Ka-Zing!

Iran is enriching uranium, and I'm frankly surprised the current administration is so unhappy about it. Isn't enrichment at other countries' expense an American pasttime?

Open A Window

Man, is it just me, or has it been all Jesusy around here lately? Time to talk about something else.

Like bladders! I am nerdily excited by the prospect of growing replacement organs. I've got reservations about stem cell harvesting for all the reasons people have reservations about that sort of thing. But this story is about using your own damn cells to grow your own damn organs and I'm so! happy! it's already happening in real life.

Also, very small cars! Suck it, Cooper Mini.

'60s Batman onomatopoeia screen caps! The gallery lacks my favorite ever (Brom) but contains other beauties, including "Ouch-eth."

Finally, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, the musical! You can even download the songs, which range from decent to actually pretty good. If you don't think this is awesome, you are dead to me.

Religion In The News

This was a longish footnote to the previous post, but I decided to promote it.

Le Review: I had been reading Newsweek articles and ruminating on whether they had a dedicated religion person. So I went digging.

Good thing too, because the electronic masthead for MSNBC was buried. (Newsweek's online presence is hosted on MSNBC's site.) Once I found it, I discovered they have a correspondent dedicated to "ethics and values in American society." I wonder if that aerogel umbrella is supposed to cover religion and faith.

They also have a correspondent whose beat includes "Asian-American relations." According to the 2000 U.S. census, 4.2% of the population identifes itself somehow with the word "Asian." Nearly twice as many people self-identify as Methodist in the United States (Wikipedia). Dubbaya-tee-eff, mainstream news media?

I'm not complaining here. As Stephen Colbert says, Christians in the U.S. are "a long-oppressed majority." Boo-hoo for us.

No, I'm actually confused. Why doesn't thoughtful Christian representation fly in mainstream news media? (I'm also curious in a larger religious sense, but I'll just discuss Christianity here, since that's what I'm familiar with, and I don't want to have to think about how to write this so it includes Buddhism.)

If you can write a news story aimed at the American public, you can certainly write to a significant, though fractious subset of Americans. It's not hard to write to sports fans, a notably cantakerous lot. It's not hard to write an editorial page, a newspaper section practically designed to foment division.

Someone must be thinking about this. There's too much at stake for no one to be working on this, or at least for there not to be a good reason for its absence. Am I missing something big and obvious? Can it be as stupidly simple as a gross underrepresentation of Christians inside media? I read something to that effect once, that a majority of reporters aren't terribly religious, and shy away from the topic personally, allowing their blindside bias to affect their reporting. I wish I had the reference for that. I've also read conflicting reports.

But there's so freaking much money to be made from American Christendom. Even if you think God is an illucid fairy tale, we're a rich, loyal demographic. Mel Gibson has proven this. Tim LaHaye has proven this. Why do news media approach us from the side, through politics and social issues, instead of where we really are?

I'm figuring this out, talking before having done significant research. More later. Possibly.

P.S. 4/1/06
This entry is changing as I think about it more. Tonight I found the website of Frederica Matthewes-Green, who I wish I'd known about sooner. She has this marginally related thing to say about being a Christian in a hostile culture, which might not be very hostile. Or maybe it is. Or maybe hostility isn't the point. It's longish (for the Web) but worth the time you'll spend on it.

God, Satan, and Katrina

A short interview with Billy Graham from Newsweek. This is the second religion-prone article I've wandered across from there in the past few months. I wonder if Newsweek secretly has a dedicated religion editor.

As expected, Graham has basic things to say. He's too public a figure not to have soundbites. However, here's an excerpt I particularly like:

What do you tell people who ask how a loving God could let something like this happen?
Well, I spoke yesterday to the clergy and I asked myself why, and I told them don’t know why. There is no way I can know. I think of Job, who suf­fered the loss of everything.... He couldn’t help but ask why, but he didn’t find the answer immediately, and he really never had the answer at the end. God came back and restored to him all these things, but the cause of the thing in his life was not God, it was the Devil. I didn’t mention that yesterday, because I don’t think this is the place to talk about Satan and the Devil, because I don’t know. The Devil might have had nothing to do with this; I don’t know. But God has al­lowed it, and there is a purpose that we won’t know maybe for years to come.

Admit you don't know. Admit that God and Satan are in play, but you don't know how or why. Assume that God is sovereign and look ahead. It probably took Graham a long time to figure out how to be this humble.

Shoulder Angel Wins Again

originally written 2/17/04, Stockbridge, Ga.

Tonight I was taking a long walk through the grubby collection of fast food hovels next to an interstate that passes for civilization around here. Trudging by the McDonald’s, I looked up at the marquee sign. In letters so disparate they looked like a backlit ransom note, the sign said:

NOW
HIRING
CLOSERS!

As I stood in the muddy grass, staring up, the little devil on my left shoulder said, “Man, it would be totally 100% hi-freaking-larious to steal that ‘C.’ Everybody driving by tomorrow morning would be spitting up their coffee it would be so funny.”

Then the angel on my right shoulder said, “Jeff, that would be theft, and the people who work here might feel bad when they see it. Also, the sign is too high. You’d need a stick or something.”

Bellybutton Lent

For Lent I gave up Cokes (i.e., “sodas” for people outside the former Confederacy) like I usually do, because I drink a lot of Coke, and I enjoy Coke tm, and I’m told that it’s bad for me. It’s the ideal Lent thing.

This year, I decided to do more than sacrifice a negative. I added a positive. I only allow myself to drink water and fruit juice. What I drink must be healthy. No “juice.” Only real juice.

As I’ve done that, it’s been an easy step to eat more fruit.

Since I have been able to make food choices for myself, I have never been a healthy eater. I don’t care about food, really. Hamburgers are predictable, plentiful, easy, tasty, and filling. I’ve eaten a hella lot of hamburgers because they work, and I don’t have to think about them. If I could take a Calorie and Nutrient Pill, the only thing I’d miss would be hanging out with people while we eat. I’m far more interested in people than food.

But that’s tangential, so let’s get back to the story.

As an unintentional by-product of a Lenten sacrifice, I’m eating well. Observations:

• I’ve played with the idea of vegetarianism for years. I’m one step closer now.
• I feel good. I’m unclear whether that’s an effect of RDA fruit consumption. I’m in a mood upswing right now. On a strict french fry diet I might still feel pretty good.
• I’ve lost weight. Fruit has a lower caloric content than hamburgers, so I eat a meal and then I’m still hungry. Regardless, I’m pulling in fewer calories.
• I’ve always associated eating well with boring people. The sorts of people who eat well are also the ones who never have time to hang out -- or who must planto hang out. They always have some agenda that doesn’t involve enjoying the people they’re with. I’m all for goals, but man, life is going on! Live with us!
• More on boring people who eat well: They’re frequently fretting about what/how they’re going to eat instead of just rolling with what’s in front of them. Yes, corndogs are not great, but sometimes they’re all that’s available. Enjoy a fucking corndog.
• I’m intrigued with the prospect of eating well, but not becoming a boring person.
• Being semi-employed, I’ve got plenty of time to think about food. I usually get a little healthier when I have more time on my hands.
• The absence of Coke might also factor into any of these bullet points.

Once Lent ends, once it’s no longer a discrete spiritual exercise, the discipline might fail. But I’d like to continue the experiment and see what happens next.

Web 2.0 Baby Names

These are my favorite flagrantly fake spam sender names:

• Propositional B. Jigsaws
• Ridiculous E. Indefensibly
• Eggbeater K. Unbeaten
• Resistance H. Eyeglasses
• Undervalue C. Firing
• Minored B. Flintlocks
• Needlessly H. Hackneys
• Contravened P. Swimming
• Failings G. Torrent
• Traumatize E. Doting
• Hag I. Howdies

I want to write a mystery short story about a spammer company and use these as character names. The victim is found brain dead with an astonishingly engorged member. Death by girth. Whodunnit? The low, low rate mortgage lender? The cheap prescription drug seller? The barely legal lesbian teens? The Nigerian intern?

This masterstroke could reignite the demand for short stories in American popular literature.

Just kidding! There is no popular literature in America!

Turn-Offs, Part 2

When I ask, "What is your opinion?" and she replies, "Whatever you want."

In Twain's hierarchy of untruths, this answer falls between lies and statistics.

My Latest Million Damn Dollar Idea

I start a business to install two horns on your car: a friendly horn and an angry horn. So when you want to say “Excuse me, will you please let me in?” or “You’ve got the right of way,” or “I recognize you and request your attention!” there is the friendly horn. The angry horn is for when you hate everyone in front of you.

I realize there are bugs to be worked out, chiefly, when you’re reaching for a horn, you rarely have time to deliberate what level of emotion you’re putting behind it. This is okay, because we can install a third horn for that.

I Burned My Finger for Lent

Tonight at church we had a thing where you write down something you want to repent of, something you want to leave behind for Lent, and then burn it, thus symbolically leaving [whatever] behind you.

So I did that. What I burned was a paragraph long, and I’m not sure I actually wrote the thing down itself that I would like to repent of, but by the time I’d filled up an index card with small writing, I thought I had at least an emotional grip on what I was talking about, even if I couldn’t explain it in a sentence.

I think the idea was approximately that I wanted to repent of... fear and aloneness. But I don’t always have control over the times I feel fearful and alone, and so there was a wish, a prayer, at least a desire, to be forgiven and rid of pride that requires me to tough through fearfulness alone when I could get help.

I don’t know... because frequently, I would be happy to be helped during those times, if someone really were helping me, rather than trying to help, but really requiring me to describe how they can help, and therefore what they’re doing is not helping, and then suddenly we’re dealing with their feelings about trying to help instead of my feelings which are the reasons we’re here in the first place.

You know what? I had a whole different place I was going when I started this. I was going to talk about the burnt spot on my finger.

I burned the tip of my index finger when I was burning my symbol of fear and aloneness tonight. I’m tempted to assign symbolism to this, a hidden meaning in burning my finger. Holding on to things too long? Burned by the cleansing flame?

I don’t think there’s any symbolism. I wanted to make sure the card was good and burned, because I didn’t want there to be any chance ever that anyone would read any of it, any of my floundering. And I was playing with the candles a little, trying to get it to burn in two spots.

There is hidden meaning there, in what I just wrote, but not symbolism. My desire to make sure no one sees me struggling to communicate – this is a symptom of the fear and aloneness that I want not to have any more. Even though I feel strong and well now, this is the kind of thing that will keep me huddled in my cave next time I don’t.

That’s why, even though I’m still not sure I’ve got the idea down, I’m putting this here. What I’m writing here isn’t smart, well written, or even entirely representative of what I was trying to say. But I need to be seen floundering. In a non-symbolic way, this thing I'm writing now is an act of contrition, a repudiation of pride, letting you, whoever you are, see me struggle and fail.

Whoever you are, please be merciful with what you read here.