Happy Thanksgiving!

Glee

The entire Season 2 is now available on Netflix instant viewing.  I'm a happy man.

The Commandments of the American Religion

"Crunchy Con" Rod Dreher, whose blog postings I have been enjoying very much recently (he's become, like Andrew Sullivan, one of my daily reads), references in one of his postings a column by James Altucher that posits some of what Altucher would call the great American shibboleths. Conventional beliefs that are sacrosanct in the American consciousness. But Altucher also believes that these "Commandments of the American Religion" constitute a "fickle and false religion." It's an interesting list. Here they are, listed simply without elaboration (see Altucher's piece for more explanation):

#1 Thou Shalt Own a Home.
#2 Thou Shalt Go to College.
#3 Thou Shalt Recognize that Some Wars Are Holy.
#4 Thou Shalt Obey the Constitution.
#5 Thou Shalt Give to Charity.
#6 Thou Shalt Obey the Food & Drug Administration.
#7 Thou Shalt Always Vote.
#8 Thou Shalt Choose Between Two Political Parties.
#9 Thou Shalt Recognize the Media as the "Fourth Estate."
#10 Thou Shalt Forever Progress Toward the Frontier.

It is interesting, isn't it? I'm not sure I buy into all of them, but it does make one think. Anyway, Dreher asks his readers if there's anything to add to this list. Of course, I came up with one:

#11 Thou Shalt Revere the Individual Above All Else and Place No False Gods of Community Before Him.

80's Pop Culture ... On The Other Hand

There's this:



Oh ... wait ...

Yep, I still feel cheated. Very.

Kajagoogoo

If you want to see what I consider to be exemplary of the vacuousness of 80s pop culture, watch this:



This is not to say that there weren't some diamonds in the rough in the 80s, but by and large, in my mind, the 80s were a wasted, empty time in the history of pop culture.

The "Feeling" Fueling the Tea Party Movement

Andrew Sullivan has very astute blog posting up on his website today in which he tries to make sense of what are the cultural and psychological underpinnings are of the current day Tea Party movement. He essentially argues what I have also been saying to people these days: the Tea Party movement represents what I like to call the "last gasp" of a dying notion of America. What is that notion? It's the America of baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet. It's an America of an unmuddied/unmiscegenated racial/ethnic identity, whether white, black, or brown. It's an America of Christianity. It's an America where there's only one publicly-acknowledged form of heterosexual identity with any other identity tolerated as long as it's hidden in the closet. It's an English-only America where ethnicity is fully absorbed and integrated into the dominant cultural narrative of the WASP foundations of our country. But the simple fact is that our country today is simply not the Mayberry of the Andy Griffith show. And it never will be. And the uncertainty for many people, particularly of older generations, of what this means and the cultural discomfort that this causes is the socio-cultural roots of the "I want my America back!" meme so commonly heard from Tea Party faithful. Obama, as Sullivan notes, is the embodiment of this new America, which he argues accounts for the real visceral and passionate nature of the Tea Party's opposition to his Presidency. As Sullivan writes in a nutshell:

But the passion of opposition stems, I think, in part from a sense that the way the world once was is disappearing, that this is inevitable, and a repressed acknowledgment of the inevitability actually intensifies a resistance to it.

It will play out. It will be nasty and uncomfortable as it does so. It will be hyperbolic and impassioned. But it will pass.

A Challenge for Social Entrepreneurs

One of the hot things in what is called the "service movement" on college campuses these days is the idea of the "social entrepreneur." What is the social entrepreneur? In short, he is the person who comes up with creative ways to turn a profit off of socially conscious commerce. It could be fair trade coffee, or changing out incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent light bulbs, or it could be putting shoes on the shoeless in a buy-one-donate-one model. All good things. But ... there's something potentially untoward in some social entrepreneurial models.

Last week, I had the chance to hear the founder of TOMS shoes, Blake Mycoskie, tell his story. He is a charming, charismatic, enthusiastic, sincere, and down-to-earth guy. What he is doing is good. But I want to challenge him (and others like him) to think harder about the for-profit social entrepreneurship model and ponder whether the profit goal of the business is not in conflict with the very social mission that makes it profitable. I want to push these social entrepreneurs to apply their considerable talents to resolving the structural conditions that create the problems that ultimately make them profitable. For instance, if Blake Mycoskie's concern really is for the shoeless in our world, and laments the injustice of shoelessness, then he should be working to put himself out of business. But my fear is that the profit-driven model of social entrepreneurialism demands an operation that is driven by profit. I've never known any for-profit venture that seeks ultimately not to succeed where success is measured by profit. Not that there's inherently anything wrong with profiting; but there is something problematic when such profit is produced precisely by the continued existence of a social problem.

Let's take the TOMS model, for example. Even Black Mycoskie admits that the reason why his shoes do so well, why his shoes compete favorably against his competition, is precisely because of the social condition of shoelessness upon which his business is based. As Mycoskie himself explains, his shoes sell because people want to give. They feel good about giving, and thus their charity makes his buy-one-give-one-away-to-the-needy model so appealing. Therefore, it stands to reason that in order for his business to continue to thrive and profit, he needs for shoelessness (or at least the perception of shoelessness) itself to thrive. The more shoeless people there are in the world, the more he can sell shoes to those who feel good about putting shoes on the shoeless. What this whole project fails to do is to ask the burning question of "why" there is shoelessness to begin with and then to seek solutions to the fundamental structural conditions in our world that cause shoelessness.

Until social entrepreneurs can convince me that they are interested in eliminating the problem that makes them profitable (and are actually working towards this end), then the fundamental altruism that forms the basis for the marketing of their products/services seems hollow. In fact, it can seem even cynical. Social entrepreneurs have a special obligation to address this criticism.

Kudos to Georgetown University

As an alum of Georgetown University, I regularly receive the Georgetown Magazine. The most recent issue features a story on Georgetown University's serious initiative to address the needs and concerns of the LGBTQ community. This feature story includes personal testimony from a wide range of alumni who are members of the LGBTQ community. Their personal stories are powerful and convincing, and confirm that what Georgetown University is doing in this regard is consistent both with the best angels of our nature as compassionate and empathetic human beings and with the teachings of the Catholic Church.

As a Catholic (and Jesuit) institution, its initiative has been criticized by the usual suspects who think that any initiative that seeks to advance the dignity of the human being irrespective of sexual orientation is a direct violation of Church teachings on the subject.

However, Georgetown University's decision to listen to and to reach out to the LGBTQ community is in no way a commentary upon the morality of same-sex orientation or homosexual activity. All the initiative does is identify a need faced by members of the Georgetown Community and creates an outreach program and an LGBTQ Resource Center intended to meet that need. It's no different, essentially, than reaching out to any person in need regardless of that person's race, creed, political ideology, nationality, or even religious faith. The Catholic Church does this all the time.

Read the whole piece.

For my part, I couldn't be prouder of Georgetown University for this effort, both as an alumnus myself and as a member of the Catholic Church.

Spiritual Leaders, Critical Thinking, and Pop Culture

Once again, with The Golden Compass now showing in theaters, the debate over popular cultural production's supposed hostility to religious faith (and particularly Christianity) is again rearing its ugly head. The pattern is all too familiar. People of faith, particularly Christians, meet such cultural productions with claims of religious intolerance, if not persecution. And it is all the more stark around Christmas time, when some Christians feel particularly persecuted because cashiers at Wal-Mart don't wish them a Merry Christmas as they pass through the checkout line. But I digress ... the subject I really want to get into is the role that religious leaders play in the so-called "culture wars." It seems that whenever a controversial cultural production, such as The Golden Compass, or Harry Potter, or The DaVinci Code enters the mainstream of our society, some religious leaders feel it incumbent to their duties to dictate how their flock should approach such productions. Should we read the His Dark Materials Trilogy (the first book of which is The Golden Compass), the Harry Potter series, the DaVinci Code novel? Should we see the movies based on them? Usually, such religious leaders never refrain from offering their opinion on the subject, sometimes going so far as to declare a spiritual mandate of sorts on what a "good" Christian must do. And, generally, these mandates are exhortations that we avoid these dangerous books and films and that we keep our children away from them, too.

The irony of such kinds of mandates from religious leaders, as I see it, is that someone has to read the books and see the movies in order to be informed enough to know whether or not to discourage the flock from reading and/or viewing them. I have a number of reactions to ministers/priests when they do this. First, I am always somewhat insulted that they presume to know better (or can know better) than I as to what constitutes appropriate book reading and movie viewing. Second, I get put out that they seem to think that it is somehow o.k. for them to read controversial books and watch controversial movies. And third, I get especially huffy if they haven't read the book or seen the film, and yet still presume to tell me that I shouldn't do either on the basis of some secondhand reaction.

I know that most religious leaders are well-intentioned, but I'd rather that they restricted themselves to doing their jobs in the pulpit in interpreting the meaning of scripture, and then let us decide through our God-given minds and critical thinking skills, and based on the meaning of scripture they provide, what is appropriate to consume in our popular culture as opposed to what is not appropriate to consume.

Cold/Heat Miser: Big Bad Voodoo Daddy Performing

Remember this from the Classic Rankin/Bass Production, The Year Without A Santa Claus? It was (and remains) one of my favorite Christmas cartoon experiences of all time. This particular YouTube clip nicely matches the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy version of the tune with the actual scene from the original film. Enjoy!

Because It's Sunday: Jorge Aragão performing Ave Maria

Jorge Aragão, one of Brazil's renowned samba and pagode composers and performers, gives us a stirring rendition of the Ave Maria, pagode style.



Beautiful.