Sunday, December 21, 2008

Rick Warren


So if you haven't been following recent political news, there has been a firestorm of negative reaction circulating regarding President-Elect Obama's choice to have Rick Warren, the mega-church evangelical, give the invocation at the inauguration. It is a pretty fascinating piece of news and I want to share my thoughts on it.

First off, just as an informative baseline, Rick Warren is the founding pastor at the Saddleback Church, this megachurch in Cali that boasts 23,000 members, making it the largest church in Cali, and the 4th largest in the US. He wrote a book, "The Purpose Driven Live," which has sold 20-some million copies. He is ultra socially conservative, but has managed to focus his churches efforts on usually untraditional evangelical causes like poverty or AIDS. In August during the election cycle, he hosted both Obama and McCain for a forum on faith. Safe to say, this guy is a big deal.

So this firestorm that has erupted comes (obviously) from the liberal and progressive side. They cannot fathom how someone so liberal and progressive like Obama, who built his platform on inclusion, positivity and hope could tap someone like Warren who holds these divisive and conservative social views to give the inaugural invocation. There have been articles upon articles written in newspapers and in the blogosphere about how Obama "conned" liberals and has made the worst decision ever.

Everybody just needs to calm down.

Obama made a GREAT decision. And this is coming from someone who is ultra socially liberal. I could not disagree more with Warren's views on abortion, gay marriage and a plethora of other social topics. But guess what? I recognize that a vast percentage of this country does NOT hold my views. I recognize that there are millions of evangelicals who will call Obama their president come January 20th. I recognize that if we truly want real "Change," that we will need to start working with people who we have never worked with before!

Liberals keep slamming Obama on the "Change" message. How can he select this Warren guy if he based his political platform on changing the way things are done? Well you know what? This IS change! It would have been very convenient for Obama, a liberal, to select someone who is also a liberal and who holds exactly the same views as him. That has been done before by almost every president. That is NOT change. Change is being able to admit that "hey, this guy does not hold the same views as me, but I still respect him and recognize that tens of millions of Americans look up to him. And I DON'T CARE what my base has to say about this because I know this is a good decision."

Obama has balls.

Like seriously. This is a huge slap in the face of people who thought Obama was just going to cater to the liberal left. Again, I AM a part of that left, but I do not want him to govern from here! Things just will not get done that way. Concessions need to be made. Compromises need to be reached. And to me, selecting Warren is a necessary concession, a worthwhile compromise. And I applaud Barack for doing it.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

3 more? Try 5...

All of my private school teacher friends (not mentioned any names but on Backwards Day they would be Esoj and Sirhc) keep flaunting on their blogs that they have "3 more days." My extremely amazing deductive reasoning skills lead me to believe they are talking about their winter breaks, as in "3 more days" until winter break starts.

Well you know what, fuck THAT! I've got 5 more days! That is because in public school land, break doesn't start until next Wednesday. That's Christmas Eve Wednesday...

---digression alert---
When I was little and even now, I always thought "Christmas Eve" referred to the NIGHT before Christmas, not the whole day before Christmas. To me, the word "Eve" is short for "Evening" and thus should entail "night." I refuse to call the WHOLE day before Christmas a type of "Eve." I mean does anyone else feel the same way I do?? So OK, I wake up December 24th and think to myself, man, toDAY is Christmas Eve. Hell no! I wake up December 24th and then wait until dinner time and THEN I think to myself, man, toNIGHT is Christmas Eve! Don't you?
---digression terminated---

...a small detail I know, but exemplative of a much larger annoyance I experience when benchmarking my teaching experience with that of my peers. Private schools get so much more time off! And I am going to hate on that fact until I die. C'MON! You already sold out by deciding to work for privileged Jewish kids. Why should YOU get the privilege of getting more time off. Bullshit motherfucker! I disapprove wholeheartedly. Take your 3 days and shove it up your goyim asses!

Monday, December 15, 2008

TMZ



Have you ever watched the show "TMZ" on one of the basic channels. It's on I think every night at 7 or 7:30. Anyway, this show pisses me the fuck off. It's a bunch of pathetic ass losers standing around in a room talking about and jerking off over the most minute embarrassing celebrity details that are caught on tape. ARGH. Not only that, but they seem so satisfied in humiliating them. I don't get it. This unfortunate looking loser clique really pisses me off whenever I channel surf through them.

The thing is, sometimes you can't help but watch them talk about a photo of Miley Cyrus picking her nose. Or Kim Kardashian having a fat ass. Or Mickey Rourke being irrelevant. All of this serves to piss me off even more because I catch myself selling out to this the lowest form of entertainment. What the fuck does TMZ even stand for?

Great. Just looked it up. It stands for "Thirty Mile Zone." That is awesome. Awesomely annoying.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

"Wanna Know How I Know You're Gay...?

Because you listen to Coldplay"



That being said, here are my top 5 Coldplay songs:

1. Amsterdam - A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002)

2. Fix You - X&Y (2005)

3. Swallowed in the Sea - X&Y (2005)

4. The Scientist - A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002)

5. Shiver - Parachutes (2000)

Monday, December 1, 2008

I Can't Believe It

I had a dream last night that I was in the studio with T-Pain laying down a verse for a remix of "Can't Believe It." I pretty vividly remember the start of my verse:

"I can take you for some dancing and some fun yo, all the way up to Moscow
Have you hanging out with the honchos."


Wow. Take a second.

What a WACK ASS LINE!!! I remember just trying to get something to rhyme with Moscow. T-Pain seemed to like it a lot. Ugh. Embarrassing.