Well, I woke up this morning, flipped on my laptop, and had this image waiting there to greet me.
For ****’s sake, people.
Alright, lets get to it. Continue reading
Posted in America, bizarreness, celebrity, morality, news, race
Tagged actress, arrest, black, Daniele Watts, django unchained, Ferguson, gun, husband, interracial, LAPD, Prison Sentence, prostitution, race, racism, racist, Sean Hannity, sentencing, Small Business Loans, Social desirability bias, Statistics, Stop, Weapon, white
Today’s post comes to you late because my iconoclastic, point by point take down of liberalism (yep, liberalism) wasn’t quite where I wanted it to be.
Well, that’s at least part of the reason.
Since our collective busy schedules have forced us to [temporarily] drop Fame Days from our rotation, I’ve also been concerned that this blog might get a little too negative. I figure I’d put off alienating everyone I know and point out something positive at the same time- and that “something” is actually a “someone“.
Henry ****ing Rollins.
Posted in art, bizarreness, celebrity, Comedy, Fame Day, morality, music
Tagged activism, actor, art, Bhopal, Black Flag, cause celebre, celebrity, comedy, disaster, gay, Henry Rollins, henry rollins band, homophobia, marriage, music, racism, racist, rights, Rollins, SOA, sons of anarchy, spoken word, stand up, veteran, voice actor, West Memphis Three
Yesterday, CWR’s own Kat posted “Do Western Christians Want Martyrs?”, a short post questioning the motivations behind the recent outpouring of Western sympathy for the plight of Iraqi and Syrian Christians, currently being massacred by the forces of the terrorist group formerly known as ISIS. That post prompted the following comment: “[it] seems a bit sick to turn this into a critique of Christians or Christianity… what is it in you that wants to make this a critique of Christian hypocrisy?”
Now I don’t think it was Kat’s intention to downplay the genocide in progress in the Levant and it certainly isn’t mine either. So why critique Christians?
Because Christians are guilty.
No, they’re not pulling the triggers or wielding the swords, but the actions of Western Christians have contributed not only to the slaughter of Iraqi and Chaldean believers, but the persecution, suffering, and misery of the church all across the world. And even as Western Christians switch their profiles to the Arabic letter “nun” for “Nazarene”, the self same people continue to be part of the problem.
Let me show you a picture:
These are the first of the first. The oft-forgotten Christians of Palestine. The descendents of the very first followers of Christ. These people are literally Nazarenes.
Where is their defense? Continue reading
Posted in America, Christianity, history, Islam, morality, news, politics, religion
Tagged 3rd World, Amazon, Amazonian, Bethlehem, Bush, Christian, Christianity, Christians, el salvador, European, fake, Foreign Policy, Gyspy, Houghton, Houghton College, hypocrisy, Iraq, IS, ISIS, Islamic State, israel, martyr, Martyrs, middle-east, Mr. By-Ends, Nazarene, news, Nike, nun, Oscar Romero, palestine, palestinian, Palestinian Christians, Pilgrim's Progress, Policy, Roma, Sabian, Slave Labor, sweat shop, sweatshop, Syria, western, Western Christians, Yezidi
I’d say there’s no better time than right now to discuss what we do with our money in light of the hundreds upon thousands of Ice Bucket Challenge videos that have been taking up most of the internet the past few days [FYI, Emily Blunt’s is the best]. Just yesterday my youngest brother posted one to Facebook, so it’s gotten just about as close to home as it possibly can.
Now there’s been a lot of discussion about how this appears to be just the latest trend, which probably has a lot to do with the sheer number of celebrities who are getting in on this. What can’t be argued with, though, is the fact that in a very short time this challenge has resulted in over $50 million being donated for ALS, which is roughly 80% of what the organization raised last year. That’s big, that’s worth applauding. I’m going to end this paragraph on that note.
What else it is, though, is fun. It’s fun watching people like Bill Gates and Nick Offerman get soaked in frigid water and calling out their peers. It’s fun when our peers do it to us, and when we in turn choose to douse ourselves in glacial H2O. That makes it easier to give, I think, there’s this pervasive lightheartedness about it that makes us more inclined to reach into our wallets and give howevermany dollars towards ending Lou Gehrig’s Disease [an ailment I only very recently connected to these shenanigans]. Giving gets infinitely harder when there’s none of that fun involved.
Here’s my favourite scene from a pretty bad 2004 Jackie Chan movie [no offence to Steve Coogan, but we weren’t watching it for him]:
On the ninth of this month Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown during a traffic stop. The subsequent days have seen massive protests in both the city and across the nation, matched only in their intensity by the crackdown of the local police.
Now while the police have just now cited that the deceased Michael Brown was the suspect in a local convenience store robbery (nothing has yet been proven), the cops have nevertheless come under widespread criticism. By all accounts, 18-year-old Michael Brown, who has no record of bad behavior- criminal or otherwise, surrendered to Wilson after a brief struggle. Despite his raised hands and his shouts that he was unarmed, Wilson opened fire anyway, shooting the teenager no less than six times.
We could talk about the struggle that allegedly occurred, the protocol in place for such events, and a host of other factors, but ultimately the fact that Wilson shot and killed an unarmed teen remains undisputed.
But we’re not here to talk about that.
We’re here to talk about the days that have since passed.
Posted in America, crime, government, media, morality
Tagged Al Jazeera, Army, Bahrain, Brutality, Darren Wilson, Egypt, enemy, Ferguson, Fergustan, Fucking Animals, Gaza, Huffington Post, Jean Quan, justice, Michael Brown, Militarized, Military, Missouri, occupation, Occupy Oakland, palestine, peaceful, police, Protest, reporters, riot, siege, Tear Gas, unarmed, Washington Post, weapons
When deciding to write about this topic, I had to be honest with myself and admit that things have gotten pretty darn personal around here in the past. It’s not like I haven’t shared with you and potentially anyone else in the world with an internet connection that I think Ingrid Michaelson has “amazing” breasts. The main difference here, I think, is the general way I feel many of my peers [ie. fellow young Christian people] discuss faith, which is to say, rarely.
There appears to be a common sentiment of live and let live. “I’ll respect you if you respect me.” Don’t get me wrong, I think that’s great, it’s just that it all too often results in us [refer to my definition of peers above] not really talking about something that’s ostensibly important to us. All of that’s a topic to possibly be unpacked for another time, though, because today I’m going to try tackling the benefits of faith. To be more specific, the benefits of faith sans salvation. Continue reading
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