Those of you who know me probably had to hear me complain A LOT about my previous job in DC. I won't mention the name here, because I've learned a thing or two about Google Alerts since this whole blogger thingy got going, but I was a peon and, worse than that, I was treated like a stupid peon.
However, that was not my worst job. While I have never collected rodents from barns (although I handled them a lot when I worked in that Tallahassee pet store, which, in retrospect, was a really fun job), or let my soul escape through a headset in a massive call center, or pulled jaw bones out of deer (wha??), I did spend a month one summer working in a Florida department store that I later quit for a lower-paying job with the county school board.
I'm not sure this particular type of department store exists in places that have a lower percentage of retirees than Florida. The store is basically crammed full of white and pastel colored shorts; t-shirts with rope, mirrors, and anchors sewed onto them; one-piece bathing suits that begin with size 12; and acres of "gifts" that include lighthouse lamps, seagull lamps, dolphin garden sculptures, magnetic pelican mailbox covers, and, to reach out to the Father's Day crowd, a handful of tiny and useless 'kits' that included everything from roadside emergency kits to manicure kits to tie organizing kits. I applied for this job right before the end of my junior (I think) year of high school, thinking I should at least find out what working retail is like. Although I expected a sales position on the floor, they put me in the service office, which included the gift wrapping station, postal service center, phones, and the admin offices. By my second week there, they had asked me, this 16-year-old kid making $6 an hour, to take over the entire financial recording and accounting for the store. I did it for about a week, then told them I wouldn't do it anymore. If I screwed up, which was highly probable since I had no experience with accounting, the store got called out by "corporate" and I knew very well I would be the one tossed onto the pyre.
The postal stuff wasn't so bad-- mostly old ladies needing to buy stamps and occasionally sending a package. Gift wrapping was probably the best part because I got to play with the ribbons and things, although if the old people weren't satisfied with my gift wrapping abilities, they let me know it. They also got mad that I wasn't allowed to give more than one bow per package, no matter how big. One time, around Mother's Day (I'm certain the busiest time of year for this place) someone gave me a buck or two as a 'tip' for wrapping her gift. I, being young and naive and in awe of authority figures, was worried that I might not be allowed to take money from customers (remember, I grew up in Lakeland, the home of Publix, the home of strict rules against tipping your bag boys [Glenn]), so I asked one of my managers what I should do with it. She took the bills from me as if they were infected or dripping with some unknown substance and said, 'I guess we'll just put it in petty cash.'
This particular boss, Pat, was atrocious. For starters, she reeked of rotten tuna ALL THE TIME. I understand that some middle-aged women have smell issues every once in a while (I mostly only know this from TV commercials), but this woman smelled bad all the time, and I used to step back from her when she was talking to me. We had a dress code that women had to wear pantyhose everyday. This is during a Florida summer, remember, and I stood in a tiny office all day, peeking into the rest of the store via a small cut-out in the wall for the customer service desk. So one day I came to work wearing an ankle-length skirt and dressy sandals with straps that went between my toes. Therefore, no pantyhose. But Pat called me on it. "In this store, we wear pantyhose everyday. I suppose I'll let you go this time, but don't try this again." Seriously? I can count the number of times I've worn pantyhose since then on one hand.
We also had a rule about never, EVER, even for a second, even when no customers were within miles, ever leaving the service desk unattended. So one particularly boring day (keep in mind that the highlight of most days was catching the muzak version of 'Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme'), I had to pee. I paged a manager on the intercom, but none came. I paged a few minutes later, and none came. A few minutes later I thought I would wet my pants, so I paged again and then darted the 6 feet across the hall to the ladies room. When I returned to the office, there was Pat, clipboard in hand, wiggly smell lines radiating from her body, looking pissed. "Where were you?!" Prostrating myself, I wept "I'm sorry, I paged a manager several times, but no one came and I had to go to the restroom!" Pat raised her chin(s) and said "Next time, then, either hurry up or sign out before you do that." Yes, she told me to clock out before I went to the bathroom so they wouldn't have to pay me for all that valuable time I spent peeing.
There were many, many little degradations besides these, but even as a high schooler I knew no one should have to put up with that kind of crap and have to act grateful for the opportunity to do so. There are other minimum wage jobs out there. So I got one with the school board for the rest of the summer where I got paid less and had to drive about four times as far, but I sat in an air conditioned office and my boss told me on the first day, "You should probably bring a book. Things sometimes get pretty slow here." It was awesome, and I also learned a lot about that 'good ol' boy' culture first hand. Actually, it probably helped a lot in my Washington adjustment. Except for the having to do work part.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Terrible jobs and shameless self-promotion
A year at Burger King my senior year of high school taught me that humanity is vile. A summer waitressing the graveyard shift at Steak-n-Shake left me totally exhausted. A month waitressing at a Chinese restaurant in my hometown brought me to the realization that I was neither blonde enough nor personable enough to bring in the big tips. Six weeks at a Dell computers call center has caused me to boycott anything and everything Dell. Five months ripping jawbones out of dead deer was actually kind of fun – but try explaining the presence of that on your resume! A little over two years as a Fed left me astounded by the fact that the entire infrastructure of the United States hasn’t simply collapsed. But by far, the worst job experience that I ever had was a five month stretch in 2001.
My friend Melissa and I were nearing college graduation, although we had yet to either line up jobs or decide on career tracks for ourselves. Neither of us felt ready to resign ourselves to a world of cubicles. When we both landed reasonably high paying jobs at the same company in a foreign country, we were ecstatic. Unfortunately, the experience didn’t turn out to be anything like what we expected.
When I returned home from that misadventure, I sat down in the armchair in my bedroom and pulled out my laptop. I sat for days, typing. Roughly seventy pages later, I achieved a well needed catharsis. Now, obviously seventy pages are a few too many to post on a blog… but you want to read about it, you know you do. Luckily for you, I published it. Just click on the image below to purchase it!
My friend Melissa and I were nearing college graduation, although we had yet to either line up jobs or decide on career tracks for ourselves. Neither of us felt ready to resign ourselves to a world of cubicles. When we both landed reasonably high paying jobs at the same company in a foreign country, we were ecstatic. Unfortunately, the experience didn’t turn out to be anything like what we expected.
When I returned home from that misadventure, I sat down in the armchair in my bedroom and pulled out my laptop. I sat for days, typing. Roughly seventy pages later, I achieved a well needed catharsis. Now, obviously seventy pages are a few too many to post on a blog… but you want to read about it, you know you do. Luckily for you, I published it. Just click on the image below to purchase it!
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Terrible Job Stories
Last week I finished the temp job I had working with our school's literary journal (Gulf Coast - check it out, everybody! The latest issue has a great selection of new poetry and prose [shameless plug]). I have some money in the bank, but if my calculations are correct (and since my calculations are addition and subtraction, they probably are [probably, anyway {I really like the brackets within parentheses thing}]), then I need to make five hundred additional dollars to get through the summer. That means job time!
So I've been scouring Craig's List, which I guess is 99.9999% scams, and reminiscing about terrible jobs I've had. Well, maybe the jobs weren't terrible, but they had terrible moments. No, on second thought, the jobs were terrible.
My first job I ever had was working on the farm behind my house when I was ten. My brother, some friends, and I went over, and these twenty something year olds said they'd pay us $2 an hour to help them with field work. To me as a kid, $2 an hour is like a million dollars an hour. I was just as good as math then as I am now. But to be fair, if I worked for ten hours, that was twenty comics, because back then comics were a buck. So we laid out hay on the strawberry field for 6 or 7 hours. Then I wanted to die I was so tired. But they said come back and help them at the farm house and they would pay us more. So the next day we went to the farmhouse, and they paid us to chase and kill rats. It was pretty traumatic because 1) I thought rats were small, 2) I didn't realize rats lived in our food before it was shipped out, and 3) I didn't like killing animals. Anyway, that was terrible. The next day it was more field work. By that time, they owed each of us like $40, for twenty hours work. But then they said they would only give us $10, total, and we had to split it between the four of us. That was total bullshit. My father went over and talked to them, probably to let them know they were breaking a billion or so child labor laws, but he didn't get any more money from them. My parents felt bad for us and gave me and my brother $5 additional dollars, which bought one issue of Darkhawk and like maybe two X-Men comics. I don't really remember what I was reading back then. It wasn't DC.
After that I did some babysitting for my parents in exchange for the opportunity to rent one PG-13 movies. I saw a lot of awful movies. Like The Rocketeer, and Death Becomes Her. Also, I dog sat my friend's horrible german shepherd that tried to maul me on multiple occasions, fostering my current fear of large dogs. But when you're a kid, you like money. In high school I was not allowed to work during the school year for some reason, which sucked, because that meant I never had money. But in the summer time I worked at my dad's office doing odd jobs. I guess that wasn't really a terrible job, apart from roaches in the records building. But I already told that story on this blog once before. Long story short, I don't like roaches, they like me, my cat Xerxes likes them for dinner.
Teaching 7th grade sucked, but everybody knows those stories. Working for three days at Service Zone (a Dell service center in Lake City) also sucked, because they lied about how much they were going to pay me. Also, it sort of felt like the place people went when they failed at everything else in life. I don't know if I can explain that to anybody who isn't from Lake City. In the few days I worked there I ran into a lot of people from high school I barely knew, but they were all super excited to see me. Most of these people flunked out of community college, or never really saw any point to get any learning past high school. Maybe I'm a total asshole for saying all this, but I felt like at any second the dinner scene from "Freaks" was going to break out once they saw me, a college grad (well, in creative writing, anyway), in their training class, like it justified all of their opinions of the world outside Lake City, that it was unimportant and overrated. It is after all, the town that will survive the end of the world.
Anyway, my last story involves working at Publix. Lots of terrible stories surround that place, like whenever I tried to quit and the manager teared up and guilted me into staying. Or the fact that I was two years out of college and a bagger at Publix working for $7 an hour. But I'll tell the story of the time I was working one fateful Sunday morning. I was a bagger at the time (which meant that customers would talk about me like I was stupid and deaf to the cashiers, but rarely acknowledge my presence unless it was to tell me not to put their bread on the bottom of the bag, as if I was from some alternate dimension in which bread could not be crushed by six cans and would be astonished that they would not want their bread on the bottom of the bag, but it also meant I had the lowest amount of responsibility, which was cool), and I was called over to the office counter. They told me the men's bathroom needed to be cleaned (another duty of baggers for some reason), which wasn't a good sign, since it was Sunday morning. That probably meant something was up. And indeed, something was up. Piles of shit all over the bathroom floor, and shitty footprints leading out of the store. I walked back over to the counter and asked what would happen if I didn't clean it up. The supervisor said I'd be fired. So I just sat there for a minute, and the supervisor repeated that I'd be fired. I said I know, I'm just thinking. Well, I guess this story would be cooler if I quit right then, but instead I cleaned up the mess by dumped a gallon each of the strongest cleaners we had on the bathroom floor and mopping up the mess. Well, that sucked. And then I worked there for 8 more months.
Then I worked at a T-Shirt factory, which was a pretty good job, and now I teach college, which is also a pretty good job. Except I need a summer job that preferably does not involve human feces in any shape or form.
So share your terrible job stories! Sorry this post is a million words long or so.
So I've been scouring Craig's List, which I guess is 99.9999% scams, and reminiscing about terrible jobs I've had. Well, maybe the jobs weren't terrible, but they had terrible moments. No, on second thought, the jobs were terrible.
My first job I ever had was working on the farm behind my house when I was ten. My brother, some friends, and I went over, and these twenty something year olds said they'd pay us $2 an hour to help them with field work. To me as a kid, $2 an hour is like a million dollars an hour. I was just as good as math then as I am now. But to be fair, if I worked for ten hours, that was twenty comics, because back then comics were a buck. So we laid out hay on the strawberry field for 6 or 7 hours. Then I wanted to die I was so tired. But they said come back and help them at the farm house and they would pay us more. So the next day we went to the farmhouse, and they paid us to chase and kill rats. It was pretty traumatic because 1) I thought rats were small, 2) I didn't realize rats lived in our food before it was shipped out, and 3) I didn't like killing animals. Anyway, that was terrible. The next day it was more field work. By that time, they owed each of us like $40, for twenty hours work. But then they said they would only give us $10, total, and we had to split it between the four of us. That was total bullshit. My father went over and talked to them, probably to let them know they were breaking a billion or so child labor laws, but he didn't get any more money from them. My parents felt bad for us and gave me and my brother $5 additional dollars, which bought one issue of Darkhawk and like maybe two X-Men comics. I don't really remember what I was reading back then. It wasn't DC.
After that I did some babysitting for my parents in exchange for the opportunity to rent one PG-13 movies. I saw a lot of awful movies. Like The Rocketeer, and Death Becomes Her. Also, I dog sat my friend's horrible german shepherd that tried to maul me on multiple occasions, fostering my current fear of large dogs. But when you're a kid, you like money. In high school I was not allowed to work during the school year for some reason, which sucked, because that meant I never had money. But in the summer time I worked at my dad's office doing odd jobs. I guess that wasn't really a terrible job, apart from roaches in the records building. But I already told that story on this blog once before. Long story short, I don't like roaches, they like me, my cat Xerxes likes them for dinner.
Teaching 7th grade sucked, but everybody knows those stories. Working for three days at Service Zone (a Dell service center in Lake City) also sucked, because they lied about how much they were going to pay me. Also, it sort of felt like the place people went when they failed at everything else in life. I don't know if I can explain that to anybody who isn't from Lake City. In the few days I worked there I ran into a lot of people from high school I barely knew, but they were all super excited to see me. Most of these people flunked out of community college, or never really saw any point to get any learning past high school. Maybe I'm a total asshole for saying all this, but I felt like at any second the dinner scene from "Freaks" was going to break out once they saw me, a college grad (well, in creative writing, anyway), in their training class, like it justified all of their opinions of the world outside Lake City, that it was unimportant and overrated. It is after all, the town that will survive the end of the world.
Anyway, my last story involves working at Publix. Lots of terrible stories surround that place, like whenever I tried to quit and the manager teared up and guilted me into staying. Or the fact that I was two years out of college and a bagger at Publix working for $7 an hour. But I'll tell the story of the time I was working one fateful Sunday morning. I was a bagger at the time (which meant that customers would talk about me like I was stupid and deaf to the cashiers, but rarely acknowledge my presence unless it was to tell me not to put their bread on the bottom of the bag, as if I was from some alternate dimension in which bread could not be crushed by six cans and would be astonished that they would not want their bread on the bottom of the bag, but it also meant I had the lowest amount of responsibility, which was cool), and I was called over to the office counter. They told me the men's bathroom needed to be cleaned (another duty of baggers for some reason), which wasn't a good sign, since it was Sunday morning. That probably meant something was up. And indeed, something was up. Piles of shit all over the bathroom floor, and shitty footprints leading out of the store. I walked back over to the counter and asked what would happen if I didn't clean it up. The supervisor said I'd be fired. So I just sat there for a minute, and the supervisor repeated that I'd be fired. I said I know, I'm just thinking. Well, I guess this story would be cooler if I quit right then, but instead I cleaned up the mess by dumped a gallon each of the strongest cleaners we had on the bathroom floor and mopping up the mess. Well, that sucked. And then I worked there for 8 more months.
Then I worked at a T-Shirt factory, which was a pretty good job, and now I teach college, which is also a pretty good job. Except I need a summer job that preferably does not involve human feces in any shape or form.
So share your terrible job stories! Sorry this post is a million words long or so.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Well, this is kind of related...
I have watched MTV only a handful of times in my life. We didn't have cable or satellite TV when I was growing up, and neither did most of my friends. I only specifically remember one friend who had MTV, but she was only allowed to watch it in her mother's presence. As such, I have nothing whatsoever to contribute to this discussion. Well, except these two videos from songs I learned in Korean class today, which you may or may not enjoy. The first one is Korean "punk" and the second one is cheesy pop. Enjoy!
"넌 내게 반했어" ("You became enamored of me") by No Brain
어머나 ("Ooops") by 장윤정(JangYunJung)
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Rule of Cats
I really can't think of a spectacularly bad music video, but I did find this. It's not particularly bad, but it does remind me that the internet has become little more than a place to share pictures of strangers' cats, and that thought makes me a little crazy because I don't understand it.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
MTV Deprived
Was I the only person not allowed to watch MTV? I had friends who weren't even allowed to watch 'You Can't Say That on Television' or 'Rosanne.' I had a lot of trouble thinking of best and worst videos, so these may seem a little kitchy or cliched. That said, I think they rock.
This man dances on ass cheeks. I don’t care who you are, that’s great. and I had forgotten about all the little plastic butts that dance with each other throughout.
I remember being totally creeped out by that video. Did you catch that wonderful Tim Burton house at the end? Love the atmosphere here.
And finally, this. All three of these videos have sort of stuck in my head without me really remembering what was in them. This one was the most pleasantly surprising. You have to be happy for the bee girl. Who doesn’t wish they could enter a field one impossibly perfect day and find a whole group of ecstatic people just like you? Warm fuzzies all over.
And how could I forget Robbie??
This man dances on ass cheeks. I don’t care who you are, that’s great. and I had forgotten about all the little plastic butts that dance with each other throughout.
I remember being totally creeped out by that video. Did you catch that wonderful Tim Burton house at the end? Love the atmosphere here.
And finally, this. All three of these videos have sort of stuck in my head without me really remembering what was in them. This one was the most pleasantly surprising. You have to be happy for the bee girl. Who doesn’t wish they could enter a field one impossibly perfect day and find a whole group of ecstatic people just like you? Warm fuzzies all over.
And how could I forget Robbie??
Worst Few
There are tons of bad videos out there by bad bands, so I thought I'd pick a few that people might disagree with. First up is my least favorite video of all time.
I hate the song, I hate the video, I hate the dude's stupid goofy happy expression through the whole thing, and I hate the fucking message. Yay, love! That's complex, Tears for Fears.
I actually think this next band sucks, but this video really drives home every fucking cliche this band helped create for 90s/00s nu metal. And lots of people I know like them.
Wow, that song really blows. Real people wrote those lyrics? Not some kind of joke machine? Sorry. Here's the last terrible one.
Snoop Dogg is an ok rapper, but that video is fucking terrible. Is it supposed to be dramatic or funny? Maybe it's supposed to be funny, which would negate it's place here, but I really think it's supposed to be touching or some shit. Whatever. The song sucks and the video sucks.
I hate the song, I hate the video, I hate the dude's stupid goofy happy expression through the whole thing, and I hate the fucking message. Yay, love! That's complex, Tears for Fears.
I actually think this next band sucks, but this video really drives home every fucking cliche this band helped create for 90s/00s nu metal. And lots of people I know like them.
Wow, that song really blows. Real people wrote those lyrics? Not some kind of joke machine? Sorry. Here's the last terrible one.
Snoop Dogg is an ok rapper, but that video is fucking terrible. Is it supposed to be dramatic or funny? Maybe it's supposed to be funny, which would negate it's place here, but I really think it's supposed to be touching or some shit. Whatever. The song sucks and the video sucks.
Best Few
Sorry, but I can't pick just one. So I'm picking a few of the best, and a few of the worst. This post is the best videos.
First up, is this timeless classic. Are we not men?
Devo has a ton of great videos, but this is probably my favorite, even if it's not my favorite song by them. That has to be "The Day My Baby Gave Me A Surprise."
Here's my favorite Sonic Youth video, for Death Valley 69, from 1986. It kind of has the feel of a
snuff film, or low budget 80s faces of death crap.
Finally, here's a high budget video from the 90s. Also, all the videos I'm picking are fucked up in some way, like with violence or absinthe. Here's Nine Inch Nails with Perfect Drug.
First up, is this timeless classic. Are we not men?
Devo has a ton of great videos, but this is probably my favorite, even if it's not my favorite song by them. That has to be "The Day My Baby Gave Me A Surprise."
Here's my favorite Sonic Youth video, for Death Valley 69, from 1986. It kind of has the feel of a
snuff film, or low budget 80s faces of death crap.
Finally, here's a high budget video from the 90s. Also, all the videos I'm picking are fucked up in some way, like with violence or absinthe. Here's Nine Inch Nails with Perfect Drug.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Push the Little Daisies
This is my pick for worst video. Actually, I'm sure there are worse out there, but I was really stretching to think of something truly awful.
AHA - Take on me
This is one of my favorite videos. As it has stood the test of time, I figured this should be my #1.
Runners up:
1.Beastie Boys - Sabotage
2.Madonna - Like a Prayer
3.Fatboy Slim - Weapon of Choice
4.Pearl Jam - Do The Evolution
I Want My MTV
This week's theme is music videos. We've all grown up with having MTV on the air most of our lives. (Well, mine is all my life - fun fact: MTV came out a week to the day before I was born). So this will be an easy week - all you have to do is post your picks for best and worst videos (or rather, your most and least favorites) of all time. Our readers can feel free to post links as well. If you are in the mood to write, I suppose you can, but I thought this would be a fun break from the norm.
The next two posts will be my most and least favorites, as well as probably lists of runners-up (this will really throw off our post count).
The next two posts will be my most and least favorites, as well as probably lists of runners-up (this will really throw off our post count).
Friday, May 25, 2007
Enternewsment
Man, I used to love those kid shows-- Seasame Street, Square One, 3-2-1 Contact, and Channel One in the afternoons at school. I still watch them, too, although Glenn was right about Elmo's World: stoopid. But if you're home from work in the mid-morning, Seasame Street and Dora the Explorer are still better quality TV than any 6-hour long morning news show with 20 minutes of real information that just gets recycled and drawn out with fancy graphics and 'teasers.'
Last night I camped out in front of the History Channel all night watching shows about the battle of Thermopylae, pirate history and technology, and historial sexual practices from around the world. And then I watched TAPS, the SciFi ghost hunter show I mentioned before (although not educational in the least, I do love that show).
I have to agree that the History Channel is sometimes way too much of the WWII Airplane Channel. But when it's not that, it's usually really interesting. I pretty much only watch the Discovery Channel when they have one of those medical freak shows on, but I can get that same fascination with less of the freak show guilt by watching House. Watching these channels, though, I do run into the Dragon Problem-- I've been told I'll believe anything with a footnote (I think I was searching for irrefutable truth to support my deep suspicion of aspartame at the time), and I have to stop myself from getting too wrapped up in the conspiracy or future predicting shows. Like the one I saw the other night on the History Channel that said several completely unrelated ancient cultures, all renown for their learning and intelligence, have independently predicted that the world as we know it will end on December 21, 2012. Try sleeping after that.
I don't consider news shows educational in the least. Everytime I happen to pause on one, I last about 15 minutes before they're either repeating stories or sensationalizing the ones they have to an unrecognizable degree. Garbage, garbage, garbage. We don't need multiple 24-hour news stations. We don't need fancy graphics and politically polar pundits. We need the news, we need to know what's going on in the world, and we need to be reminded to how we got to this point. Tell us about events present and past, not theories about the future laced with 'angles' and 'spin.' Please, leave the future predicting to the History Channel.
Last night I camped out in front of the History Channel all night watching shows about the battle of Thermopylae, pirate history and technology, and historial sexual practices from around the world. And then I watched TAPS, the SciFi ghost hunter show I mentioned before (although not educational in the least, I do love that show).
I have to agree that the History Channel is sometimes way too much of the WWII Airplane Channel. But when it's not that, it's usually really interesting. I pretty much only watch the Discovery Channel when they have one of those medical freak shows on, but I can get that same fascination with less of the freak show guilt by watching House. Watching these channels, though, I do run into the Dragon Problem-- I've been told I'll believe anything with a footnote (I think I was searching for irrefutable truth to support my deep suspicion of aspartame at the time), and I have to stop myself from getting too wrapped up in the conspiracy or future predicting shows. Like the one I saw the other night on the History Channel that said several completely unrelated ancient cultures, all renown for their learning and intelligence, have independently predicted that the world as we know it will end on December 21, 2012. Try sleeping after that.
I don't consider news shows educational in the least. Everytime I happen to pause on one, I last about 15 minutes before they're either repeating stories or sensationalizing the ones they have to an unrecognizable degree. Garbage, garbage, garbage. We don't need multiple 24-hour news stations. We don't need fancy graphics and politically polar pundits. We need the news, we need to know what's going on in the world, and we need to be reminded to how we got to this point. Tell us about events present and past, not theories about the future laced with 'angles' and 'spin.' Please, leave the future predicting to the History Channel.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
TV In The Classroom-o
Well, most of this post isn't going to be about television in classrooms, but I just wanted to make the band name joke. It wasn't very funny I guess. My bad. When I was a kid, I used to watch the educational greats (Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street, 3-2-1 Contact [does anybody remember the segment with the talking skeleton? that was my favorite part.], and Square One). None of those apparently taught me proper use of parentheses. Whoops! I think I probably did learn a lot from these shows. I remember in Canada having the option of tuning in to Bangor channels to watch Sesame Street with the Spanish segments, or watching Halifax channels with French segments. So that was a cool option, although I usually chose the Canadian version, because I had national pride or something I guess. It was probably still produced in America.
Anyway, as many of you know, I nannied a professor's toddler a couple of years ago when I still lived in Tallahassee. The kid would be allowed to watch a minimal amount of television during the day, but only on channels with no product commercials. So we usually watched Noggin or PBS. But I have to say, contemporary Sesame Street seems to be less about learning than about Elmo doing loud things. I guess this probably stems from the insane product marketability of that character, which seems ultimately wrong for Sesame Street in my idealized head. Also, most of the kids shows on Noggin (which is like a branch out channel for Nickelodeon, ostensibly to be educational children's programming, I think) are really stupid and pedantic. I know the target audience is 2-6 year olds, but a lot of the shows are pretty lame. One supposed "educational" show that I couldn't stand was Dora the Explorer. Essentially, it was an interactive show in which Dora (a young girl) would have to go on some journey. Along the way, she frequently turns to the viewer and asks questions, waiting for their response. That's fine. It's good to engage youngsters, I guess. But there were always musical numbers that repeated the same goddamn line for 3 minutes scattered throughout the show. I'm not exaggerating. It's just lazy writing. Again, some of you may say this is just a children's show, but why does children's programming have to be so poorly written? I guarantee there are plenty of MFA writing grads every year who would gladly spiff up those Dora scripts (hint hint, people who make that show).
I disagree that there is anything wrong with using television or computers for educational purposes. The language of television editing is a language that children can easily understand and process. Why is this medium any lower than books, if it can get information through to the children? There's some big educational science guy who said there were 9 learning styles. I can't remember any of them right now except for kinesthetic. And the only reason I remember that one is because it is a fun word to say. But we process information differently than our parents because of the different media that saturated our environment during our developmental years, and kids these days are processing information differently than us. From an educational standpoint it's easier to approach kids on the terms they know than just grumble about society and present information to them in what is to them an archaic method of communication. It's just one less barrier in the educational process between teacher and student. On that note, I probably think that television is almost an outmoded educational tool now, and interactive computer programs are a way better idea. But that's another topic I guess.
On that note, I was talking to some people today and they told me that in their schools growing up they had some morning tv show called "Channel One." I don't know what that is exactly, but the wikipedia article seems to imply it is a great, wonderful journalistic news program that is broadcast to 11000 schools across America. The company provides schools that buy this program with televisions, too. But the people I was talking to today about this said it was mainly advertisements, and a really propagandistic broadcast. Did anybody who reads this have Channel One in their schools? What are your thoughts on it?
Anyway, as many of you know, I nannied a professor's toddler a couple of years ago when I still lived in Tallahassee. The kid would be allowed to watch a minimal amount of television during the day, but only on channels with no product commercials. So we usually watched Noggin or PBS. But I have to say, contemporary Sesame Street seems to be less about learning than about Elmo doing loud things. I guess this probably stems from the insane product marketability of that character, which seems ultimately wrong for Sesame Street in my idealized head. Also, most of the kids shows on Noggin (which is like a branch out channel for Nickelodeon, ostensibly to be educational children's programming, I think) are really stupid and pedantic. I know the target audience is 2-6 year olds, but a lot of the shows are pretty lame. One supposed "educational" show that I couldn't stand was Dora the Explorer. Essentially, it was an interactive show in which Dora (a young girl) would have to go on some journey. Along the way, she frequently turns to the viewer and asks questions, waiting for their response. That's fine. It's good to engage youngsters, I guess. But there were always musical numbers that repeated the same goddamn line for 3 minutes scattered throughout the show. I'm not exaggerating. It's just lazy writing. Again, some of you may say this is just a children's show, but why does children's programming have to be so poorly written? I guarantee there are plenty of MFA writing grads every year who would gladly spiff up those Dora scripts (hint hint, people who make that show).
I disagree that there is anything wrong with using television or computers for educational purposes. The language of television editing is a language that children can easily understand and process. Why is this medium any lower than books, if it can get information through to the children? There's some big educational science guy who said there were 9 learning styles. I can't remember any of them right now except for kinesthetic. And the only reason I remember that one is because it is a fun word to say. But we process information differently than our parents because of the different media that saturated our environment during our developmental years, and kids these days are processing information differently than us. From an educational standpoint it's easier to approach kids on the terms they know than just grumble about society and present information to them in what is to them an archaic method of communication. It's just one less barrier in the educational process between teacher and student. On that note, I probably think that television is almost an outmoded educational tool now, and interactive computer programs are a way better idea. But that's another topic I guess.
On that note, I was talking to some people today and they told me that in their schools growing up they had some morning tv show called "Channel One." I don't know what that is exactly, but the wikipedia article seems to imply it is a great, wonderful journalistic news program that is broadcast to 11000 schools across America. The company provides schools that buy this program with televisions, too. But the people I was talking to today about this said it was mainly advertisements, and a really propagandistic broadcast. Did anybody who reads this have Channel One in their schools? What are your thoughts on it?
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
The More You Know
Do you remember those commercials? Well, I guess that wouldn't be that long ago - I'm pretty sure I've seen some recently. However, it's not like you can learn much from the "educational" programming that TV has nowadays.
TLC, or The Learning Channel is such a joke - how did they get that name anyways? It's pretty much just a bunch of reality shows about having a baby, or decorating your home or something. They have these funny commercials about a made-up line of figurines called "life lessons" that you collect when you watch their programming, but what do you really learn from these shows? (Except how to dress any figure well - I can't dump on What Not to Wear - Stacy, Clinton - you my dawgs, yo!)
Same thing goes for Discovery - I agree with Jane, it's a little disconcerting the content. However, one show I like that they air is Mythbusters. Yes, it's purely entertainment, and loses focus on the learning, but it gets kids interested in science and math, as they often have to use physics and equations to carry out their experiments. Plus its always fun to watch them blow stuff up. Some of my favorite programming on Discovery used to be Shark Week. I loved watching all of the shows about feeding habits, migration and the like, but in recent years it seems to be lacking. Most of them now are CG recreations about prehistoric sharks, or a half-hour of "Poke the Shark with a Stick"
As for PBS, I can't say that I've watched much of it lately. The last thing I saw was a documentary on Jim Jones, which has me paranoid now of men who wear sunglasses inside. (For anyone not in the know, Jim Jones wore sunglasses constantly - and people still trusted him! How can you trust someone who won't let you see their eyes?!) About a month ago, my preacher joked that he was going to have to start wearing sunglasses because of the bright sunlight coming through the window. He put on some sunglasses, and as the thought ran through my head, I heard Caitlin's dad whisper "Jim Jones". (I watched the documentary at their house). Next thing you know, the old preacher will ask us to drink the Kool-Aid.
I kinda miss the educational shows. Every once in awhile they show something interesting. My favorite gimmick lately has been the "Anatomy of Sex". People watch it for the sex, but it's a clinical breakdown of all the processes and secretions made by the human body during foreplay and intercourse. Fascinating, but a total disappointment for any yokels looking for free porn on TV. (Duh, that'd be Cinemax...wait - you have to pay for that too... um, duh - that'd be MTV (yeah, that's better!))
Whatever happened to Bill Nye? or Beakman's World? or Mr. Wizard?! How about 3-2-1 Contact? Or Square One? (That's the show that had Mathnet, Caitlin, not 3-2-1 Contact (I just looked it up)). I miss all of those shows, and they made learning fun. What do kids have now? Welcome to the dumbing down of America.
TLC, or The Learning Channel is such a joke - how did they get that name anyways? It's pretty much just a bunch of reality shows about having a baby, or decorating your home or something. They have these funny commercials about a made-up line of figurines called "life lessons" that you collect when you watch their programming, but what do you really learn from these shows? (Except how to dress any figure well - I can't dump on What Not to Wear - Stacy, Clinton - you my dawgs, yo!)
Same thing goes for Discovery - I agree with Jane, it's a little disconcerting the content. However, one show I like that they air is Mythbusters. Yes, it's purely entertainment, and loses focus on the learning, but it gets kids interested in science and math, as they often have to use physics and equations to carry out their experiments. Plus its always fun to watch them blow stuff up. Some of my favorite programming on Discovery used to be Shark Week. I loved watching all of the shows about feeding habits, migration and the like, but in recent years it seems to be lacking. Most of them now are CG recreations about prehistoric sharks, or a half-hour of "Poke the Shark with a Stick"
As for PBS, I can't say that I've watched much of it lately. The last thing I saw was a documentary on Jim Jones, which has me paranoid now of men who wear sunglasses inside. (For anyone not in the know, Jim Jones wore sunglasses constantly - and people still trusted him! How can you trust someone who won't let you see their eyes?!) About a month ago, my preacher joked that he was going to have to start wearing sunglasses because of the bright sunlight coming through the window. He put on some sunglasses, and as the thought ran through my head, I heard Caitlin's dad whisper "Jim Jones". (I watched the documentary at their house). Next thing you know, the old preacher will ask us to drink the Kool-Aid.
I kinda miss the educational shows. Every once in awhile they show something interesting. My favorite gimmick lately has been the "Anatomy of Sex". People watch it for the sex, but it's a clinical breakdown of all the processes and secretions made by the human body during foreplay and intercourse. Fascinating, but a total disappointment for any yokels looking for free porn on TV. (Duh, that'd be Cinemax...wait - you have to pay for that too... um, duh - that'd be MTV (yeah, that's better!))
Whatever happened to Bill Nye? or Beakman's World? or Mr. Wizard?! How about 3-2-1 Contact? Or Square One? (That's the show that had Mathnet, Caitlin, not 3-2-1 Contact (I just looked it up)). I miss all of those shows, and they made learning fun. What do kids have now? Welcome to the dumbing down of America.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Just what is it that we're discovering here?
I grew up watching pretty much only PBS and the NBC nightly news, and as such I have a fondness for educational/factual television. Yes, I love to watch plenty of mindless entertainment, but I’m also perfectly willing to kick back and watch something informative. Before moving to Korea last August, I’d never had the opportunity to watch the Discovery Channel. I was excited, thinking I’d be watching it more than anything else. (Little did I know OCN would distract me by showing CSI nearly all the time… And yes, I can sense Caitlin’s disapproval from across the Pacific.) CSI notwithstanding, I do actually watch the Discovery Channel Asia a good bit, although over the past ten months I’ve begun to wonder just how accurate it all is.
My distrust of the Discovery Channel stems from several things. Two of those “things” are actually two episodes that I really enjoy watching: A Haunting and Psychic Detectives. They’re really entertaining, although I don’t take any of it seriously. The thing is, these shows present everything as fact without present any alternate explanations for what’s happened.
For example, in one episode I saw of A Haunting, a woman starts to have incredibly strong, irrational, unexplainable feelings of sadness and despair shortly after moving into a newly purchased old house with her boyfriend. The show explains her feelings by bringing in psychics who sense the negative energy of a malevolent spirit, blah, blah, blah. To me it seemed obvious that the woman was suffering from the classic symptoms of clinical depression; she needed Lexapro and not an exorcism. Additionally, it seems that almost all of the A Haunting episodes involve some sort of Catholic exorcism/cleansing. Do only Catholics see ghosts? The show also presents as fact that if you use a ouija board or dabble in the occult, you will soon be possessed and/or tormented by Demons from Hell. As someone who has done both of those things, I would just like to point out that I haven’t summoned any demons.
I took a class in college called Pseudopsychology. We looked at all sorts of paranormal phenomena, but we looked at them from the point of view of the believer as well as the scientist. Everything we discussed in class was debunked via scientific experimentation. As an educational television station, shouldn’t they add some education of this sort to their shows about ghosts and psychics? Or do they skip over that simply because it’s not as entertaining?
One weekend I stumbled upon a documentary on the Discovery Channel about a British scientist who had discovered the fossilized remains of dragons in Eastern Europe – irrefutable proof that dragons were not mythical beasts after all. It was an incredibly well done documentary, with interviews and footage from the excavations and extensive delving into historical records… except that as I was pretty damn sure none of it was real, I checked online. According to the Discovery Channel’s website, it was a mockumentary showing what would happen *if* someone discovered proof that dragons had existed. Um, ok. Someone please tell me what’s the point here? Confusing small children who might watch and then believe in dragons? Yes, it was entertaining, and yes, I watched the whole thing… but that was hardly educational!
Obviously, not all shows on the Discovery Channel are of that nature. I watched an excellent documentary of the terrorist siege at the school in Beslan, Russia quite recently. I felt that the documentary was quite well done (especially considering that they were able to get Russians willing to go on television and criticize the way the government handled the situation; that kind of open criticism is hard to find over there), and I felt that I learned a lot. Except that afterwards, I found myself wondering if everything I had just watched was presented as accurate. I mean, this was the channel that told me ghosts and dragons were factual!
So what are your feelings on educational television? (And not just the Discovery Channel – you can take on PBS or the History Channel or any other educational station.) How factual should educational television be? Is it acceptable to include shows about dragons and psychics and ghosts without any sort of scientific counter argument? Or should educational TV be like the channels here in Korea: a teacher lecturing at a blackboard, guaranteed to send your children to sleep immediately?
My distrust of the Discovery Channel stems from several things. Two of those “things” are actually two episodes that I really enjoy watching: A Haunting and Psychic Detectives. They’re really entertaining, although I don’t take any of it seriously. The thing is, these shows present everything as fact without present any alternate explanations for what’s happened.
For example, in one episode I saw of A Haunting, a woman starts to have incredibly strong, irrational, unexplainable feelings of sadness and despair shortly after moving into a newly purchased old house with her boyfriend. The show explains her feelings by bringing in psychics who sense the negative energy of a malevolent spirit, blah, blah, blah. To me it seemed obvious that the woman was suffering from the classic symptoms of clinical depression; she needed Lexapro and not an exorcism. Additionally, it seems that almost all of the A Haunting episodes involve some sort of Catholic exorcism/cleansing. Do only Catholics see ghosts? The show also presents as fact that if you use a ouija board or dabble in the occult, you will soon be possessed and/or tormented by Demons from Hell. As someone who has done both of those things, I would just like to point out that I haven’t summoned any demons.
I took a class in college called Pseudopsychology. We looked at all sorts of paranormal phenomena, but we looked at them from the point of view of the believer as well as the scientist. Everything we discussed in class was debunked via scientific experimentation. As an educational television station, shouldn’t they add some education of this sort to their shows about ghosts and psychics? Or do they skip over that simply because it’s not as entertaining?
One weekend I stumbled upon a documentary on the Discovery Channel about a British scientist who had discovered the fossilized remains of dragons in Eastern Europe – irrefutable proof that dragons were not mythical beasts after all. It was an incredibly well done documentary, with interviews and footage from the excavations and extensive delving into historical records… except that as I was pretty damn sure none of it was real, I checked online. According to the Discovery Channel’s website, it was a mockumentary showing what would happen *if* someone discovered proof that dragons had existed. Um, ok. Someone please tell me what’s the point here? Confusing small children who might watch and then believe in dragons? Yes, it was entertaining, and yes, I watched the whole thing… but that was hardly educational!
Obviously, not all shows on the Discovery Channel are of that nature. I watched an excellent documentary of the terrorist siege at the school in Beslan, Russia quite recently. I felt that the documentary was quite well done (especially considering that they were able to get Russians willing to go on television and criticize the way the government handled the situation; that kind of open criticism is hard to find over there), and I felt that I learned a lot. Except that afterwards, I found myself wondering if everything I had just watched was presented as accurate. I mean, this was the channel that told me ghosts and dragons were factual!
So what are your feelings on educational television? (And not just the Discovery Channel – you can take on PBS or the History Channel or any other educational station.) How factual should educational television be? Is it acceptable to include shows about dragons and psychics and ghosts without any sort of scientific counter argument? Or should educational TV be like the channels here in Korea: a teacher lecturing at a blackboard, guaranteed to send your children to sleep immediately?
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Lack of compromise
Growing up in Florida, I thought moving to Washington, DC would take me to the North, to see how the other half of the country lived. I'm currently the sole blogger here not from Lake City, but the previous stories all had a familiar ring to them. Of course, when I refer to DC as the North, I get a condescending chuckle from my friends from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, or most other places, because DC, in fact, is still considered the South, at least by people who have never had to drive north to get to southern Georgia. Even so, it's worlds apart. I usually refer to it as the mid-Atlantic now to avoid the laughter.
There's no doubt that religious fundamentalism has no place in our national or international politics. The world is a place full of differences in culture and religion and backgrounds, and the only way to get anything settled is to respect one another, differences and all. Once you add religion into that, there's no room for compromise. Once you take the belief that your god and your dogmas are supreme, anything short of your goals pulls you away from god. You stop being able to believe in compromise and instead become frustrated and angry-- sometimes murderously so-- at the other side's unwillingness to do things your way, or rather, your god's way.
This applies not only to a foreign relations/world peace view of the world, but within America itself. I was always taught to look at America as a big melting pot, a place that our ancestors sought out to have a better chance for themselves without being forced to give up the parts of their culture that mattered most to them. We should treat this country, then, as a tiny snapshot of the world, where we have to respect other cultures and ways of living, as long as one persons rights do not infringe upon another's. This, of course, is the terrifying part of islamic extremism gaining ground in the middle east and europe-- while we're still trying to respect one another's rights and differences, there's a group purposely stomping on them, daring the world into open hostilities and refusing to acknowledge any other viewpoint but their own.
There's obviously a lot of ignorance, willful or not, involved in any type of religious fundamentalism, and this makes it a dangerous weapon. The fact that this sort of fundamentalism gets tied up so easily with patriotism is no accident. As Hitler knew, people are more willing to believe big lies than small ones. and once you get a group behind you that's suddenly so convinced that their way is right that they can't bear the idea of considering any other suggestions or compromises, then, hell, you can invade Poland if you want. Or criminalize abortion. Or stone sexually victimized women because you believe they brought it upon themselves. Or burn crosses in someone's front yard. Or feed your children poison kool-aid.
The point is, no one has all the answers. Not one religion, not one culture, and certainly never one person, whether he claims to be god or not. If this type of blind-faith allegiance to some fundamental hate-mongers were to surface in our country as a majority then we would be not any better than the fundamental islamic states we're so worried about today. But I don't think we've really reached this point yet. I think, despite Fox News, that most people actually ARE rational beings who can draw their own conclusions. I don't think most citizens go to church as often as our politicians would have us believe, either (it's certainly easier to control a nation where everyone believes they're the only non-church-going, tolerant free-thinkers). But we do have to be aware of these factors in society, just like you should be aware of the bad neighborhoods in your town so you know where to avoid at night.
Above all, we have to remember that for anything to work, for any attempt at peace or even playing nicely together, we can't let religious stubbornness get in the way of our ability to reach compromises.
There's no doubt that religious fundamentalism has no place in our national or international politics. The world is a place full of differences in culture and religion and backgrounds, and the only way to get anything settled is to respect one another, differences and all. Once you add religion into that, there's no room for compromise. Once you take the belief that your god and your dogmas are supreme, anything short of your goals pulls you away from god. You stop being able to believe in compromise and instead become frustrated and angry-- sometimes murderously so-- at the other side's unwillingness to do things your way, or rather, your god's way.
This applies not only to a foreign relations/world peace view of the world, but within America itself. I was always taught to look at America as a big melting pot, a place that our ancestors sought out to have a better chance for themselves without being forced to give up the parts of their culture that mattered most to them. We should treat this country, then, as a tiny snapshot of the world, where we have to respect other cultures and ways of living, as long as one persons rights do not infringe upon another's. This, of course, is the terrifying part of islamic extremism gaining ground in the middle east and europe-- while we're still trying to respect one another's rights and differences, there's a group purposely stomping on them, daring the world into open hostilities and refusing to acknowledge any other viewpoint but their own.
There's obviously a lot of ignorance, willful or not, involved in any type of religious fundamentalism, and this makes it a dangerous weapon. The fact that this sort of fundamentalism gets tied up so easily with patriotism is no accident. As Hitler knew, people are more willing to believe big lies than small ones. and once you get a group behind you that's suddenly so convinced that their way is right that they can't bear the idea of considering any other suggestions or compromises, then, hell, you can invade Poland if you want. Or criminalize abortion. Or stone sexually victimized women because you believe they brought it upon themselves. Or burn crosses in someone's front yard. Or feed your children poison kool-aid.
The point is, no one has all the answers. Not one religion, not one culture, and certainly never one person, whether he claims to be god or not. If this type of blind-faith allegiance to some fundamental hate-mongers were to surface in our country as a majority then we would be not any better than the fundamental islamic states we're so worried about today. But I don't think we've really reached this point yet. I think, despite Fox News, that most people actually ARE rational beings who can draw their own conclusions. I don't think most citizens go to church as often as our politicians would have us believe, either (it's certainly easier to control a nation where everyone believes they're the only non-church-going, tolerant free-thinkers). But we do have to be aware of these factors in society, just like you should be aware of the bad neighborhoods in your town so you know where to avoid at night.
Above all, we have to remember that for anything to work, for any attempt at peace or even playing nicely together, we can't let religious stubbornness get in the way of our ability to reach compromises.
Friday, May 18, 2007
The Good, the Bad, and the Pious
It's really sad, that no matter what your religious, political, sexual orientation - the wackos are the ones that get the most attention. Often its negative attention, and casts everyone of that affiliation in a bad light.
Jerry Falwell was a complete douche bag. The evangelists who shove Christianity down everyone's throats are jerks and are doing the church a disservice. Its because of these people that so many reject the modern church.
I don't feel the need to convert anyone. Frankly, it makes me incredibly uncomfortable, because I know how awful some of the assault tactics are that churches use. The first summer I worked at a camp as a mission guide, my first group wanted to go to the local high school to evangelize to the students. This was in bible belt Tennessee, so of course the school let them do it, and being their rep. from the camp, I had to go too. They would corner kids in the lunchroom and talk to them, and then give them a bible. You could argue that the kids could just walk away, but in a town like that - a town like Lake City, where Jane and Glenn felt compelled to lie and say they went to church - the amount of peer pressure would make anyone crumble and take a Bible.
Someone approached me once and said "If you died, or the world ended, whichever came first, where would you go?". I was so thrown off guard I stuttered for a minute, and they jumped in with their sermon. Eventually I was able to interrupt and say that I went to church and the like, and they left me alone. Honestly though, I don't think I have enough gall to say that I'm going to heaven. From what I've been taught, by all rights I should be, but I think its a bit audacious. Why should I presume that's my final destination?
My sister and mother both worked in a hell house. I can't even begin to express how opposed I am to scaring people into going to church. Anyways, they are both on the charismatic side of the spectrum, whereas I am much less so. We got into a conversation about demon possession once, because my sister said one of her friends had been exorcised while they were away at a conference. Unfortunately, she decided to ask me my opinion in front of my mother, and when I replied I didn't believe in it, she went off in a tirade. I made the smartass remark that no Presbyterians seemed to be possessed, and my mother replied that maybe that's because they all were.
I really like my church. It's really laid back - we're not into the going out and building an army for God thing. And they're not all psycho-conservative either. Our congregation is actually pretty 50/50, and thus can't take stands on anything as a church because of the conflict it would cause. Just check out the t-shirts they let me print (I've been dying to show them anyways):
Wicked, huh? I don't think I could get away with it in any other church.
I've gotten a little off topic, but I did want to point out in all of this - that not all Christians are psycho to convert or complete hypocrites (as hopefully anyone who knows me can attest to), and that there are some cool laid back ones out there.
Jerry Falwell was a complete douche bag. The evangelists who shove Christianity down everyone's throats are jerks and are doing the church a disservice. Its because of these people that so many reject the modern church.
I don't feel the need to convert anyone. Frankly, it makes me incredibly uncomfortable, because I know how awful some of the assault tactics are that churches use. The first summer I worked at a camp as a mission guide, my first group wanted to go to the local high school to evangelize to the students. This was in bible belt Tennessee, so of course the school let them do it, and being their rep. from the camp, I had to go too. They would corner kids in the lunchroom and talk to them, and then give them a bible. You could argue that the kids could just walk away, but in a town like that - a town like Lake City, where Jane and Glenn felt compelled to lie and say they went to church - the amount of peer pressure would make anyone crumble and take a Bible.
Someone approached me once and said "If you died, or the world ended, whichever came first, where would you go?". I was so thrown off guard I stuttered for a minute, and they jumped in with their sermon. Eventually I was able to interrupt and say that I went to church and the like, and they left me alone. Honestly though, I don't think I have enough gall to say that I'm going to heaven. From what I've been taught, by all rights I should be, but I think its a bit audacious. Why should I presume that's my final destination?
My sister and mother both worked in a hell house. I can't even begin to express how opposed I am to scaring people into going to church. Anyways, they are both on the charismatic side of the spectrum, whereas I am much less so. We got into a conversation about demon possession once, because my sister said one of her friends had been exorcised while they were away at a conference. Unfortunately, she decided to ask me my opinion in front of my mother, and when I replied I didn't believe in it, she went off in a tirade. I made the smartass remark that no Presbyterians seemed to be possessed, and my mother replied that maybe that's because they all were.
I really like my church. It's really laid back - we're not into the going out and building an army for God thing. And they're not all psycho-conservative either. Our congregation is actually pretty 50/50, and thus can't take stands on anything as a church because of the conflict it would cause. Just check out the t-shirts they let me print (I've been dying to show them anyways):
Wicked, huh? I don't think I could get away with it in any other church.
I've gotten a little off topic, but I did want to point out in all of this - that not all Christians are psycho to convert or complete hypocrites (as hopefully anyone who knows me can attest to), and that there are some cool laid back ones out there.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Love and Forgiveness or Hate and Fear: Lessons of Christianity from the Deep South
Religious fundamentalism was a hard topic for me to write about – not because it was difficult to think of something to say, but because I had too much to say. I could probably blather on about this topic all night, but instead I’ll try to keep this to a reasonable length and stick to one aspect of religious fundamentalism.
BlogSupergroup (as well as its readership) is pretty stacked with current and former residents of Lake City, FL. However, for those of you who did not have the pleasure of growing up in the LC, let me enlighten you. Lake City is a small town in North Florida, located a little less than an hour south of the Georgia border. For those of you who aren’t personally familiar with Florida, North Florida is nothing like the stereotypical Florida you see on TV. No spring-breakers or wealthy retirees from New York there. North Florida is part of the Deep South, the Bible Belt. (If you have any stereotypes about Georgia or Alabama, they might apply better to Florida than any stereotypes you might have held about Florida itself.) Let’s sum this up by saying that Columbia County (wherein Lake City is located) had no questions about who won the 2000 election; Bush took the county by a landslide.
While I grew up in Lake City, my family was one of the few non-religious families in the area. However, my parents weren’t staunch atheists or anything; in fact, they sent me to a Methodist (I think…) preschool for three years. (Anyone else go to Mrs. Cannon’s?) Mom felt that because Christianity is such a huge part of Western culture, I should at least have a basic understanding of the Bible and Christian teachings. My parents also let me go to church with various friends to a variety of denominations whenever I wanted. They also didn’t seem to mind when I started a cult in our backyard. Unfortunately, most people in Lake City weren’t as open-minded as my parents.
I learned at a young age not to tell people that I didn’t go to church. Even when I was in elementary school, telling my compatriots that I didn’t go to church (or worse, that I didn’t believe in god) was the sort of thing that would earn me shouts of “You’re going to Hell!” (Most commonly pronounced “Yer goin’ ta Hay-ell!”) I spent years lying – giving the name of a church near my home when asked, and fervently hoping that whoever was asking wasn’t actually a member of that congregation!
Now, from what I know about the Bible, there are many good aspects of Christianity. Do unto others, love thy fellow man, learn to forgive, that sort of thing. But unfortunately, in many of the churches in Lake City (although definitely not all) the message of love has been replaced by a message of hate and fear. Hate of those who haven’t been "saved," who who reject (or simply don’t believe in) Jesus Christ. Hate of those who support a woman’s right to choose, those who vote Democratic and those who oppose the war in Iraq. Hate of homosexuals and anyone who supports them. (A little while back, Glenn wrote about his experience stopping at a gas station in Lake City while wearing a pink shirt…) And fear… it seems to me that so many local churches preached that the reason to worship Jesus wasn’t necessarily that he was a great guy, son of god and all that, but that if you didn’t, you would spend all eternity on a slow-roast in the fire and brimstone with the gnashing of teeth and such.
To me, one of the worst examples of this was the Tribulation “hell house” put on by one of the local evangelical churches, the Lake City Church of God, as a Christian alternative to Halloween. I only went to Tribulation once. That year I went to two traditional haunted houses – one located in the Lake City “mall” and one put on (I do believe…) by resident blogger Stephanie and some of her friends. Those two haunted houses (of the sort decried by the Church of God), were simply spooky, campy fun for all. In contrast, Tribulation was unpleasant. I still feel sickened thinking about it. Instead of re-telling what I saw, I’m going to quote this section of ReligiousTolerance.org, which is quite accurate (although as I went to Tribulation in 1997, the events at Columbine and 9/11 had not yet occurred):
A Hell House consists of a group of horrific scenes within a type of haunted house. The customer walks through a sequence of tableaus designed to create terror and revulsion. The last scene is different; it is typically a portrayal of heaven. The visitors are then asked to accept salvation by repenting of their sins and trusting Jesus as Lord and Savior.
BlogSupergroup (as well as its readership) is pretty stacked with current and former residents of Lake City, FL. However, for those of you who did not have the pleasure of growing up in the LC, let me enlighten you. Lake City is a small town in North Florida, located a little less than an hour south of the Georgia border. For those of you who aren’t personally familiar with Florida, North Florida is nothing like the stereotypical Florida you see on TV. No spring-breakers or wealthy retirees from New York there. North Florida is part of the Deep South, the Bible Belt. (If you have any stereotypes about Georgia or Alabama, they might apply better to Florida than any stereotypes you might have held about Florida itself.) Let’s sum this up by saying that Columbia County (wherein Lake City is located) had no questions about who won the 2000 election; Bush took the county by a landslide.
While I grew up in Lake City, my family was one of the few non-religious families in the area. However, my parents weren’t staunch atheists or anything; in fact, they sent me to a Methodist (I think…) preschool for three years. (Anyone else go to Mrs. Cannon’s?) Mom felt that because Christianity is such a huge part of Western culture, I should at least have a basic understanding of the Bible and Christian teachings. My parents also let me go to church with various friends to a variety of denominations whenever I wanted. They also didn’t seem to mind when I started a cult in our backyard. Unfortunately, most people in Lake City weren’t as open-minded as my parents.
I learned at a young age not to tell people that I didn’t go to church. Even when I was in elementary school, telling my compatriots that I didn’t go to church (or worse, that I didn’t believe in god) was the sort of thing that would earn me shouts of “You’re going to Hell!” (Most commonly pronounced “Yer goin’ ta Hay-ell!”) I spent years lying – giving the name of a church near my home when asked, and fervently hoping that whoever was asking wasn’t actually a member of that congregation!
Now, from what I know about the Bible, there are many good aspects of Christianity. Do unto others, love thy fellow man, learn to forgive, that sort of thing. But unfortunately, in many of the churches in Lake City (although definitely not all) the message of love has been replaced by a message of hate and fear. Hate of those who haven’t been "saved," who who reject (or simply don’t believe in) Jesus Christ. Hate of those who support a woman’s right to choose, those who vote Democratic and those who oppose the war in Iraq. Hate of homosexuals and anyone who supports them. (A little while back, Glenn wrote about his experience stopping at a gas station in Lake City while wearing a pink shirt…) And fear… it seems to me that so many local churches preached that the reason to worship Jesus wasn’t necessarily that he was a great guy, son of god and all that, but that if you didn’t, you would spend all eternity on a slow-roast in the fire and brimstone with the gnashing of teeth and such.
To me, one of the worst examples of this was the Tribulation “hell house” put on by one of the local evangelical churches, the Lake City Church of God, as a Christian alternative to Halloween. I only went to Tribulation once. That year I went to two traditional haunted houses – one located in the Lake City “mall” and one put on (I do believe…) by resident blogger Stephanie and some of her friends. Those two haunted houses (of the sort decried by the Church of God), were simply spooky, campy fun for all. In contrast, Tribulation was unpleasant. I still feel sickened thinking about it. Instead of re-telling what I saw, I’m going to quote this section of ReligiousTolerance.org, which is quite accurate (although as I went to Tribulation in 1997, the events at Columbine and 9/11 had not yet occurred):
A Hell House consists of a group of horrific scenes within a type of haunted house. The customer walks through a sequence of tableaus designed to create terror and revulsion. The last scene is different; it is typically a portrayal of heaven. The visitors are then asked to accept salvation by repenting of their sins and trusting Jesus as Lord and Savior.
Hell Houses are a relatively new evangelistic technique used by many hundreds of conservative Christian churches in North America. One intent is to proselytize the unsaved public. Another is to promote certain conservative Christian beliefs:
*that abortions kill human babies;
*that sexual orientation is a matter of choice and can be changed;
*that everyone who is not saved will go to hell when they die (perhaps sooner, if Jesus returns);
*that underground Satanic cults engage in widespread sacrifice of humans.
Some hell houses are disguised to resemble conventional secular haunted houses. The customer only realizes that they have a religious theme after they have bought their ticket and gone part of the way through the scenes.
Typical scenes are:
*A realistic reenactment of the murder of Cassie Bernall, a teenager victim at the Columbine High School in 1999-APR. She was allegedly asked whether she believed in God, answered yes, and was murdered on the spot. The incident never happened. But the story has taken on a life of its own, and is frequently referred to in conservative Christian magazines and radio programs.
*A person being sacrificed during a Satanic ritual.
*Women undergoing very bloody late-term abortions, complete with screaming, lots of blood, and particularly insensitive, uncaring health providers. This scene has been partly abandoned in recent years in favor of a portrayal of guilt and depression arising from Post Abortion Syndrome.
*Gays and lesbians being tortured in hell for all eternity because of their behavior while they were alive on earth.
*The dangers of "dabbling" in the occult and becoming demon possessed.
*Personal tragedies arising from pre-marital sex.
*Disastrous tragedies and loss of life resulting from drunk driving.
*A man has an argument with his wife and is later seduced by his secretary.
*Witches pressuring a depressed teen to murder his fellow students.
*A 9/11 ground zero scene.
The Tribulation hell house I visited in 1997 was incredibly graphic and quite disturbing, involving “sinners” of varying ilks being tortured in an incredible number of ways – and yet people were bringing their children there as a safe, Christian alternative to Halloween. Gone is the Christian ideal of forgiveness, of love for one’s fellow man. Love and forgiveness have been replaced by the need to vilify those who are different and to use fear to coerce all to follow Jesus.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Religious Fundamentalism
Well, this will probably get a lot of people really angry, but I seem to do that by accident all the time anyway, so ca, m'est egal. Also, it seems we're running late for a topic this week, and this should get people talking. Today, when I read the headline that Jerry Falwell died (and I'm not really proud of this visceral reaction), I was really happy, and thought to myself "Oh, good." It's a pretty terrible reaction to have to somebody dying who has family and friends who are really hurt by this. But that's exactly how I felt. This man injected religious conservatism into American politics in a way that I believe has permanently doomed this nation on the world stage. I mean, this guy made so many Christians believe they had to staunchly oppose abortion, homosexuality, stem cell research, the separation of church and state, the ACLU, etc. He poisoned the good nature and spirit of Christianity for millions of people. I'm not religious, so I'm definitely speaking from a biased standpoint, but I really feel that Christianity isn't supposed to stand for all these hateful and crazy things Falwell (and others) have made it stand for. When I was a kid going to church in Canada (not a very religious church, but still) we were basically told be good and do good. But in America (at least in the south, where I have lived my American life), Christianity seems to be about yelling and making sure homosexuals to turn kids gay. As everybody surely remembers, right after 9/11 Falwell said it was God's revenge against America for the ACLU and homosexuals. This kind of hate mongering is reprehensible, especially when you are claiming to be a voice box for a supreme being, and especially when millions of people follow your every word. And Falwell's twisting of Christianity into political jingoism, something that I believe is now inextricable from the American political theater, has doomed America on the world stage. I feel like there's no coming back from the heat of religious fervor this country has, and when national decisions are made based on flimsy interpretations of a magic book it really seems like progress is impossible.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Another Reason I Am A Bad Person
A lot of these blog topics prove to me that I am a really bad person. I like guns so I am fascist. I believe in ghosts so I am stupid. I don't donate money to organizations so I am poor. And being poor makes me a bad person, I guess. Well, maybe it doesn't. But sometimes I feel that way. I would like to donate money to a number of causes. For instance, I would really like to become a card carrying member of the ACLU. That's an organization I can unequivocally get behind. Even when they defend the KKK or Westboro Baptist Church (that crazy church that runs godhatesfags.com), I feel they're doing it for the right reasons, even though those groups are totally fucked. It often seems that most people don't want to stick up for things like freedom of speech, expression, religion, etc, anymore. How often do we hear pundits lambast the ACLU for defending free speech? When did free speech become a dirty word? I mean two dirty words. But only when used together in that order. People often just use ACLU as an insult. I've seen public officials (usually right wing) denounce opponents as card carrying members of the ACLU. Well, that doesn't seem like much of an insult to me.
Anyway, I obviously don't believe in the ACLU $20 worth, though, since that's what it costs to become a card carrying member. That's 4 meals, buddy! Well, like two meals and a piece of pie or something.
Well, I'm going to cut this short because I'm on vacation. Sorry all of my posts have been lame lately.
Anyway, I obviously don't believe in the ACLU $20 worth, though, since that's what it costs to become a card carrying member. That's 4 meals, buddy! Well, like two meals and a piece of pie or something.
Well, I'm going to cut this short because I'm on vacation. Sorry all of my posts have been lame lately.
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