He who Loses Himself will Save Himself

It started out as basic work chatter. “How’s life?” My co-worker looks at me and nods in his uber-chill manner. “Life. Life is precious.”

Me being rambling me, I can’t leave it at that. “A precious human life. The most auspicious according to the Buddhists, because you see if you’re a god, it’s too easy, so you won’t work to escape samsara, and better than being born in one of the lower states of existence, because then you’re too miserable to be able to make your way out, but it’s auspicious to be human.”

He nods again. Buddha-like. “Hey, do you ever think religion is just egotism?”

“Um. Yeah.”

And then a rush hits.

This Just Makes Me Happy

Yes, I do do theology with my stomach. And I would totally give a Food Network show hosted by a priest a chance. If I had cable, that is.

Apron Vestments

Obama = Kara Thrace

Harbinger of the Apocalypse and all that good stuff.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

As is usual when Tim LaHaye and the monstrous work of bad writing and worse theology known as Left Behind is brought up, the Metra is left to say: What, what now? Of course, Rachel Maddow said: What, what now? with far more style than I can muster.

Question, if the Anti-Christ will be a commie socialist, why was the early Christian community described in Acts functioning as a commune?

No, Georgia, just no....

And in yet another stunning display of anti-intellectualism, the GOP in Georgia attempts to ban classes (graduate-level classes!) on queer theory. (Via Feministing.)

Doubtlessly, they are aware of the academic throwdown between queer theory and gay and lesbian theory and are only doing this to help out the gays and lesbians.

I wonder how badly the field of queer theology would break them.... And I'm sorry folks, but your basic readings for queer theory....so less steamy than a good ol' time with Plato or even a decent chunk of Christian saints' lives.

"born?" oh, alternet....

By born, certainly you mean "is fondly rocking the cradle of its great, great, great grandbabies"....although, yes, the scale of organization is certainly growing.

There's absolutely nothing new about the evangelicals and fundies hard-selling "Biblical" submission as liberation for women. Nothing new. I swear I'm remembering a similar argument being made in the 1880-90s in the Gospel Advocate as regards first-wave feminists (who didn't really do much to challenge gender norms), but don't quote me there. It's been a few summers.

And, actually, Twisty Faster is definitely onto something with her "women hate you" label. The worst of the brainwashing is carried out by the older women. Or, as is frequently becoming the case, by only slightly older girls who are honored with the position of a young women's ministry -- where they can make the marry and submit model look oh-so-cool to the younger things. This is possibly because the menfolk don't see one or two nutty unwomen-in-training to be much of a real threat.

And then back to work again....

Mourning.

I made it back to Memphis for a short 27 hour visit. (Apparently on a very bad night for the city. Wreck at Cooper and Union, saw about three fire trucks racing by as I was leaving Soul Fish, and tragically, the Memphis cops fatally shot a man while pursuing him.) And as I'm about to leave Tennessee to head back to Berkeley, I find myself in a mix of emotions about my city.

Memphis has a bad rep, deservedly, at the moment. I've been following the string of murdered and brutalized transwomen in my city with a heavy heart. Until this last summer, and possibly not even now, there hasn't been a great deal of awareness of this murders even within my college's GSA. (I can only speak as someone loosely associated with the Rhodes GSA, but I hadn't heard anything about Tiffany Berry's murder until I read Terrance's piece about her at the Republic of T.)

Part of this is due to the continuing racial divide in Memphis. Rhodes is still very white and privileged (and to a somewhat different effect -- straight). Students there, even one's who are trying to be aware of the outside world, live in our own little, fenced in bubble. Thus, it there were brutal murders and injustices within the greater community -- within a greater GLBT community -- and we remained unaware. And while there's a push to create stronger ties between Rhodes and the greater Memphis community, I'm not certain how effective the attempts will ultimately be. Tutoring at Snowden is great, but when you graduate without realizing that Snowden is one of the better schools in the city... (I'm also opposed to the noblesse oblige attitude that is extremely prevalent on the Rhodes campus, but that's another matter.) I suppose for the time being the best I can do is to combat my own ignorance and e-mail my remaining friends at Rhodes to try to prevent a similar state of group ignorance in the here and now.

But I still love Memphis. I still want to be living in Memphis. I drove out of the city with a part of my heart breaking because I don't know when I'll be driving back in. I want the best for Memphis.

Pointless Video Post

Franz Ferdinand is releasing a new album!!!! But wait, is it the eighties again?



I dig. But holy crap, looks like an early Depeche Mode video.

Good to know...

Mike Huckabee is not pro-sodomy. Just in case you were wondering.



File under, the hell?

h/t Box Turtle Bulletin

We break our silence to bitch some....

So in our new life as a sarcastic grad-student by day and an even more sardonic barista by night (or early morning), I run into some of the eccentrics of the Berkeley area. In all honesty, the customer base is decent -- the notion of murder only pops into the back of my head about 5% of the time.

A recent addition to that 5% is someone I've dubbed "Organic Milk Mom." Here's how the interlude at the register goes, repeatedly.

OMM: *setting toddler down on counter, where toddler can grab at tip jar and other objects, or get badly scalded if someone tips over a cup of coffee, orders something. Begins the high-pitched holier-than-thou voice.* Is organic milk an option?

Me: No, ma'am. But we use Berkeley Farms milk, so it is growth hormone free.

OMM: Well! *insert head-flip here* What about non-fat? Is that an option?

Me: Yes, ma'am. *begins to hit non-fat button on register*

OMM: Or low-fat? Do you have low-fat?!!!

Now, this would be a throughly reasonable discussion if it occured once. The fact that this discussion has occured twice in three days with exaggerated "OMG! How can you not have organic milk!" intonations is ridiculous. If we didn't have organic milk on Monday, we aren't going to have it on Wednesday. Do not hold up the line because you somehow think that being a bitch to the barista making a little over 8 dollars/ hour will get anything changed.

But apparently in the minds of some crazy-mothers, non-organic foodstuffs are tantamount to abuse.

I'm contemplating changing the script next time, smiling sweetly, pulling out my accent and telling OMM. "Well, all our milk is carbon based, so yes, it's organic."

Such people are rivaled in my disdain only by the one or two environmental crusaders who flip out when I ask them if they would like a carrying bag for their coffee. If you don't want it, a "no, thanks" is all that is nessecary.