GoldbergBlog

Everyone knows the story of Cain and Abel: Adam and Eve do a less-than-stellar parenting job (granted, their only parental figure kicked them out of paradise for eating fruit) and one their sons ends up killing the other out of jealousy.  The lesson: love your brother.  However, I take away a different moral from this story: brotherhood is about balance.  If Abel hadn’t gone and tried to impress God, Cain wouldn’t have had to unleash some fratricide.

Balance is important between brothers and I have done my best to maintain it with mine.  I’m really into movies and he’s really into sports.  We’re both really into American History and give disturbingly similar (sometimes identical) answers when playing Loaded Questions, much to our mutual embarassment.  I get to be hilarious and he gets to be physically fit.  While his high school graduation speech caused me great consternation with its brilliant combination of wry observation, impersonations, and wearing a baseball hat with a suit, I managed to dismiss the incident as a fluke.  I was still the funniest.  I don’t have to kill him.  He just needs to go on his merry way and leave the laughs to me.

But today he posted the best commentary on the Brett Favre saga that I’ve heard in all its many weeks. There’s a line involving Outback Steakhouse and John Madden that made me laugh till I cried and then I just cried.  He had gotten…funny.  Funny was my territory.  He got to be physically fit.  That’s balance.  And since I’m getting winded just typing this, I’m afraid he’ll have to be…dealt with.  By someone else of course.  Lifting a club and beating him to death would be exhausting.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to take a nap and dream of my brother being dull and/or overweight.

Tags: humor, personal, religion by Matt
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I don’t care what Bill O’Reilly says (ever) and I’m not sure how his delusional mind could think there’s a “War on Christmas” unless he was just doing it as a yearly ratings ploy. But he’s a serious journalist and would never sink to such a level. But if there is such a war, I would say that Christmas is winning against “secular progressives” (damn them with their modern, forward thinking ways!).

First there was the resolution introduced in the House of Representatives by Steve King (R-Iowa) that Christians and Christmas are important. Aside from that queasy feeling I’m getting in my stomach about the whole state/church deal, it seems like such a waste of time. I’m Jewish and even I like Christmas. I think it has nothing to do with Christianity (Jesus probably wasn’t born in December and, oh yeah, Christianity stole the holiday from pagans; it was originally called the Saturnalia and was when the slaves got to switch places with the master for a day (thanks Prof. Ben Lee!)), but that doesn’t mean it’s not a fun holiday.

Of course, this didn’t stop King from railing against the nine Democrats who decided to use common sense and vote against it.

“I recognized that we’re a Christian nation founded on Christian principles, and we’re coming up to Christmastime…. It’s time we stood up and said so, and said to the rest of America, Be who you are and be confident. And let’s worship Christ and let’s celebrate Christmas for the right reasons.”

Of course we’re a Christian nation! Just look at where the Constitution talks about Jesus! No, not there? Well I’m sure it’s in the Bill of–nope, not there either. It must at least be in the Declaration of–no mention? I mean, there’s mention of a creator and that was Jesus. Close enough.

But clearly this is just the work of one lone, nutbag Representative from Iowa, a state that no one cares about unless they’re running for President.

Oh wait. Here’s George and Laura Bush’s Christmas card:

A) What the hell does that quote have to do with Christmas; and B) ARE. YOU. SHITTING. ME.

All I know is that if I were Christian, I would just send this out every year:

Tags: humor, politics, religion, stupid by Matt
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After finishing A.J. Jacobs’s The Year of Living Biblically (I also met Jacobs last night and he’s a super-nice and funny guy), I have to say that I’m a bit more accepting of Evangelical Christians. Yes, I think they’re ridiculous for thinking that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. Yes, I think they’re willfully ignorant for denying evolution. Yes, I think they look silly when they speak in tongues. But now I appreciate that they’re not just a monolithic group that’s ruining our country. I especially like the “Red-Letter Christians” who actually adhere to the acts and words of Jesus, like fighting poverty and showing compassion, rather than pushing a hateful political agenda and then hiding behind the Bible.

But sometimes Christianity can be really fucking stupid (as can all religions) as it is in the case of Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue. First off, I’m wholly against electing anyone named Sonny to any office. The only thing guys named Sonny can do is to die horribly at toll booths. But he’s the Governor of my home state of Georgia and I have to live with that. And I also have to live with how he plans to respond to our drought.

Yes, Georgia is in a drought right now and it makes me feel guilty every time I use water. If I were Governor, I would fight a drought by trying to build reservoirs, aqueducts, irrigation; anything that utilizes the advancements of civilization. And civilization has come up with some good solutions because humans need water. We may need to boil it or treat it somehow, but we need it. And preferably in bottles that cost $1.09. But Governor Perdue has decided to eschew thousands of years of human ingenuity and return to basics: he’s going to pray for rain.

Let me say that again: he’s going to pray for rain.

I don’t know which is worse: taking the time to pray for rain when that time could be spent trying to find solutions to our water shortage or rallying your Conservative Christian voters in a cynical ploy to exploit a serious crisis in exchange for their constant support. No wait. The second one is definitely worse.

Look, if you want to pray on your own time, great. Go nuts. But when you want to rally your Christian base and pray on the steps of the Capitol because “Fuck it, what else can you do?” then I weep for my state. And then I quit weeping and say that shit like this wouldn’t happen if you fucking morons didn’t re-elect this chump last year. Also, if conservatives weren’t so busy denying Global Warming, maybe they wouldn’t have to pray for rain. You may believe in the power of prayer, but you know what I believe? Taking action.

In the end, all I can think of is the following parable:

There once was a flood and everyone had reached safety except for one man. He climbed to the top of his house with the water lapping at his feet.

A helicopter flew over his head and hung down a rope for him to climb, but the man was deeply religious and said, “It’s alright! The Lord will save me!” So the helicopter flew away.

The water continued to rise and a boat came to him but, once again, the man shouted, “No! Go AWAY! the Lord will come and save me!” and the boat sped off.

The water was getting dangerously deep by now so the helicopter came back and, on cue, the man repeated, “I don’t need saving! My Lord will come,” Reluctantly, the helicopter left.

The rain continued to pour, the water continued to rise, and the man drowned.

At the gates of heaven, the man met St. Peter. Confused, he asked, “Peter, I have lived the life of a faithful man - why did my Lord not rescue me?”

St. Peter replied, “For pity sake! He sent you two helicopters and a boat!”

Tags: politics, religion, stupid by Matt
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I was reading A.J. Jacobs The Year of Living Biblically and as he attempts to follow the rules of the Bible as strictly as possible, he comes upon the problem of lust. As all good books do (and this one is great), it got me thinking: Yes, our culture is inundated with sexual imagery. But at the same time, am I not allowed to appreciate it? Jacobs, attempting to follow his massively researched understanding of the Bible, tries to avoid sexual imagery whenever possible (which is especially difficult considering his job at Esquire magazine) and I just don’t understand this kind of sexual avoidance. I don’t understand why lust is necessarily a bad thing.

I do think it’s a bad thing when, in the presence of someone you find sexually attractive, you don’t look at them, but you leer at them (concept totally stolen from ViolentAcres). You’re not appreciating what turns you on about them but rather how what turns you on about them serves your sexual needs. And in the presence of a flesh and blood human being, when so much more than their looks is available for you to discover, you’re really just shortchanging yourself and the other person by only considering the physical.

But there is something to be said for the physical. I frequent sites that showcase naked women and I stopped feeling creepy about it when I realized that I wasn’t filing this material way in a spank bank but that I could appreciate and discern what was attractive about these women. They were models and they were naked and as a modern, mature adult, I didn’t giggle or slobber but decided which ones were too plastic and which ones had that most crucial element in their photos: personality. My heart beats faster at the faintest glimpse that this woman isn’t a statue but a three-dimensional person who will forever hold her secrets within the photo (these photos tend not to be the of the sexually explicit variety; sexually explicit photographs usually don’t have a lot of secrets).

Now you’re probably already gagging and enraged because I’ve referred to women as “ones”. I’ve sexually objectified them. To that I simply respond, “You’re absolutely right.” When it comes to photographs, everything is an object. The photographer and the subject can go to great lengths to create a sense of personality, but it’s incredibly difficult to have a conversation with a photo. When looking at a photo, it’s difficult to understand the depth of a model’s hopes, dreams, likes, and dislike and why she’s not just a still life. But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a woman’s physical beauty. Not define her by it or reduce her solely to it, but to simply appreciate it. And women can feel the same way towards an image of an attractive man. However, they probably don’t because while men initially respond to the physical, women are more stimulated by the mental/emotional. That’s why you can see some schlub on the arm of a beautiful woman but a woman considered to be generally unattractive will stay at home eating a pint of Haggen-Dazs and watching the Lifetime network (and hey, the only thing wrong with that is the Lifetime network; crappy TV isn’t going to make you feel any better).

So I don’t understand why we feel like we have to turn away. I don’t understand why fundamentalist religions like Judaism and Islam feel the need to hide the beauty of their women. Does it make the men feel weak? Does it make the women feel powerful? Or does constant sexual repression require the need for further repression lest a drop of sexuality leads to a torrent of uncontrollable lust? I don’t get it. And I don’t think anyone should feel ashamed for appreciating the beauty of anyone or anything. Whether you go overboard and become a slobbering monkey is entirely dependent on the individual, not the model.

Tags: hotness, religion by Matt
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Did you know that according to the Bible, it’s okay for parents to arrange marriages for their daughters? Even better, depending on the age of consent laws in your state, you can totally marry someone who would otherwise be totally illegal. Thank Christ we didn’t let the gays have marriage.

But where and how can I possibly marry off my adolescent daughter without coming off as incredibly creepy in this godless age we live in? Well, I guess modernity isn’t totally awful because with the advent of the Internet, I can marry off my underage daughter to anyone in the United States! Thanks, Internet!

MarryOurDaughter.com is unreal. Seriously, I keep looking for the “Gotcha!” and part of the site where they say “Of course this isn’t real! That would be fucking terrible!” But it is nowhere to be found. What is to be found, is the testimonials section, which contains glorious customer satisfaction such as this:

“At first we were worried that Janine was too young to get married, but then her new husband bought her a house and a car and jewelry and the money we got let us buy a house for ourselves. Getting out of the trailer park at our age was the best thing that ever happened to us, and it’s all thanks to Marry Our Daughter!”

That can’t be real. People in trailer parks don’t have access to the Internet, right? And how do they decide on the price? Who the fuck are these people? Of course, the site could only ever appeal to the richest of pedophiles. Also, none of these girls go for more than $100,000. I guess none of their parents were willing to dream the impossible dream that their daughter may be worth more than a luxury car. And you gotta feel bad for the girls who don’t even make it past $10,000.

I think I’m headed to jail just looking at this site. Look at the hidden keywords at the bottom of the page (Ctrl+A, scroll down, turn stomach).

Tags: Internet, religion, stupid by Matt
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So I was subbing today and a couple students were going over a draft of a paper. The following conversation follows:

Student 1: What’s “G dash D” ?
Student 2: Oh, that’s how I spell God.
Me: (brain crumples)

I tried to explain that writing God like that is incorrect. The reason people do it (and in my experience, it only seems to be Jewish people) is that if they have to erase the name or throw it away, they’re not throwing away the name of God.

Except God’s name isn’t God. No one knows what God’s name is. It can be Allah, Yahweh, Adonai, and a host of other names. None of them is God’s true name so you’re only showing piety to a fake name.

When I tried to explain this, these students responded that it’s just a matter of personal preference. But you can’t make up words out of personal preference. You’re not demonstrating piety. You’re demonstrating ignorance. Then again, I suppose if you believe that erasing or throwing away God’s name is something you should avoid lest you invoke the wrath of the Almighty (also not his name), then you’re already past the point of logic. I understand it’s important to be respectful to God. At the same time, there’s a difference between respect and fear of a giant invisible parent figure who’s going to send you to eternal timeout if you fuck up his name.

But words are not a matter of opinion. They’re not a matter of personal preference. If that were the case, why not always write in l33t? Why not write “women” as “womyn” so that the word “men” is not present? The ideas will still get across so who cares if you shit all over the English language in the process?

I’m not trying to hold up spelling as more important than reverence of God, but using G-d isn’t reverence. It’s superstition.

Tags: religion, stupid by Matt
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