Archive for the 'soapbox' Category

art [as in music]

Published
by
Dave
on January 18, 2007
in Faith, Music and soapbox
. 0 Comments

This isn’t the first and it won’t be the last rant about contemporary worship music you’ll hear from me.  I’m sick and tired of the burnt out praise and worship choruses.  period.  just as an example, here are two songs…the first is a common song sang at my church:

Let the poor man say I am rich again
Let the lost man said I am found again
Whoa, let the river flow
Let the blind man say I can see again
Let the dead man say I am born again
Whoa, let the river flow
Yeah, yeah, yeah, let the river flow.

Let the river flow
Let the river flow
Holy spirit come
Moving power
Let the river flow.

Let the poor man say I am rich again
Let the lost man said I am found again
Whoa, let the river flow
Let the blind man say I can see again
Let the dead man say I am born again
Whoa, let the river flow
Yeah, yeah, yeah, let the river flow.

Let the river flow
Let the river flow
Holy spirit come
Moving power
Let the river flow

Kind of repetitious don’t you think?  I mean…seriously where is the art in that?  where is the meaning?  And here is an old hymn for comparison.

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

Now that is art.  Pure poetry circa 1882

loose change

Published
by
Dave
on September 30, 2006
in General, Politics and soapbox
. 0 Comments

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon this film called “Loose Change”. I dare not call it a documentary since a documentary is defined as: based on or re-creating an actual event, era, life story, etc., that purports to be factually accurate and contains no fictional elements. I had thought about blogging after I watched it, but to be honest, I didn’t want to even dignify it with a response…it was just completely ridiculous. However, since then I’ve heard of people who have seen it and actually believe the lies, so here I am. For those of you unfamiliar with the film, basically it is a hodgepodge of conspiracy theories in regards to the government’s involvement with 9/11. Essentially it makes the case (albeit a weak one) that the US government was behind everything.

Now I could go point by point and debunk the whole thing, since practically nothing in it is based on fact, but there are plenty of other sites that do that (links at the bottom) So, I’m going to just point out the major logical flaws.

1. If it was true, the film makers would be dead. - If the US government would actually plan such a horrific event, spend billions upon billions of dollars, and kill thousands of innocent Americans don’t you think they would actually want to keep it covered up? Have you never seen the movie “Pelican Brief” or “Conspiracy Theory”? If “Loose Change” was true, I think they would probably have killed the film makers long ago (they first started on the story in 2002).

2. Nothing like 9/11 has ever happened before. The movie spends a majority of the time trying to explain the reasoning behind why the towers collapsed that day but the closest thing they could find to compare was back in 1945 when a B-25 (they lied and said it was a B-52) hit the Empire State Building. FYI- A B-25 weighs 1/10th that of a 737, goes half the speed (max), and carries 1/35th the fuel. So how does that compare exactly? There is nothing, NOTHING that compared with the impact on that day…and besides, unless you’re a structural engineer, stop pretending like you know more than the experts.

3. What did we gain? Just looking around on the internet a bit and you can read that 9/11 cost around $500 billion…that doesn’t count the war that has followed. Overall, probably closer to $1 trillion. Oh, but we did it for the oil right? Not even close…if Iraq cranks it out they might be able to export $5 billion a year, in addition to their pre-existing commitments and after they pay off the debts to other countries. So, in about 200 years we’ll break even! Even in the brightest, most optimistic outlook there is no way that the financial cost was worth it.

So those are 3 major logical points to debunk the whole thing, in addition to all of the others which are outlined in the links below.

Don’t believe everything you see.

Internet Detectives
9/11 Myths
Screw Loose Change
Wikipedia - Loose Change
Debunking 9/11

created memories.

Published
by
Dave
on February 5, 2006
in Life and soapbox
. 1 Comment

A few months ago I went to this “party” that was pretty unique, but not in such a good way. Basically the party consisted of a bunch of people with little in common getting together, eating, drinking (non-alcoholic), and taking pictures. I was sitting on the couch just watching as dozens of flashes went off in succession when the bizarreness of it all just hit me. All around me people were creating memories, not capturing them. Instead of doing something fun then taking a quick snapshot of that event, taking pictures itself had became the event. As an analogy, like movie stars walking the red carpet, but not going in to the premiere/awards show…just there for the photos.

Since then, I’ve been observing this growing trend throughout American society. A few weeks ago we went to the Georgia Aquarium and I saw the same thing over and over…people coming up to the exhibits, taking photos, then walking away. I was flabbergasted…they weren’t even looking at what was right in front of them, other than to fit it into their frame and hide it away for later viewing - too busy to stop and smell the roses…they’d rather make a print at Wal-Mart.

I am a photo-enthusiast and have been a huge advocate of the “digital revolution”, but this is just too far. I thought removing the cost restrictions and the processing time of film would be a great step forward for the photography world, but I overlooked the zealousness of people to appear as if their life/vacation was more interesting/exciting than it actually is.

digital photography is not only killing film, it’s also killing the art of photography.

Does this mean I’m retreating to my film roots- no, but it does mean that I’m going to look a little harder before clicking the shutter and hopefully I’ll appreciate my photos as capturing the person/place/thing/time and not creating it.