I would like to thank Margaret for posting a link to this story on her blog. I’d like to do the same. It is a fascinating chronicle about the life of a young gay man in rural Oaklahoma and should be a wake up call to the gay rights movement, which, it seems, has recently done itself more harm than good.
Author Archives: WD
Orange Glow
Today as I was driving to work, I came across a late autumn orange glow. I was about to turn onto a street that ran on the foot of a hill, so in front of me was just a bare slope of leafless trees. Though that probably conjures up a cold winter image in your mind, imagine the scene bathed entirely in a salmon colored light. The sun, low on the horizon behind me, lit up the trees and the leaf strewn ground below them, creating, if just for a minute, serenity among the wild. It was the kind of scene that makes you stop for a minute before moving along to the highways that beckon.
Annoying Euphemism of the Day – Plus Free Rant!!
If someone came up to me and said, “I have a conflict about something,” I would not assume he meant, “I have a war [going on] about something.” This brings me to the second installment of annoying euphemism of the day. Though by the dictionary, the term conflict can be used to mean battle, it is a usage that I find insincere. A conflict arises when one has very little money, and must chose to pay either his cable bill or his high speed internet bill. The conflict arises because one can not do both, and thus has to chose one at the sacrifice of the other.
WHEN THE GLOBE’S LARGEST SUPERPOWER IS FIGHTING POOR PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE THEY ARE FREEDOM FIGHTERS IN THE 3RD WORLD, IT IS NOT A CONFLICT. IT IS A WAR.
Although I would like to say this euphemism is just a right wing trick, to keep us buying our hummers and shopping at Wal*Mart, the left is using it as well. Evidence today on the Ed Shultz show when he referred to the Iraqi war as a conflict. Let’s make no beans about it, boys and girls. With over 1,000 of our soldiers, and roughly 10x as many as their soldiers dead, what we have is a war, albeit a lopsided one.
That we can refer to the situation in Iraq as anything less than a war is simply unthinkable. Furthermore, we are told constantly, that in order to fight the WAR on terrorism, we must become more paranoid, distrustful of others, and open to the government than ever. If our WAR on terror is a war that is fought in unconventional terms, than surely poor young men and women riding in tanks and toting machine guns would qualify under the old definitions.
I believe this major euphemism is employed to cover our guilt. That is, now, we can fight war abroad and not have to sacrifice materially at home. Sure that other, vaguer war is forcing us to sacrifice what is perhaps most dear to this country, but even with our troops dying daily in foreign and hostile lands, we cry out when gas prices go up 10 cents to the gallon. Simply, those of us lucky (wealthy) enough to chose not to join the armed forces face absolutely no hardships in daily American life. We have all the exotic fruit we could possibly imagine at the local grocery store (oops, I mean Super Wal*Mart,) and plentiful supplies of sweatshop clothing from countries we couldn’t point out on maps.
We have reached the point in the consumer society whereby so long as our choice in goods and services remains at a certain acceptable level, externalities such as wars can be reduced to mere conflicts. I do like my country, for its ideals, but we have come a very long way since the 18th century. Though the easy life is now available to more people than ever, I think we have become masters of delusion. Just like Viagra may allow sex where there is no longer desire, calling war conflict only further thickens the haze that surrounds us in these 50 states.
Marathon
Saturday:
12 Noon – Wake Up
4:00 p.m. – Go to work.
9:00 p.m. – Finish work.
9:45 p.m. – Depart for Hartford
11:15 p.m. – Arrive in Hartford for M’s party.
Sunday:
4:30 a.m. – Depart M’s house for Goldroc Diner w/ Cohn and Tree.
6:30 a.m. – Depart Hartford for Massachusetts
10:00 a.m. – Begin Work
5:00 p.m. – Finish Work
7:00 p.m. – Sit in front of computer typing this
soon – Crash big time.
On Born Again Christians
Ladies and gentlemen, if I may, an external link to a website written by Colin Melbourne of “Born Again Christian Info.” (LINK)
I think reading this, now, I am even more disgusted by the idea of being born again.
First, I disagree that we were all born sinful, or evil. That seems to be a way simply to separate the believers from the non-believers. I believe we are all born neutral and that whether we decide to become good or bad people, or somewhere in between, is partly to do with how we are raised and partly to do with our life decisions.
Secondly, I take offense at the notion that by buying into something completely unknown, your previous actions can be totally erased. For instance, it mentions that those who do not accept the lord (JC,) yet do good, are still sinners. This sounds like a basis for persecution on abstract ideals rather than action if I’ve ever heard one. Conversely, this tells us that no matter how bad you have been, or even if you are about to die, you can be saved. Really? Then why not just go do all my bad stuff, and then, when convenient, say before death or campaigning for political office, be saved? Seems like an excuse to live an evil life for as long as you want and then be allowed to say a simple sorry and have your slate wiped. This is foolish. The choices we make reflect upon our character, period. I’ve done bad and I’ve done good – I live with it. I would never wish to exonerate myself from all my previous mistakes, willful or not, just as much as I wouldn’t wish to believe that all my future actions, having taken the oath, would be above scrutiny.
Third. Christ was persecuted back in the day, in an age where, compared to our relatively enlightened state of being now, people were very narrow minded on both sides. Christ suffered, but that’s about all I’m willing to accept. So, if you have sinned, Christ did not pay for your sins. How could someone who was killed in the past have already atoned for what you have done in the present? It’s a foolish concept. If you have sinned, you must pay for your sins. Likewise, if you are guilty, you are guilty, not Christ. If you are sick or infirm, Christ will not make you better. Though he may give you the spiritual warmth which will in turn give you the courage to muster forward, medicine and science will go just as far if not further. And, if you are lonely, Jesus did not die to be your friend. If you are lonely, you need to do something about it – as harsh as that advice may seem.
Fourth, the idea that in order to be saved and become a good person destined for heaven, all one must do is turn to Christ, smacks of little more than idolatry. Just believing will bring you redemption? Jeez. If they had said that you had to jump though a few hoops, perhaps I’d take it a little more seriously.
What bothers me about this whole mode of thinking is that it values thought and intention more than action. What we do, not what we think in private, determines how others, and perhaps even some deity, look upon us. To be good is to be rational, driven by reason and respect for others, and attempt to do good for ourselves and others. This is not a difficult theoretical task. To do good is to take pride in your work and to hold yourself to the highest standards, all while seeking no harm to others. Those who fight and kill in the name of Jesus Christ, Allah, or what have you, are not good people. To make a strong case for belief by making one’s life follow the dictates of these beings or others is the only legitimate way, I see, to proselytize.
It is really simple in theory. But in real life, following the simple dictates of reason and personal responsibility are difficult. We will all fail at times. But our goal is to not fail, and that takes hard work and determination on our part. The responsibility is ours, as is the burden. If we can accept that nobody can absolve us for sins committed past present and future, then perhaps we will work harder to not commit them in the first place.