african_pilot's Xanga

How White am I?

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 00:22:21 GMT

stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com
This is a fantastic blog, a satirical (and not-too-untrue) slam on white culture.

   * #92 Book Deals
    * #91 San Francisco
    * #90 Dinner Parties
    * #89 St. Patrick’s Day
    * #88 Having Gay Friends
    * #87 Outdoor Performance Clothes
    * #86 Shorts
    * #85 The Wire
    * #84 T-Shirts
    * #83 Bad Memories of High School
    * #82 Hating Corporations
    * #81 Graduate School
    * #80 The Idea of Soccer
    * #79 Modern Furniture
    * #78 Multilingual Children
    * #77 Musical Comedy
    * #76 Bottles of Water
    * #75 Threatening to Move to Canada
    * #74 Oscar Parties
    * #73 Gentrification
    * #72 Study Abroad
    * #71 Being the only white person around
    * #70 Difficult Breakups
    * #69 Mos Def
    * #68 Michel Gondry
    * #67 Standing Still at Concerts
    * #66 Divorce
    * #65 Co-Ed Sports
    * #64 Recycling
    * #63 Expensive Sandwiches
    * #62 Knowing What’s Best for Poor People
    * #61 Bicycles
    * #60 Toyota Prius
    * #59 Natural Medicine
    * #58 Japan
    * #57 Juno
    * #56 Lawyers
    * #55 Apologies
    * #54 Kitchen Gadgets
    * #53 Dogs
    * #52 Sarah Silverman
    * #51 Living by the Water
    * #50 Irony
    * #49 Vintage
    * #48 Whole Foods and Grocery Co-ops
    * #47 Arts Degrees
    * #46 The Sunday New York Times
    * #45 Asian Fusion Food
    * #44 Public Radio
    * #43 Plays
    * #42 Sushi
    * #41 Indie Music
    * #40 Apple Products
    * #39 Netflix
    * #38 Arrested Development
    * #37 Renovations
    * #36 Breakfast Places
    * #35 The Daily Show/Colbert Report
    * #34 Architecture
    * #33 Marijuana
    * #32 Vegan/Vegetarianism
    * #31 Snowboarding
    * #30 Wrigley Field
    * #29 80s Night
    * #28 Not having a TV
    * #27 Marathons
    * #26 Manhattan (now Brooklyn too!)
    * #25 David Sedaris
    * #24 Wine
    * #23 Microbreweries
    * #22 Having Two Last Names
    * #21 Writers Workshops
    * #20 Being an expert on YOUR culture
    * #19 Traveling
    * #18 Awareness
    * #17 Hating their Parents
    * #16 Gifted Children
    * #15 Yoga
    * #14 Having Black Friends
    * #13 Tea
    * #12 Non-Profit Organizations
    * #11 Asian Girls
    * #10 Wes Anderson Movies
    * #9 Making you feel bad about not going outside
    * #8 Barack Obama
    * #7 Diversity
    * #6 Organic Food
    * #5 Farmer’s Markets
    * #4 Assists
    * #3 Film Festivals
    * #2 Religions their parents don’t belong to
    * #1 Coffee

Pagan weaselishness

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:57:44 GMT

I came to church as a pagan this year, though wearing a Christian suit and white shirt, and sat in a rear pew. There I was, a skeptic in the henhouse, thinking weaselish thoughts.

This often happens around Easter. God, in His humorous way, sometimes schedules high holy days for a time when your faith is at low tide, a mud flat strewn with newspapers and children's beach toys, and while everyone else is all joyful and shiny among the lilies and praising up a storm, there you are, snarfling and grumbling. Which happened to me this year. God knows all about it so I may as well tell you.

Holy Week is a good time to face up to the question: Do we really believe in that story or do we just like to hang out with nice people and listen to organ music? There are advantages, after all, to being in the neighborhood of people who love their neighbors. If your car won't start on a cold morning, you've got friends.

I don't doubt God's existence -- there He is -- but I doubt His interest in us right now and I haven't the faintest idea what He wants from me.

There is comfort for the doubter in the Passion story. You are not alone. Jesus' cry from the cross was a cry of incredulity. The apostle denied even knowing Jesus three times. The guy spent years with Jesus, saw the miracles up close, the raising of Lazarus, the demons cast out, the sick healed, the water-walking trick, all of the special effects, but when the cards were down, he said, "Who? Me? No way."

He repented. I would too, but not quite yet.

Skepticism is a stimulant, not to be repressed. It is an antidote to smugness and the great glow of satisfaction one gains from being right. You know the self-righteous -- I've been one myself -- the little extra topspin they put on the truth, their ostentatious modesty, the pleasure they take in being beautifully modulated and cool and correct when others are falling apart. Jesus was rougher on those people than He was on the adulterers and prostitutes.

So I will sit in the doubter's chair for a while and see what is to be learned back there.

(I wish that I'm witty enough to write this. I am not. But Garrison Keillor is. I am with him, so i posted it. The original aritcle is here)

Follow-Up

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 14:29:09 GMT

Since I posted the last video a few minutes ago...I watched the "follow up" to it...so in fairness, I posted that as well.
Very articulate, this guy voices a "yes we can make a difference" idealism.

I have a few thoughts in criticism of what he has to say, but I'll save those for a later post.

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 20:23:24 GMT

One of the reasons that CS Lewis is one of my favorite authors is that he has the knack for saying things that aren't earth-shattering. What I mean by this is that he doesn't say much that is radically different or strange, rather he connects with what fundamentally makes sense, stuff that I've never have been able to bring to the surface and put into words myself.
I discovered this for the first time while reading The Four Loves several years ago, and found it true again today in chapter 20 of Mere Christianity.

"Most of us find it very difficult to want 'Heaven' at all-except in so far as 'Heaven' means meeting again our friends who have died. One reason for this difficulty is that we have not been trained: our whole education tends to fix our minds on this world. Another reason is that when the real want for Heaven is present in us, we do not recognise it. Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of what would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best .possible ones. There was something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife may be a good wife, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and chemistry may be a very interesting job: but something has evaded us. Now there are two wrong ways of dealing with this fact, and one right one.

(I) The Fool's Way. - He puts the blame on the things themselves. He goes on all his life thinking that if only he tried another woman, or went for a more expensive holiday, or whatever it is, then, this time, he really would catch the mysterious something we are all after. Most of the bored, discontented, rich people in the world are of this type. They spend their whole lives trotting from woman to woman (through the divorce courts), from continent to continent, from hobby to hobby, always thinking that the latest is 'the Real Thing' at last, and always disappointed.

(2) The Way of the Disillusioned 'Sensible Man'.-He soon decides that the whole thing was moonshine. 'Of course,' he says, 'one feels like that when one's young. But by the time you get to my age you've given up chasing the rainbow's end.' And so he settles down and learns not to expect too much and represses the part of himself which used, as he would say, 'to cry for the moon'. This is, of course, a much better way than the first, and makes a man much happier, and less of a nuisance to society. It tends to make him a prig (he is apt to be rather superior towards what he calls 'adolescents'), but, on the whole, he rubs along fairly comfortably. It would be the best line we could take if man did not live for ever. But supposing infinite happiness really is there, waiting for us? Supposing one really can reach the rainbow's end? In that case it would be a pity to find out too late (a moment after death) that by our supposed 'common sense' we had stifled in ourselves the faculty of enjoying it.

(3) The Christian Way.-The Christian says, 'Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, then; is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.'

There is no need to be worried by facetious people who try to make the Christian hope of 'Heaven' ridiculous by saying they do not want 'to spend eternity playing harps'. The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them. All the scriptural imagery (harps, crowns, gold, etc.) is, of course a merely symbolical attempt to express the inexpressible. Musical instruments are mentioned because for many people (not all) music is the thing known in the present life which most strongly suggests ecstasy and infinity. Crowns are mentioned to suggest the fact that those who are united with God in eternity share His splendour and power and joy. Gold is mentioned to suggest the timelessness of Heaven (gold does not rust) and the preciousness of it. People who take these symbols literally might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, He meant that we were to lay eggs.

Amazing stuff. I've often gotten hung up on thinking about heaven in terms of playing harps and sitting on clouds. I know in my mind that it is supposed to be an amazing place, just not someplace that I can readily connect to, and really care a lot to go to as soon as possible. All my longings (and there are a lot) that I have: things like marriage, a good career, a family, money, travel, etc. are not of themselves bad, they just are shadows of things to come.
Hope is a beautiful thing: both for things of this life, and things to come.

Press on

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 04:06:44 GMT

All shall be well,
and all manner of thing
shall be well.

dame julian of norwich - 14th century - mystic

Darwinism and God

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 02:45:58 GMT

"It is unscientific to presume that evolution is the final and best theory and cannot be replace by a better one. It is irreverent to assume that we can understand the mind of God and decide that God cannot work through evolution, or whatever theory might displace evolution. To reword Darwin's quote, that is like a dog trying to understand the mind of Einstein.
This discussion could be far more civil and productive with the humility that comes from understanding that our latest and greatest theories will look like Earth-Centered universes to future generations, and that a God worthy of our reverence is capable of working in ways that are as far beyond our understanding as relativity is beyond the mind of a dog."

-David Meretz/ Aurora, IL (Letter to the editor of Chicago Tribune Magazine, in response to an article about attempts to reconcile Darwin's theory of evolution and the Bible.)

On the Stimulus Plan

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:51:06 GMT

Well, said, Joel Stein

Thoughts on Super Bowl 42

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 14:48:48 GMT

1. Really boring first 3 quarters, best 4th quarter finish that I've ever personally seen. I didn't particulary care about the teams involved other than intensely disliking New England...but you couldn't help but cheer for Eli and the underdog Giants. Even the normally football-hating love of my life was cheering for them at the end :) It didn't come down to field goals...and El's 83 yard final drive trumped Tom Brady's 80 yard final drive.

2. How in the world did Eli get away from the huge pile of Patriots to complete the pass to Tyree...who caught the ball in the middle of another pile of patriots against HIS HEAD! We'll see that highlight for a long time to come.

3. Offensive lines: Way under rated. The Colts lost to the huge underdog Chargers because they harassed Peyton all day, never giving him his rhythm, and the offensive lost the game. Conversely, Phillip Rivers had all day to throw the ball, and the undermanned, under talented Chargers took it to the house on the Colts. The Giants stole a page out of the Charger's playbook, and brought the best pass rush I have seen in a long time. Tom Brady basically got the crap beaten out of himself the whole game. Ouch.

4. I didn't like Bill Belichick before the game...but come on. Why walk onto the field with 1 second left...then not stick around for the last play?? Stay classy, sir.

5. The ads...all right. The e-trade with the baby hiring a clown with his stock earnings, then "underestimating the creepiness" was hilarious, as was the Fed-Ex commercial with the haywire pigeons. The mouse jumping through the wall and beating the crap out of the guy over the Doritos brought a chuckle. The coke commercial with Charlie brown beating out Stewie Griffin for the coke was fun to watch. GoDaddy.com showing us a commercial telling us to go online to watch the real commercial?? Give me a break.

6. I liked the shot of Peyton cheering in the skybox as his little brother beat his arc-rivals. Nice.

7. Half-time show: Above average. Best one since U2 in 2002.

8. Red carpet? Before the Super Bowl? With Ryan Seacrest? Gag.

Saturday, February 02, 2008

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 23:57:00 GMT

I'm the kid who has this habit of dreaming
That sometimes gets me in trouble
But the truth is
I could no more stop dreaming
Than I could make them all come true

Is your super bowl party illegal?

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 17:22:27 GMT

http://www.slate.com/id/2182973/