Key Concepts

When I became the youth minister at my church there was a curriculum in place. It shall remain nameless. All of our youth activities sprang from it. The truth - it was the dumbest excuse for youth curriculum I'd ever seen... and I've seen terrible stuff.

The badness started with it's "key concepts" which were, 1) manhood and womanhood are gifts from God and 2) adulthood must be earned. First of all, I understand there are some gender politics issues with the concepts. Second, I have no idea what the hell they mean or how they connect with Christianity.

There is nothing revolutionary. Nothing about a deeper connection with God or those around you. Nothing about fighting against injustice. Nothing about anything that would make this in any way unique from something someone could teach at a damn etiquette class. It is precisely the kind of bullshit that makes people think Christianity is simply a system that makes people nice and very supportive of the status quo.

It's gone now.

Am I Reading This Right?

Ok, I'm no economist. I don't understand this bailout thing. I know the experts say it's necessary. To me it sounds like we're saving greedy bankers (I found it interesting to hear this morning that the banks are lobbying for the bill to pass but against the provision that limits how much bank CEOs can make.... interesting).

I read Senator Obama's remarks here and thought, "Did he just say what I thought he said?" Because it sure sounded like he said screw the environment, the working class, the poor, the elderly, veterans, etc. We need to hold off on those proposals to save greedy bankers. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but a vote for Nader is sounding better than ever.

Facebook Status Political War

I hope readership of this blog (by readership I mean mostly those of us who write from time to time) hasn't completely fallen off at this point. I know I'm partly to blame for nothing going on here lately, but I finally have something somewhat interesting to write about. Let's try to get back to writing more regularly. I really enjoy reading what you folks have to say.

I noticed something new during the DNC last week. Maybe if I hadn't been glued to the tv the entire week, political junkie that I am, I wouldn't have noticed it quite as much. What I realized was that people are now using their Facebook status to spew political rhetoric.

I've been somewhat guilty, but mine have been less rhetoric, more feeling. For example, mine said, "Quinn wishes he was at Mile High" on the night of Obama's acceptance speech. Others (I have to say, mostly, but not only, conservatives) were much more involved. One guy that Rachelle, Meg, and I went to high school with said "Rhett wonders if Obama supporters realize socialism has been tried before. It failed." Reducing a politicians position to socialism simply because he believes markets exists for people and not the other way around. Some weren't ideological, they were attempts at insult, like another guy from high school said, "Andrew wishes Obama would come up with something besides that dumb as [sic] 'yes we can' slogan." I guess the irony was lost on him in that in identifying something as dumb ass, he actually misspelled the word.

Anyway, I don't know what I think about this. I feel like already the general population is so dumb when it comes to politics, and I'm not talking about ideology. I know some very intelligent conservatives. I just mean that the general population are uneducated. Facebook status as a medium for political discourse will not help this. I actually question whether blogs even can.

Part of me wants to fire back at these people. Inform them that they misspelled dumb ass, tell them they clearly don't understand the differences between the Marxist tyranny of the USSR and the socialist policies of the UK or Sweden. However, I just don't think it's worth it. If someone is willing to bring the level of the conversation down that far, I see no point in stooping to try to correct their misguided feelings.

Per Se: A Vexation

Having shown my linguistic cards last week, that I believe what words popularly mean is more important than how they look or how the dictionary might define them, I would like to explore my hypocrisy by discussing one of my most extreme linguistic frustrations.

The winner is... when people use the phrase per se incorrectly.

Per se has a very simple meaning. It means, essentially, "in and of itself." You might use it in this way, "I'm not opposed to violence in film per se, it can be used to make powerful points about our humanity. I just hate mindless bloodletting." That, my friends, is a successful use of the phrase.

However, sadly, many use this word for other, more sadistic purposes. The most popular is as a stand in for the word "say," as in, "So, per se you were going to a movie, and you wanted to see mindless bloodletting. You might check out Night of 1,000 Corpses." This is a total perversion of the phrase, and makes it so that, in the end, no one understands what the hell the phrase actually means. People also enjoy throwing this phrase randomly into [incorrect] places to bring about those warm, fuzzy feelings of intelligence. That is sad, so I will not interact with it.

I encourage you, nay, plead with you. Take this phrase back. It is a good phrase. It rolls off the tongue nicely (cellar door, schmellar door). Just let it roll correctly.