Fallen Into Knowledge

Every year, some group places white flags in the park blocks to represent people killed in Iraq. This year the red flags represent US soldiers killed, the white flags each represent “at least” 5 Iraqis killed. The flags cover several city blocks.

Environmentalism, in its origin, and taken to it logical conclusions is deeply subversive for capitalism and consumerism.

Environmentalism, in its popularized form seeks to satiate the guilt-complexes that it produces in people through consumerism.

Example #1

Buying Carbon-Offsets.

Carbon offsets are the prime example of this: that we might allay the effects of our consumption by further consumption. in effect, by buying carbon offsets, we are not changing our relationship to the environment, but further enmeshing us in our current relationship with it. The consumer is lead to believe (and here pop environmentalism parallels the dieting obsession) that one can become “environmentally responsible” without significantly altering their lives. Or, that environmentally responsibility is mainly about managing consumption rather than by subverting it.

Example #2

Recycling. Recycling functions is a similar way for us: the activity of recycling serves for us a metaphor of continual consumption that is almost theological: the thing is always made new, and can always be made new. As such, we are freed to continue consuming because the consequences of our consumption, the waste, is perpetually redeemed. Again, our environmentally motivated action is further consumption.

Pop environmentalism, as described here exemplifies the way in which capitalism subsumes any criticism of it. Capitalism creates in any counter-capitalist movement another opportunity for consumption: Do you want to simplify your life? Then buy this book, or go to the container store where they have the solution to your clutter for a low price! Again, environmentalism taken to its conclusion is deeply inimical to capitalism: truly the only way to change our current destructive relationship to the environment is by (or includes as a necessary condition for success) our consuming less.

A Last Example

Organically grown produce: Standing in the supermarket isle we are shielded from the origin of the produce before us, and therefore for us the option is: buy organic or not. However, in all likelihood the significant environmental choice pertains to how far the produce has traveled in reaching the store: an organically grown apple that had to be flown in from chile fails us in the environmental responsibility department. The organic food movement has been a boon to capitalism, however, because it obscures the fact that if we commit to eating regional foods our diet would include less variety. We might not notice too much here in the Pacific Northwest, but even for us orange juice would be straight out. “Buy Organic” still places the emphasis on the “buy.”

Tonight, on Fresh Air, Terri Gross interviewed Colin Meloy of Decemberists fame.
You can listen to it here
I searched to see if Terri Gross had interviewed him yet just a few weeks ago, thinking that if anybody could interview him well, it would be she.

{edit} yipee! Fresh Air is now available in Podcast form, via iTunes

I have to confess, today hasn’t gone too well. The website nightmare is yet unresolved, although it is finally coming back together. This fact might have accentuated my pleasure to see this week’s podcast of “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” in iTunes, waiting to be heard.
I am a NPR junkie, in addition to being a coffe junkie and a news-in-general junkie. My habit has been exaggerated recently, now that I can subscribe to many shows in iTunes. Frankly, having a podcast of “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me,” makes the whole podcast thing worth while. If you haven’t heard the show - go to iTunes and check it out.
I currently subscribe to these shows:

Missing from the list, because they don’t podcast: Car Talk and Prairie Home Companion

Its true, in addition to all the other things I lack, I also lack “Christmas Spirit.”  There are at least three reasons for this lacking:

1.  My Family.  For as long as I remember my parents never really got into Christmas.  Even when I was the age to want to be out of bed long before dawn on Christmas morning, even then I knew that my mother, especially, didn’t particularly enjoy the season.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hold it against her:  I didn’t really care then - as long as I got the presents I wanted, and I don’t hold it against them now because I understand why they aren’t that thrilled.  I’m not either. Still, if I grew up in a family that put up decorations and made a big deal of it, my attitude might have started out differently.

2.  Starbucks.  I worked at Starbucks for many years - and worked through many Christmas seasons.  More specifically, I worked through many Christmas seasons at the Starbucks (pl.) in Pioneer Place Mall.  The masses of people.  The lines.  The Shopper’s Tempers.  The imperative to buy, buy, buy (and, for us: sell, sell, sell).  The imperative for the employees to “be happy!!!” despite all of this.  And the noise.  Oh, and listening to the same 30 Christmas songs for a solid month.  Because of this, while I worked there, I dreaded the season ’s approaching.  That dread seemed to linger on long after I had left Starbucks

3.  BUY, BUY, BUY.  Between the commercials on the radio, the newspaper ads, and the ever-present billboards, it is hard for me to miss that I am supposed to express any Christmas Spirit with my credit card.  Consumerism isn’t really all that attractive the rest of the year, but in December I can’t shake the suspicion that it is covering something that might be worth celebrating, after all.

so Bah, Humbug.  Several years ago my family started a tradition of leaving for Christmas.  We’d get a place out, away from town, and check out of all of the above.  I really enjoyed that.  We’re not leaving this year, but that’s okay.  This year I don’t feel the need to leave.

This is the first year I have spent away from the city.  Out here there are no billboards, few people have Christmas lights, and NPR doesn’t play Christmas music non stop from Thanksgiving on.  As a consequence my experience of this season as a holiday has been experienced at church.  Advent.  Here we are, just a few days out, and I have this to look forward to:  a weekend hanging out at church and with my family.  This is worth celebrating.  This is Worth some Christmas Spirit

If you’ve been to my place, you already know I have a penchant for the written work - there are books everywhere.  But behind the books are also old magazines that I can’t seem to recycle.  Today in my search for jesus (in popular culture) I entered the magazine store on Hawthorne for the first time.  It was glorious, as you can see from the picture taken with my phone, above.
In other news, this site has crossed the two hundred page mark.  That’s right, there are two hundred separate pages to see here. Yeah.

I’ll be frank, I have my doubts about the whole evolution/creationist debate - not doubts as to whether or not God created, but doubts as to how much of the creationist position makes any sense. Genesis 1-2 is about much more than being a science text book, and using it as a science text book seems to me to be using it in a way that it counter (or at least, at odds with) the direction of the text. Whatever my reservations about that debate, my opinions about this are clear:

Evolution Sunday” will be observed at hundreds of liberal and mainline churches whose pastors have agreed to preach a sermon or hold a class or discussion supporting Darwin’s theory.

My opinion: Absurd. Just as I feel that using Genesis 1 and 2 as if it were a scientific account of how God created, I strongly feel that using the church’s pulpits to preach something other than Christ crucified is a misuse. Actually, the word is idolatry. Absurd

Great picture, right?  Some have declared that this is evidence of Apple’s social consciousness, that they honor Rosa Parks on the front page of their website.  But is that what’s going on here?
Notice the picture choice; it shows Ms. Parks sitting in a bus, harkening back to the event that made her famous - her refusal to yield her seat to a white man, refusing to yield to dehumanizing laws.  The picture is black and white, and neither of the figures in the picture looks at the camera.  That the sole characters in the picture are a white man and rosa parks in an otherwise empty but also suggests that this might have been staged.  The picture has been edited, though.  Added to the left side of the picture, at the bottom is the name of Rosa Parks and her years of birth and death.  Added to the upper-left hand corner of the photo are Apple Computer’s Logo, a silhouette of an apple with a bite taken out, by now an almost universally recognized brand.  Below this is the tag:  “Think Different;” some will remember that years ago apple ran a very successful add campaign that played on that tag, and which featured the likes of Einstein, Bob Dylan, and Martin Luther King, Jr. among others.  This instance of the “Think Different” tag uses the same font as that original ad campaign, and one can only assume that the similarity is intentional.
The addition of the Apple logo and the tag dramatically change the companies implied relation to Rosa Parks.  Rather than change the format of their website; perhaps to give homage to this great woman by describing what she did; Apple, by applying their logo to the Photo of Ms. Parks insinuates that there is a similarity between the Ms. Parks’ actions on that Montgomery bus and Apple Computer.  Just what relationship is implied? Implied, because the message is not spelled out, but left to the viewer to piece together.  But the tag “Think Differently” gives the reader a direction toward which to bend their thoughts:  “Rosa Parks did not follow the mainstream of culture, neither does Apple Computer, if you want to be like her, buy a computer from us.”
This isn’t a very profound reading of this ad (that is what it is, you see; not a tribute).  In fact, the ad really is pretty straight forward.  I am bothered by it though, because Ms. Park’s action were not merely that of a person who bucks that social norm, but an act of peaceful resistance to social injustice.  Rosa Parks, and the Civil rights movement in general, was not about being counter-cultural, but about transforming an unjust social system into a just one, and that without violence.  Does buying an Apple computer an act of justice?  No, with respect to justice, buying an Apple Computer is just like buying any other computer:  they are all made in factories overseas under similar conditions.  Buying an Apple Computer may place one in the minority (Apple, reportedly having about 5% of the market share), it may make one cool; but Rosa Parks is not great because she was cool, or simply in the minority, but because she struggled for justice.
I think that this picture, as presented on Apple’s website, far from offering tribute to a great woman, in fact diminishes what she represents, and veils just what she stood for.  Apple is not offering tribute at all, but attempting to co-opt this great woman for their own economic gain.  Shame on them

yeah, that’s right.  I failed abysmally.
I found (with some help) a test that determines your worldview, you can take it, too, if you want.  Supposedly, if you get all the answers right they will sent you a certificate.
Well, I scored 42%, and (apparently) am a Secular Humanist Worldview Thinker.Here is the breakdown:

Scoring/Ratings Chart
Strong Biblical Worldview Thinker
75% - 100%
Moderate Biblical Worldview Thinker
50% - 74%
Secular Humanist Worldview Thinker
25% - 49%
Socialist Worldview Thinker
0% - 24%
Communist/Marxist/Socialist/Secular Humanist Worldview Thinker
under 0%

All silliness aside, I am really glad that I didn’t make the cut and get the certificate.  For those of you not taking the test right now here is a sample of the question (with my gut-level response

“The Bible, rightly divided, should be the foundation for all our beliefs, actions, and conduct.”

How do we divide the bible rightly?  And with what tool?

“When you study the Bible as a whole, it becomes clear that God is very supportive of an economic system that is based on private property, the work ethic, and personal responsibility.”

“strongly disagree” - I wonder what the “right answer was?”

“Values clarification courses or situational ethics should be taught to students in our educational system.”

Wait - those aren’t the same thing!

Go over and look at the website:  It is shot through with the assumption that America and Christianity are pretty much synonymous, and that America is the instrument by which God enacts His public policy (which, naturally, is of the Republican, heavily Supply-side Economics, Pull-youself-up-by-your-Bootstraps Pro-War variety).  I suppose that I should not be bothered by the fact that I failed their phony test, but I am.  I dislike being labeled as a secular humanist:  I am not, and many of the answers i gave would never have been given by one.  I am bothered by the fact that my failing the political test also determines the results of the faith test.
Here is what I suggest:
“The Bible, rightly divided, should be the foundation for all our beliefs, actions, and conduct.”
The Bible, rightly divided, does not lead one to discount the faith of others based on whether they are Republican or not.
Okay, I’ll stop the diatribe now.