes the point in the above video that helping out one person ended up helping out an entire community. By changing the life of just one, you end up creating a ripple effect that changes the entire world surrounding that one. Because one child got sponsored, a father was able to start a local business selling cabbage, the community is able to get cabbage from someone they know and trust and are able to feed their families, and an entire area - small as it might be - improves.

Kiva.org works on this same principle - using the ideals of capitalism to create ways to help the less fortunate. Kiva does microloans to people in impoverished countries to help them start their own small businesses. This helps in so many ways: 1. The people are able to be independent and learn not only a trade, but a business, 2. The local economy is helped because it's locals producing goods for locals, allowing the money to stay in the area rather than going off to some random CEO, 3. It cuts into one of the cycles that creates trafficking - poverty and not being able to make money on your own, and 4. It's more dignified than a handout.

Seeing Alex's videos and thinking about these sorts of issues reminds me that there are positive people making positive changes in the world, and that gives me hope. It all comes down to the choices we make every day and the way we decide how to use the resources we've been given. In the internet age, we are more connected, and more in tune with what is going on in our world than ever before. And it's easy - incredibly easy - to focus on the terrible things: the racist comments being flung around by pundits, the oppression of peoples by the very people who are supposed to protect them, the nearly impossible task of finding a company that isn't doing something unethical somewhere, the mindsets of those around you that just say 'haha whatever' when you show them pictures and videos of factory workers living in slums, the rage and yelling of protesters comparing an elected official to Hitler when all he wants to do is make sure that people have access to a doctor.

It can get frustrating and oppressive and sometimes I look at the world and wonder why the hell I fight. Why in the world do I even try? I'm obviously not changing people's minds, and discussion just goes in circles a lot of the time, and sometimes I feel so alone in the fight.

And then I see videos like Alex's, and I'm reminded, yet again, that the community of people working for positive change might be small, it might be quiet, but by God, it's doing some good. And that's the side I choose to be on. That's the side I choose to fight for: The one that says I don't care if you're Muslim, black, white, Jew, Palestinian, Hindu or Shinto. I don't care if you are the very definition of a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. You are human, and are therefore deserving of my love and respect. You have dignity. You deserve a voice.

And I choose to be a part of a community that will give you that voice. That will give you the choices to be educated, to not spend your days doing the same tasks over and over again in a factory if you don't want to. That will help you when you get sick. That will give you the chance to live and learn what a healthy sexuality looks like, rather than being forced into a trade that rips that away from you. That will stand and support your rights when everyone else screams that you're a terrorist. A community that will choose to love you when it seems like no one else will.

And goldarnit, that gives me hope that things can turn out alright.

To close, John Green, another vlogger and author I really enjoy, said in a video a couple weeks ago:

I know it doesn’t feel this way all the time, but we get to choose what we care about and what we spend our resources on. We choose what (or ideally, whom) to lust after. We choose what to watch, what to write, what to build, how to spend to the breaths that we’ve been allotted. And the fact that many of our choices are unconscious - get that handbag, get that Starbuck’s, look at that Snooki - does not in any way make us less responsible for those choices. I’m happiest when I feel like I’m part of a community that makes me choose more intelligently and with greater empathy.

Let's go and be that community, guys.

20.8.10

The "Ground Zero Mosque" or The Right to Be Offended

Note: This blog entry is full of snark.


I cannot stop laughing.

I have to keep laughing at this whole situation, otherwise I will go insane.

There are a number of reasons I think it's perfectly okay to build the "GZM" (for short), most important of which is that objections have absolutely no basis in law. There is no legal reason that can keep them from building that mosque, mainly because of a pesky little thing called the First Amendment.
You see, the beauty of America so many Patriots (with a capital P) celebrate is our freedoms - I have the RIGHT to read that book. I have the RIGHT to play that guitar. I have the RIGHT to use that word.

You do. Within reason. Just like the landmark Supreme Court Case Schenck vs. United States of 1919 determined, you are allowed freedom of speech insofar as it does not bring harm to another person or infringe upon their rights. The famous metaphor used to describe this ruling is not shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, when there is no fire. This puts your fellow citizens at risk.

What appears to be happening now, though, is that we take freedom of speech and freedom of religion to mean freedom from offense. "You can't build that mosque there! It offends me!" "You can't say that! It offends me!" I admit, I may be guilty of the latter (I frequently request that friends don't say "retarded" around me because of the offense), but I'm not going to sue them over it.

Members of both parties seem to misinterpret the idea of freedom of speech to mean either of two extremes: 1. You can't say anything that might offend another human being, or 2. I have the absolute and total right to say whatever the hell I want, and screw you if you get offended.

Finding a balance between the two is damn hard, but I think it becomes easier when we consider it from a "love your neighbor" point of view. While I may not like the racist characterization of Muslims that I find being flung back and forth during the discussion of the misnamed Ground Zero Mosque (more aptly, "the Islamic Community Center [a YMMA, of sorts] that happens to be near ground zero but still a few blocks a way and not at all visible from the site"...but that doesn't quite roll off the tongue), I fully support your right to say them if that is how you truly feel.

Will I encourage you to examine the issue and think about it more closely? (adopting a Palin voice): YOU BETCHA!

Will I attempt to show you in what ways you are wrong? (repeat Palinism).

Will I tell you to shut up because you've "offended me"? No. No I won't. I might stop listening, but I won't tell you to shut up.

And see that's what's ironic about this whole thing: People all over the United States are making the point of how important these first amendment rights like speech, religion, assembly and petition by exercising them in a way that is offensive to others, as they are attempting to block one of the freedoms from a group that is potentially offensive to a much smaller group of people.

After all, the thoughts and very loud opinions of the majority trumps the rights of the minority, right?

Worked for Civil Rights in the South.

Worked for Women's Suffrage in NYC.

Worked for freeing the slaves after the Civil War.

Oh wait.

No, my bad. In each one of those instances, the voice of the minority was shown to be just as valuable, and just as protected as the majority. It seems to me that we're all on equal footing when it comes to these practices of our freedoms and liberties.

Huh. So I suppose this is the America I was born in - one where, hopefully, the voice that is loudest (corporations with deep pockets, the richest 2%, the one with a cable channel with the highest amount of viewers) isn't the one who gets to dictate policy all the time. It's an America where the little man, hopefully, has the same right to state his opinion into the din that is our political discourse. It's an America where the rights of the minority aren't always trampled by an oppressive majority. It's an America where even the people who offend and whom you offend are on equal footing, and each get to have their say.

We are so lucky to have a voice, even if it does produce that awful, awful inexplicably stupid song I posted above.

"I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, writing about Voltaire