Sloppy Wet Kisses

After flying into Houston about three weeks ago, I quickly realized I was back in Texas when I scrolled through the various country, Christian, and tejano radio stations. Even though I grew up in the buckle of the Bible belt, I'm still surprised to hear so many Christian radio stations in Houston. I even recently heard that one of the Christian stations here is raising funds to start a new youth Christian radio station. I'm not sure how contemporary Christian music for youth would be much different than contemporary Christian music for adults.

Truth is, I don't really like contemporary Christian music, which I know is heresy to say amongst my generation in today's church. I like my lyrics to have more than 10 words repeated over and over. For me, today's style is too emotional and without depth. Sometimes the poetry in hymns written in the 1800s (or more recently) can blow me away with their depth and imagery. The complexity and intelligence of God is beautiful. I understand that contemporary Christian music is trying to reach a broader audience and thus simplifies the lyrics in order to make the music more accessible. I'm ok with having different types or styles of Christianity in order to reach different people, but I feel like the church often forgets that there are young Christians who want depth in their worship. Granted, there's probably not enough of us to fill out huge auditoriums or spend money on CDs, but we're still here.

Though I don't like most of the contemporary worship music, there is some that I do like. For instance, I like most of "How He Loves," which I first heard a little more than a year ago at church when I lived in Mississippi. I like the imagery of God's love as a hurricane and us as a tree bending under His mercy. However, when we first sang it at church, the music leader used the lyrics "so heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss" in the middle of the song. At this point, all my friends and I stopped singing and looked awkwardly at each other. Some of us chuckled. Perhaps that was childish, but we weren't expecting to sing "sloppy wet kiss" at church. From then on out, we called this song the "sloppy-wet-kiss song." These lyrics ruined the song for me because the metaphor gives me a horrible image. Sloppy wet kisses remind me of awkward youth romances (or lack thereof). My sister said it sounded like a gross kiss from a creepy uncle. Worst of all, we're singing this in unison at church. When I first heard this song, I was singing with guys and girls I went to college with, and there had been enough romances or attempted romances within this circle of friends that there had been some shared sloppy wet kisses amongst us. Some of these romances had been painful. We didn't want to be reminded about what we or our friends had done... at least not most of us.

As I was driving in Houston, I heard David Crowder sing this song again. I waited for the "sloppy wet kiss," but I didn't hear it. I was confused, so I looked up the song to see what the problem was. I found this video of David Crowder's official version, which says "unforeseen kiss" instead of "sloppy wet kiss." After more searching, I found this blog post from Our Rising Sound that explained David Crowder changed John Mark McMillan's "sloppy wet kiss" line to "unforeseen kiss." McMillan's blog explained that he originally wrote "sloppy wet kiss" because he saw heaven and earth meeting suddenly, beautifully, and messily. Many of the comments on these two blog posts approved of the original lyrics and did not like how David Crowder changed them. I can appreciate the original meaning. However, I believe David Crowder made the right move. Many people use Crowder's music for group worship, and I do not believe "sloppy wet kiss" is appropriate for most group worship for reasons I've already explained. For me, group worship is supposed to be a prayer for everyone in the crowd. If there are people in the crowd not comfortable with the lyrics (perhaps because for them the lyrics equate God with a creepy uncle or an ex-girlfriend/ex-boyfriend), then the music leader should use different lyrics.

Since I said I don't like most contemporary Christian music, I thought I'd share an older hymn that I do like. I recently discovered "How Firm a Foundation" by John Rippon (1751-1836), and I absolutely love these lyrics. I especially like the line, "The flame shall not hurt you; I only design your dross to consume and your gold to refine." I'm not sure if we didn't sing this hymn growing up in church or if I just don't remember it. Nevertheless, I'd rather sing music like this than most contemporary music, though I do like singing hymns in contemporary style (with guitars instead of an organ).

BP isn't British

Olle Johansson. Sweden.

Freelance.

I know the title is a lie. BP is British. However, more importantly, BP is a corporation. At least most Americans I've talked to and the American news media I've seen have this perspective. Many Americans realize that corporations are no longer tied to an individual nation. Nissan may have headquarters in Japan, but a Nissan factory in Mississippi build cars with materials from all over the world and then ships some of these cars to Mexico. An Australian owns Fox News. Apple designs the iPod in America but builds it in China. The marriages and divorces between corporations like American Chrysler and German Daimler get so confusing that the average citizen can hardly keep up with whether or not DaimlerChrysler (or Chrysler LLC, or Daimler AG, or whatever it's called now) still owns Mitsubishi, Mercedes Benz, or EADS. Many Americans may not realize this Daimler AG has a stake in all of these companies. So is this company German, American, Japanese, French, or what? Do we determine nationality based upon where the headquarters' post office box happens to be even though this PO box can change practically overnight? Is it an "American" or "Chinese" product if it's designed in the US and built in China? The point is that these corporations are international and have no specific nationality, or at least not in most of the public's mind. The same applies to oil companies that operate in the US. Ergo, BP isn't British. BP is a corporation.

I wonder how many Americans even realize that BP is a British corporation or that Shell is a Dutch corporation or that Exxon is an American corporation. Though I won't name anyone specific in this post, I've talked to some Americans who did not realize BP is technically British, even after the oil spill. These people aren't stupid, either. Americans may not realize that BP is British because BP has spent so much money advertising itself as "Beyond Petroleum" and distanced itself from the British image in order to avoid any "Buy American" sentiment.

Yet when I talk to friends from Europe (and not just those from the UK), they closely link BP to Britain. Whenever they talk about the oil spill, some defend BP and say Americans were involved in the oil spill. This defense and sentiment perplexed me. People along the Gulf Coast don't care if a British corporation or an American corporation was responsible. We're pissed not because a non-American corporation screwed up. We're pissed because a corporation screwed up, and this corporation has developed a reputation in the US as being one of the sloppier oil companies (this reputation may not exist in other parts of the world). A 2005 BP refinery explosion in Texas killed 15 and injured over 150; a 2006 oil spill in Alaska happened because BP didn't properly maintain the pipeline. Other oil companies operating in the US don't have this kind of record (at least that's the word on the street). The jury is still out on the current disaster, but a New York Times article reported that in 2004 BP removed safety devices from the blowout-preventer (the last line of defense to prevent an oil spill) in order to save time and money; Transocean had BP write a letter explaining that BP was responsible for this change and understood the change increased the risks. Incidents like these do not make BP look good in the Gulf of Mexico disaster. When Americans hear about BP's record in the US, we don't care if BP is British or not. Americans do care whether or not BP is properly managed.

I just wanted to explain that Americans don't care where BP's headquarters are. We don't believe an American corporation would have been inherently better because it was American (at least that's not what I've heard in the US). The BBC and other British news outlets may play sound-bites that hype up the UK vs US narrative, but that's not what we hear or talk about in the US. If the anti-BP rhetoric in the US was actually anti-UK, then the symbols or references widely used in political cartoons or speeches would be anti-British. Instead, political cartoons use BP logos and not Union Jacks when talking about the oil disaster.

I admit that New Orleans almost used an advertisement campaign with the slogan, "This isn't the first time New Orleans survived the British," as a reference to the War of 1812 battle. I actually found this slogan humorous, but some Brits complained. New Orleans quickly pulled the advertisement after a very limited distribution, but the city is now running an ad mocking the American federal government instead. The point here is that Americans are willing to mock their own corporations or government and not just foreign corporations. After all, the Gulf Coast states are pissed at a lot of institutions, American and not.

Granted, if BP was French, then this conversation would be a tad bit different. ;-) Besides baseball, mocking the French is America's favorite pastime.

Perhaps my European friends can explain to me whether or not they know which corporations belong to which nations. Americans may know roughly which corporations are American or not, but we probably won't be able to say anything more specific. I wonder if Europeans take extra pride in those corporations from their nation. I don't believe Americans do the same unless that corporation employees a bunch of people in their area (for instance, I don't think Mississippians have much pride in Ford but might like Nissan more because Nissan has a plant in MS). These are interesting questions I need to look into.

Gary Varvel. Indiana.

The Indianapolis Star - News

Getty Images from CNN

A pelican coated in heavy oil wallows in

the surf Friday, June 4, on East Grande

Terre Island, LA.

A little more zombies, a little less Jane Austen, please

I know that this is my second blog post in a row about zombies, and maybe this helps explain why I'm still single. This is also the first post I've written as a book review since probably last summer. I spent a lot of time reading books (or avoiding reading books) for class this past year, and I couldn't justify reading something that wasn't for class. I figured writing about my class readings would have been a bit boring and pointless.

After I heard some classmates talk about Pride & Prejudice & Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith, I bought the book last December because the concept fascinated me. The possibilities seemed endless. I envisioned pitched battles across England, and zombies will bite almost all the main characters, who would then turn into zombies. Only one character would remain alive and have to run away in order to attempt survival. At least that's how I would have written something like this.

My sister was terrified because I had never read the original novel and knew anything about Pride & Prejudice, so she forced me to watch a 1985 BBC edition of Pride & Prejudice so that I would at least know how the story was supposed to go. I saw no harm in this offer, so I agreed. It came in 5 or 6 parts, and I figured each part was about 30 minutes long. After Part 1 went on for a solid hour, I realized I was in for the long haul. This mini-series was fairly true to the book, so I did get a good introduction to what Jane Austen wrote before reading the Seth Grahame-Smith version.

I was disappointed with Pride & Prejudice & Zombies for various reasons. First, it's basically a copy-and-pasted version of Jane Austen's book. Since I had just watched the BBC mini-series, I already knew what was going to happen, more or less, and could just skim through the dialogue. Second, the zombie part of the book was pointless and artificial. For instance, whenever the women go on a trip to town or somewhere else, they would run across a bunch of zombies and have to kill them. So what? Those fights contribute nothing to the plot or make the narrative more interesting. I was constantly waiting for the zombie outbreak to get much worse so that shit would really hit the fan and get some real action going. Instead, the zombie outbreak was just something that happened in the background. Third, I didn't like the references to the characters' martial arts training in China and Japan. If the English had been fighting zombies for 55 years, then surely they would have quality fighters who could have trained the characters more cheaply than Asians thousands of miles away.

There were some thing I liked about the book. The characters' attractiveness had less to do with their overall looks or social tact; a character was desirable if he or she was a skilled fighter who could kill lots of zombies. I also liked how bounty hunters would trap zombies in cages and take them to incinerators in the English countryside, and the incinerator operator would lower the cage into the fire. Allegedly, bounty hunters would capture normal people and infect them with the zombie virus in order to get more money, but Elizabeth considered this an acceptable tragedy because she was willing to let a few innocent people die in order to stop the zombie outbreak.

I've heard rumors that a movie version of the book is due to come out in 2011, and Natalie Portman will play Elizabeth. I'm not sure how I feel about this, but it could be worth watching. I know that Fido was a well-done yet kinda expensive zombie movie, and it didn't make enough money to justify making it so nice. Since zombie movies don't make much money, I doubt this movie will be well financed or very good. I'd be surprised if Natalie Portman will actually remain part of the project.

Though this book wasn't my favorite, I have heard that Jane Austen fans tend to like it more because it does stick so closely to the original story. Don't get your hopes up, though.

Zombie Attack Begins

My friend just posted this link on my facebook wall about an hour ago with an urgent plea for me to check it out. This site gave instructions to go to Newsweek's website and press on the keyboard "up up down down left right left right 'b' 'a' 'enter'" as if it was a Super Nintendo game cheat. Then a new official-looking screen pops up with a headline that read, "ZOMBIES ATTACK!" The last couple lines in the opening snippet said, "Residents are advised to barricade themselves in their homes and wait for further instructions. Under no circumstances should the walking dead be allowed in your house." There are several other articles with headlines like "Fleeing the Zombie Horde: What Are Our Options?" and "Go For the Head." I'm not sure how long this will be up before Newsweek takes it down, so check it out ASAP. I did print a copy of this page for posterity.

I'm very grateful I read Newsweek today because now I have enough time to prepare for the zombie outbreak. A few days ago I left St Andrews, which would have been a wonderful town for a zombie outbreak, but now I'm with family in Houston, which probably isn't the best town for a zombie outbreak. I can't think of any defendable locations around here since so many of the buildings are vulnerable with large glass windows, and the 96º F (36º C) weather will become unbearable as power outages kill the air conditioning. Unless I get some gas soon, driving out of town and into the country will be nearly impossible as the 5 million Hustonians scramble for the last available resources. Off the top of my head, I could head to Battleship Texas, which isn't far from here. I could knock out the ramp so that the zombies wouldn't be able to get on the boat. But the large guns don't work anymore, and the ship engines are inoperable so that I can't sail it away if shit really hits the fan. I could find a smaller boat in another port, and that would normally be enough if it had a sail and could get out into the open water or onto a barrier island. Unfortunately, the open water and islands just happen to be in the oil-choked Gulf of Mexico, so the fish will probably taste funny. Normally, an oil rig out in the deep water would be a great option, but it might blow up.

Here's my soundtrack for the zombie outbreak:

"I Will Survive" by Cake

"If I Ever Leave This World Alive" by Flogging Molly

"Get Down with the Sickness" by Richard Cheese

"I Will Follow You into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie

"Carry on Wayward Son" by Kansas

"Flirtin' with Disaster" by Molly Hatchet

"The Mission" by Puscifer

"Heads Will Roll" by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

"Don't Fear the Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult

"The Longer I Run" by Peter Bradley Adams

"Prom Zombie" by Stellastarr

Danielle suggested "The Mission," "Heads Will Roll," and "Prom Zombie." I might think of some more later, but this is what I have for now.

Pink is her signature color

My sister decided my niece should have a pink-themed first birthday party, so there were pink invitations, pink-frosted cupcakes, pink lemonade, pink tablecloths, pink dresses, and pink balloons. Many of my sister's friends from her young-married-couples Sunday school class helped with the decorations and food, especially the sixty or so cupcakes made from scratch. Since most of the guests who came from this Sunday school class have at east one or two kids, the backyard was full of infants, toddlers, and parents running after them. About forty or fifty guests showed up.

Elizabeth has never had sugar unless it was already in her fruit or other baby foods, so Ryan and Sarah gave her a cupcake as her first taste of a sweet. Of course, she ate it all up very quickly. Later, her grandma tried to give her a watermelon, but she didn't seem to like it as much. Instead, she seemed to just suck on it because she was so thirsty. In true style, I had to take pictures, but I took a few more than usual because I'm not used to taking photos of kids who don't exactly pose. I took over 300 photos of Elizabeth eating the cupcake and watermelon and then of her playing peek-a-boo with her pink dress. Naturally, I won't be putting all of these photos on this blog, but my sister has already posted a couple of my photos on her blog.

Only a fraction of the cupcakes at the party

Gobbling up the cupcake

Grandma later cut up the watermelon,

but for the photo we gave her a

huge slice she could never chew.

Not exactly her favorite for now

Elizabeth versus the Mini-Mouse

For my niece's first birthday, my mom bought a bunch of presents and wanted to give them to Elizabeth before the big day. Buying a bunch of stuff from the Disney Store seems like a no-brainer, but the Mini-Mouse was not exactly her new favorite toy. In retrospect, Mini-Mouse is a bit freaky looking. Elizabeth did, however, love her new shoes and quickly learned that they belong on her feet, even if she is already wearing shoes. After seeing her get supper attached to these shoes and how much pink she was wearing (her birthday party will have a 'pink' theme), I wonder if she'll turn into a girly-girl.

My sister already posted photos from this Mini-Mouse confrontation on her blog.

I have another video of Elizabeth on my blog.

I forgot my sink is supposed to be white

A couple family members told me that I never showed them what my flat in St Andrews looks like. It's rather basic and came with the same type of furniture most of the other university flats have. The bedroom is kind of small yet adequate, but I do have my own huge bathroom with a full bathtub. The best part about having my own bathroom is that it's my own fault if nothing is clean. Unfortunately, it usually isn't clean.

Just before I left St Andrews, I decided to give my flat a deep clean. I normally only clean when I know guests (more specifically girls) might be visiting, so it hasn't been cleaned very well lately. Recently, there were a couple barbecues and (real) football games on the beach, so a fine layer of sand covered my floor even though I couldn't really tell it was there. I always find it amazing how I can live with so much dirt, sand, and trash on my floor without being bothered enough that I feel impelled to sweep. Then I wonder why my feet get dirty or how dirt collects at the foot of my bed. I'm also amazed at how much thick dust can collect underneath the furniture, but this is a problem the whole building has to deal with since thick piles of dust collect at the edges of all the stairs and hallways. After cleaning, I was very pleased with myself. I'm sure when I get back there will be more dust everywhere so that I'll have to clean it again. I think that's why I don't like dusting: everything gets dusty in a couple days even though I spent so much time cleaning.

Looking into my bedroom from the front door.

The off-yellow wallpaper is very classy- kinda like the Ritz.

Cleaning the sink is so easy, but I still let it get

grimy so that it's no longer white but has weird stains.

Britain once controlled a quarter of the world's

landmass and a quarter of the world's population.

The sun never sat on this empire.

Yet the British have so much trouble getting the

hot and cold water coming out of the same faucet.

The Italians don't have this problem, do they?

Courtesy of Albi

Since my camera died while on the boat to Isle of May last week, my friend Albi was gracious enough to let me post some of his photos on the blog. You can click here to see his flickr account.

Puffins in mid-flight.

You can see the fish sticking out

of their mouths. They all seemed to

be having lunch when we were there.

Or they just eat all the time.

Cliffs.

This is the view from where we

had our picnic lunch.

Cove.

The name of this place is "Bishop's Cove"

because the figure in the middle of the

cove looks like a bishop. We had lunch at

the top of the cliffs on the right-hand side

of the photo.

Isle of May: If you're a battery, you're either working, or you're dead. It's a shit life.

In case you haven't noticed, I enjoy photography. Shocker, right? My favorite vacation funtivity is to explore a new place and take a bazillion photos of it so that I can someday plaster my future home's walls with thousands of select photos from all over the world. I covered the walls to my last apartment in the states with tons of black and white photographs from Congo, Brazil, France, and Spain that I developed in the darkroom I built in high school. So when I decided to go to the Isle of May, which is famous for its 100-foot tall cliffs and thousands of birds, I expected to get some spectacular photographs to go along with my collection. As our boat, the May Princess, slowly creaked it's way from Anstruther's harbor to the island, I snapped dozens of photos while my non-photography-enthusiast friends asked why I was taking so many. I had to explain that I took several photos of the same object with different compositions and exposures so that I could pick the best one later. If I hadn't taken a bunch of photos of the same object, I wouldn't have the photo above with the birds and island. However, as I took more and more photos, I realized my camera wasn't working. I checked the screen, and the battery was dead. No worries- I always keep a spare batter on me. After I slipped it in and went to take another photo, I realized I had never recharged this battery after it went dead on my in Sarajevo. Damn. I got in a rather bitter mood as we approached a bunch of seals on rocks. That would have made a cool photograph. For the next few hours we walked back and forth across the island trails and had lunch on top of cliffs overlooking the Firth of Forth. Those would have made cool photographs, too.

I did have my video camera, though. I generally hate videos of landscapes, so the video I've posted to this blog will only have quick snippets of landscapes so that y'all don't get bored with it. This video will have to suffice until I get another chance to go back to the island... whenever that might be.

Some quick factoids about the Isle of May: when missionaries were bringing Christianity to this part of Scotland around 600 AD, a dude (Ethernan- some surrounding places are named after him) used this island as his base-of-operations. People would come here and pray with him. After this dude kicked the can, a group of monks built a monastery and lived here under self-sacrifice and hardship to continue the dude's legacy. Because the island was very vulnerable, Vikings attacked the monks in 875 AD and slaughtered them all. This martyrdom then made the island a sacred destination for pilgrimages, and around 1000 AD there was a small church where pilgrims could pray. King David I re-founded the monastery in 1145, and the ruined buildings that visitors see date back to this monastery. The original buildings David I commissioned could have taken about 100 years to build and would have been very expensive with carved stonework, tiled roof, and glass windows. When the tradition of pilgrimages ended, several villagers still lived here, but the last one died in 1730. Now, the island is a wildlife refuge where migratory birds come back to reproduce. For instance, puffins live here from April until July, and the rest of the time they live at sea. Small holes cover the island where the puffins laid their eggs, and visitors have to stay on the marked paths or risk stepping on these hidden holes and killing the unhatched puffin. After the summer months, seals cover the lower parts of the island so that the boat can no longer dock. Thus, the tours are only for the summer.

If you get sick of watching the woman's

introduction to the island, skip ahead to

5:45 to see the rest of the video.