Tag Archives: art

Offensive Statue #2

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[maryjesusstatue.jpg]Hot on the heels of one controversial pro-life statue, we have another.

“A SCULPTURE OF the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus, proposed as a ‘memorial for the victims of abortion’ at Villanova University, has upset some students, including some who oppose abortion.”

[…]

“Pro-life freshman Clint Gilliam agrees with the concept of the statue, but thinks its high-profile placement is a bad idea. ‘It’s just a little in your face,’ he said. ‘It sort of makes people who don’t believe in those things uncomfortable.’ Adds freshman Peggy Costello, ‘I’m personally pro-life and I don’t like the statue at all.’ ‘I feel that putting up a statue like that completely counters the diversity we’re trying to advocate or uphold,’ said Costello, 19, who thinks the memorial could alienate non-Catholics.”

Villanova is a Catholic university for heaven’s sake! There should be no need whatsoever to justify a tasteful pro-life statue, especially one with of Mary and Jesus.

Goodbye, Good Friend

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A recent post by a friend of mine brought back a painful memory.

"When I was 14, just a little over two months before [Rob] would have graduated from high school, he was killed. I hadn’t talked to him for some time when I just had this overwhelming need to call. His mom answered the phone and told me that earlier that day he had gone out to buy a motorcycle. As he was driving it home, he somehow lost control and wrapped himself around a telephone pole. I was frozen and utterly speechless."

My best friend in high school was pulled off a platform by a passing train and died. Getting that phonecall from my dad was one of the worst moments of my life. Anyhow, I know other folks have lost loved ones unexpectedly. We’re connected by a terrible bond, but we can use it to help each other. At the lowest points of my life I’ve found writing poetry to be very theraputic. I thought perhaps folks still mourning a loss would appreciate this poem that I wrote when my best friend died.

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Man Boobs

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[davidhasselhoff.jpg] title=It’s hard to argue with this guy’s logic. Then again, St. Anselm’s ontological argument for the existence of God sounds good at first, too. That is, until you really pick it apart. So I leave it to my compitent readers. What’s wrong with this argument?

“I usually don’t send out pure opinion pieces, but let it be said: There is not one person anywhere who can give you a good reason why it’s OK to show a man’s chest on TV, but not a woman’s chest. You can ask over 100 people why — trust me, I have — and not get a real answer. It’s just a silly superstition that some people came up with, a bunch of others went along with it, and now we’re stuck with it. Have you ever heard a real reason?”

[…]

“This is different from other issues, like abortion, affirmative action, or the death penalty — I have opinions on all of those, and probably so do you, but there are two sides to each issue, and I can at least see where the other side is coming from. But I’ve never heard the other side of the boob issue.”

“A good sign of a widespread belief that has no supporting logic is that if you ask people why they believe it, they always pass the buck on to someone else. ‘Our society has decided…’ ‘The community feels that…’ ‘Judges have ruled that…’ — except with that last one, if you listen to what judges say, they pass the buck too, saying ‘According to contemporary community standards…’ What’s missing is someone standing up and saying ‘I, yes *ME* *PERSONALLY*, I believe that seeing a mammary gland is harmful, and here’s why.’

“To people who say that inciting any male lust is bad, I tell them I grew up in Denmark (although I’m American) and there you could see bare breasts in public advertisements, on the covers of supermarket tabloids, and on the beach, and nobody cared. And, the sex crime rate is much lower there. It’s not obvious that nudity even incites much ‘lust’ once you’re used to it anyway — men live in nudist colonies surrounded by naked women and don’t get turned on. (It’s the visitors who are easy to spot, because they aren’t used to it and it makes them stick out, so to speak.)”

Read the rest here and let me know what you think.

Buttons Needed For St. Blog’s Parish Aggregator, Blog List, and Web Ring

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Calling all artsy folks in St. Blog’s Parish!

The Catholic Blogs and Resources page, St. Blog’s Parish Aggregator, and St. Blog’s Parish Web Ring are in need of promotional buttons. They should be at least 100px by 100px and no larger than 130px wide by 162px tall. Designs should be simple, elegant, and not based on any copyrighted images or phrases. An example from which to draw inspiration would be the Firefox and Thunderbird logos. I don’t want to offer any more suggestions for fear of stifling creativity.

I really have no way of rewarding the artist whose design is picked except in the form of attribution and gratitude. Are there any kind souls out there who’d be interested in helping out with this?