Smear ads for Jesus!

Just funny. It's a week of frivolity!



via Revolution in Jesusland

Friday (not) Frivolity

When I'm not whining about my life, or reading and writing PRON, or, you know, working, I'm entertained by the internet.

I am a happy ending junky. Mostly because I've long ago accepted the fact that we're all going to die. Life doesn't really get a happy ending, just quiet acceptance--if you're lucky enough to figure it out. Or if you, like Michael Keaton in My Life, know ahead of time and have the money and resources to make pithy educational videos about yourself. So yeah, happy endings are nice. They don't have to be syrupy sweet, but I rarely complain when the guy gets the girl or the heist is pulled off with a minimum of casualties. But of course, movies with happy endings never truly examine what happens after (that's what fanfiction is for). Luckily, we have Cracked.com' s The 6 Most Depressing Happy Endings in Movie History to inform us:

Back to the Future - while the movie wants us to cheer Biff becoming a menial laborer for the McFlys as a nice bit of karmic comeuppance, we can't help but think that it's a bad idea to give a house key to the guy who once tried to rape your wife.

~~~~~

How is it the Joker kicked so much evil ass in the Dark Knight? Why do I keep reading fandom secrets in which little girls (and possibly boys) post pictures of Ledger's Joker with the words "I'd So Totally Hit That" scrawled over his face? Why do I find most superhero movies boring? io9 attempts to answer these questions with an excellent commentary about the rise of mediocre villainy in Why We Deserve Better Villains:

The problem of villain suckage is endemic in heroic narratives, where villains get redeemed, become sympathetic, or lose their menace too easily.

My favorite reasoning:

Good villains make great stories. A truly chilling villain makes the hero seem more important because the stakes are important, and the hero's actions matter.

~~~~~

Why do I--a quasi-intellectual spiritual seeker that can find as many reasons to defy an organized religion as follow it--read the God's Politics Blog? Because it seems politically aware Christians are less afraid to point the finger (just as Jesus did) when Big Government stomps all over people. I get more news from this blog than I do almost anywhere else. What I truly love about them is they offer steps beyond praying and finger-pointing, and instead offer actions, contacts, and steps one individual can take to help right wrongs. In a recent article, The Jungle in Postville Affects Us All, we are reminded the action and inaction of everyone can make a difference:

We should also care because "we" are "them." "Our" lives outside of Postville are bound up in "their" lives inside of Postville. Martin Luther King Jr. said: "We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny." The apostle Paul said: "If one member of the body suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it." Our actions and inactions affect one another. Together we must act so honor can replace the suffering of us all.

~~~~

And finally, fans of the movie Soylent Green my be unaware it is based on a book, or that there is so much more to this story than "Soylent Green is people!!!" Now is your chance to find out in a beautiful reissue.

~~~~

Okay, not so finally because I realize this was way less frivolous than I wanted. So for those who've always suspected there was something fishy in Batman's relationship to Robin, I offer you my tasteless comic panel of the day:

I don't have a picture of the lamb, but...

My brother plays in Photoshop. A lot.

The Original:

This remains one of my favorite pictures of me and my brother. I have no idea about the cheekiness; I keep asking my mom if I had the mumps, or something, but she swears not.

And in other news:

One of the things I can always count on (aside from the love of my family and husband, the heat of summer, and the ridiculously trusting ignorance of the American people when watching the news) is the welcome of a new book. I usually have about 5 books going (2 nonfiction of different subjects, 1 novel, 1 book of poetry, short stories, or YA novel) at one time. I recently finished one nonfiction, but haven't settled on the new one I'm starting in its place. And as I mentioned in my last post, I've also finished two adult novels in a row with similar themes (forgiveness, redemption, God, blah, blah, blah). The YA novel came in yesterday and I'm already half-way through it (not just because its reading level is below mine, but also because (as previous reviews have already stated) it's just that good. But I'm having an issue with the adult fiction. It's just not there for me. I have a pretty impressive TBR pile. I look at it and get all excited about one day soon diving back in, but I just don't have it in me right now. It occurs to me that sometimes, I need to finish a few things before starting something new. It it overwhelming at times, my voracious need to have several books going at once. It feels slightly chaotic and ADD. I've done this for ages, though, and only in the last few years met someone who does the same, which does make me feel a tad less like I have reading commitment issues!

Reviews coming soon, I promise (if you care).

I believe this is how true crazy is made

I feel quite disenchanted with the world these days. Not in one of those everything's shit, our government sucks, and we're too busy killing each other and buying stuff to notice kind of way. It's more like: Everywhere I go I see beauty and complexity that engages me and makes me want to become more of something, but I don't know what that is.

The more I learn about the world, people in it, my own interactions, the busier and crazier my brain feels. It's as if there isn't enough space in there to process all the thinking that's going on. Do I sound crazy? I feel it, mostly because I don't have anyone to talk to about all this. Truth is, if I were single right now, I'd probably be living in an intentional community somewhere, just trying to love my neighbor and practice radical subversive economics. But of course I can't do that. I'm lucky I can convince my (amazing and very sweet) husband we DON'T need most of the stuff he wants. That the things we have are enough (ask me sometime about the Fry Daddy incident - I. could. kill. his. mother.).

And then it occurs to me that I'm a hypocrite. I like stuff. I buy books almost weekly. I just purchased a new set of sheets for the bed, not because we needed a new set of sheets, but because I thought they were cool. But I'm basing the health of my marriage on whether or not I can convince the husband to switch from bottled water to a water filter (I'm almost there). And the one person I felt I could talk to about Jesus just sent me an email with the most disappointing and formulaic anti-feminist crap in it...I responded, attempting to educate, but then I figured oh, what is the fucking point!?!?!? People are going to believe whatever they fucking well want to believe. Isn't that how Obama lost Pennsylvania? Because no one wants to think outside their little comfort zone? And if everyone is so happy there, why can't I just settle in and be happy too?

So on one hand, I'm trying to convince myself to give up. Stop trying to engage the world in my own radical way. It doesn't matter anyway, and all that ends up happening is my own despair when I turn on the TV and see so much horror and apathy. But on the other, I am still engaging, still getting the optimistic shit beat out of me every day, and still waking up the next morning wondering what good I can accomplish; looking forward to the tiny surprising thing that'll happen (as it seems to always) to keep me from giving up.

Sometimes I have to accept that keeping one's mind open is an invitation for all sorts of mischief.

My quote of the day:

A Christian is committed to the belief that Love and Mercy are the most powerful forces on earth.

- Thomas Merton
Passion for Peace

The Goddessdster Expresses a Need

Sometimes I'm not too sure what I'm doing here. By here, I don't mean this blog. I know exactly why I'm typing these words. But here, in the sense that I have no idea what the fucking point is.

Sometimes it makes perfect sense.

Sometimes I feel the pointlessness of it all as an exercise in creating meaning out of nothing. If I can say: I tried to learn as much as I could about the world and treated people decently, then I feel I've lived a good life. I truly do believe that smiling at one person each day is reason enough for a seemingly meaningless existence. Maybe my entire purpose is to be little more than a supporting character for the human race. That's not a knock. I think supporting characters sometimes have the most important roles. They provide the feedback, the reaction, the comic relief, so the main character can develop into a fully three-dimensional being.

Who is the main character? I guess if I were one of those unapologetic Jesus freaks (and that is not an insult, but in many ways an expression of envy - I wish I could believe so freely and unapologetically in something not empirically visible), I would say God is the main character of the Universe and we are all supporting characters. In many ways, I believe that to be true. And yet, as it applies to my small life, I think my supporting character role is reserved for he or she who needs me most. I live my life needing to be needed or I just don't understand what good I am.

How pathetic is that? Except I also believe there is no pathos in freely expressing how one feels.

Which brings me back to my opening statement. Why a blog, when I spent so long mocking others for doing exactly this? Am I finally giving in admitting my own hypocrisy? Probably, but I do that a lot. I am here for what I believe is the same reason you are here and so many others. Because if I don't figure out a way to express how I feel, I think I'll just go crazy.

Welcome to my world.