Semi-vacation day.

It’s Good Friday, and if y’all don’t mind, it’s still Holy Thursday as I write this and I really want to watch “Top of the Lake” on demand and practice my Oz accent.

Here’s something: I have been trying (unsuccessfully, so far) to get this guy, John Corvino, to write for Bridge. He’s a friend of a friend, and recently published a book, “What’s Wrong With Homosexuality?” Corvino teaches philosophy at Wayne State, and approaches these questions from his discipline. I’ve seen him lecture, and he’s terrific.

In connection with his book, he’s released a collection of YouTube videos that breaks the big question down into small pieces. You might like to watch a few of them on this slow Good Friday. Or maybe not. But here they are.

Have a great holiday, all. See you Monday. April Fool’s. We’ll have some fun.

Posted at 12:20 am in Uncategorized |
 

48 responses to “Semi-vacation day.”

  1. Dexter said on March 29, 2013 at 2:24 am

    And if nance’s links aren’t enough, here’s a history of the GLBT life , before Stonewall. It’s easy to find part two on YouTube, also.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v2qPdd9TyI

    180 chars

  2. alex said on March 29, 2013 at 8:43 am

    I think John Corvino makes some good points about “love the sinner, hate the sin.”

    I would add that “love the sinner, hate the sin” has always struck me as nothing but a big “fuck you” dressed up in sanctimony and dripping with condescension. It’s just a southern “bless your heart” on steroids. I could play at that game, too, but as much as I hate bigotry, I’m not going to make any pretense of feeling love for the bigot, damn yankee that I am.

    451 chars

  3. Connie said on March 29, 2013 at 8:56 am

    Non HBO subscribers: If your cable company is Comcast Xfinity and you have In Demand, all premium channel content is available free on In Demand through Sunday, including HBO. Now what was that HBO documentary I wanted to see?

    226 chars

  4. coozledad said on March 29, 2013 at 9:01 am

    When the Republicans were flogging Amendment One down here to drag as many of their slobbering dolts to the polls, you heard a lot of that “love the sinner, hate the sin”.
    Anyone who’s looked down in the fetid little shelf-breached sardine can of a Republican mind knows damn well what they’re saying.
    I love that sin. I want that sin. That is a sin I done again and again in my crabbed little heart. But I am sore afraid, a coward, even. And without hate, I amn’t nothing.

    Way to go John! And that’s the perfect get-up for cat poisoning.

    550 chars

  5. Mark P said on March 29, 2013 at 9:03 am

    I can’t watch YouTube at work, but it seems kind of odd that someone has to defend homosexuality on any grounds. You might as well defend heterosexuality. Both are entirely natural.

    I agree with Alex. Hating the sin (assuming we are talking about homosexuality) is still homophobia. And besides, when it comes to christians and their condemnations of other people’s sins, all I can think of is, why are you people not following the teachings of the man you call god? Your god told you not to judge other people. He told you to remember the beam in your own eye. He told you that the only law was to love god and to love other people like you love yourselves. He said that if you do something to someone else, you have done it to him. Oh well, that’s a dead horse.

    766 chars

  6. Bitter Scribe said on March 29, 2013 at 10:35 am

    One of the many things I don’t understand about Christianity is: Why is it Good Friday? It’s the day Jesus was tortured to death. That’s good?

    I know, I know, the story has a happy ending. But it still sounds weird.

    225 chars

  7. MichaelG said on March 29, 2013 at 10:43 am

    Any Friday is a good Friday. Maybe, if one wants to distinguish this one, it should be called a better Friday.

    111 chars

  8. alex said on March 29, 2013 at 10:43 am

    I suppose what’s good about it is that Lent is over and you can stop torturing yourself if that’s what you’ve been doing.

    Funny line I heard at work a few weeks ago. A lady had mentioned that she’d given up chocolate for Lent. Young guy chimes in that he gave up Lent for chocolate.

    285 chars

  9. Mark P said on March 29, 2013 at 11:06 am

    I don’t think a lot of christians know what lent means. I heard a story on local TV news talking about how someone was giving up a bad habit for lent. Yeah, that’s a sacrifice. I think I’ll give up stubbing my toe on the bed frame for lent. Of course I guess that means I should have stubbed my toe extra times on Tuesday.

    322 chars

  10. Prospero said on March 29, 2013 at 11:36 am

    Oops.

    The reasoning behind “Good” Friday, John 3:16:

    “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138051/

    403 chars

  11. Prospero said on March 29, 2013 at 11:44 am

    Assessing online newspaper paywalls.

    I typed paywalls and got payrolls. Damn I hate auto-correct.

    238 chars

  12. Bitter Scribe said on March 29, 2013 at 12:08 pm

    Prospero: Yeah, I get that, but it still makes no sense to me.

    Come to think of it, neither does the larger scheme. If God wanted to forgive the world its sins, why didn’t He just do so? What was the point of sending His son to be tortured and killed? Wouldn’t that, if anything, just increase the world’s guilt?

    315 chars

  13. beb said on March 29, 2013 at 12:28 pm

    Bitter Scribe, Good Friday is good for much the reason that McDonald’s calls their kids meals a “Happy” meal — because if they called it a “sad” meal no one would buy them.

    But I think the answer is that Jesus’ horrible, excruciating death was a blood-sacrifice to redeem our lives and therefore it was a good day because before then everyone, good or bad, went straight to hell without chance of redemption.

    As the great Anna Russell (whom I had to goggle to remember her name) once said (of Wagner) “I’m not making this up.”

    533 chars

  14. Prospero said on March 29, 2013 at 12:34 pm

    My favorite holy day.

    The wetback comment from Rep. Young. Pitiful asshat tried to claimm that the term wasn’t derogatory when he was just a boy. It’s like Raygun saying “Why, when I was a boy, who knew there were negroes?”

    Mysterious ways, Scribe. Why put evolution in motion? Why make avocado pits so big?

    441 chars

  15. Bitter Scribe said on March 29, 2013 at 12:56 pm

    “…before then everyone, good or bad, went straight to hell without chance of redemption.”

    Wow. Sometimes I think God is like Itchy in those Simpsons “Itchy & Scratchy” cartoons.

    (Come to think of it, didn’t Itchy team up with God to torment Scratchy in one of those cartoons?)

    288 chars

  16. DellaDash said on March 29, 2013 at 1:33 pm

    Alex – like your spicy salsa(“bless your heart” on steroids) on top of Corvino’s cool, well-modulated approach.

    Now, I’m going off topic, but not entirely off the reservation, with a tidbit I ran across about the hometown I’m returning to at the end of April. This one’s for you, Brian Stouder:

    “The first railroad bridge built across the Mississippi River connected Davenport and Rock Island in 1856. It was built by the Rock Island Railroad Company, and replaced the slow seasonal ferry service and winter ice bridges as the primary modes of transportation across the river. Steamboaters saw the nationwide railroads as a threat to their business. On May 6, 1856, just weeks after completion of the bridge, an angry steamboater crashed the Effie Afton into it. John Hurd, the owner of the Effie Afton, filed a lawsuit against The Rock Island Railroad Company. The Rock Island Railroad Company selected Abraham Lincoln as their trial lawyer and won after he took the case to the US Supreme Court. Phillip Suiter was one of his expert witnesses. It was a pivotal trial in Lincoln’s career.”

    1104 chars

  17. Sherri said on March 29, 2013 at 2:00 pm

    To circle back around to yesterday’s topic of disability and young people, James Fallows reminds us of the disability costs that come out of the general budget and haven’t really been discussed: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/03/paying-the-costs-of-iraq-for-decades-to-come/274477/

    299 chars

  18. Jolene said on March 29, 2013 at 2:02 pm

    I googled “why is it called Good Friday,” and the answer appears to be similar to a lot of things having to do with religion. That is, there’s no clear historical answer that makes any sense, but, over time, people in religious institutions have imposed a meaning on the empirical facts.

    Here’s a short article that summarizes several I looked at: http://catholicism.about.com/od/Good-Friday/f/Why-Is-Good-Friday-Good.htm

    Seems like there should be a more scholarly answer, but I didn’t find one in my brief searching.

    524 chars

  19. Bitter Scribe said on March 29, 2013 at 3:51 pm

    Hey Jolene, thanks for that link. That was plenty “scholarly” enough for me. I noticed that the German name for Good Friday translates as “suffering Friday,” which makes a lot more sense. Either that, or it’s another case of those Germans being overly literal.

    260 chars

  20. alex said on March 29, 2013 at 3:55 pm

    A very good Friday, if I may say so myself. Springalicious. I’ve been out working in my garden, cleaning and stacking about 150 tomato cages, raking up detritus, soaking up rays and loving it. It’s in the 50s, which is a scorcher compared to what we’ve had so far this year.

    274 chars

  21. beb said on March 29, 2013 at 3:58 pm

    Bitter… I may have been carried away this morning. Still, I don’t recall much talk in the Old Testament to live after death and whether one lives with God or the Devil. But it’s like the adolescent question about what happened to all the people because Jesus, or who lives on continents where Jesus never went. When you think of it that way it explains the Mormon’s obsession with baptizing all the dead since that it the only way to get them into heaven. When the alternative is to leave them in limbo or hell, then baptizing the dead makes a lot of sense.

    559 chars

  22. brian stouder said on March 29, 2013 at 4:00 pm

    DellaDash – marvelous, isn’t it!

    Good ol’ AL; a genuinely remarkable human being, a towering genius and a born poet – and, before anything, a corporate railroad lawyer!

    One of my favorite AL stories concerns when one of his corporate clients – I think it was the Illinois Central – wouldn’t pay his bill!

    So of course, he sued them for $5,000 and in short order whipped them in court; whereupon that RR put him on retainer!

    432 chars

  23. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on March 29, 2013 at 4:18 pm

    The world, she is broken, or so it seems to most of us, Panglossians excepted. Why, with so much lovely in it and through it, is there this brokenness, and what will it take to make meaning out of it, the cosmos that is, let alone our puny “layer of paint atop the Eiffel Tower” lives in the chronology of Earth alone (I think I’m swiping that from Twain, no time to check). Why brokenness, what makes for redemption?

    Christianity is, I’m happy to concede, one of a number of answer-systems (worldviews, Weltanschauungs, framing devices, what-have-yous). It’s the one I was born into, wandered away from, and believe I’ve tested out enough to say I’ve claimed it for myself, and am a pastor, a person who helps care for a gathered community that is trying to figure out what living out this worldview of Christian faith looks and acts like. You may have found a beauty and coherence in another, and if so, God (or the Void!) bless you.

    If you think the world’s brokenness adds up to the certainty (or worldview) that life is simply nasty, brutish, and short, ending when the body hits room temperature, I’d be happy to buy you a beverage of your choice and debate the proposition, but I don’t find comment boxes or threads or other similar internet venues to be productive venues for teaching, let alone preaching or evangelizing. So I don’t. But I’m between services this Holy Week (6 down, 5 to go if you count the Easter Egg Hunt tomorrow morning), popped in to see the topic du jour, and had to say at least this much. I offer this in respect and appreciation for the community here, and:

    If we shadows have offended,
    Think but this, and all is mended,
    That you have but slumber’d here
    While these visions did appear.
    And this weak and idle theme,
    No more yielding but a dream,
    Gentles, do not reprehend:
    if you pardon, we will mend:
    And, as I am an honest Puck,
    If we have unearned luck
    Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,
    We will make amends ere long;
    Else the Puck a liar call;
    So, good night unto you all.
    Give me your hands, if we be friends,
    And Robin shall restore amends.

    2108 chars

  24. JWfromNJ said on March 29, 2013 at 4:24 pm

    Connie? Might it have been “Fall from Grace,” the story of N.J. Governor Jim McGreevey who resigned after being blackmailed by his “lover” and homeland security advisor. Said advisor was also an Israeli citizen and claims McGreevey pressured him for sex and also attempted to blackmail him.

    His “I am a gay American,” resignation speech could have done a lot for progress and great gay americans if he wasn’t held down at the tip of a sword. He cruised gay bathhouses and sex shows both as mayor of his town then as governor, with NJ Troopers in his detail waiting outside and pissed off.

    He’s built a new life as an un-ordained Episcopal minister working with female inmates in prison and his partner is a rich Australian financier who now supports them both financially.

    Fascinating guy – once tried to throw a colleague into a construction pit because he wrote a negative column, borrowing from Eminem, asking where the real “Jim Shady” is…His wife was clueless – also a member of the NJ media

    1008 chars

  25. Prospero said on March 29, 2013 at 4:29 pm

    Some of y’all were talking about the doughnut hole yesterday. I’d point out that the “Ryan budget” specifically and deliberately would reopen the doughnut hole, which was created by a flat out giveaway by Shrubco to Big Pharma. These fuckers are shameless.

    256 chars

  26. Prospero said on March 29, 2013 at 4:30 pm

    Ryan and the doughnut hole:

    http://www.factcheck.org/2011/05/ryans-budget-spin/

    Scurrilous, venal shits.

    110 chars

  27. Prospero said on March 29, 2013 at 5:13 pm

    Jeff@23: Beautifully put. My Easter song:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMFXxyBHfBo

    How many ahole GOPers named Steve King are there.

    300 chars

  28. MichaelG said on March 29, 2013 at 5:25 pm

    Well, there’s that idiot wetback, Don Young from AK.

    52 chars

  29. coozledad said on March 29, 2013 at 5:53 pm

    Away, Melancholy

    Away, melancholy,
    Away with it, let it go.

    Are not the trees green,
    The earth as green?
    Does not the wind blow,
    Fire leap and the rivers flow?
    Away melancholy.

    The ant is busy
    He carrieth his meat,
    All things hurry
    To be eaten or eat.
    Away, melancholy.

    Man, too, hurries,
    Eats, couples, buries,
    He is an animal also
    With a hey ho melancholy,
    Away with it, let it go.

    Man of all creatures
    Is superlative
    (Away melancholy)
    He of all creatures alone
    Raiseth a stone
    (Away melancholy)
    Into the stone, the god
    Pours what he knows of good
    Calling, good, God.
    Away melancholy, let it go.

    Speak not to me of tears,
    Tyranny, pox, wars,
    Saying, Can God
    Stone of man’s thoughts, be good?
    Say rather it is enough
    That the stuffed
    Stone of man’s good, growing,
    By man’s called God.
    Away, melancholy, let it go.

    Man aspires
    To good,
    To love
    Sighs;

    Beaten, corrupted, dying
    In his own blood lying
    Yet heaves up an eye above
    Cries, Love, love.
    It is his virtue needs explaining,
    Not his failing.

    Away, melancholy,
    Away with it, let it go

    -Stevie Smith

    1122 chars

  30. Prospero said on March 29, 2013 at 5:55 pm

    Dexter, SI buys Trout over Kemp and other sraffs over LA. Ignorance. Matty is the best player in the game without a question. Knowbody ever meant anything mean about wetback. Trout, the Washington guy? Not Kemp by any stretch. You know kemp can outrun those fools because hi stride is twice as long. And he lashes the ball. Just a better baseball player.

    355 chars

  31. Jolene said on March 29, 2013 at 6:25 pm

    A lovely poem, Cooz. Thanks for posting.

    40 chars

  32. coozledad said on March 29, 2013 at 7:06 pm

    Jolene: I’ve been mulling over that one lately, looking for things to steal from it, especially
    It is his virtue needs explaining,
    Not his failing.

    Stevie’s throwaway lines are frequently better than most poet’s entire works. I think that one would make an excellent opener for a contemporary biography.

    315 chars

  33. Jolene said on March 29, 2013 at 7:53 pm

    i think that one would make an excellent opener for a contemporary biography.

    I agree. Would also be a great epigram for a novel.

    I’m not familiar with Smith’s work. Will have to give it some attention.

    Meanwhile, on the NewsHour, I just heard a really interesting interview with the author of a new novel called How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. Sounded like a great read. Worth checking out.

    http://www.amazon.com/How-Filthy-Rich-Rising-Asia/dp/1594487294

    488 chars

  34. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on March 29, 2013 at 8:25 pm

    I owe you a beverage, C-dad.

    28 chars

  35. Deborah said on March 29, 2013 at 8:54 pm

    Jeff (tmmo) and Coozledad, you both have given me my own private Easter. Thanks for that.

    Little Bird and I are in our room in a Hampton Inn in Clinton, Oklahoma on our way back to Santa Fe in the Jeep with the architectural model in the back. There seems to be a room full of kids next to us that are jumping on the beds and screaming to the point that the walls are shaking. I can’t imagine parents letting their kids do that. We are giving it a bit of time before we call the front desk and complain. This may be a long night. Oy.

    536 chars

  36. Dorothy said on March 29, 2013 at 10:11 pm

    Deborah, we are in a Hampton Inn in Pittsburgh! I love Hampton Inns. It is peaceful here; just saw Kansas lose to Michigan. Will not be awake for the Florida Gulf Coast game, though. Too pooped. Just de-pressurizing after a long day.

    Thx for your lovely posts, boys (Jeff and Cooz).

    286 chars

  37. brian stouder said on March 29, 2013 at 11:44 pm

    Well, the lovely wife has me under a gag-order for right now, regarding this screaming headline:

    http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20130329/LOCAL04/303299968/1026/LOCAL04

    (short version of my suppressed reaction, to my dissatisfied fellow parents: teapot, meet tempest)

    Aside from that, the girls and I just got back from seeing the the new Wizard of Oz movie. I thought it was OK – which is high praise from me since they’re fooling with the greatest movie ever made…and the girls really liked it, which is even higher praise!

    542 chars

  38. MichaelG said on March 29, 2013 at 11:57 pm

    “Knowbody ever meant anything mean about wetback.” ???

    56 chars

  39. Dexter said on March 30, 2013 at 2:29 am

    If Michigan beats Florida on Sunday, they will be going to Atlanta for the Final Four. In the 70s and 80s, I attended many Final Fours, and I am getting the fever to do it again. GO BLUE !!

    191 chars

  40. Dexter said on March 30, 2013 at 2:36 am

    Most awkward Easter photos ever.
    http://blog.sfgate.com/sfmoms/2013/03/28/the-most-awkward-and-hilarious-easter-photos-ever/#10620-1

    133 chars

  41. Linda said on March 30, 2013 at 6:40 am

    See, it’s like I told you people, buying hydroponic stuff does not make you a marijuana grower.

    210 chars

  42. Basset said on March 30, 2013 at 8:30 am

    Connie@3, thanks for the HBO notice… we took advantage of it last night, only recognized a couple of the movies and ended up watching a Showtime documentary on the life of Ozzy.
    Bad news for us yesterday, our rescued golden retriever has kidney failure and is now at the vet with IVs in… best case she only has a few weeks though.

    337 chars

  43. Jeff said on March 30, 2013 at 9:11 am

    http://www.newarkadvocate.com/article/20130329/NEWS01/303290053/At-Crack-Dawn-Rumblings-Cloudless-Sky

    101 chars

  44. brian stouder said on March 30, 2013 at 9:48 am

    Basset, no fun. How many years have you had that dog? The loss of our bunny rabbit(!!!) – which we had for about four years – bothered me more than I would have guessed, and bothers me still. Losing such a larger presence within your home must be wrenching.

    Linda – the grower’s use of the ‘red party cups’ would have been enough for me to grant a search warrant, if I was a judge!

    Jeff – marvelous piece!

    411 chars

  45. basset said on March 30, 2013 at 3:45 pm

    About twelve years if I remember correctly, Brian… we are involved in golden retriever rescue (http://www.rescueagolden.org/), took her in as a temporary foster, and kept her. She had been found wandering stray in a neighboring county… first year or so we had her she was terrified of me and all men, fine with women and children but if I raised my hand for any reason she’d try to get under the furniture. The sound of a rubber band snapping would set her off too… but she finally realized she was safe and had a good life.

    532 chars

  46. Deborah said on March 30, 2013 at 6:35 pm

    Basset, so sorry, it sounds like she had a good life with you for 12 years, that’s a good long time.

    Jeff (tmmo) just thanks again.

    134 chars

  47. LAMary said on March 30, 2013 at 6:38 pm

    My sympanthy, Basset. In my continuting ckeaning and sorting I found photos of my first great dane. It’s been 18 years and I still miss his company.

    150 chars

  48. basset said on March 30, 2013 at 8:25 pm

    Been about that long on our first golden and our only basset, who crossed the rainbow bridge within a few months of each other. We got both of them when we lived in Mississippi and named the basset Eudora, which genuinely offended some of the Mississippi natives we knew – they assumed we were just Yankees being deliberately disrespectful to Eudora Welty. We honestly hadn’t thought of that, and someone who actually knew Eudora Welty said she’d probably have been amused to have a hound named after her.

    507 chars