Author Archives: Jen

About Jen

Jen isn't quite sure when she lost her mind, but it is probably documented here on Meditatio. She blogs because the world needs her snark at all hours of the night... and she probably can't sleep anyway.

PC Speech Has a Time and Place

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Last night, I did a meme on MySpace where you filled in X’s regarding statements that fit you and it determined a fake ethnicity for you. One of my friends from college (who is bi-racial) was the one who originally posted it and I went along with it for giggles. Well… apparently someone on my friends-list didn’t like it and commented about how they found it offensive and that we don’t need these vast assumptions and generalizations.

Yeah…

On the one hand, I agree with them because a lot of the statements were stereotypical (i.e. the Irish ones had to do with liking beer, liking the color green, and going to St. Paddy’s Day parties) but… on the other hand, it was a meme for fun and I took it as such.Â? I commented back, saying that their opinion was duly noted and I understood their point even though I disagreed.

Later,Â? I was watching “Celebrity Fit Club” (yes, I know some of you have moral and ethical issues with the show) and one of the contestants this season is Dustin Diamond who played “Screech” on “Saved by the Bell”.Â? He is trying to distance himself from “Screech” and is just being an absolute jerk in the process.Â? The other 7 cast members support each other despite the fact that the teams are men vs. women — Dustin, on the other hand, just rips people apart.Â? He got all bothered because he was talking about his pr0n tape at dinner during the second fitcamp and people weren’t paying attention to him alone.Â? Yeah… sorry but a meal is not the time nor the place to discuss these things.Â? He ended up just cursing everybody out and he’s threatening to quit the show next episode.Â? My thought: good freaking riddance.

So… back to the subject line, which occasion is the more appropriate time for PC speech: a blog which all of 10 people read and is passworded or… a televised gathering over a meal?Â? Ideally, the answer is both places but the televised gathering is the more realistic answer.Â? Not to mention… people don’t HAVE to read my MySpace blog — it’s not like I really ever post there.

I would love to be able to say “if you don’t like it, don’t read it” but that would be wrong for some unexplained reason.Â? All I know is this: there is a time and place for politically-correct speech and that meme post was not either of them.

Rich Mullins

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I’m listening to some Rich Mullins music on Napster that was either re-released after his death or was compiled from studio recordings.Â? It’s interesting to listen to him teach songs and to banter with the people.Â? I only really know of him from his music (which describes my faith in ways that nobody else does) and because of his work with the Native American community.Â? He’s been dead for almost 10 years and he left behind an amazing body of work that continues to flourish as if he was still with us.

The most interesting piece is him doing “Praise Ye the Lord” with the audience and telling them that they “sound like Lutherans” when they were being kind of stiff and formal.Â? As much as I hate to admit it, Lutherans can be like that when singing praise songs.Â? I remember my friend Laura and I getting the clapping and hand motions started during Synod Assembly last year — t’was fun and for a moment, it really didn’t matter that people were staring at us like we were crazy.

Hopefully, I have another experience like that again this year.

Why I’m Media-Fasting

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Yesterday is a little too close to this day in my life.

It was a somewhat sunny January day in 2001. I was done with classes for that afternoon and was checking out CNN. That’s when I saw this story — apparently, there had been someone planning to stage a Columbine incident at my twin brother’s community college.

My heart was racing as I called Sean (my twin) and asked him if he knew why classes had been cancelled. I then told him about the thing I had seen on CNN. Sean looked at the story and told me that if this person had succeeded with his plans, he would have killed hundreds of people and Sean might have been one of them.

Yeah. All this because Al De Guzman,a freshman at De Anza, was pissed off at his life and angry at the rich kids who seemed to have a better one. (Apparently the Virginia Tech gunman had the same complaints.)

The mass casualties were prevented because a clerk at Longs (a drugstore chain on the West Coast) was processing film and saw the pics of bombs and guns. Her father was a San Jose police officer and she knew to be leery of what she saw. De Guzman was apprehended when he came to get his film and police spent the next 48 hours sweeping the campus for bombs and hidden weapons. The clerk got a 4 year scholarship from the California State University system and De Guzman got 70 years behind bars. He hanged himself in prison 3 1/2 years later.

So why am I avoiding the media today? Simple. I know what happened. I know that 32 innocent people are dead as well as the gunman. I don’t need to see endless reels of footage from the campus or hear soundbytes of 911 calls. Instead, I’d prefer to pray for the families and friends of the victims… as well as the parents and loved ones of the gunman who are probably wondering what went wrong here.

That is all.

Double Standard for Free Speech (II)

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Quoth TulipGirl on my Double Standard for Free Speech post:

And then there is another double standardâ????that in which other entertainers (comedians and rappers come to mind readily) say racist and degrading things regularly, and are rewarded with record contracts and adoring fans and not held accountable. As they should be, and as Imus was.

I agree most heartily.

While lying awake last night listening to CNN Headline News, I heard about some in the music industry defending the use of racial and gender-based slurs toward women in music, saying that they should be standing with Imus instead of going against him. According to Russell Simmons, “hiphop is a phenomena that transcends race…” Ummm… no.

What makes it right for rappers and hiphop stars to use the N-word, call women “ho’s”, and have scantily clad women making suggestive movements in their videos, yet at the same time call for Imus to be fired for the comments he made about the Rutgers women’s basketball team? Either words are simply words or we have a serious double standard here that needs to be rectified.

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Double Standard for Free Speech

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I’m kind of glad Imus was fired from MSNBC and CBS for making the “nappy-headed ho’s” comment about the Rutgers women’s basketball team but… what about people like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and others who make racist comments?Â? Do we just expect it from them?

I also want to just say that those members of the basketball team who spoke at the news conference, especially Essence Carson, were incredibly poised and just sounded brilliant.Â? They were tactful and quite diplomatic about the whole thing and I really wish these ladies well in their future.