So, here's the deal..... I'm the one who made the anonymous comment on Seth's blog which spurred a response from him that expressed his displeasure at anyone posting anonymously. Sorry, I forgot to put my name there. I just want it to be known that I have nothing against Seth. With what little time I spent around him I found him quite intelligent and funny. All my friends that knew him liked him, so I guess I like him too. So I hope, Seth, that you didn't take taht personal.

But here's the story of my comment. Seth's particular blog entry had to do with Newlyweds: The Nick and Jessica Story, which follows Nick Lachey (sp?) and Jessica Simpson around during their first year of marriage. Seth, lamenting the mind numbing triviality of the things with which Nick and Jessica talk about, made the following comment: "people are in poverty and this is on television." to which I replied "people are in poverty and you are watching this on television." I thought I made quite a clever comment, the likes of which I rarely have the brains to think of. I don't think he appreciated my comment.

My frustration: I've watched the Nick and Jessica show about one and a half times. It's stupid. Intellectually, it's about 3/4 of a notch above the Anna Nicole Show. Jessica is a spoiled brat on the show (which confirms what my friends who know her say about her.) Nick is an arrogant bastard- American male type. The show has no social relevance or conscience whatsover. And you know what? I love it! It's great entertainment. And here's why I can appreciate it. It's not on CSPAN. It's not BBC. It's not PBS. It's not A&E. It's fucking MTV for crying out loud! The network that brought us Vanilla Ice, Pauly Shore, and Downtown Julie Brown. (I'm from the Old School MTV-- anyone else remember "Remote Controlled?") If MTV had ever made a claim of having any sort of humanitarian value, then a statement about the existence of "Newlyweds" while people are living in poverty would be a valid complaint. But it hasn't, and it isn't.

So again, please don't take my comment personally. I'm always afraid when I speak up about something someone said that that particular person will think I don't like them, and therefore not like me. I'm drastically messed up emotionally like that.

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While I'm at it, let me get another rant out of the way. Within the past couple of days, I've made a comment about a particular thing that people do that gets on my nerves. At one point, I made it in a very rude and inappropriate way-- because of which I will need to seek someone out and apologize for how I said those things.

Here's what it is, and it's frustrated me for quite some time now.

This person, speaking about religious zealots at Baylor, prefaced one of his comments with the words "especially at Baylor." I made it clear that saying was one of my pet peeves. It came across as just another of my hangups about Baylor and being a part of a "Baylor Church." But it wasn't intended that way at all.

I was having this conversation not to long ago when I realized something: I don't know if this is a Texas thing or what. But, as a generalization, Texans love to exaggerate to good things. We love to talk about how everything is bigger and better here. But I think the inverse is true as well. (This may be more of a youthful ignorance rather than a Texan arrogance.) We also have a tendency to exaggerate the bad things as well.

Therefore, the religious freaks at Baylor aren't just religious freaks, their the worst of all religious freaks. Here in Waco someone says "The students at Bayor are especially arrogant and persistent about pressuring other people into spiriitual beliefs," and I think "Especially at Baylor? What about Brigham Young? What about Wheaton? What about Texas A&M (have you ever met an A&M evangelical Christian? weird.) " When I was at ETBU, people would say "Man, ETBU especially is such a spiritual bubble," and I'm thinking "Really? Especially ETBU? What about Bob Jones? What about Hardin Simmons?" I go home to East Texas and people say "You know, this is the most closed minded place in the world," and I think "Really? What about Saudi Arabia? What about France? What about New York? You ever met anyone from Manhattan or France who was open to new ideas?"

I don't know why we have a need to accentuate the negative and create such a caricature of ourselves. I think that maybe, when we get a little bit of education (or book learnin' as my dad likes to call it,) we feel like we have risen above those around us. Or at least we need to create the appearance that we've risen above it. So, if we fear being in an environment that is marked with religious fanaticism will mark us as a religious fanatic, then we will create a caricature of everyone around us as a RAGING fanatic- in order to create a distance between us and them. We grow up in a small town, and we don't want to be labled closed minded-- just preemptively label everyone else in the town as being the ultimate in closed mindedness, and you have nothing else to worry about.

And in a weird way, this fucked up mentality is probably the thing that is most fucked up with me personally. When I get upset at Baylor students for trying to paint a caricature of the Baylor culture, maybe what I'm subconciously saying is "Hold on there buddy. That's my territory your walking into. I'm the only one with a legitimate right to make fun of Baylor. I'm the one that went somewhere else for undergrad. I'm the one that was treated like crap when I worked there. I'm the one that was on the losing end of a financial aid game at Truett that rewarded every type of student except for me. I'm the martyr here! You can't be the martyr! I'm the martyr!" And so my wanting to create distance is really a way of wanting to create attention.

Which is yet another truly messed up reality of being human. And yet another reason why grace is ESPECIALLY necessary for me right now. :)