The Blog That Will Not Be

Hey, folks.  This is my final blog for Ministry & Culture class, and on Friday I found nothing to talk about.  I have spent the last two and a half hours looking through Yahoo!, MSN.com, CNN.com, and Facebook for a story of interest that I can end this off with.

I found bupkiss then!!

But today is Sunday, and I did find something to write about: Ghosts.  More specifically, there is an app for your phone that enables you to detect if there are ghosts in the area.  Since it is closer to Halloween than not close to Halloween, I'm going to write about this and tell a story.

Swayze.

 

 The app is called Ghost Hunter M2, and is available in the Apple App Store (I don't know if it's available for other phones, but I imagine it is).  With the app, you can see if there's any paranormal activity happening around you.  Since we who are alive are outnumbered by those who are dead, we must be swimming in dead folks.  It's a good bet that you're sitting on a dead guy's lap right now.  Depending upon your location, lights can pop on in the app to tell you of activity, and what those dead people want to say.  Spooooooky!!!!

I do not believe in ghosts, per se, but spirits.  As Christians, we are taught that we are at battle with spiritual forces of evil (Eph.6:12), and that spirits are real.  The spirits we are at battle with are those from satan, and not good ones.  That means that Casper the friendly Ghost is probably not real, much to Christina Ricci's heartbreak. 

Another instance in the Bible is when Saul visits the witch of Endor in 1 Samuel 28 to communicate with the now-dead Samuel.

This probably is the wrong witch of Endor...

 In that case, the ghost of Samuel slammed Saul for calling him up from the dead, and shortly after Saul was killed in battle, leaving David to take the throne of Israel.

When I was a kid, I lived in a two-story house.  One night, I walked upstairs to go to bed, and turned off the hall light and saw a ghost.  It looked like a flashlight being shined on the wall next to my room.  I had turned the light off and was walking towards my room from the head of the stairs, and was about seven feet from it before I noticed it.  I ran back to the head of the stairs and flipped the light on as fast as I could.  The way my house's second-story was set up was the stairs had a chandelier at the landing, and I did not look up at it as I went up the stairs.  I would have had to crane my neck in a very unnatural angle to do so.  So I was standing there, and trying to logically figure out what I saw.  I thought perhaps it was a reflection from outside, but the light was next to the window, and there were no reflective items on the opposite wall.  I had no answers, and ran to my room and flipped the other light switch near my door as I quickly shut the door.

This happened several more times, I would see this even with the light on.  I would also be at my desk in my room, and see someone out of the corner of my eye where my bed was, or standing in locations where items were occupying the same area.  It really freaked me out.  This went on for a year or so, and I told no one.

One day, I was sitting and talking with my mom, and somehow the topic of ghosts came up.  My mom then told me she had something to tell me, but I would think she was crazy.  She told me about how she would be in the kitchen, and she would see someone in the room out of the corner of her eye and scare her.  Or one time she turned the lights off late one night, and saw a weird beam of light on the wall, and thought it was me shining my flashlight. 

It wasn't.

This freaked me out A LOT, because it's one thing to think you see ghosts and weird unexplainable events, but to have another person say they experienced the same thing without you ever mentioning it is a whole other thing!!

With that, what did my mom and I do?  As Bible-believing Christians, who were taught we had dominance over evil spirits, we went upstairs and cast the spirit out in the name of Jesus Christ!!  After that point, we did not see the presence, the light spot did not flicker on the wall, nothing whatsoever in the house.  We claimed dominion over our house in the name of the Lord, and showed them who's boss.

 These guys want to be your friend.

So whether you believe in ghosts, spirits, whatnot, I hope you enjoyed reading my story.  That about sums up my blog.  If you read, thank you for doing so.  Have a good one.


Tim:)

The original story can be found here.  It's funnier than my blog post.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/home-and-garden/can-this-ghost-hunting-app-tell-me-if-my-apartment-is-haunted/ar-AAfw6lB

What a Beautiful Bird. Whelp, Time to Kill It!

For my blog today, I’m going to write about a bird, one that can possibly be rare.  Or it may not be, no one knows, really.

Chris Filardi, who is the director of Pacific Programs at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, was in the high forests of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, he heard the “ko-ko-ko-ko-kiew” call of a bird that got him tremendously excited.  After days of tracking the bird, he and his colleagues captured a male mustached kingfisher in a net.

Filardi had been searching for the beautiful orange, white, and blue bird for more than 20 years before catching it.  He told Slate writer Rachel Gross that “it was like finding a unicorn.”  It was very exciting.

This is the mustached kingfisher he captured.

They snapped some pictures of the male, the first of the species documented.  A female was described back in the 1920s, but not a male; this was truly a momentous occasion.  After the team took pictures to document the bird, they decided to do what almost anyone would do in their situation…

They killed it.

Filardi’s team felt it was important for the scientific community if they were to euthanize the mustached kingfisher as a “scientific specimen” to study the species.  There is a severe lack of information on mustached kingfishers in general, also whether they are endangered or simply elusive and rare.  The act has split the scientific community and the public on if killing wildlife in the name of conservation is the right thing to do.

“Killing ‘in the name of conservation’ or ‘in the name of education’ or ‘in the name of whatever’ needs to stop” University of Colorado ecology professor Marc Bekoff wrote in an op-ed in the Huffington Post.  “It is wrong and sets a horrific precedent for future research and for children” he goes on.

Filardi argues that the Guadalcanal variety is a different species than the endangered Bougainville mustached kingfisher of Papua New Guinea, and we simply do not know how many of the species there is, so they need to be studied.  And the only way they can be studied, is by taking samples and dissecting them.  In the story, Filardi says with the collected samples, researchers now have a more comprehensive set of molecular, morphological, and toxicological data and plumage data that can’t be garnered from blood samples, individual feathers, or photographs.

Part of me understands why Filardi euthanized the bird, but part of me finds it difficult to fathom.  Filardi had spent the last 20 years of his career searching for this bird, so of course he would want to be able to provide a sample to study for the knowledge of the species.  Yet, the bird was killed simply to study, and that is one less bird to enable the species to continue.  The species COULD or COULD NOT be endangered, so hopefully the gamble is worth the knowledge. 

To tie this into a Biblical aspect, I did not want to quote the Ten Commandments, which seemed wrong.  So I honestly Googled “Bible verses about harming animals,” and found two I would like to mention.  The first is Proverbs 12:10 “Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel” (ESV).  The second is Psalm 145:9 “The Lord is good to all, and His mercy is over all that He has made” (ESV again).  I am genuinely torn between if Filardi made the right decision, or if he killed a beautiful animal in the name of science.  Science often times requires deaths for progress, and it has been animals that have paid with their lives.  Lab rats have undergone testing for medicines to help mankind, chimps have been sent to outer space so humans could go after them.  It’s an interesting conundrum that I have.  It doesn’t help when the bird looks like he’s grinning at the camera.  Damn anthropomorphic animals!!

Tim:)

The original story can be found here

http://news.yahoo.com/scientist-takes-first-ever-photo-rare-bird-then-201207749.html

We r over;)

The original story I talk about can be found here

http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/01/technology/teen-breakup-text/index.html?iid=ob_homepage_tech_pool&iid=obnetwork

For my blog this week, I’m talking about break-ups over text messages and social media.  In the CNN story, it is reported by the Pew Research Center that a percentage of teens end relationships through text message and or other forms of social media.  While online dating apps like Tinder helps people meet, it’s Facebook where you go to unmeet those people (I don’t think that word exists, but it isn’t showing as misspelled so maybe it does…).  With most teens having smart phones, finding and losing love is as easy as a swipe, text or relationship status change.

In the story, a middle school boy who participated in the study said that he felt texting is better to end relationships because you are not face-to-face with the person.  He said that because of an incident involving a girl throwing a book at him he feels it’s probably better to do in texts.  The story goes on to say that the majority of teens still feel that ending relationships in person is the better way to go.   18% of the teens with dating experience surveyed said they’ve experienced or initiated a break up message by sending a private message on social media, changing their relationship status on Facebook or posting a status update.  Some of the teens justify the action by saying that you’re less likely to “feel bad.”  The story does not specify WHO it is that feels less bad, though.

With Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other sites covered in status messages, photos, status updates it creates a false perspective of reality, so it is not unreasonable to think that relationships can begin and end there.  Even if there is not a relationship, it can still go badly.  35% of girls have had to block or un-friend someone after they experienced uncomfortable flirting on social media.  The percentage is double that of boys, with 16%.  In a digital world, it is easy to find love and end it.

The trend in ending relationships via social media or text message does not stop with teenagers.  I have also been broken up with via text message.  I was 30 and she 31 when it happened.  It was kind of shocking, after a year dating for her to end the relationship with the 21^st century version of a “Dear John” letter.  I could not imagine what it’s like for teens who deal with it.  

In my opinion, breaking up with someone via social media or text removes the social development aspect people need to develop.  Having to look the person in the eye and end your relationship with them, it is one of the things that matures us and teaches us inter-personal skills.  I have tried thinking of a Bible verse to correlate with this, but I cannot.  I even did a Google search for ideas, and came up with nothing that applies to this.  Do you have any ideas?

Blue for Boys, and Pink for Girls

The story I reference in this blog post can be found here

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/24/living/gender-neutral-toys-marketing-feat/index.html

For my first blog, I chose to write on gender-neutral marketing for toys.  Recently, Target Stores removed the signs in their aisles designating what were “boys” and what were “girls” toys, books, electronics, and bedding.  The move has made polarizing opinions from groups and parents; from praising the company for breaking down stereotypes, to criticisms about how “boys should be boys, and girls should be girls.”  In the CNN article, Emanuella Grinberg reports on the science of the gender-neutral marketing of toys and items, and whether doing so has an impact upon a child’s choice to play with it designates their developmental state of what makes a boy into a man and a girl into a woman.

One of the arguments about children playing with toys based upon their gender is that simply boys and girls are far too different.  In the article, Grinberg cites various studies that assessed the impact of gender on traits that define our personalities.  The obvious fact is that men and women are biologically different, but psychological traits and abilities, evidence has suggested that women and men, along with girls and boys, are not very different and are very alike.  The results over the decades have shown that “78% of the magnitude of gender differences were in the small to close-to-zero range” in relation to those traits that impact and separate gender.  

Studies were also conducted where designated “boy toys,” i.e. monster trucks painted pink and purple, along with “girl toys” like fairy wands in pink or blue.  The study showed that regardless of color, most children were uninterested in playing with supposed “opposite” gender toys.  Children are exposed to gender labels from an early age- from parents and grandparents, siblings, peers, and until most recently, the toy aisle themselves.  Developmental psychologist Erica Weisgram of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point suggests that “children should be free to follow their interests, without gender labels and stereotypes swaying them”.  

As a child, I loved toys, action figures, LEGOs, swords, guns, everything.  G.I. Joe was my absolute favorite, remains as such.  The fight between the Joes and Cobra, a “ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world” as the cartoon intro described them as.  As a child, I dressed as more G.I. Joe characters for Halloween than any other type of characters over the years.  I also loved Marvel and DC Comics figures and He-Man.  Then for a short time, I also was really into Barbie dolls.

When I was five years old, we moved into a house in Pacoima, California, and our next door neighbors were named Mike and Bill, introducing me to the homosexual lifestyle (which a discussion is and will not be included in this blog).  Mike and Bill were great people, and each had their varying hobbies.  Bill built model airplanes and cars, which my older brother was very much into as a hobby, also.  Mike, on the other hand, collected Hot Wheels and Barbie dolls.  I took an interest in the Barbie dolls because I liked toys, and decided I wanted some of my own and asked my parents for some.  So my parents took me to Target (which fits well into my story, coincidentally) and bought me a Barbie doll.  I remember she had a gold bikini in a fabric I found interesting.  I then got a Ken doll.  Mike started giving me Barbie dolls and accessories as gifts at holidays and my birthday, or old ones he decided he didn’t want to keep any more.  This lasted a while, and I had a bunch of Barbies and Ken.  My parents never called me a sissy, or scolded me for wanting to play with dolls; they were toys and they allowed me to explore.  One day, I decided that Barbie simply didn’t have enough guns and swords, so I stopped playing with them.  I don’t remember where they went, but I imagine they were taken to the Salvation Army or given away at church.  I then asked my parents to tell Mike to stop giving me Barbie stuff because I was bored of it.  All through it, I didn’t feel like a little “homo” or something was wrong with me; I simply was playing with toys.

I need to include a Biblical reference with this blog post, so I will.  The verse that comes to mind is Genesis 1:27, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”  God did create men and women to be different, but they are not too different as to be isolated from one another.  Through my time of playing with Barbies, I still played with those G.I. Joes, Marvel and DC heroes, and He-Man figures.  I didn’t see a differentiation of the two as “boy” and “girl” as in negatives.  I did know that Barbies were “girls” toys, but I didn’t care; I could dress them and brush their hair and pose them and have them do cooler things than have them go to the salon, or drive in Barbie’s Corvette, or hang out in her Dream House.  I did incorporate those things, which did help develop what I believe to be a “softer” side to my personality, but they still did karate, kicking and chopping.  Barbie’s hands looked like the perfect karate chopping hands, so I remember I would have her break bread sticks like trees.  I was a kick ass kid.

I was a kid that didn’t care about gender labeling, supported by parents who allowed me to explore my world in a non-threatening manner.  Because of that, I developed into a man that does enjoy explosions, heads exploding, good versus evil, but also taking care of a family, cooking and other things.  So with that all said, I am in support of Target removing the gender-specific signs from areas.  I do not believe that it will create “gay kids” or “confused” children, but boys able to process their emotions better, and girls who use creative toys to create and overall better adults.