A Message to self-proclaimed "Fag Haters"

(I just sent this in to a church-sponsored website proclaiming their hatred of gays, and figured I'd save the words to potentially share them with others, as this is something I've wanted to ask many people. I'm not certain of any sort of faith at this point in my life, though I find a lot of value in the messages of the Bible, as I do in many other holy texts.)

First off, I'm sorry. I wish I could actually communicate this in something more expressive than text, as I'm worried that my honest curiosity and confusion will be conveyed as bitterness toward your community.

My interpretation of the Bible has led me to believe that, regardless of what behaviors He deems holy or sinful, God does not condone showing hatred to others in any form. It is His duty to pass judgment, while his followers are tasked with merely doing the best work they can in loving one another and living a good life. Humans should not take it upon themselves to do His work of deciding who is fit or unfit for heaven, and assuming this duty is in fact harmful to other good Christians.

For instance, one of my favorite parables, that of the Tares among Wheat (Matthew 13:24-30), discourages trying to persecute sinners before God Himself can pass judgment. When the landowner's servants ask whether they should remove the weeds (tares) planted through the healthy field by an enemy, the landowner informs them that doing so will also uproot some of the good plants, and therefore they should tend to the whole field and wait until the landowner himself can separate the wheat from the weeds at harvest.

I can't help but feel that the actions of this organization, picketing to spread the word that God hates gay people, is in direct contradiction to this parable. But I don't believe that you would take these actions without some reason in mind that God condones.

So, I ask with the utmost candor: where in the Bible does it encourage expressing hatred for sinners (and not just their sins), and why do those words take precedence over Jesus' message of love and toleration?

If possible, I would love a response to this that does not quote Leviticus, and even more so one that focuses on the New Testament. I accept that Leviticus is part of the Bible and do not ignore the Old Testament, but I find most of the contents reference obsolete practices and rituals and therefore prefer to draw from the messages of Jesus, which I feel take precedence over any contradictions to it in the less recent communication of the Word of God.

Is it just me,

...or are typos getting more common in printed publications?

Probably just me.

i can haz burn nao

The other day, someone read part of a passage in a recently published book describing how the internet has impacted the use of "spare" time, and not necessarily in a negative way. As the television became increasingly ubiquitous in the past, watching TV became the typical leisure activity. Now, however, younger generations are spending less time watching TV and more time on the internet actually doing things, sometimes even contributing pro-bono for internet organizations that provide valuable services to the world. People are communicating (sometimes civilly and intelligently) on forum spaces, helping catalogue files or images for organizations like NASA, and much more.

On the other hand, the author cites one internet phenomenon, as an example of many, which he seems to represent as worse than rotting away in front of the tube: the lolcat. The "art" form of taking a cute picture of an animal, typically a cat, and adding an incorrectly-spelled caption to inspire some sort of humor. Anyone can make them (though supposedly there's an unspoken code as to how to "correctly" create these images, such as using phoenetic spelling), and they contribute absolutely nothing to the world with their existence.

Okay, forgive my defensiveness, but I think the hours I've spent laughing over those images, some of which would actually constitute "witty" (like this one), were not useless. Humor's a valuable thing, even what this author might call low-brow. And there's something to be said for adorable pictures of monorail kittehs slumped over banisters, am I right? Is it wrong to not devote all our time to constructive action? What's so horribly wrong about stopping to laugh at pictures of cats?

My crankiness on this point is somewhat elevated by my growing frustration with a laptop that appears to have breathed its last. Perhaps I'll be in a better mood when I figure out a plan for extracting the files from this corpse.

Turdblossom

Just got back from a road trip. Hooray for seeing friends, and hooray for being home again, too.

I'm gonna keep this post quick, but for anyone who has forgotten about the delightful spoonfuls of bullshit we were force-fed over the course of the Bush administration, here's a reminder of the flavor... Karl Rove: My Biggest Mistake in the White House.

I'm still having a hard time imagining how these guys can keep doing what they do, particularly when so many lives are negatively affected by their actions. And, forgive the spoiler, but that Karl Rove has the nerve to say that his worst mistake throughout the Bush administration was to not encourage more active campaigning against the accusations of dishonesty, deceit, and downright treason--the aftertaste never fades.

I've decided that my best choice at this point is to be amused by how delusional modern politicians are. They think, by telling us how much the other party was lying, they can clear their name. All they do is lower trust in the whole government. I think these guys forget that, believe it or not, we elect officials to be governed by the whole representative group, not two warring factions. Some things may never change.

Microfinancing

Ever heard of Professor Muhammad Yunus or Grameen Bank? Whether or not you have, it's always awesome, I've found, to check out more of what this fantastic Nobel Peace Prize winner and the bank he has created are doing. Microfinancing, or giving out small loans without massive interest rates to women living below the poverty line, has been changing many lives since it was first introduced to communities in Bangladesh by Yunus. Now the ideas that started with this single man have grown to an international scale, including branches of Grameen America in Queens, Brooklyn, and Omaha. Recently, my mom has begun to participate in the process of establishing Grameen's presence in Washington State, which is being done very carefully so as to cooperate with other organizations in the area that have adopted a similar model, such as Washington Cash.

The women who receive these loans use them not just to support their family for a little longer, but invest them into profitable appliances and businesses so as to bring in a steady stream of income for the family. For this reason, Grameen America has been able to keep a 99% rate or return on the loans they give.

I really encourage people to look up more about this organization and to keep an eye out for the documentary To Catch A Dollar, which is due to release in select theaters this coming September. I'm really impressed by the work these folks are doing to truly make the world a better place, and my summary here really doesn't do them justice.

For more info, check out
http://www.grameenamerica.com/ and
http://www.grameen-info.org/ ,
And http://www.tocatchadollar.com/ has a good trailer on the opening page. Check it out.

Pride and Shame

The link below is to one of the most beautiful things I've read in a while.

http://naytinalbert.blogspot.com/2010/06/i-hugged-man-in-his-underwear-and-i-am.html

It's the story of a group of Christian "protesters" at the Gay Pride parade in Chicago. I must say that my dad's the one who indirectly showed me the link--goodness, how I love having a father like this one. I felt really bummed that I couldn't make it to the pride march in my area, but I've attended it a number of times and am all too familiar with the kinds of signs and slogans that Christian protesters usually bear at these events. But this group had a very different message: "I'm sorry." Sorry for judging, for being homophobic, for delivering angry words to homosexuals in the past. And the response they got from the paraders was, for the most part, a big and heartfelt "thank you."

It's a really great story. Please read it if you have a few minutes, or the excerpt of it here: http://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2010/06/30/christians-protesting-at-pride.

Kawaii desu ne?

I got to spend today hanging out with a fantastic 12-year-old cousin-ish of mine (my family's complicated; suffice to say that "ish" is my way of denoting that there is no biological relationship). Conversation with someone 6 years my junior was actually incredibly pleasant, but perhaps the most amusing part was that we got to the topic of her favorite Japanese cartoons. In particular, she got hooked on these anime and manga almost exactly the same way I did and at pretty much exactly the same age. "What way is this?" you may ask. Well, the way that I hear many American tween girls get caught up in the delightful world of manga (comics, for those not in the know) is through the shojo genre: lots of pretty boys and pretty girls in adorable school uniforms and bizarre situations that lead to sadness, confusion, self-discovery, and love. Yes, it's the Twilight of Japanese comics.

It should be noted, though, that my young friend and I did not just happen to both start reading this same genre. No, we started on the same series, actually, both introduced by a friend to learn the ways of perfect hair, cute uniforms, enormous eyes and pointy chins. And this series was Fruits Basket, or Furuba for short. It is all that shojo strives to be: bittersweet, hopeful, and filled to the brim with pretty boys all lusting after a few female characters.

For those who haven't heard of it (and to those who have, I hope you share some small bit of my shame), the plot is relatively simple to describe. A girl named Tohru Honda has just recently had her mother die, and as her father died many years ago, this leaves her in the custody of her grandfather and extended family. While attempting to live on her own during some remodels, she happens upon a luxurious house in the middle of the wilderness, happening to be the residence of a classmate of hers who is so perfect and cool that a fan club containing about half the student body forms around "Prince Yuki." But Yuki Sohma has a terrible secret, revealed when his distant cousin and enemy Kyo Sohma arrives at the house (owned by Shigure Sohma, a young adult novelist and another cousin). Whenever any of 13 particular members of the Sohma family are hugged by someone of the opposite sex outside those 13 members and the head of the family, they are instantly transformed into the form of one of the animals of the Chinese Zodiac, or in Kyo's case, 'the Cat.' According to legend, the Cat was tricked by the Rat (which possesses Yuki) to miss the feast at which all other animals were assigned to the zodiac, so the cat and the rat remain permanent rivals. And Tohru, upon discovering this terrible secret, searches for a way to free the friends and people she loves from this curse.

Sounds contrived? You haven't even heard the dialogue: corny, overdramatic, and littered with... more ellipses... than you can... imagine (it averages about 7 every 2 pages, if I remember correctly). Oh, and all the family members with the curse (which passes from generation to generation in the Sohma family) happen to be somewhere between tweens and young adults. Only 4 are girls, and the guys are all ridiculously attractive according to the description, even the one who crossdresses (the Monkey, Ritsu). You'll laugh! You'll cry! You'll pass out from mental malnutrition!

Okay, I'm being harsh. But after seeing some really good anime, particularly Fullmetal Alchemist, and reading a bunch of not-quite-so-bad shojo manga, I have to admit it's hard to imagine how I stomached this stuff. I was so happy that the series finished before I left for college so that no one could see how excited I was to get the last book of it. So, now that I've rid my shelves of about 20 volumes of pathetic cheesiness (gone to a more appreciative soul), I'm curious if anyone has recommendations of favorite anime and manga that should occupy the free space.

Rewarding

First off, I want to say that I'm really thrilled about how many people have already mentioned reading the previous post to me. Facebook advertising does work, after all! Thanks for your support--you're great people with valuable time, so it's flattering to know you'd spend any small quantity of it reading my ramblings.

And speaking of ramblings, I had a rather random thought today: does any other species, apart from humans, contrive situations of delayed gratification for themselves? I mean, the concept of reaching some success to get a reward makes sense--working for food is pretty ubiquitous, from what I've gathered from the Discovery Channel. But creating one's own rewards and determining what is required to "earn" them--why on earth would any other creature do that? It must be one of the least intuitive things to do in the world, and yet we train ourselves to do it--or put up with others doing it for us--from a very early age. Click here to watch kids squirm in fantastic ways.

Let's take a prime example: dessert. Apart from pets who are trained to respond to treats, humans are basically the only creatures I can think of who have this philosophy of treating oneself to a reward of tasty, though probably not nutritious, food. I mean, how many times have you thought of doing something like the following?
I have three cookies, so instead of eating them now, I'm going to let myself have one cookie each time I do something on this list of things to do.
We have the cookies sitting in our hand, and yet we contrive our own set of rules, making them theoretically inaccessible even though we could just as easily eat them quickly and then just do the stuff on the list merely out of wanting or needing to do it.

This set of ideas may have been brought to my attention indirectly by the pie in the fridge, the brownies on the counter, and the most-likely-stale 2-bite chocolate cupcakes behind me, all completely unguarded but somehow not completely devoured already. We'll see how long that lasts.

Thoughts?

Correspondance

I've been keeping up an email conversation with one of my former roommate's closest friends from back home. She's at a university near home (in China) and is working very hard at the moment to practice and develop her English skills so that she can do better in the many tests to come. My lovely roomie gave her my email (with my permission, of course) so that I could help her with her grammar and give her practice leading conversations.

It's been amazing to watch her improve, but what's been more amazing is how much I've learned from the conversations. The stereotypes that we both have about each other's cultures are constantly coming into question, particularly now that we're comfortable enough with each other to be able to ask blunt questions. We talk a bit about school, friends, family, traditions and celebrations, food, or whatever else either of us are inspired to talk about. I've started to really enjoy the emailing: it's far more successful than any pen-pal system I've had set up in the past, with the combination of her diligence in responding and my guilt at failing to do so.

When I first agreed to this whole improving-English-through-email-conversation thing, I was thinking that the most time-consuming or challenging part would be the first piece of what I do, which is going through her most recent email and typing in suggested corrections to spelling and grammar. But I've learned through time that it's actually the easiest part to go through and make those simple changes, particularly recently as her mistakes have become fewer and simpler to correct. I usually go through and make the corrections as soon as I get her email, then save the new version as a draft a few minutes later and wait to come back to it.

Why wait? Well, she's very good at asking unassuming, but thought-provoking questions. Sometimes they're relatively straightforward, like asking about one of the American stereotypes that she's been fed by her companions or professors. They're not the ones I usually expect, like us all being fat or loud or stupid. A good example would be that she heard that all American teachers are nice. Of course this isn't true; we have a ton of variety. But it's difficult to pick out the right examples and the right explanations to illustrate the truth without spamming her with useless anecdotes. In response to that email, which was not the first that asked whether "all American ____s are _____," I ended up launching into a description of how I really saw the United States as being best described as being filled with variety. It's not all mixed together, and certainly not a healthy medium, but variation is perhaps the most consistent trait of this culture, whether in our professors, our food, our families, our professions, our homes, or our dreams.

If anyone starts reading this, I would love to hear what people think about this by-no-means-original description of the US. Also, if anyone has suggestions as to things that I can ask her about (we're starting to get on the subject of painting, but we tend to have a few threads running at a time), I'd love to hear them.

Lift-off! We have lift-off!

Now that I'm feeling pretty stable again as an individual, I'm pleased to say that I'm comfortable blogging again. Hey, how could someone as outgoing as me keep to myself online for very long, hm?

This blog is gonna be a lot less me-oriented (I hope) than older ones I've had. I can tell people about me in person; close or distant friends, relatives, and the like. I don't need any more personal information about myself out there than is already scattered through the blagosphere.

I'm alive again! Peace, dudes!