New Song Wednesday

I knew I was going to do this. I resolved, at the inception of this blog, to add a new song to the playlist every Tuesday. And as demanded by my scatterbrained and unmotivated slush of a brain... I procrastinated.

Of course you're so enthralled by this blog that you've checked a million times since then, and I apologize for torturing you.

All sarcasm aside, I'd like to draw your attention to the theme from The Great Escape. Sound underwhelming? Guess again. This is a classic beginning from a classic beginning to a classic movie. And by classic I mean amazing.

Just listen to it.

I Urge You To Sign This Petition

http://www.c-fam.org/youth/lid.2/default.asp

From what I gather, this petition is a response to the U.N.'s advocacy of universal sex education for children. See the FOX News article below on how they mean to do this; FOX has a reputation for conservative bias, but they seem to be quoting from the plan itself. The quotes disturb me.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,543203,00.html

Katy Perry, The Great Circus, and A Red Marionette

(WARNING: EXPLICIT CONTENT)

P.T. Barnum, you fool. Did it ever strike you what kind of a world you were bringing us with your spectacles? Every roar of the audience was another pen-stroke in a national tragedy.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I apologize. Mr. Barnum put on circuses and shows during the 1800s.  He was good at it. He was very good at it. He knew how to work up the masses, and put on shows that would send shock waves throughout the nation- and waves of dollars coming back to the origin. We get our word “jumbo” from an elephant he featured that was bigger than many had ever seen before. He was the consummate showman.

By now you want to know why I put Katy Perry in the title. I just read an article about the Sesame Street incident, and watched the video. For those who don’t know, the pop singer sang with Elmo on Sesame Street, performing one of her singles adapted for children. The neckline on Katy’s dress revealed what good King Solomon referred to as “twin fawns, the young of a gazelle that browse among the lilies.” (Song of Songs 4:5)

The folks at Sesame Street thought there should have been a few more lilies to hide them. So they cut the scene. And now it’s the latest headline on the Internet. If YouTube isn’t already bursting with skits and satires about it, it will be in the next couple of weeks. 

And when Lady GaGa comes out with her next music video, we’ll ignore Ms. Perry the way we drop a hot potato, and if you don’t remember a single other thing from this post, remember that. 

Our culture has become Barnum’s circus. His descendents of spirit know his tricks, and now that there’s more room for the real motivator, sex, they’ve gone wild. Now they have millions hooked on their big circus. All these foolish little headlines, all these desperate grabs for recognition, the stunts, the shocks, the controversies, the gossip… where does it end? I just watched this girl, one of my generation, making a fool of herself, breasts poking out for all the world to see and giggle at as she chases Elmo through a bluescreen-powered city street.

This circus has gone too far. We wanted excitement, and we got it, and we want more. When Katy gets old, and Katy gets thrown away like Elmo eventually will be, too many people are going to be staring at the next big act to care for her pain. If that is not subhuman, please show me what is.

If you want to see for yourself, follow the link (WARNING: cleavage, as I described). If you want to speak your mind, comment away.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHROHJlU_Ng 

New Song Tuesday

21 Guns by Green Day. It's a rock ballad. It touches me deep, and it also poses a question: what is worth fighting for and dying for?

What do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt1Hev7SO_E

Mental Quicksand

If anyone still doubts the depth of what the Internet has done to the world, the fact some of us think it’s an addiction should eliminate them. I don’t think I’m the only who’s noticed the buzz. About fifteen seconds ago, I typed “internet addiction” into Google. Instantly the list of suggestions popped up. They burst with queries about it. One click and my computer screen drowned with headlines, to the tune of “Center for Online and Internet Addiction”, “Psych Central – Internet Addiction and Online Addiction”, and more.

Whether or not it’s medical, some of us have an online problem.

Including myself. I got my homework done today, like a good little boy. And then blew off a good hour streaming music on YouTube. With the first note of “Love Addict” by Family Force 5, the world was gone. The mellow sun outside the windows, the books and beds within the windows; everything whirled away, and my mind sunk into my laptop screen. 

It was a quicksand. I’ve sunken many times. I’m guessing some of you reading this have too. Is it indeed a medical condition? Never have I used drugs, and of alcohol I’ve only taken a sip. So I know nothing about what a medical addiction is like. I’m convinced, though, that this has to be some of kind of addiction. I can’t speak for you, but for me, I can feel it sucking away, nudging away the things that better fulfill me: visiting my friends, my human friends, playing outside and working on something meaningful.

This sounds like Satan. This sounds immensely like the way he tries to keep us down, and rope us down so we can’t go for the good things of life. C.S. Lewis once spoke of what we become when we let that happen. For him, it was “like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.” 

Don’t read this wrong. There is a host of good things to do with the Internet that’s as large as… well, the Internet itself. But we must have it under control. I must have it under control. No one can live a full life with two masters, after all.

Song of the Week

Evening, all!

Say hello to the first of many song posts to come. Every Tuesday I'll pick a song I find relevant somehow, and post a link and the lyrics.

This one is "Too Bright Too See, Too Loud to Hear" by Underoath. It's a slow and haunting rock song, which launches into screaming at the end. It reflects on being faithful to Christ, and those times when faithfulness dies. What do you think?
 
The italics are my notes on the lyrics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LOVBphvHYA

Lyrics:

(Sung) Good God, if your song leaves our lips
If your work leaves our hands
Then we will be wonders and vagabonds
They will stare and say how empty we are
How the freedom we had turned us up as dead men

Let us be cold, make us weak
Let us, because we all have ears
Let us, because we all have eyes
Good God...

How they knew that this would happen (We're so run down)
Good God, can you still get us home?

(Screaming) How can we still get home
I'm not dreaming
We're forgetting our forgiveness

The First Shard

Where to begin? "Begin," counters Lewis Carroll, "at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end; then stop."

I have never seen a finer antidote to over-analyzing.

Now if only I had a topic to begin with. You see, I wrote some pretty words in my description (which I'm sure you too the time to read) about all these things I was going to contemplate with words, and find their meaning, and connect them to something grand and all. But I can't think of a thing.

Maybe I'm simply tired; I type in my dorm room at Benedictine College, chatting online with a friend. We're going to the local early morning donut shop in an hour. And in that time I feel obligated to talk about something. It's my first post, after all.

And yet my mind is lead. It's hard tonight to reach out and find something; even when I reach, it's searching in vain, becuase nothing is coming forward.

Arrrrrrrrg, I think, more out of idleness than frustration. Even for a college man, the wee hours of morning batter the brain. There are now two people chatting with me online, which isn't helping my concentration.

This hasn't turned out at all like I expected. But at least it's something. I've made a topic; I haven't gone deeply into it, but it's something. I began at the beginning, and at least in the eyes of Lewis Carroll I have done something worthy. And for my God I have made a sincere effort.