Blogaround

Arthur and Francine. Image source.

Got A LOT of links for you all today:

1. Animation: Encanto and Gifts of Trauma (posted January 19) [content note: spoilers for "Encanto"] "I have a soft spot for Bruno in particular because my own trauma means I can often predict all the bad ways a situation will go, and it's vexing to be disbelieved as a cynic or as someone who 'wants' things to fail just because I've seen some shit."

2. An Arizona priest used one wrong word in baptisms for decades. They're all invalid (posted February 15) "During baptisms in both English and Spanish, Arango used the phrase 'we baptize you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.' He should have said 'I baptize,' the diocese explained." Omg, imagine believing that *some man* has the right to judge if your baptism is "valid" or not, LOLOLOL.

(I also like Hemant Mehta's take on it.)

In all seriousness though, it's extremely easy to make fun of this story, but I am actually curious about if there are articles written on this from a Catholic perspective, that don't make it sound COMPLETELY BONKERS. Like, when we make fun of this, are we misrepresenting their position, or is it truly and literally as bonkers as it sounds? Might be good to hear a different perspective before we go all in on the mocking?

I did some quick googling and didn't see anything that looked much different from the npr article I linked, but if anyone does have a source that explains this in a non-bonkers way, I would be interested to read it.

3. How ‘Arthur’ grew up: Inside the beloved TV show’s emotional finale (posted February 21) "After 25 seasons, 253 episodes and seven specials, the PBS mainstay 'Arthur' aired its final episode, 'All Grown Up,' on Monday." Awww, "Arthur" was my favorite show when I was a kid.

"And I say hey, what a wonderful kind of day..."

4. Oh remember how in December/January the city of Xi'an, China, had a really bad covid outbreak and there were all these news articles about how Xi'an is doing such a bad job of making sure all residents' basic needs are met while they're in lockdown? (That's true- Xi'an did a bad job of that.) Well here's a follow-up to that: On January 24, China's Xi'an clears high, medium-risk areas for COVID-19. This means there are no longer any "high risk" or "medium risk" areas in Xi'an- the entire city is now classified as "low risk." "Low risk" means as far as we know (and this is after A LOT of testing), 0 people have covid. (Or, technically, anyone who has tested positive for covid is in a hospital where they're not able to spread it to anyone else, and there has been A LOT of testing on all their known contacts.)

Just want to point this out to make it clear to all of you who are not in China. This is how it works here- there are occasional "covid outbreaks" (which are a few dozen or a few hundred cases- Xi'an's was the biggest since Wuhan, I think, with 2000ish cases over the course of 1-2 months). The pandemic workers come in and test thousands or millions of people, put thousands or millions of people in lockdown, and then a couple weeks later, it's done, now there are 0 covid cases, the lockdowns end, and it's back to normal life.

It works. 

5. ‘Inerrancy’ and the 1611 Project (posted February 15) "You’d think such articles — there are many others like it in CT’s archives — would require some introductory disclaimer or explanation to contextualize them for contemporary readers. But then it’s hard to imagine what such disclaimers might say, given that no part of Ellis’ argument from 1957 can’t be found repeated in 2022 Christianity Today articles fretting about the supposed dangers that 'wokeness' or 'critical race theory' pose to the real, true gospel of biblical inerrancy."

This is really important. Back when I was in middle school and we learned about the civil rights movement, it was like, the white people who didn't want their kids to go to school with black kids were just one-dimensional racists who were clearly evil and wrong. But, the reality is, back then, white people were making these philosophical and nuanced arguments in favor of segregation- arguments that sound scarily similar to things you hear today. Arguments that even cited the bible, because they viewed the bible in the same way that I was taught to. 

Yes, they were bad and wrong and racist- but also not so terribly different from things I have thought and believed and said. And if white people don't know that- if we are not teaching our kids- if we are saying "oh those people from history were all hateful and racist and not anything like us"- then how are we going to do better?

6. The grift goes all the way to the top (posted February 10) "In public, [Jerry Falwell Jr.] pretended that he was the fire-and-brimstone Bible-thumper his father’s audience believed him to be—even as, in private, he and his wife Becki jetted off to Miami to drink and dance the nights away, far from the prying eyes of his fellow Christians."

7. The Winter Olympics don't really represent the world: Costs, climate and quotas keep the majority off the podium (posted February 22) "No African nation has ever won a medal in the Winter Olympics."

8. Rogers Musical (Full Version) (posted December 24) This is the "Rogers" musical from the Marvel show "Hawkeye," and if you are a Marvel fan, it is INCREDIBLE.

9. Ahmad Arbery's 3 killers found guilty of federal hate crimes (posted February 22)

10. True crime (part 1) (posted February 20) [content note: domestic violence, murder] "The politics of crime never seems to include criminals like Scott Peterson or Barry Morphew (allegedly). Their stories aren’t part of the narrative of crime. They’re just presented as entertainment. (Even Fox News reports these cases this way, as sordid entertainment wholly unrelated to the propaganda network’s otherwise relentless efforts to use 'crime' to foster rabid white resentment.)"

And also True crime (part 2). "He notes Barry’s comment to a local TV reporter — 'Suzanne trusted the Lord, and if one person got saved from this, she would think it was worth it' — and sees it as a chilling indicator of the faith-based calculus his cousin may have used to rationalize murder[.]"

11. [content note: eating disorder] Well, um, this is horrifying: HealthyWage: Weight Loss Challenges + Cash Prizes. It's a website where you can set a weight loss goal for yourself, pick a deadline, and place a bet with ACTUAL MONEY, and then if you reach your goal before the deadline, you get money. (And of course, if you don't reach your goal, you lose money.)

My first thought is, holy shit, this looks like a way to make money off having an eating disorder.

To test it, I followed the steps on their website, where it guides you through putting in numbers and it will tell you how much money you will earn. I pretended I weighed 90 lbs and want to lose 30 lbs. At no point during the process did a red flag come up and say "holy crap, if you weigh 90 lbs you should NOT be trying to lose weight." Instead, the algorithm very helpfully guided me along, doing the math with the numbers I had put in.

Screenshot from "Healthy Wage." HOLY CRAP, it is very NOT COOL to suggest to AN ADULT that 60 lbs could be their "ideal weight."

At one point, it even told me that I could totally lose 1-2 lbs per week, instead of 0.8 lbs (which was the result based on the numbers I had entered). Like, I saw this little warning symbol pop up, and I thought that's where the algorithm had flagged my hypothetical example as having a dangerous eating disorder, but NOPE, it was THE OPPOSITE:

Screenshot from "Healthy Wage"

One, um, at-least-not-as-bad-as-it-could-be thing I noted was, in the FAQs, it says if you get pregnant after starting your "challenge", then you should notify them and they will "pause" your challenge until your doctor says you can start up the "challenge" again (um, instead of refunding your money...).

I didn't actually create an account- maybe if I created an account to do this for real, an actual human would have looked at my numbers and said "HOLY SHIT this person should NOT be doing a weight-loss challenge." But, um, seriously, they should have taught their website algorithm to do that anyway.

Still, the whole thing is very "get paid to have an eating disorder", even if you aren't as extreme as my "90 lbs" example. I'm not sure they can realistically set a threshold and say "oh, if your weight is above this number, then we are totally confident that you are using this 'challenge' thing in a healthy way, no worries." I just think... when you start getting money involved, you introduce the possibility that someone is forced to keep going with it even if they end up realizing that it's actually not healthy for them to be on a weight-loss plan. Like what if the money becomes more important than doing what's best for your physical and mental health.

Yikes.

12. Can’t Believe We Have To Say This But Yeah, Dr. King Got Arrested A Lot (posted February 17) "By this rationale, they could have cracked down on the Civil Rights Movement. They could have arrested Martin Luther King."