The Conversation
- “But he hit me back first!” (13)
- Siegfried: If it was a Russian or any other white man who told blacks”to go back to Africa”, it would...
- Raguel: I saw that Spike Lee film “Do the Right Thing” years ago but still can’t understand it.
- bigWOWO: Stele: “Care to qualify that statement? Even if that were true, you have to look at this case on its...
- Two podcasts that address racism in the military, and Danny Chen the person (9)
- Raguel: The origins of racism in the American military as described by loudestfuckingazns is accurate. Very recently,...
- bigWOWO: Sorry, Larry, just noticed that the spam robot junked your comment. Approved!
- bigWOWO: Agreed. It just has more weight if you include your name. Not that the ideas are any less valid, but it just...
- Facebook IPO (5)
- King: Actually WOWO, I bump into plenty of Asians up at the Art Center College of Design http://www.artcenter.edu/a...
- bigWOWO: Agree with King. This might not be a bad thing for Asian Americans to hear about. We can jump off the STEM...
- Raguel: People are too accustomed to thinking about value only in terms of money. Even artists are guilty of it. Some...
- Stop SOPA and PIPA (7)
- Raguel: Found a great website, take a look at this: https://www.cdt.org/ Why should privacy be important, in an age...
- Raguel: Following the temporary shelving of SOPA and PIPA in the long line of net neutrality battles, the feds and...
- Chr..: “Asian American men have to get more involved, not less. It’s a civic responsibility, and you have to...
- Activism is as activism does (10)
- trolldetector: Brooks also goes onto say ‘You should attach yourself to a counter-tradition and school of...
- bigWOWO: By the way, speaking of activism, there was a great David Brooks column recently. He talks about how people...
- Raguel: I have no experience whatsoever with activism. I simply do not feel safe participating in it. There is always...
- How to Win a Streetfight (18)
- bigWOWO: No worries. I feel the same way. Nothing against her, but just doubtful.
- Raguel: Hi Byron! I’ve been occupied doing a lot of reading and thinking recently. I suppose its just another...
- bigWOWO: Hey Raguel, What about your comments on ASSK?
I agree with everything you said. About #1…I think...
- What Cultures Value (19)
- UFC 117 Sonnen vs. Silva Recap (1)
- bigWOWO: I think Michael Bisping solved the Chael Sonnen puzzle today, even though he lost a controversial decision....
- 6 on 1 Beatdown of Asian Man (36)
- King: “I mean I look around me and 99% of the time there are no women that look like or dress like Adriana Lima...
- SWR: Apparently the girl in the second video was not the girl who filmed the fight. It was probably unwise of her to...
- Raguel: I mean I look around me and 99% of the time there are no women that look like or dress like Adriana Lima in...
- Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids by Bryan Caplan (Review) (6)
- bigWOWO: Jeff, You called it! They were (if I recall correctly) 7 (twins) and 2. He’s still in the honeymoon...
- jeffat8asians: “Overpaying?” With the possible exception of college tuition (and even that is arguable),...
- Hitler: Kids suck lol.
- The Asian Rock Thread (16)
- ben: I’ve been getting into Asian rock music recently so thank you all very much for uploading all these videos.
- Simple Pickup on ABC News (132)
- Tommy: I think I’m coming here more for Moro’s comments than BigWoWO’s posts.
- Moroboshi: I didn’t say that. All I said was guys who believe in HBD are the same guys who probably also follow...
- Chr..: Moro, I don’t want to argue with you anymore! You seem to think that AMs are just as popular as other...
- “Lazy” Americans and the Decline of the American Middle Class (6)
- bigWOWO: But kobu, how can we have literature and art without money to support artists and writers? About...
- kobukson: I don’t know why everyone seems to think the notion of the decline of the middle class is such a bad...
- bigWOWO: There are a lot of veterans (supposedly) on that site. I can kind of understand it–military guys are...
- Aung Sung Suu Kyi Movie with Michelle Yeoh (45)
- bigWOWO: Eurasian, Lee Kuan Yew has always been upfront about Singapore’s hybrid system. To the best of my...
- Eurasian Sensation: @ BigWowo: New governments following independence or a major power struggle often have the sort...
- N: @bww And ironically, one of the rare democratic successes in the region that is Singapore behaves much closer to a...
- Paper Pushers by the Stunt People (4)
- Andre M. Smith: I divide my year annually between New York and Shanghai. One of my common visitations in the latter...
- Raguel: Smiley tests 8 )
8( - Raguel: ROFL! Thank you for thoroughly destroying Amy Chua, Andre. WELL SAID ^_^ You know the destruction is so...
- Amy Chua: Chinese Conceit, Chinese Ignorance, and the $24,000 question (245)
- Andre M. Smith: I believe some useful purpose will be served by offering here, what the lawyers might like to call,...
- N: What’s your opinion on Yundi Li and Yoyo Ma.
- Andre M. Smith: Amy Chua has never lived in China. Her understanding of its culture, that is, the culture as it’s...
- How to Finish Life With No Regrets (9)
- trolldetector: ^ i’d agree with that. but i wouldnt call them ‘idiots’, just misguided. crazy media...
- N: Agree with Jeff that not one regret is unlikely, the key is learn from it. Another way to look at it is that...
- American Jobs and India (14)
- lingyai: I am not sure what happen there with my name, that is not my email, so just ignore.
- lingyai@hotmail.com: @bigwowo Just because the average income in India is $2 a day doesn’t make a person...
- AM/AF couple: Nottyboy, Yes, just like every place of employment, upper management needs to do a better job in terms...
- Literary Fiction vs. Realistic Fiction and the Literary Hierarchy (6)
- Sana Rose: Well, now I am confused. I still can’t classify the novel I am writing.
I wouldn’t say...
- Sana Rose: Well, now I am confused. I still can’t classify the novel I am writing.
- National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 2012 (32)
- Raguel: http://www.occupydream.org/ ^ I heard about this from Russell Simmons. I hope that things develop well to...
- Raguel: So is that the reasoning for why you don’t need the right to due process? Are you some kind of fucking...
- N: @King The constitution gave power to the states to benefit white america or the constitution gave benefitial power...
- When Your Fan Base is Full of Crazy People (24)
- N: @American girl Too be honest, I don’t really see why this video that ‘disgusting’ –...
- Mitt Romney and the Problem of Wealth (6)
- Raguel: Where do people get their information and knowledge from, though? Media, and education, word of mouth only...
- “But he hit me back first!” (13)
Tag Archives: religion
American Dervish by Ayad Akhtar (Review)
bigWOWO rating: Popular Fiction Gold
The problem with fiction reviews, especially with popular fiction, is that the reviewer can only give away so much without ruining the ending. As a result, I read American Dervish and expected a simple story of unrequited love and betrayal. Instead, it was much more. Ayad Akhtar uses this story not only to describe forbidden love and lust, but also to describe what it is like growing up Muslim. Check out this video where the author explains why he wrote it (he uses the “love story” description himself):
Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson (Review)
bigWOWO Review: Non-Fiction Bronze
Niall Ferguson is a gifted writer. The way he writes history makes it come alive. He does his research well, and he tells a great story. He’s the kind of history professor I wish I’d had in school. (And if I had made Harvard, maybe I would have had him.)And for the most part, this book was good. But then it slowly started to fall apart after the first few chapters, before completely landing in the toilet in the second-to-last chapter.
Joel Osteen: Homosexuality is a “Sin”
Has anyone seen a Piers Morgan interview? I’ve seen little clips here and there, and I read the subtitles when I go to the gym, and man, he really grills his interviewees. I think this is what CNN has been trying to sell.
In the video above, he presses Joel Osteen into saying that homosexuality is a sin. Osteen says that it’s a sin because of what “scripture says,” and he defends himself by saying “I’m not the judge.” Piers then goes on the attack and says that Osteen is a judge since he has 7 or 8 million viewers who listen to him every week. Osteen tries to keep it positive by saying, “We’re for people,” and he defends himself by saying that he doesn’t “understand all the answers.”
Literature and Religion: Podcast with Kobukson
It’s been a LONG time since I’ve podcasted. Nearly a year. So I was happy to have been able to record a podcast with Kobukson. It was a great time, and I hope you’ll all give it a listen and hear what he has to say about literary sensibility and the values that come from religion. The podcast is 27.3 mb and runs for about an hour. Download it here, or play it here:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Posted in Asian American, Podcasts
Tagged Asian American, Christianity, kobukson, literature, religion
35 Comments
Mixed Martial Arts for Christ
Was Jesus Christ a grappler or a striker?
(above link from Jesus ROI. Great site, btw.)
A while back, I blogged about how pastors in Brazil were using Brazilian Jujitsu to pull people into the their church services. It didn’t surprise me. Back when I was a young student in Sunday school, they used pop music to pull us in. They would rewrite secular music with “Lord is my Savior” lyrics, and they would get us to sing these new Jesus-focused songs. I remember bringing up copyright issues, and our teacher assured me that it was okay for two reasons: non-Christians did the same thing with Christian music (I hadn’t heard of this happening, but I took his word for it) and there was nothing under heaven that didn’t already belong to God.
Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda Calls for Death Penalty
This article has been making the rounds on Facebook: Americans’ Role Seen in Uganda Anti-Gay Push. It’s about three American evangelical Christians who gave a series of anti-homosexual talks in Uganda. The Ugandan people were so swayed by the Bible thumpers’ presentation that they created a bill calling for death sentences for homosexual behavior.
Now I LOVE the NY Times; I read it every day. However, notice how the headline does not mention anything about these Bible thumpers’ religion? Think about it…if it were Muslims pushing people to the point that they created this bill, the headline would probably say something about “Radical Muslims” this or “Radical Islam” that. Why don’t they say something about “Radical Christianity?” Why the double standard? Radical Christianity is clearly very dangerous if you’re gay.
Fighting Pastors
I guess it was bound to happen–the evangelical movement is appropriating jujitsu in Brazil. I couldn’t tell if it’s MMA or grappling only–it looks like it’s grappling only though, since the guys don’t have gloves. But then again, who knows how these fights take place in Brazil?
I must say that I think it’s impressive how evangelicals adopt and appropriate in order to recruit. I’ve heard of how evangelicals have Warcraft nights to use video games for the same purpose. Back when I was in Bible school, they used to take pop music and rewrite it with Jesus-based lyrics. “Love is a Highway” became “Jesus is my Highway.”
Christian Fundamentalist Hit Men and Holy Wars
Rummy
Thanks to Micah who sent this article.
It scares the hell out of me whenever I write posts that contain the tags “religion” and “politics” together. But thanks to eight years of Bush, I get the opportunity to post such things over and over. In the latest news, it appears that Donald Rumsfeld, the Defense Secretary of the United States during the Iraqi invasion, used to “curry favor” with President George W. Bush by writing “militaristic passages from the Bible on the cover pages of White House intelligence documents.” For example:
Evangelicals most likely to support torture
Evangelicals are the most likely to support torture. People who don’t go to church are less likely to support torture, and the least likely group to support torture are mainstream Protestants–religious people without the evangelical Bible Thumping persuasion.
Is anyone surprised by this at all? Growing up at an evangelical Bible Thumping church, I know how it is. You have preachers at these churches teaching young kids that the world is sinful, that God will end up destroying the world by fire, that they are “soldiers” of Jesus Christ, and that they will be persecuted for their beliefs (despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of leaders and politicians in this country are Christian). Is it any wonder that these people learn to disregard the humanity of people who look or think differently from them?
Tagged religion
Leave a comment
Secret Lives of the Red States/What Asian America Needs Part II
“What does is say that states that tend to be more conservative and religious actually consume more porn?”
–Kiran Chetry from CNN
(Apologies in advance to those who may be offended. I’m condemning the super-fundamentalist religious people, not the moderates.)
The consumption of online porn in the Christian, conservative Red States tends to be higher than the consumption of porn in the liberal, blue coastal regions.
