Running Commentary: A Project of the Month

The latest in the impeachment inquiry. I have feelings of bewilderment that this is unfolding, and still how partisan everything is. I am struggling with the gaslighting, the "there's no there there". It reminds me of the story of the emperor with no clothes, but how is this real life? it's just baffling.

This list of what to do when working from a coffee shop feels obvious, but maybe that’s because I also used to work at a coffee shop. I disagree that you need to always purchase things, but maybe that’s because I am cheap, or because my point of reference is Starbucks. Sometimes when I read articles like this, I am impressed by how anything can be a topic of an essay. But it took effort to write it, and why am I not writing? But it also just drains me of some of my own attention for living, which is why I am back on running commentary. It’s time to recalibrate what I am paying attention to.

I read this article this morning while drinking coffee and also following the impeachment inquiry’s latest. I am disappointed to find that there is nothing I am very interested in watching this October. Streaming videos makes me feel like going to Blockbuster every day. In the end, I just watch less TV (but still, somehow, spend a lot of time perusing).

Every morning when I wake up, I scroll through the headlines that Google automatically populates for me. This was the one article that I read today. It is amazing to consider a time when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and even more amazing to think that they may have been truly gigantic and terrifying birds! For the first time, they have surfaced this actual part of a dinosaur, encased in amber, and found these beautiful feathers. The picture of the baby dinosaur in the article is adorbs. Strange and interesting to consider what the world once was!

I listened to the first twenty minutes of this podcast on my way to work this morning. Alice Parker and Krista Tippett were discussing the innate quality of the human voice, the idea that we actually sing before we speak. It made me think about how much I love to sing, and how one of the beautiful aspects of growing up in a protestant church was that we sang a lot. I remembered going up into the balcony of the large sanctuary at First Assembly and pulling out the hymnal, and singing along to the huge choir. I thought about my grandma, and the quality of her voice, and her singing voice, and how much we love to be  a part of a chorus. I began to think about things that I wanted to be a part of, and how I’ve not created very much space in my life for dedicating myself to my own voice. I wondered if there were beginning adult choirs, outside of a church space. I wondered if I could teach myself the banjo (an inspiration from last week’s episode). I wondered why I always feel inspired to create when I have no time to do so (e.g. on my way to work). I wondered when I am going to have enough energy to do more than change into PJs and crawl into bed after each work day, and what I need to shift in my life to make space for creativity energies. I also was inspired by the idea to create an elective course based on biographies of music! and what that might sound like, and who might be interested. I think I would like to offer that in the future. I was also inspired to begin, again, to take note of the things that I think when I am consuming articles, or podcasts, so that I can collect the grist, and make something of it.

Homeschoolers Anonymous is two years old. I am proud of the efforts of these members of my community, and have also been able to confront some demons in my own past because they made a safe space for people to talk about their lives. 

I’m glad that Alecia’s case advanced legislation to avoid these kinds of abuse of identity. I am saddened that not everyone gets the benefit of this -- if she were an immigrant, if she had darker skin or darker eyes, would she have found the same support? Nevertheless, I choose to believe this is a step in the right direction.

This is an excellent, poignant article about abuse of power in the church and the Christianity Today shame campaign. He concludes his article with two incisive questions: “Why is it more shameful to call out abuse than to abuse?Why is critiquing the abuse of power more embarrassing to the church than the abuse of power?” This makes me feel indignant.

I didn’t know anything about the #CTShame campaign until I read Ryan’s article about it. It struck me as more than a little bizarre that Christianity is attempting to align its social media efforts such that we’re not “shaming” those who are abusing power. Ryan wrote about how it feels to personally “call out” those in power, and how there are not actually “two of him.” It takes enormous courage to call someone out, and he’s only doing this because he believes it must be done. This article broke my heart a little bit, because I know Ryan personally, and I know in the context of his life, this may have been a difficult thing to admit, and I am sorry that he often feels so alone in speaking the truth.

This article tells the story of Casey Legler, who has become the first female male model. It has a video interview, but also includes the transcript. She is not transgender, but she models as a male because they don’t know what else to do with her when she models. She is a great example of gender fluidity, and the promise that we can transcend stupid and inadequate labels.

This article describes the strange events surrounding the death of Bethany Deaton, who was in the cult with Boze Herrington in Kansa City. It is a really sad story, no matter how things actually shook down. I don’t think anyone will ever know the true story here.

Another article about someone describing how very real the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is, and how it depicts survivors of these strange stories. They are maybe less strange than we think.

I have a dachshund too, and this is a sad article about negligence on the part of the former owners. He was so gigantic his little belly was rubbing on the carpet and getting infections! I am glad he’s in a better place now, and I hope I never do this to my dog!

This is a confusing situation as a morning show host blames a rapper for SAE singing a historic, racist fraternity song passed down through tradition.. The more I think about it, the more the news often makes me feel as bewildered as The Dress. But then, I shouldn’t be surprised. Racist culture is prevalent, and that’s not new.

Beau Reed describes his experience coming out to his family, and how he experienced rejection as well as acceptance (from different members of his family), but mostly he experienced joy at being himself.

This is a short video animation depicting Ismael Nazario’s experience at Rikers prison  in New York. It’s extremely horrifying, although it’s just an animation with Ismael’s narrative explanation.

I am skeptical of their apologies, because they did not actually apologise. It’s like, they were sorry they got caught being idiots. But for actually being hurtful? for being hateful? for being leaders of hurtful and hateful things? They haven’t had enough time to confront that in their hearts, and the apology just feels flat.