Verisimilitude & TV Ads

Perhaps I’m watching too much TV, but I’m really annoyed by the lack of verisimilitude in current advertisements.

The worst, at the moment, is the Kayak ad featuring a husband who’s had his pupils dilated in order to see more and not miss anything as he shops for travel bargains. He also sees hair on his wife’s lip and crows’ feet round her eyes.

Ok, everybody knows that dilating your pupils does not give you greater visual acuity, right. It makes your vision worse, not better. It’s why you can’t drive home from the optometrist right after getting your pupils dilated.

So why do the advertisers do this? They want to be funny, but instead they’re just lame and unbelievable. I don’t get it.

The Corporate Internet

I’m watching CBS this morning, a discussion on Facebook going public.

In essence, Facebook looks to make money by becoming like television. We’re going to be the sheep led to the shearing by Quiznos, Walmart, Ford, GM, and the like. You like, they get your data.

Of course there are lots of those annoying little ads in the right hand column.

Yep your internet experience will not be brought to you by America’s corporations. And will they now begin to dictate how the site looks and how we’re supposed to use it? Will they manipulate with half truths, untruths and just general bull. You bet. I’m afraid it is as inevitable as the arrival of advertising on radio.

When radio first appeared and radically changed the way Americans got news and entertainment, there was resistance to putting advertisement on radio. It would cheapen the experience, potential advertisers thought, and therefore cheapen their business. That deference didn’t last long.

I never expected the Internet to behave like early radio and find advertisers hesitant about putting their brand on my favorite web sites. But the discussion of how companies are using and are planning on using Facebook was pretty scary.

So here’s what I’m not going to do. I’m not going to click on any commercial enterprises. I won’t like Quiznos. I won’t like Walmart. I won’t like even Gibson guitars (which I do like).

Bullying and Memory

When asked about his bullying of a closeted gay student, Mitt Romney “doesn’t remember” the incident, but he’s sure he never thought about the guy being a homosexual. When quizzed over his “divide and conquer” comments, Governor Walker doesn’t remember the details of the conversation, but is sure the context makes it innocent. Uh-huh. Sure. I’m a normal late middle aged adult and I do have parts of my life that I have totally forgotten. That’s why I have a wife with the memory of an elephant. But the stuff I’ve forgotten is stuff that made very small impact on my psyche. Meeting people once and once only. A side trip out of Salina to someplace. Don’t you remember that, she asks. And I don’t. But I do not forget, cannot forget those moments in my life that were truly regrettable. The time when I was in seventh grade when my racist upbringing led me to so fear the first black kid at Budlong that I pulled a knife on him to make him go away. I got a talking to. He got thrown out of school. Later, he confronted me on the street and I was fearful and wanting to run away. He was forgiving. I can’t forget those moments from my twelve year old life. When I was sixteen I behaved obnoxiously in the hallway at Lane Tech High School. I cussed at another student (it was supposed to be a joke). I was loud. I was caught by my homeroom teacher. Sent to the vice-principal’s office I sat that afternoon until after dismissal. Every hour Mr. Mazarakous called me into his office and quizzed me. Did I cuss? No sir, not me. Go back and sit outside. Day two. Did you curse? No sir, not me. Sit outside. Day three. Did you curse? Finally, with some tears in my heart I confessed. I had said “Fuck You” very loudly. I got five days detention after school, scraping old varnish off desktops and sanding off the scribbled in graffiti. Same high school. Jimmy was in swim class. It was an all boys high school and we swam in the nude. Jimmy was embarrassed by his nakedness. He was a little effeminate and all the boys teased him and called him queer. No we didn’t think of him as a homosexual. We didn’t think of him as gay. We thought of him as queer, faggot. He overcame the teasing, went on to become clergy and married. I met him many years later. I did not apologize for me behavior, but I certainly didn’t forget. You don’t forget. If Mitt Romney has really forgotten these incidents of bullying he may be suffering from some sort of dementia. He’s old enough that he might be. Otherwise, he’s lying. Or he was such a bully that his bullying was so common, so daily, that it wasn’t even worthy of remembering. I’m not willing to “give him the benefit of the doubt.” I don’t think that our memory of these sorts of incidents is as fleeting as Romney would have us believe. I agree that they didn’t think about it as homosexuality, but I’d bet a dollar to a donut that Romney and his cohort called the boy a queer, a faggot, a fairy. Just because it isn't pleasant doesn't mean you've forgotten. Just because you got caught telling the truth doesn't mean that you can spin and bully us all into believing you. This isn't the 1960's anymore.

Judging Clemens

Did Clemens lie about high and steroids? Did he lie about it? I certainly can’t tell from watching the video and listening to the reports on this morning’s CBS reports. I can tell that there is an assumption of guilt on the part of Charlie Rose and his guests. They have followed the story better than I have, so they might be right. What I don’t get is the apparent need on the part of news programs, despite having been caught in embarrassing judgments previously, the judgments continue. It’s casual editorializing, not like Fox where the editorial content is rarely based on fact. There are clear facts here, but long before a jury pronounces the news reporters and talking heads are already announcing why perpetrator is guilty. I think it is partly a result of the 24 hour news cycle. There’s always a push to pronounce judgment, and judgment is more interesting than dispassion. At the same time we’ve been lied to so often by government and business that we automatically assume we’re being lied to now. And we’ve come to distrust the courts. All of us saw the police just wailin’ away on Rodney King twenty years ago. None of the people were held accountable for that beat down. So why not just go ahead and make our own minds up about the s-o-by’s who have been offending us, breaking the law, whatever? Why not. Everybody else does, except the people we feel are supposed to do it. I don’t think that this is what journalists are actually thinking, but what they’re actually doing. The rest of us, we’re eager to join in the judgments.

On not having a Bible Crisis

I've never had a crisis of “biblical faith.” Let me put that in some context – but not all the context that this goes into. I've been reading a number of blog posts from ex-evangelicals. They describe how at some point in their lives, having been pushed into “it's all or nothing,” decided it was nothing. No god, no God, no divinities, merely earth, sky and mortals. No bible. Certainly no bible. I understand that mentality, sort of, because I was confronted by it many times while I served the church in South Carolina. I had one Navy wife very upset with me because I didn't espouse some sort of biblicism. I had a secretary in Georgetown, SC, who had once been an Episcopalian and when I knew her was a born again wave your hands in the air and speak in tongues and swallow the holy spirit feathers and all. She prayed for me, in my presence, that I might have my eyes opened to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth of the bible. I have never had a crisis in which I felt I had to renounce the bible, mostly, I think, because I never understood the bible as a book whose every word was “true.” It started when I was just a kid. I remember an incident during my teen years. One of the girls my sister's age turned down a request that she teach Sunday School because she couldn't teach all that mythology and those old stories that weren't true – I remember her lumping Noah in those old stories she couldn't teach children. I think I was thirteen, and I think I had a feeling that my sister's friend was wrong. I don't think that, even then, I had a sense that these were “infallible” words, magic words I had to somehow “obey.” I do think that even then I had a sense that they were the stories we told that gave us a sense of who we are and where we're going and what we're supposed to be about and that we won't be alone on the journey. I remember my first New Testament class, at dear old Augie. I was liberated by the study of the synoptic problem. I was fascinated by the study of textual variations and how we knew which was closer to the original text. I was deeply encouraged by the search for the historical Jesus and the unwillingness to accept the Jesus of mid-twentieth century piety as identical with Jesus the Jew in Palestine in the first century. The whole modernist controversy, beginning with the 1850's rethinking of the gospel texts, thru the theologies of the Niebuhrs, Tillich, Nygren, and the like did not undermine my faith but increased my wonder. Historical criticism, form criticism, source criticism, those techniques of scholarship didn't undermine my faith because my faith was not and is not based upon a biblicism that I don't believe, have never believed, can't find reason to believe now. I got to thinking about this tonight while sitting at the bells concert. What a great time I had there! But as I tried to keep my digestion under control, I let my mind wander. I thought about the atheist movement; and as I mentioned above, the movement of ex-evangelicals; I listened to Pia Jesu, the only Andrew Lloyd Weber piece I think will survive. I was deeply moved. I had been moved by Fred Beuchner's Lion Country, by his description of a glorious moment when Jesus, looking like John Barrymore, Jr. came striding in from hell. (We read that story as part of the Messiah Theatre festival.) I am deeply moved by the story of Noah as well. Particularly by the verse: “And God remembered Noah.” I mean, it's ridiculous. If you take the story literally Noah and his family are all the human beings that are left. How could god forget? I get the same feeling from the story of the two thieves hung with Jesus. One turns to Jesus and says “Remember me.” In all your poor oppressed lonely nakedness, remember me, Jesus. I find that moving, just as I find Pia Jesu moving. Just as I find Beuchner moving. To me, that's the point. Not laws and rules and magic words, but a sense that we're not walking thru this world alone; a sense we are surrounded by both a great cloud of witnesses and a power we cannot understand, but that understands us.

Watching Roy on RFD

Last week we switched from cable to Direct TV. One of the glories of the shift is the addition of RFD television. I'm excited because I'm gonna get to see whole episodes of "I Love Toy Trains!" I've been a long time lover of toy trains. Maybe this show will inspire me to get my train out, clean it up and get it running. I doubt it, but maybe. The other big thing is Roy Rogers. The old television shows and the movies -- without singing. Roy Rogers and the Rough Riders. There's a lot to be admired about Rogers' vision of America. Hard work and living by the rules pays (mostly). If you have to violate a rule you have a good reason to do so. At the same time there is something shallow about the vision of America. The good are nothing but good, the evil nothing but evil. The problems were unidimensional. The bad guys want to steal the girl and the gold, but Roy stops them. It's an appealing America, but it isn't true. Sadly, it isn't true. But it is very appealing and close to the vision of America that much of American conservatism wishes we could return to.

Ozzie G and Fidel C

Ozzie Guillen offered the opinion "I love Fidel Castro."

Later he clarified, "I'm 100% opposed to the way he's treated people, but I admire the way he's survived."

That was enough for the Batista supporters in Miami. They want Ozzie fired. Of course they have the right to express themselves by boycotting the Marlins. That's their right, just as it's Ozzie's right to say whatever he wants about Castro or any other world figure. But I think the Cubans in Miami are being petty.

Petty, petty, petty.

I also think that there is nothing we can do that will appease this rather small group of ex-Batista supporters. They were the ones (by and large) who had it good under Batista, who benefited from his corruption and draining the resources of the country. Like the 1%ers in New York, they saw themselves as the elite, the country's best, the rightful owners of the country.

When Fidel arrived and demonstrated that the very rich didn't own Havana, that the gangsters were going to go, these Cubans evacuated to Miami. They have governed US policy through failure after failure. Cuba represents a significant market for US farmers, but we can't sell goods there. Cuba represents a place with which we could have significant spiritual congress. We have Christian brothers and sisters there, but we can't commune with them. Cuba represents a culture that we could learn something from -- as well as teach something to. Nothing is allowed because of a small group of ex-pats who are waiting for the embargo to bring Castro down.

That policy has been in place for half a century and has utterly failed.

Yet, let Ozzie Guillen say anything that points to the failure of the Cuba policy and the Cubans in Miami hit the roof. They're petty and it's time to start ignoring them.

Mr. Robinson Goes Pro

Thomas Robinson, Kansas Junior forward, will skip his senior season to go pro. He’s in better shape than Anthony Davis who will go pro after one year. Speculation is that Davis would have gone pro after High School, except that the NBA introduced a rule that you had to have at least one year of college before going pro.

I’m not sure of the why of that rule. Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett have both been very successful coming straight out of High School. They’ve both had fine careers, earned enough money to keep them living in high style from their retirement to their death. Of course that depends on how they’ve invested their high incomes thinking about the years of low incomes coming.

But will this “one and done” trend trickle down to our level?

There may be one NAIA player who has gotten a chance to make it in the pros. We occasionally get a baseball player scouted. I don’t think we’ve ever gotten a football player from the NAIA to the NFL. We don’t even get the TV coverage of NCAA III. It’s just not likely.
I met a potential student we were trying to recruit for our basketball team. “What are you going to do after college?” I asked. “I’m going to play basketball in Europe.” He’s not alone in that certainty that somewhere, somehow there is a professional sports check in his future. I like the confidence, but I sure hope we can help this young man get a reality check.

Otherwise we’re just using these young men and women. The odds are so stacked against them that they’re astronomical. And if “one and done” becomes the trend we’ll have a generation of athletes who have no higher level thinking skills, the skills that will be absolutely necessary to future success. Yes, there will still be a need for those who are skilled with their hands – but the folks who’ll be running the society are those who can think from a concrete situation to the abstract decision. The future belongs to those who are able to critically evaluate claims and adjudicate among options. We need highly educated citizens.

That takes time, reading, thinking, debating and mentoring. One and done won’t get you where you need to be.

My Thanks

Today we present a Reader's Theatre program of three hymns, two stories and two "poems."

This was originally supposed to be a presentation of three medieval mystery plays, out in the amphitheater. My illness and struggles with chemo made it impossible for me to direct such an ambitious program. We had to scale back.

Thanks to my colleagues, Dr. Linda Lewis and Professor Greg LeGault, there will be an excellent program today.

The students have worked hard, but I am overwhelmed by the support of these two colleagues. I am sure that if my third colleague were not of sabbatical she'd pitch in too. But I want to publicly praise the collegiality I've found at Bethany. This makes Bethany a great place to work.

Thank you, my colleagues, my friends.

A very human Jesus

I didn’t make it through the whole three hours of St. Matthew’s Passion. All kinds of reasons not related to the performance. Let’s say it was my leg and my gut and let it go at that.

I also hadn’t take my Zoloft equivalent for several days, so this post has to be made with an awareness of that. My emotions were very much available to me, is what I’m saying.
While I was only able to stay for the first part of the passion, I heard it in a way I had never heard it before.

I didn’t get how Bach felt whatever it was he felt. I think he deeply felt his guilt and shame before this dying hero. The passages from the women were extraordinary – both Mary and Mary Magdalene had a depth that I had not experienced before.
What I heard that I had never heard before was the story of a man who is betrayed by his friends, left helpless by his family, exposed to the power of the Roman Empire. First the first time, I think, I felt the depth of that betrayal and that exposure.

I have never had disciples, never had followers. But I’ve had an been friends. Some I’ve been close to and supported, and some I’ve failed at various times. But I’ve never been betrayed by my friends. Disappointed, I suppose, but never betrayed. Yet I can feel how vulnerable that leaves you. Alone. Solitary. Friends failing you left and right. My God, the darkness that descends as you face the universe alone. As Moltmann emphasizes in The Crucified God, even deserted by the one who sent you, by the Father who said he loves you unconditionally and has called you, once, My Son.

Letting go of the specific Christian claim of the resurrection, last night I felt anew a very human story, and it moved me deeply. I am sorry that I was not well enough to stay for my favorite chorus, the last chorus. Next year in Presser Hall!