Eat it, Azerbaijan

Kudonts to internationally televised news. With the advancement of modern technology, it is now possible to tune-in to news programs broadcast directly from countries all over the world. I had hoped that this would enable me to see foreigners singing America’s praises directly without having to see it through a secondary, fair-and-balanced news network like Fox News, but unfortunately it is not that easy. Much to my chagrin international news is bleedy boring. There is no talk of celebrity gossip, current box office hits, and not even one mention of Anna Nicole Smith! I mean how does someone in, say, Azerbaijan get along with his daily viticulture without knowing the latest on who’s that baby’s daddy? Must be tough. Basically international news is consumed by their liberal attempts to portray the world as not-at-peace. But clearly I can look out the window and see that there is no fighting going on, so why the discrepancy? There was that little skirmish in Iraq, which could have been bad, but fortunately we cleaned that mess up back in 2003 (see: Bush, “Mission Accomplished”). Basically I think international news should learn from American news and start reporting on the things that really matter. If they keep broadcasting sad stories full of death and reality no one is going to want to watch. Not to mention rumors will spread that the world is not a happy, prosperous place. If you don’t believe me go ahead and look out your window. Looks pretty happy and prosperous, wouldn’t you say? Myth busted. To be sure, let’s get feedback from all over the country to make sure we have a representative sample. Let me know how the view from your window looks and from where you’re viewing. Together, we will show the world how happy it is.

De facto political monopoly: do not pass go, do not collect electoral votes

Kudos to political parties. With the 2008 presidential election just around the corner (the next 17 months are going to fly by) political ideology will be at the forefront of voters’ minds. Fortunately America has an established two-party political system to make voting simple. Rather than get bogged down in facts and issues voters merely have to be able to tell the difference between the letters “D” and “R” appearing next to candidates’ names on the ballot. Novice voters might ask how they know whether they are an “R” or “D”. Basically you have to ask yourself one question: Am I Religious? If they answer is yes then you are an “R”; if you Don’t know or Don’t think it matters then you are a “D”. Politics is all about providing a simple either/or situation. Either you are a religious republican or democracy-loving democrat. If we did not have the saving grace of the two-party system, voting would be too complicated and no one would want to be involved (as opposed to the masses currently involved). Every once in a while a long shot independent candidate emerges who thinks that “either/or” cannot suffice in politics. Somewhere these wackos got the crazy idea that one can be pro-choice and conservative at the same time (not to be confused with Rudy Giuliani) or any number of other paradoxes. I am pretty sure there is even a constitutional amendment that mandates the alignment of government officials’ political ideals with one party, but who ever reads that old thing anyway? (Eat it Madison!) Luckily these two-party dissidents do not stick around long enabling us to preserve our precious party system and allowing voters to remain pleasantly oblivious to the complexities of the issues and stances held by their leaders, which really do not have anything to do with them. Don’t forget: this is an elephant and donkey party only, no (insert 3rd party animal here) allowed. If anyone knew the animals of those other parties they wouldn’t be going out of business now would they?

An Inconvenient-er truth

(Signal 4.26)

Kudos to Christianity for being easy and convenient. So many other religions require self-sacrifice and travel down a narrow-road, but we have the hook up. According to many contemporary preachers (which means it must be true), Jesus did not actually mean most of the stuff he said. This works out really well for wealthy American Christians. If he actually meant what he said about selling our possessions and giving everything to the poor, that would pretty much kill our learned way-of-life. Wealth and property are where we find our sense of worth and serve as an easy way to keep score in America. If Christians gave everything to the poor we would automatically sink to the bottom of the economic/cool totem pole and submit ourselves to the condescending public eye. People would start associating us with the poor, sick and needy-type folks (the last thing Jesus would have wanted), and then Christianity would seem less fun and appealing to non-believers. Jesus must have known the future importance of marketing Christianity (what would I do without my Testamints and “Jesus is my homeboy” shirt?), so there is no way he could have meant that literally. Seriously, who would want to join a religion that actually required sacrifice from its followers? There are many people who will tell you how much life improved after they got saved which is how a life of discipleship should be. I am pretty sure the twelve disciples died old and wealthy after following Jesus (save for that one noose incident), and this is the life Christians should expect to find today. That whole metaphorical picking-up-your-cross-to-follow-him thing can be interpreted numerous ways. What if my cross just so happens to be gold plated with a hint of bling? That seems like a reasonable interpretation of the passage. The point is that these teachings must be taken in context. Ministering to “the least of these” may have originally meant societal outcasts like the sick and homeless, but apparently this has a different meaning today since most Christians couldn’t even tell you where to find a homeless person. Thankfully most of us have been raised in churches where we learn to find the pathway of convenience and save all that not-so-fun stuff for the hardcore, odd-for-God types. After all, Christians are recognized by reflecting Jesus’ love which implies that their lives should be easy and convenient …at least as convenient as crucifixion can be, I suppose.


Supplemental Material
I am pretty sure Christianity is not supposed to be as easy as we try to make it. No other generation of Christians lived as affluently or as blended-into-society as we do today. We spend so much time and money trying to make Christianity attactive and normal that it loses meaning. If asked, most non-Christians today would describe Christians very differently than Christians should want to be described. Jesus was a radical, not a fundamentalist. He rocked the boat and challenged ideas, but many "Christians" today have been neutered and are so house-broken (aka comfortable in this world) that they are indistinguishable among non-believers. We try so hard to "sell" Christianity to people by making it appealling that the term "Christian" is not a significant characterization of someone because it has such a bland, vague meaning. Maybe if we started taking Jesus' words as literal challenges then Christianity could regain its flavor. Until then we will continue to fade into mediocrity.

Mother Earth suffering from hot flashes

(Signal 4.19)

Kudonts to people for breathing. According to a group of scientists, liberals and liberal scientists, humans are responsible for these so-called “global warmings” that everyone is so huffy about these days. Apparently Mother Nature finds certain necessary aspects of human life like respiration and SUVs a little inconvenient. Well excuse us for breathing. Geez, where is Father Winter when you need him to shut her up? Someone slip her a Midol or something because this has just got to stop. The worst part is that she actually has dedicated listeners like Antarctica and Bill Clinton appeasing her nagging. Antarctica with its liberal agenda, for instance, has been pitching this ridiculous icecap melting business for a while now. Geographic-progressives, such as myself, have been leading the charge to have Antarctica’s designation as a continent revoked for years now on the basis of its lack of contribution to society (sending it to the reject table with Pluto). Fortunately this movement has undermined the red-headed-step-child-of-land-masses’ (not to be confused with Poland) influence on the matter. Clinton, on the other hand, had proven harder to undermine until he visited our campus. In his lecture he claimed that no one disputes the “fact” (political cop-out rhetoric denoting an indefensible claim) that the earth is heating up because of humans, but guess what? I dispute it which makes him wrong. If logic wasn’t inextricably linked to atheism then I would call his argument a fallacy, but since it is, I will just wait for his apology in the mail (see: Modus Lose-your-soul-ens). Even if these global warmings were real, why try to stop it? All that fresh water frozen in the icecaps is just a wasted resource waiting to quench Africa’s thirst. Not to mention the bleeding hearts like Al Gore (who doesn’t really want to resolve the issue because if he did no one would talk about him or buy his book anymore) would sink back into anonymity once climate change has run its course. All I’m saying is that 10,000 years ago when global warmings ended the last ice age it turned out to be a not-so-bad thing, so maybe we should give it another try. We are only 30 years removed from a global coolings scare, after all, so let’s enjoy the warmth and sit back, relax and watch the tide roll in…closer and closer.

Survival of the richest

(Signal 4.12)

Kudos to the new American Dream. While the idea of the American Dream began to spread over a century ago, it has finally evolved into its purest form. At first it focused on hard work as the key to finding wealth, but Americans soon realized that hard work is overrated and unnecessary. Thankfully our leaders have developed new avenues for the allocation of fame and wealth to the most deserving. These include testing skills such as choosing the correct briefcase from Howie Mandel, outsmarting 5th graders, and receiving the most votes from viewers even if you are not the best singer (your day is coming Sanjaya!). Clearly our faith was misplaced, and hard work was only serving to distract us from realizing our true dream: to become wealthy without having to lift a finger. Now that wealth is available apart from pretense of work, Americans can finally reach their full potential and concentrate on things that matter the most like loading inspirational videos to You Tube and looking at pictures on Facebook that they have only seen twice. If evolution wasn’t just a gimmick used by the devil to make us question our faith, I would see this is a clear example of natural selection at work. There could even be some intrinsically American trait that has been selected over time which leads to our prosperity and fitness. I always thought that Darwin guy should have been born American; he would have been a magnificent Republican (a little queer and inadvertently turning more people away from God than Satan himself). Basically, America became a world power because of its vision for success (that, or the atom bomb), and the new trend to find wealth despite a lack of personal merit will continue to propel us to future prosperity lest we actually have to work and earn our income like the suckers in the rest of the world (see: the American Nightmare).

Encourage free thought...as long as it agrees with you

(Signal 3.30)

Kudos to students and parents on the anti-Clinton-comes-to-Ouachita campaign. Despite some calling you crazy and ignorant, and I cannot imagine why, at least you tried. Since the first whisper of the possibility that former President Bill Clinton could be visiting campus, many of the student-body-brave coalesced with parents against reality-exposure mounted soapboxes to preach about what a mistake it would be to bring him here and how we should not support it. Generally these arguments (if they even qualify as that) were based on Clinton’s “immoral character,” “botched Presidential term,” and other “failed attempts” in service to our country. Apparently the Birkett Williams sponsors are not fans of morals because there is no other way they could have supported him over “more traditional” options (apparently Pat Robertson and Veggie Tales were already booked). Sure Clinton did a few not-terrible things like support affordable health care, give tax-cuts to the lower-class, make trade fair for poor countries, allow pregnant women to take time off of work, enhance public education programs, clean up the environment, remove dangerous weapons from the streets, deter terrorism and increase minimum wage but think about the big picture. Unfortunately our generation was not old enough to remember these debacles as part of Clinton’s apparent effort to run America into the ground with economic equality. Even now that he is no longer in office he seems to be poisoning our culture with humanitarian work focused on spreading AIDS treatment and alleviating poverty. What a menace to society! These accomplishments, which some might even call amazing, still cannot compete with one enormously well-publicized albeit relatively insignificant slip-up (continuously compounded over ten years yields 4 billion% increase in perceived similarity to Satan…see: Compound-Sin Interest Formula). I cannot even fathom how he maintained a relatively steady 60-ish% approval rating during all of that helping-the-poor stuff. There is no way that mess would fly nowadays even if Bush pretended to care about the lower-class. Even though your objections went unheeded, keep fighting the good fight protesters. Don't stop for even a moment lest you hear some actual truth about the issue, and then you wouldn’t know what to believe…and what a shame that would be.


Supplemental Material
Former President Bill Clinton recently visited our campus. Our Southern Baptist campus. Our "send us your kids so they can be protected from the world and learn how to be good Christian Republicans" campus. Of course not everyone or even the majority are ignorant, close-minded, psycho-fundamentals, but you always have some around to cause trouble. This was the case when certain students and professors decided to protest the lecture because they don't like Bill Clinton...HE'S A FORMER PRESIDENT!!! Good Lord! This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Who cares if you don't like him. You probably don't even know why you don't like him. If you do, it is probably based on false information or ignorance. Have you ever met him in person to know if you really don't like him? Of course not, you're protesting his visit! I swear, these people would turn their back on Jesus if he came back now and said he was a Democrat. This is a man who is travelling around the world to promote AIDS treatment and a cleaner environment. Who cares if he is pro-choice. Who cares if you don't like his wife. Who cares if he did that one thing. You don't have to be a flaming liberal to respect the office of the President of the United States or respect the humanitarian work he is doing now. No one, and I mean no one who acts like that has any business talking politics or pretending to be rational. I look forward to the day when political parties don't carry the weight they do now so that people are forced to be informed and cannot supplement assumptions for knowledge.

Redemption on the block for the highest bidder

(Signal 3.15)

Kudos to Corporate Christianity, the new breed of religion that is taking over America one soul/bank account at a time. Unlike the original Christianity, which focuses on converting lost souls into followers of Jesus, the Corporate-variety focuses mainly on converting lost pocket-books into financiers of a “Christian-related” cause while taking the soul as an acceptable down-payment. Why convert a person’s money and not just the person, you might ask? Basically, the members of the Church of Corporate Christianity, or Corporates, have uncovered the true calling of Christians. This calling is not only to have faith in Jesus but to contribute vast sums of money to carry out his teachings by turning pastors into rockstars and mundane church buildings (where it is hard for the spirit to move) into fancy worship stadiums. Clearly the Corporates are modeling their churches and organizations after the early church in the Book of Acts that was well-known for its gaudy buildings (prominently displayed holes in the ground), wealthy leaders (currency: persecution), and hoards of possessions as the poor did not yet exist (still doesn’t for the Corporates). Financial success of a church is a clear sign of God taking pleasure in its shareholders—I mean members. Actually, at the rate some of these churches are growing (spiritually, that is), we might be on the brink of the elite few going public. What better to spread the gospel than to allow people to buy stock in a church and enable shareholders and ministers to profit financially and spiritually from the work of God? (Paging Mr. Luther, Mr. Martin Luther.) We should learn from these religious pioneers who are on the cutting edge of God’s ever-changing ways and measure our own lives and churches according to their doctrine. If your pastor isn’t being treated like a divinely placed CEO or your church has been frivolously spending money on the needy and not itself, then maybe you should reevaluate the purpose of the church…or just go witness to the rich folks.

Supplemental Material
To clarify, the Church of Corporate Christianity is not real in the sense that churches actually identify themselves as part of it. It is merely a label I created for churches that seemingly value financial progress and the image of prosperity over actual substantive spiritual progress. This is most evident in contemporary churches that give their pastors seven-figure salaries and conduct worship "services" in sanctuaries that cost more than some churches spend in a lifetime. This makes me question the motives of such a church. Are these glorious buildings built with the intention of honoring God or is there something else at work? Does a seven-figure salary fall in the realm of "self-sacrifice for the ministry"? I am reminded of the temple built in the Old Testament that was lined with gold and all kinds of other magnificent materials. The purpose of that building's splendor was to glorify God, but as one biblical scholar puts it, "There is an apparent parallel [between contemporary buildings and the OT temple], but the movement of the redemptive story changes things, turning our focus from an earthly kingdom to a heavenly kingdom with earthly implications." Granted I do not know what all goes into a given church's financial decisions, and it is not my place to judge them. These are just important questions that churches and their congregations should ask themselves.

Salvation and polygamy for all

(The Signal 3.8)

Kudonts to the pseudo-Christian Great Commission. Recently, outsiders who call themselves Mormons infiltrated OBU apartment complexes in an effort to teach students about their beliefs. Luckily I wasn’t around the first time they came by, so I didn’t have to worry about catching whatever it is they are spreading around—latter-day-pox or something. But just when I thought it was safe to leave quarantine, I was warned that they had been spotted on the premises again. I rushed back to my apartment to grab my handy Mormon-repellant only to find that I had run out after my recent trip to Utah and only had insect and Democrat-repellants left. What is the world coming to when we cannot even feel safe in our own bubble? Maybe we need to go old-school and put up signs that say, “Christian Clubhouse: No Pagans Allowed.” Fortunately that is how most of the apartment-heroes responded and treated them no better than your everyday encyclopedia salesman with a silent judgment and a kind door-in-the-face. But seriously, why would Christians want to actually talk about religion with non-believers when they can keep their faith tucked away safely for themselves? Isn’t that what this whole religion thing is all about? Supposedly stains on your faith are just a wretch to clean and almost never come out in the wash, so it is probably best kept unshared anyway. Hopefully, after the near-death/conversion experience our unfortunate students had, they will be better prepared for the next time a lost soul approaches them wanting to talk religion and can perfect their witness-evasion tactics. After all, we wouldn’t want any conversions or evangelizing going on around here, right?


Supplemental Material
If this sounds like I am bashing Mormons, go back and read it again.

Christians have been given a charge to spread the Gospel. This is not limited to travelling half way around the world to witness to obscure African tribes who speak in clicks and grunts. It is easy to make fun of other religions and write them off because their ideas seem a little far-fetched to us (as if virgin births and rising from the dead are commonplace), but we could definitely learn something from their devotion to sharing their beliefs. Christians are told to seek out non-believers, but when they come knocking on our doors wanting to talk about religion, we turn them away or say we aren't interested or make fun of the "crazies on bikes." We shouldn't have to wait for that knock on the door, but if we get it, the hardest part of witnessing is already done and should not be so quickly dismissed. What a wasted opportunity.

Beauty pageants keeping it real...mostly

(The Signal 3.1)

Kudos to beauty pageants like the upcoming Miss OBU pageant. This is just a great way for girls to show off their stuff (personality and intelligence, that is) and compete to earn scholarships through the Miss America Organization. Unfortunately there are some pageants out there, such as Miss USA, that are not as honorable as Miss America and do not require talent from their contestants who essentially compete to win modeling opportunities. Recently though, Miss USA has been trying to improve its reputation (hard to do with The Donald still in charge) by holding its winner to higher standards and publicly condemning her for acting like a sex object...wait how do girls win this again? Oh right, by acting like a sex object. Funny how that works. Fortunately we still have the Miss America system to uphold a set of higher values in the pageant community. Now only if they could learn from those small town pageants and get the 5-8 year old demographic involved to encourage more parents to paint their barely-out-of-diapers girls up like Barbie dolls and parade them around on stage just to further their own financial well-being while stripping their daughter of her innocence and exploiting the fact that she does not know any better so when she grows up she can look back and remember the good old' days of the childhood she never had because it is tucked away in mom and dad's bank account. At least that's what some people say. I'm sure it's really not like that at all.

Religious left not right

(The Signal 2.22)

Kudonts to Jim Wallis whose recent article in Time claims that the era of the Religious Right is over as more pastors and congregations abandon partisan politics. Religious Right is the label commonly given to groups who support right-wing (aka Republican) politics as a part of their religious beliefs. Now I don’t know what Wallis was thinking here, but it is clear to me that he is part of the growing, misinformed public who thinks that you can be both a Christian and a Democrat. Obviously the pastors and congregations he is referring to are not Christian ones because it is pretty clearly stated in the Bible that to follow Jesus you must be a Republican (not sure where it is, but I have faith that it is there). Just take a look at Jesus’ Republican bias: he talked to his opposition rather than waging war, ministered to the lower-class, administered free health care and supported gun control (i.e. there weren’t any) all of which Bush and the Republicans are still supporting today albeit in their own special, similar yet opposite kind of way. For a guy who wrote a book called God’s Politics, Wallis should know that God gave us free will so that we could in turn legislate His laws to non-believers thus taking away their free will to oppose Him thereby legally allowing them to not choose to not follow Him. What good is religion anyway if it remains personal? The best kind of religion is a mandated one, just like the one in England that our ancestors came to America to escape. What were they thinking? Oh right, faith excuses rational thought. All that aside, we know that our country was founded on Christian doctrine since Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence, and he is renowned for his Christian/Deistic beliefs/doubts as seen in his Jefferson Bible/trinity bashing. Hopefully the Religious Right will remember this in times of struggle and soldier on for years to come.


Supplemental Material
Many people believe and/or try to make the case that America was founded on Christian doctrine by Christian men. What is the historical basis for this argument, you might ask? It is nothing more than people trying to rewrite history to further their own political agenda. Some Founding Fathers were no doubt Christians, but many of them, like Thomas Jefferson were confirmed Deists. TJ even created his own version of the Bible, known as the Jefferson Bible, which did not include any of Jesus' miracles or anything else that might hint to Jesus' divinity. In an 1814 letter, TJ says, "Christianity neither is, or ever was, part of the common law." As a former Secretary of State, Vice President, President, and author of the Declaration of Independence, I think he is a reliable source for what was or was not the basis of our government. Furthermore, the Senate ratified the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797, which explicitly says, "The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." Ergo, THE FACT THAT IT SAYS "GOD" IN THE CONSTITUTION DOES NOT MEAN THAT OUR COUNTRY WAS FOUNDED ON CHRISTIANITY. In conclusion, myth busted.

As for certain political parties and politicians who try to play the God card in support if their ideology, I wouldn't stand too close to them for fear of being struck by lightning. God is not a Republican. God is, of course, not a Democrat either, but Republicans are notorious for this line of thinking. When it comes to politics, if your only reason for supporting legislation is because it coincides with your personal beliefs (e.g. being anti-gay marriage because the Bible says it's wrong) then find another reason to support opinion. You cannot expect to legislate religion in a country with a separated church and state. Let the Bible be your personal guide for living if you believe it, but do not then turn around and try to make it law for someone else. God gave us free will so we could choose to follow him. By trying to make the Bible law, you are taking that away which God himself granted. "The Bible says so" argument is meaningless to non-believers, so for something to pass our officially non-Christian-based government, it needs to be supported by something else.

Reality plague strikes again!

(The Signal 2.15)

Kudos to filters and censors. On a recent trip home, I was reminded how good we have it here in the OBU bubble. While there, I couldn’t even turn on the television without seeing people my age doing “normal” things on MTV or people telling hilarious jokes on Comedy Central…it was downright offensive. Luckily our cable access on campus blocks smut like this to protect our minds and souls from the infectious corruption of the real world. Another aspect of the bubble I missed was the leisure of going to a dorm room and not having to worry about the possibility of girls coming over. If we are to protect ourselves from immorality, it is imperative that we are not in the same room with a member of the opposite sex without a standard-sized shoe (not a sandal!) propping open the door. Just think of all the terrible things that could happen without that shoe: finding privacy, feeling like an adult, or even getting a taste of real life. No, no, no we cannot have that! Rather, we should be thankful that we have someone to hold our hands during this time of transition into adulthood. Always remember: a shoe in the door keeps you pure; no shoe in the door makes you a whore.

Tuition dollars at work

(The Signal 2.15)

Kudos to Bulgaria and Romania for officially joining the European Union! That’s funny because I always thought they were in South America or something. On second thought, maybe that’s Botswana and Rwanda. I always get those mixed up. All of the little countries on those other little continents kind of run together after a while. I do well just to remember that the Atlantic is west and the Pacific is east. Thank God for Contemporary World! If it weren’t for that map test I probably wouldn’t even know that much. It is always nice to see my tuition dollars at work ($10,000 per ocean) when I can show off my education even though that doesn’t never often happen much.


Supplemental Material
Who cares about the European Union or any of these other countries? Not many people apparently. Last year a survey was conducted by National Geographic to measure geographic literacy among Americans aged 18-24. In another proud moment for the country, Americans reaffirmed their global reputation of egocentrism by miserably failing the survey. Here are a few results:

• 33% could not pinpoint Louisiana on a map
• 60% could not find Iraq on a map of the Middle East
• 88% could not find Afghanistan on a map of Asia
• 50% could not identify the state of New York
• 37% could not find their own wenis (look it up)

And how did we become a world power, again? Oh yea the A-bomb. At least we have that going for us.

Forward your salvation now

(The Signal 2.8)

Kudos to e-mail forwards. What in the world-wide-web would we do without these bits of joy to brighten up our days? My personal favorites are the ones that challenge me to forward them to everyone I know so that I can prove that I love Jesus. I cannot even count the number of times I have wished for a simple way to prove my faith to God and everyone else, and these forwards are precisely that! Now I know there are some of you out there who laugh at these and disregard them as junk mail, but we will see who’s laughing when you’re standing at the pearly gates and you miss the cut by one or two forwards. Just think of it as living out the Great Commission in the digital age (every tongue, tribe, and IP address). In addition to proving your faith, forwards give you the opportunity to profit financially. Just last month I was chosen to receive $37 million from the former prince of Nigeria! So next time you are about to delete what looks like junk mail, take a minute to read it lest you miss out on great opportunities like these.


Supplemental Material
Forwards are dumb. Enough said.

Texts have killed the spoken word

(The Signal 2.8)

Kudos to text messages for giving us another reason to have even less interpersonal interaction than we already do. Sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming to have to look up a friend’s number in your phone (or even worse try to remember their speed dial number) and then, on top of that, carry on a spoken conversation. Don’t feel bad, it’s not just you. This is a shared burden of all who live in the technology age. Luckily we have the aid of texting, pardon the cool-kid lingo, to lighten our load. With this life-saving feature, we have only to push the buttons without the added pressure of actually speaking to a real, live person. Social interaction is overrated as it is. With text messages we can alleviate stressful cell-situations as we move even closer to the utopia of exclusively written interaction, the way God intended it as modeled by the Bible – longest text message ever. Hey, if it’s good enough for Him, it’s good enough for me.


Supplemental Material
In the olden days, hand-written letters were the only reasonable form of communication and took weeks to arrive at their destination. Because of this, people would spend a great amount of time sorting out their thoughts and perfecting their wording since this would be their only contact with that person for a long time. Today, technology allows us instant communication with anyone in the world, so we are less inclined to spend time pouring over what we are going to say since we can clarify or provide further information at a moment's notice, if necessary. Despite the great advantages offered by this technology, it seems to have enabled our generation to disregard the need to communicate clearly with organized thoughts. This is most evident in argument and debate. The next time you happen upon two people arguing, see if they are presenting their sides with supporting evidence or just going back and forth to see who can out talk the other and then you will understand this point. People today seem more interested in language quantity than quality. This is like sitting in a restaurant for hours and just watching other people eat. In the end you are still hungry and angry for the time you've wasted. Don't settle for the smell of good food when the taste is so much more satisfying.

Blessed are the hazers

(The Signal 2.1)

Kudos to pledge week for its immeasurable contribution to the morale of our campus. Whoever invented this tradition should have won a Nobel Peace Prize, and I’ll tell you why. Imagine a large group of girls or guys having to work together every single day and live in the same small place for four long years. This clearly has nuclear fallout written all over it. But then, in a sheer act of divine inspiration, someone comes up with a way to get all of that emotion, hardship, and warring out in one short week in order to offset the next three years. Simply brilliant! Unfortunately, there are some who feel compelled to voice their disdain for the week and its “non-hazing, team building exercises”, but what these people do not know is that there is actually a Biblical basis for pledge week and “non-hazing, team building exercises.” Did you think the twelve disciples just walked into Jesus’ club unscathed? Of course not. What they don’t tell you is that there were about 50 de-pledges before they whittled it down to the twelve survivors. Imagine going through line-up with someone who knows all of your past thoughts and actions as well as the ones that haven’t even happened yet -- Pledge Master Alpha and Omega. So if you think about it in perspective, it really isn’t that bad (the untimely death of most of those twelve notwithstanding.) The fact that it always rains on bid day is even a blatant sign of God taking pleasure in His creation just like the flood in the Old Testament. Keep fighting the good fight pledges. This week of hardship will payoff over the next three years of bliss…or however long it is until your next duty.

This series of tubes

Welcome to the Kudos/Kudonts blogspot. I will be posting new and old articles as seen in The Signal the only difference being that they will be the original, pre-edited drafts. Feel free to leave your comments and discussion topics concerning the posts. I look forward to hearing your feedback.