"Elemental": a movie about immigration, culture, and giving up the life your parents built for you

Ember (fire girl) and Wade (water boy). Image source.

Well I'm late to the party on this, but I just saw the 2023 Pixar movie "Elemental" and I LOVED IT. !!!!! Why didn't anyone tell me this was a movie about immigration and cultural differences? I would have watched it much sooner! I knew it was a "forbidden love" sort of story between a fire character and water character, but it's more than that.

Here's an overview of the movie: In the beginning scenes, 2 fire people leave Fireland and immigrate to Element City. ("Fire people" are basically anthropomorphized flames walking around.) Element City is very much NOT built for fire people. There's water flowing and dripping in lots of public places (probably the city was designed for water people). These immigrants built a little shop which sells things to other fire people, and over time more fire people moved to their section of the city. Their daughter, Ember, works in the shop, and her father says she will take over the shop when she's ready.

Then Ember meets Wade, a water person, and they get to know each other and eventually fall in love. Wade is more naive and idealistic than Ember- he is ready to go against all the societal norms so they can be together. For Ember, it's not the simple. She doesn't have the same privileged background that Wade does. Her parents worked hard and sacrificed so much to come to Element City and build a life for themselves and for her, and she feels she can't reject all of that just because she has feelings for Wade.

I was very impressed with how this movie portrayed the sense of being out of place, of standing out in a foreign environment, of being constantly inconvenienced by societal structures which everyone else feels are normal. When Ember goes into the city, and when she goes to Wade's home to meet his family, there are no other fire people there, and she very much stands out. She always carries an umbrella with her, and whips it out many times to protect herself from water being splashed around, while all the water people aren't bothered at all by getting wet- it's a constant inconvenience for her, that other people don't even notice. Even Wade, who accompanies her and wants to help her, fits in so well and is so comfortable in that environment, so he can't *truly* understand what she's going through. 

I have experienced a lot of this, as a white person living in China. As a white person visiting my Chinese husband's family. And also, from the other side of it- bringing my husband to meet my family in the US.

Another theme in the movie is about how cute ideas like "follow your heart" land extremely differently for someone from a privileged, majority-culture background vs an immigrant/minority background. Both Ember and Wade come from families where "elements don't mix", but when Wade decides to challenge this ideology, it's very different than if Ember was challenging it. In Ember's case, her parents have sacrificed so much, and lived through constant discrimination from water people, and worked so hard keeping their little shop going... the idea that she can just turn her back on all of that, just because she loves a water guy? She can't.

My experience with this is that I grew up in an evangelical culture which admired missionaries. We were all so impressed by Americans who were "called by God" to give up everything and go live in some scary poor country. We talked about this "calling" like it could just strike anyone, out of the blue, you're a normal Christian and then one day you're praying and you hear God saying "goooo to Chinaaaaa" and then you have to give up everything and go.

So I was always in this ideology where it was seen as heroic to give up your whole culture and lifestyle for God. We believed our lives didn't really belong to ourselves, but to God, and we should be totally willing to "surrender all."

When I moved to China, it wasn't as a missionary, and it wasn't because "God called me", but it was still very much influenced by this Christian missions ideology. Viewing my lifestyle and culture as something that can easily be sacrificed, something that is not truly mine.

At some point, I realized that the only reason I felt so okay with giving up these things was because I was so privileged- I had always taken for granted that I would have them. I had worked hard, sure, but never with the threat of "if I don't work hard enough, I won't be able to have that kind of [normal white American college-educated] life."

As an example (which I wrote about here: Privilege and "Putting God First"): When I was in college, I was very involved with bible study groups and other Christian activities. I dedicated a LOT of my time to them. And all of us in those groups would always talk about how bible study was more important than the other things in our lives, like homework. About how we needed to get our priorities right, and put God first. Following God was a higher priority than doing well in our classes.

I was only able to think that way because my entire life, I had always taken for granted that I would go to college. There was never any possibility that I wouldn't go to college. And so, it was easy to act like it didn't matter, like "yeah I'd totally give this up for God." To act like I didn't value it. 

I knew other students who were the first people in their families to go to college. And I knew international students whose parents had spent a lot of money to send them to school in the US. Do you think they were walking around talking about how doing well in school didn't *really* matter, and all that mattered was devotion to God?

And from a parent's perspective, how does it feel if you've worked so hard to give your child a good life, and then the child decides they don't want that life at all? Like it's something they can give up so easily? This can go in several different ways, depending on how privileged you are. If the child wants to do something different than what the parent wanted, but it would still work out okay, then the parent should hopefully accept that. But if the child decides they want to go back to the kind of difficult, dangerous life that the parent worked so hard to escape from, well that's not so good.

So I really enjoyed "Elemental," because it showed the experience of being an immigrant and feeling out-of-place in a foreign environment. And how the typical Disney-movie message of "be yourself, follow your heart, don't be limited by your parents' expectations" can play out very differently depending on how privileged your family background is.

---

Related:

On Marriage as an Immigrant in China

Privilege and "Putting God First" 

Culture, Objectivity, God, and the Real Reason I Moved to China 

Runaway Radical: Radical Christian Missions 

"The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" is About Being an Immigrant

The Privilege and Complicity of Fix-It Felix Jr

Zootopia, an Adorable Disney Cartoon about Systemic Racism 

Buzz Lightyear and the Years We Lost to Covid

I'm not sure about "the cruelty is the point"

xkcd comic showing a person on their computer. Someone says to them, "Are you coming to bed?" "I can't. This is important." "What?" "Someone is wrong on the internet." Image source.

Recently on the progressive/liberal side of the internet, I've been seeing this phrase pop up many times: "the cruelty is the point."

For example, maybe someone writes a blog post about a "pro-life" law which doesn't even allow abortion for a fetus with a health condition such that it can't survive. Why? Why? Why? What could possibly be the reason for this law? How can you force a pregnant person in that terrible situation to continue to carry a pregnancy, and suffer all the health problems and risks that come with it, along with the emotional trauma of knowing their baby will not survive? The comments section on such a blog post will be full of comments saying "the cruelty is the point."

The first time I heard this idea, "the cruelty is the point", I *did* think it was meaningful. If you can't make sense of what might motivate someone to do something that negatively affects other people, well, maybe we should consider the possibility that they genuinely want to make other people suffer. After we've tried so hard to figure out someone's motives, and we've come up empty, here's a novel idea. That was how I first understood "the cruelty is the point," and I did think it was helpful, if understood in that way.

But recently I've been seeing comments like this everywhere, and I don't like it. People discussing policies proposed by Republicans which would harm immigrants, trans people, poor people, women, etc- these policies are cruel and we need to fight them. But in general I don't think it's true that "the cruelty is the point," and by saying this, we are spreading misinformation about the motives of people who disagree with us. I don't like how I'm seeing this comment everywhere now, like it's the go-to response when we read about a cruel conservative policy. 

(When I say "everywhere" I just mean the parts of the internet I spend time on. Maybe you haven't seen this phenomenon, in which case you can pretty much ignore this post. But please be skeptical of "the cruelty is the point" if you ever come across it in the future.)

"The cruelty is the point" can explain the motivations of some fraction of people. Maybe they're just sadistic, or maybe they think there are certain groups of people who deserve to be punished, so it's right to make laws which cause those groups to suffer. But in general, no, I don't think this is the main thing that motivates people to support policies which we would call cruel. By jumping so quickly to "the cruelty is the point", we are reducing people to a caricature. This is misinformation.

There are plenty of other reasons people might support bad policies! They likely have different beliefs about how the world works, which lead them to conclude that these bad policies are actually good. Maybe they believe that policies which you might not like will help you to be a better person in the long run. Maybe they want members of their in-group to view them positively, and voicing support for certain political ideas will accomplish that. Plenty of reasons. Not *good* reasons, but more realistic and relatably-human than just "the cruelty is the point."

It is just NOT TRUE that people who support conservative political ideas are mainly motivated by cruelty. Maybe it's true in some cases, but overall, no, it's not. Does it matter what their actual motives are? Well, not necessarily, because we have to fight back against their bad policies regardless. But if your goal is to talk to people and persuade them to change their minds, then you should find out their actual reasons first. If that's not your goal, well that's fine, you're not required to understand bigots, but at least you shouldn't claim that you know they're simply motivated by cruelty.

And think about how it comes across, if somebody supports bad policy xyz for reasons that they think are good reasons, and then they see people on the internet saying that the people who support xyz must be motivated by cruelty. Their response will be "wow, this person doesn't know the first thing about this actual issue" because we're out here on the internet confidently making completely wrong assertions about other people's internal thoughts. 

Maybe let's not do that?

---

Related:

On Washing Machines and Republicans

Blogaround

1. Epiphanies (January 6) "If the person and the life of Jesus Christ taught us humans everything we need to know about God, that life also taught God what it is like to be one of us."

Also from the Slacktivist: Lost in the flood (January 7) "It’s darkly ironic that the rejection of that fact — the refusal to accept that the Bible is often bigger, stranger, more complicated and polyvalent — is referred to as 'a high view of scripture.'"

And: But in Canada, they have waiting lists (January 9) "This whole time, again, my wife is dealing — every day — with a condition that’s painful and inconvenient and disabling and that risks her long-term health."

2. Meta says it will end fact checking as Silicon Valley prepares for Trump (January 7) "The move comes as Meta and other tech companies are working to smooth what has been a rocky relationship with Trump." Oh this sounds bad.

3. Shigatse Earthquake: Over 120 Dead as Rescuers Battle Cold and Rubble (January 8) "A day after a 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck southwestern China’s Xizang Autonomous Region, the toll has climbed to at least 126 dead, 188 injured, and over 3,600 homes reduced to rubble."

4. Stripe Tales of the Ace and Aro flags (January 8) "I think using colors to represent specific groups raises too many questions about what groups are included or not included, and who 'deserves' to be on the flag."

5. Melchizedek: How a Literary Phantom Became an Eternal Priest and Savior of Israel (September 21) "Jews who interpreted Psalm 110 as a historical poem about Abraham would have discovered that it contained four surplus details about Abraham that were not originally explained in Genesis 14. Granarød believes that the Melchizedek character was invented on the basis of Psalm 110:4 and added to Genesis 14 to fill in those gaps."

6. This New Immigration Bill That’s About to Pass Is a Horrifying Trojan Horse (January 10) "In short, under the guise of punishing a small number of lawbreaking undocumented immigrants, the act would curtail legal immigration and subject law-abiding immigrants to detention and deportation. It is baffling that so many Democrats would sign on to such a cruel and constitutionally dubious scheme."

7. Anita Bryant, a popular singer who became known for opposition to gay rights, dead at age 84 (January 11)

8. Mantracks: a True Story of Fake Fossils (January 11) 1-hour-25-minute video from Dan Olson about the young-earth-creationist claim that human and dinosaur footprints have been discovered together. 

Wow! This video is very well-done. When I was a young-earth creationist, I mostly followed Answers in Genesis, and their position is that these human footprints are fake. Dan Olson talks about this in his video- how some creationists are just shameless grifters, and some are trying to look like real scientists, but they all share this ideology which is incompatible with how science actually works. Real science is about realizing you were wrong, changing your ideas when new evidence comes out- but from a creationist perspective, this is seen as a fundamental weakness. We already know the right answers from the bible, supposedly. Scientists are wrong and you can see that because they have to keep making changes to their theories, whereas we don't have to do that because we're already right.

9. Atheist group faces backlash after publishing, then removing, anti-trans article (December 29, via) "The whole piece is nothing more than anti-trans bigotry wrapped up in a cloak of science."

What Would Abraham Do? (a bible fanfic)

A painting which shows the angel knocking the knife out of Abraham's hand, as Abraham holds Isaac down. Image source.

[content note: it's about the bible story where God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac]

When Sarah got up in the morning, Abraham had already left.

He had told her the night before, he and Isaac were going up the mountain to offer a sacrifice. Isaac was a little young, she thought, but perhaps Abraham thought it was time for him to come along on one of these trips. They would probably be gone for several days; the mountain was far.

In the afternoon, their servant Eliezer came by her tent, while Sarah was making bread. She asked him if he had helped Abraham get one of the goats that morning, for the sacrifice.

"Hmm? No, he didn't come to me for a goat this morning," said Eliezer.

"Maybe a sheep?" asked Sarah.

"No, I didn't talk to him at all this morning. I did see them as they were leaving though- Abraham, Isaac, and two of my sons."

Sarah looked confused. "But they must have taken a goat- he said God told him they should go present a sacrifice."

"Are you sure?" asked Eliezer. "It doesn't make sense. I don't think he's making a sacrifice this time. I can tell you they definitely didn't take a goat with them."

"Okay..." said Sarah, still puzzled. She was sure Abraham had told her that he was going to sacrifice an offering.

After Eliezer left, she continued to think about it as she made her bread. He had definitely told her the night before, that he and Isaac were going to sacrifice an offering. Maybe they changed their plans? But, that didn't make sense either- Abraham had said that God commanded him to sacrifice an offering.

Last time, it was Abraham, the two servants, and the goat. But this time, it was Abraham, the two servants, and Isaac.

Wait.

No, she thought.

Oh no...

He wouldn't.

He wouldn't... right?

She thought about what he had said the night before. It was very normal and routine- sometimes he took two of the servants and traveled for a few days, and this time he was taking Isaac along. He had said it like it was no big deal. But, as she thought about it, she seemed to remember there was something about the way he talked, something more serious in his voice, like he was afraid and trying to hide it.

She ran it over in her head again and again.

No, it couldn't be... He wouldn't...

She grew more and more nervous, and finally she couldn't help herself- she rushed outside and started to run in the direction of the mountain, with wild thoughts of saving her son and bringing him home. Where was he? Her perfect little boy, her little ray of sunshine, who had brought laughter into her life- he was somewhere out there, on that mountain.

She slowed down and came to a stop. There was no way she could catch up with them. They had left hours ago. There was nothing she could do.

All around her, she heard birds singing. Nothing out of the ordinary. Everything felt normal.

So... she would just have to go back to her tent and wait. And not know if Isaac would even come back or not. No... she couldn't imagine what her life would be without Isaac... 

But surely she was being ridiculous. She shouldn't jump to conclusions.

But... When she asked herself whether Abraham would really do that, if his God commanded it... she honestly didn't know the answer. And that terrified her.

He wouldn't, right?

Sarah tried to sleep that night, but all she could think about was her son's beautiful face. The way he talked, the way he laughed, the way he was learning how to help with chores, the way he asked questions, the way he seemed to light up when he was telling her about some interesting thing he had done... He was with his father, so, was he safe? She didn't know. She honestly didn't know.

He wouldn't, right?

She knew she would have to wait a few days for Abraham to come back. It was torture. She tried to go about her life, tried to work just like she usually did, but she couldn't stop thinking about Isaac, worrying for his safety. Wondering if Abraham was the kind of man who would... who would...

No, he wouldn't, right?

What if he would? And there was nothing she could do about it. She didn't even know where Isaac was right then. Somewhere on that mountain.

The days passed so slowly.

Finally, on the seventh day, they came back. 

She heard the servants calling out, and she rushed out of the tent to see what was happening. She was terrified- what if Isaac wasn't with him?

Far away, on the horizon, she saw them- Abraham, Isaac, the two servants, and the donkey. She collapsed right there on the ground, and cried, overwhelmed by all the stress of the past few days. Isaac was safe! He was safe. He was coming home.

She couldn't believe she had been so worried. She couldn't believe she had really thought...

Later, she asked Abraham if he had really offered a sacrifice to God, because he hadn't taken a goat. Abraham said that God had provided a ram, stuck in the bushes, on the mountain, and he had offered that as a sacrifice.

At first she was relieved, and thought about how silly she had been. Of course he was sacrificing a ram. Of course it wasn't... Isaac... their son... of course not. Why had she thought that?

Thank goodness, he wouldn't.

But, still, something didn't add up. They just happened to find a ram stuck in the bushes? Did he know it was going to be there beforehand, when he decided not to take a goat on the trip? How would he have known that? Did God tell him...? She felt there was still something a bit off about this story.

But Isaac was safe. That's all that mattered.

---

Isaac lay in bed that night, unable to sleep. He kept thinking about how his father had tied him up, and raised the knife...

An angel stopped him. And then he killed a ram instead. Isaac kept thinking about the way his father cut that ram's throat, and its blood poured out... Of course he had seen his father kill livestock before, but this time it was different.

It had been a test from God, apparently. And God was pleased, because now God knew that Abraham really would do it.

But, Isaac thought, what if next time there was no angel?

Yes, now God knew that Abraham would do it.

But, even worse, Isaac also knew Abraham would do it.

---

Other bible fanfics:

Love Wins (an Ezra fanfic) 

Strange Fire 

Noah's Evangelism 

Mary's Choice

Related:

Thanos Tested 

For Rizpah (or, a post about human sacrifice in the bible)

No One Can Take The Bible From Me 

Bathsheba's Son

Don't know why I never realized this about Old Testament prophets

Stained glass image of a biblical prophet. Image source.

So here's an interesting post: How a Tale of Demonic Possession Predicted the Decline of an Early Medieval Empire (via).

In the ninth century, Frankish courtier Einhard was, apparently, exorcising a demon. Turns out the demon's name was Wiggo and he had some things to say about the ruling class:

He was Satan’s doorkeeper, Wiggo declared. He had been roaming the land of the Franks with 11 friends for the last several years. “Following our instructions,” the demon continued, “we destroyed the grain, grapes and all the earth’s produce that is useful to mankind. We slaughtered the stock with disease and even directed plague and pestilence against human beings.” The priest asked what had given Wiggo such power. The demon replied, “By reason of the perverseness of this people, and of the manifold sins of those who are set up to rule over them.”

The sins of the Franks and their rulers had made the land fertile for Wiggo and his friends. This was a land without justice in which greed ran rampant: The powerful “abuse the higher place,” Wiggo said, “which they received that they might justly rule their subjects, giving themselves up to pride and vainglory; hatred and malice they direct not only against those who are far off but against their neighbors and those with whom they are allied; friend mistrusts friend, brother hates brother, and father has no love for son.” None, Wiggo concluded, gave honor to God as they did in previous generations. His speech finished and his work apparently done, the demon left the girl, overcome by the power of the martyrs’ relics.

The article is about how people used stories about demons (and other supernatural happenings) as a way to indirectly call out their leaders' abuses of power. Because, you can't really go tell the king "here's my opinion on what you're doing wrong." But you can say "a demon told me that it's been given power to cause all these problems in our society because of the bad behavior of our rulers."

Fascinating!

And, here's a question: What if the prophets from the bible were doing something similar?

I've always conceptualized the Old Testament prophets like this: 

So, God gave all these laws to his people, and they need to simply follow those laws, and God will bless them and make their society prosperous. It's not that hard, just follow the laws. Mostly about believing in the correct religion, and doing whatever little arbitrary traditions God set up, like how exactly to sacrifice animals and when to have feasts and whatever.

But the Israelite people strayed from God and didn't follow his laws. Ugh, you guys, why can't you just do this? It's not that hard. So God sent prophets to tell them "come on you guys, you need to stop worshiping those bad gods, and worship the correct god instead, otherwise all kinds of terrible things will happen to you."

But for the most part the people didn't listen to the prophets. God kept stalling for time, kept delaying the punishment that they deserved, but eventually he let the Assyrians invade Israel and the Babylonians invade Judah, as punishment for the people's sin. And that "sin" was basically believing in the wrong gods.

Basically, when I was evangelical, I took it at face value what the Old Testament prophets said. The people weren't faithful to God, so God sends prophets to warn them, but that doesn't work, so eventually he lets other armies invade and conquer them.

But hey wait a minute, what if it was more like this instead:

It wasn't about "the people" sinning. It was about the rulers and upper class. And their "sin" wasn't simply about believing in the "wrong" gods- it was about oppression and injustice and how they didn't help the poor. And it wasn't really God telling the prophets these things- that was just a way to frame their criticism so that they would be allowed to say it. And when enemy armies invaded, that wasn't actually related to their society's sin. It was unrelated but offered a convenient narrative for the prophets to use.

Hmm, interesting.

Also, I always read the rebuke from Old Testament prophets as being primarily about "you guys are following the wrong gods instead of the right god"- simply about what label you put on your religious activities, not about what you actually *do* and the way you actually *treat people*. Sure, if you had asked me why the other religions were bad, I would have trotted out some apologetics answer about "those other religions had human sacrifice and prostitution" but that was a secondary concern for me- the main concern was that the god you have in mind when you do your worship isn't the right one.

And I always read the bible from that mindset. If the prophets primarily wrote about social justice, I would not even have noticed. Sure, I know there are a few bible passages where the prophets' criticisms are about the way they treat people, and not about which religion they belong to- like Isaiah 58. But mostly their criticism was about which god(s) the people believed in, right? Right? ... It would be fascinating to read the bible again and see if the prophets' writings are mostly about social justice or about what label you use for your god(s).

Another thing I wonder: The people who believed in demons back then- in the bible or in ninth-century Europe- what did those beliefs look like exactly? Did they literally believe it, or was it more of a vibes-based thing?

I've been ex-evangelical for a long time, but I don't think I've thought about this before. Were the biblical prophets speaking to all the people, about their religious affiliation, or were they speaking to those in power, about their failure to create a just society? And were the eventual invasions by Assyria and Babylon really punishments from God, or were they just things that happened that the prophets used as part of their story?

---

Related:

Don't Protect God 

Maybe Jesus Was A Pharisee

My mind is blown by how cool the Synoptic Problem is 

No One Can Take The Bible From Me 

The Bible Stories As I Read Them Were Never Actually In The Bible

Blogaround

1. If you've signed up for Bluesky, you've signed up for offloadable moderation. (January 1, via) "So instead of communicating, for instance, 'if you see a flagrantly racist post, report it to staff, and we'll take it down,' the BS stance on the matter is 'if you see a flagrantly racist post, use this optional feature to label it as racist, and other users can opt-in to your moderation judgment about that post while we as a platform continue to host it.'"

2. New Residency Based Tax Bill Introduced in the House of Representatives (December 18) Cool, this is a bill intended to help US citizens living abroad who don't owe US taxes but are still required to file every year.

Let me tell you a bit about what I have to do in terms of filing US taxes, as a US citizen living in China long-term: If you are a US citizen abroad, you have to file a US tax return every year, even if you don't owe anything. If you are outside the US for at least 330 days of the year (er, not exactly "the year", it's a bit more complicated than that, but to make it easier to understand I'll just say "330 days of the year"), then you can exclude all your foreign-earned income, and you do not have to pay US income tax on it. (I have an American friend in China who told me about how he had to carefully plan exactly how long his US vacations would be, otherwise he would owe tens of thousands of dollars in income tax, yikes. My US vacations have been short enough I haven't had to worry about this.) Anyway, I meet this requirement, so I don't owe any US income tax on my income from my job in China. I also have income in the US, just interest on bank accounts, nothing big, and that would be taxed but it's low enough that it's less than the standard deduction so I don't owe any tax on that either.

(I'm lucky since my parents have tax software and just do this for me. But I imagine it would be quite a pain to have to figure out how to file taxes on your own, and what's the point if you don't even owe anything.)

So, I'm glad to see this new bill which is aimed at simplifying all this for Americans living abroad. In practical terms, I'm not sure it will help *me* that much- looks like I will need to file anyway because I do have some US income, but at least I won't have to fill out the FBAR form, so that's nice. Seems like it will be most helpful for Americans who don't have any US income.

3. A Profile In Courage (December 18) "With so many terrible examples of how not to take on Trump, Judge Juan Merchan in Manhattan shines a light on the correct way forward."

4. All right, I have no idea what to make of this, but the orange antichrist said that any international student who graduates from a US college should automatically get a US green card (I found this link via Jay Kuo).

Various thoughts that I have about this:

• He says a lot of things. Just because he says something doesn't mean it has any connection to what he actually believes or plans to do. So we shouldn't view this like it's an actual serious policy which is going to happen.
• I like this! Think about it: International students graduating from college in the US. They've already lived in the US for several years. They already have their stuff here. They're likely already renting an apartment, and have a US bank account. They already have experience speaking English and interacting with American society. And then when they graduate, they have to worry about if they'll be able to find an employer who can sponsor them on a work visa- they have a limited amount of time before their current visa expires. Why not just give them a green card so they don't have to be stressed about whether or not they'll suddenly be kicked out of the country due to the unstable whims of their employer? That would really be a huge help.
• This would be a huge change in immigration policy. Does the orange antichrist realize that? (I very much don't think this will actually happen, because it's such a huge change.)
• This video (I don't know the original date of it) has surfaced now, in the context of the conflict between the "just really racist and anti-immigrant" faction of MAGA and the "US tech companies need to be able to hire highly educated immigrants from Asia" faction of MAGA. (Please note that ELON MUSK IS AN IMMIGRANT. On some level, I've always been baffled by his support of the MAGA movement. I guess he's just so incredibly confident that he will be seen as "one of the good ones.") I try not to care that much about these internal fights where both sides are terrible.

5. Biden Commutes 37 of 40 Federal Death Row Sentences: WTF? (December 23) This is a post from Rev. Jeff Hood. He is a spiritual advisor to inmates on death row, and an activist who believes the death penalty should be abolished. He is not happy with Biden for commuting 37 out of 40 death sentences- why not all 40? He calls this "a moral abyss of federal sentencing that only pursues death sentences in rare cases, prioritizing some murder victims above all others."

Well, yeah, I agree that it doesn't make sense to commute 37 out of 40. When I saw the news that Biden had commuted 37 out of 40 death sentences, I was happy to see it because it's better than not doing that, but I do feel it's weird to not commute all of them. Feels like 3 of them were not commuted simply because they're the ones we've all seen in the news, that we have feelings about- but the 37 whose sentences were commuted are also murderers. If you read about them, wow, they've done really horrific things, it's not like they're "not as bad" as the 3 that you had already heard about. I think commuting these death sentences should be about an ideological belief that it's immoral for a society to have a death penalty. It's not about "oh these criminals don't really deserve the death penalty, but those other ones do."

6. I'm Suing Honey (January 3) Wow! Legal Eagle is bringing a class action lawsuit against Honey for stealing affiliate commissions.

7. Siri “unintentionally” recorded private convos; Apple agrees to pay $95M (January 3, via) "The only clue that users seemingly had of Siri's alleged spying was eerily accurate targeted ads that appeared after they had just been talking about specific items like Air Jordans or brands like Olive Garden, Reuters noted (claims which remain disputed)."

8. As Trump rewrites history, victims of the Jan. 6 riot say they feel 'betrayed' (January 5) "'All these elected officials, they don't care about the officers - people like myself that put their lives on the line to protect them,' he said. 'We did our job and gave them the time to escape, to evacuate the building. And they seem to have forgotten the fear that Donald Trump's mob made them feel.'"

Recurring Donations

Clip art image of hands putting coins into a box for charity. Image source.

Heyyy it's January so it's time for my annual post about setting up monthly donations to charity!

I think most people don't really have much of a plan about donating to charity. If they happen to see something that makes them feel sad about some situation in the world, then they go donate, but they don't have a "rational" overall strategy for it. What I mean is, you should ask yourself these questions: How much money do I want to donate to charity this year? Which issues are important to me, which should be prioritized in my charity budget?

Pick organizations that are doing good work, and set up monthly donations to them. Even if it's just $10/month, that's great, charities like to have monthly donations. Do it this way so you can be really intentional about what your priorities are. Not haphazardly based on when somebody happened to ask you, or when you saw something in the news that made you sad.

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And I'll put a plug here for RAICES, which helps immigrants in the US with legal representation. If you're looking for a way to help immigrants, donate to them~

"Children of God Storybook Bible" (kids' book review)

Book cover for "Children of God Storybook Bible."

If you've been following my blog for a while, you will know that I don't like how bible stories are typically presented to kids, but also I want to read books to my son to introduce him to the bible. I've tried out a few kids' bible story books and reviewed them on my blog. Here's a review of Children of God Storybook Bible, by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

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Content

This book contains 56 bible stories:

• 24 stories (43%) are from the Old Testament
• 32 stories (57%) are from the New Testament. (Of these, 27 are about Jesus.)

As for the actual bible, a quick google tells me that the Old Testament is about 75% of the bible. Now, from a Christian perspective you can certainly make a case that the stories about Jesus are the most important part of the bible, so maybe it makes sense to have these overrepresented in children's bibles. But, still, it misrepresents what the bible is. 

I think it's common that people learn about the bible through this kind of "telling stories to children" method, and so they never find out that the real bible is so much weirder and, frankly, ****ed-up than what we see in children's books. This bothers me greatly.

As for which stories were chosen to include in "Children of God Storybook Bible," mostly it's the ones you'd expect, you got your creation of the world, Joseph's coat of many colors, Moses and the burning bush, etc. But there were a few surprising inclusions and omissions:

Surprising inclusion: Naboth's vineyard (1 Kings 21). Wowwww I don't think I've EVER seen the story of Naboth's vineyard included in a children's bible! What were they thinking??? Here's the gist of it: King Ahab wanted to buy a vineyard from a guy named Naboth, but Naboth refused to sell. So Queen Jezebel arranged to have Naboth falsely accused of cursing God and the king, and executed. Then Ahab took his vineyard. Then God sent the prophet Elijah to Ahab to prophesy that he and Jezebel would be punished for this- that they would be killed. Ahab made a show of repenting, so God amended it to say this punishment would happen to Ahab's household in the time of Ahab's son instead.

WHAT? I mean, yeah, this is a good example of how most bible stories are like, WHAT? They're not cute little morality lessons. Why would you tell the story of Naboth's vineyard to little kids? My first thought when I saw this here was "oh, maybe this is good because it pulls back the curtain a bit and shows kids that the bible isn't a bunch of nice stories." But then the second thing I thought was, "imagine you're a little kid, and the way the bible has always been presented to you is as if it's a bunch of nice stories, and then you read this, and you have to force yourself to believe that this is a nice story- wouldn't you end up even more messed-up?"

Reminds me of my thoughts, when I was a little kid, about the story of Jacob stealing his brother Esau's blessing (Genesis 27). This is a common one in little kids' bibles (it is not in "Children of God Storybook Bible" though). Basically, Esau was the older twin and so there was a tradition that their father, Isaac, should recite a blessing for Esau. But Jacob put on Esau's clothes and pretended to be him (Isaac had bad eyesight) and tricked Isaac into blessing him instead. 

Hmm, sounds like what Jacob did was wrong, doesn't it? Also kinda messed-up that he took advantage of Isaac's bad eyesight and tricked him.

But the way these stories are told to little kids, Jacob is one of the "good guys" and Esau is a "bad guy." Many many times in the bible, the three patriarchs of the Israelite people are listed: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob was the father of the 12 tribes of Israel. Whereas, Esau, apparently God just didn't like Esau.

So when I was a little kid, and heard this story of how Jacob stole Esau's blessing, I didn't think "wow that was a really bad thing that Jacob did." I wasn't able to even have a thought in that direction, because I knew that Jacob was a "good guy" and Esau was a "bad guy." I remember I was a teenager when this dawned on me- hey, wait a minute, lying to his father and stealing the blessing which was really important to his brother, those are bad things to do, aren't they? Aren't they? Why has no one pointed that out before??? I remember asking myself, "wait a minute, all the times I heard this story in Sunday school, what cute moral lesson did they even claim it was meant to teach???" (I *think* it might have been, Jacob was a trickster, but God loved him anyway- how wonderful that even though we are all imperfect, we can still be part of God's plan.)

So my fear is that including the story of Naboth's vineyard is NOT going to make kids realize "oh, the bible is not a bunch of nice stories about how we need to love God, and God always saves his followers." Instead, kids are going to hear it as "we know the bible is a bunch of nice stories, and therefore this story about Naboth being falsely accused and executed is also a nice story which teaches us a nice lesson about God." And you twist your brain in order to make yourself believe that, and you end up with even more exvangelical trauma.

You may think I'm reading way too much into this. Maybe I am. I grew up evangelical and really took them seriously when they said the bible is "God's love letter to us" and we need to read the bible every day and apply it to our lives, we need to memorize the bible as much as we can, and the bible is inerrant. I really truly bought into all that.

I'm not raising my son in that kind of environment, obviously. So he can hear these bible stories and be fine and he won't get trauma from them, because to him they are just stories. No one is teaching him that the bible is meant to be an authority over his life and he has to force himself to believe it is THE moral standard.

Moving along:

Surprising omissions: "Children of God Storybook Bible" does NOT include the story of Abraham almost sacrificing his son Isaac (Genesis 22), and it does NOT include the story of Joshua and the battle of Jericho (Joshua 6). These are staples of children's bibles; I'm surprised they are not here. But, also, holy crap, I HATE SO MUCH the way these stories are taught to kids. It's GOOD that they're not included in this book.

Abraham and Isaac- God tells Abraham to go up on a mountain and sacrifice his son. Abraham obeys, and just as he is picking up the knife to kill his son, an angel intervenes and says not to really do it, it was a test, and God is pleased with Abraham for passing the test, being willing to kill his own son at God's command. Hey, little kids, what a lovely story, it teaches us that we should always obey God. It was good that Abraham was willing to kill his son, this makes him a role model of faith (rather than a dangerous person who should be locked up, my GOD). Your parents should kill you too if God ever tells them!

Joshua and the battle of Jericho- After God brought the Israelites out of Egypt, God led them to the promised land, where people were already living, so obviously they needed to kill those people and take their homes. The first city they came to was Jericho. God told the Israelites to trust him, and that he would help them win their battles. And that they needed to march around the city for 7 days, and the walls would miraculously collapse. So they did that, and then they killed every person in Jericho- men, women, and children (except Rahab's family because she helped them). Wow, little kids, what a wonderful story! It teaches us that we should always obey God, even when God tells us to do something that doesn't make sense, like marching around the walls of a city, haha that was so silly, wasn't it? Such a good story, it teaches us that God keeps his promises. God promised to give the Israelites the land, and he did! And they killed everyone who was living there! Such a great story! Such a nice moral lesson for us!

You think I'm joking, but I'm not. It really is that bad.

So, it's surprising that these 2 stories aren't in this book, but also, that's a good thing.

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I don't like how each story ends with a little prayer

At the end of each bible story, there's a little one-line prayer. 

• Many of these are pretty typical bible-lessons-for-kids fare: "Dear God, thank you for giving us each other to love." "Dear God, help me to trust your promises."
• Some of them come across a bit more social-justice-oriented than what I have typically seen in children's bibles: "Dear God, help me to bring freedom to all of your children." "Dear God, let me love all people no matter where they come from." "Dear God, help me to protect the powerless." I like this!

But: I strongly dislike this framing device. It reads like each of these bible stories can be summed up into a tidy little prayer; like each bible story teaches us a nice little lesson about how to be a better person, or about some wonderful thing God has done.

To be fair, a lot of the stories about Jesus actually can be summed up that way. The stories about Jesus are much less likely to be problematic compared to the violent Old Testament stories. So I'm fine with presenting most stories about Jesus to kids as "here's a nice lesson we learn from it."

And actually, maybe the issue I'm having with "Children of God Storybook Bible" isn't so much that the individual stories picked for this book are problematic, but that I'm so extremely aware of which large sections of the bible have been skipped. (For example, there's nothing at all from the books of Joshua or Judges in "Children of God Storybook Bible.") See that's the difficulty with having a "children's bible" with content that spans the whole bible- it gives the impression of being a children's version of the bible, rather than what it actually is, which is an extremely careful and deliberate cherry-picking of individual bible stories which can be kinda-sorta salvaged into something like a nice kids' story, unlike the majority of the bible. That's why I feel good about the books I bought for my son which tell only 1 bible story each. If it's not pretending to be the whole bible, then you don't have the dilemma of "just skip the messed-up parts" vs "tell the messed-up parts to kids and pretend they're not messed-up."

(But actually, aren't I doing the same thing? I am very carefully picking books for my son, each book containing 1 single bible story that I deem appropriate for children. Once I accumulate a whole bunch of these books, won't I have a collection that spans the whole bible while also having giant glaringly-obvious gaps, just like "Children of God Storybook Bible" does? Uh. Yeah this is why I'm having such a hard time figuring out how to introduce bible stories to my son.)

Also, above the title of each bible story, there's a sort of summary phrase- for example, the story about Adam and Eve being kicked out of the Garden of Eden is titled "Leaving the Garden", and above the title there's the text "God loves us even when we do wrong." The story about Jacob's dream with the angels on a ladder is titled "A Wonderful Dream" and the text above it is "God speaks to Jacob." Sort of ... taking each story and summarizing it in a way that puts a positive spin on it. I also do not like this.

I feel like, if it was just telling the stories, maybe I can work with that. But summing each story up with a tidy little prayer- no, I don't like that.

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As an example, here's the story of Noah's ark, as told by "Children of God Storybook Bible"

God begins again

Noah's Ark

Genesis 6-9

Before long, people started fighting and hurting one another terribly. God wept that they were not enjoying the lovely earth he had made. Finally, he said, "I must make a new beginning. I will send a flood to cover the whole earth."

But one man named Noah was kind and did what was right.

God told Noah to build a big boat called an ark. Then God said, "Gather all your family and two of every kind of animal, bird, and insect." God sent the rain, and Noah led everyone into the ark. For forty days and forty nights it rained so hard that the water covered even the highest mountains.

Boy, did it smell inside the ark! And the noise! The ROARing and the BAAing, the NEIGHing and the MOOing! But-- amazingly-- everyone got along. Yes, even the lion lay down with the lamb.

At last the rain stopped. Noah sent out a dove in search of land. When the bird returned with an olive leaf, Noah and his family cheered. Noah thanked God for saving them.

God told Noah, "I promise not to send another flood to cover the whole earth." And God made a beautiful rainbow so people would never forget his promise.

Dear God, thank you for rainbows and for keeping your promise to us.

You see what I mean about how this is presented as a nice story that teaches us a nice lesson? God felt that everyone in the world- the entire population of the earth- was so evil they deserve to DIE (except Noah and his family), so God sent a flood to kill them all, and we tell kids that this is a good thing.

Meme that says "Am I the only one around here who doesn't want to teach my kid it's good when God kills everyone on earth?" Link to meme generator.

I want to teach my kid, if someone claims that an entire population, an entire city, an entire ethnic group, is so evil they all deserve to die, to NEVER believe that. That is NEVER true, and you should never trust anyone who would claim that. Even if it's God. (See also: If Thanos Tells You To Build An Ark, You Say No)

In Sunday school, Christians teach this story to kids, and they definitely tell kids that unfortunately everyone was so evil that God needed to kill them all, but then the Sunday school lesson glides right by that without questioning it, and moves on to the fun imagery of all those zoo animals together, and the nice lesson about trusting God.

Of all the bible stories which are commonly taught to kids, "Noah's ark" is definitely the worst one.

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The art is very good

Many different artists contributed to this book. Each bible story has a different art style, and the art is very well done.

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Lots of words on each page

My son is in preschool, and the amount of words on each page is a bit much for him. Maybe this is more of an elementary-school-level book. Most of the bible stories are only one 2-page spread. For a kid who mainly likes to look at pictures in his books, it's not a high enough pictures-to-words ratio.

This doesn't really bother me much because I can skip some of it if it's too long, or summarize it, or stop in the middle and ask him something about the story. To make it more interesting for him.

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My son's reaction

As I said, this book has a lot of words on each page, so I think he wasn't fully able to pay attention and understand most of the stories. At some points, though, he did ask some good questions. He asked why Pharaoh made the Israelites slaves. He asked why God parted the Red Sea. When I read about God giving Moses the 10 Commandments, my son pointed at Moses and asked, "Is that God?" and I said no it's Moses, God is everywhere but we can't see Them, and my son kept saying "why?"

So even though I'm all exvangelically thinking to myself "humph I don't like how this book presents the bible like it's a bunch of nice stories", when my son asks questions about it, inevitably I will reveal to him that many of these are not nice stories. Because my son is in an environment where we are treating bible stories as stories rather than morality lessons that have authority over our lives, this won't be harmful to him. So, as much as I'm complaining about the book in this blog post, I was able to read it to my son and make it a good thing for him... but I just wish I had a book that would just be a good thing on its own, without me needing to do all this, uh, overthinking.

And, sometimes the God of the bible is a bad guy. I think that will help answer a lot of the "why" questions.

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God's pronouns

This book uses he/him pronouns for God. Which is fine, because the bible does too. But, what's a queer Christian gotta do to get a children's book that calls God She or They?

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Conclusion

I'm not impressed with this book because, like all other children's bibles I've seen, it presents the bible as if it's a bunch of nice stories which teach us nice morality lessons and nice concepts about God. There are things this book does well- the art is good, and I like how some of the moral lessons were related to social justice concepts like protecting those who are powerless, and helping immigrants. But overall this isn't how I want to teach my kids about the bible.

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Related:

Not Sure I Want My Kid Reading the Bible 

2 Wrong Ways to Write Bible Stories For Kids 

"Who Is My Neighbor?" (Kids' Book Review)

"Our God: A Shapes Primer" (baby book review)

"The Storm That Stopped" (kids' book review) 

"Jesus and the Lions' Den" (kids' book review)

Blogaround + Happy New Year!

1. Louisiana forbids public health workers from promoting COVID, flu and mpox shots (December 20) !!! Very concerned about this.

2. There Are Many Programs Trying to Reduce Recidivism. This One Works. (December 19, via) "In the United States, the likelihood that a released convict will return to prison within five years is 45.8 percent. For the 750 GRIP graduates since 2012 who have subsequently been released, the figure is 1.71 percent."

3. The Lasting Legacy of Jimmy Carter, Dead at 100 (December 29) "He had decades of possibility ahead of him when he left the White House in 1981, and he chose to devote the latter half of his life to continued public service. In 1982, in partnership with Emory University, he established the Carter Center, an organization dedicated to promoting peace and well-being around the globe. Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, who died in November 2023 at age 96, famously volunteered with Habitat for Humanity for decades, and he brought to action what most presidents only speak about, says Claire Jerry, curator of political history at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History."

4. Nasa makes history with closest-ever approach to Sun (December 27, via) Cool!

5. More Chinese Couples Are Choosing to Live Apart. Is It Worth It? (December 30) "The study found that commuter marriages are often a rational choice driven by career ambitions, financial instability, and a desire for long-term family security. For many couples, living apart is not a passive compromise but an active decision made to maximize opportunities in an increasingly competitive urban job market."

6. Facebook and Instagram to Unleash AI-Generated ‘Users’ No One Asked For (December 30, via) "But the implications of a Facebook where the majority of the activity is bots bouncing off one another are hard to grasp, even at a moment when artificially gamed exchanges are common on the social network."

7. Star Trek: Tik Tok (2010, via) Wow this is fantastic. It's Kesha's son "Tik Tok" with clips from "Star Trek" (the original series).

8. I Watched Every Disney Channel Original Movie (December 24) Here's a 6-hour video from Big Joel reviewing over 100 Disney Channel original movies.

9. JK Rowling Falsely Claims "There Are No Trans Kids" (December 30) "There is no evidence that transgender identities are “caused” by any external factor. Rather, transgender people have always existed as a natural part of human diversity. Transgender individuals comprise an estimated 0.5–2% of the U.S. population, and many of them have understood their identity from a young age." 

Blogaround

1. Carnival of Aces Round-Up: Sexual Healthcare (December 18) "As an adolescent and young adult, the messaging I heard was that these tests are very important, but that messaging seemed to take it for granted that all women are sexually active.  The messaging also claimed that the tests might be uncomfortable but wouldn’t be painful.  However, lots of women, especially in the asexual community, have never had sex.  And (as can be seen from the various posts about vaginismus), many women do find pelvic exams very painful."

2. Our Wedding, From The Woman Who Loves Zooey Zephyr (December 18) Congrats to Erin Reed and Zooey Zephyr!

3. Even if Voters ‘Get What They Asked For’ it’s More Likely to Cause a Fascist Death Spiral Than a Lesson Learned (November 18, via) Yeah... there's this narrative in response to the election, that in some sense it's right that people who voted for such a bad president will now have to live under such a bad president. And, some forms of this narrative go so far as to say they'll see how bad it is, and they'll see how wrong they were. 

I personally found this a little bit comforting at first, but I shouldn't have, because if you think about it for a few seconds, it totally falls apart. The ones who will suffer the most from the orange antichrist's presidency are NOT the people who voted for him. And yeah many of his voters will be worse off too, because he doesn't actually have any good plans for how to decrease the price of groceries, but they're not going to suddenly realize "oh we were so wrong to vote for him." 

January 6 happened, you guys. I really thought that would be the end of his popularity. I really thought that when he took a stand against the peaceful transfer of power- which, I learned in school, was one of the key things that makes America great- when he tried to overthrow the US government, for no real reason, just that he wanted to be president... I really thought he would be done after that. I really thought everyone would realize how bad he was right then. But no, here we are 4 years later. Did everybody forget about January 6? "They got what they wanted" isn't going to show these people how wrong they were, if January 6 couldn't do it.

4. Donald Trump and His Allies Don’t Really Care What Kind of Leftist You Are (December 11, via) "Being 'the right kind' of progressive or feminist or socialist can easily become its own goal, rather than winning concrete victories that match the values and goals behind these labels."

Yeah... after the election, I received so many emails from every liberal/social-justice organization I've ever donated to, and overall it made me really uncomfortable. The emails were all like "We're going to do everything we can to FIGHT against Trump" and yeah if that's true, then it's great, I want to support that- but is it really true? Are they just using this moment to get more donations and collect more names for their email lists? *I* don't know how to fight him, but suddenly every single organization is confidently assuring me that they're going to do a stellar job of it, if I just send them money? 

I'm really unhappy with this situation because we need to all work together to fight against the orange antichrist, but I can't trust that all these organizations "on our side" are really doing that- they might see it as an opportunity for themselves to profit off their donors who are scared and therefore more willing to give money.

And, I mean, if they're "just using this moment to get more donations" that's not necessarily a bad thing. If they are truly committed to fighting him, then they will need money, and now is a good opportunity to fundraise. That's not a bad thing.

I guess the issue is, different people have different opinions on what strategy to use to fight him, and just because some organization emails me to say "we're going to do everything we can to fight him" doesn't necessarily mean that their strategies are ones that I think will be effective and I would want to support.

Personally, the kinds of strategies I want to support are: 

• Directly working with people "on the ground" who are in danger because of conservative policies- ie, helping trans people in red states get health care, providing resources for immigrants to help them get housing and jobs, etc. I like this because it's local organizations who really understand people's needs and how to help them in practical ways.
• Lawyers challenging those policies in court. I like this because during the orange antichrist's first term, we did have a lot of success in the courts delaying or blocking his anti-human policies.

That's my thinking right now, but I am interested in learning about other strategies that might be effective- leave a comment if you have an opinion on this.

5. Protecting the Rights of Syrian Refugees (December 19) "Within twenty-four hours of the regime’s overthrow, nine European countries suspended asylum applications from Syrians."

6. Exposing the Honey Influencer Scam (December 22) [23-minute video] I remember seeing some youtube videos where Honey was advertised, a while ago- apparently a LOT of youtubers have done ads for this. They described it as a browser extension which finds coupon codes for you when you shop online- and it's free, there's no catch, you get free money. I remember thinking it sounded suspicious that it just gives you free money and there's no catch, but I couldn't figure out what was actually going on.

So, it turns out, here's what's shady about Honey:

• The way they make money is by getting the affiliate commission from the sale. (If you don't know what "affiliate commission" is: If you're a blogger or youtuber or whatever, and you share a link where someone can buy something, it could be an affiliate link, which means that if people click it and buy the thing, *you* get a cut of the money. [I do this here on the blog.] So what Honey is doing is replacing a cookie with its own cookie, so it will get the commission- possibly taking the affiliate commission away from whoever posted the affiliate link in the first place.)
• Also, Honey claims that it will always find the BEST coupon code for the buyer, but this is NOT true. Turns out, Honey makes deals with online stores about which coupon codes Honey will give to customers. In this way, it discourages the customers from searching for better coupon codes- Honey assures them that they're already getting the best price. Extremely shady!

(And I haven't used Honey, but my browser has a built-in tool that finds coupon codes, so now I'm wondering if that one that I use is equally shady.)

6. Biden commutes most federal death row sentences to life in prison before Trump takes office (December 23)