Tag: questions

2011: What Kind of Year Was It?

Something about losing over $10,000 in three months is just marginally disconcerting.

When I get my World Almanac for Christmas, I often sit around with my in-laws trying to guess the top 10 events of the year (which is actually November of the prior year to October of the current year).

Seems that while US politics (Tea Party, crazy Republican Presidential candidates) might make the roster, I sense the list will be dominated by three areas:
CIVIL UNREST: Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street
ECONOMIC PING PONG: roller-coaster stock markets; near defaults in the Eurozone
NATURAL DISASTERS: February snowstorm; Japanese tsunami; tornadoes in Joplin (MO), Tuscaloosa (AL) and elsewhere; drought in Texas and Oklahoma; Hurricane Irene and tropical storm Lee

I feel lucky that most of these missed me. The February snowstorm I missed because I went to visit my mother in Charlotte, NC after she had a stroke (and before she died – sigh). Hurricane Irene DID force my wife and daughter to fly from Charlotte to Albany, rather than take the train. And my 401-K gained money in the first two quarters of this year, which was more than obliterated by the third quarter freefall; something about losing over $10,000 in three months is just marginally disconcerting. My wife wants me to put more money into retirement, but my agita is too great.

What kind of year was 2011 for you?
***
50 Funnies Tweets of 2011. I actually retweeted one of these.

ROG answers Arthur’s Question on Irreligiosity

I’m more irritable with perversions of Christianity than I am with the irreligious. I think it’s because they are SUPPOSED to be on “my” team.

One of my favorite people in Blogistan, Arthur@AmeriNZ, asks:

You know—of course, you do—you had me scurrying for my dictionary to consider the relative merit of “gauntlet” v. “gantlet”. I give you the victory on points.

But that’s not my question. You are religious and at least some of your readers are not. How hard is it for you to overlook what I can only assume is, if not blasphemy, then as close as you can get? Some of us are a bit more stroppy in our irreligiousity than others, so I’m wondering how you reconcile that with your own faith. Or, is it that your faith allows for those who are of differing—even non-religious—beliefs?

This is something that I, as a heathen, have long wondered about.

Arthur, I hyperlinked “stroppy” for my American readers, because I had never heard of the word until I saw or heard you use it.

I think my faith journey has been helpful. I was “saved” watching Billy Graham at someone’s house on Oak Street in Binghamton, NY when I was nine years old. This house is about a half-block from my church, a couple of blocks from my house. I mention this because it wasn’t an event that took place either at home or my church.

Went to Friday Night Bible Club almost every week for years. Figured that I was destined to become a minister, and others felt similarly. But here’s when things went off track. The more I read and studied, the less the whole thing was making sense. Some of the Old Testament stuff, especially in Leviticus, was troubling and confusing. I had a very difficult time with the notion of missionaries needing to “save the savages” in other countries from their “inferior” religions. In particular, I was told that all the Hindus in India were going to go to hell, and I did (and still do) have some real difficulty with that.

So I started drifting away from Christianity in college, though I still hung out with the campus ministry occasionally. Around this time, I read a book about Mahatma Gandhi. There’s a quote in there, and I’m paraphrasing, but in response to the question of why Gandhi didn’t become a Christian since he was an admirer of the teachings of Jesus Christ, he replied, “I’d become a Christian if I had ever met one.” Think that was a great retort.

In my 20s, I drifted theologically, flirting with various faiths, including the Moonies, and occasionally no faith at all. When I found my way back to Christianity over time in my 30s, it was with a more – what’s the word? – adult (?) sensibility, better able to deal with seemingly inherent contradictions of living faith and document.

As I was doing a Bible study in the mid-1990s, one of the exercises was to go to a faith tradition different from my own. I went to a now-defunct Coptic (Egyptian Orthodox) church on Madison Avenue in Albany and spent about three hours there. After the service, I was engaged in conversation with a member. He wanted to know what my religious background was; I told him that I was a Protestant, a Methodist at the time. He said to me, as nicely as one can, “You do know you’re going to go to hell, don’t you?” This had to do with the fact that Protestants, unlike Catholics and Orthodox, do not subscribe to the literal belief in transubstantiation. That certainly helped my understanding of faith in the world from a different perspective, and how it felt to be the “other” theologically.

Indeed, I always engage people in religious conversations, if they want (and I have time) because all it can do is hone my own faith. Jehovah’s Witnesses at the door? Come on in!

So, Arthur, the long answer to the question, is that irreligiosity bothers me far less than it seems to bug others, maybe because I’ve been there. “Opiate of the masses”? If that works for you. The late Christopher Hitchens’ tirade against the idea of God/faith? Fine. (Although this writer does have a valid point about Hitchens in a wider context.) Let’s face it, faith can be a bit scary, like stepping out into the void as Indiana Jones did in the third movie.

Actually, I’m more irritable with perversions of Christianity than I am with the irreligious. I think it’s because they are SUPPOSED to be on “my” team. So those Westboro Baptists tick me off far more than atheists. The peculiar intersection of Christianity and Americanism I find troubling because I believe Jesus was fighting the status quo, not embracing it.

I like many comedy movies about God. George Burns as God (Oh God), Morgan Freeman as God (Bruce Almighty). I love Monty Python’s Life of Brian so much that I bought it on DVD just this year.

Arthur, I’m not overlooking blasphemy; indeed, I happen to find it helpful to me. And yes, my faith allows room for those who are of differing— even non-religious— beliefs from me, because I think that is the Jesus message.

Sidebar: there was a discussion in adult Bible education at church a few weeks ago, and there was a conversation about whether people know you’re a Christian. One guy said that it would be unlikely. He didn’t wear a cross, carry around a Bible (like I did my first two years in high school – really), so how would anyone know? I suppose I DO want people to know – surely people at work know that, at least, I sing in a church choir. I mention faith periodically in this blog, I hope, but not TOO often. To proselytize would be anathema to me; this is what I believe, but I’m not saying that’s how someone else should feel. On the other hand, if you think, “he’s not so bad, for a Christian,” that’d be a plus.
***
Still taking questions.

 

Your Solstice Gift to Me – Ask Roger Anything!

So consider the gauntlet to be thrown down.

Doesn’t matter if you celebrate Hanukkah, Saturnalia, Festivus, Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, Brumalia, Christmas, Kwanzaa, or nothing at all. You can give me a present, or presents. I LOVE presents!

The present will be to Ask Roger Anything. This means anything at all, and I must tell the truth or at least a variation of same. Last time Jaquandor did this, he wrote: “I’d also note that there are questions that I genuinely expect to get asked every time I do this, and none of those ‘Hey, will this be the time that X gets asked!’ questions has yet to show up!” I feel the same way. Though I DID try to press Jaquandor somewhat; he did edit one of my questions slightly.

So consider the gauntlet to be thrown down. I will answer at some points before Epiphany, depending on how the holiday turns out, and the number of presents (questions) I get.

Words QUESTION

There ARE a few words that I can specifically remember learning, and not just as a child, that I have regularly incorporated into my vocabulary.

The wallpaper is beginning to peel in our bedroom, probably because of a leak, now fixed by the new roof we got this summer. It’s always something with a house that’s about a century old. I said to The Wife, “This house is giving me agita.” She thought I had made up the word; I had not.

Agita (n) – a feeling of agitation or anxiety. “Judging by its spelling and meaning, you might think that ‘agita’ is simply a shortened version of ‘agitation,’ but that’s not the case. Both ‘agitation’ and the verb ‘agitate’ derive from Latin ‘agere’ (‘to drive’). ‘Agita,’ which first appeared in American English in the early 1980s, comes from a dialectical pronunciation of the Italian word ‘acido,’ meaning ‘heartburn’ or ‘acid,’ from Latin ‘acidus.’ (‘Agita’ is also occasionally used in English with the meaning ‘heartburn.’) For a while the word’s usage was limited to New York City and surrounding regions, but the word became more widespread in the mid-90s.”

So the Wife says, “Where did you learn that word?” I reply, “How the heck do I know?!”

But it got me to thinking that there ARE a few words that I can specifically remember learning, and not just as a child, that I have regularly incorporated into my vocabulary.

Ersatz (adj)- being a usually artificial and inferior substitute or imitation. I learned this from a book about recordings by the Beatles, both as a group and as solo artists, that I read in the late 1970s. The writer referred to Ringo’s Goodnight Vienna LP as an “ersatz Beatles album.” All four Fabs appear, albeit not together, on the album.

Penultimate (adj) -next to the last. I was reading a black and white comic called Elfquest in the early 1980s, and in issue 19, co-creator Richard Pini noted that it was the penultimate issue. I’ve used the word a lot ever since.

Are there any words you picked up from reading as an adult that you didn’t know before but have integrated into your vocabulary?

In honor, two versions of the song Words by the Monkees.
TV show version
singles version

Commercially repulsive QUESTION

I loathed these commercials so much that I have, years later, never purchased a package of Wisk.

I’ve refused to buy a number of products over the years for various reasons: political/economic boycotts for iceberg lettuce, orange juice, and the like.

But there have also been commercials out there that have just offended my sensibilities.

One was for a drink mix from Pillsbury called Funny Face, targeted to compete with Kool-Aid. Not only did the character on this particular envelope look like a caricature, if memory serves, he also sounded like one. It’s no surprise that the product was replaced by a more generic Choo Choo Cherry a couple years later.

But no long-running commercial bugged me more than those for Wisk laundry detergent and its irritating “Ring Around the Collar”. Often featuring a woman looking frustrated and shamed when her husband, a friend, or even a total stranger noticed that the husband’s shirt collar was less than pristine. Here are some examples here and here, plus you can find plenty more on the Internet; this later ad was less bad, but by then it was too late. I loathed these commercials so much that I have, years later, never purchased a package of Wisk.

(Company policies generally can cut both ways. On one hand, a potential boycott against Butterball turkeys, because they are halal, might make me MORE likely to buy them. On the other, Butterball being sued by EEOC for harassment and the firing of an HIV+ employee, not so much.

What commercials, or company policies, backfired with you, making you LESS likely to purchase the product?

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial