Incompletion in Progress

Ryan, This Bud's For You

2009-09-23T14:10:00.002+09:00

read it.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/nadir_of_western_civilization_to?utm_source=a-section

A Question

2009-09-05T17:46:00.000+09:00

What if God is Love?

OK, who wants to make me a tshirt with this on it?

2009-06-17T08:08:00.003+09:00

Thanks for the Inspiration, bro (yea, it's you, Adam).

2009-06-03T13:08:00.000+09:00

Some (translated) Einstein quotes to think about.

"A: There is a very simple answer. If we have courage to decide ourselves for peace, we will have peace.
Q: How?
A:By the firm will to reach agreement. This is axiomatic. We are not engaged in a play but in a condition of utmost danger to existence. If you are not firmly decided to resolve things in a peaceful way, you will never come to a peaceful solution. (Albert Einstein, U.N. Radio Interview, 1950)"

"Mankind invented the atomic bomb, but no mouse would ever construct a mousetrap."

"A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive. "

"God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically."

---note---
I added this quote because i find it quite funny, but since i included it, i should include this one also, lest any of you get the wrong idea of my good friend.

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. "
---end note---

"He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."

Lifegiver

2009-06-03T13:04:00.007+09:00

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

Albert Einstein

---

If a War were to destroy everything, really everything, what would the recovery look like (assuming that Humanity found a way to survive)? Sure, the individuals may have all sorts of knowledge, but in a world with nothing but dirt, water, debris, and hands, what can be done? It seems foolish to think that a World resembling what we have Today could be recreated with any sort of haste. The Creating of even the things that we think of as mundane would, i believe, be unimaginable for our pitiable Friends, were such a case as i am writing come to be. Everything we have and do and think relies on our current World as a base. We are continually building and evolving an infrastructure that allows our "progressions". If this great infrastructure that we both give life to and are sustained by were to come to an end...

...part of me thinks starting over wouldn't be such a bad idea at all.

I love reddit.

2009-06-03T10:45:00.001+09:00

"I'm standing in line at the bank earlier today. There is a big plasma tv with the news on and a blurb about the murder of Dr. Tiller. A guy a few places in front of me in line says "Good. Filthy murderer got what was coming to him." At which point a guy standing between the two of us, with a perfect imitation of the Church Lady from SNL says "Oh no, why it looks like someone forgot to put on their What Would Jesus Do bracelet this morning! Heavens sake!" and then follows it up by switching back to his, apparently normal, heavily british accent and firing off "I'll tell you what he'd do, he'd tell you to go bloody fuck yourself and your pathetic justifications. Fuck sake." The original guy, apparently used to just throwing out his declarations without being told that Jesus wants him to go fuck himself, just turned around and tried to be as inconspicuous as possible for the rest of the time we were in line."

-- ReverendDizzle

Absolutely Amazing

2009-06-02T23:12:00.004+09:00

Possibly my favorite TED talk thus far:

Excellent Piece From The Onion

2009-06-01T20:26:00.004+09:00

Sorry for the formatting; i copied the html straight from the page source so it looks a little funny.

-----

HUNTSVILLE, AL–Jesus Christ, son of God and noted pro-life activist, killed two and critically wounded seven others when He opened fire in the waiting room of a Huntsville abortion clinic Tuesday.

Enlarge Image

A U.S. Marshal leads Christ to a holding cell. Inset: One of the injured is loaded into an ambulance.

Security guards at the Women's Medical Clinic of Huntsville were able to disarm the Messiah before He could reload His weapon, a secondhand Glock 9mm pistol that authorities said He purchased legally at a Jackson, MS, sporting-goods store. "Abortion is a sin," said Christ as He was led away in handcuffs. "It is an abomination in the eyes of Me." Witnesses said the attack, which took the lives of Dr. Nelson Woodring, 51, and clinic nurse Danielle Costa, 29, came from "out of nowhere."

"He walked up to the admissions desk and asked if He could see Dr. Woodring," receptionist Iris Reid said. "The next thing I knew, He was shouting Biblical verses and opening fire on everything moving."

"It was horrible," said injured clinic nurse Jessica Combs, recovering at a local hospital with bullet wounds to the leg and abdomen. "He put his hands over Dr. Woodring's head and told him He forgave him for his sins, and then He shot him right in the face." Huntsville police officials are not certain how the Messiah was able to bypass clinic guards and proceed undetected past security cameras and into the clinic waiting room, where He produced the gun from its hiding place in the folds of His robe. Federal investigators are similarly baffled, saying that the heavily armed Christ had moved in "mysterious ways."

Speaking to reporters from His holding cell, Christ, 33, said He had "no regrets" about what He had done.

"As I said in John 16:21, every life is precious," Christ said. "This means every life, not just those who have already been born. My father, the Lord, feels the same way I do. In Jeremiah 1:5, He said unto the prophet Jeremiah, 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.' The unborn fetus is a sacred, living creation of my Father in Heaven and should be treated as such."

Added Christ: "What if the Virgin Mary had decided to abort me? Certainly she must have been tempted to do so. After all, it wasn't even her decision to conceive me in the first place. But in the end, she made the right decision, bringing her pregnancy to term and giving the world a Savior. Blessed is she among women." According to legal experts, if convicted, Christ could face the death penalty.

Enlarge Image

Christ (second from right) leads pro-life demonstrators at a 1995 rally in Washington, D.C.

"The state of Alabama has the death penalty, and this crime is certainly the sort that would be construed as a capital offense," University of Michigan law professor Arthur Lipscomb said. "With the right judge and jury, Christ could very well be put to death yet again." In such a case, Lipscomb said, Alabama would likely use lethal injection rather than crucifixion. Christ said He is unafraid of the prospect of execution. "Those who know me know that I am willing to die for the sins of others, whether those sins be avarice, slothfulness, false idolatry or the butchering of unborn life," Christ said. "The bottom line is, abortion stops a beating heart." Tuesday's shooting is not Christ's first brush with the law. On April 8, 29, He was arrested in the Roman province of Judea for alleged false claims to the throne of the Kingdom of Israel. On Jan. 11, 1996, He and six other pro-life activists were jailed for blocking the entrance to a Cheektowaga, NY, abortion clinic. In October 1997, He was arrested for plotting to mail anthrax-laced packages to two dozen abortion doctors across the U.S. "Abortion is an abomination. It is a sin. It is murder," Christ said. "I only did what any good Christian would have done." Christ's followers have been overwhelmingly supportive of their leader.

"As it says in Psalm 139:13-16, 'For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother's womb. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body,'" said Ralph Anson of the Houston-based Every Life Is Precious. "Those people at that clinic were killers, and they deserved to die." "We may not understand everything He does, but we must believe it is for the best," said Rev. Joseph Abernathy, minister at First United Baptist Church of Huntsville. "As Christians, it is not our duty to question what our Savior does. We can only live according to His example."

Shit. Yea, i said it. What? What?

2009-05-28T13:39:00.013+09:00

After reading this article about some of the rumor surrounding Derek Webb's new (not quite released) album, i was reminded of a quote by G.K. Chesterton. Regardless of whether or not you support Derek (said with a little caution, since the details aren't exactly known) being so adamant about using the word "shit", i don't think you have any room to say "It's just a word; there's no reason to make such a big deal about it." If he feels that it is important then i think that he has every right to argue about it, and not until the song in question is out in the open do any of us (the have-not-heard-it people) have any grounds to argue against him.

Anyway, here's the Chesterton quote:

---

"Now, let us put the matter very plainly, and without any romantic nonsense about honour or anything of that sort. Is not bloodshed a great sin?"
"No," said MacIan, speaking for the first time.
"Well, really, really!" said the peacemaker.
"Murder is a sin," said the immovable Highlander. "There is no sin of bloodshed."
"Well, we won't quarrel about a word," said the other, pleasantly.
"Why on earth not?" said MacIan, with a sudden asperity. "Why shouldn't we quarrel about a word? What is the good of words if they aren't important enough to quarrel over? Why do we choose one word more than another if there isn't any difference between them? If you called a woman a chimpanzee instead of an angel, wouldn't there be a quarrel about a word? If you're not going to argue about words, what are you going to argue about? Are you going to convey your meaning to me by moving your ears? The Church and the heresies always used to fight about words, because they are the only things worth fighting about. I say that murder is a sin, and bloodshed is not, and that there is as much difference between those words as there is between the word 'yes' and the word 'no'; or rather more difference, for 'yes' and 'no', at least, belong to the same category. Murder is a spiritual incident. Bloodshed is a physical incident. A surgeon commits bloodshed."

G. K. Chesterton, The Ball and the Cross

---

I wasn't planning on typing out my stance on {cuss words/curse words/swear words/profanity/other-term-that/like-the-others-in-my-opinion-doesn't-accurately-describe-them} when i started the post, but it seems like my intro kind of necessitates it.

I think that words are words, period. I don't think that any word innately has a meaning of it's own if separated from the people who use and understand it. The meaning of a word is completely subjective, and comes to mean what it does by the consent (via consistent, fairly standardize usage) of the people by whom it is spoken. "Hoklerus" is not a word, not because it fails to meet some devised standard for word creation and use, but simply because it has no agreed upon definition or manner of use.

No word is good or bad. No word is better or worse than others. Some fit certain contexts and scenarios better than others, but they are not better in an absolute sense. "Berry" is no better or worse, moral or immoral, than "cryptographic" or "shit". And that goes for any two words in any language.

If you have a different opinion then i'd love to hear your answer to the question(s) "Why? For what reason is that word absolutely better/worse than some other word?" And no, "Because i was taught that." and "Because the Bible says we shouldn't say bad words." are not valid answers. The first of those two is simply irrelevant; it says nothing about the truth of the matter. The second may be relevant, but you better be packing some serious study behind it, because i'm not gonna take your opinion seriously unless you can go farther back than English to prove it. If you think that isn't fair, then at least be ready to reconcile all the different translations available in English (or a large number of them across multiple demographics) and account for how the verses you choose to use have managed to avoid translators using artistic license when translating them (oh man, that's another post altogether). That is, IF they were even translated, and not simply paraphrased from someone else's translation (no, i'm not hating on paraphrases).

I (of course) think i'm right on this, but i'd love for someone to try to change my mind.

Easter - The Holy Rocket War

2009-05-26T15:18:00.004+09:00

Suddenly my Easter traditions seem way less interesting...

Let Us Praise Our Lord Allah

2009-05-25T10:15:00.002+09:00

This Is My God

2009-05-19T21:56:00.006+09:00

-born of a virgin (on December 25th, traditionally)
-birth witnessed by shepherds
-visited by gift-bearing magi
-both of the above found him by following a star
-called "Good Shepherd", "Son of God", "the Way, the Truth, and the Light", "Redeemer", "Savior", ""Messiah"
-both the lion and the lamb
-raised the dead
-cast out demons
-cured the lame, blind, and sick
-killed and then rose 3 days later (Easter), then ascended into Heaven
-before death, he celebrated the Last Supper with his 12 disciples
-this event icame to be celebrated by the eating the bread (his body)
-after death there will be judgment, and the sinners and unbaptised will be cast into the darkness

---

Actually, the god that the above list belongs to is Mithra, a Persian/Indian god from the 6th century BC. Most of the common ground between Mithra and Jesus is also shared with gods like Osiris, Horus, Marduk, Sol, Saturn, Apollo, and Tammuz, among others. Not every one had all of the attributes, but collectively they pretty much had it covered.

Traditionally, claiming a virgin birth was a way to show authenticity and importance. Sometimes (though rarely), even mortals received such claims. Apparently, Julius Caesar was said to be born of a virgin. Also, Alexander the Great was said to be the son of Ra. (Lots of other fun facts like this available, but i don't feel like looking more up right now.) Here's a quote just for fun though:

"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun us as erroneous as the claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin."
-Cardinal Bellarmine at Gallileo's trial in 1615

---

I'm not by any means saying the Bible isn't true, but i'll let you peoples discuss what i am (or might be) saying.

I don't know...so many things i don't know...

2009-05-19T21:29:00.003+09:00

Up until recently if you would have asked me if i was always against lying i'd have said yes. I was too simple.

---

If you lived in Germany in the mid-20th century and a Nazi officer asked if you were hiding any Jews in your house (and you were) would you say yes?

I think the Bible would be way cooler if translators used "shaman" instead of "priest".

2009-05-19T18:18:00.007+09:00

Anyone remember this one from Sunday School?

Note: I am posting NIV to try to be kinda semi-neutral on translation (i know, i know). Take KJV, Message, YLT, or find a different one on your own if you prefer.

-----

Numbers 5:12-31 (New International Version)

12 "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'If a man's wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him 13 by sleeping with another man, and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act), 14 and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure—or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure- 15 then he is to take his wife to the priest. He must also take an offering of a tenth of an ephah [a] of barley flour on her behalf. He must not pour oil on it or put incense on it, because it is a grain offering for jealousy, a reminder offering to draw attention to guilt.

16 " 'The priest shall bring her and have her stand before the LORD. 17 Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water. 18 After the priest has had the woman stand before the LORD, he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse. 19 Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, "If no other man has slept with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. 20 But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have defiled yourself by sleeping with a man other than your husband"- 21 here the priest is to put the woman under this curse of the oath-"may the LORD cause your people to curse and denounce you when he causes your thigh to waste away and your abdomen to swell. [b] 22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells and your thigh wastes away. [c] "
" 'Then the woman is to say, "Amen. So be it."

23 " 'The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash them off into the bitter water. 24 He shall have the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water will enter her and cause bitter suffering. 25 The priest is to take from her hands the grain offering for jealousy, wave it before the LORD and bring it to the altar. 26 The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial offering and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water. 27 If she has defiled herself and been unfaithful to her husband, then when she is made to drink the water that brings a curse, it will go into her and cause bitter suffering; her abdomen will swell and her thigh waste away, [d] and she will become accursed among her people. 28 If, however, the woman has not defiled herself and is free from impurity, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.

29 " 'This, then, is the law of jealousy when a woman goes astray and defiles herself while married to her husband, 30 or when feelings of jealousy come over a man because he suspects his wife. The priest is to have her stand before the LORD and is to apply this entire law to her. 31 The husband will be innocent of any wrongdoing, but the woman will bear the consequences of her sin.' "

Footnotes:

1. Numbers 5:15 That is, probably about 2 quarts (about 2 liters)
2. Numbers 5:21 Or causes you to have a miscarrying womb and barrenness
3. Numbers 5:22 Or body and cause you to be barren and have a miscarrying womb
4. Numbers 5:27 Or suffering; she will have barrenness and a miscarrying womb

-----

TL;DR -

I want some chemical analysis on this "bitter water" stuff. I mean, that's some crazy jungle-medicine-magic. Jew-shamans were totally witches/wizards.

What Exactly Does "Enhanced Interrogation" Mean, Anyway?

2009-05-19T17:33:00.015+09:00

Interesting observation at 1:25. Any thoughts (on the 1:25 thing or in general)?

I wish i had some super conservative types who read this stuff to argue with.

Oh, and if you don't know, that's Jesse Ventura, an American politician, retired professional wrestler, Navy UDT veteran, actor, and former radio and television talk show host. He also has the coolest appository introduction ever.

Oh, and if you don't know (part 2), "appository" is the word i (may have) made up as the adjective form of "appositive".

P.S. - Alex Jones is funny.

"Uh-oh" said the literal creationist....

2009-05-15T18:42:00.003+09:00

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227084.200-molecule-of-life-emerges-from-laboratory-slime.html

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/ribonucleotides/

Edit: o yea, this too. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/biologists-on-t/

Bus Tickets, The Crucible, and Watchmen

2009-04-28T21:11:00.012+09:00

I don't really have a fully thought-out opinion or position on this yet, or really even have much to say, so be kind. Anyway...

It's funny how things that usually seem totally unrelated can all of a sudden come together.

Just a few minutes ago i was stumbling when i came across this ethics problem (taken from an essay by Rebecca Saxe originally published in the Boston Review):

"Consider the following dilemma: Mike is supposed to be the best man at a friend’s wedding in Maine this afternoon. He is carrying the wedding rings with him in New Hampshire, where he has been staying on business. One bus a day goes directly to the coast. Mike is on his way to the bus station with 15 minutes to spare when he realizes that his wallet has been stolen, and with it his bus tickets, his credit cards, and all his forms of ID.

At the bus station Mike tries to persuade the officials, and then a couple of fellow travelers, to lend him the money to buy a new ticket, but no one will do it. He’s a stranger, and it’s a significant sum. With five minutes to go before the bus’s departure, he is sitting on a bench trying desperately to think of a plan. Just then, a well-dressed man gets up for a walk, leaving his jacket, with a bus ticket to Maine in the pocket, lying unattended on the bench. In a flash, Mike realizes that the only way he will make it to the wedding on time is if he takes that ticket. The man is clearly well off and could easily buy himself another one.

Should Mike take the ticket?"

My first thought was something like a simple "No." Then i thought "Well, if the guy obviously had sufficient money in his wallet then i think i'd be ok with him taking it and leaving a quick note with some contact info and explaining that he'd pay him back before the day was over (paypal, wire transfer, whatever), or at least talk to him about it and work something out."

Then i read on in the essay and learned that

"An elder in a Maisin village in Papua New Guinea sees the situation from [another] perspective, focused on collective responsibility. He rejects the dilemma: 'If nobody [in the community] helped him and so he [stole], I would say we had caused that problem.'”

For some reason this exhibition on communal responsibility really hit me. Kind of like when i "decided" that i believed that life was about Love, period.

And then i almost immediately thought of The Crucible, with the community sharing in the burdens/troubles of some of it's members. And then almost immediately after that i was reminded of something that i posted not too long ago - this quote from Watchmen:

"What does fighting crime mean, exactly? Does it mean upholding the law when a woman shoplifts to feed her children, or does it mean struggling to uncover the ones who, quite legally, have brought about her poverty?"

And this brought me right back around again; all three things are are speaking of similar issues. How much are the governments/laws/whatever to blame for the woman steals for her children? How much are the other people at the station to blame for Mike stealing the ticket? How much was James the blacksmith from Boston to blame for his brothers being enslaved a few hundred miles south in 1850? How much am i to blame for little kids working in sweatshops in Asia or the homeless guy at the train station down the street or any of the other situations that people in my own town are dealing with?

I know those examples are basically what "cool" to "speak out against" right now among circles of people who say they are concerned with matters of (in)justice, but as i said, i didn't think much about this before typing, and it is all stream of thought. I guess to sum things up, i'm not so sure that i'll be as individually-focused as i have been for very much longer, or at the least i won't be so quick to dismiss the line of thinking that may be held by an elder in a Maisin village in Papua New Guinea.

OMG I'm so lucky!!!

2009-04-13T21:55:00.002+09:00

I just got this email and i'm so happy right now. You guys just have to read it. I almost can't believe it!

I am Mrs. DR. Jufile Marina,the C.E.O, General Supervisor of the WEST
AFRICA INSURANCE COMPANIES WORLD WILD PROMO (W.A.I.C.W.W.P).

We are pleased to announce to you as one of the beneficiary of the WEST
AFRICA INSURANCE COMPANIES WORLD WILD PROMO (W.A.I.C.W.W.P) MARCH 2009.
Note that a cheque of 850,000 U.S.D has been Singed in favor of your
name.

This was through the help of Insurance companies a random collection of
names and email addresses was gotten from around the Globe E.g. U.S.A,
Canada, England, Australia and west Africa e.t.c.

After our promo play out, your name and email addresses was selected as
the 2009 beneficiary warded the total sum of 850,000 U.S.D, that is the
main reason you have been contacted by this office.

SECONDLY WE HAVE BEEN INFORMED THAT YOU ARE STILL DEALING WITH THE NONE
OFFICIALS IN THE BANK YOUR ENTIRE ATTEMPT TO SECURE THE RELEASE OF THE
FUND TO YOU. WE WISH TO ADVISE YOU THAT SUCH AN ILLEGAL ACT LIKE THESE
HAVE TO STOP IF YOU WISH TO RECEIVE YOUR PAYMENT SINCE WE HAVE DECIDED
TO BRING A SOLUTION TO YOUR PROBLEM. RIGHT NOW WE HAVE ARRANGED YOUR
PAYMENT THROUGH OUR SWIFT CARD PAYMENT CENTER ASIA PACIFIC THAT IS THE
LATEST INSTRUCTION FROM MR.
PRESIDENT, UMARU YAR'ADUA (GCFR) FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA AND FBI.

Note that our main aim is to enhance the economic system and the
improvement investors.

As you ready through your promo awarded letter your cheque has already
been signed and issued out to your Verification officer Mr. Kest Bolten.

You are to help him carry out his proper verification by filling the
below information and replying directly to his official email address
(AT)
verification_insurance01@yahoo.com.hk
Phone: +2348026173891 (Call for verification)

1, Names in Full:...................
2, Contact phone numbers:...........
3, Country/City:....................
4, Age:.............................
5, Sex:.............................
6,Occupation:.......................
7, Scan copy Identity Card / Passport

After his confirmation he is in the best position to direct you on the
best way you can claim your funds.

BECAUSE OF IMPOSTORS, WE HEREBY ISSUED YOU OUR CODE OF CONDUCT, WHICH IS
(WEP-7890) SO YOU HAVE TO INDICATE THIS CODE WHEN CONTACTING THE CARD
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REGARDS,
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DR. Jufile Marina.

Just s Simple Quote

2009-04-09T15:23:00.002+09:00

"When I was 5 years old, my mom always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down “happy.” They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life."

-- Anonymous

I don't know where is it from or who said it or anything, but i love it.

Please, someone tell me it's not real.

2009-04-05T19:47:00.004+09:00

1 April

2009-04-02T23:07:00.002+09:00

A little part of me hates the First of April. Some companies/websites/etc have very creative, hilarious content on the day, but then there are some places that i'm never quite sure of, and i hate having to wait three days or so to find out if a news story was true or not.

I Wish I could Do Somthing Like This For Someone

2009-03-28T17:22:00.003+09:00

There is an organization in Sweden that does things to try to stop/reduce bullying in schools. This is one of their commercials.

Cartoon

2009-03-23T19:14:00.001+09:00

This cartoon wins on so many levels.

These Make Me Sad

2009-03-18T01:04:00.005+09:00

Ressemblances dans les films Disney - Koreus

Watchmen

2009-03-16T22:01:00.028+09:00

Firstly: Read it. Alan Moore is an amazing writer. I haven't ever had a character in a book be so real to me before. Dave Gibbons' art is pretty good too, but i haven't read enough comics to judge it as well.

Secondly: Just in case, a couple of these may be slight, slight spoilers. Nothing big though i don't think...i have too much respect for the book to do that to you. Some are actually from Watchmen, some are just Alan Moore.

-----

Now, for some motivation (see "Firstly") -

"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."

--Alan Moore, "The Mustard magazine interview" (January 2005)

"Now, as I understand it, the bards were feared. They were respected, but more than that they were feared. If you were just some magician, if you'd pissed off some witch, then what's she gonna do? She's gonna put a curse on you, and what's gonna happen? Your hens are gonna lay funny, your milk's gonna go sour, maybe one of your kids is gonna get a hare-lip or something like that - no big deal. You piss off a bard, and forget about putting a curse on you, he might put a satire on you. And if he was a skillful bard, he puts a satire on you, it destroys you in the eyes of your community, it shows you up as ridiculous, lame, pathetic, worthless, in the eyes of your community, in the eyes of your family, in the eyes of your children, in the eyes of yourself, and if it's a particularly good bard, and he's written a particularly good satire, then three hundred years after, you're dead, people are still gonna be laughing, at what a twat you were."

--Alan Moore, "The Craft" - interview with Daniel Whiston, Engine Comics (January 2005)

"Ancient cultures did not worship idols. Their god-statues represented ideal states which, when meditated constantly upon, one might aspire to. Science proves there never was a mermaid, blue-skinned Krishna or a virgin birth in physical reality. Yet thought is real, and the domain of thought is the one place where gods inarguably exist, wielding tremendous power. If Aphrodite were a myth and Love only a concept, then would that negate the crimes and kindnesses and songs done in Love's name? If Christ were only ever fiction, a divine Idea, would this invalidate the social change inspired by that idea, make holy wars less terrible, or human betterment less real, less sacred?"

--"What Is Reality?"

"If I write a crappy comic book, it doesn't cost the budget of an emergent Third World nation. When you've got these kinds of sums involved in creating another two hours of entertainment for Western teenagers, I feel it crosses the line from being merely distasteful to being wrong."

--Alan Moore, on film-making

Doctor Manhattan:
"Thermodynamic miracles... events with odds against so astronomical they're effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold. I long to observe such a thing. And yet, in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive; meeting; siring this precise son; that exact daughter... Until your mother loves a man she has every reason to hate, and of that union, of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you, that emerged. To distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air to gold... that is the crowning unlikelihood. The thermodynamic miracle."

Laurie Juspeczyk:
"But... if me, my birth, if that's a thermodynamic miracle... I mean, you could say that about anybody in the world!"

Dr. Manhattan:
"Yes. Anybody in the world... But the world is so full of people, so crowded with these miracles that they become commonplace and we forget... I forget. We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from the another's vantage point. As if new, it may still take our breath away. Come... dry your eyes. For you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly. Dry your eyes... and let's go home."

--Dr. Manhattan and Laurie Juspeczyk, Watchmen

"Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, 'Treatment simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up.' Man bursts into tears. Says, 'But Doctor...I am Pagliacci.'"

--Rorschach, Watchmen

-----

Watchmen was my first graphic novel. It definitely won't be my last. I never really had a lot of respect for comic book readers. I always considered it just another nerd hobby, like playing World of Warcraft 40 hours a week or doing コスプレ (among other things). Watchmen changed my mind. I have a huge amount of respect for people who follow a comic series. I have even more respect for the writers. It is amazing that they can create such deep, developed stories using nothing but dialogue in the text. It amazes me.

Like i said at the beginning, Moore is a genius at character-building. Actually, scratch that. He is a genius at world-building. Reading Watchmen was like that moment in the book/movie where you make some realization about the plot or a character or whatever, except it happened over and over. The realness of the characters gave me chills.

Oh, and before i get a "the movie sucked" comment, i haven't see it yet (Japan release date of March 28), and, regardless, the book rocks.

"I've read the script and it is rubbish."

--Alan Moore, when asked about his disassociation with V for Vendetta motion picture

Oh (part two), and in response to those "comic books are for kids" poeple,

"To paint comic books as childish and illiterate is lazy. A lot of comic books are very literate - unlike most films."

--Alan Moore

And by the way - Yes, you do have time to read it. It's a graphic novel; it's not War And Peace.

No Excuses

Fighting Crime

2009-03-04T17:50:00.006+09:00

"What does fighting crime mean, exactly? Does it mean upholding the law when a woman shoplifts to feed her children, or does it mean struggling to uncover the ones who, quite legally, have brought about her poverty?"

-- Adrian Veidt, in "Watchmen"

P.S. - If you haven't read Watchmen before, you should. (Ryan, maybe right after you finish Ender's Game, since you swore on your soul that you would read it.)

German Lessons

2009-03-04T17:31:00.005+09:00

Well, i began studying German over the past week, and while i can't say much, i think i have the most essential sentence for the language covered:

"Ich zertranpel dich, du faschistischer Schweinehund!"

Translated:

"I'm gonna trample you, you fascist pig-dog!"

---

As a side-note, one of the coolest things about German is that about 95% of the colloquial phrases and "sayings" are exactly the same as in American English. If you take them from one language and translate them word-by-word with a dictionary, the resulting expression is going to be totally natural in the other language 95% (my guess) of the time. It's so great. I mean, even the thing i wrote above is legit (almost) German. You almost certainly wouldn't say the fascist part these days, but other than that it's ok. I actually learned the insult "schweinehund" from a German vocabulary website.

Hangman

2009-02-19T12:51:00.009+09:00

I lead an English conversation group here in Chiba, Japan that is comprised of Japanese undergrad and graduate students from the university (Chiba University). Yesterday i was sitting in a coffee shop with them and decided that maybe it would be fun to teach them how to play Hangman.

For those of you who don't know, here is the Wikipedia summary of the game (skip it if you know the game).

Anyway, the typical flow of the game is pretty fast in the States. Most Americans that i know tend to have no problem with guessing letters, and so they guess a few vowels then try to get some consonants and the hopefully they can guess the word. If they word is tricky and they can't figure it out at first they just keep guessing until either they get it or they run out of guesses and lose.

However, surprisingly, this is not how Japanese people play the game (at least not the members of my conversation group). In contrast to Americans, my group members were extremely cautious. They thought for a very long time between guesses. At time i had to tell them to just guess, that it was ok. It was really strange for me for some reason. They would talk to each other about the word, and make statements that are undeniably obvious. For example, imagine the word is t__c_ion, and they have already wrongly guessed s. They would say something like "Yea, it can't be (shun) at the end can it? No 's' and we already have 't' and 'c'." But it wasn't just one time. They would keep making comments like this to each other until finally someone made a guess. I can't really describe the atmosphere well enough.

I'm not really sure where i wanted to go with this when i started. I guess it is just an interesting and unexpected cultural difference. In the States people don't mind just guessing things on their own without consulting the other people, and they know that if the letter is right then the others will be happy with them, and if it is wrong then they will take the blame for failing. I think for Japanese people, as should be expected i guess, the game is much less individual. Maybe they really feel like a team trying to figure the word out; maybe they really are together, in a much mre real sense than a group of Americans trying to figure out a word. Whatever the reason, it was very interesting to witness. I wish i could actually make it interesting when i type it, but you will have to deal with what i wrote. Apologies.

Anyone else find this somehow familiar?

2009-02-15T13:25:00.002+09:00

From The Onion's front page on the 14th

Some People Just Need To Know...

2009-02-08T18:06:00.003+09:00

Which one doesn't belong?

2009-02-02T18:17:00.005+09:00

So you may or may not have heard that Michael Phelps got busted for pot. Regardless, here's a well-written letter that, as the title says, i'd like to see but won't.
(note: original source linked from letter title)

A Letter I’d Like To See (But Won’t)

Sunday, February 1st, 2009

Dear America,

I take it back. I don’t apologize.

Because you know what? It’s none of your goddamned business. I work my ass off 10 months per year. It’s that hard work that gave you all those gooey feelings of patriotism last summer. If during my brief window of down time I want to relax, enjoy myself, and partake of a substance that’s a hell of a lot less bad for me than alcohol, tobacco, or, frankly, most of the prescription drugs most of you are taking, well, you can spare me the lecture.

I put myself through hell. I make my body do things nature never really intended us to endure. All world-class athletes do. We do it because you love to watch us push ourselves as far as we can possibly go. Some of us get hurt. Sometimes permanently. You’re watching the Super Bowl tonight. You’re watching 300 pound men smash each while running at full speed, in full pads. You know what the average life expectancy of an NFL player is? Fifty-five. That’s about 20 years shorter than your average non-NFL player. Yet you watch. And cheer. And you jump up spill your beer when a linebacker lays out a wide receiver on a crossing route across the middle. The harder he gets hit, the louder and more enthusiastically you scream.

Yet you all get bent out of shape when Ricky Williams, or I, or Josh Howard smoke a little dope to relax. Why? Because the idiots you’ve elected to make your laws have have without a shred of evidence beat it into your head that smoking marijuana is something akin to drinking antifreeze, and done only by dirty hippies and sex offenders.

You’ll have to pardon my cynicism. But I call bullshit. You don’t give a damn about my health. You just get a voyeuristic thrill from watching an elite athlete fall from grace–all the better if you get to exercise a little moral righteousness in the process. And it’s hypocritical righteousness at that, given that 40 percent of you have tried pot at least once in your lives.

Here’s a crazy thought: If I can smoke a little dope and go on to win 14 Olympic gold medals, maybe pot smokers aren’t doomed to lives of couch surfing and video games, as our moronic government would have us believe. In fact, the list of successful pot smokers includes not just world class athletes like me, Howard, Williams, and others, it includes Nobel Prize winners, Pulitzer Prize winners, the last three U.S. presidents, several Supreme Court justices, and luminaries and success stories from all sectors of business and the arts, sciences, and humanities.

So go ahead. Ban me from the next Olympics. Yank my endorsement deals. Stick your collective noses in the air and get all indignant on me. While you’re at it, keep arresting cancer and AIDS patients who dare to smoke the stuff because it deadens their pain, or enables them to eat. Keep sending in goon squads to kick down doors and shoot little old ladies, maim innocent toddlers, handcuff elderly post-polio patients to their beds at gunpoint, and slaughter the family pet.

Tell you what. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll apologize for smoking pot when every politician who ever did drugs and then voted to uphold or strengthen the drug laws marches his ass off to the nearest federal prison to serve out the sentence he wants to impose on everyone else for committing the same crimes he committed. I’ll apologize when the sons, daughters, and nephews of powerful politicians who get caught possessing or dealing drugs in the frat house or prep school get the same treatment as the no-name, probably black kid caught on the corner or the front stoop doing the same thing.

Until then, I for one will have none of it. I smoked pot. I liked it. I’ll probably do it again. I refuse to apologize for it, because by apologizing I help perpetuate this stupid lie, this idea that what someone puts into his own body on his own time is any of the government’s damned business. Or any of yours. I’m not going to bend over and allow myself to be propaganda for this wasteful, ridiculous, immoral war.

Go ahead and tear me down if you like. But let’s see you rationalize in your next lame ONDCP commercial how the greatest motherfucking swimmer the world has ever seen . . . is also a proud pot smoker.

Yours,

Michael Phelps

Conflict Diamonds

2009-01-28T17:54:00.005+09:00

Pre-post note: On the order of things below - first is my jabbering, then the video for the song (hi-q available...check the little square on the bottom-right), followed by the lyrics. I included a few relevant links within the lyrics (and title).

As my little "about me" ditty says, i am a fan of intelligent rap (by intelligent, i mean rap that either has creative, interesting rhymes, or that actually deals with issues instead of just being about the usual bitches/hos/clubs/etc). I happened upon Lupe Fiasco recently and am pretty into him right now (well, as "into him" as i can be having only heard about 4 or 5 songs so far). One song in particular that i like a lot is "Conflict Diamonds".

One of the first things i thought about when i heard this song was the post that Ryan made last year over on his blog. His example dealt with how we can live in a country that is what it is as a result of war, yet claim to be opposed to that very means of sustenance. Lupe sort of does the same thing, but takes on child labor and worker exploitation in behind the scenes of the jewelery (diamond specifically) business.

Ok, so i was actually planning on going through and talking about specific parts of the song, but on now that i am typing this up i think i won't. All of you people reading this are intelligent enough to get what i would write i think, so just listen to it, read lyrics if you have to, and whatever else you wish.

“Conflict Diamonds”
by Lupe Fiasco

Diamonds are forever;
they wont leave in the night I’ve no fear that they might
desert me!!

Uhh, F and F, uhh

Diamonds are forever.

Yeah, ya know what I’m saying.
I figure, I feel like I should just, ya know,
Show people the other side that wonder where,
ya know what I’m sayin’,
that are presently unaware,
that don’t know about it,
ya know what I’m sayin’,
ya know jus show ‘em there’s another side to this thing right here,
we called bling!

[Verse 1:]
Allow me to break down the game,
behind the bracelets, earrings, chains, watches and rings.
The bling,
the crystal incrusted, princess flooded, canary studded, blue colored and blood stained.
Yeah the older brother of the drug game,
the giver of fame, then take away her lane.
the empowerer of the kings that came with claims and disease
believe what the native people were saying.
Believe, my engagement ring received and flossed at the cost of a bondage child miners' pain.
Long ago kings use to wear ‘em in their armor, when they fought other armies, because it use to scare ‘em.
If you wasn't rich couldn't wear ‘em.
Witches use to marry, and they'd shoot you before they share ‘em.
The gift and the curse, the venom and the serum.
Most hated ladies best friend get murked for a clear one.

[Chorus]

Diamonds are forever...

Yeah, ya know what I'm sayin'?
Now, I ain't comin' down on nobody ya know what I'm sayin'.
I ain't tryin' to judge nobody or nothin' like that.
You know what i'm sayin'?
I floss too; i might just go buy me a pinky ring tomorrow.
You know what i'm sayin'?
But, i just want you to see man, you know what I'm sayin',
just see man.

[Verse 2:]
Cecil Rhodes sold war [woe?] and genocide
To the countryside just to get his shine on!
I fear what De Beers and his peers use to do, before the world really knew, just to get their "mine" on!
Making paper with slave labor and hittin’ little kids with life time bids making ‘em cut and shine stones.
Inflating the price and making ‘em look nice and I wasn’t thinking twice when I was putting mine on.
About a young shorty in Sierra Leone or other conflict countries that people call home.
I figured I would never go to Angola so it never did affect me that maybe indirectly.
That my necklace was funding a rebellion or a military coup,
Started by militias that don’t believe in following none of Geneva's rules.
I was brushing off the haters, trying to be cool.
Didn’t have a clue that the rapper was helping the rapers, raiders of the villagers, pillagers of the schools.
Shooters of the innocent, torturers of the witnesses, burners of the businesses
And my bracelet was the fuel.
Uhh, I ain’t pushing an agenda homie,
I’m just pushing the facts, Fuck Bush!
Cuz there’s people doin’ worse on this earth and there black,
I took it for years now let me bring it back, [not sure about this line]

We all know on foreign shores that they finance wars, but asks yourself do they finance yours.
When I first got mine I took ‘em out on tour, didn't know lost half the value when I took ‘em out the store.
Or it was full of moissanites and cubics but the jeweler knew I was stupid and that I couldn’t prove it.
Feeling like I need it because I do music, to impress the groupies and the interviewers.
So I didn’t appraise it, nor did I loop it, even gave ‘em to my girl, thinkin’ I was cupid.
Homies was all hate hoping they could make me lose it, creeping through my own hood knew I had to remove it.
I see the Russian Mafia, the Jewish Mobsters, the undercover terrorists and the traps for the hustlers.
Homie it’s a wrap for the nonsense rhyming, props to Kanye I call this Conflict Diamonds.

[Chorus]

Ya know what I’m sayin’.
I felt like I should just let y’all know that,
ya know what I’m sayin’,
make y’all aware,
so many people do things to glorify ‘em,
I felt like it was time for somebody to do somethin'
that would horrify ‘em, ya know what I’m sayin',
you never thought that,
that 20 karat ring,
or 20 karat,
ya know what I’m sayin’, chain, bracelet you got on,
is fundin’ some little war somewhere, got some little kid
murderin’ their whole family somewhere, ya know what I’m sayin’.

But hey,
just think:
Now you know.
ya know what I’m sayin'.
You gotta know to be a hypocrite baby.
Holla back.
F and F uhh,
Chi-town,
Lupe.

---

So, there it is. Any thoughts/comments/flaming, bring it on.

Yes, It Has Been A While.

2009-01-06T15:07:00.005+09:00

So i o actually intent to post again, but i thought i'd get back into things slowly, and by slowly i mean a boring, video post. Well, not boring, but, you know.

So I Watched Eyes Wide Shut

2008-12-16T22:06:00.002+09:00

Edit - The original post was actually a just my first reaction after i finished watching the movie. It was really funny at the time, and to the person i watched it with, but i think that maybe if you were not there with us that it seems Completely out of place and over the top. Thus, i decided to edit it.

Prop 8 - The Musical

2008-12-06T22:04:00.002+09:00

I Love This Man

2008-11-25T17:02:00.003+09:00

This guy rocks. He has his principle, he refuses to violate it, and he slams them for telling him he should.

It Is Well With My Soul

2008-11-23T09:20:00.001+09:00

I love this song. I just thought you should know.

---

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blessed assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

How bad would it be?

2008-11-20T08:11:00.003+09:00

So, with Prop 8 gloriously passing recently, i was reflecting on how blessed we are that it passed, and how bad things could have been if it would have failed. I found this little graph that illustrates the disastrous results that keeping gay marriage legal would have had.

The Once Per Indefinite Unit of Time "Cup 'o Links," and a Video

2008-11-13T21:18:00.029+09:00

The following is a collection of things i have recently found that are interesting, entertaining, thought provoking, or some other positive adjective that describes something that i like. I doubt any of you will actually check them all...just see what may interest you (and i doubt Erin will check any, because she apparently is busier than God during the 144 hours of creation)(yea, jaykay).

- The mild-mannered Librarians who took on the Patriot Act... and WON! (yes, i have heard that The Daily Kos has a "liberal bias." no, i'm not worried about it, and no, i'm not afraid that i am losing my faith because of it.)

- An opinion on Gay Marriage Rights

- EDDIE IZZARD : Dinosaurs n' Jesus (Ryan, i think you have to call him and tell him...)

- Policing prostitution - The oldest conundrum

- Robert Gibbs takes on Sean Hannity (the proper way to argue against Sean O'Reilly's tactics)

- I don't have the money, so i sent a picture of a spider instead. (it doesn't matter if it is fake or not, it is great.)

- Most killer-sweet music visualizer ever?

- Coolest, saddest skittles commercial ever

- Magnetic Portals Connect Sun and Earth

- The 10 Signs of Intellectual Honesty

- AmEx becomes bank to stabilize funding (ummm....say what???)

Oh Bother!

2008-11-09T01:30:00.004+09:00

Recently i realized that Eeyore is one of my favorite cartoon characters ever. When i was younger and i watched Winnie the Pooh, i didn't think he was that funny. But now i realize that he was quite hilarious. Here are some quotes for you.

---

"That Accounts for a Good Deal," said Eeyore gloomily. "It Explains Everything. No Wonder."
"You must have left it somewhere," said Winnie the Pooh.
"Somebody must have taken it," said Eeyore. "How Like Them," he added, after a long silence.

-

"Good morning, Pooh Bear," said Eeyore gloomily. "If it is a good morning," he said. "Which I doubt," said he.
"Why, what's the matter?"
"Nothing, Pooh Bear, nothing. We can't all, and some of us don't. That's all there is to it."
"Can't all what?" said Pooh, rubbing his nose.
"Gaiety. Song-and-dance. Here we go round the mulberry bush."

-

"So it does!" said Pooh. "It goes in!"
"So it does!" said Piglet. "And it comes out!"
"Doesn't it?" said Eeyore. "It goes in and out like anything."

-

"Eeyore," said Owl, "Christopher Robin is giving a party."
"Very interesting," said Eeyore. "I suppose they will be sending me down the odd bits which got trodden on. Kind and Thoughtful. Not at all, don't mention it."

-

"I might have known," said Eeyore. "After all, one can't complain. I have my friends. Somebody spoke to me only yesterday. And was it last week or the week before that Rabbit bumped into me and said 'Bother!'. The Social Round. Always something going on."

-

"I thought," said Piglet earnestly, "that if Eeyore stood at the bottom of the tree, and if Pooh stood on Eeyore's back, and if I stood on Pooh's shoulders -"
"And if Eeyore's back snapped suddenly, then we could all laugh. Ha Ha! Amusing in a quiet way," said Eeyore, "but not really helpful."
"Well," said Piglet meekly, "I thought -"
"Would it break your back, Eeyore?" asked Pooh, very much surprised.
"That's what would be so interesting, Pooh. Not being quite sure till afterwards." said Eeyore.

-

"Eeyore, what are you doing there?" said Rabbit.
"I'll give you three guesses, Rabbit. Digging holes in the ground? Wrong. Leaping from branch to branch of a young oak tree? Wrong. Waiting for somebody to help me out of the river? Right. Give Rabbit time, and he'll always get the answer."
"But, Eeyore," said Pooh in distress, "what can we - I mean, how shall we - do you think if we -"
"Yes," said Eeyore. "One of those would be just the thing. Thank you, Pooh."

---

Just In Case You Didn't Know

2008-11-04T11:16:00.002+09:00

i just had the most amazing daydream.

2008-10-30T16:40:00.007+09:00

So i'm laying on my bed looking out the window thinking about how beautiful it is, and how good the breeze feels coming in, and how it's so sad that most people consider a day wasted if you don't actually get out and "do" something. I'm also listening the Canasta's album We Were Set Up (which is spectacular, by the way). And at some point i sort of drifted off into daydreaming.

I'm standing here in this totally white place. Think (keep your mouth shut, Ryan) the scene in The Matrix with the totally white place. The only thing there with me is this simple chair and a person sitting in it. They are both in front of me, and the person is sitting with their back to me (i never see their face). And so for some reason i have a glass of ice water that i am handing to them. It's one of those wine glass looking ones that they serve water in at restaurants. Anyway, i give them the water and they say thanks. A few seconds later they hand the glass to me over their left shoulder, and i take it. Suddenly i notice that it isn't completely empty. Then i notice that not only is it not empty, but the stuff left is not water. It is now a glass with three partially melted ice cubes and about 1/3 full of red wine. Then i "wake up" from my little daydreaming session.

Yea, i totally just dreamed a parable. Well, a scene like one in a parable. And i'm stoked about it.

The Trouble With Translation

2008-10-26T17:57:00.006+09:00

“To translate, one must have a style of his own, for otherwise the translation will have no rhythm or nuance, which come from the process of artistically thinking through and molding the sentences; they cannot be reconstituted by piecemeal imitation. The problem of translation is to retreat to a simpler tenor of one's own style and creatively adjust this to one's author.”

--Paul Goodman (American poet, 1911-1972)

I have talked with Ryan a little about this before (the difficulty and problems that arise when translating things). I think that my opinions on it have been hugely influenced by my years studying Japanese (2 going on 3 now), and also my ever-growing love/appreciation for Cummings' poetry (and writing in general).

The problem with translation is, in my opinion, that (for example) the Japanese word 犬 (いぬ, or "inu") is translated as "dog." That seems perfectly fine. The problem, though, is that 犬 (いぬ, "inu") does not mean dog. The truth is that both 犬 (いぬ, "inu") and "dog" are ways of communicating the idea or thing embodied by that four-legged mammal that people often have as pets. Neither one means the other; they both mean a particular object. This is a problem because people are apt to connect them as being equivalent in their minds. It is really fine for 犬 (いぬ, or "inu") and "dog," but when you start getting into more complicated or vague words, it really messes things up. You start to have questions like "What does [word/phrase] mean in English?" or "What is [word/phrase] in English?" I think that the correct answer is "Nothing, but in English you express this idea in the following way: ~~~~~."

When you form these direct ties, you are also prone to make cultural comparisons between words in addition to the purely semantic ones. You think of an English word that you would say in a particular situation, and then you think of what that word "means" in Japanese (or whatever language), and then you use the "Japanese word for xxxxx." Often you will have used a word incorrectly, because the fact of the matter is that Japanese is not English. When deciding how to appropriately comment on something in any language, the proper thing to say in English has absolutely no importance. It makes no difference what we say in English, because as i said, Japanese is not English.

To bring this back to Jason’s original post I’ll tie it back into the translation of Scripture. What Ryan and i talked a little about is that by translating anything from on language into another (specifically the Bible), you are divorcing it from its natural environment. There are all sorts of things that are lost if one is not extremely careful to pay attention to connotation, cultural context, and writing style. You also run into problems with things that are simply not translatable without necessarily losing something in the process. I could spend a lot of time with this and bring up lots of examples and such, but I think most people who have looked at other languages will know what I am talking about. Translation is kind of like that telephone game kids play where everyone gets in a line, and the first person whispers in the next’s ear, then they pass it all the way down, and the last person says what they were told. Things get lost. It is unavoidable.

I really feel like ideally i would learn Greek and Hebrew and read the Bible in the original languages. I know, though, that I’m too big of a hypocrite to actually do it; I fail enough already at just reading it in English. I know this post has been short and somewhat scatter-brained, and for that I apologize. I’d love to talk about it though, so feel free to email me (alabamabasser@gmail.com) or talk to me on messenger (Aim: Weezeface MSN: weezeface@msn.com). Comment with questions and I’ll try to clear things up.

I guess i will end with a couple of conclusions that i have come to on the topic. I am not really a fan of so-called "literal" translations. I think that by trying to translate "literally," you are setting yourself up for failure and you are doomed before you begin. Consequently, i am hugely in favor of liberal translations; concern yourself not with what some word "means" in the second language, but with the actual expression of ideas. Secondly, i am a big fan of using multiple languages (if you know them) in writing. Cummings does this often. I used to think that it was basically the author saying "Hey, i know lots of words that you don't, so i'm smarter than you." Now i see that it can be more that words carry much more with them than simply the exact object that they reference. A word is a world, and carries with it a culture and particular understanding of an idea or object. The duty of a translator is to capture this culture and to teach the world how to understand it.

Goodbye

2008-10-26T01:01:00.005+09:00

There's not much else that needs to be said on that.

The Heterosexual Questionnaire

2008-10-21T14:22:00.001+09:00

1. What do you think caused your heterosexuality?

2. When and where did you decide you were a heterosexual?

3. Is it possible this is just a phase and you will out grow it?

4. Is it possible that your sexual orientation has stemmed from a neurotic fear of others of the same sex?

5. Do your parents know you are straight? Do your friends know- how did they react?

6. If you have never slept with a person of the same sex, is it just possible that all you need is a good gay lover?

7. Why do you insist on flaunting your heterosexuality... can’t you just be who you are and keep it quiet?

8. Why do heterosexuals place so much emphasis on sex?

9. Why do heterosexuals try to recruit others into this lifestyle?

10. A disproportionate majority of child molesters are heterosexual... Do you consider it safe to expose children to heterosexual teachers?

11. Just what do men and women do in bed together? How can they truly know how to please each other, being so anatomically different?

12. With all the societal support marriage receives, the divorce rate is spiraling. Why are there so few stable relationships among heterosexuals?

13. How can you become a whole person if you limit yourself to compulsive, exclusive heterosexuality?

14. Considering the menace of overpopulation how could the human race survive if everyone were heterosexual?

15. Could you trust a heterosexual therapist to be objective? Don't you feel that he or she might be inclined to influence you in the direction of his orher leanings?

16. There seem to very few happy heterosexuals. Techniques have been developed that might enable you to change if you really want to.

17. Have you considered trying aversion therapy?

--Martin Rochlin, Ph.D., 1972

Continuity

2008-10-19T12:20:00.004+09:00

Here's another thing i wrote last semester. This is actually one of my favorites from that semester.

---

"Continuity"

I just don't get it.
Where does warm end and hot begin?
What is the difference between
being hungry and starving?
Is a rainbow really divided with black lines
like in a color by number book?

So,
what’s the big deal with
literature and 1914?

---

Any thoughts and/or criticisms are welcomed.

My First Bike Adventure in Japan

2008-10-14T12:41:00.005+09:00

I got my bike a couple of days ago, and yesterday i (along with andrea, who is not cool enough to blog) decided to go and find the beach. It is about 6 miles from the dorm i think. I didn't write out the path there or anything though; we just went. No direction, period. We ended up spending most of the time in a park nearby, and not at the actually beach. Check out my pictures of the trip and you will see why.

C'mon Guys, Everybody's Doing It!

2008-10-14T08:12:00.003+09:00

I should bail-out a bank...seems like all the cool kids are doing it these days.

This is Active Non-violence

2008-10-13T10:35:00.003+09:00

Just a quick post.

Oh, and parental guidance is suggested (not bad...you'll see).

Human at Conception?

2008-10-11T09:19:00.007+09:00

I have been a pretty staunch supporter of being pro-life (yes erin, in more than just childbirth). For the first time today i heard something that actually gave me pause about it.

It forces me to ask the question, "Exactly when do i believe the a human 'receives' a soul?" As he asks in the video, if one embryo splits into twins, then another soul is needed. And who gets the original one? Or i suppose one could say that the original embryo had two souls from the start? Similarly, what do we say about the instances where two embryos fuse into one? Do we say that one soul simply ceases to exist, or that it floats off into some sea of souls? Or is it that there was only one soul originally?

It's such a complicated issue really, and i think we too often brush it off without thinking about it at all.

30 Lines

2008-10-10T03:00:00.000+09:00

I wrote this last semester while Brother Micah (click here for a taste.) and his buds were hanging around campus (at UA) for a couple of weeks. It isn't really a good representation of everything he says, but it is a small sample.

I do have a friend who thinks that he doesn't actually believe any of the stuff he rages about, and that he just wants to get people talking. It is possible that that is the case, but it still bothers me immensely due to the subject matter and how it can (and i'm sure does) affect people who don't talk to someone about it, or who don't talk to anyone who can refute some of the stuff he talks about. It makes me very upset and very sad when he is on campus.

---

"30 Lines"

Truth?
Lies.
Misconceptions.
Non-contextual.
Un-Biblical.
Not.
Caring?
Derision.
Ridicule.
Self-righteousness.
Not.
Loving?
Impersonal.
Belligerent.
Damning.
One-sided.
Not.
Christian?
Doubtful.
Unlikely.
Lacking
proof.
Lacking
fruit.
Thought-provoking?
Sure.
And?
They’re
still
wrong.

I Object, episode three

2008-10-08T22:34:00.000+09:00

So, I guess it's about time for episode three. This time around I'm gonna hate on the late Mariano Baptista Caserta, the President of Bolivia just before the turn of the nineteenth century. Now, before I even get into things, I need to make sure one thing is clear. I do not support communism. Ever. I had to mention this because all of those countries in South America are communist nations. Sure, some of them deny it, but they are all evil communist societies powered by the drug trade. And don't let President Caserta's title fool you; it is just a mask. He was no more fairly elected than Rutherford Hayes back in 1876.

Now, apparently this guy was a pretty good speaker. That sounds like a really good thing for the leader of a country, but when you think about it, what would you expect from someone who practically owns the country, ruling without regard to law or custom? He doesn't have a choice but to be a good speaker; how else could he fool the people into thinking he was such a good guy? I hear Hitler was a wonderful speaker, and we all know what a wonderful person he was.

Now, don't let all of the political propaganda you have probably seen on this guy talking about how great and wonderful he was get to you; there is some dirt on him. He practically murdered this guy, a former leader of Bolivia, while he was "president." I mean, he didn't actually kill the guy himself, and he wasn't exactly in the area when it happened, but everyone knew he was behind it. There was some big cover-up or something regarding who actually killed the guy. Some people believe his guards did it as he came back into the country, but there is reason to believe that Caserta had actually hired the guards for the exact purpose. Commie bastards.

The Real Immigration Problem

2008-10-06T23:30:00.005+09:00

The following is a paper i wrote for a class at UA last semester. Yes, it is long, but it is a very serious issue and i hope that you can take time to read it.

---

Many people in America believe that the biggest problem in America today is illegal immigration. According to immigrationcounters.com there are currently 21.5 million illegal aliens in this country. Since 2001, illegal aliens have wired nearly $256 billion back to Latin America. Since 1996 they have consumed $400 billion from US Social Services, and their children have cost the US public school system over $14 billion.

However, the people coming over the border daily are not the biggest threat that we are facing from Mexico. They may be sending money back to Mexico; they may be using money from Social Services; they may be costing our school systems money, but they are still taking part in the country. They are spending money. Their children are getting an education. Whether we like them or not they are taking part in the economy in some way. The real problem that we are facing is the illegal immigration of various kinds of Mexican animals into the US.

Uncountable masses of animals are pouring over the border. This can cause several disastrous problems for America’s citizens, its animals, and its environment. Firstly, the American people are in danger. According to www.dangerfrommexico.weebly.com (photos available on that website also), all Mexican animals have the mange. Every one of them. The mange has symptoms such as hair loss, mental impairment, greatly increased risk of cancer and heart attack, and increased susceptibility to rabies. Humans can contract this disease by contact. The danger is that it is dormant for a period of 2-4 weeks after first contact, thus humans can get it easily by something as simple as playing with their pets if they are infected by some wild Mexican animal.

Also, squirrels in Mexico have Cheyletiellosis, or "walking dandruff." Cheyletiellosis is highly contagious. Transmission is airborne as well as contact-based. Even just being near an infected creature can cause transmission. Symptoms in animals include intense itching, scales on the skin, and hair loss. Symptoms in humans include multiple red, itchy bumps on the arms, trunk, and buttocks, which can lead to painful, open sores.

If enough animals come into America from Mexico, millions of people will need medical care and possibly hospitalization due to the diseases and complications caused by the animals. The toll on our doctors, insurance companies, and government medical assistance will be massive.

Secondly, our nation’s native animals are in great danger. We rely on them for many necessities. We have farmers all over the country who raise pigs, cows, chickens, and several other animals for food. If our animals are infected by the horrific diseases from the Mexican animals, the trickle-down effects will be catastrophic. The most obvious result will be an extreme food shortage. We wouldn’t be able to eat any of the meat from the infected animals due to the risk of being infected ourselves. There would also be another devastating result from mass infections. If our farmers’ herds are infected they will be out of jobs. If they are out of jobs, there will be significantly less people earning income and significantly more people taking government subsidies. And because they are relying on the government and not their own work, they may be less willing to spend the money that they receive. This will cause the economy to slow down and possibly even go into a recession. Then, with the economy slowing, even more people will start hording their money. Soon, almost no one will be willing to spend money on anything except for the bare essentials. However, this creates a problem since we will already be low on food. Prices will be extremely high, which will mean that many poorer families will be forced to eat less and less as the situation worsens. It will not take long for our nations poor to begin dying off due to hunger. The trickle-downs are truly disastrous.

The final major area that will be affected by the Mexican animal infestation will be our country’s environment. The toll that these creatures will take on our forests and waterways is immense. Then entire balance of nature is at risk of being toppled over. These Mexican dogs, cats, and squirrels (and who knows what other monstrosities) will infect our animals. They will compete with our animals for food and habitat. Just like the great infestation of 1839, our forests may be overrun. With the Mexican beasts competing with our native animals for food, deaths due to starvation are inevitable. Soon, the ratio of natives to aliens will begin to shift in favor of the aliens. With every passing day it will become more and more one-sided.

In conclusion, I urge everyone to take a stand against these foreign invaders. We cannot let our nation be overrun by these savages. Sure, at first it won’t be that big of a deal. So what if our animals lose some hair, right? But we cannot be so casual with this. If our animals become infected, we will be next. First we will go bald. Then comes the itching, and scratching. Soon we will develop the open sores. If the exposure to the Mexican creatures continues, the results will be catastrophic. Though this hypothesis is untested, some speculate that in the later stages of infection humans will lose all ability to think rationally. The virus seems to completely take over a person’s mind, rendering him unable to do simple, everyday chores, things like tying his shoes or unzipping his pants before he pees. The entire fabric of society will become unwoven if we allow these animals to continue crossing our border.

i am a beggar always, or, Beggars, revisited

2008-10-01T22:54:00.008+09:00

As some of you know, i am a huge fan of E. E. Cummings. I was reading through some of his poetry recently (well, re-reading i suppose), and i came across "i am a beggar always". (period outside the quotes because for Cummings it could make a difference). I was reminded of the post i made a while back about beggars, and my thoughts on how i do act/should act towards them. This poem really nails the thoughts i often have (and that i think a lot of people have) when i see a beggar on the street.

---


i am a beggar always
who begs in your mind

(slightly smiling, patient, unspeaking
with a sign on his
chest
BLIND)yes i

am this person of whom somehow
you are never wholly rid(and who

does not ask for more than
just enough dreams to
live on)
        after all, kid

you might as well
toss him a few thoughts

a little love preferably,
anything which you can't
pass off on other people: for
instance a
plugged promise-

then he will maybe (hearing something
fall into his hat)go wandering
after it with fingers;till having

found
what was thrown away
                     himself
taptaptaps out of your brain, hopes, life
to(carefully turning a
corner)never bother you any more

---

I think it also says a lot about how little we truly care about people that we don't deem important or useful to us. We can be so concerned with our own selfish thoughts and desires that when we come upon someone who we could help in some way we often cast them as a nuisance and do just enough to get them to stop bothering us so that we can continue along with our own concerns (or those concerns that we care to consider...never mind the fact that the person we just brushed off should also be our concern). Whether it be due to our (myself included) selfishness, our ethnocentrism (when the "beggar" is a need for justice in some other part of our world, a call to make things right), our pride, or whatever other errant thoughts we have, we do oft-times toss them a little something, hoping that they will wander off after it and never bother us again, and that, friends, is a grave mistake that we are all guilty of far too often.

EDIT - i didn't even begin to talk about the actual composition of the poem, but for now i'll just say that i think there are some pretty great things that can be said about it.

Why so serious? Oh yea...the recession

2008-10-01T21:56:00.003+09:00

I saw this video tonight. It has to be one of the top videos this year (in my opinion at least).

John Newton, Slavery, and Us

2008-09-29T22:36:00.003+09:00

The following is a recent post by Matthew on his blog "I see men like trees, walking." I have been reading it for a while now; you guys should check him out. I asked to repost this because i think it has some things to add to the discussion some of you have been having with me over the past week or so.

---

Today I was talking with a Christian doctor who told me a little story about John Newton. Apparently he used to have great devotional times in his cabin when he was captain of a slave ship while slaves were suffering and dying in the decks below him. And that image really, really struck me. Some extracts from his journal describe him relying on God and thanking Providence in the midst of oppressing and trading in slaves.

The point that this doctor was trying to make was about things that are going on that we don't even realize. The one that struck him a lot was about suffering, and how the world really avoids suffering and seeks comfort. Yet Christians, including myself, often buy into this and sometimes even construct whole theologies around it (here's looking at you, Joel Osteen.)

I think that's a good point, but the thing that struck me about this example was our world. Apparently, roughly 26,500 children die every day of hunger and preventable disease. Several hundred thousand people are trafficked across borders every year, most to lives of sexual slavery or sweatshop labor. More than 3,000 babies are killed each year as a result of abortion. If we're generous in our theology, four billion people are on the highway to hell. There are 2,000 of our brothers and sisters locked up in prison in Eritrea. Just here in America there are still many people living in poverty and oppression. I could be a smart-aleck and quote Tony Campolo here, but I think that's a dumb thing to say anyway and most of my readers have their favorite things that they wish the church in America would just give up (mine's gay marriage, but we can talk about that another day.)

And then there's not just the problem of people suffering while we enjoy fast internet and Starbucks coffee, but the problem that sometimes we benefit from their suffering. It's inane things like Christians buying crosses made in sweatshops, but it's bigger things, too. A lot of the things that I use every day probably involved oppressing someone else so that I could have them so cheaply and easily, like coltan in my cell phone. (The question of whether or not sweatshops are good could a future blog post, but I'd need a lot of support from my commenters to do it.) Many anti-communist governments that we helped to overthrow to protect ourselves were horrifically oppressive, allowing us to live in freedom while others were enslaved.

All of this is bad, and I applaud anyone who clicked on those links. Please keep clicking and keep learning.

In many ways the church in the West is like Newton in his cabin. I will acknowledge that we already do a lot, but our effort is simply nowhere near where it needs to be. I still don't know what the right answer is. I usually end up living in the middle: I give to organizations when I can, but I still buy CDs and go out to eat. I pray that this is right, and I pray that when I finish my studies I can pour more of my time, energy, and money into helping the needy and broken like Jesus did. However, I really want to start a bigger conversation about this, about how Christians ought to be living in the light of these realities, and what we ought to be encouraging and doing corporately. I think that John Piper gets it right when he says:

"Piety that does not produce a passion for God-exalting social justice and practical mercy is worthless." (and if you think that personal holiness is unimportant, read the next week's sermon.

What do you think?

---

Feel free to comment here, or you can head over to Matthew's blog and comment there.

Acquainted

2008-09-29T12:09:00.001+09:00

So here is a poem i wrote last semester. I don't think it sucks as bad as that last one i posted, so maybe you can actually bear to read it.

---

Acquainted

It’s that guy…
the one from that party
the other night.
I think.

A slow wave,
cautious greeting,
and an elevator ride in silence.

---

Interesting Discussion

2008-09-26T20:04:00.007+09:00

The video is in two parts, and it is long, but I found it quite interesting. I hope you do as well (if you take the time to watch and/or listen).

On the 30th of September 2007, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens sat down for a first-of-its-kind, unmoderated 2-hour discussion. In this conversation the group trades stories of the public's reaction to their recent books, their unexpected successes, criticisms and common misrepresentations. They discuss the tough questions about religion that face the world today, and propose new strategies for going forward.

Part 1

Part 2

For Ryan, a Time Travel Paradox

2008-09-25T00:51:00.000+09:00

A baby girl is mysteriously dropped off at an orphanage in Cleveland in 1945. "Jane" grows up lonely and dejected, not knowing who her parents are, until one day in 1963 she is strangely attracted to a drifter. She falls in love with him. But just when things are finally looking up for Jane, a series of disasters strike. First, she becomes pregnant by the drifter, who then disappears. Second, during the complicated delivery, doctors find that Jane has both sets of sex organs, and to save her life, they are forced to surgically convert "her" to a "him." Finally, a mysterious stranger kidnaps her baby from the delivery room.

Reeling from these disasters, rejected by society, scorned by fate, "he" becomes a drunkard and drifter. Not only has Jane lost her parents and her lover, but he has lost his only child as well. Years later, in 1970, he stumbles into a lonely bar, called Pop's Place, and spills out his pathetic story to an elderly bartender. The sympathetic bartender offers the drifter the chance to avenge the stranger who left her pregnant and abandoned, on the condition that he join the "time travelers corps." Both of them enter a time machine, and the bartender drops off the drifter in 1963. The drifter is strangely attracted to a young orphan woman, who subsequently becomes pregnant.

The bartender then goes forward 9 months, kidnaps the baby girl from the hospital, and drops off the baby in an orphanage back in 1945. Then the bartender drops off the thoroughly confused drifter in 1985, to enlist in the time travelers corps. The drifter eventually gets his life together, becomes a respected and elderly member of the time travelers corps, and then disguises himself as a bartender and has his most difficult mission: a date with destiny, meeting a certain drifter at Pop's Place in 1970.

The question is: Who is Jane's mother, father, grandfather, grand mother, son, daughter, granddaughter, and grandson? The girl, the drifter, and the bartender, of course, are all the same person. These paradoxes can made your head spin, especially if you try to untangle Jane's twisted parentage. If we drawJane's family tree, we find that all the branches are curled inward back on themselves, as in a circle. We come to the astonishing conclusion that she is her own mother and father! She is an entire family tree unto herself.

Bilingual Churches

2008-09-22T16:47:00.005+09:00

Recently I attended for the first time the church that I will probably be at this year. This particular church is a fully bilingual church, meaning that everything is done in two languages (English and Japanese). By everything I mean literally everything, from songs to prayers to readings to the sermon. This was the first time I had been to a bilingual church, and I think that I really like it. Not just the church, but also the nature of doing things in multiple languages.

This first reason that I noticed has more to do with language in general than the church necessarily, but it is big. The thing about language is that words have much more to them than just one literal meaning. A word carries with it that meaning, but also a connotation and a feeling of sorts as well. One of the beauties of bilingual worship and church meetings is that you aren’t locked in to one language’s words. Multiple languages means you have multiple expressions of the same idea, and while these words may be “direct translations,” there are still slightly different feelings associated with them, and I feel like that helps to give a fuller understanding of the ideas being sang/prayed/spoken about.

Another thing that is closely related to the first one is that by only using one language I think we have a tendency to begin thinking of God and Scripture as being in that language. I know that I definitely think of most things that happen with church as being English. I think this is dangerous because, like I said earlier, each language brings with it certain feelings and connotations, and so operating as if the Word was English means that we are only operating under the feelings and connotations of English. We block off the insight of the thousands of other ways of communicating the same truth. (I have actually been thinking a lot about this recently, even before I went to this church, in relation to having the Bible in the original language, and how much could be gained by it, or contrarily how much could be lost without it.)

At the same time, I feel like using a single language can cause a sort of division among believers. It aids the creation, whether conscious or not, of an “us and them” mentality. We have our church here in this part of town, and then there is the Spanish church down the road, and sometimes that Korean one over there too. It is hard for me to explain the division I am pointing at, but it is there, at least for me. Being part of this church in Japan has really opened my eyes to the unity of the entire body of Christ. Seeing and experiencing this in a group of believers in multiple languages is amazing. It can do nothing but shatter my usual (often ethnocentric) thoughts of God and the church that are limited to what I think in English. With native English speakers singing in Japanese, and native Japanese speakers singing in English, it becomes much easier to se and believe that we really are one body worshiping one God across nations and tongues.

One concrete example of why I like bilingualism is in singing the Japanese version of “Open the Eyes of my Heart” that we sang. Firstly, they changed the lyrics of both to be more communal, such as replacing “I” with “we” and “my” with “our” and that sort of thing. I really liked that in itself. But the thing that really stuck out to me was that because I am still learning Japanese I think more about what the actual structure of the sentence means in order to understand it. Because of this, I can’t just sing the song thoughtlessly. I mean, I could just sing the words with no thought, but to sing and be aware of what I am saying means that I have to focus more. This extra focus and thought about what the lines actually mean grammatically causes me to pay closer attention to the thought behind the lyrics. In English I can sing about the grace of God without thinking much about it. However, in Japanese when I sing 恵み I actually associate it with the idea of what grace, and what 恵み is. The connection is even stronger when it deals with the actual grammar and construction of the words in Japanese, but I cannot find the lyrics online right now to give a real example.

Interference

2008-09-20T13:47:00.003+09:00

I wrote this recently. I (naturally) think that it is just about the worst thing I have ever read. Any input on what should be cut off and burned would be great. I think it is pretty much the whole thing, but I wanna stick with the idea.

---

"Interference"

The words won't come.
They can't...shouldn't come.
Do you believe in explainable mysteries?
They say a picture's worth
one thousand words -
I say ten thousand.
And I don't know that many words.

But these pictures cannot be observed.
Two slits exist between the mind and
the tongue, and one peek at either
alters the entire image.
Unspeakable, unseeable,
what can we do, but imagine?

---

So, there it is. It's super-rough, super-unfinished, and super-needs-your-help-because-I-am-super-not-good-at-writing.

Also, if you feel like you can kind of, almost, maybe see what I'm getting at, letting me know would be great too. For now I'm assuming that it seems pretty esoteric though.

Policy Change, Anyone?

2008-09-20T08:27:00.002+09:00

On Wednesday Jacques Diouf, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), said "Global numbers afflicted by acute hunger rose from 850 million to 925 million by the start of this year because of rising prices. [...] Thirty billion dollars per year must be invested to double food production and eliminate hunger." At an FAO summit recently, members pledged $6.5 billion towards ending hunger (sources: news.yahoo.com, reddit.com).

The cost of the war in Iraq is about $10.2 billion per month (or about $555 billion total thus far, climbing another $340+ million every day).

Time for a policy change, anyone?

I Object, episode two

2008-09-18T10:29:00.002+09:00

Well, I had the whole thing typed up and everything, but then it just published the draft from way back, which was only about 2 sentences. I can't bring myself to re-do it now, so I'll either redo it later, or just do a new one next week.

Hydrogen vs. Boost

2008-09-15T11:46:00.004+09:00

The Importance of Form

2008-09-13T06:56:00.007+09:00

Recently, while sitting up late talking about poetry with a couple fellow English-major friends of mine, I got really upset about a poetry website not preserving the form of their E. E. Cummings stuff. Part of the reason is because I really like his stuff, and so I want people to respect it. The other part is that form really matters. If it didn't matter then poets and writers in general wouldn't take the time to do anything special with it. Everything would just be straight across. (It reminds me of how I get upset when churches don't sing all the verses to songs. I can't imagine the songwriter sitting down thinking "You know, I'm writing 4 verses to this song, but I really only hope people sing the first and last ones.") Just take a look at the following poem by Cummings. First will be the original (as in, Cummings' original form), and then will be the (terrible) website's version -

"r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r" - the real one

"r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r" - the fake one

It is a completely different poem. By not preserving the form it completely loses it's effectiveness. Cummings' poetry is all about the feeling(s) you get while reading it. Sometimes it is more about the feelings and emotions you get while reading than the actual words of the poem. Instead of capturing a moment and putting it into words, he captures a moment and puts down words that will transpose that moment onto you, just by (trying) to read them. There isn't anything deep about this poem really, but it perfectly exemplifies that aspect of Cummings' writing. It is all about the experience, and not so much the words themselves.

The Feeling of Truth

2008-09-12T22:38:00.008+09:00

So today while I was reading Blue Like Jazz I wrote down a collection of thoughts that occurred to me as I was reading. This may turn into a poem or short something else or whatever sometime, but for now I just wanted to put it up.

---

The Feeling of Truth

There is a feeling you get when you read something true. Really true. It is the same feeling that you get right before you cry. You feel it in your throat, your eyes, your stomach. It's as if your whole body, your physical body, recognizes the truth of what you read. You know it and you feel it. You know it and you know it.

It feels this way because your very bones see it, and they know that it is true and you are not. Not wholly, anyway. And it bothers you. You see the pain and the success of others and you feel your comfort and your failure.

Then you see someone else's shortcomings and you hate them, precisely because they are your shortcomings too.

I Object, episode two

2008-09-11T11:20:00.001+09:00

Episode two is postponed until later in the week because I'm packing right now.

Big Decisions Call For Strict Guidelines

2008-09-10T13:49:00.005+09:00

Thanks to Erin I was just inspired to create this flowchart. Bask in the joy it is to know the secret of my rakishness.

(Click for full.)

Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!

I Object, episode one

2008-09-05T16:09:00.003+09:00

Well, in an attempt to inspire Ryan, our washed up, has-been blogger-friend, I happened upon an idea that I really liked. I want to begin a series of posts where I take a Wikipedia article (English version only) and then proceed to explain my opposition to whatever it happens to be that week. The ground rules are pretty simple:

1. I MUST use the first article that the "Random Article" tool gives me, regardless of how common or obscure it is, or how much info I have available.
2a. I can only use the information available on the actual Wikipedia article and my own thoughts as source material. No cross-references, no external links. Nothing.
2b. Exception to the above - I can use one, but only to find an appropriate and applicable picture for the post.
3. I reserve the right to ignore important details in a truly FOX news fashion in order to get my point across.
4. The opinions expressed in each installment don't necessarily reflect my real-life opinions.

Those are the only ones that I have right now. So, with the intro out of the way, I'll get on with the first part in the series....

Four on the Floor, and why I hate it.

For those of you who are a little out of the loop, Four on the Floor (henceforth, FotF) was a short-lived sketch-comedy show that aired in the UK in the 80's. Now, I had no part in the selection, but luckily I have a fairly easy target this week - FotF only made it thirteen episodes before being cut from the weekly lineup. Just look at the description of the show's primary personality:

"The show's most famous character was Mr. Canoehead, a quintessentially Canadian superhero: on a canoeing trip in Algonquin Park, he was hit by lightning while portaging his aluminum canoe, which became permanently welded to his head. As a crime fighter, he would capture criminals by turning around so that the canoe knocked them over."

Here's a picture of "Canada's Greatest Aluminum Crimefighter" (yes, they actualy say that...) -

Hmm....I won't even begin to talk about how ridiculously idiosyncratic the science of that is. I mean, at least most American superheros (like Ash from Pokemon) have legitimate background stories.

Let's just stop and think about this crime-fighting technique though. So, he has this massive boat attached to his head. And he walks around and whacks the bad guys with it. Just like that. Apparently the Brits (or maybe Canadians, but I mean really, isn't one just as dumb as the other?) aren't observant enough to think "Hey, I just robbed this bank, and that guy with a ship on his head is coming down the sidewalk. Maybe I should go the other way." A canoe! It's a freakin' canoe!

Apparently, one of this fellow's favorite lines is "Taste gunwales!" (A "gunwale" is the top of the side edge of a boat, basically.) This was his exclamation as he accosted the villains and proceeded to pound them with his canoehead. I just cannot watch someone who passes lines that corny. At least get some good writers for him. Maybe hire some great American authors, like Tim LaHaye or someone like that.

I object to pitiful excuses for sketch comedy like this. If you want British sketch comedy, go watch Monty Python's Flying Circus. Whatever you do, spare yourself and avoid FotF; it never has and never will amount to anything worthwhile.

Incompletion in Progress - further thoughts

2008-09-03T03:03:00.000+09:00

"I promise nothing complete; because any human thing supposed to be complete, must for that very reason infallibly be faulty."
--Herman Melville

When I originally made this blog I chose the name simply to poke fun at and admit to my past failures of keeping this sort of thing up and going. Over the last couple of weeks, though, I have started thinking of other applications of the title, of other aspects of my life that are incomplete, and consequently I have grown more attached to it.

One of the first things that I thought of was my total inability to love completely. In all my attempts to love selflessly, no matter how committed or devoted or focused I feel like I am, I cannot escape my own selfishness. Even in my best, most "Christian" moments, I am secretly wanting the other party involved to think that I am the kind of person who would or could love selflessly. My love in manipulative. It is imperfect and selfish and biased.

The same things goes for my worship. On Sundays I am usually more focused on thoughts like "Oh, I like this song." and "I think Tim did a good job with the sermon today." than I am repentance and focusing on worship. And during the week I have a pretty terrible track record for actually getting enjoyment of something or gratitude for blessings to a point of worship or even real thanksgiving. I am too blessed to even realize and appreciate the situation that God has put me in. My "praise" usually amounts to not much more than "Thank you God for this food, and bless it and bless the people that prepared it, in Jesus' name Amen. Pass the chicken." If that. I don't live in the wilderness enough (and that is a dangerous thing to say, and it scares me to do so) to realize how pitiful my worship is and how small my praise is.

So what about linear progress? Am I getting any better? I mean, with all the repenting and sermon-listening and pondering, am I making progress towards living as Christ lived? Not hardly. I mean, of course sanctification is real. Of course God works good into the lives of His people. But that doesn't mean that I am making progress in the sense that I am going to "get there" if I just keep trying. Struggling with and overcoming a particular sin is usually a means to the end of finding new ones. It is oft' said that the more you know the more you realize that you don't know. The same is true for the Christian. The more you realize God's grace and mercy, the more you realize how much you need it, and in turn how massive it really is. Praise God that through Jesus' sacrifice we will one day be complete.

Great Commercial

2008-08-25T07:25:00.003+09:00

I wasn't planning on posting anything else today, but I just came across this commercial and I felt like I had to show someone.

A Lesson in Statistics by Peter Donnelly

2008-08-25T05:27:00.001+09:00

Here's another TED talk, this time on stats.

A Hypothetical Situation

2008-08-21T17:16:00.005+09:00

I came across this a while back while surfing the 'net:

Hypothetical: Let's say that, if not overnight but over the course of three or four years, the government of your country (whatever it may be) overturned elections, stripped away individual rights, increased police powers to unlimited levels, and essentially stopped responding to public desires in governance. Any form of open protest is violently stomped down, and 'figures of dissention' were quietly removed. There's no curfew, you are still free to do your job, watch your shows (news is now vetted by the government), you pay the same taxes, you can (mostly) do the same things. Crime is, in fact, a little bit down due to the increased police presence. There's just no democracy, or public power to change policies they don't approve of.

I am fascinated by the 'public contract' between the people and the government, and by historical examples of when democracy has broken down and been replaced with totalitarianism. People often point to the rise of the Nazis and ask if the German people were themselves complicit for allowing this power to rise amongst them. But if this happened to your country, what would you do, personally?

Would you care, if you were free to live your life? If you did care, what would you do to institute change? Writing to your senator would probably get you a visit from the Ministry of Change. Public protest (for all the good it does nowadays) is forbidden, and even very large public protests can now be taken down by a handful of men wielding 'Vomit Guns' (yes, these are real) that can incapacitate entire crowds. The 2nd amendment was written specifically so that the people had the means to rise up against the government if the need ever became dire, but even today even mentioning a popular uprising would be considered a capital crime against the government. But even if this was not the case, could any uprising be effective against today's weapondry and surveillance technologies?

Do you think the people of your country would rise up, or just shurg and roll over? What would you do? And honestly, I'm not asking for people to say: "I'd fight the power, yeah!" I'm asking you to think about what you might reasonably do, to institute change. I'm genuinely interested, because I think I'd be quite paralyzed.

Personally I think I feel the same way as the original author. The only thing I can think of that I may consider is leaving the country (IF I was even allowed to by said government), but given the parameters that almost feels like avoiding the question.

What would you do?

Queerer than we can suppose: the strangeness of science

2008-08-18T02:35:00.011+09:00

"Now my own supposition is that the Universe in not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of, or can be dreamed of, in any philosophy."

--Biologist J. B. S. Haldane

The following is a talk by Richard Dawkins which he delivered at TED convention in July of 2006. A quick summary (I won't say too much because I want you to actually watch it): We view and experience the world around us the way we do because we have to in order for it to be useful and possible for us to interact with it.

It is a fascinating topic to me. Just take the idea that two creatures can have radically different models of the world (both equally real and true) is fundamentally cool. Watch the video and let me know what you think; some discussion would be great.

"The Change You Deserve"

2008-08-08T17:57:00.004+09:00

To hold you over until I finish up the post I'm working on, here is a pretty good parody video. Watch it fullscreen because Blogger cut off the side a bit.

Roots

2008-08-08T16:49:00.005+09:00

I decided that it was about time to do a movie/music/entertainment type post because I really feel like I have to keep up with the Charltons. The video below is a song by Show of Hands named "Roots" (Click the band name to go to their site. In other words: go check out their bio). They are a folk group/duo (depends on whether or not they have the band with them I guess) from England. I found them a while back through Pandora and got really interested in their music. You should probably open up the lyrics in a separate window while you watch the vid in case you don't catch some of it. There are a couple parts in the beginning that are hard to get because of the combined accent and not know the names of the places in England. So, here's the vid (Please, please turn your sound up. This song is SO much better played loudly):

I really like this song in particular because I relate it to things that we do in the church. When they talk about singing and dancing and all the things that teach you where you come from, it reminds me of communion and baptism the creeds and Lord's prayer and all the things that we do with our church to unify ourselves and worship God. These things teach us where our faith came from, and they teach us how our faith works and what (who) is working through and in it and us.

Aside from the relation to the church that I see in[to] it, I really love the emotion in the lyrics. I think that Steve Knightly is very similar to Glen Hansard of The Swell Season when he sings, insomuch as they both have a lot of emotion and authenticity and energy that they bring to their music.

I have two of their albums if you are interested in hearing more (Ryan).

Beggars

2008-08-05T16:18:00.001+09:00

"Beggars should be entirely abolished! Truly, it is annoying to give to them and annoying not to give to them."

--Nietzsche, Friedrich

This comment by Nietzsche sums up fairly well my past feelings about beggars (or just generally someone who asks me for money on the street). It is a constant battle between wanting to help them and at the same time generally not trusting that whatever I give them will genuinely help them ("I'm probably just contributing to his drug problem." etc.). Once the person approaches, the ensuing conversation consists (on my part) of me (usually completely unsuccessfully) trying to size up the person and determine whether or not it will be a "good investment" to give to them. In comes Johann Georg von Zimmermann¹:

"Though our donations are made to please ourselves, we insist, upon those who receive our alms being pleased with them."

I have fairly recently come to realize this aspect of my thought process. Even though I am thinking about whether or not the giving of money will help them or not, or whether it will be used wisely, I usually find myself (in retrospect) thinking of these things as a solution to a problem I have, that being this person explaining to me their need of just three dollars, and how to get them away from me. I say that I want to love them - that I want to help where I can - but I honestly fail at it the majority of the time. I feel like it is bothersome for me to give them money, but at the same time it is bothersome to not give them money (back to Nietzsche).

Now I am kind of stuck at a somewhat different point in thinking. I cannot decide or figure out why I should not just give them money. It seems like it would be better overall for both parties if I simply gave them what they asked for. I don't mean that in a strictly economical sense either; I mean it morally as well. This position, though, raises an important question: What responsibility do I have for how the receiver of my gift uses it. In other words, if I decide to give (which I have said I feel like I should do), if the person then goes and buys a bottle of cheap alcohol and furthers either an addiction or a simply unwise use of funds, how much of the blame lays on the person or institution that enabled that action to take place? C. S. Lewis’ stepson, Doug Gresham, provides a more contemporary commentary on this topic:

"A guy approached Jack² on the street one day and asked him if he could spare a few shillings. And Jack immediately dove into his pocket and brought out all his change and handed it over to this beggar. And the chap he was with, I think it was Tolkien, said, 'Jack, you shouldn’t have given that fellow all that money, he’ll just spend it on drink.' Jack said, 'Well if I had kept it, I would have only spent it on drink.'”

I think that my current stance on the issue is that if I do choose to give the beggar my money, while their choice on how to spend it may or may not be wise, I most likely will not be all that much wiser than they will, and at least by giving them something I don't completely deny them a helping hand and a (small) chance to get by a little easier. Basically, my feeling is that by giving I may or may not be helping, but by not giving it is impossible to help. But the question remains: is that possibility of the gift not helping enough to warrant not giving?

¹ Swiss philosophical writer and physician
² Jack here is C. S. Lewis.

Waiting for the Guards

2008-07-31T06:27:00.009+09:00

In November of 2007 Amnesty International launched a campaign against human rights abuse due to the "war on terror." Taken from their site (unsubscribe-me.org, which I stumbled upon recently):

"Unsubscribe is a movement of people united against human rights abuses in the 'war on terror'. The threat of terrorism is real, but trampling over human rights is not the answer. From Guantanamo Bay, rendition, torture and waterboarding – we unsubscribe."

This video was released when they launched their campaign. Welcome to the good 'ole USA's "advanced interrogation techniques."

This film shows a performance artist undergoing, for real, interrogation techniques permitted in the CIA handbook.
Warning: Some viewers may find this disturbing. Unsuitable for under 14s.
Please turn your speakers up

Larger Video

A Commencement

2008-07-31T03:50:00.003+09:00

I have been thinking a decent amount recently about doing this, and I finally decided to start one. I don't have a particular theme or type of post in mind, so don't expect consistency in that aspect. I plan to use this blog for various things from questions that have been on my mind to interesting websites I stumbled upon to whatever else strikes my fancy. You probably won't find everything I write interesting. I probably won't write enough to keep you interested. But that's not the main reason that I am trying this thing, so it's ok.

One thing that I will ask is to use comments for discussion, and plese don't just post "hey, good post." out of courtesy. I plan to at least occasionally use this to think through things, and so constructive comments (and flat out corrections) are welcome. Disagree with me.

Oh, and a note on the name I guess. I have started things like this before (i.e. Xanga, etc.) and have not really been successful in keeping them going. The name is just me sort of tipping my hat to my lack of dedication on past attempts.