So I've heard that they have television shows out there where homosexuals offer fashion advice to straight cats. Does anyone else see the problem with this? Isn't fashion a matter of taste? And don't you want people with good taste as your fashion consultants?

Hell-O! They're gay, people! If that doesn't throw our trust in their sense of taste into vainglorious tailspins, I don't know what can. Really, a man falling in love with a man is right up there on the taste-scale with wearing plaid on plaid. Talk about tres gauche. Am I the only one who sees it? I feel like the whole world is taking crazy pills.

Okay so sure, a sizeable* chunk of America is gay. A sizeable chunk thinks Thomas Kinkaid is good art too. Acceptance doesn't equal taste. So then, in summary, plaid on plaid is equivalent to Thomas Kincaid is equivalent to capris pants is equivalent to thinking Friday is the best film of all time is equivalent to sodomizers. The end.

* [[ if by sizeable, I'm allowed to mean a fraction of a percent ]]

Valerie has requested my beliefs on an issue foundational to the below discussion of whether daughters are to sit under their father's authority until the father gives the daughter to the man who will be her husband. She asks:

What do you see as the Bible's bottom-line instruction on the nature of masculinity and femininity? I think we need to see where the divide is on that root issue, and then work forward or backward from there.

And honestly, I haven't really thought about it too greatly. Masculinity and femininity always struck me as similar to beauty - I can't really nail it down for you, but i sure know it when I see it.

So while I think about it and try to come up with an answer, I want your input on three items:
1) Does Scripture lay down a definition of masculinity and femininity?
2) How strictly defined is it?
and lastly,
3) What so you see as the biblical definition of masculinity and femininity?

Now I'm sure plenty of you have devoured books by Elizabeth Elliot and Tony Campollo in the past, so please, let 'er rip.

By the way, I just wanted to take this moment to wish everybody a happy Imago Day (which I think every 25th of February should be called from now onward in memory of The Patchin', "one of the most powerful evangelistic tools of the last 100 years").

More stealth coolness from The Limited that I adapted this afternoon from yet another covert in-mall photo:

This one is for the Limited's Cuff and Collar T. I'm excited, i bet they have anew one up today! We'll see.

Vidblog #21: The Fear of the Ladies

A couple weeks back, Sarah over at Creative Lingerie was writing about an issue of division in the family concern. Her sister was getting married and wanted dancing at the wedding but her parents (being Christians closer to fundementalist than not) were horrified at the prospect. And so, Sarah pased the question: to dance or not to dance? Out of the discussion that followed came a remark that caught my attention not because of it's novelty or profundity but because of its ubiquity and the fact that I have yet to have dealt with in in the last three and a half years of this here blog.

It was said that Sarah's sister, 'til she does actually marry, is still under her fathers authority, and as such should seek to honor him by acquiescing to his wishes regarding abstinence of dancing.

This shouldn't be any sort of surprise. Being a Presbyterian and treading water in more or less Reformed circles (especially in those with a bent towards Muscovism), I hear this understanding of family broached often. Strange that I should never have brought up my difficulty before now. But anyway...

To summarize the position, women are to be under the covering and authority of a man. While a girl is single, she is to sit under the authority of her father. This economy persists until she says her wedding vows and authority and responsibility is officially transferred to her husband.

Now this ideology plays strongly into many courtship books and theories of mate-finding, but for once my focus will not be on what I think is a regrettable development in Christian matchmaking. No, my focus is on the issue of authority. Clearly, the believers who hold to such an understanding wish to represent the position not as arbitrary whimsy, but instead, as the proper way to understand the family based upon biblical principle.

So what I want is for someone to show me (and my eager audience) acceptable evidence that this is the case - that God truly intends the father to rule over his daughter until she marries. I've heard many people speak of this as if it were biblical and I want proof! Or at least evidence. I'm tired of Christians taking a presupposed ideology and forcing it as an interpretive framework upon Scripture.

Here are a list of evidences that neither I nor you will accept:

• "Children obey your parents" - my main concern is what to do with our grown daughters; this passage is referring to children (as in youngins or yutes).
  
• "Honour your father and mother" - honouring one's parents and obey them are not the same thing. One can honour without obeying. I honour my parents by cherishing their advice, thoughts, and consel. I honour them by patiently and conscientiously considering what they have to say. I honour them though I may in the end decide to follow a path other than that which they would prescribe.
  
• Isaac and Jacob - how these can be taken as anything but narrative is beyond me. Isaac's father did not play any active role in the marriage choice - he left it up to a servant who decided on a wife a nothing so extravagant as laying out the queen mother of all fleeces. Jacob schemed and plotted even as Laban plotted and Jacob and Rachel did everything but honour her uncle (?). These should not in any way be taken as normative to the Christian experience.
  
• Adam and Eve - again, far from normative. I mean, if you want to pull your daughter out of the potential suitor's side, be my guest.

These are old, has-been evidences. I want real stuff. I want something solid. The burden of proof lies squarely upon the shoulders of those who claim this unheralded authority for the father and I want proof darnnit.

Barely Complete Thought #174:
*sigh* Like every group of victocrats before them, the Home School Legal Defense Association begins the whining at the slightest perceived threat. Never big on well-reasoned decisions, these groups thrive on woe-is-me mentality and use childish complaints to garner public support. The big stink this time? Law & Order: SVU (never seen the show) aired an episode called "There's No Place Like Home" in which a "paranoid and abusive mother who home schools her two sons." HSLDA maintains that the episode "is blatantly unfair to negatively portray a minority and tar every homeschooler with the same brush." What is it with these groups? Sounds like somethin Al Sharpton might say (only not quite as crazy). As if one specific use of a character (crazed, by the way) of a certain lifestyle could ever defame all who embrace that lifestyle. Especially when the character portrayed is insane - and therefore obviously a poor indication of the normal homeschooling mom.

Along these lines, I'm totally surprised that the South doesn't initiate the Great Confederacy of Southern Slander Defense - since really, is there any group that is more stereotyped that the South? I think not - the undereducated so-and-sos.

Vidblog #20: Cosmic Interrupt

I am never doing one like this again. My wrist is still swollen.

Here's another sweet ad design from The Limited that I adapted this afternoon from a stealthy in-mall photo taken Saturnday morning. Even though it doesn't exhibit the sheer appeal of the last one I posted, i still think it's pretty sharp. In case it needs to be pointed out, The Limited really does have some pretty hip outfits so all you Gap and Wet Sealers who are looking to graduate, now's the time:

There are some other great design i've seen floating around the store so I think i'm actually going to approach the manager and ask permission to take some snaps.

Silly Thing that Bothers Me Slightly #38:
I wince whenever English-speaking people call Japanese animation anime or call Japanese comics manga. I mean really, can't we just call them comics and animation like we do with the same things from every other nation on earth? We don't call French books or animation anything special and their style is at distinct as the typical Japanese style. And actually, the "Japanese" style has for at least a decade been bleeding its influence into American comic art even as European styles have, further pointing to the fact that there is no "anime/manga"... there's just comics and animation. This is why even in conversations with people who are talking manga/anime, I'll still refer to the stuff simply as "Japanese animation" or as "Japanese comics" - and I think you should do the same. ¡Viva la revolution! (please place the accents appropriately)

During the staff meetings when I'm doodling my way across the landscape of to-do lists and event-calendars, Brandon will often sit in quiet emulation, duplicating with humourous exactitude my own doodles. And sometimes I'll return the favour. Here are two of my doodles that he faithfully reproduced in painstaking cheer.

"What's the big deal? It's legal now. My sister's married to a gay guy and everyone knows it."

Vidblog #19: Steamrolling to the Oscars

I am what Bob Harris should have been.

Oh, and for good measure, this is the very, very best advertisement I've ever seen used at The Limited. I walk through the mall a couple times a week to get my bourbon-chicken, rice bowl and pass all the regular-type stores. Express. American Eagle. Hot Topic. Charlotte Rousse. Anne Taylor. And The Limited. They usually all have seven-foot tall adds hanging in their windows displaying the typical, uninspired usual, a photo of some cute, hot, sexy, handsome, etc. models posing in that week's gear-fo-choice. This time was different though. This time was inspired. Below is the image that caught my attention. It was sleek, tuned, and immediately more sexy and stylish than any other of those silly model shots (I adore its minimalism! that you can see the body in your mind['s eye without it actually even being shown!). It was an ad for their Double V sale and I've reproduced the art here:

Interestingly, mall security saw me taking the picture upon which I based the above rendering and told me that photos inside the mall were forbidden - that my photos were infringing on trademarks. Am i the only one who thinks that sounds absolutely ridiculous? If anything, my mention of The Limited will garner them business - all publicity is good publicity, right?

While waiting for me to finish my research into electronic ethics in the work place, i thought i'd show you something fun and ridiculous. This, taken from the side of a bus, is a shimmering, glistening example of why i have so little respect for most public service campaigns.

The message is obvious: we should be horrified that so many women will go to the trouble to protectt their lips but not their lives. It wants us to see that we fear the minor risk but not the major one.

There is, however, an evident difficulty.

100% of women are in constant danger of getting chapped lips if they do not protect themselves. Far, far less women are in danger of contracting the Hiv. In fact, if number of women for whom contracting the Hiv is even a danger is greater than 10% (which, i'd imagine, is debateable), it's still not going to be much greater than 10%. This means the statistic shows not a horrifying reality illustrating our skewed sense of priorities, but instead, an understandable and emotionless fact: of women, 92% fear chapped lips to so great a degree that they would take precautionary steps to prevent it, and of these same women, only 10% live in great enough fear that some sexual encounter they may have at some time soon with some potentially dangerous partner could give them the Hiv that they would keep a precautionary item on their person.

Really, if anything, I think 10% shows an unfounded paranoia in women. First, how many women really live the kinda lifestyle where they would need to carry a condom with themselves at all hours? A whole lot of women are married. They don't need the protection. Quite a few are single but conservative enough that they're very unlikely to engaged a stranger. Many women are not sexually active and don't plan on activating any time in the forseeable future (condoms should not be stored in a purse for more than a few hours). Many unmarried women are still in monogamous relationships and have decided to trust their partners. Some women are gay. Aaaaaaand, I hate to say it, but studies still demonstrate that most of the people contracting the Hiv are homosexual males and IV drug users. Sure, promiscuous women are in greater danger that guys, but still... I think that leaves a very small percentage who actually need to worry about regularly carrying protection from the Hiv.

So... this just seems like more of the usual scare tactic moralizing that we Americans have grown so very accustomed to. Bah humbug, I say.

Alright, so primer for a post later today - to get you in the thinking mood - just because something's legal does not mean that something is ethical or right.

I'll use an example from one of my Top 100 films, Snow Falling on Cedars. In the film/novel, there is a Japanese-American family and a German-American family. The father's of both families are friends and the Japanese man works the farm of the German man. After a time, the Japanese man presents the German man with an offer - he'd like to purchase seventeen of the farm's outlying acres and begin a farm that he will be able to pass on to his son when he comes of age. After lengthy negotiation, the two strike a bargain. The Japanese man will pay $100 a month for the next ten years and at the end of the ten years, the seventeen acres of land will belong to him. The Japanese man pays faithfully and on time for every payment. Until... with two payments left, the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor.

The Japanese man is promptly interred at Manzanar and is then unable to make the payment. Days before his interment, anticipating his problems, he offers the rest of his savings to the German man - that the purchase might be complete. The German man, being understanding and considering the Japanese man a friend after so many years, declines the offer, saying that the Japanese man would need the money for his family during this time of trial and that he could simply pay the balance after the mess was over. Unfortunately, both men die during the war. Unfortunately again, the German man's wife is a bigotted little tart.

The Japanese man's son, Kazuo, comes back from the war (he was serving in Europe) and finds that the German man's wife has sold the land at a great profit, thereby negating Kazuo's family last ten year's of work and the bargain the two fathers had struck. Kazuo speaks to the German man's wife, demanding to know why she would do such a thing, how she could do such a thing. The woman becomes indignant and in a soft snarl, states that every she did was perfectly legal. Kazuo is hurt and stern: "Just because something's legal doesn't make it right!"

Keep this in mind for later, when we discuss electronic communication and the ethics of privacy in the workplace.

Name That Company!!
As a large section of my potential audience of clients get frozen out by the current name of my personal and entreprenurial design brach (yes, many Christians do fail to see the humour and irony of Graven Images Design Group), I have decided to rename the business - in the spirit of Adam Smith (who the guy in A Beautiful Mind didn't understand). Now, coming up with a name for a graphic and web design company is tough work on a good day of the week. We'll just say mine hasn't exactly been peachy and spare you the horror. Any, I am calling on you, dear reader, to aid me in my hour of decision. Below are eleven potential choices for my company's new face: what think you?

Seen at the bus stop last night: Graphitti!

Vidblog #18: Black History Month: II

This vidblog marks an interesting turning point. I'm exploring new ways to deliver content and will be using a Flash interface in the future which will allow vidblogs to be delivered in this window rather than in a pop-up like Windows Media Player or Quicktime. It will also allow preloaders to chart download progress etc. I have other additions to make in the future, but I can't think of everything, so let me know what you want to see. Also let me know if you have any difficulties running the new format (I tried to work all the bugs out last night, but I am, after all, only me.).