Category Archives: bizarreness

When Life Gives You Don Lemon III: The Lemon Awakens

Posted on January 4, 2016 by | 1 comment

Well faithful readers, it’s a new year. While your ever-vigilant crew at Culture War Reporters has certainly enjoyed their break, time marches inexorably on and we’ve got some catching up to do. Why not kick things off with our favorite nemesis and all-around nutjob Don Lemon.

Who we can always rely on to bring us incisive and relevant info on today’s most pressing stories.

As dedicated readers will certainly recall, CNN anchor Don Lemon is not exactly a good person. Lemon represents everything wrong with the news today: ignorance to facts, obstinance in the face of correction, and glee in chasing whatever headline will pull in the ratings- and all from behind a facade of journalism. And certainly, there are plenty of folks in the media today who are notorious for each of these problems, but few manage the impressive feat of having all them at once, and definitely not with the reach and influence that Lemon has. The man’s the perfect storm of power, obliviousness, stubbornness, and ****y ethics, and yours truly has made a point of keeping an eye on him in the same way that you’d keep an eye on a typhoon brewing off the coast. And I’m sad to say that, no, it looks like Hurricane Don isn’t showing any signs of abating.

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Posted in bizarreness, media, morality, news, politics

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2015’s Cultural Battleground – Evan’s Account

Posted on December 18, 2015 by | 1 comment

EDITOR’S NOTE: We end this year by each taking a look back and picking our five best posts, explaining both their importance to us and to the world we currently live in.  Clicking the banner images will link you to each post, so as 2014 comes to a close join us in remembering how far we’ve come, but also how far we still have to go.

tumblrsjws

Given the vehicle through which you’re reading these words the relationship between the internet and communication is never very far from my mind. It should also go without saying for those who spend any amount of time online that Tumblr as a community has cultivated quite a reputation for itself over the past few years.

While the sentiments found within this post are certainly nothing new [the squeaky wheel gets the grease, the concept of the vocal minority, etc.] I do think that it establishes them while also backing them up with hard evidence. At the very, very least it also lays out, for those who never cared to look into it, what exactly an “SJW” is.

earlymarriage

Another deeply personal post makes it onto this list, just like last year’s. As if letting you all read my current writing didn’t make me vulnerable enough it also featured a full op-ed from my college days [some stylistic choices make me cringe even now].

“It is difficult to be alone,” reads a since discontinued t-shirt from an AWOL webcomic creator. Those words have felt more and less real as seven years of being single has passed by, and what energy they offered I poured into penning some thoughts on the idea of marriage. Admittedly tailored more to those of the young Christian demographic it’s my hope that it helps at all with fellow single men and women in this group, as well as acting as a bit of an eye-opener for those who aren’t. Continue reading →

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Posted in America, bizarreness, Comedy, communication, feminism, internet, interview, military, pornography, race, relationships, sex, television, writing

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2 Broke Girls, S5E5 “And the Escape Room”: A TV Review

Posted on December 18, 2015 by | 2 comments

escaperoom

With “And the Escape Room” 2 Broke Girls continues its penchant for covering topics long after they first rose to relevance. That’s not to say that the concept of escape rooms has faded from the public consciousness [I’ve seen new ones popping up in downtown Toronto], only that they’re not exactly newsworthy anymore.

Having reviewed one such establishment for this blog, and having gone to other vastly better places since, I was actually excited to review this week’s installment of the show, primarily as an actual escape game. Things actually started out pretty well in that regard, too, with the diner staff [this entire scenario is a team-building exercise cooked up by Han, which is not an uncommon event] entering into an almost completely dark room. Over on the wall they see the following:

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Oleg didn’t recognize the man in the portrait, surprising no one.

With 26 light switches on the left the gang connect that number to letters in the alphabet. Han surmises that the right one might be “L”, for “light”, but Caroline more accurately suggests that it might be related to the equation Albert Einstein is most well-known for. They flick the fifth switch and the room is bathed in light. As mentioned, a promising start. Continue reading →

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Posted in bizarreness, Comedy, review, television

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2015’s Cultural Battleground – Gordon’s Account

Posted on December 14, 2015 by | Leave a comment

EDITOR’S NOTE: We end this year by each taking a look back and picking our five best posts, explaining both their importance to us and to the world we currently live in.  Clicking the banner images will link you to each post, so as 2015 comes to a close join us in remembering how far we’ve come, but also how far we still have to go.

unnamed4Somewhere in our collective history someone decided to depict God as a bearded, old human, dwelling in the clouds above. The trend caught on and has been going strong for the past couple millennia. As ubiquitous as this portrayal of the almighty has become, we argue that this imagery is the root of some of the worst theology (and art, music, and video) out there today, and how problematic it’s become for both the believer and non-believer alike.

unnamedFew images have so perfectly captured the abject and hellish misery of war than this year’s photograph of the body of Aylan Kurdi- only 3 years old. A would-be refugee from the ongoing conflict in Syria, Aylan and his brother drowned after an overcrowded boat capsized during a desperate attempt to reach Europe. The photograph evokes the deepest feelings of sadness for the dead and sympathy for the living- but crucially missing from the emotional equation is anger. Read on to discover why pity for refugees simply doesn’t cut it. Continue reading →

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Posted in America, bizarreness, blog news, Christianity, internet, lgbt, morality, news, politics

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What Wouldn’t Jesus Do?

Posted on December 8, 2015 by | 2 comments

“Would Jesus have carried a gun?”

That was the question Christian activist Shane Claiborne posed in an article this Saturday.

“The Jesus I worship did not carry a gun. He carried a cross.  Jesus did not tell us to kill our enemies. He told us to love them.”

These words come as a response to the shocking and repulsive comments by Liberty University’s president Jerry Falwell Jr. who, in a speech to his institution’s students, sneering declared that “if more good people had concealed-carry permits […] we could end those Muslims before they walked in and killed them.”

I shouldn’t have to explain how despicable those words are. And readers- I’m not going to.

If you’re reading this blog, I’m going to assume (to hope) that you have an iota of humanity in you. A speck of morality. A single shred of basic decency. I don’t think I need to describe what vile, bigoted, demonic filth that statement is. I don’t think I could even begin to. The heinous, cancerous insanity that Falwell spouts doesn’t merit a response.

Shane Claiborne, on the other hand, does.

shane-claiborne-believes-the-gospel-is-about-being-close-to-those-who Continue reading →

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Posted in America, bizarreness, Christianity, Islam, morality, news, religion

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Save Refugees, Save America

Posted on November 23, 2015 by | 2 comments

I believe in America.

I believe that the defining characteristic of this nation was its unerring sense of moral conviction- that all we did was in the advancement of some great work set into motion by ages past. That every undertaking stemmed from the deepest confidence in the simple rightness of our cause.

This faith led us, countless times, to commit terrible acts that damn the conscious of the nation. Slavery and Wounded Knee. Manzanar and Kandahar. McDonald’s and McCarthy. It’s led to the popular image abroad of Americans as fundamentally arrogant; loudly voicing their opinions without being asked, demanding where they have no right, interfering where they have no business.

And it was this same faith that has pulled this nation back every time. Yosemite and Normandy. Harlem and Harper’s Ferry. John Muir and Eugene Debs. The faith that sent millions to these shores from every corner of the world and the same unabashed confidence that sent American music, art, film, and literature back.

In spite of our divisions and our failings- and they are neither minor nor few- we are united by the common belief that our cause is not merely just but justice itself, and that its triumph needs only ingenuity, passion, and will to be secured.

For good or ill, it is this value that made America. Continue reading →

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Posted in America, bizarreness, Europe, government, history, Islam, morality, news, politics

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