Blogcritics Author: Virginia Dare

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Rock Rebellion: Guitar Tablature Disappears From The Internet

Virginia Dare — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 10:13:32 EDT

It's no wonder that the Internet has become a battleground for the entertainment industry and copyright law -- I gather that a majority of people use their computers primarily for entertainment. Or they spend so much time working on their computers that they need a way to bring their entertainment to the platform. Either way you look at it, it seems that as soon as one fire is doused, another flares up. The first big wave of controversy started with Napster and that silly file sharing business. The debate raged so long that I wrote papers about it in high school, and graded essays about it when I started teaching college.I can't really offer an opinion as to the right or wrong of a service like Napster. I'd be lying if I didn't say that I've enjoyed the free music that file sharing offers, but I'd also be lying if I didn't say that now as a full grown adult I understand the ethical problem that it produces. Just because we have the technology to to something doesn't mean the we have the ethical or moral right to do it. But I don't want to get too far into whether or not we're dangling from a precipice as a society.I actually admired the justification that most consumers used in taking advantage of Napster, that the product was bad. Since we are a consumer-based culture and we are inundated with advertising designed to work on our brains in the most insidious of ways just to get into our pocketbooks, I thought it was rather punk rock of my fellow consumers to flip the script. Of course I don't endorse ethical backsliding. Such a practice should be curbed as much as possible, as it weakens character, which leads to a whole host of other societal ills.But as soon as Napster was bought out and made available for purchase, a new beast loomed on the horizon -- BitTorrent. I'm not sure exactly what bit torrents are, but I know that whole DVDs, albums, and software programs are now available for download at no charge to me. Not that I would ever use such a service. I'm just acknowledging its existence. Now the legalities of this service aren't quite as omnipresent as the buzz about Napster was... though litigations are already circulating through high priced attorneys' hands. Perhaps this is because the issues of file sharing and technology and intellectual property are now a part of our everyday vocabulary.Or perhaps the lack of outrage at the practice of sharing DVDs with mass audiences before they even hit theatres comes from the fact that movies are a different beast to the consumer. People love to watch the flickering images, and the people that make those images are on much firmer ground when it comes to issues of intellectual property and money in the bank. Bands make most of their money touring, record companies keep a majority of what comes from record sales. Those pesky recoupables. But DVD sales are one of the major ways that movies make money, especially lower budget independent features that get by on word of mouth as opposed to a lot of advertising. Those are the kind of movies I like to watch, so I'll admit I'm biased right now.But what's really getting under my skin at the moment is neither one of these copyright infringement practices. Instead what has me puzzled is why my favorite online guitar tablature archives are shutting down left and right. These are sites that I've been visiting for tabs since before I ever knew how to download an MP3 from Limewire. Olga.net, the online guitar archive is largely responsible for my ability to play guitar. If it weren't for the poorly-tabbed Hole and PJ Harvey songs archived there I would have given up hope on barre cords and the circle of fifths long ago.It seems, though, that the Music Publishers Association (MPA) has decided recently that guitar tablature sites that offer free tablatures online are violating the songwriter's copyright. It's not clear what prompted it, but someone did some digging, and found that since the early nineties when online archives started to get big, music books containing music and guitar tablature were selling significantly less. So they say that they are going to reduce copyright infringement by shutting down these sites. Which will force beginning guitarists to go out and buy the tablature books. Apparently songwriters are really hurting for these profits. And that's what this must be about, the selling of the paper with the tablature on it. Because heaven knows that a cover band is not dipping into Kiss's profits anytime soon. Sorry dude, not even fifty thousand Kiss cover bands is dipping into those profits.What really has me bothered, though, is this notion that the tablature for a song is somehow copyrighted. We're not talking about the actual music itself, we're talking about the notation of a melody. That means that if I hear a song on the radio and I identify the chord progression and show it to my roommate, or, say, write it down and email it to her, I've just committed a copyright infringement.However as a musician this is one of the most vital ways that we communicate with each other, imitation, experimentation, extrapolation. These online sites become a place where musicians debate how a certain sound is achieved, which techniques are most efficient, and other debates that rage on in an artistic community. If I try and play someone else's song anywhere for any kind of money, you better believe I'm going to have to face the music later, but how am I, in the privacy of my own home infringing on the Rolling Stones' copyright if I want to learn how to play "Angie" to amuse myself?The real cause of my ire isn't so much the idea of copyright infringement though, its the excuses that lawyers and businessmen representing large companies throw out to the bewildered masses. They frequently claim that the artists are being hurt by something that the fans are doing, making everyone bow their head collectively and sulk away feeling guilty for somehow undermining the very thing that they love so much. But really, the bottom line seems to be that no one really cared until someone noticed not so much that money was missing, but that there was potentially more money to be made by the publishing companies that produces these songbooks. I'm just waiting for the first karaoke lawsuit to hit the courts.Some links of interest:Music Publishers Association"Allow Guitar Tablature Sites to Exist" Petition

Ms. Dare currently resides in California where she is working on a book about Christian cults. She would like to remind everyone that "I may have been born yesterday, but I still went shopping." You can read her fieldnotes here: Malice in Wonderland

DVD Review: The Proposition

Virginia Dare — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 11:39:40 EDT

Nick Cave is known for the dark atmospheres of his records, usually macabre stories of people living in the underbelly of society, punctuated with lyrical piano songs about heartbreak and sexual politics. It's Cave's songwriting, specifically his lyrical skills the form the backbone of these sonic worlds, heavy with image and emotion. Nick Cave made the step into literature several years ago with a book called And The Ass Saw The Angel, that proved he could sustain the emotional power of his lyrics over a long narrative, and without benefit of musical accompaniment. Nick Cave has crossed into another medium recently with The Proposition, a film that for which he wrote the screenplay. Nick Cave delivers on every expectation ignited by his recordings and persona. Set in the outback of Australia in the late 1800's, The Proposition follows a beleaguered law man Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone) determined to “civilize” the outback. The film begins in the aftermath of a brutal attack by the Burns Brothers on a family in the small town in which the Captain lives. The Captain manages to track down Mike ( Richard Wilson) and Charlie (Guy Pearce) Burns, the two younger brothers, after they separate from the oldest and most savage brother Arthur (Danny Huston), who's made it up into the caves beyond the willingness of anyone to search. Captain Stanley makes a deal with Charlie that if he seeks out Arthur deep in the caves of the Australian outback and kills him, he will release the young and sensitive Mikey. Charlie has until Christmas Day to return or Mikey will hang.The next hour of the film watches as everyone unravels as they wait for Charlie to return. Captain Stanley is trying to keep secret from the township that he had hold of Charlie and let him go. Captain Stanley's wife (Emily Watson) represents the delicate balance of civilized society, wanting justified revenge against the murderers who have encroached on the civilized world by attacking a neighbor. Looming over the tense social dance taking place between the civil, the savage, the sensitive, the noble, and the white and the black is a magistrate dispatched to make sure that justice is done by the Captain.Meanwhile a similar battle is taking place with Charlie as he must decide between the loyalty of blood, and the greater good as he moves closer to his brother. One of the most compelling dramas taking place however is in Mikey's prison cell as he waits to see whether or not his brother will return in time to save him from the townsfolk, yet also knowing that such a return will signal the murder and filial betrayal of his oldest brother Arthur.The cast in and of itself was bound to make The Proposition worth watching, but the psychological drama underpinning the typical western plot elevated the film. More so though, The Proposition succeeds in sustaining drama and tension through the images brought together by Nick Cave's screenplay, and the images which director John Hillcoat has used to carry them out. In one instance we see Captain Stanley's wife's alabaster skin as she takes a bath and recounts to her husband a dream she's had, and the weathered skin of the aborigine house servant as he takes leave of the house for the holiday, leaving his shoes behind on the porch and walking off into the vast desert. All of this from the starting frame to the ending frame is played out against the stark Australian landscape that threatens to crowd everything else out with it's utter emptiness. Pretenses of civility are always met with an immediate contrast of savagery, well trimmed hats with nests of flies, brightly colored silk skirts against miles of pale sand. A constant tension between what is happening and what is on it's way.

Pwned: Fanfiction and Guerilla Culture War

Virginia Dare — Fri, 7 Jul 2006 17:59:36 EDT

In college I was in a fiction writing class with a girl that told me she wrote Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfiction. She explained that fanfiction was any fan-written piece of fiction that used the characters and the world of a particlar show/movie/book, usually exploring romantic pairings or plot ideas that for various reasons were never addressed in the source material or "canon". The whole thing seemed strange to me. I didn't understand why you would spend all that time writing about someone else's characters, especially when it restricted what you could write about to the rules of someone else's world. Why not write your own story if you had problems with the one you were reading/watching?I'll confess that at sixteen I wasn't very generous. I tended to think of this girl as obsessive about her favorite television show, devoting way too much of her time and energy into thinking about people and a world that didn't really exist. Granted I was thinking this while sitting in a Shakespeare class, where I was spending hours thinking about the motivations and possible alternate actions that the characters of Romeo and Juliet could have taken for an essay I had to write. It took me a few years to recognize that my judgement of my friend was based primarily in elitist ideas about high and low culture and not her frail mental state. If by chance she recognizes herself here, I'm sorry.I never really gave fanfiction a second thought until a year ago when I was surfing around the Internet looking for information about Law and Order: Criminal Intent and I stumbled across some. I blame morbid curiosity, or maybe the Devil. But I read it. And I liked it, so I started reading more. The problem was, everytime I would surf over to fanfiction.net or some other archive, I was afraid someone was going to walk in and catch me. Not friends or my boyfriend, but one of my English instructors, one of my writing peers. A member of the literati I was admittedly a part of. I realized how ridiculous it was for a twenty-five year old woman to be hiding her reading habits, and it forced me to explore what these conflicted feelings were all about. I realized that there were two main problems with fanfiction in my mind. One is that fanfiction isn't "real" or canon, in the sense that the author/producer/director of the source material is the God of the world that they build, and only their actions constitute "real" events in the world of that story/fandom. I don't know why that is, if it is a primordial human thing or what, but it's there. I have a respect for the creator and their intention, even if I think they are overlooking a huge plot possibility, and even if I read a million fanfiction pieces that "fix" this problem, until it happens in the "canon," it didn't happen. For me. The second problem with fanfiction is that it isn't "real" writing in the sense that no matter how well written a piece of fanfiction is, it is not the orignal idea of the author. The story can never go anywhere, it can only be passed around by fans for awhile (and enjoyed, which is noble) but it's not really the author's work. Building a world and creating characters is difficult and in that way fanfiction is cheating. To me. However I've realized something else about fanfiction; it's fun to write, and it's fun to read the feedback from other fans. In this way fanfiction becomes a vehicle through which other fans and I begin having a conversation about the story, but also making it our own and adding or subtracting from a collective mythology that brings us together as a community. It's primitive, it's anarchy, guerilla culture war, whatever you want to call it. Law and Order:Criminal Intent has been "pwned"[sic] in netspeak. There is a stigma in our culture that says a person should not care about television shows, movies, or books more than "real" life. But at the same time television, movies, books, video games, and the like are the means by which members of the culture express the most "real" part of themselves, the soul. We live for this stuff. Issues about what is portrayed through entertainment mediums are important enough to be mentioned in political campaigns for the highest office in the country. Entertainment is very much "real life."When looked at this way fanfiction becomes a fascinating phenomenon. You begin to see how people try to own the mythology of the masses, and put characters in situations that they identify with or fantasize about. You get to see how different members of the community tweak the characters to make them fit their definition of a hero or villian. Even the dreaded "Mary Sue" (an idealized author insert, often seen as mere wish fullfillment) becomes an interesting experiment, in which you can watch someone reveal how they see themselves fitting into a particular cultural mythology. Now when I read through fanfiction I have no shame explaining to my friends what I find interesting about it, talking about trends I see in the writing of different fandoms and what conclusions I've been drawing about the audience at large from those observations. I feel as though I've learned a lot more about people -- their values, fantasies, ideals, and dreams -- in the past year than in all my time in sociology and psychology classes. And I've discovered that there is now an academic journal, Distraction, dedicated to the discussion of fanfiction, validating the academic in me. I've never felt more connected to "real life."

Blog Review: Up and Onward...Confessions of a Super Hero

Virginia Dare — Thu, 6 Jul 2006 16:05:35 EDT

Up and Onward...Confessions of a Super Hero is a tongue-in-cheek look at the real life of "Citizens of the World." It is what you would call a "fictionblog" or a "character blog." Generally a fiction blog is a serialized story told from the first person perspective of a main character. A character blog, though I'm making this distinction up on the spot, is more like the observations of a world from the point of view of one person that doesn't follow one major plot line. There may be other recurring characters, or a theme that is addressed frequently...you get the idea. The premise of Up and Onward... is that us mere citizens have got it all wrong when it comes to the reality of what it's like to be a superhero. Our hero, Exemplar, gives us an inside look at what it really takes to combat crime, as well as the "dirt" on some of the more famous superheroes in the cultural consciousness. For example, did you know that the real Superman:Clark Zupfermann was born in Kent, Iowa in 1893 to a couple of immigrants from Warsaw, Poland. His parents were in their 50’s when he was born (they had thought they were unable to have children). He was more then the usual “miracle baby” in that he had a rare genetic disorder. His body had an unusual mutation that caused increased muscle growth and strength, as well as a type of psoriasis that made his skin virtually impenetrable. His skin was basically a natural version of Kevlar.Superheroes have to deal with the same problems as the rest of us. Exemplar explains they have just as many problems at the aiport since 9/11, as superheroes are "Citizens of the World" requiring them to be fingerprinted when leaving the country, which can become quite complicated when wearing a body suit. And just in case you thought everything is free and easy for our altruistic friends, you should know that "Superhero money is no better than that of a mere citizen." That's right folks, they usually have to ride coach on those transatlantic flights. Superheroes also have to combat the less glamorous drama of interpersonal relationships and co-workers: AmazeMan is still mad that Gamma Girl was making his codpiece glow orange and green while he was hitting on Shelly from accounting. (btw, Shelly is TurboTron’s cousin). It was all in good fun, but he never forgave her. Oh, and little known fact. Most guys keep their wallet in their codpiece. I tell you, if you don’t have a utility belt, there aren’t that many places to hide your ATM, BlockBuster, and AAA cards. Poorly hidden keys have been a real problem in our industry. I think the real reason that AmazeMan is mad is that all that radiation erased his membership ID at Bally’s and they charge you $25 to replace them.As an added treat Exemplar's friends occassionally fill in for him when he's on assignment and can't get to a computer. Invisagirl lets us know that "being invisible has it’s ups and downs. Great for getting into concerts, finding out what people are saying behind your back, and all kinds of sundry mischief (plus I never have a bad hair day). The downside is more mundane. I can’t tell you how many things I’ve knocked over while reaching for them because I can’t see my own hands."What makes Up and Onward... a delightful read is that Exemplar takes on some of the problems that arise when you try to apply the standards and mores of the comic book universe to the real world. He lets us know exactly what he thinks of superheroes that shave their chests, and the impracticality of a man in tights on a crowded airplane. And he's not afraid to criticize the way in which heroes and villians are encouraged to interact with each other: "Now “M” is terribly consistent in his methods, which is typical in this business. If I had to give one piece of advice to any up and coming criminal genius, it would be to alter your methods once in a while."Up and Onward... gives the reader the satisfaction of seeing the conventions of the comic genre addressed by the characters themselves. It becomes an amusing "fourth wall" experiment which takes advantage of the conversational style of the blog format. Rather than trying to bend the blog to the standard literary conventions of books, Up and Onward... does what I'm finding is the key to success in fictionblogging, taking advantage of the format. The posts aren't too long and meandering, trying to recapture epic battles between good and evil, but rather they act as a sidebar to action we can gather from what we all already now about the battle of good versus evil. Blogs that simply try to narrate for the audience the animation cells of a comic book or the action sequences of a film fail because they are boring, we've seen this all before and we don't really need their help. However reading a superhero's explanation of why they always let the villian have a chance to get away becomes an interesting comment on the kind of stories we like to see as an audience.Exemplar is charming, funny, and writes about things that audiences can relate to enough that you don't have to read the blog from the first post to last to care about the action or the "character." Each post unto itself is interesting (see the one about his mother's obsession with getting him married, "Guilt from Association"). Blogs don't carry plots that well. Blogs do, however, work well as character sketches, and a writer has to have the ability to develop a character without relying on the conventions of other forms of literature. That is the distinct challenge to the writer and seeing how the writer achieves this is what makes Up and Onward... worth the hit.

DVD Review: Carnivale - Season One

Virginia Dare — Thu, 18 May 2006 09:11:05 EDT

I'm not sure how to do this prematurely cancelled series justice, but let me try to entice you. It's the Great Depression, you've got the Dust Bowl, a bearded lady, a catatonic woman who communicates with her Tarot card reading daughter via her psychic powers, naked ladies, and a Methodist minister who is the voice of a radio ministry with an ambiguous moral alignment and an even more sexually ambiguous relationship with his older sister. Oh, and did I mention the ex-convict who has mysterious, seemingly magical abilities? Carnivale stars Nick Stahl as Ben Hawkins and Clancy Brown as Brother Justin Crowe, two completely different people mysteriously connected by vivid, frightening, phantasmagoric dreams, and newfound mysterious abilities. When outlining the plot it's easy to see this as a typical hero's journey, but there is something much more than that going on when you watch an episode of Carnivale, its the way these stories are executed. Almost every frame is a perfectly balanced still photo of a different, more magical and passionate time in America. The art direction and costuming in this series unite in a way that carries the story into the stratosphere for the viewer -- every detail has been accounted for, every bottle of Vitalis, every pocket knife, has been checked for authenticity. Visually Carnivale presents a landscape that can be returned to over and over again to reveal new details, like a beautiful symphony or volume of poems. The title sequence for the series alone took six months to create, just to give the more practical reader an idea of what I'm talking about. But more importantly, creator Dan Knauf has given us a group of intriguing characters with complexity and depth. When told we are going to watch something about side-show freaks or evangelists, so many of us have the stock characters in our minds before they even utter a word on screen. I think the most important thing that separates the wheat from the chaff in this show is that Mr. Knauf and the other writers have pushed the boundaries of those preconceived ideas. To put it bluntly, you think weird and Knauf doesn't disappoint; he takes you even further. Somehow Carnivale manages to make family prostitution seem perfectly respectable, and the domestic life of a minister and his spinster sister deliciously wicked. Although you are prepared for wack and woe to abound in this kind of drama, I still found my jaw dropping at certain points. I can't remember the last time I became this caught up in characters in a book or series, let alone on television, and I'm not alone. The series was cancelled a year ago, and the message boards on Yahoo are still active with over 6,000 members. The last 20 posts dealt directly with fan debates over the mythology behind the show, the meaning of good and evil, and the birth of a fan's baby. There is a file floating around the internet entitled "The Gospel of Knaufias" which attempts to piece together a kind of "bible" fans can use as a companion guide. Just two weeks ago there was a live fan convention called CarnyConLive, where a majority of the actors from the show turned out and fans were actually able to meet their favorite characters as well as the writers and artists that made this show such a phenomenon. The second season will be coming out on DVD July 18, which will hopefully generate buzz anew about this show. As someone who became a fan long after the show's fate was determined I can't help but be a little sad that after this there will be nothing more for me to look forward to. Petitions went around, email campaigns to HBO took place, and fan power was enough to conjure up the men and women behind the magic for a meet and greet, and still that hasn't been enough to convince HBO that there is enough interest in the show. Watching an episode from a writer's point of view as well as from the point of view of someone that has worked in production, costuming and the like, I can see how such an undertaking must have been incredibly expensive, time-consuming and painstaking. But the most important thing I've walked away with is a belief in miracles, because from the first frames of the opening sequence to the series finale twenty-four hours later, I was in awe that a show this well- written and beautiful to behold stayed on the air so long.

Sunday School in Public School?

Virginia Dare — Mon, 8 May 2006 22:23:56 EDT

I don't know if you've seen the ads, I don't know if they exist on regular network television, but I'm presuming they do. I wouldn't know because I've been watching nothing but TBN for about two months now. I don't normally write about political issues because, well, normally I feel that I don't' really know enough about the topic to really pitch in. I have to admit that I don't really keep up with current events the way the I ought to. But I was a little surprised at my reactions to the PSAs by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools that I've been seeing lately, starring Chuck Norris and his wife Geena.When I first saw these PSAs endorsing the introduction of Bible curriculum I was angered. I thought it was indicative of the typical Christcentric thinking that seems more and more like an aberration on our culture. I'm not against Christianity, and I understand that "witnessing," as it were, is a major component of the religion. Something about compassion. If I've learned anything in the past few months of watching the Trinity Broadcasting Network it is this: people that haven't accepted Jesus Christ as their savior are destined to the Lake of Fire, because no man is free from sin therefore no man gets to God but by Jesus Christ -- or something like that, I wasn't really paying close attention. So witnessing and converting are seen as acts of compassion by those in the Christian faith. In a special called "Way of the Master," Kirk Cameron compared it to rescuing children playing in the bottom of an elevator shaft from a falling elevator car. I'm pretty sure I'm getting that right. I am of course speaking as an outsider looking in, but I think that I'm being fair, and I am by no means attempting to make fun of the Christian dogma itself. If people really believe that I'm going to a real place called Hell if I'm not saved, then I don't think it's funny that they want to share their faith with me. I can recognize this is their love, or at the very least their compassionate concern for my soul.Now that I've properly disclaimed myself, let me get on with the Bible curriculum. I think that introducing Bible education into the classroom is in great danger of becoming indoctrination because of the way the Western education system works. Students are rarely taught to question what they are learning (at least not until college). Now I know what you are probably thinking, that I have no real means of qualifying this opinion other than my own experiences in school. But I used to teach English/critical thinking at a university, and I can tell you with absolute confidence that students believe pretty much anything you tell them in the setting of the classroom, and often times by the end of the semester they are still struggling with the concept of questioning any text. They pretty much believe that if it is in print, it must be true, and to question that is either extreme hubris, or absolute foolishness.Knowing this about students in our school system I get a little afraid of the Bible being introduced as a text. And of course I also question why the Bible and not the Qur'an? Why not Buddhism and other world religions? It can be tempting to say to hell with everything else, I'm a Christian, I believe this is the only right way and it is my duty to subdue and dominate nations. But the secular humanist in me says that I know that is not right, and I can't really fool myself for very long.These PSAs were running for a few days, and I didn't really get myself in too much of a stink because it is very hard for me to believe that the Bible would ever really make its way back into classrooms. And then Praise the Lord came on and Chuck and Geena Norris were hosting. They had a variety of guests on talking about why Bible education ought to be brought back into the classroom. And it changed my mind. Sort of.It became clear that what they were advocating was the introduction of "Art, History, and Literature of the Bible" as an elective course at the high school level. Having been an educator it is hard for me to really say no to any kind of learning. I actualy think it would be quite good for students to have an opportunity to learn about something that, as many of the guests pointed out, has affected so much of our culture. Then I started to think that it probably should be required at the high school level as part of humanities, to understand the Bible, because a good 80% of people in the United States consider themselves to be Christian. There can be no doubt that the Bible has very much influenced our culture from our constitution, to our books, and art.Proof of this is evident in the recent hoopla over The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. I don't know how the coverage has been on regular television, but on TBN it's been an anti-DaVinci Code jamboree; I mean these preachers, pastors, and prophets won't shut up about what a terrible pack of lies this work of fiction is. I know, I stumble over that line of logic, too. But I also started thinking how much my own experience of the book or the upcoming movie would be enriched if I had a better understanding of the Bible. Then I started thinking about how much my experiences of all kinds of art, from Shakespeare to Caravaggio, would have been enriched by a better understanding of the Good Book that was the backbone of the cultures that produced them.However, this newfound enthusiasm for the Bible as an elective course was tempered by the sermonizing of Pastor John Hagee. Hagee is pastor of a very large church in San Antonio, Texas, and has written several religious books about world issues. I love watching and listening to Pastor Hagee. I will say this right now, he can preach the pants off ANYONE. I dare you to find a better preacher, let me help you, you can't. I just wish that I could agree with half the things that he says, but he believes some very frightening things. I'm not sure if he coined the term "secular humanist" but he certainly makes powerful use of it, calling it a religion. Hagee claims that the agenda of the secular humanist movement is to sterilize the brain of any knowledge of God. I'm paraphrasing because I can't do the man the justice he deserves. Pastor Hagee is a convincing public speaker.If you're not familiar with the term, a secular humanist is pretty much anyone that wouldn't identify themselves as Christian, but believes in basic morality and a vague spirituality, basically most of the people I know, and most of the people you would find on a liberal college campus or living in a large city on either one of the North American coasts. Put another way, it includes those of us that live in areas where we've been exposed to people of different races, religions, sexual orientations, and so on for a prolonged amount of time. I feel no shame in being identified this way. Contrary to what Pastor Hagee would have people believe, when I was an instructor I had no interest in changing the belief systems of any of my students. I had several Christian students that would use the Bible as a reference to support arguments in essays. I would indeed talk to them about how they used these references, but I never wanted to discourage them from using their faith as part of an argument where they felt their faith was an important part. I'm not saying it wasn't difficult or tenuous, but it was possible and neither party walked away feeling diminished.And this is what inspired me to write this, that up to a point the argument for the Bible in the classroom made sense to me, and my mind was willing to accept the very sound reasoned arguments being presented. But it was the emotional powerhouse of Pastor Hagee that put me off. I believe this is the fear of many when it comes to the idea of the Bible in the classroom, that it will also bring into the classroom the philosophy of blind belief without reason. As an educator I'd like to believe that school is the place where you learn to reason and to think. It was once said that defending the Bible is like defending a lion, and I agree with that sentiment. Reason can only strengthen the arguments and doctrines set forth in the Bible. For this same reason I think that the Bible in the classroom would ultimately be a mistake, because you go to school to learn reason, to learn how things work. The Law of Gravity is morally neutral; why the Law of Gravity exists, well that's a whole different story, and do you really want your high school physics professor teaching you about God? I certainly wouldn't.

Negotiating Myspace

Virginia Dare — Thu, 9 Mar 2006 23:16:27 EST

Every night I've gone out this week, Myspace has come up in conversation. When I'm sitting with my intellectual friends I admit sheepishly to having a profile on said site. When yelling across the crowded bar with my clubbing friends, I proclaim my Myspace identity proudly. But what has become true in either circle is that Myspace is here. Whether or not it will be here to stay, I can only guess, and probably wrongly. I've never been good at predicting societal trends, despite having a degree in sociology. Go figure. People are still a mystery to me. What I wanted to write about here, or perhaps confess, is why I respond so differently to these two groups of people regarding Myspace. As an intellectual I realize that Myspace is serving my networking needs while simultaneously reducing me to a set of socioeconomic facts and figures that it can sell to advertisers and the like. As an intellectual, I also realize that I am against this. That advertising is one of the major aberrations in our culture today. I won't bust out the studies and documentaries we've all seen linking magazines to anorexia, or MTV with sexual behavior. If you haven't been living under a rock for the past twenty years you've heard all of this stuff enough times to accept it as empirical fact in casual conversation. But to this argument I have to say, when are we not bombarded with advertising? Most of the billboards I see each morning when I go jogging are in Spanish, and I'm not naive enough to believe that it is merely coincidence that I live in a predominately Hispanic neighborhood. I know that somewhere along the line the ethnic makeup of my zip code was uploaded into a database somewhere that was then accessed by the various agencies involved in marketing whatever products grace the billboards, newspaper inserts, magazine racks, etc. that I encounter on a daily walk through my own neighborhood. Over time I've learned to become savvy to the tactics of advertisers. I recognize when my fears and desires are being appealed to. I like to think that most of the time I've developed a keen set of blinders to most advertisements. But a friend recently posted in his blog a different concern with Myspace -- that of the Self, or more accurately, the self-obsessed. His concern is that Myspace and all its flashing lights and whistles is encouraging us to become egomaniacs, playing with our profiles endlessly, trying to outcool each other with the latest Myspace uploads, etc. Now this point becomes more valid. I'll admit I've lost more than an hour or two doing not much of anything on Myspace.Now comes the other argument, that the networking aspect of sites like Myspace has a great ability to help people connect to each other. After all, I have over a hundred friends on Myspace. Not that I'm bragging -- some people have well over 22,000, like my friend Jesus Christ. That's right, Jesus Christ is on Myspace. But I haven't really become any closer to these 100 or so people. They still exist for me mainly on a two dimensional level. Perhaps my friend Jake Merriman is right and we are merely playing our lives like a video game, endlessly trying to score points (or friends), and avoid death (a deleted account, a dwindling hit count?), without actually experiencing life. I realized the other day that I hadn't bothered to read the profiles of half of the people on my friends list. Bad Manon, bad!However there are some benefits, too. What about those of us that are shy, or that have a harder time connecting in larger social situations? There are one or two friends I've made on Myspace that know me in real life, but never felt as comfortable talking to me in real life. For whatever reasons they were, as my friend Daniel Vaughn puts it, "lacking the social gene." My other friend Abid Yahya says that it should be survival of the socially fittest, and that Myspace is simply offering these people an avenue to "cheat," as it were, in the game of life. Maybe my friend Jake was onto to something with his whole video game analogy after all. But then again maybe I was also more receptive to these people in the realm of Myspace, where no one was standing next to me, watching the interaction happen. Maybe the true intimacy is in how we react to each other from behind the monitor when we're each playing at the people we want to be, when we perhaps feel the most secure to be ourselves. Then again, as my friend Abid reminded me, the New York Times lists the top ten web sites each week with the disclaimer that they don't include pornographic sites, because the top ten would always be adult-oriented web sites. Abid also noted that the top ten sites are almost always dating sites. Which would lead me to believe that for all the networking and connecting that we are supposed to be doing through the Internet, we growing increasingly lonely, and more desperate for real connections to each other.

Satire: The Helmet Creates World Peace

Virginia Dare — Thu, 2 Mar 2006 05:21:37 EST

You see like most girls over the age of six, I have wondered how it is that I might solve the world's little war problem. After becoming a vegetarian, adopting every stray animal I could get my hands on, and going to college I figured it out. No institution is bigger than one person at a time. Stereotypes and bigotry, war and starvation, class systems, they are all a result of hurt feelings and bitter disillusionment that occurs day to day. Let's face it, you didn't really care much about the middle east, let alone find it on the map until someone blew up the World Trade Center. So how can we keep from hurting each others' feelings? Well I don't really care about hurting other peoples feelings, but I get really pissed off when someone hurts mine. I know what you're thinking: "But tolerance, open-mindedness, and political correctness requires so much effort!" I hear you brother. Which brings me to the Helmet. The Helmet will take all the work out of it for you. This is after all, an article by an American, for Americans, the laziest people in the world.The Helmet would function much like a motorcycle helmet to protect you from truck drivers on methamphetamine, guys air-guitaring at green lights, and sorority girls on cell phones. It would effect a radius of four feet around you at all times, translating everything that you hear into a language your personality can deal with. Conversely it would translate everything that you say to the person or persons you are speaking to into a language their personality can deal with.Example: Boss: Hey Manon, uhm, you told me that you were going to have the first draft of this article written by today. And you don't. Translation: Boss: Hey Manon, I understand that you are a brilliant writer, and I'm afraid if you don't give enough input into this article, that it just won't be any good. I really need you here.See, instead of having to feel guilty and get offended, I think that I've just been supremely complimented, and my boss is none the wiser when he gets this response.Manon: Hey, I have a lot of stuff to do, but I'll do it when I get around to it. Translation: Manon: Hey, anything you want man. You're the boss. Anything you say goes. Do you mind if I pull this tape recorder out? I don't want to miss on second of your insight.I know this sounds really farfetched, not so. We know why dogs sniff each others butts, and they can't even talk, and you're telling me that somehow we're an enigma. No way. Psychologists have made great strides in the realm of personality. It is becoming harder and harder to go through your day without some reference to the Self. Whether its Oprah or internet chatrooms people are getting to know themselves and how they interact with others. According to most personality tests there are 9 to 12 different personality types. These would be programmed into each persons helmet, so that it appears that everyone has the same world view that you do. All you would have to do is program these personalities into a computer, and have it translate different sentiments into compliments for different personalities. I personally like to think that I'm better than everyone else, so I get really hurt when I'm criticized. But you see the computer would know that I'm an enneagram 8 and instantly translate everything I hear, even criticism, into compliments about my inherent greatness.So you see, world peace is within our grasp people! Edited: [!--GH--]