Blogaround + Happy Chinese New Year!

Chinese-style art with a tiger. Image source.

Happy Chinese New Year everyone! Today (February 1, 2022) is the first day of the Year of the Tiger.

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1. The Miracle Sudoku (posted 2020) It's a 25-minute video of a British sudoku expert solving an incredible sudoku, and the best part is his reactions, how he gets more and more delighted and amazed by the puzzle as he goes along. This is fantastic.

2. Don't know if you all saw Christianity Today's article "‘They’ Is Not a Pronoun for God" (it's not worth reading, but here's the link). I just... like why even bother responding- I've moved so far past this, and the world has moved so far past this. You don't need to sit around with people who believe exactly the same things as you and study ancient documents to make rules for how everyone else should live- "Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!" Come into the big queer kingdom of God, where trans and nonbinary people can experience how life-giving it is to be called by their correct name and pronouns.

It's just so obvious to me that God is genderqueer and nonbinary. They/them.

3. What Does John Locke Say? (The Fox Parody) - @mrbettsclass (posted 2013) This is AMAZING.

4. One Chaste Marriage, Four Kids, and the Catholic Church (posted November 17) Well this is totally fascinating, especially from an asexual perspective.

5. ‘Are You All Right?’ (posted January 26) "Well, if you’re in Hamtramck, Michigan, you’re in luck. Officials in that city are keeping careful track of neighbors in need. Those officials don’t understand that this is what they’re doing, mind you — they don’t seem to understand what they’re doing at all. Those befuddled officials seem to think, instead, that what they’re doing is keeping careful track of which of your neighbors are in violation, threatening the sick and distressed with various punishments rather than offering to provide them the neighborly assistance they require."

Blogaround

A tiger swimming. Image source.

1. 8 Exonerated Prisoners on Their First Week Out (posted September 10) "Then I got up to leave, and every step that I took, nobody stopped me."

2. The Dad Who Wrote a Check Using “Common Core” Math Doesn’t Know What He’s Talking About (posted September 21) "That’s what great math students learn how to do, too. They see a problem and they just know how to manipulate the information at their disposal. They knew how to step away from the algorithms. They didn’t need a “recipe” because they understood how to mess around with the numbers to get the answer they wanted."

3. #MasculinitySoFragile Hashtag Highlights Toxic Masculinity’s Weak Points (posted September 23) "#MasculinitySoFragile Guys have to say "no homo" when showing affection to another guy, which is like saying "no Oedipus" when u hug ur mom."

4. Evangelical Conference on Transgender “Confusion” Has Zero Transgender Speakers (posted September 23) "This isn’t a conference; this is the active plotting of maltreatment that could have deadly consequences."

5. The Real Theological Challenge of Evolution (posted September 16) "What do we make of the notion that God created a world so well-equipped for extinction that 99.9% of all species that have ever existed are now extinct? Or that God created a world with parameters in which biological strategies such as predation and parasitism are so rewarding that they are virtually inevitable?"

6. [trigger warning- child sexual abuse] Jamie Wight, Maranatha, & Sexual Predation Unrecognized (posted September 23) "Fathers are taught to expect to be approached by godly young men hoping to wed their daughters. In this context, Stan and the Greenfields likely saw Matthew and Jamin as earnest and well qualified young men who had simply jumped the gun by a few years."

7. Stat check: No, women couldn’t just “go somewhere else” if Planned Parenthood closed (posted September 24) "State data shows that without Planned Parenthood in the network, the public program provided care to about 9 percent fewer women than it did in 2011. In the West Texas region, women served by that program declined by 40 percent between 2011 and 2013 — the same year that Planned Parenthood closed two clinics in that area of the state."

8. Chinese President 习近平 Xi Jinping visited the US and it is all over the news here (I'm in China).

Here are some articles from the English side of the internet:
Obama and Xi Jinping of China Agree to Steps on Cybertheft
FACT SHEET: President Xi Jinping’s State Visit to the United States
Mark Zuckerberg Met With Xi Jinping and Spoke Only in Chinese  Good for him! I want to see a video though.
XI Jinping of China visits Washington D.C. (21 images)

And from the Chinese side of the internet:
习近平访美中方成果清单发布  [Results of Xi Jinping's visit to the US] This one includes an 8-minute video of Xi's arrival at the White House, with a ceremony and everything.
彭丽媛和米歇尔为赴美大熊猫幼崽命名 [Peng Liyuan and Michelle name the American panda cub] 10 photos here. Also this one has a video of the name reveal and Peng Liyuan saying some stuff (in Chinese) about pandas and cooperation between China and the US.
习近平访问西雅图林肯高中 获赠1号球衣 [Xi Jinping visits Lincoln High School in Seattle and receives a #1 football jersey] 12 photos here.

9. Ben Carson’s claim that ‘taqiyya’ encourages Muslims ‘to lie to achieve your goals’ (posted September 22) This is hilarious to me because Christians lie ALL THE TIME if they think it's in service to Jesus. They lie about abortion, birth control, and sex. They use scare tactics and portray LGBT people as monsters who want to destroy society. They find deceptive ways to force people to listen to a "gospel presentation." How about removing the plank in your own eye before giving your uninformed opinion of Muslims?

10. Ahab and Jezebel in Psalm 45 (posted September 26) Is Psalm 45 the wedding song for Ahab and Jezebel?

Blogaround

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1. When a child goes to war (posted June 1) "The flat portrayal of child soldiers necessitated by the state of international law says these children can either be traumatised victims or they will become invisible."

2. I'm a black ex-cop, and this is the real truth about race and policing (posted May 28) "The victims were electrically shocked, suffocated, and beaten into false confessions that resulted in many of them being convicted and serving time for crimes they didn't commit. One man, Darrell Cannon, spent 24 years in prison for a crime he confessed to but didn't commit. He confessed when officers repeatedly appeared to load a shotgun and after doing so each time put it in his mouth and pulled the trigger."

3. 23 Struggles Kids Today Will Never Know Or Understand (posted June 3) Oh my goodness, remember MapQuest?

4. God Calls Caitlyn By Name (posted June 2) Amen.

5. Jon Stewart Made a Brilliant Point About Caitlyn Jenner That Nobody's Talking About (posted June 3) "I have to ask the most important question: Does she have a better body than Kim Kardashian?"

6. Toilet swirl (posted June 3) 2 videos which sync together, about the question of whether toilets in the northern and southern hemispheres flush in opposite directions. Totally worth watching.

7. June 4

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8. China cruise ship death toll exceeds 400, victims mourned (posted June 7) I want to know how God could let this happen.

9. And here are all the links you could ever want about the Duggars:

Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar’s Interview with Megyn Kelly: Minimize, Deny, Obfuscate

The missing pieces of the #DuggarInterview: humility, responsibility, understanding

Defending the Duggars is defending rape culture

A Parade of Lies: The Duggar Interview Review.

In a Duggar world, the real victims take a back seat to their parents

Why Jill & #JessaDuggar were not "speaking for themselves" in their interview with @megynkelly

A Homeschool Alumna's Thoughts on Megyn Kelly's Interview of the Duggars

What happened to the Duggars could happen to your family. Here’s how to prevent it.

Megyn Kelly Asks Duggar Girls: Show Us On The Doll Where The Liberal Media Touched You

The Voice of False Submission and the Duggar Sisters’ Interview.

And one more thing: During the interviews, the question was raised of whether people are going after the Duggar family because of their "Christian beliefs."

Well, yeah it absolutely is because of their beliefs. Not their "Christian beliefs" though- it's because of their quiverfull/ purity culture/ Christian patriarchy/ anti-LGBT beliefs. It's because all these years, their message has been "This is the CORRECT way to have a family. This is GOD'S way" and now we learn what kinds of nastiness are hiding beneath the surface- and I believe it is their belief system which allows that abuse to happen and to be covered up.

These beliefs need to be attacked and destroyed.

(I'm all for Christian beliefs though. ^_^ You know, things like resurrection, justice, love, caring for the least of these. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.)

Blogaround

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1. kink 101 for purity culture survivors (posted February 20) "I also want to make it very clear that you don’t have to have a “good reason” to say “no” to something, whether it be equipment, an act, or a scenario. Feeling “eh, not really interested or turned on by that” for no particular reason is the only reason you need. I’ve found that women who were brought up in purity culture tend to believe that we have to justify and rationalize every decision we make, and I’ve found that’s actually really sort of ridiculous. “I don’t want to” is the only reason anyone needs. If that’s not a good enough reason for your partner ... get a new partner."

2. Immodest Proposals: Brothers and sisters (posted February 11) "On the one hand, good Christian men are beleaguered warriors, constantly fighting the onslaught of hormones and bare clavicles and Victoria’s Secret ads; women must not join forces against them. But on the other hand, a modest girl never knows when a warrior will drop his shield and turn his sword on her, indulging his beastly urges. If she flashes just a bit too much of her goods, he, the predator, will consume her. Which inch of skin will push him over? Which movement, which skirt, which smile?"

3. 7 Reasons Why ‘Colorblindness’ Contributes to Racism Instead of Solves It (posted February 23) "It implies that color is a problem, arguably synonymous with “I can see who you are despite your race.” As evidence, note that the phrase is virtually never applied to White people."

4. 15 Unanswered Questions We Have About ‘The Parent Trap’ (posted November 2014) "As their parents were angrily splitting up, did they take the time to tear this photo in half and swap halves?! 'I HATE YOU B*TCH, BUT TAKE THIS HALF PHOTO TO REMEMBER EVERYTHING YOU’LL BE MISSING.' Like, what?"

5. The Dress, or You're Probably Missing The Point of Yesterday (posted February 27) "If it can take that much effort to perceive the fundamental reality underneath a simple (accidental) optical illusion why does anyone think that something as complex as racism, gender equality, or climate change can be easily understood?"

6. Leonard Nimoy, 'Star Trek's' Spock, dead at 83 (posted February 27) So sad. Spock is my favorite character of all time.

7. Astronaut Salutes Nimoy From Orbit (posted February 27) Live long and prosper.

8. Someone Tell Me That I’ll Live: On Murder, Media, and Being a Trans Woman in 2015 (posted March 1) "We need people to stop talking about how trans women get killed all the time. We need people to start telling us that they won’t let us die."

Tiger (a story about how Chinese see the world)

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So hey, let's play charades! Your word is "tiger." How will you act it out?

I'm thinking something along the lines of prowling around like a big scary cat, but that's just me.

We played charades in one of my classes recently. (Important background information: I teach English in China.) The students were laughing and fooling around the entire time, and they loved it- even though some of them were pretty low-level and kept looking up the words on their phones. At one point, one student had to act out "run" so he ran across the classroom, and everyone was like "What? Do it again." They knew what it was- they just wanted to make him run around the classroom again. Sneaky.

But the part that stuck out the most to me is when I gave the word "tiger" to a student.

He held up three fingers, and laid them horizontally across his forehead. Then one more finger, vertically crossing all three of them in the middle.

Like this, with his fingers.

And the other students were all like "Tiger!"

And I bet most Americans would have no clue how in the world that's supposed to be a tiger.

That right there is the Chinese character 王 (wáng) and it means "king." And in China, apparently it's common knowledge that tigers have the character "王 (wáng)" on their foreheads.

So in this round of charades, the student was acting out something that had a 王 (wáng) on its forehead, and his classmates correctly guessed that it must be a tiger.

Crazy, isn't it? Crazy how different cultures can be. How amazing, how foreign, how incredibly different from the way my own language and culture has structured my brain. Here in China, for perhaps a billion people, one of the first things that comes to mind when they think of a tiger is that it should have a 王 (wáng) on its head.

Wow.

Tigers don't really have a 王 (wáng) on their heads. It's an example of how humans look for patterns in chaos. Here, take a look at some tigers:

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Okay you guys, this one definitely has 王 (wáng). Image source.

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Do you get it? Do you see the 王 (wáng)? The largest cat in the world- the king of the cats- he is marked with the Chinese character for "king."

Wild.