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."

Blogaround

Image text: "Do you want to help me?" "YES!" said Jeff. "YEOS!" said Geoff. Image source.

1. Josh Harris Makes Good (posted October 23) "He admits that he completely made up the concept of giving your heart away, with no basis in scripture or anywhere else."

2. Behind the viral fundraiser: meet the aid group reuniting families (posted October 15) "The not-for-profit group attracted little notice beyond Texas until this year, when almost overnight it became a national focal point for opposition to the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy, the subject of a major Guardian investigation this week."

3. When They Denied My Baptism: Erica Ferguson (posted October 26) "the reason I couldn’t get baptized was that I would want to tell my full story, of being gay and Christian, and Passion City Church couldn’t do that without taking a stand they weren’t willing to take."

4. 'You Are Safe Now': Matthew Shepard Laid To Rest At National Cathedral (posted October 26) [content note: murder] 

5. Bible Museum says five of its Dead Sea Scrolls are fake (posted October 23)

6. ‘God’s point of view’ (posted October 9) "And God’s point of view, the Bible says, is that of a child ripped from its parents and caged behind barbed wire."

7. a second coming out of sorts (posted October 12) "For me, I generally need to spend extended periods of time getting to know someone before I even know if I might like that person or not."

8. Purity Culture and Performative Morality (posted October 29) "In the [evangelical] community, you’re judged according to other people’s perceptions of you. It’s not how you feel about yourself, whether you feel close to God, or whether you experience shame. It’s whether other people perceive you as being close to God, or think you should experience shame based on their observations of things like whether you throw your hands up the right moments, express anger too much, show too much skin, and so on."

9. President Wants to Use Executive Order to End Birthright Citizenship (posted October 30) Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh wow hopefully this isn't something he can actually do... hopefully this is just talk... but wow this is bad.

Blogaround

Image source.

1. Why We Need Andrew Marin (posted January 13) "Andrew is important to me because if he goes away there is no one else. Seriously, there’s no one." A gay blogger defends Andrew Marin, who has been criticized for not taking a side on the "issue" of homosexuality and the church.

2. Beijing's 'Airpocalypse' Spurs Pollution Controls, Public Pressure (posted January 14) "The air has been classified as hazardous to human health for a fifth consecutive day, at its worst hitting pollution levels 25 times that considered safe in the U.S. The entire city is blanketed in a thick grey smog that smells of coal and stings the eyes, leading to official warnings to stay inside."

3. Los Angeles Overreacts to Cold Temperatures (posted January 11)

I lolled.

4. How President Obama reminds me of Ron Sider (and why that’s both good and bad) (posted January 14) "And the white, evangelical Republicans he reaches out to always seem upset that their acceptance of any such invitation does not result in the president immediately ceasing to be black, mainline Protestant and a Democrat."

5. The Bible and Homosexuality: Part One (posted January 15) This is great. Steve Chalke, an evangelical Christian leader in the UK, published this article for Christianity magazine about why the church NEEDS to support marriage equality. Wow. (See also Slacktivist's post about why this is a BIG DEAL.)

6. Does God Choose for Us? (posted January 16) "Walking with God suddenly becomes a multiple-choice test, and one wrong answer will wound irreparable damage."

7. So, I Waited For Him To Tell Me He Liked Me First. (posted January 10) Because we all know the girl isn't allowed to make the first move, right?

8. What If We Responded to Sexual Assault by Limiting Men’s Freedom Like We Limit Women’s? (posted January 10) "We want women to be safe, and there is apparently no way for some men to reasonably restrain their own behavior once they catch a glimpse of cleavage, so all men will have to cover their eyes while working out, going to bars or clubs, or relaxing at the beach."

9. Is Marriage Really an Illustration of Christ and the Church? (posted January 16)

10. What does it mean to be 'privileged'? (posted January 11) "Because I would have been a black dude—in a hoodie, no less!—carrying a nice-looking TV down a quiet city street at 10pm."

11. Do Truck Drivers Matter to God? (posted January 15) "They assume God places little, if any, lasting value on work that deals with the temporal things of everyday life. The implied ranking of our vocations is obvious."

12. Why I Can't Go to Church on Sundays (posted January 17) "You know that feeling of panic that you get on airplanes when they shut the door and you suddenly realize you are packed very tightly with 300 other people into a giant metal tube about to be launched into space? It’s like that, except I get it when I think about ordered pews in a big open sanctuary."

13. Global Rich List This is really interesting- how rich are you, compared to everyone in the world?

14. Why Was Jesus Baptized? (Or Why Baptizing Infants Isn’t Heresy) (posted January 16)

15. Space Invaders: Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period. (posted January 12)

16. How I became the mother of the little girl from Good Luck Charlie (alternate title: Why children should not be on instagram) (posted January 16)