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The unwritten unfinished pt 2
I’ll admit, my last post took a bit of a different direction than I originally intended, I meant to take an overview of the letter and go from there. After reading over it a few times I think I got so incensed that I felt like I wanted to tear it apart.
Bit
by bit
by bit
by
bit.
Alas, as Andrew pointed out, I think I the reaction I had was entirely more than the letter deserved. So for that I will apologize.
I think I’m tired of this election.
Actually… I am tired of this election. I’m tired of the smears (on both sides), I’m tired of the 24 hour news cycle, I’m tired of my beloved John Stewart and Colbert Report (and I would think they’re tired of the election as well). It’s too much.
Thus, I think I am done with politics for now. I’ll say the only thing that will bring me back anytime soon is if the GA senate race goes into a runoff (highly likely) thus placing Georgia center stage in this whole crazy election. I’ll probably speak up then.
For now… look forward to my next far less political post.
Letters from the future (pt-1)
Hey Matt, have you read this new letter from Focus on the Family? It’s a fictionalized letter from a Christian in the year 2012. Normally when one thinks of 2012 they remember all the talk of the end of the world, with the way this letter is written one might think that the world did indeed end, or at least for one portion of the population of the US.
You see, right now there’s a race going on, a race in which many evangelicals are becoming disheartened with the political party that has held their sway for decades. This sway is certainly scaring those in charge of both the party, and those with whom the party has place “in charge” of the evangelicals. With little over a week left until the election, both the party and the evangelical leaders are fearful losing this election.
These evangelical “leaders” decided that the best way to win an election was to continue the fear mongering that the party they are aligned with has begun. This letter is a “fictionalized” account of what may come should the Muslim Obama win the election.
What do you think, Matt?
The Politics of FEAR
If you haven’t heard, the McCain campaign has launched a massive Robo-Calling attack on Barack Obama. Given the trend of the campaign over the past few weeks, I’m not really surprised at this, but I am quite disappointed with the campaign. When you have crowd members calling out “Kill Him,” “Terrorist,” and racial epithets at reporters you would hope that the McCain campaign would realize that the trend of the campaign is causing such decisive bitterness and work to alleviate such tensions. This was the main thrust of what Congressmen John Lewis stated the other day, when talking about the McCain campaigns rally attendees.
This idea was, apparently, lost upon both McCain and his campaign, as these new calls do nothing but continue to incite fear in those who hear it. Take a minute and listen to the calls, or read through them to see for yourself the fear mongering instilled in the heart of these messages.
The McCain campaign has apparently decided that it cannot win on any set of issues, and has thus moved onto this attempt at instilling fear in the hearts of any Americans that it can.
The worst part is, it’s working. It doesn’t take but a stroll through facebook status lane to read things like “Obama is a lying peice of shit,” or “___________ is amazed at how STUPID so many Americans really are. i hope NObama hands out common sense, too.” Then add in the afforementioned youtube videos calling Obama a terrorist and saying kill him, it scares me.
There was talk of the democratic primary being so intense that there was question of the party being able to repair itself and work together. Well, with the actions of the McCain campaign these past few weeks, one must wonder if the McCain Campaign would rather see a divided america, they sure seem to be doing their damndest to insure that outcome.
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Please note that Obama has done some attack adds himself, and I’m not a fan of attack adds at all, but what I’m trying to point out is the intense level of hatred that the McCain campaign seems to be gleefully stirring around in its (vain) attempt to get elected.
A fond farewell
Farewell to the Watchman.
You will be missed.
Wohoo
Two years ago today (nearly to the hour) I met this crazy girl at the end of the aisle.
An Evangelical Mind
Oh and the steeple people
Oh they’re so happy not knowing you.
So boldly do they pervert your truth.Oh did they think we wouldn’t grow up
Did they think we couldn’t throw back up
The sour milk they been pouring down out throats
-Sour Milk by Wild Sweet Orange
If you use Hulu, perhaps you’ve watched the new movie they have up, Crawford. The movie is an interesting look at the effect that W had when he moved into the town. Throughout the movie, there are various interviews with townspeople, one of which is the Pastor of the local Baptist church. In the first interview with the guy, he’s wearing a spongebob squarepants tie which immediately makes you want to give him a hug and smile at him, but, this pastor makes one of the two worst statements in the movie. (I’ll probably delve into the second quote in a later post).
While discussing the end times, the pastor makes the following statement:
There is gonna continue to be wars and rumors of wars, and at some point, I believe, there will be an Armageddon that be will kind of the end, the end to end all ends. So that’s the bad news, the good news is um, most people believe that the second coming of Christ will precede that, and so, scripture says “Those dead in Christ will meet him in the air,” and uh I can’t envision that. Um, I’ve seen artists work where you see all these cars careen off the road because the drivers are now gone because he’s come a second time. You see all of this catalytic stuff going on, cataclysmic, that’s going on and on. There will be a final conflict, but I won’t see it.
Did you catch it? He mentioned the good news. Well… sort of. The good news to him was “Stuff’s gonna happen, real bad stuff, but guess what… it won’t happen to me.” It’s this subtle sense of “I’m going to be vindicated, and boy you’ll be sorry you didn’t listen to me when that happens.”
This travesty goes on in evangelical circles all the time, the idea that, “In the end, we’ll be proven right and others will suffer for not believing so, we’re better than they are,” is possibly one of the most damaging things that goes on in modern Christianity. How can anyone see this sort of elitism (maybe it’s not elitism, elitists normally earn their status, evangelicals simply assume that they have that status) and not be turned off by the ideals behind it? I’m fairly certain that Christ didn’t laugh on the cross and say “Ha- I’m going to be living in glory and paradise in eternity while you are suffering through eternal torment and suffering.” There was not this idea of gloating involved.
I’m not saying that all evangelicals are like this. I can look back on my evangelical days and remember I was never quite thrilled with the idea that anyone would go to hell, nor with the idea of a Pre-Millenial Dispensationalist eschatological world view. These things never quite did it for me, but I can also remember times when I did, in fact, think to myself “I’ll be right in the end, you’ll see,” just not quite with the malice that I feel is evident when someone says “The good news is, there will be suffering but I won’t be part of it.”
Perhaps your worldview involves the idea of a premillenial dispensation, where there will be a literal 7 year torment of all survivors (I would suggest you study Darby and where exactly the idea of PMD came from, maybe you’ll change your mind), I would implore you too look at your approach to how you look at others, and realize that when things are said like “The good news is….” when in fact the news you’re delivering is quite shitty for the rest of the world, you should probably chose a better phrase. Good news should be just that, the idea of reconcilliation, forgiveness, and the like, not eternal suffering, damnation, and anything else that angry fundamentalists tend to get off on.
Sabbath Week
I have all next week off (finally using my vacation time, I’m surprised I lasted this long). I’ve decided I’m going to read as much as I can (maybe throw in some video game time too), but I don’t really have anything to read past the book I’m in right now (The Fidelity of Betrayal). Thus I turn it over to you guys, throw out a few suggestions for me, and I’ll pick them up sometime this week.
Oh, and (this is important) Tuesday is the Big 2 year anniversary (coincidentally apple is coming out with a notebook update that day- so I’ll be heading over there to switch out Becky’s new macbook).
The Saga of My Foot
I stepped on a thorn last friday (Sept. 26th).
I was cutting someones hair on our back “porch” and the rosh clippings from like 6 months ago appeared right where the ball of my foot was landing (the guy whose hair I was cutting laughed at me by the way, what a jerk).
Little did I know that this little thorn would cause me to nearly lose my stinkin’ foot. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Wednesday (Four days after the “incident”) my foot started to hurt and a small growth appeared. I thought nothing of it during the day, but the pain kept increasing, so I grabbed a needle and a lighter and went to town. Well, I was able to clean it out (or so I thought) and I hoped it would get better, but later that night the pain came back, so Becky and I went to the store to get a planters wart kit (thats what we thought it was at first).
The next day, at work, my co-workers told me that it probably wasn’t a wart and I likely had an infection. One of the (old) ladies told me of some OTC stuff that I could get that would help pull out the infection and make me all better. I purchased said goodies after work that day and dutifully applied them to my foot as soon as I got home. Still no improvement.
Friday (the 3rd), I could barely pick up my foot. It was fine when there was a small amount of pressure applied to the spot (which was, again, on the ball of my foot), but, when pressure was alleviated and blood returned to the spot, it hurt like hell. The pain got so bad I asked if I could go home early and went to a minute clinic. By the way, if you’re underinusured (like myself) or uninsured, minute clinics are possibly the greatest inventions ever, it’s medical treatment on the cheap. Anyways, the “doctor” looks at my foot and tells me that she can’t do anything about it becuse they can’t cut the bottom of peoples feet there, and I needed to go see my family doctor. She did stress to me several things however, first that if I waited till Monday I would have a decent chance of losing my foot, and second, if I had any sort of circulation problem (diabetes) I would certainly lose my foot. Always something that you love hearing from a doctor.
So, from the minute clinic, I called up my family doctor and schedualed a visit, he checks me out and gives me some antibiotics, and we’re all good to go.
Except the pain doesn’t go away at first, and the “bump” that was the start of the infection began to grow outward (till this point the infection had just spread across my foot and turned it red, now it was growing into a larger bump).
The weekend comes and goes, and by Monday the pain is lessening but the bump is still growing. I figure that I’m in some deep trouble, so I take off work Tuesday (Monday I was already off, its my normal day off) and figure I’ll head to the doc, but, when I woke up I did some research and figured the new big bump was just a blood blister. My research, however, was not quite appreciated by the maternal side of my family, and I was bombarded with calls, texts messages, and emails, all requesting that I PLEASE go back to the doctor (they were scared it was gangrene). It was craziness.
The good news is I was right, my foot is fine now, and I think I’ll survive. Now, if you prepared here is a lovely picture of my foot (taken on Monday):
Gross, isn’t it?
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