Sex Before Cameras

Sex before cameras must have been better When it was purely a sensual act and there were no expectations on how it should look or sound only how it should feel There in the dark nothing but electric skin and silken hair and the breath of the day whistling lukewarm into ears from wet lips We stop in the midst of this most holy act and think Wait, this isn’t right How does this look This isn’t loud enough flashy enough This isn’t what its like We do this in vain All based on some greedy old man with desperate young people and hours of footage to waste Product shipped off to factories to take our money and make us hate the mothers of our sons and fathers of our daughters 

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Constantine’s Nonsense

           If a religion is a community with shared beliefs and practices, and the center of a religion is social unity, then the story of Constantine and the subsequent biblical inconsistencies with his conversion and the mainstreaming of the Christian religion is center to the overall history of the group. All the following wars and hypocrisies, genocides and atrocities, can be tracked back to this genesis of Christianity’s conversion from separatist Jewish cult to major organizational institution.

            The story still held as fact in many scholarly circles of Constantine’s first spiritual interaction with “Christ” dates back to the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312 BCE. Constantine claimed to have seen a crucifix, then dreamt that Christ explained to him the meaning. He had crosses painted on his soldiers shield and they crossed a bridge to slaughter their enemies. After this, Constantine was said to have converted and gradually raised Christianity up to be the dominant religion in his empire. However, Christian symbolism was only seen in his personal effects. He still used the symbolism of gods such as Apollo and Diana on the public monument, which celebrated the victory at Milivan Bridge that Christ allegedly delivered unto Constantine. When Constantine, now a “Christian”, dedicated Constantinople, he did so in full Apollonian garb.

            Not only are his mixture of traditional Roman polytheisms with Christianity an obvious inconsistency (“You shall have no other gods before me”) but his allegation of divine appointment is inconsistent with the Jesus of the Bible. In the New Testament, Jesus teachings are often split up into parables, questions, and edicts. Christ would often to fictional stories to illustrate a point and speculatively to allow for some interpretation. When faced with an ensnaring question (usually from political figures of the day) Christ would often answer with a conundrum and thus stump his attackers. On a more rare occasion, Christ would actually say things outright, making declarations or edicts. In Matthew chapter 5, Jesus says “You have heard that it was said, ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” This seems to be a command with the start of the paragraph saying “I tell you”. This is in stark contrast with the idea that Christ would, like the G-d of the Old Testament, appear to a military leader and tell him how to strike back and kill his enemies.

            This is important to the understanding of the Christians as a faith and as a people because it clearly indicts the forming and violent maintenance of any “Christian” nation, which was a product of Constantine’s reign. We’ve seen in our course that a major conflict is the separating of the actual beliefs from the non-religious activities carried out in the name of those beliefs, especially in Western religion. From the forming of the Nation of Israel to the church’s horrendous blind eye to the holocaust and the oppression occurring in Muslim nations world wide. The fact is that these monikers, as stated by post-modern Christian writer Rob Bell, “make excellent nouns and poor adjectives”. To be a Jew or Muslim or Christian is a good and decent thing, but to label something as Muslim, Jewish, or Christian inherently brings problems, especially when power is involved in teachings that call for humble servitude.

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Happy 4th birthday to the longest and most lovably infuriating creature I know.

Happy 4th birthday to the longest and most lovably infuriating creature I know.

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H.R. Geiger original or my son?

Check out that dong! Definitely my son!!!

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"Any idiot with a penis can make a baby. It takes BALLS to be a father."
- Matt Moment
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Reblogged from zombify
zombify:

grrrrrrrrrr grrrrrrrr

zombify:

grrrrrrrrrr grrrrrrrr

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149
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When the kids are united…

When the kids are united…

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Virginia Woolf buys a cat

The following is a quote from a speech given by writer Virginia Woolf to a graduating class in 1931. I’m not sure why, when reading the transcript of the speech, this hit me so hard. But, when I did read it, I found myself laughing aloud (something that generally doesn’t accompany my school-related reading).

“But to tell you my story—it is a simple one. You have only got to figure to yourselves a girl in a bedroom with a pen in her hand. She had only to move that pen from left to right—from ten o’clock to one. Then it occurred to her to do what is simple and cheap enough after all—to slip a few of those pages into an envelope, fix a penny stamp in the corner, and drop the envelope into the red box at the corner. It was thus that I became a journalist; and my effort was rewarded on the first day of the following month—a very glorious day it was for me—by a letter from an editor containing a cheque for one pound ten shillings and sixpence. But to show you how little I deserve to be called a professional woman, how little I know of the struggles and difficulties of such lives, I have to admit that instead of spending that sum upon bread and butter, rent, shoes and stockings, or butcher’s bills, I went out and bought a cat—a beautiful cat, a Persian cat, which very soon involved me in bitter disputes with my neighbours.”

I guess I just see this little quip as so indicative of the strong, female artist. Woolf’s anecdote is presumably true, maybe unintentionally comical, yet remains full of character and strength without loosing it’s feminine appeal. As a male observer, this exert typifies what a truly remarkable woman is. The story would likely not be told by a man, and thus it retains it’s femininity, but still maintains an eccentric confidence that is disconcerting to patriarchs the world over.

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Puritan Judge

If I were a puritan judge
I’d have you burned
bra-less on your fixed-gear
slinky blouse perfectly hung
from phenomenal breasts
nipples marbled by
the breeze of motion
surely you are evil
as you stir evil in me

My wife and I would stand
our fingers interlocked
wind whipping black gowns
as the sun hides it’s head
and the coming night
is made orange
by the light of your last words

If I were a puritan judge
I’d have you thrown in a lake
swerving in and out of traffic
with your pagan bumper
stickers proclaiming nothing
as angry as you are
at cars and at god
I’d have twice the anger
towards someone like you

I’d thumb back my hat
tall, black as coal,
feel the sun on my face
and drop a fishing line
while I waited to see
if you float as wood
or sink like stone

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