Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1.  Toy Story 5 | Official Trailer | In Theaters June 19 (February 20) Part of me is like "why are they making another Toy Story movie" but also part of me is like "I'm going to watch it."

2. How the devil was disguised in the SBC and Paul Pressler's Conservative Resurgence (May 6, via) "By 1998, I had been so convinced of the rightness of the religious right and the conservative movement that when news of the Clinton-Lewinsky abuse case broke, I thought the leaders who spoke against Clinton and sought his impeachment actually cared about the immorality of it all." This is so real.

Add this to the "it was all fake" pile of evidence. All that talk about submitting your life to Jesus, every part of your life, every decision, even your thoughts, sitting in prayer and listening to God, willing to do whatever God wanted, no matter the cost, killing your sinful and selfish nature- and meanwhile, the leaders at the top are lying, sexually abusing people, and chasing political power.

Maybe this is the case any time you have religious people who totally believe "I have to do whatever God says, no matter how hard it is"- we are extremely vulnerable to any leader who comes along and claims "this is what God wants." Especially when they frame it as "I'm just simply telling you what the bible says- if you question or disagree with me, you're disagreeing with God" which I've heard so many times.

What to do about this? I guess if you're a religious person who believes "I have to do whatever God says, no matter how hard it is," you need to maintain some amount of independence, like "I'm going to use my own brain and only believe 'this is what God says' if there is a good reason *that makes sense to me*." You run the risk that you might refuse to obey something that turned out to be a valid command from God, but I think it's better to err on that side, rather than be manipulated by leaders who can claim anything is "what God said" and our feeble human minds aren't supposed to understand the reasons and that's why faith is so important.

3.  How terrible is this family? Family therapist takes on THE PARENT TRAP (May 22, 28-minute video) Yessss, I watched "The Parent Trap" on Disney channel so many times back in the day. 

"There's emotional realism in this film, which the actors kind of like, concoct out of thin air. ... there's no emotional realism in this premise. And everyone's just kind of like, well, your dad and I had a fight, so we got divorced, and we each took a kid, and then they're never gonna see each other. And I as a parent am not gonna see my other child. Ever."

"And apparently there are many adults in both of these adults' lives who know this and are cool with it."

4. Ancestral Genomes (May 29) From xkcd.

5. A cancer vaccine made just for you. mRNA is back and it's fighting melanoma (June 1) This is great news! Sounds like it's still being tested, but hopefully soon it will be widely available.

6. Enhanced Games claim ‘we changed the world’ but only one record broken and three clean athletes win (May 25) "While the vast majority of the 42 competing sprinters, swimmers and weightlifters were taking banned substances such as testosterone, EPO and anabolic steroids, three athletes who were competing clean also won."

---

Links related to the antichrist:

1. Donald Trump’s Horribly Broken Propaganda Film (May 31, 31-minute video) "It's rare to see a bit of art that literally should not exist, that is, in and of itself, morally wrong." Oh good, Big Joel watched "Melania" so the rest of us don't have to.

2. Justice Department says it will abide by court order pausing its 'anti-weaponization' fund (June 1) "A federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia last week temporarily blocked the creation of the anti-weaponization fund after a lawsuit from Democracy Forward and others."

3. One by one, U.S. civil rights agency dismantles tools to fight discrimination (June 1) "Protecting U.S. workers from unlawful discrimination — already a hard task — could become significantly harder if the government no longer has that data within arm's reach, Gilbride says."

4. Federal judge ends Kennedy Center name change, bars two-year closure plans for now (May 30) "'Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,' Cooper, an Obama appointee, wrote of the federal law establishing the Kennedy Center in his 94-page opinion."

5. Immigrant detainees sue over 'horrific' conditions at Texas ICE facility (May 30) "'No human being should ever have to go through this,' Angye said in a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the organizations representing the detainees. 'I have already experienced torture in my home country of Cameroon and I never thought I would experience such severely violent treatment by guards here in the United States of America.'"

6. CA Gov Candidate Tom Steyer Calls Out Dems Capitulating On Trans People: "I'm Totally In Favor Of Trans Athletes" (May 28) "Steyer responded with a full-throated defense of transgender youth—and, specifically, of transgender athletes."

Also from Erin in the Morning: New York State Budget Released: $0 For Transgender Care Access (May 29) "'As the Trump administration continues to pose an existential threat to the transgender community, we are profoundly disappointed that the FY2027 New York State budget invests zero state dollars to support access to the health care many transgender, gender non-conforming, nonbinary, and intersex people rely on to live in their bodies with dignity and health -- a complete failure to meet the moment,' said Allie Bohm, NYCLU senior policy counsel about the lack of passage."

Inspiration and Incarnation: Introduction

Book cover for "Inspiration and Incarnation"

I started reading Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament by Peter Enns, and it's so good, I decided to write a blog series on it. This post will cover the preface and chapter 1.

Enns is a biblical scholar. I've read and reviewed 2 of his books before: The Bible Tells Me So (published 2014) and Genesis for Normal People (published 2019). I really enjoyed those and I want to read all of his books. This one, "Inspiration and Incarnation," was originally published in 2005, but I have the 10th-anniversary edition, published in 2015. The writing style of "Inspiration and Incarnation" is more formal and academic than "The Bible Tells Me So" and "Genesis for Normal People"- those two had a lot of [in my opinion] unnecessary pop culture references- I know some readers like that, so, that's fine, but I definitely like the style of "Inspiration and Incarnation" better.

Here's the overall idea of this book: In the past 150 or so years, there has been new evidence uncovered about the civilizations and cultures of the ancient Near East. Archaeologists have found writings from people groups who lived near the ancient Israelites- and these writings have many similarities to what we see in the bible. This is something of a problem for evangelical Christian ideology, because evangelicals believe the bible is inerrant and inspired by God, and so they don't want to believe that it's similar to other ancient writings, that it was influenced by them and it borrowed ideas from them, that it has mistakes and anachronisms, that it follows the genre conventions of ancient Near East writing rather than being absolute truth as we would view it from a modern scientific perspective.

The conservative bible scholars respond to this problem by downplaying the similarities between the bible and other ancient writing. The liberal bible scholars respond to this problem by saying the bible is the same as other ancient writing, and therefore it isn't special or inspired by God. Enns claims that both sides are making an incorrect assumption: that if the bible is similar to other ancient writing, that means it's not really from God. He says that, on the contrary, God gave us a bible which is fully human and also fully divine- just like Jesus was fully human and fully God. God speaks to humans within their own cultures.

Blogaround

Movie poster for "Zootopia 2." Image source.

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. I saw "Zootopia 2" and I loved it! My favorite part was the whole dynamic between Nick and Judy. Also the animation is very good, and the action scenes were exciting. And the plot is about systemic injustice, like the first "Zootopia" movie.

2. It’s One of the Most Influential Social Psychology Studies Ever. Was It All a Lie? (November 25) "To the contrary, Kelly says, the Seekers were quick to disavow those beliefs. Even Martin herself rebranded, insisting to an interviewer that she had never believed she’d be taken away by an actual spaceship."

3. Inverted Catenaries (December 3) From xkcd.

4. Stuck in the Mud: Climate Chaos Deepens Divide on China’s Farmlands (December 4) "But this autumn, after weeks of rain turned Henan’s fields into mud, the usual wheeled harvesters bogged down at the field edges. In Jiaozuo, where the soil can trap water for days, Zhang’s treaded rig kept crawling through the muck, one of the few machines in the region that could move at all."

5. There’s a stain on my notebook where your coffee cup was (December 2) "But beyond that narrow sense of “political,” of course, everything about this is political because it’s all about what is and isn’t “normal” or normative, and who decides that, and how it is or ought to be enforced."

6. Investigating a Possible Scammer in Journalism’s AI Era (November 19, via) "The stories had the characteristic weirdness of articles written by a large language model—invented anecdotes from regular people who didn’t appear to exist accompanied by expert commentary from public figures who do, with some biographical details mangled, who are made to voice “quotes” that sound, broadly, like something they might say."

---

Links related to the antichrist:

1. For the first time since 1988, the U.S. is not officially commemorating World AIDS Day (December 1) "'I think it's emblematic of an administration that doesn't seem to care,' said Mitchell Warren, the executive director of AVAC, a global HIV prevention organization based in the U.S."

2. They’re doing to America what they did to Christianity (November 23) "We have watched over the years as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we grew up with into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be." Hear, hear.

3. Ohio senator introduces measure to eliminate dual citizenship (December 2) !!! Not cool! This is just a bill so hopefully it doesn't get anywhere. But yikes.

4. The Summers-Epstein Emails’ ‘Yellow Peril’ Problem (December 3) "Harvard professor Larry Summers has been widely criticized for his extensive correspondence with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. But the denigrating way he views Asian women hasn’t gotten enough attention."

5. Will Hegseth Face Consequences? (December 2) "Faced with a congressional inquiry, Trump, to protect himself, gave clear public orders to Hegseth not to murder survivors and commit war crimes. You may think this should go without saying. I may think this should go without saying. But obviously it does not go without saying—especially since the White House went on to maybe possibly contradict those orders."

And: 'Franklin' publisher slams Hegseth for his post of the turtle firing on drug boats (December 2) "'We strongly condemn any denigrating, violent or unauthorized use of Franklin's name or image, which directly contradicts these values,' it added."

Here’s what the Trump administration has said about the ‘double-tap’ strike on an alleged drug boat (December 3, via) A timeline.

Did Megyn Kelly say she wanted to see survivors of strike on alleged drug boat 'suffer'? (December 3) Oh my goodness.

6. As Trump's immigration raids hit New Orleans, a Chicago group shares resistance tips (December 3) "This, Gonzalez said, was always the goal of Protect RP: to make immigration enforcement operations in the neighborhood uncomfortable and inefficient. If they do that well enough, Gonzalez said, maybe enforcement agents would conclude that the cost of doing work in his neighborhood is simply too high."

7. She was deported after boarding a flight to Austin. Her attorney says that violates a judge's order. (December 2) "'At the end of the day, this is a college student who came here at 7 years old to seek asylum with her family,' Pomerleau said. 'She's not responsible under the law for any decisions her parents made about her. She was a child.'"

8. Doctors warn delaying hepatitis B shot for newborns could revive a deadly threat (December 3) [content note: child death] "'Liver cancer has disappeared in children,' McMahon said. 'We haven't seen a case since 1995. Nor do we have any children under 30 that have gotten infected that we know of.'"

9. 'Nobody wants to come': What if the U.S. can no longer attract immigrant physicians? (November 24) "Up until this year, it was a dream — a wish! — that you could get a job and you could come to the U.S. And now nobody wants to come."

10. GEOGRAPHY QUIZ: Can You Find 'Third' Countries Trump Bribing To Take Deportees On A Map? (December 4) "It’s corrupt, it’s wasteful, it’s inhumane, and also, if these deportees are truly the hardened criminals that Donald J. Trump claims they are, it is not justice to send them somewhere that will happily pocket the cash and then lose all track of them."

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Here’s what’s in the opioid settlement against OxyContin maker Purdue and the Sackler family (November 19) "Most of the money will go to government entities to fight the opioid crisis, which has been linked to 900,000 deaths in the U.S. since 1999."

2. textual activism and the ancestral toolbox (October 20) This post is about the bible passage which says parents can claim their son is "rebellious" and have him stoned to death. Apparently there's an ancient Jewish tradition of rules-lawyering and malicious compliance in reading this passage, interpreting it so literally and narrowly that you would actually never end up having a real-life situation where all these requirements would be met. This is how the ancient rabbis turned something horrific into something more just.

I have a few thoughts about this... First of all, for the people who are doing this very narrow interpretation, it's obvious to them that this isn't what the passage was intended to mean, right? There are other bible passages where I've seen people claim "this is actually really progressive for that time period because what God really meant was [whatever]" (and I'm generally not on board with this) but surely in this case they don't *actually* think that what God meant was "you should execute a rebellious son, when all these complicated criteria are met, so actually, in practical terms, never." This reading of this bible passage feels like it's in conflict with the passage, rather than being a good-faith attempt to get at what the actual meaning was.

But if you're going to so strongly disagree with and fight against the actual intended meaning of the passage, why even pretend you're respecting and obeying it? Why not say "this bible passage is just wrong. Let's NOT obey this." I'm wondering what sort of circumstance this kind of interpretation could be useful in. It seems like it could only really work if you *know* the bible passage in question is teaching something abhorrent, and you strongly disagree with it, but there are societal pressures that force you to pretend that you are respecting and obeying it.

I think this also has to do with the differences between Judaism and evangelical Christianity in how we view the bible. From what I've seen, Judaism has a tradition of disagreeing with some parts of the bible, while at the same time taking it very seriously. Evangelical Christians, on the other hand, believe we can't ever disagree with something that God said or did in the bible.

3. Journal Club: Adults’ Perceptions of Sex Ed (November 21) "We noted many potential issues with the survey, including recollection errors (the mean age being 45), and leading questions (there weren’t any response options that allowed people to be negative about sex ed). The questions are asking about a counterfactual that people have no direct experience with."

4. Down the Toilet: Shanghai Bids Farewell to Chamber Pots (November 21) "The dense, labyrinthine layout of Shanghai’s shikumen or “stone-framed doorway” neighborhoods, as well as concern for preserving cultural sites, often meant that officials had to devise highly individualized solutions for each household."

I live in Shanghai but I had no idea there were homes here without actual flush toilets.

5. This post about how to turn off AI features in Gmail. (November 21)

6. The Trans Vibe of Lilo & Stitch (November 20, 33-minute video) "It might not be on the planet 'trans' or 'gay', but it's certainly orbiting the same solar system as those two."

7. Other people might just not have your problems (November 22) "I find this thought comforting. It’s not that I have failed to learn some trivially easy skill that everyone else managed to learn in kindergarten, and it’s not that everyone else has some cool lifehack that they’re hiding from me out of spite."

8. The female crash test dummy has been a long time coming — but she isn't here yet (November 21) "In the early 2000s, regulators added a small "female" dummy to tests — but it was just a scaled-down version of the male dummy, with breasts attached. That doesn't reflect the real anatomical differences between male and female bodies."

---

Links related to the antichrist:

1. Slavery Was Defined by Sexual Violence (September 1) [content note: rape]

2. Trump Honors the Man Who Had Jamal Khashoggi Killed (November 19)

3. Lawrence: Humiliated Trump's dictatorship over Republicans is coming apart with the Epstein vote (November 19) 8-minute video

4. Some Democratic Congresspeople made a video to tell the military they should refuse illegal orders:

We want to speak directly to members of the Military and the Intelligence Community.

The American people need you to stand up for our laws and our Constitution.

Don’t give up the ship. pic.twitter.com/N8lW0EpQ7r

— Sen. Elissa Slotkin (@SenatorSlotkin) November 18, 2025

Yes, just stating the unremarkable fact that the military is supposed to serve the Constitution and follow the law. Oh but it turns out I was wrong about this being an "unremarkable fact" because the MAGAs are treating it like it's extremely controversial and inflammatory.

Apparently that felon is out here posting on social media that these Congress members are guilty of "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!"

Outrage after Trump accuses Democrats of ‘seditious behavior, punishable by death’ (November 20)

5. These families' health care costs will balloon if Congress doesn't act on the ACA (November 20) "Bixon says he knew he'd have to pay for health care out of pocket after retiring from his career as a small business owner. 'But,' he says, 'in my wildest dreams, I never thought a number close to $70,000 a year would be the cost that I'd be facing.'"

6. Baby, teenagers allegedly caught in San Antonio immigration raid (November 21)

7. A Nazi Tattoo Exposes Democrats’ Greatest Weakness (October 29, via) "But don’t tell me that excusing that tattoo is good politics. It is the exact same politics that the right is selling, in a different outfit."

8. To Those Familiar with Purity Culture, Megyn Kelly’s Comments About Epstein and 15-Year-Old Girls isn’t Such a Surprise (November 18, via)

9. After unprecedented autism-vaccine messaging change, scientists, advocates say CDC no longer trustworthy (November 21, via) "Instead of a global leader in science, the CDC has devolved into 'a propaganda machine for RFK Jr.'s fixed, immutable, science-resistant theories,' said Paul Offit, MD, an infectious disease specialist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine. 'The CDC is being weaponized to promote RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine point of view. So why should you trust it?'"

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Big and Little Spoons (November 10) From xkcd.

2. Disney stopped being about romance and started being about trauma (November 10) "In short, these days, Disney/Pixar teaches that you become an adult when you come to terms with your shitty parents."

3. You Aren’t In The DSM (October, via) "Like the Danaids’ jars, diagnoses leak relevance and accuracy as they move across contexts. And yet — the task goes on, because clinicians still need a shared language, insurers still need billing codes, governments still need their statistics, and researchers still need clear descriptions of who to enroll in clinical trials."

This is a really good article about the history and purpose of the DSM, and how that's incompatible with the way that average people understand it. It's useful to have standardized definitions of psychological conditions, for sort of big-picture generalizations about what these conditions are and the guidelines that should be used for treatment- but patients are now viewing their mental health situation like they "have" a certain condition, like it's a thing inside them that's causing their symptoms. That's not what it is at all. These diagnoses are just ways of labelling a cluster of symptoms, and the labels can be used as keywords to find other people who have had similar experiences and what helped them- but that's all it is. Just the variations in the range of human experience, and we find it helpful to group them into categories and label them, but the label doesn't describe an actual *thing*.

4. Axios tried to shame Christian U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico—and ended up exposing itself (November 11) "That’s why the threat of a not-weird white Christian who can comfortably speak about his faith without using it as a weapon against the marginalized poses a real challenge to Republicans. They don’t know how to fight someone like him."

5. Internet Archive’s legal fights are over, but its founder mourns what was lost (November 3, via) "In the end, the fight led to more than 500,000 books being removed from the Archive’s 'Open Library.'"

6. The Chinese College Student Who Took on Annoying Elevator Ads (November 12) !!! I too am annoyed by video screens in elevators playing ads. This is a thing here in Shanghai- is it a thing in other places? In the previous apartment that we lived in, the elevator had a tv screen that was always playing some little jingles and ads. I have, like, a moral objection to this, because you're stuck there in that small space and they want to force these ads on you. I've even been in elevators that have some kind of projector that projects the ads onto the elevator doors after they close. Not cool.

7. Does the news reflect what we die from? (October 6, via) "Heart disease and cancer accounted for 56% of deaths among these 15 causes, but together they received just 7% of the media coverage."

---

Links related to the antichrist:

1. US supreme court rejects call to overturn decision legalizing same-sex marriage (November 10, via) Good news.

2. “My Community Is Under Invasion from Our Own Federal Gov’t”: Evanston Mayor Decries ICE Raids in Illinois (November 6, via) "But I feel that our residents have been attacked by a lawless entity, and we can’t just stand by and pretend this is acceptable."

3. ‘A classic authoritarian tactic’: outrage over Trump’s pardons for friends and allies (November 11) "Donald Trump’s unprecedented pardoning spree for political and business friends since returning to the White House has prompted warnings from ex-prosecutors and legal scholars of “corrupt” pay-to-play schemes, conflicts of interest and blatant partisanship."

Trump pardons Giuliani and others accused of plot to overturn 2020 election (November 10)

4. My husband laughed so hard over the fact that the Supreme Court is trying to figure out if tariffs are taxes. He says, in Chinese 'tariff' is 关税 and 'tax' is 税. It's right there in the name. It is obvious to anyone who speaks Chinese. Why do you need the Supreme Court to tell you this.

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. How to Make a Great Government Website (2024, via) "First is the required interview. Most of the time it’s a phone call. Often they’ll call from a blocked number. They’ll send you a notice of when your interview is scheduled for, but this notice will sometimes arrive after the actual date of the interview."

2. Beauty and the Beast - How bad was A.I.D.S.? (October 10, via) 56-minute video. It's a queer reading of "Beauty and the Beast," as is overlaps with what was going on with the AIDS crisis in the 80s and 90s.

3. AI Slop Is Destroying The Internet (October 7) 12-minute video from Kurzgesagt.

4. This post about Copilot in Excel getting a simple sum wrong. Apparently it's because the prompt didn't actually include any info about what cells the data was in. The AI doesn't give an error message or anything, so there's no way the user would have known that.

I haven't ever used Copilot in Excel so maybe I'm missing some key thing, but, uh... my reaction is, excel formulas update when you change the data, but if I'm using an AI for something that matters, I would need to carefully check the output. Having a human pay attention to the output every time it changes seems incompatible with having things update automatically (which is one of Excel's biggest strengths).

Doesn't seem great if every formula in every cell of your excel sheet has a mind of its own and you can't rely on them being right.

5. U.S. measles cases continue to climb, with outbreaks across the country (October 12) "Before widespread vaccination, pretty much everyone got measles in childhood. And 400-500 people in the U.S. used to die from it each year."

6. Hamas releases 20 remaining living Israeli hostages after two years in Gaza (October 13, via) "Parents were reunited with sons and children with fathers as those held were handed over to the Red Cross before finally rejoining their families with the help of the Israeli army."

7. Taylor Swift - The Fate of Ophelia (Official Music Video) (October 6) I like this song~

8. Michigan Republican pushing pornography ban linked to porn site, records show (October 7, via) So it was discovered that Schriver, a politician who's been trying to ban porn, used to have an account on a site with sex webcams and the like.

I'm posting this because people are calling it out as obvious hypocrisy, but I think it's a little more complicated than that. In conservative Christian culture, porn is seen as this evil bad thing that all men are naturally drawn to. If they don't have good enough self-control and/or restrictions on their computer, all men would go and make an account on a porn site. A lot of talk about how so many men are "struggling" with porn use, "addicted" to porn, how it's such a bad thing but they're all tangled up in it because it's so tempting.

It makes perfect sense to me that a lot of these conservative lawmakers supporting "porn bans" are men who have been part of this "struggling with porn" subculture- partly interested in it and partly repressing themselves and feeling so much shame- they try to make laws to ban it as a way to fight against their own "porn addiction"- as a way to show God that even though they keep failing in their resolution to not use porn, on some level they really are trying to fight it.

9. The Supreme Court’s First Blockbuster Case This Term Looks Pretty Fake (October 6, via) "And I think, in theory, there’s nothing wrong with bringing a test case. If someone’s rights are really at stake and they haven’t faced punishment yet—but they fear that they will—it’s legitimate for that person to sue. But what ADF does is really finesse the facts, often to the point of fiction, to justify creating a test case that the Supreme Court can use to change the law."

---

Links related to the antichrist:

1. No Kings is on Saturday, October 18. Go out and protest if you can.

2. Chicago and the Horrors of Carte Blanche (October 4) "Authorities seized people first, without probable cause, treating merely living in the same complex as suspected undocumented migrants as a crime."

Also from Jay Kuo: The Hunger Games (October 3) "After all, why should the Democrats agree to keep the government open for another seven weeks to negotiate a “budget” if the White House can later refuse to honor it? What’s to stop the OMB from doing exactly the same thing with New York City transit funds and blue state energy projects even after a budget is passed and signed into law?"

3. Van Nuys car wash owner files $50M claim over injuries sustained during immigration raid (September 26) "Shouhed says he was terrified as he tried to explain to the agents that his employees were authorized to be on the job, yet he says they took at least five of his employees away in handcuffs. He says he screamed that he is a United States citizen and had proof in his wallet, but he says they did not listen."

4. 'I'm done being afraid': How the shutdown has led federal workers to speak out (October 10) "They say the best organizer is a bad boss, and we all have the same bad boss."

5. ‘Bring her back’: Delaware abuse victim rescued from ICE deportation (October 13, via) "Before agents rummaged through her home, Isabela demanded they show her an arrest warrant. They refused and broke down her door anyway, injuring her son with the doorknob as they barged in."

6. “I Don’t Want to Be Here Anymore”: They Tried to Self-Deport, Then Got Stranded in Trump’s America (October 10, via) "ProPublica spoke with more than a dozen Venezuelans who said they wanted to take the U.S. government’s offer of a safe and easy return. They signed up months ago on the CBP Home app and were given departure dates. But after those dates came and went, these immigrants said they feel betrayed by what the president told them."

7. MIT Rejects Trump’s Bid to Institute Trans Bathroom, Athletics Ban (October 11)

8. Multiple airports refuse to play Kristi Noem video that blames Democrats for government shutdown (October 13)

9. This frog protester in Portland, from this link: Everyone Is Pointing Out This 1 Reason Why The Anti-ICE Inflatable Frogs In Portland May Be The Best Protesters (October 14)

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. How Star Trek’s Federation Actually Abandons Its Ideals (July 30) 43-minute video from Steve Shives.

2. TobyMac - Made To Love (Live from Alive & Transported) (2009) Christian music from a decade or so ago. I've always liked this song.

3. France, U.K., others plan to recognize a Palestinian state. What does that change? (August 1)

4. Debating Fascists (July 25) "This was a major topic of conversation in the early 2000s amongst scientists, who worried over whether it was worthwhile to debate “the other side” on issues like climate change and evolution."

5. An Amazing Truth About ALL Sudokus That We DIDN'T Know (July 27) 1-hour-23-minute sudoku solve video.

6. An Ohio couple welcomes a baby boy from a nearly 31-year-old frozen embryo (August 2) Cool, I'm happy for them. It's interesting how people's feelings and beliefs about frozen embryos had such a big influence on this whole process, all the paperwork, transporting the embryos, etc. Would have gone completely differently if the people involved had different beliefs about frozen embryos. Anyway, congrats to them~

7. YouTube will identify and restrict minors’ accounts with AI (July 30, via) Uh what? This seems like a terrible idea, because the algorithm is going to get it wrong sometimes. Of course it will get it wrong sometimes. You're never going to get an accuracy rate close enough to 100%.

8. Holocaust Memory in a Time of Genocide (July 31, via) "At this point, the fracture between the “universal” and the “particular-Jewish” components of Holocaust memory became an unbridgeable chasm: the “pro-Jewish” sentiment, which morphed into unconditional support for Israel and its murderous war following October 7, was completely severed from the universal sentiment of human rights."

9. Zootopia 2 | Trailer (July 30) Cool!

---

Links related to the antichrist:

1. Jon Stewart Reacts to Colbert's Cancellation & Trump's "Bawdy" Epstein Doodles | The Daily Show (July 22) "And if you believe, as corporations or as networks, you can make yourselves so innocuous, that you can serve a gruel so flavorless that you will never again be on the boy king's radar, A, why will anyone watch you? And you are ****ing wrong."

2. Trump push to ban birthright citizenship unconstitutional, US court rules (July 23, via) "The three-judge ruling panel in the 9th US circuit court of appeals echoed a district court in New Hampshire that blocked the executive order earlier this month."

3. Innocence, identity, and blood libel (part 1) (July 28) and Innocence, identity, and blood libel (part 2) 

4. Federal judge delays expiration of TPS for Hondurans, Nicaraguans and Nepalese (July 31) "It affects about 60,000 immigrants whose temporary protected status was set to expire. The protections for the Nepalese were set to terminate on Aug. 5. The protections for Nicaraguans and Hondurans would have ended Sept. 8. Most of them have been living in the U.S. for more than 20 years." This is just wild to me, that the MAGAs are arguing that people who've been in the US for over 20 years should just leave- like why? Why should they leave? Just because the MAGAs hate immigrants, not any actual reality-based reason.

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. These evangelical men saved sex for marriage – they weren’t well prepared (June 17) "The experience has shaped how the couple are raising their six-year-old daughter and ten-year-old son. 'I want my daughter to have full information about her body – I don’t want her to go through what I did,' said Katy. As for their son, 'I just want him to understand that women are people,' said Nate."

2. This abortion method doesn't involve doctors — and many of them consider it safe (June 22) "Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe, the hotline has only grown. It now has dozens of volunteers, including clinicians as well as people who provide logistical support. The hotline gets thousands of calls and texts every month."

3. A cancer center in Jordan treats kids from Gaza, but only a few dozen have arrived (June 20) "All of Gaza's hospitals have been either damaged or destroyed in Israeli airstrikes."

4. Do You Want to Build a Snowman - 10 YEARS, SAME ANNA! (2024) OH MY GOODNESS this is amazing.

5. What’s the Right Way to Translate Chinese Dish Names? (June 20) "Semantic translation, on the other hand, conveys meaning rather than form. Traditionally, it prioritizes fluency and naturalness in the target language, even if that means departing from the original wording — rendering the Chinese shizitou as 'meatball,' for example. However, semantic translation can also mean literal translation, even if the result seems foreign or puzzling — such as translating shizitou as 'lion’s head.'"

Hmm. Yeah I would describe shizitou [狮子头] as a meatball, but 丸子 are also meatballs, but they are different. I guess then you have no choice but to translate 狮子头 as a lion head meatball? It's pork, though, okay.

---

Protest sign that says "No kings / Yas queens!" Image source.

Links related to the antichrist:

1. Relief and a raised fist as Mahmoud Khalil goes free – but release ‘very long overdue’ (June 20, via) I'm glad to hear this. But it's not over- his immigration case is still ongoing.

Mahmoud Khalil emerges from airport security with his wife Noor and newborn, legal team and Rep. AOC.

[image or embed]

— Gwynne Hogan (@gwynnefitz.bsky.social) June 22, 2025 at 1:37 AM

'They wanted to separate me from my family': Mahmoud Khalil speaks after ICE release (June 23) "They absolutely showed me nothing. They had over 100 days to do that, and I dare Trump, [Marco] Rubio, and their administration to substantiate these claims with anything, because they did not refer to anything."

2. One daughter's search for a father detained by ICE (June 21) "Urizar had no idea where her father was being held or how to reach him."

3. The Antisemites In and Around the Trump Administration (June 17) "I mean the kind who proudly performs a Roman salute or two on a national stage, like Elon Musk and Steve Bannon, sure, but you already knew about those. There are many, many more."

4. U.S. Supreme Court allows — for now — third-country deportations (June 23) "In a searing dissent, the court's three liberals accused the conservative majority of 'rewarding lawlessness.' Writing for the three, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said 'The government has made clear in word and deed that it feels itself unconstrained by law, free to deport anyone, anywhere without notice or an opportunity be heard.'"

I can't stop thinking about Monsters University

Dean Hardscrabble in the door lab in "Monsters University." Image source.

[content note: spoilers for the 2013 Pixar movie "Monsters University"]

"Monsters University" is a prequel to "Monsters, Inc." It follows Mike Wazowski's time as a student at Monsters University, studying to be a scarer. He has big dreams and confidence, but other monsters are always telling him he can never really be a scarer, because he's not that scary.

In the universe of these movies, doors in the human world can be accessed from the monster world- in the monster world, a replica of the door is built, and it is attached to a docking station that powers it. Once it is powered, opening the door- from either the human side or the monster side- will allow you to walk right through from one world into the other. Typically these doors are closet doors in children's bedrooms. Monsters go into kids' rooms to scare them and harvest their screams, which create electricity for the monster world.

The scene I want to talk about is the big climax of the movie, when Mike gets discouraged and runs away, going through a door into the human world in order to prove that he *is* scary enough. But this door leads to a cabin at a camp, and Mike is in a room full of children- which he was not expecting. They laugh at him because he is not scary.

Another monster, Sully, comes through this door later, to find Mike. But then, the monsters on the monster world side of the door turn off the power from the docking station- this way, the door will no longer allow anyone to cross between the human and monster worlds. Mike and Sully are stranded in the human world. And what's worse, now a group of human police officers are coming to investigate what is going on in the cabin.

Mike and Sully come up with a plan to do spooky things in the dark cabin when the group of police is in there- making strange sounds, scratching the walls, etc- building up the tension but not letting the people see them yet, until finally Sully jumps up and roars at them, and they all scream and this powers the door, and Mike and Sully are able to get back to the monster world.

And so I can't stop thinking about this.

Wait, stop the presses, so "Monsters University" shows us that it's possible to power a door between the human and monster worlds, from the human side???? !!!!!! This is huge! This means it's theoretically possible for terrified humans to open doors into the monster world, without any monsters even being involved or aware of it at all.

Imagine human who's terrified because they're in life-threatening danger. They're being chased by a murderer, they're on a sinking ship with no way to escape, etc etc. And then- okay I guess they have to scream for this to work- so they scream and open a door and run through it, and suddenly they're in the monster world. Oh my goodness, that would be so fascinating! Suddenly the thing they were scared of is far away, they're not in danger any more, but they're lost in this really weird place. 

Maybe they're thinking, wait, did I die and this is heaven? (Or hell?????)

How long would it take for them to discover the existence of monsters? How would they get back to the human world? And what would it be like to cope with the trauma of the terrifying experience they just escaped, while also trying to navigate this bizarre new world?

Has anyone written a fanfic about this? I need it!

This is such a huge, significant change to the "Monsters, Inc" worldbuilding. The opening of the doors is *not* entirely controlled on the monster side. !!! I feel like this has incredibly significant implications, which the monsters really should be concerned about, seeing as how they're actually terrified of people, and they believe that being touched by a human child is deadly for a monster. Isn't it, like, a problem that there could be any number of terrified humans accidentally bumbling their way into the monster world?

Now let's address some possible objections against what I'm saying here:

Objection 1: It's not like *any* human door can open into the monster world. There has to be a duplicate door created by the monsters, in the monster world, along with the technology which connects them. Most doors in the human world are *not* connected in this way. So no, you're not going to get situations where humans are opening a monster-connected door without realizing it.

Okay, yeah, it's not just *any* door that would work. But, apparently most closet doors in children's bedrooms are connected to the monster world in this way. It's extremely plausible to imagine a situation in the human world where someone runs to hide in a bedroom closet- home break-in, domestic violence, tornado warning, or any number of other terrifying situations.

So yeah, if you say "this wouldn't happen because most human-world doors aren't set up to connect to the monster world"- well, still, some of them are, and it could totally happen with those ones.

Objection 2: It's not that fear *in general* or screams *in general* power the doors. It has to be, specifically, fear in a situation which involves a monster. It has to be a scream of a person who sees a monster. So no, you couldn't have people scared of something completely unrelated to monsters, and accidentally opening doors into the monster world as a result.

Hmm, maybe there's something to this objection. In "Monsters, Inc" and "Monsters University", we see plenty of scenes of people screaming and this energy being collected and used by monsters- but the people are not really in any actual danger. Monsters never ever touch people, because monsters genuinely believe that it is deadly for a monster to do so.

The whole "monster in the closet" thing is not so much about actual danger but a normal phase that children go through, trying to make sense of their emotions about what they don't know and can't control about the world. And there is a scene in "Monsters, Inc" where a monster says that a child is no longer scared of him- children naturally grow out of this phase- and therefore that child's door is no longer useful for the monsters.

So maybe it's not exactly *fear* that is useful for power in the monster world. Maybe it's that specific kind of feeling, it's not fear exactly, it's the sort of thing where you can look back at it later and laugh at yourself because it's obvious there was no actual danger. The feeling that makes people enjoy horror movies and roller coasters. The tension that builds and then releases.

Maybe a door into the monster world *can't* help a human escape an actual life-threatening situation, because it isn't powered by that kind of fear.

But also, in the "Monsters University" scene with the police in the cabin, they genuinely were scared, right? They weren't just having fun and/or working through normal childhood emotions. So maybe this distinction between different kinds of fear (?) doesn't actually matter for powering the doors.

Hmm.

To what extent is the "life-threatening situation" fear the same feeling as the "watching a horror movie" fear though? Hmm. That's a question. Is it the same feeling? It's like... when we watch movies, we *want* that kind of feeling, it's exciting, even though we definitely would NOT want to be in the dangerous situations the movie characters are in. Watching it is fun, but if it was happening in the real world, it would be terrible. Is that the feeling that powers the monster world?

Hmm, then maybe people consensually being scared in a haunted house could accidentally enter the monster world. Rather than people running from actual life-threatening danger. 

Hmm.

Or does it only work if there are literal monsters there?

Hmm.

I still need a fanfic about this though.

---

Related:

Celia and Mike's Baby 

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

Buzz Lightyear and the Years We Lost to Covid 

The Privilege and Complicity of Fix-It Felix Jr 

Team Rocket Should Get Real Jobs

Blogaround

Links not related to that felon:

1. Fan.tasia (2016, via) Wow, this is incredible. It's a mashup of scenes from Disney cartoons, mostly Disney Renaissance, and the way they're all cut together is extremely well-done. Amazing.

2. Will Market Shake Up Smooth the Road for Takeout Couriers? (April 30) "At the same time, JD announced plans to recruit 100,000 full-time couriers and provide them with social insurance, a potentially major shift in an industry that currently relies on a freelance, uninsured workforce."

Also from Sixth Tone: Starting Today, Rules Against Prepaid Rip-Offs Take Effect in China (May 1) I hear about this kind of thing all the time in China. People join a gym and pay for a yearlong membership, and then suddenly the gym closes, and it's impossible to get in contact with anyone to get a refund. Or people buy a package of 50 classes for their kid to do some kind of sport or extracurricular activity, and suddenly, without any notice at all, the place closes and there's no way to get your money back. So what you have to do is, first of all, DON'T prepay for things like that, and second, try to only buy classes/memberships from companies that have existed for a long time and are unlikely to suddenly disappear.

So I'm glad to see that China is making laws to protect customers in these kinds of cases.

3. Debate and Switch - The Trope That Ruins Stories (March 28, via) 33-minute video. It's about stories which set up a really interesting moral conflict, where the villain points out some problem, or presents some idea which could potentially be a good idea, and it could be a really cool story if that conflict was explored. But nope, it doesn't get explored, it gets totally ignored because then the villain randomly kills a bunch of people, or something, and so we all see that the villain is bad and must be defeated, and nobody ever comes back to the insightful points the villain had brought up in the beginning.

---

Links related to that felon:

As always, you don't have to read all the news if it's too stressful. Instead, DO SOMETHING. Protest. Contact your congress people. Donate money. Check on the immigrants in your life and see if they need help.

You don't have to be up-to-date on everything! Better to find 1 issue you care about a lot, and fight for that. Better to do that than just be paralyzed and overwhelmed.

1. Mohsen Mahdawi — the Columbia student arrested at his citizenship appointment — speaks (April 29) "I see the risk, I see the opportunity, and I want the American people to see this, too. To see this level of injustice. That I am doing everything legally, that I have prepared and studied for the Constitution and that I went willingly and respected the law, did everything the way how it's supposed to be done."

2. Trump is jailing immigrant families again. A mother, father and teen tell of ‘anguish on a daily basis’ (April 24) "Gabriela and Jason struggled to find the words to help their daughter. 'Imagine seeing your child sad because they can’t go to school. And you can’t even say, ‘Let’s go to the corner. Let’s go get ice cream. Or some chips,’' Gabriela said. 'How do you explain any of this to a child? Your mom can’t do anything for you, your dad can’t do anything.'"

3. RFK Jr. to require placebo-controlled studies for new vaccines (May 1) Well this is a bad idea.

4. Education Department stops $1 billion in funding for school mental health (May 1) "To be able to provide those [mental health] services and then have it ripped away for something that is completely out of our control, it's horrible,' Fialkiewicz says. 'I feel for our students more than anything because they're not gonna get the services that they need.'"

5. Trump-appointed federal judge blocks use of Alien Enemies Act for Venezuelans in South Texas (May 1) "Other courts have sought to block the Trump administration from deporting anyone under the act. But this is the first time a judge has ruled that the act cannot be used against people who are alleged gang members invading the United States."

6. DOJ Proposes Giving Legal Advice to Immigrants in Cases It Oversees (May 1) "'[Families are] being asked to trust the government that harmed them to tell them how to move forward in the best way for them,' said Sara Van Hofwegen, managing director of legal access programs at Acacia Center for Justice, which has provided the services for the past year. 'The government hasn’t shown them that they have their interests in mind.'" Yeah this is extremely suspicious.

Blogaround

 Links not about that felon:

1. What does Islam have against sleep? (March 29) "Even if you go to bed right after Isha and wake up at the tail end of Fajr, you will get at the most 6 hours."

2. As measles cases rise, some parents become vaccine enthusiasts (March 30) Yessssss. Love vaccines. Love when my kids don't get measles. It's awesome.

3. ‘I Love Him’: A Suicide, a Student’s Diary, and a School’s Reckoning (March 28) [content note: sexual assault, suicide] 

4. Fed'l court rules Alabama AG's threatened abortion-fund prosecutions unconstitutional (April 1) "In short, people seeking abortions that would be legal elsewhere can do so. Ultimately, he concluded, that right protects those who seek to help them as well."

5. 'Zero to Hero' (From Disney’s Hercules) | Sung by London's West End Muses 🎶✨ (March 7) Wow, love this!

---

Links about that felon:

1. Deported over a tattoo? Lawyer claims client is not a gang member (March 28) "DHS wants the public to believe these people are criminals and gang members. So if they have proof of that, why wouldn't they release it to the public?"

And: Trump administration admits Maryland man sent to El Salvador prison by mistake (April 1) "'If they're allowed to get away with this, then it means that the immigration laws are meaningless, all of them,' Sandoval-Moshenberg said."

2. Study: Black Lives Matter Protests Beat Trump (April 2) "So if you’re wondering if it makes any sense to go out and protest your fascist overlords, the answer is “absolutely, yes.” Do not listen to the doomers who tell you it’s too late, that there’s nothing you can do, that no one will listen, that you’re too extreme, or that you’re just encouraging people to go out and buy more Cybertrucks. Show up, meet your fellow activists, and agitate for change."

3. Cory Booker breaks a 68-year-old Senate record with a 25-hour speech (April 2) "Booker's speech took aim at President Trump, White House senior adviser Elon Musk and policies that he said show a 'complete disregard for the rule of law, the Constitution and the needs of the American people.'"

4. Top scientists warn that Trump policies are causing a 'climate of fear' in research (April 1) "'A climate of fear has descended on the research community,' the letter says. Researchers fearing for their jobs are 'removing their names from publications, abandoning studies, and rewriting grant proposals and papers to remove scientifically accurate terms (such as 'climate change') that agencies are flagging as objectionable.'"

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. China’s Only Solution Yet for Climate-Ravaged Villages: ‘Move Out’ (February 26) "While many families have already agreed to relocate, these are predominantly households whose homes were completely destroyed, leaving them with no real choice. The government’s larger goal is to move everyone from high-risk zones, but the relocation effort is complicated by the uncertainty and risk for those still living in these areas." Part 2 of the article I linked to last week about climate change and rural China.

2. Hercules | I can Go The Distance HD 720p - Posting it because I like the song.

And hey while we're on the subject of Disney songs, I also like this one: Idina Menzel, Evan Rachel Wood - Show Yourself (From "Frozen 2"/ Sing-Along) 

Also: Disney Pixar's Cars - Real Gone

You are welcome to post your favorite Disney songs in the comments~

3. Residents of Bangor’s Cedar Falls officially own their mobile home park (February 20, via) "Prior to the purchase, residents may have owned their homes but not the land the homes sat on."

4. Fabric giant Joann is closing down. What happens to those who relied on the retailer? (March 3) 

5. Hoping to revive mammoths, scientists create 'woolly mice' (March 4, via) This is really cool, but personally I don't think it's worthwhile to bring back the big flashy species like woolly mammoths- instead, we should focus on taking care of the environment and endangered species that exist right now.

---

Links related to the antichrist:

1. Ken Paxton Wants Genetic Testing For 220,000 Women Athletes A Year (February 26) "Paxton is proposing 220,000 genetic tests per year so that women’s sports can exist at all." What on earth.

Also at that link, here's something you can do to help trans people: The US State Department is allowing public comments on recent changes to a policy about passports- specifically, because of the executive order, they are only issuing passports with a gender marker that matches the assigned sex at birth. You can leave a comment about it on the Federal Registrar website.

Comments are open on it until March 17.

2. WTF Is This Trump Gaza AI Video?! (February 27) 

And here's the Slacktivist's take on it: An ethnic-cleansing fever-dream (February 27) "The report barely scratches the surface of how full-gonzo batshit loony this video is"

3. No, Trump's Trans Military Ban Does Not Have A "Waiver" For Openly Trans People Serving (February 28) "It applies only to individuals who have never transitioned, do not experience dysphoria, and who are willing to remain closeted while serving—a regressive return to a worse version of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell."

Also from Erin in the Morning: Senate Dems Show Spine, And National Sports Ban Bill Dies (March 4) 

4. Foreign students say the threat of Trump's executive orders is getting real (March 3) "Abed Ayoub, head of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, says the threat is getting real. He says the ADC has heard from at least a dozen students who left the U.S. for winter break and were unable to return because their visas were canceled — with no explanation given."

5. These U.S. Companies Are Not Ditching DEI Amid Trump’s Crackdown (February 26, via) Posting this because of this quote from Ben & Jerry's: "'We believe that companies that timidly bow to the current political climate by attempting to turn back the clock will become increasingly uncompetitive in the marketplace and will ultimately be judged as having been on the wrong side of history,' the company said in a statement."

Wow, Ben & Jerry's knows what's what.

6. Internal Memos: Senior USAID Leaders Warned Trump Appointees of Hundreds of Thousands of Deaths From Closing Agency (March 3, via) "One million children will go untreated for severe malnutrition, up to 166,000 people will die from malaria and 200,000 more children will be paralyzed by polio over the next decade, the memos estimated. The programs were cut anyway." 

7. Euphoria's Hunter Schafer says her passport now lists her as male due to new laws (February 25) "Reacting to the passport in the video, Hunter said: 'I was shocked. I just didn’t think it was actually going to happen.'"

8. Republicans move to repeal lead limits imposed by Biden-era rules (February 3, via) "If the GOP is successful in repealing the lead rule, tens of millions of people would continue to have drinking water contaminated with the heavy metal, a neurotoxin that the EPA has found lowers IQ scores in children, stunts their development and increases blood pressure in adults."

"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