Is Your Refrigerator Running?

Do you have a refrigerator?  Of course you do.  Now, what do you use your refrigerator for?  If you said, “To keep my food cold so it doesn’t spoil,” then you’d be wrong.  At least, you’d be wrong if you lived where I have been staying for the last week-Minnesota.  You see, these people up here use their refrigerators for just the opposite purpose.  Whereas most of the civilized world needs the refrigerator because leaving food outside would cause it to spoil, ’sotans need their refrigerators to keep their food from freezing.  That’s right, the refrigerator for these people is a way to keep food from becoming ice.  This point was brought home to me again this winter as my wife’s family moved everything out of the refrigerator in the garage and put it on the floor of basement because, as they put it, “It’s just too cold out there for the refrigerator.  If we leave stuff in the refrigerator, it’ll freeze.”  What?  Try wrapping your head around that one.  I think I’ll make that one of my criteria for where I won’t live: If there is ever a need for your refrigerator to play the same role as your microwave (keeping food warm), then I don’t want to live there.

Etiquette.

I realize that I live in a part of Texas where hunting is just a part of the culture.  I understand that many people look forward to hunting season and will even celebrate when those different seasons open up (i.e. dove season & deer season) by taking the entire weekend to get up early and sit quietly in a blind somewhere.

Fine.  Celebrate.  I’ve got no problem with it.  Please know that I don’t understand it, nor can I really get excited about it because I didn’t grow up hunting.   It’s not that I condemn hunting–it’s just something that I don’t think I’d really like to do, because I didn’t ever experience it.

One thing that I do ask, is that you not stop off at the local sporting goods store on your way home after shooting a deer.  (BTW–I really can’t think of a good reason why you HAVE to stop off there BEFORE you go home.)  If you must, do me (and the others who stop off to shop) a favor and cover up the dead deer that you have on the cargo rack.  We really don’t need to see your prize up close as we walk into the store to buy some shoe strings.

On Second Thought…

Maybe Kevin Garnett should have gone to college:

“I’ve been a big fan of history.”-KG, 12/11/08

Uh, what?  Is he referring to specific events (like the Crusades or the Holocaust)?  Or is he simply glad that history exists at all?  It’s impossible to tell.

I know, I know, this is pretty low hanging fruit, but it’s Friday, and that shit is funny.

Sigh

In a move that is akin to watching a shape materialize inside of it’s outline, Tony Jones, former national spokesperson for Emergent Village, just decided that homosexuality is not in conflict with Christianity.  In his reasoning (here) he offers no basis for this other than his own thoughtful reflections and experiences.  Far be it from seventonine to discount the importance of these sources, but we think there is fundamental flaw with these kinds of arguments.  Succinctly put, it cedes the Biblical ground to the fundamentalists and conservatives when there is absolutely no reason to do so.  There are perfectly good theological and Biblically based reasons to argue that Christianity and homosexuality need not be discordant, why not use them?

It’s not that we agree or disagree with Mr. Jones, it’s just that his argument, after many years of “holding the issue in abeyance” for careful consideration, is, well, disappointing.

One Thing-Race and Ethnicity

One half of seventonine is fond of boiling things down to their essence, really getting at the core of a situation and summing up complex information and experiences in as few words as possible.  To that end, we’ll be offering an occasional series of quotes or brief summations that we think captures what we try to do or teach on a daily basis.  This series will be called “One Thing.”

If I could only teach my students one thing about race and ethnicity it would be the following quote from Thomas Shapiro’s book, “The Hidden Cost of Being African American,”

Advantaged groups not only control important resources and institutions, they attempt to make their advantages appear legitimate in their own eyes, as well as in the eyes of the disadvantaged.

That about sums up what I just spent 3 hours a week over the course of 3 months trying to get my students to understand.