All posts by ariah

Blog

A short break

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sorry for the short break.

I was in Minnesota with my wife’s family for the weekend. It sort of took me a little while to get back on track after getting back to Nashville.

I then got a little carried away and decided to upgrade to WordPress 2.0, which I’m not sure if I like it just yet, it seems a little too bulky. I wish I could downgrade but it doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen.

So as you can see the layout looks a little different, and i’ll probably change it again soon. Sorry about the dust.

Blog

Geez Magazine and art

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Geez has the look and style that immediately makes me think I’m missing something. It’s that artsy, reflective sort of feel that I have in the past called pretensious. The first six pages feature large, simple pictures with reflective phrases placed across them.

I’m a pretty matter of fact kind of guy. When I was twelve my parents took us to the Chicago Art institute to see the Monet exhibit. I had no idea who Monet was, but I was quite irritated that we had to wait in line for two hours before we got into the exhibit. Needless to say, fifty plus paintings of a haystack where thoroughly unimpressive to me and I found a nice bench to nap on at the end of the exhibit just twenty minutes after stepping into Monet’s exhibit. I didn’t no Monet, and unless his work was uniquely “cool” all on it’s own, I didn’t care much about it either. This thoroughly disappointed my mother.

Years later I caught wind that Professor Jeffery Thompson’s Art 101 class was a must take (it was also a required Gen Ed.). Just one week into it I called my mother and gave her the exciting news, “I like art!” Sadly, I can’t remember now what it was he said or did to change my thinking, but I had grown a definite appreciation for art and artist, and I excitedly entered the Art Insititute at the end of the semester to enjoy my new found appreciation. (I’d pay someone to get a hold of some thorough class notes, or better yet, a recording of Thompson’s class).

What does all this have to do with Geez magazine? Geez is artistic, it is not a straight to the point publication. The publishers of Geez are not pretensitious. They are reflective, they are humble, the do philosophize, and think deeply. I’ve subscribed to their magazine this year because I support their mission, I believe in what they are doing and I’m excited about what they have to share with our faith community. Thanks Geez.

[Geez Magazine]

Blog

Nervous at the airport

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I’m sitting near the gate at the Nashville airport listening to some live jazz music, bouncing my foot to the beat. I’ve got my bags packed (carry on only) and I’m pretty confident there is nothing in my bag that would get me held up at security.
I just trimmed my goatee (to about an inch) so as not to look to “terrorist” like. Most people will probably laugh at that and to some degree I try to as well. I’ll be honest though, sometimes it makes me sad, other times it makes me nervous.
I find it sad that I feel the need to conform to a certain dress and look to avoid what I would consider nothing less then racial profiling. It’s okay with me cause I could care less about what I dress like and it doesn’t bother me much to trim my goatee. For many though their look is a big part of who they are, some for religious reasons, other for image, other for culture, the list goes on. I find that sad.
I also get a little nervous when going through security. Granted, nothing has ever happened to me personally; in fact I’ve been stopped less then most people I know, but I still get a little nervous. You remember what happened in London this past Summer? A Brazilian man, an innocent man, was shot dead in the subway. On a personal level, that sort of situation makes me nervous. I wonder if that sort of thing might ever happen to me; I don’t worry about it muchl but at a time like this, it is on my mind.

podcast

Ariah and Zach’s First Official Podcast

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That’s right folks this podcast has been dubbed “official” so tune in and tell us what you think.

Holiday shopping and other thoughts

Brief show notes:

  1. We talk briefly about holiday shopping and the consumerism of Christmas
  2. We get off on a Wikipedia tangent
  3. We talk briefly about church
  4. And then I plug this blog

Enjoy and please comment on our site with your feedback!

P.S. If you want to find other podcast by Zach and Ariah previous to this one hop over here.

News and Politics

It’s not just an article in Popular Science

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One might say, “It’s just an article in Popular Science, not a statment on gender roles in all of society.” The truth is everything we say and do, and read and consume is a statement (and usually it has something to say one way or another about gender roles as well).

Basically, Ted Kehoe made some colorful bubbles that disappear, thus leaving no stains on furniture and carpets. So Popular Science did an article on it. The article (and this is nothing unique it happens a lot more then it gets pointed out) makes a LOT of gender role assumptions and inferences.

I’ll let A.Z. at the (S)hitlist tell you more:

“So Kehoe pulled out the old pots and powders and set about destroying [wife] Sherri’s new marble countertops.” Now, I thought when people buy a home together, the structural components are collectively owned. Sherri Kehoe must either be really selfish to claim those countertops as her own, or maybe she—like all women, of course!—lives in the kitchen and dreams of marble countertops at night. Clearly, Haney thought it relevant to his topic to communicate that Sherri is the sole owner of the marble countertops, right?

[Read the rest of the commentary]
[read the article]

Blog, News and Politics

Social Commentary

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I think I’m going to add a new section of posts to this blog. Anytime I think about a different section I wonder if I should be writing seperate blogs. Right now we have a sort of tech/web side and a Faith/Christianity side. Something I’d like to add a bit more on is social commentary. Basically what I mean by that is posting about things that are out there, be it things in the media, stores, trends, etc that it’s worth taking a step back and thinking about. I have a few blogs I go to for my own intake of social commentary, and you’ll probably see me referencing them quite a bit. Here’s the brief list and some explanations.

Angry Asian Man– A lot of what he writes about has to do with Hollywood and movies, but he also post “That’s racist!” posts providing insight into all kinds of things for sale, media coverage, and more that is racist, particularly towards Asians. Definitly one of the more insightful blogs I read.

(S)Hitlist- I’m not a fan of the title of the blog, nor the title of the magazine it comes from (Bitch), but I am a huge fan of their content. I’ll leave the title commentary aside and just say that this list is one of my favorites and I really wish they would post more. Needless to say I really like the things that they have to write and you can be sure I’ll be referencing post from here nearly as often as they come.

Also on the list are some sites and publications that provide a lot of insight, but not currently in the concise, regular blog form.

Sojo.net– Sojourners magazine is one of my absolute favorite. They are doing so much good in giving a voice to the large part of the Church that isn’t happy with the religious right. It’s always a pleasure to read their magazine.

Adbusters- Wonderful insight into our consumerist culture. Also not in blog form, but an amazing piece of art and literature.

Wittenburg Door– The only satirical Christian publication that I know of (think of a Christian Mad Magazine). (oh I should throw in Lark News too).

Geez Magazine– Also worth noting, I just got their first issue, so I’m sure I’ll have a lot to say about that soon.

I’m sure there are more I would add I just can’t think of right now. Stay tuned though and let me know what you think of my post.

Blog

Performancing for Firefox

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This is my first post from my cool new tool Performancing. 
Basically I’m writing in the bottom half of my firefox browser, like this:

What is so great about this is it makes it easy to blog about something from another website and easily view what you are writing and cut and paste as necessary.  It works for a number of different blogs so you might want to try it out. What’s great is that you can easily post the same post to three or four different blogs if you wanted to.

[performancing] via Lifehacker

Blog, podcast

Interviewing myself

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Okay, so this might be weird but I’m gonna try it. I’ve been doing a bit of podcasting as you know and I’m always looking for things to spark a podcast. So, I have come up with the idea of interviewing myself. I say interviewing because I think that train of thought would create the most podcastable talk from me. The basic format will be like a job interview or something along those lines. The other reason for this is that It will help keep me answering questions with the three minutes that I can record on Odeo.
I’m sure I’ll be able to come up with a handful of beginning questions, but I’d sure like some help coming up with others.

Got a question? Send it my way.

News and Politics

A list of Definitly NOT Free Trade

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Here are somethings I think might fall under the category of Fair trade, or probably more accurately “DEFINITLY NOT FREE TRADE.”

Minimum Wage. It’s too low still in my opinion, but it’s a big step towards human rights and away from the rule of the economic system. We have a minimum wage because we believe there is a certain pay the is dignified, below which is an oppressive payment.
The trouble is we don’t seem to care one iota about that carrying over to other countries.

Agriculture Subsidies. These aren’t fair, but the point is that they certainly aren’t “free.” The USA puts all kinds of restrictions on other countries and yet we subsidies our agriculture making it near impossible for outsiders to get in at a decent and fair price. The truth is that if we let the free market rule we would have NO farmers in the US because we couldn’t afford it. Our food supply would come from others, and they would be free to charge us what they would like for it as well.

Bankruptcy. This is a great element of Fair. In many countries a debt can be held and carried over to the children and grand children. Debt is a modern day slavery for many. The ability to declare bankruptcy and start again from zero is a commendable thing that are society has, but it’s certainly not Free Trade.

More on FAIR trade to come