Blogaround

A cat sticks its head *just perfectly* through a hole in a drawing of that scene from "The Lion King" where Rafiki holds up Simba. Image source.

1. When I Grow Up, I Want to Be Princess Leia (RIP Carrie Fisher) (posted December 28)

2. Within weeks they’ll be re-opening the shipyards (posted December 19) "You might, for example, convince them that the Death Star’s main reactor required a thermal exhaust port that would leave the entire machine vulnerable to destruction."

3. Years after transatlantic slavery, DNA tests give clarity (posted December 31) "We use 'African-American' synonymously with things like 'Irish-American' or 'Scottish-American', but those are countries, and Africa's a continent, and there's 54 countries on the continent of Africa. And so, to be able to say 'I'm Ghanaian-American, I'm Nigerian-American' is actually a significant difference."

4. The clarity of a dead end (posted December 21) "This is where that road takes you. It’s where you’re bound to end up if you drive long enough using only the segregationists and the wealthy donors as your GPS."

5. No, Jesus Wasn’t Born To Die (The Part of the Christmas Story We Screw Up) (posted December 22) "In the Bible, the birth announcement that the Christ has come is made by the angels to shepherds– and what’s interesting is that there’s no mention of God’s anger, wrath, or anything else."

6. Why I Quit My Job at an Evangelical Missionary School (posted December 29) "In my reply to the superintendent’s request, I stated that it has always been my guiding Christian ethic to stand with the vulnerable and marginalized, and to not do so would be unconscionable to me before God." Every time I read something like this, it makes me SO GLAD I'm not evangelical anymore.

7. The Conviction of Dylann Roof Represents The Very Least We Can Do (posted December 15) "Understand that if the Emanuel Nine had instead been shot by trigger-happy police in individual traffic stops, none of their killers would see a day in prison. Understand that they lived every day knowing that."

8. 8 Things in Rogue One That Drastically Changed Key Scenes in Star Wars A New Hope (posted December 27) [spoilers for Rogue One]

9. Flooded with phone calls from voters, House GOP drops effort to gut ethics panel (posted January 3)

10. Jesus never read ‘The Bible’ (posted December 29) "And, of course, Jesus also didn’t have a nicely bound paper book with the whole thing in one package, neatly divided into chapters and verses to facilitate their quotation out of context."

11. Media bias should be Good News (posted January 2) "Yet the story of local hungry children being fed is not usually reported as a Good News story."

12. I Was Taught That Saint George Fought a Dinosaur (posted January 4) I used to be a young-earth creationist. None of this is the least bit shocking to me.

13. The Many Colors of Rogue One (posted December 27) [don't worry, no "Rogue One" spoilers in this post] "About half an hour into the show I realized that none of our five plucky adventurers were white caucasian males."

14. Reading 66 books in one year (posted January 3) "Say you decide, after recommendations from a couple of good friends, that you’re going to read Gillian Flynn’s popular thriller Gone Girl. It seems unlikely that you would take this 422-page novel and decide to set aside a few minutes each morning every day to read 1.15 pages so as to finish reading the book in a one year. That’s not how the book is supposed to be read. It’s not how any book is supposed to be read."

15. This is what happens when you reply to spam email (2015) LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

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I'm going to the Gay Christian Network Conference today! Very excited~