September 2007 blogposts

I'm baaack...

...ya miss me?  ;-) 

Well, one thing I have discovered in my Internet "diet" (I won't say I was off the Internet completely, because I was checking my email and my facebook page every so often) is that, while you can certainly spend too much time on the Internet, it's also very difficult to live 100% without it nowadays.  As an example, I spent part of August writing fiction for the Brokeback Mountain fanfic community i am part of, and you would not believe how frustrating it is not to be able to quickly check some fact without the Internet handy.  For example, for one chapter I needed to understand exactly how one makes a Molotov cocktail, since one of my main characters has one thrown through her kitchen window (remember folks: conflict drives plot).

Anyways, to get the ball rolling, I wanted to highlight something that I found on my one of my favourite browse-through sites, metafilter.  A comment on a recent post about polygamous Mormons has put into writing something that I have often used in my arguments against those who want to deny same-sex marriage rights to queers because the Bible lays out the guidelines for a "traditional" marriage.  I have argued that there has NEVER been a "traditional" standard of marriage, that it has varied a lot in differnet cultures and eras, and this commenter backs my assertion up:

I'd like to point out - because I've not been given a chance to yet on metafilter - that whether you're a fundamentalist Mormon, a fundamentalist Baptist or a fundamentalist Presbyterian, there is simply no valid argument to be made for "traditional" marriage by drawing on scripture. None. Not in the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament. The Hebrew Bible is quite possibly the worst place to start - the language it was written in doesn't even contain a word for "wife." It has the designator "his" - as in, "his woman," even for "his first," or "his second" woman and so on. But there's no word for wife. Women are purely property - utterly in the same sense as "his oxen" or "his seventy two slaves and fourteen comely eunuchs." The New Testament is an even worse place to begin - if that's even possible - Paul sure as hell didn't want us getting married. ESPECIALLY (you can tell I'm using science) because the world was about to end - which is what most fundamentalists believe! He says, "Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife." He goes on - "Yet those who marry will experience distress in this life, and I would spare you that. I mean, brothers and sisters, the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none, and those who mourn as thought they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who deal with the world as thought they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away."

He also states clearly that marriage is not a sin - but there are plenty of things that aren't considered sins in the Bible (drinking wine in moderation) that fundamentalists avoid.

This has always been something that bothered me.

Of course, I suppose I shouldn't look to the fundies for a bastion of clear scriptural interpretation.

So far that one comment has received an amazingly high number of "favorites" among metafilter readers; obviously it's struck a chord.

Please, Britney, Don't Gimme More

Tuned in just to watch the Britney Spears Big Comeback Opener for the MTV Video Music Awardws in Las Vegas.  Well, THAT was a disaster.  Looks like the blogosphere agrees.  The gossip blog TMZ.com weighs in.

What a lamentable performance!  She looked terrible, and she moved around the stage as if she were a zombie.  Every so often they would cut to an audience member.  I think I saw Kanye West with his mouth hanging open in shock.

Britney, your career is OVER, girl.  Pack it in and head to cosmetology school or something, 'cause if you can't even get excited about your big comback performance, you're toast.  A sampling of comments from the TMZ blogpost:

I wanted this to be good but it was the caboose on the train wreck of Britney.

I for one was sort of wanting to see her fall on her ass but I ended up feeling bad for her.

Of all nights that she should have NOT lip-synched this was it...what a disappointment. ... I would rather have watched her sitting on a chair singing a song live than watching her TRYING to move around the stage. My 80-year-old grandmother could have moved faster/better than that.

She phoned that one in.  Not good.

Where was the passion?  She knows that this was supposed to be her comeback performance and she looked like she didn't care. 

Except for a few (a VERY few) diehard Britney fans defending her, the overwhelming majority of people who watched this performance seemed to realize that Britney is not even close to being ready for a comeback, and some even felt pity for her.

Ah well, someone else will step in and take her place; there's no shortage of Britney-wannabes in the wings.

I will let Chris from CutewithChris.com have the last word: