Agape

So, I've been wasting a bit of time looking up people's home phone numbers and addresses on Baylor's online directory. I find it creepy that you can look up random people's information, but hey, that's just me. But for the real gist of this post, let's proceed.

1 Corinthians 13:4

I'm tired of seeing girls after getting their little hearts broken posting this to make themselves feel better. I recently heard that it gets read at weddings. What? Please let me explain.

YOU'RE READING IT WRONG!

Now, I have this small little beef with the English language. Love is used in multiple ways and it's not readily apparent what meaning it takes. So let me just cover the 3 main words for love in Greek (You know, the language the New Testament was actually written in?).

Eros
Phil-
Agape


Now, Eros, we all know. It's erotic love. Lust some would call it. Nah, it's just the love between man and woman. Keep that in mind for a little bit.

Phil- is basically a obsession or affinity for something. Most people know it in conjunction with sophia. Philosophia, the love of knowledge. Other uses are to label obsessive and unhealthy practices, pedophilia, the such.

Now agape. Agape is basically a divine love, often used in conjunction with god's love for man or man's need for brotherhood with his fellow man.

Now guess which word for love is used in 1 Corinthians 13:4. If you guessed agape, you're correct. Man needs agape to interact with humanity in a truly Christian way. You may say, well, it could count for love between two people too! No. If Paul meant eros, he would have said eros, instead he referred specifically agape. This is love for fellow man in a way that resembles god's love for man. Actually, a better translation of this word is found in the Latin translation of the New Testament. The word, which for life of me I can't spell, translates to Charity.

So, from now on, I expect you to use 1 Corinthians 13:4 in the correct way, not to mean the love between you and your boyfriend.

Thanks.

No Heart?

So, I was just reading CNN and apparently Liberians here in America are facing a mass deportation starting March 31st when their "temporary protection status" ends. Now, this temporary protection status was first given to Liberian citizens trying to flee slaughter and a tyrannical rule of Charles Taylor (no relationship to the shoes, but there might as well be one). This was in the 1990s. Now, that would mean that there are Liberians here who have lived here for upwards of 10-15 years, who have had children, bought houses, started businesses, established friendships and relationships, etc. How can we take these people in, let them obtain some idea of semi-permanence and then order them out? The children are legal citizens of America, where are they to go? Some people in the country want to just throw them out, with nothing more than a good-bye. Can we honestly just kick them out, and expect them and their children to adjust to a life they have been removed from for so long, or in the children's case on they have never before? Can we allow ourselves to deport legal citizens, or do we suppose that we separate the children from their parents?

Start processes to allow the Liberians to gain citizenship if they want!

Grass Roots Organizing

So, today I went to grass roots organizing training today. Somehow, I feel like I cheated the system. Are you supposed to go to training for these things, or does that somehow steal from the authenticity of organizing the masses? Since I don't want a nice little blogpost on authenticity, I'll just tell you about the day.

I'm an officer in the newly created Texas Freedom Network chapter at Baylor University (first plug) and to become officialized we had to attend this training session. This particular session was about Comprehensive Sex-ed so now I know a lot more about sex-ed in Texas than I ever knew or cared to know. But it actually is quite the problem since ever 1 in 4 Texas girls has an "STI," we have the third highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation, and our teens engage in more "at risk" sexual activities than most of the kids in the nation. See, I learned quite a lot today. Anyways, most of the day was spent just discussing how to get policy changed. That included learning how to lobby and learning how to organize the masses. I feel like I'm a complete master in these things now, and I will be using them often.

My favorite part of the training was learning about "New Media" which include this blog, my twitter account (www.twitter.com/Sano_Insano), my myspace (www. myspace.com/sanoinsano) and my youtube video (soon to be more Sano_Insano). I felt fairly secure in the fact that I was pretty good at using all of these things.

Seeing as I only got an hour of sleep before going to this meeting, I was fairly tired throughout the entire thing. I was going to take an hour or two nap today at 7 when I had gotten back and eaten, but it ended up being 5 hours. So, I'm gonna go to sleep again, and hopefully not have to much trouble.

Man, shameless self-promotion right?

Criminal Charges for Bush?

There is a large section of America who thinks George W. Bush was a terrible president. There's another section of America that thinks he's a war criminal. The case against Bush may have been made though.

http://www.slate.com/id/2208688/

The article describes military attorney Susan Crawford's interview with Bob Woodward (you may know him from the Watergate scandal) in which Crawford admits that the techniques used against the suspected terrorist al-Qahtani were torture. As the article states, it's a crime to torture, and all those who participated in the torture or who were complicit in the torture can have charges brought against them. Since it was by executive order that these said techniques were put into use, it brings Bush into complicity with the torture. And that right there is enough to bring charges against him.

Also, as torture is against the Geneva convention, he would also be considered a War criminal.

I Am Tired

Oh, so tired of ignorance. Seriously, if you're reading this then most likely (though, I can think of one or two exceptions) I'm referring to you as well. I'm tired of hypocrisy too, but I just lump that in under ignorance. Can we live our lives with intelligence people? I mean, how can you honestly go and rant about how people are so quick to judge when you're the exact same way. To use an example from this weekend, how can you go on and on about how people don't understand the "satire" of a show and then become offended when you see one scene of a show, out of context, and say you can't stand the show?

I'm done with ignorance at this point. People take half-truths and make them into full fledged theories. Liberals, conservatives, intellectuals, and idiots. Ignorance is like a plague. I'm sick of it. From now on, I'm calling you out on it. If you're being ignorant, I'm not going to sit back and listen to you spill forth your half conceived bull. Friend, foe, acquaintance, stranger, I'm calling you all out.

Rant over

Wow, It's a New Year

Hmm, no real resolutions on my front. I'm continuing with my half-joke resolution of being more awesome than I was the year before.

Plans for the Year:
Make a sweet mix
Write something logically coherent and philosophically important
Watch more Woody Allen movies!
Start watching Ingmar Bergman movies
Write a screenplay, no matter how terrible
Start a video blog type series


Well, that's really all I have for tonight. I'm going back to Baylor tomorrow/today, so I might blog when I get there.

I Have Seen The Future!

And it's taking a single line from a eclectic female performer and creating an entire beat around it.