alexis in the city

bringing ABC to Hulu

yay, yay, yay! disney is back in negotiations with hulu to start broadcasting some of their shows on the online platform. as someone without a TV, i would be lost with out hulu because let’s face it - i still have my favorite shows. and i can watch them on my own terms, when i have time. until now, i’ve pretty much just given up on the ABC shows that i like (**coughcough** grey’s anatomy **coughcough**) because their online interface - while better than it once was - is still so horrible. but now, if they’ll finally just let hulu do it for them, we’ll all be so much better off! ok, i’ll be better off …

babies should be grown in pods

i am totally stealing this from ryan’s blog - the original can be found here. he wrote it awhile ago, but it’s such a good idea, i had to re-post.  i think i’m going to wait it out on the biological kid front until pod babies become a reality.

Over the last couple years, I’ve watched a number of friends have kids and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m so glad that I’m a guy and don’t have to go through that. Pregnancy and childbirth seem awful, so I’ve been wondering what the alternatives are. Turns out there’s some research that’s been done in the area of artificial uteruses. Of course, such technology is years, maybe even decades away, but imagine if you could have something like this in your living room:

I can see four main reasons that this would be a hugely positive thing:

* Pregnancy is hard on a mother’s body. Childbirth is worse. Skip them both.

* Safer environment for the fetus

* Allows women unable to carry their own child to still have kids

* It’s a lot more convenient and less painful

I think one of the biggest benefits is the last one. Who says that having kids should be a miserable experience? And I’m sure that many women would choose to give birth the “natural” way, just as many women currently choose to forgo the benefits and advances of modern science and medical technology. That doesn’t mean the rest of us should.

To be clear, I wouldn’t be in favor of this if it wasn’t as safe (roughly) or safer than natural gestation. And I think that pod-babies should have the same rights as natural babies, meaning that you shouldn’t be allowed to unplug the thing if you change your mind after a few months. But if the method can be made safe and we can enact the proper ethical and legal policies, then bring on the pod-babies.

Am I crazy? Is this treating humans as commodities? Tell me in the comments.

Note: that’s a picture of the WinePod, in case you’re wondering. no actual babies or fetuses were harmed in the plagerizing writing - of this blog post ;-)

there’s a reason she’s called a *1950’s* housewife

i have a few more thoughts on “the excellent wife,” which i talked more about in earlier posts, and then i’ll be done with the topic … well, at least for now. in the end of the chapter i’ve been referring to, “home: the wife’s domain,” the author states:

the world makes fun of the june cleavers - that devoted television wife and mother from the 1950’s. the world is deceived. you can … begin today to be the excelled wife of proverbs 31, as you “look well to the ways of your household and do not eat the bread of idle-ness.”

there’s that hair on my neck bristling again. i’ve already talked about why the woman referenced in proverbs 31 is a horrible example of why wives and mothers should tend only to the house. she wasn’t idle because she was busy out buying property, (likely) running a business, buying and selling, etc. but what about this idea that we should seek to regress upon the progress made by the women who have gone before us, the women who emerged on the other side of the “1950’s housewife”? these suffragists fought for our equality - an idea that is actually biblical, by the way. much more so than the ideas the author of TEW has extrapolated out from a few out-of-context verses. we have the right and privledge - as women - to do whatever we want. to choose to stay home with our kids - or not. to dust and vaccuum - or hire a housekeeper.

to be clear, i’m not against the idea that “a women’s place is in the home” just because it’s politically incorrect. if something is inherently right or wrong, it’s right or wrong outside of the judgement of political correctness. but that’s just the thing - there’s nothing i’ve seen in my faith that would lead me to believe that a woman must stay home with her kids and tend to the house. it’s not an issue of right or wrong, it’s an issue of what each person thinks is right for their family - and each person should be able to draw their own conclusions.

interestingly, i doubt that even those who seem to hold this ideal - those who are religiously conservative or fundamentalist - really ascribe to it in the absolute fervor suggested by the author of TEW. one need only look to the voracity at which recent VP candidate, sarah palin was defended by just such groups (i wasn’t going to go there, but then i had to …). politics aside - as that is really not the point of this particular post - parallels were drawn between palin and biblical figures like the prophetess deborah (another - wait for it! - powerful woman referenced in the bible). if the stay-at-home mom issue were really one of black and white terms, the same stay-at-home moms who defended palin for her choice to run for office would’ve booed her out of town. (thankfully, it didn’t matter either way ;-).  so it appears to me that the conept of “home: the wife’s domain,” is one that may be professed with fervor, but in reality, held to with much less commitment.

(stay tuned for my closing arguments to come in a later post.)

how christianity as we know it has failed the people, and why we should care

“the time [has] come to center our lives on the essential message of jesus, the message of the kingdom of god - not just a message about jesus that focused on the afterlife, but rather the core message of jesus that focused on personal, social, and global transformation in this life. … the kingdom of god is not simply a new belief or doctine that can be patched into an old way of life. it is, rather, a new way of life that changes everything. … if [this] is true, then everything must change.”

if this passage sounds a little, well, cult-ish, bear with me. as you may know from my previous post, i’m reading “everything must change” by brian mclaren. he hinges the book on this idea that the current - or colonial - idea of faith, god, jesus and christianity is that of attempting to save people from an adverse afterlife (hell, eternal damnation, purgatory, etc), but that in reality the phrase “kingdom of god” (which many take to only reference the afterlife) really refers to how god’s will could be done on earth in terms of justice and peace replacing the injustice and disharmony we see.

in these terms, the  idea of the kingdom of god is in actuality about changing our world, not about trying to “man the lifeboats” (i.e. convert people) and get people off the ship as quickly as possibly. this method doesn’t address the needs people face in day-to-day life - and what kind of a life is that? why in the world would people want to have anything to do with something that didn’t assist them at all in the here and now, but rather promises them “salvation” from something nebulous and indeterminate?

of course, there’s already an entire book (and many others) written on this topic, so i’m not going to attempt to re-invent the wheel, but rather share a few observations on this particular idea.

1. your view of the here and now largely depends on your view of eschatology. if you believe the bible and you believe the details of the apocalypse to be literal and you in turn apply this to mean that things are only going to get worse and worse until everything crescendos in a grand scale of judgment, i could perhaps understand why doing anything at all would seem futile. but if you take things less literally, if you subscribe to a gospel of peace and hope as opposed to one of doom and gloom, well then only one conclusion can be reached: we have a lot of work to do.

2. are we meeting people where they are? i mentor a bhutanese refugee family who emigrated here two months ago from their camp in nepal. last saturday when i went to meet with them, a jehovah’s witness couple was there talking with them about the lives they’d left behind, how things were going here, and what they needed. granted, from what i’ve researched on JWs, they tend to fall into a “man the lifeboats” camp, so their motives may not be inline with the new definition of “kingdom of god” that i’m espousing. but how often do you hear members of a conservative, fundamentalist or evangelical congregation admonished to go into their surroundings, out of their comfort zone and meet the needs of the community? which brings me to my next point:

3. we’ve allowed and, in some cases, fostered a bubble of christianity that has no real value except, perhaps, to the people inside it. and even them i’m not so sure. this type of modern faith and religion encourages us to interact with people who think the same way we do, to never allow our belief system a chance to be challenged, and to rarely - if ever - allow ourselves to truly be moved to action by people who desperately need our help. we may engage in a few church-sanctioned activities such as feeding the homeless from time to time, or sending money to starving kids (that are far, far away from our comfort zone), but we are rarely vulnerable with the people who need it most, who are right outside our back door.

if this seems absolutely counter-intuitive to a faith that claims to follow a leader who talked about social justice, caring for the poor, and sacrificing of ourselves, you’d be absolutely right. which is why i believe the brand of christianity we see most often has completely failed. which is why everything must change. we must begin by asking “what are the biggest problems in the world, and what do the life and teachings of jesus have to say about these global problems.” the reality of the world we live in begins to look desperately out-of-whack when considered in light of these questions, and it’s our responsibility to get things on the right track.

if you’re anything like me, you  may feel that when it comes to faith and religion, you’re a square peg attempting to be stuck in a round hole. but it doesn’t have to be that way. we have the power - and the responsibility - to change the pegs and the holes back to the way they were supposed to be, by taking a look at the biggest problems of the world and tackling their solutions in a way that is focused on benefiting people as opposed to blaming them for their circumstances.

one side note to give a bit of background, and then i’ll close. my parents - who are somewhat conservative - often give my sister and me a hard time for being so “liberal” (although i’ll get into the mis-nomers of political brandings in a later post), but when i look at my childhood i wonder what choice i had: we tutored inner city kids in an after school program. i organized reading circles at the library. we were not allowed to get jobs in high school and were instead told to focus our energies on volunteering. we traveled internationally quite a bit. we gave food to homeless people. and - in perhaps what some would see as their penultimate mistake given a religion where kids are often cautioned against questioning their worldview - they financed our education to private, liberal arts colleges where we learned to think for ourselves, ask the big questions and come up with answers. i’m probably one of the few, lucky evangelical kids who can say my journey of introspection into my faith started with - and was encouraged by - my parents.

update on the dog biz

here’s the latest site to sell our eco-friendly pet jackets. i did consulting work for this site back in the day, and who knew that they would one day be selling my products! :-) of course you can always buy directly from our site, earthsbestfriend.com, and ironically, although we released these jackets last fall, they’d actually be PERFECT for spring, too. check our site for more info on the jacket, as well as other styles that we offer!