I’m sorry the posting frequency has been low of late. I’ve been really busy with grad school. My masters in intelligent systems should be done soon, and when it is I should have more free time to blog. 🙂
Too Busy to Blog :(
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Don Imus Should be a Gangsta Rapper
I’m a gangster, I’m a straight up G.
The gangster life is the life for me!
Shooting people by day, selling drugs by night.
Being a gangster is hella tight.– “I’m a Gangster” by Rappy McRapperson
Nerdcore rap cracks me up in general, but the above parody of gangster rap is one of my favorites. It’s also a nice companion piece to this Michelle Malkin op-ed. It’s too bad I don’t have a fresh quote from Bill Cosby to complete the hat trick. 😉
The Culture of ‘Bitches, Hos, and Niggas’
Let’s stipulate: I have no love for Don Imus, Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. A pox on all their race-baiting houses.
Let’s also stipulate: The Rutgers women’s basketball team didn’t deserve to be disrespected as “nappy-headed hos.” No woman deserves that.
I agree with the athletes that Imus’s misogynist mockery was “deplorable, despicable and unconscionable.” And as I noted on Fox News’s “O’Reilly Factor” this week, I believe top public officials and journalists who have appeared on Imus’s show should take responsibility for enabling Imus — and should disavow his longstanding invective.
But let’s take a breath now and look around. Is the Sharpton & Jackson Circus truly committed to cleaning up cultural pollution that demeans women and perpetuates racial epithets? Have you seen the Billboard Hot Rap Tracks chart this week?
Thug Life
[While going through old posts, I found a comment that I felt deserved a post of its own. Since the author is a relative of mine and a guest blogger here, I took the liberty of editing the text and publishing it here. Funky]
Violent music, aggressive thoughts linked
“Violent lyrics in songs increase aggression-related thoughts and emotions and could indirectly create a more hostile social environment, according to a U.S. a study released yesterday.”
Quite some time ago, Funky off-handedly related this article to gangster rap. Indeed, gangster rap music feeds the need to feel empowered, to feel righteous in the fact that anyone who crosses you shall be an ant to be squashed. You feel less frightened, but you continue to support the environment that you fear. Everything is a fight for life.
“DESTROY THE THREAT! ASK NO QUESTIONS! DO NOT HESITATE!!!”
You have to romanticize your screwed up social environs. Otherwise, you won’t feel good behaving in such an inhumane, psychotic manner. So, yes, it induces aggressive thoughts. It helps to have these when everyone else is about to pounce on you and destroy your life! Or so you think.
That’s the real problem, though. People often behave stupidly when they perceive a threat. Take reactions to 9/11 , for instance. One day I hope they make a study about American foreign policy showing that it can “increase aggression-related thoughts and emotions and could indirectly create a more hostile social environment.”
Sloppy Science Reporting and Cloning Research Update
The media has a long, long way to go in reporting science: “South Korea to resume human egg cloning“, trumpets the United Press International article.
Umm, guys, the idea is to clone humans using eggs, but not to clone the eggs (or ova) themselves. In the defense of UPI, though, while the title is wrong, the article itself seems to that much right, in that they talking about cloning embryos.
But whether or not one is talking about clones or eggs, the work can’t be said to “resume” since the previous work was a fraud. The article is incorrect when it states that South Korea is planning “…to resume experiments with cloned human embryos next year…” .
There are no clones as of now, people! They are presumably resuming their attempts to clone, and ultimate do what Dr. Hwang had fraudulently claimed to achieve.
There is an interesting, and presumably correct detail in the article about the source of ova to be used for these experiments: only the leftover eggs from IVF work will be used from these experiments. That may prove problematic in that they will not be as healthy as ones taken directly from the woman for use in research–IVF eggs will have had more time to degrade before being worked on by the researchers. It’ll make an already hard task even more difficult, but this safeguard is not surprising in the wake of Dr. Hwang’s abuse of power of female employees and their “voluntary” egg donations.
Suffer the Children
This is a follow-up to an article I’m fairly certain I blogged (but can’t seem to
find). I usually attend masses performed by fathers of the Oratorian Community (of
Saint Philip Neri). This particular oratory caters mostly to college students. When
I go to a parish for mass, I’m appalled by the the misbehavior of the children there
and the lack of discipline exercised by their parents.
Follow-up:
Let the Children Run?
“I received many comments from readers about toddlers running around church (see
May 11). Some of the comments came from parents of large families who confirmed
that it is possible to teach children to be quiet in Church, especially when given
good example by mom and dad.”
Let
the Little Children Run?
And Observations on “Redemptionis Sacramentum”
“ROME, MAY 11, 2004 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Father Edward McNamara, professor of
liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University.”“Q: Little children frequently run around during the Mass fondly watched by their
parents. Do parents have any responsibility in this regard? — R.C., Bangalore,
India”“A: This, apparently, is a ubiquitous pastoral problem, and expresses a tension that
is part and parcel of being Catholic.”
Update 03/22/07:The demographics of Sundmay morning mass attendance at the Oratory has changed a lot. There are now several graduate students and young professionals with children attending. That young adults are drawn to the solemn liturgies offered by the Oratorians is a blessing and surely one of the fruits of eucharistic adoration. However, sometimes the children are inconsolable, unruly, and/or fidgety to the point being distruptive. Consequently, since these articles now have more relevance to Oratorians, I’ve decided to move this post up from 05/26/04 so that it gets more readers.