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silveradeptWell, I was going to do work tonight. Then the library closed at 6. Oops. I guess that's the way things work around here. Just means I'll have to go do work tomorrow.
Watched television tonight, strangely enough. Timing was right, I guess. Watched an NBC report on the evangelical movement. Lots about trying to get into their heads and resolve their contradictions. To his credit, the editors let Tom ask some tough questions and make his interviewees uncomfortable at times in the final cut. As I was watching the program, I was watching the eyes of the people that were being interviewed. I sort of keyed into it because the main person Tom was talking to, a minister of a large evangelical church, had his eyes and his mouth doing different things. He was always smiling or trying to provide the appearance of one... his eyes, however, didn't follow that. When he was in the preaching segments, his eyes followed his natural self. In the one person who wasn't evangelical and was being slowlyindoctrinated introduced to the church, even though he said he was feeling better about it, his eyes said that he wasn't comfortable. I suspect it was a "Should I run now, while I still can?" or "Any minute now, someone's going to accuse me of devil-worshiping." sort of look. It's the barge pole look. Everyone else matched up. Interesting that I got a bad vibe from the pastor and a scared vibe from the outsider. Does that tell us something about the evangelical leadership in general? Because I remember getting that kind of vibe off of a more evangelical preacher when I was in middle school. I get it when I stick around and listen to the LDS people in town do their work. Strangely enough, when the Gideons drop by, I don't get it from them. That could be the remnants of my Catholic upbringing making me a bit paranoid about other denominations, but I think it goes a bit further than that. I just have to figure out why they unnerve me so.
Might be because I can see lots of alcohol consumed at one of those gatherings if one was playing The Evangelical Christian Drinking Game. Or that someone might now have thought all the way through their cute bumper sticker ideas. But hey, at least they found the WMV's. Several years of looking, and they finally found them. Chalk one up for the conservatives.
Now that I look at it, today's been a very political day. And a lot of that politics has had to do with religion. With Miers stepping down, the pundits wonder who will be properly conservative-in-the-right-way to get themselves appointed. Additionally, Libby got charged in the Valerie Plame leak, and the prosecutor says he's not necessarily done yet. The White House's fortress is beginning to look like the armor of the troops over in Iraq. On a more local sort of level, students at Pope John XXIII Regional High School are forbidden to blog about school or their lives. It's couched as a safety measure - what would be more effective would be to teach the kids how to be anonymous, if they wanted to be so. Maybe it's me being old-fashioned, but I wonder what those administrators are trying to protect the kids from. Is there something they know about the members of their community that we don't? Or is there something about the school going on there that the administrators would rather not have them talking about? My paranoia meter dings when I hear this sort of thing. It's the same sort of thing that pops up whenever anyone challenges a book. It always seems more like a personal vendetta than an argument about common good. Of course, some of my friends have friends who have friends who have proposed a novel solution. It's an anonymizer, only better! Sort of.
And following, or perhaps returning to where I started, another school district has decided to nerf Halloween. We had that happen to the elementary and other schools because of some people objecting. We, like most students, were Not Happy. It's one of the few days we get in the year to give the finger to social conventions of dress, appearance, and politeness. Now, mind you, since it's still a school day, we follow some of the forms, but it's generally a better day when we get to costume ourselves in the way that we really want to. I'm very much for free expression, I just don't have the manual talent or the money to commission the right people to make it happen. (Have I mentioned before that having full-length angel wings would be cool, as would a full-length dragon wings, horns, and tail set? Now do you understand the money part?) And, I'll admit, the candy and chocolate and sugar were good parts of it, too. Even now, they are, but I don't want to just buy a bag of Halloween candy and eat it - I wanna go out in costume and earn it, with the kids half (three-quarters) my age. (I'd get more than a few strange looks, I suspect. I'm supposed to be the one giving out the candy at my age, not going out and getting it.) Plus, doing Halloween in Catholic elementary was not fun at all - the costuming was limited (obviously, no demons, devils, ghouls, or other evil forces), then limited (only Biblical figures and admirable public servants). If my memory's not bad, I made it out before the second restriction. Still, it was cool to be in my Starfleet jumpsuit in sixth grade. (So I was a geek then, too. Are you surprised?) Hmm. Maybe I just haven't lost that part of my childlike wonder. For good or ill that it does me.
There have been several other developing weirdnesses, of course. The Weasley's car got ganked, for example. Confused yet?. Don't be. Instead, let's go out to New York and have dinner at the Ninja New York. Those are my kinds of restaurants. While I enjoy thematic places, I wonder how taxing it is on the staff to maintain the image. There, though, they might enjoy it, rather than possibly someplace like Disney, where the cast members may or may not have to deal with aggravants like small children and mean-spirited teenagers.
Since it's about Halloween-time,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wicked_wish posts up a list that every horror-movie cast member should read. Survival and all that.
A different weirdness: there are actually people that list themselves as coming from the high school that I do. That's... really scary. All told, I suppose it wasn't a bad place, but I have no intent of going back there excepting to visit family, and possibly to be coaxed back somewhere near it for a reunion. That's IT.
Finally for me tonight, it's possible that the Residents (the "Soulbond phenomenon") might not be as strange as we think. If the paper referenced in this article is right, then a lot of normal people have hallucinations, sometimes over the mean score of those clinically psychotic. (Although in gross numbers, the psychotics scored more than the controls.) So maybe there are more of us there than we even think.
Watched television tonight, strangely enough. Timing was right, I guess. Watched an NBC report on the evangelical movement. Lots about trying to get into their heads and resolve their contradictions. To his credit, the editors let Tom ask some tough questions and make his interviewees uncomfortable at times in the final cut. As I was watching the program, I was watching the eyes of the people that were being interviewed. I sort of keyed into it because the main person Tom was talking to, a minister of a large evangelical church, had his eyes and his mouth doing different things. He was always smiling or trying to provide the appearance of one... his eyes, however, didn't follow that. When he was in the preaching segments, his eyes followed his natural self. In the one person who wasn't evangelical and was being slowly
Might be because I can see lots of alcohol consumed at one of those gatherings if one was playing The Evangelical Christian Drinking Game. Or that someone might now have thought all the way through their cute bumper sticker ideas. But hey, at least they found the WMV's. Several years of looking, and they finally found them. Chalk one up for the conservatives.
Now that I look at it, today's been a very political day. And a lot of that politics has had to do with religion. With Miers stepping down, the pundits wonder who will be properly conservative-in-the-right-way to get themselves appointed. Additionally, Libby got charged in the Valerie Plame leak, and the prosecutor says he's not necessarily done yet. The White House's fortress is beginning to look like the armor of the troops over in Iraq. On a more local sort of level, students at Pope John XXIII Regional High School are forbidden to blog about school or their lives. It's couched as a safety measure - what would be more effective would be to teach the kids how to be anonymous, if they wanted to be so. Maybe it's me being old-fashioned, but I wonder what those administrators are trying to protect the kids from. Is there something they know about the members of their community that we don't? Or is there something about the school going on there that the administrators would rather not have them talking about? My paranoia meter dings when I hear this sort of thing. It's the same sort of thing that pops up whenever anyone challenges a book. It always seems more like a personal vendetta than an argument about common good. Of course, some of my friends have friends who have friends who have proposed a novel solution. It's an anonymizer, only better! Sort of.
And following, or perhaps returning to where I started, another school district has decided to nerf Halloween. We had that happen to the elementary and other schools because of some people objecting. We, like most students, were Not Happy. It's one of the few days we get in the year to give the finger to social conventions of dress, appearance, and politeness. Now, mind you, since it's still a school day, we follow some of the forms, but it's generally a better day when we get to costume ourselves in the way that we really want to. I'm very much for free expression, I just don't have the manual talent or the money to commission the right people to make it happen. (Have I mentioned before that having full-length angel wings would be cool, as would a full-length dragon wings, horns, and tail set? Now do you understand the money part?) And, I'll admit, the candy and chocolate and sugar were good parts of it, too. Even now, they are, but I don't want to just buy a bag of Halloween candy and eat it - I wanna go out in costume and earn it, with the kids half (three-quarters) my age. (I'd get more than a few strange looks, I suspect. I'm supposed to be the one giving out the candy at my age, not going out and getting it.) Plus, doing Halloween in Catholic elementary was not fun at all - the costuming was limited (obviously, no demons, devils, ghouls, or other evil forces), then limited (only Biblical figures and admirable public servants). If my memory's not bad, I made it out before the second restriction. Still, it was cool to be in my Starfleet jumpsuit in sixth grade. (So I was a geek then, too. Are you surprised?) Hmm. Maybe I just haven't lost that part of my childlike wonder. For good or ill that it does me.
There have been several other developing weirdnesses, of course. The Weasley's car got ganked, for example. Confused yet?. Don't be. Instead, let's go out to New York and have dinner at the Ninja New York. Those are my kinds of restaurants. While I enjoy thematic places, I wonder how taxing it is on the staff to maintain the image. There, though, they might enjoy it, rather than possibly someplace like Disney, where the cast members may or may not have to deal with aggravants like small children and mean-spirited teenagers.
Since it's about Halloween-time,
wicked_wish posts up a list that every horror-movie cast member should read. Survival and all that. A different weirdness: there are actually people that list themselves as coming from the high school that I do. That's... really scary. All told, I suppose it wasn't a bad place, but I have no intent of going back there excepting to visit family, and possibly to be coaxed back somewhere near it for a reunion. That's IT.
Finally for me tonight, it's possible that the Residents (the "Soulbond phenomenon") might not be as strange as we think. If the paper referenced in this article is right, then a lot of normal people have hallucinations, sometimes over the mean score of those clinically psychotic. (Although in gross numbers, the psychotics scored more than the controls.) So maybe there are more of us there than we even think.
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-29 02:42 pm (UTC)the article didn't mention LJ so I went to look at the school function...surprised so many people were listed I clicked on one. This was posted in the journal.
"We've all heard about the NJ school that banned student blogs. Screw up their enforcement plan! Add Pope John XXIII Regional High School in Sparta, NJ to your school list!
I'm waiting patiently for my expulsion notice. *whistle*"
I don't know how I feel about this whole thing. Does the wording mean they could keep a journal with just poems or other things like that because it isn't about school or personal lives.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-29 02:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-29 03:37 pm (UTC)They probably can. But I don't think it would be fair to deny them the opportunity to talk about their lives (even if we worry that it might be more of the "Dark Clouds/People Suck/I want to die" sort of response.