Entries Tagged 'Culture' ↓

Then my mom called. You might imagine I don’t get along all that well with my mother, and you’d be right. We’re cordial enough, but we don’t really talk about anything meaningful. It was time for that to change. I told her about my work, and about my next project, a game that would literally change the course of history.
 
Then we talked about Obama. I told her that I felt Americans were living in the Matrix, working long hours, eating pablum, and dying useless for having fed the parasitic machine draining the lifeblood of a withering planet.
 
I told her that Obama was the first president in my lifetime I could look to for inspiration. I told her about seeing people like myself get involved in the politcal process for the first time. I told her about getting to know the truth about money, the economy, and consumption.
 
I told her I saw a light at the end of the tunnel, where the boom-bust cycles of exploitative capitalism gave way the steady, sustainable happiness of altruistic capitalism.
 
Then she got biblical, which was her undoing. No one can quote scripture like an atheist. Without getting into the full multi-hour explanation, I showed her that McCain fits the description of the antichrist much better than Obama.
 
Finally it came down to abortion and gay marriage. I explained that first, understand that Roe v. Wade is not a case about abortion, but about the federal government’s ability to enforce the Constitution at the state level. Most laws are like this — their issues are far more complicated than will fit on a sign.
 
Still, it brings up a greater issue. It is not your job to govern other people’s morality. The Bible is explicitly clear on this subject. Not only does it repeatedly warn against judging others, it also makes clear that vengeance is the exclusive prerogative of God.
 
You are being controlled, I told her, by people telling you how to think, how to feel, and how to act. Use your God-given mind to make your own decisions.

Butterflies

Popularity: 2% [?]

The Obama presidency is great news for almost everyone. It’s bad news for some odd ideological bedfellows: the Religious Right and the so-called New Atheists.

Into the all or nothing culture wars, and the all or nothing wars between the so-called New Atheists and religion the election of President elect Obama reintroduces nuance. President elect Obama’s ability to believe in Jesus, yet question, is going to rescue American religion in general and Christianity in particular, from the extremes.

There is no way to understand President elect Obama’s victory as anything less than the start of not just a monumental political change but a spiritual revolution as well.

Frank Schaeffer: President Obama: Bad News For the New Atheists and Other Fundamentalists

Popularity: 3% [?]

Popularity: 2% [?]

The small smear of red on the otherwise blue electoral map looks more like a minor bloodstain on a dirty Band-Aid than anything resembling a national political party. Who voted for McCain/Palin in bigger numbers than they even voted for Bush/Cheney? Only one shrinking group: uneducated white folks in the deep south and a few folks in Appalachia. Take away the white no-college-backwoods-and/or-southern McCain/Palin vote and the Republicans would have been approaching single digit electoral college oblivion.

Sarah Palin will never hold national office nor will any Republican at the presidential level for a long time to come. Why? Because America has uneducated jerks in it but is not a nation of uneducated jerks. The Republicans are done, hoisted on the petard of their own “southern strategy.”

…and…

The Religious Right, the racists, the anti-gay hate-mongers are now not only marginalized but thoroughly out of step with even members of their own former constituency. For instance the Gordon College student newspaper (Gordon is an influential Evangelical College north of Boston) endorsed Obama this year. Many young evangelicals voted for the Democrats. James Dobson, Fox News, Limbaugh et al. were utterly powerless to do more than stir up hate. They are losing the next generation of their “base.”

Frank Schaeffer: Sarah Palin Will Never Be President — Trust Me

Popularity: 3% [?]

According to a CNN exit poll, 42 percent of voters said that the nation’s financial woes had finally become frightening enough to eclipse such concerns as gay marriage, while 30 percent said that the relentless body count in Iraq was at last harrowing enough to outweigh long ideological debates over abortion. In addition, 28 percent of voters were reportedly too busy paying off medial bills, desperately trying not to lose their homes, or watching their futures disappear to dismiss Obama any longer.

“The election of our first African-American president truly shows how far we’ve come as a nation,” said NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams. “Just eight years ago, this moment would have been unthinkable. But finally we, as a country, have joined together, realized we’ve reached rock bottom, and for the first time voted for a candidate based on his policies rather than the color of his skin.”

“Today Americans have grudgingly taken a giant leap forward,” Williams continued. “And all it took was severe economic downturn, a bloody and unjust war in Iraq, terrorist attacks on lower Manhattan, nearly 2,000 deaths in New Orleans, and more than three centuries of frequently violent racial turmoil.”

Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source

Popularity: 5% [?]

Hipsterdom is the first “counterculture” to be born under the advertising industry’s microscope, leaving it open to constant manipulation but also forcing its participants to continually shift their interests and affiliations. Less a subculture, the hipster is a consumer group – using their capital to purchase empty authenticity and rebellion. But the moment a trend, band, sound, style or feeling gains too much exposure, it is suddenly looked upon with disdain. Hipsters cannot afford to maintain any cultural loyalties or affiliations for fear they will lose relevance.

Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization | Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters

Popularity: 18% [?]

Popularity: 21% [?]

so i’m on line at the gas station, waiting to pre pay, and this 6 foot 7 black dood in a brown velvet track suit comes in, talking loudly on his cell phone

LISTEN MAN, I TOLD YOU — YOU CAN DO DAT SHIT, BUT DO NOT GET CAUGHT

I BE FUCKING ALL MY GIRL’S GUY FRIENDS, AND I AIN’T NEVER BEEN CAUGHT, CAUSE I ALWAYS RIDE OUT TO THE WEST SIDE TO DO IT

*blink*

all 10 of us in the place got real quiet at that point

he then goes on

YOU SHOULD READ MY BOOK, MAN, IT’LL TEACH YOU HOW TO DO THAT BUT NOT GET CAUGHT, LIKE I SAID

WON’T BE FRONT’IN OR NUFFIN

i paid and left

Popularity: 22% [?]

YouTube - Dude Vegas - Bud Light - Extended Version

Popularity: 14% [?]

We began discussing human cloning, and someone mentioned a noted bioethicist who believed that the parents of a deceased child should be allowed to create a clone of that child. My friends were curious: “Would the clone begin life at the age its original version died?” “How would you tell the clone about its origin?” Nobody appeared discomfited by or even aware of the words that seemed to come so naturally: The Clone. It. Version.

The American Interest: Policy. Politics. Culture. Digital.

Popularity: 17% [?]

“I hope Iowans will caucus for me as their first choice this Thursday, because of my singular positions on the war, on health care and trade. This is an opportunity for people to stand up for themselves. But in those caucus locations where my support doesn’t reach the necessary threshold, I strongly encourage all of my supporters to make Barack Obama their second choice. Sen. Obama and I have one thing in common: change,” Kucinich said in a statement.

i can not imagine any thinking person voting for any of the morally bankrupt republican candidates, and i can’t imagine why anyone who isn’t voting republican isn’t thinking about voting for kucinich, but i will happily vote for obama if it keeps senator clinton out of the white house.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Top ten most viewed pages on Wikipedia and Conservapedia

Here are the top ten most viewed pages on Wikipedia:
Main Page [30,090,900]
Wiki [904,800]
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows [413,400]
Naruto [401,400]
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock [396,000]
United States [330,000]
Wikipedia [329,400]
Deaths in 2007 [321,300]
Heroes (TV series) [307,500]
Transformers (film) [303,600]

then we have:

Conservapedia is “The Trustworthy Encyclopedia.”

Here are the top ten most viewed pages on Conservapedia:

Main Page‎ [1,906,729]
Homosexuality‎ [1,572,713]
Homosexuality and Hepatitis‎ [517,086]
Homosexuality and Promiscuity‎ [420,687]
Gay Bowel Syndrome‎ [389,052]
Homosexuality and Parasites‎ [388,123]
Homosexuality and Domestic Violence‎ [365,888]
Homosexuality and Gonorrhea‎ [331,553]
Homosexuality and Mental Health‎ [291,179]
Homosexuality and Syphilis‎ [265,322]

Top ten most viewed pages on Wikipedia and Conservapedia - Boing Boing

Popularity: 7% [?]

what is local food?

Local

This is food grown by local farmers who dislike you because you’re living in the subdivision that used to be prime farmland owned by their grandparents. Local food may be purchased at farm stands, which is where your children will someday be buying pot. If you buy local organic foods, you may skip dinner altogether and ascend directly to heaven, where you’ll be greeted by 72 varietals of virgin olive oil.

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Understanding Food Labels You Might Encounter at Whole Foods.

Popularity: 7% [?]

comic books reveal how we as humans tend to really feel about god:

The origin of the comic god goes like this: The arrogant Thor needs a lesson in humility, so his father Odin, the ruler of all gods, sends him to Earth in the form of a crippled mortal to teach him to be humble. When Thor finally learns his shits do stink, his mortal form dies off and he is allowed to become himself again.

This spiritual lesson serves to confirm two things: Being handicapped is God’s way of punishing you for religious transgressions, and to the son of God, Earth is essentially a giant time-out where instead of facing a corner for five minutes you live a short, challenging life rife with confusion and pain until you are eventually allowed to die.

from 5 Upcoming Comic Book Movies That Must Be Stopped

Popularity: 34% [?]