Happy Birthday Amy!

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A hearty happy birthday goes out today to Amy, a dear friend and sister in Christ, and a talented painter at MICA whose art, friendship, and faith have been bright and warm rays of sunshine to my otherwise gray and gloomy days.

Today is also my “other” birthday; it was eight years ago today that I prayed to receive Christ as my personal Lord and Savior after my (now ex) girlfriend witnessed to me from the “4 Spiritual Laws” tract. I barely knew the significance of the step I was taking at the time, but looking back now, it’s certainly been quite a journey. Quite a journey.

Real Lincoln?

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A few weeks ago, I opened up a carton of Country Hen eggs and found, nestled atop the half-dozen browns, a slip of paper greeting me Happy New Year from the folks at Country Hen. On the reverse side of the paper was a small passage:

“President Lincoln, according to his biographer, Carl Sandburg, was a godly man and very familiar with the Bible. He owned a ‘Devotional’ which he apparently read each day. The passage on the opposite page is a reading for the 19th of January:

“Forbit it, Lord, that we

who from thy hands receive

the Spirit’s power to make us free,

should e’er that Spirit grieve.

“O keep our faith alive,

Help us to watch and pray;

Lest by our carelesness we drive

The sacred Guest away.”

Imagine my bemusement, then, at reading Jamey Bennett’s Hail Lincoln, Full of Grace this morning on Razormouth.

So which shall I believe? I don’t know. I’ll think about it tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day.

The Americans are Coming!

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The Americans are coming, the Americans are coming!

The issue with US soldiers fighting Abu Sayyaf terrorists on Philippine soil stems from an article in the Philippine Constitution, which stipulates that no foreign military bases or troops are to be allowed into the country without a mutually agreed treaty to that effect. That’s exactly what the “Visiting Forces Agreement” (VFA) is about, but, as ex-Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago points out (yes, I know, I know, she’s a crazy, loudmouthed, vindictive, pro-Erap witch, but the lady does have brains, unstable though they may be, and she does know international law like the back of her hand), the VFA does not cover “political activity” by the visiting military entity. But how can the “War on Terror,” or indeed any kind of military intervention, not be deemed political in some way?

This brings to light the international problem with the US war on terror: America will attack and root out terrorists who pose a threat to its interests, and the sovereignty of the Philippines — or of any other country which may be suspect — be damned. The other side of the coin, however, is the argument that the Philippine military is simply too inept and/or corrupt to deal with the problems of terrorism and insurgency posed by groups like the Abu Sayyaf or the NPA — an argument which I would be hard-pressed to disagree with.

Will the American military simply leave the Philippines once they are done routing the Abu Sayyaf and other terrorist groups? Somehow I doubt it; such a goal is far less cut-and-dried than the mere process of killing a bunch of Muslim insurgents and building a few roads and bridges. Because of that I feel uneasy, and I wonder about the future of the archipelago, and whether the nascent military grip of a potential American empire is better or worse for the Filipino’s welfare.

Barthes!

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Crisis Century class today consisted of the viewing and discussion of a documentary video about Roland Barthes, the oh-so-readable great-uncle of semiotics and postmodernism.

Ah, postmodern philosophy, that ever-inquisitive quest to question every movement that preceded it, to challenge and conquer even the most fundamental perceptions of reality and thought, hence defeating even the very idea of truth, and showing forth postmodernism’s inherently self-defeating nihilism. It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

Still, being in art college, it helps to be able to speak the dialect. ;)

Now if you’ll excuse me, I must struggle through The Death of the Author and jumbled excerpts from Mythologies. Can anyone recommend some good Heidegger?

More Snow Photos

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The trip back from work involved no small amount of slipping and sliding, and a freezing wade through knee-deep snow covering the as-of-yet unplowed Front Street near the Shot Tower subway station. But I did get more photos of the snowstorm’s aftermath, and my classmate Rame has more pictures from a trek around Baltimore with his DV cam.

Manhole in Snow

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Cool-2B-Carnivorous!

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Hey, teenagers, it’s like so Cool 2B Real and stuff, you know?

(Especially when you read the fine print and see that this message is brought to you by beef farmers who are subtly telling teens that you can eat lots of meat and still be totally kewl. Look at the Smart Snacks to see what I mean.)

Expedition to Penn Station

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You remember that part in Superman II, after Clark has lost all his powers but has to trek back on foot across the snow to the Fortress of Solitude so he can reverse the process and fight the three supervillains?

That’s sort of what the trip to Penn Station was like this morning.

But I made it, and caught the train, too. Now I can fight General Zod with my newly restored superpowers. Would you care to step outside?

Snowminions’ Doom

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My army of twelve windowsill snowminions has utterly melted to nothing:

This was taken a day after the Great Snowstorm of February, 2003.