Alright, so there are a few things I'd like to blog about, simply because they're there.
One of them being the television show, Heroes. I love this show, and have followed it pseudo religiously since the day it started. And while I'm a huge fan of the show, I'm also a huge fan of something else. CONTINUITY! I'm a good enough fan to go with the flow and just assume that it all gets worked out in the end. But some things I'd like to know are worked out. For instance, when Peter lost his memory and accidentally transported (then girlfriend) Caitlyn (with her adorable irish accent and everything) to the virus ridden future, what happened when he came back and left her there? I know since he destroyed the virus and all that she's probably back in Ireland or wherever dealing with her mob-ish brother and goon-ish friends. But it would be nice if he sought her out since she helped him during that lack-of-memory period.
Also I think we need to consolidate storylines. I'm all a fan for having a huge cast and intricate plots and sub-plots and plots to my sub-plots plots but I think the show is taking it to ridiculous lengths. I've been reading on the web, and lest we forget about Niki's abusive father and her sister Jessica who was also one of her alternate personalities that was killed by said father. (and this is not one of her other two twin sisters who were injected with power inducing formulae (or whatever the plural of formula is)).
All I'm asking for right now is a little more continuity and a little less assumption that we viewers are just gonna stick with it. Tie up some loose ends Kring, before you loose viewers like we've been infected with the shanti virus.
One other thing I'm relatively pleased with is the continued success of Cloris Leachman on DwtS. I think that despite the fact that the judges don't seem to know what they want from their dancers, and are either high, drunk, or both, when watching people perform that the dancers are doing a wonderful job. Lance and Lacey are doing the best they can with what the judges are telling them. Cloris is trying to find a way to balance her dancing skills and her far better skills as a show-woman. She is an entertainer after all.
Lets see, I know there's other things in the news that bother me. Oh. Here's something interesting. Apparently after getting bailed out with a large portion of 700 BILLION dollars and after spending approx. 440,000 more dollars on a retreat and spa thingy, the executives at the prestigious AIG decided to do a little hunting....IN EUROPE. After reading this I am more adamant than ever that that company just needs to go under.
Not once, but twice did they use funds, after the bailout of their company which staved off financial ruin of their top executives, did those same executives who begged for money go off and spend it frivolously. If anyone that I know did that, the money would be gone faster than we could blink, and we'd be thrown in a federal prison and the key would be melted down for something else. Now is the time that we need to step up and tell the rich that simply because they have money, doesn't mean that their (excuse the language) shit don't stink.
Interestingly enough, there's another minority out there that is seeking to get full protection under the law and failing. After reading the article, I couldn't imagine why. And before you jump down my throat about bashing minorities, read the article
Personally I think that its a crock. If you're an "ex-gay" then you're not homosexual. Which means you're also not bisexual. So unless you're something really out there like a...necrosexual or something (any anything beyond hetero, homo, and bi is probably illegal), the only thing left is heterosexual. Ergo, you're straight and have full rights, protections, and privileges under the law. So where's the problem.
If the issue comes from having once been considered homosexual, and the things that happened during that period, (assuming that being homosexual is a choice (which is not my viewpoint, FYI)) then you have nobody to blame but yourself. You made the choice to be gay, and you made the choice to back out of that lifestyle. You also made the choice to open your big ol mouth about having been gay too you idiots.
Alright, well I think that concludes another resounding issue of things that I find annoying. As always I welcome discussion on anything I blog about here. And for those interesting in reading my treaties on how being gay and Lutheran works....I haven't started it yet, its still purely in mental form. Maybe once snow flies I'll start putting it on paper.
Oh, before I forget I finally got my copy of Pastor, I am Gay the book that Sarah Palin purportedly wanted banned/removed from a library up in Alaska. Its an AMAZING book. I only wish I had this book when I was in college. I would have told EVERYONE to read it. As it is I'm going to recommend my old professors read it and discuss it with their students, or at the very least add it to the reading lists or something for their classes. It would come in as such a good useful book for a Youth Ministry course or a good discussion in a religious course nonetheless. I highly recommend it if you're going to be dealing with GLBT people in your religious career at all.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Current Events? [edit]
Alright, so I initially thought that I would blog on a semi-regular basis. But that idea didn’t go so well when I realized that you all probably don’t want to listen to me gripe about what my boss has put me through on any given day. So I’ll probably only be blogging, or something akin to it, whenever I have time and come across things that I feel are worth spending time writing about.
So I actually heard this story on the Jane & Kidd morning show on 99.1 here in Milwaukee, and I was kinda pissed about it. Apparently the top executives of the huge insurance company AIG, went on a HUGE [read 440,000.00 dollars worth] spa retreat only days/hours/rather small amount of time after accepting their portion of the 700 Billion dollar bailout from the Fed/taxpayers.
I wasn’t totally livid, but I believe my first thought was “So, we can take that back, right?” Because, come on, if we bail you out and you go on a spa weekend, I think that what you’re basically telling us (those who bailed you out) that you think we’re dupes. Think about it this way, if you borrowed, oh say 700 dollars from a friend/neighbor/relative as a loan, to bail you out when things were looking pretty bleak for you, and then you take a trip to the Bahamas right after accepting that loan from your friend…I imagine whoever supplied that loan would probably bang your door down and beat you senseless. Or at least demand their money back, right now.
And that’s basically what I see happened here. We (the American people) bailed out a company to stave off huge economic catastrophe (notice the use of loaded language to describe the current market situation) and then were basically given the finger as the executives got into their limos to make a quick getaway. That’s awful, and according to the fed “despicable”. So my question is, what are we going to do about it.
While we can’t beat them senseless, I think we should at least prove to these blustering, pompous, egomaniacal, windbags of businessmen that we will not stand for that. Take the money back, and let the company take the fall, and let them deal with the fallout of the investors and customers. Or fire them, and take away any sort of pension/401K plans and such that they may have. I don’t know, I’m not all that business-y but something should be done to communicate to them that we will not stand for this type of behavior.
Also, later on in the article they talk about laying blame on why the company and the economic crisis is so bad. This is pointless. Its not a matter of who’s fault it is that this happened, although it needs to be addressed so it doesn’t happen in the future. But rather than spending time to point fingers at every possible executive aside from yourself, why not take a pay cut and figure out how to help the economy instead of whining that its all falling apart.
As a child I was not allowed to whine about things, because I was told that whining didn’t accomplish anything. Neither does blaming everything in sight for a problem that is most likely partly your fault. But picking yourself up and fixing the damn problem is a way of dealing with it. So to all those executives who are earning millions of dollars in salaries a year, and who own 6 or so homes around the world. Suck it up and fix it, and stop effing whining!
On another note, I came across this story and was rather intrigued. So I read up on it. I even, as a religious person with a degree for such, decided that the book would be a decent read (if I could ever find it, and I’m working on it. I get to call Alaska at 1pm today). But I also looked up the book on Amazon, and read some reviews. This is just further reason why I will not vote for McCain/Palin.
McCain is aged, and will probably die under the pressures of presidency. Which leaves us with Palin who is a Christian Fundamentalist as the first female president, and a fundamentalist in charge of the most [albeit declining] powerful country in the world. And while I’m religious and all that jazz, I refuse to support fundamentalists in their crusade of viewing the world as strictly black and white. Not to mention that as an avid reader I would never support anyone who wanted to ban books for any reason.
So after reading the reviews and trying to procure a copy for myself, I thought that I should at least mention that this book isn’t a religious way of forcing homosexuality onto the religious community. As I understand it, the book is simply one pastors way of dealing with the increasing number of parishioners who are gay, and the issues that a pastor faces with sexuality. I think this book would be an excellent read, hence the wanting a copy. But I don’t think it should stop there.
I graduated from a conservative (LCMS) Lutheran college, who’s official policy regarding homosexuality is that they do not allow openly gay students to live on campus in the dorms, as it does not keep with the universities policy of living an upright Christian life, or some such drivel. Nevermind that all your jocks are drinking on a dry campus, smoking pot and who knows what, and that everyone is having more sex than you can shake a stick at. But those fags….let me tell ya…
Having graduated from the Lay Ministry Program, with a focus on Youth Ministry, I really think that this book should be read by those entering that field. Mostly because the issue isn’t going away anytime soon. And the age old response to the issue of sexuality by the church to ignore it, hide it, or excommunicate it, just isn’t cutting it anymore.
I believe pastors (aside from those few who research this issue on their own, or have dealt with it in their parishes or what have you) are ill equipped to handle it when a parishioner comes to them expressing issues with sexuality. This book and a number of others would be a hugely beneficial tool to at least open the door and get the church and it’s workers to think about how to address this issue in the best way possible.
I’m also writing something that I don’t know what to call about how Christianity and homosexuality can co-exist. And while it’s not perfect (as a great many things aren’t) these conclusions have helped me find a measure of peace in my own life. So I’m hoping that once they get worked out on paper, they can do the same thing. If you wanna read it or prod me to get it done, or offer comments, I’d be more than happy to accommodate. ^_^
[Edit: So I called Alaska and was able to order the book. I learned two things from that. They will only sell the book to people out of state, and it takes an extra day to ship things from Alaska. For those of you who care to look further into getting a copy of the book in question this is their web address: http://www.goodbooksbadcoffee.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp
Their phone number is on the site and keep in mind their hours are 10am-7pm Monday through Saturday and that's 1pm-10pm Central time. The book itself is about $15 but you pay for shipping. I did the 2-day shipping and it cost me about 40$ to get it here on Monday. Just fyi.]
So I actually heard this story on the Jane & Kidd morning show on 99.1 here in Milwaukee, and I was kinda pissed about it. Apparently the top executives of the huge insurance company AIG, went on a HUGE [read 440,000.00 dollars worth] spa retreat only days/hours/rather small amount of time after accepting their portion of the 700 Billion dollar bailout from the Fed/taxpayers.
I wasn’t totally livid, but I believe my first thought was “So, we can take that back, right?” Because, come on, if we bail you out and you go on a spa weekend, I think that what you’re basically telling us (those who bailed you out) that you think we’re dupes. Think about it this way, if you borrowed, oh say 700 dollars from a friend/neighbor/relative as a loan, to bail you out when things were looking pretty bleak for you, and then you take a trip to the Bahamas right after accepting that loan from your friend…I imagine whoever supplied that loan would probably bang your door down and beat you senseless. Or at least demand their money back, right now.
And that’s basically what I see happened here. We (the American people) bailed out a company to stave off huge economic catastrophe (notice the use of loaded language to describe the current market situation) and then were basically given the finger as the executives got into their limos to make a quick getaway. That’s awful, and according to the fed “despicable”. So my question is, what are we going to do about it.
While we can’t beat them senseless, I think we should at least prove to these blustering, pompous, egomaniacal, windbags of businessmen that we will not stand for that. Take the money back, and let the company take the fall, and let them deal with the fallout of the investors and customers. Or fire them, and take away any sort of pension/401K plans and such that they may have. I don’t know, I’m not all that business-y but something should be done to communicate to them that we will not stand for this type of behavior.
Also, later on in the article they talk about laying blame on why the company and the economic crisis is so bad. This is pointless. Its not a matter of who’s fault it is that this happened, although it needs to be addressed so it doesn’t happen in the future. But rather than spending time to point fingers at every possible executive aside from yourself, why not take a pay cut and figure out how to help the economy instead of whining that its all falling apart.
As a child I was not allowed to whine about things, because I was told that whining didn’t accomplish anything. Neither does blaming everything in sight for a problem that is most likely partly your fault. But picking yourself up and fixing the damn problem is a way of dealing with it. So to all those executives who are earning millions of dollars in salaries a year, and who own 6 or so homes around the world. Suck it up and fix it, and stop effing whining!
On another note, I came across this story and was rather intrigued. So I read up on it. I even, as a religious person with a degree for such, decided that the book would be a decent read (if I could ever find it, and I’m working on it. I get to call Alaska at 1pm today). But I also looked up the book on Amazon, and read some reviews. This is just further reason why I will not vote for McCain/Palin.
McCain is aged, and will probably die under the pressures of presidency. Which leaves us with Palin who is a Christian Fundamentalist as the first female president, and a fundamentalist in charge of the most [albeit declining] powerful country in the world. And while I’m religious and all that jazz, I refuse to support fundamentalists in their crusade of viewing the world as strictly black and white. Not to mention that as an avid reader I would never support anyone who wanted to ban books for any reason.
So after reading the reviews and trying to procure a copy for myself, I thought that I should at least mention that this book isn’t a religious way of forcing homosexuality onto the religious community. As I understand it, the book is simply one pastors way of dealing with the increasing number of parishioners who are gay, and the issues that a pastor faces with sexuality. I think this book would be an excellent read, hence the wanting a copy. But I don’t think it should stop there.
I graduated from a conservative (LCMS) Lutheran college, who’s official policy regarding homosexuality is that they do not allow openly gay students to live on campus in the dorms, as it does not keep with the universities policy of living an upright Christian life, or some such drivel. Nevermind that all your jocks are drinking on a dry campus, smoking pot and who knows what, and that everyone is having more sex than you can shake a stick at. But those fags….let me tell ya…
Having graduated from the Lay Ministry Program, with a focus on Youth Ministry, I really think that this book should be read by those entering that field. Mostly because the issue isn’t going away anytime soon. And the age old response to the issue of sexuality by the church to ignore it, hide it, or excommunicate it, just isn’t cutting it anymore.
I believe pastors (aside from those few who research this issue on their own, or have dealt with it in their parishes or what have you) are ill equipped to handle it when a parishioner comes to them expressing issues with sexuality. This book and a number of others would be a hugely beneficial tool to at least open the door and get the church and it’s workers to think about how to address this issue in the best way possible.
I’m also writing something that I don’t know what to call about how Christianity and homosexuality can co-exist. And while it’s not perfect (as a great many things aren’t) these conclusions have helped me find a measure of peace in my own life. So I’m hoping that once they get worked out on paper, they can do the same thing. If you wanna read it or prod me to get it done, or offer comments, I’d be more than happy to accommodate. ^_^
[Edit: So I called Alaska and was able to order the book. I learned two things from that. They will only sell the book to people out of state, and it takes an extra day to ship things from Alaska. For those of you who care to look further into getting a copy of the book in question this is their web address: http://www.goodbooksbadcoffee.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp
Their phone number is on the site and keep in mind their hours are 10am-7pm Monday through Saturday and that's 1pm-10pm Central time. The book itself is about $15 but you pay for shipping. I did the 2-day shipping and it cost me about 40$ to get it here on Monday. Just fyi.]
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