Jun 15 2012

7 Quick Takes Friday: Vol. 176

Category: 7 Quick Takes Friday,Catholicism,Memes — Lindsay @ 4:32 pm

— 1 —

I just discovered that Twitter has a bot called Pentametron. It searches tweets based on syllabication for the ones that are written in iambic pentameter! Then it organizes them by rhyming into a sonnet at Pentametron.com! It doesn’t delete hashtags, and it doesn’t screen for profanity, but it can read numbers and Twitter handles as words. This is one of those times when technology and art hold hands and it is glorious.

— 2 —

A Goodreads friend shelved a book as “not sure” that I am not certain I believe exists. It’s called Canceled: The Story of America’s Least Wanted, and it’s roughly about a reality show on abortion. America votes, the woman kills her child. I loved the satire of Bumped, but Canceled sounds like it might go one step too far. I’m intrigued, but I’m scared.

— 3 —

Forget trashing the dress. Make it into a baptismal gown for your children! I have never heard of anyone doing this before, but I wound up at Fairy Godmother Creations in the midst of some other research, and I am hooked. I cannot think of a better use for a wedding gown. Unless the style mom chose was particularly timeless, some women won’t want to wear their mother’s actual dress. You can deconstruct mom’s dress and use pieces for daughter’s wedding dress, sure. But what better way could you have to use the dress you wore on the day you joined with your husband in lifelong love than to put that same dress on the fruit of your love: your baby, being brought into the Church?

— 4 —

I found another fantastic Potter gift on Etsy! This one is a keychain that says “Accio keys.” Love it!

— 5 —

Happy Meatday! Today is the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, so I’m pretty sure you have a moral obligation to eat bacon today.

— 6 —

Related to the above, I came across a Pinterest board called Meatless Fridays. It’s entirely photo memes like the above, and not meatless meal recipes, but that doesn’t matter today! My bacon cheeseburger-eating self says, “Hooray!”

— 7 —

Through Monday night, you can get $2 in free MP3s at Amazon’s MP3 store with the code MP3S4ALL. I used $.99 of mine on the “Prayer of St. Francis” by Sarah McLachlan. I wanted Maroon 5′s cover of “Pure Imagination,” but they only sell that as partr of an album. What should I buy with my other $1.01?

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

You might also enjoy these posts:

Tags: , , , , ,

May 24 2012

Life Can Be Beautiful (Review: “October Baby”)

Category: Entertainment,Life — Lindsay @ 5:20 pm

Last month, I went to see October Baby when its distribution expanded to Austin. Although I am a Christian, I do not feel automatically compelled to like Christian films. Holy people still sin; Christian films can still be terrible. I’ve never actually seen any of Sherwood Pictures’s movies (Facing the Giants, Fireproof, or Courageous), but I haven’t intentionally avoided them. I hear the acting is bad. An over-reliance on volunteers has plagued many a church endeavor.

I will admit, though, that I saw October Baby in a theater (on a Friday!) partly so that films of its nature will continue being made. It’s not that I want more material for critics to pan: I want the industry to improve. It’s hard to start making better Christian movies if you stop making them altogether. Think about how popular superhero films are right now, or how many dozens of paranormal teen romance novels you can find. When one works, more get made.

A few years ago, I went with the youth group I helped chaperone to see To Save a Life. I’m admittedly a sucker for stories about teenagers with problems, but I thought it was a good movie overall. The acting seemed okay, although it wasn’t phenomenal. The story did not end perfectly, and it was compelling and realistic without being too preachy (though not without being preachy at all, of course). I enjoyed it so much that I bought it on DVD. I knew it would be worth re-watching and contemplating. (It deserves its own review one of these days. Stay posted.)

photo by Martina Thompson, licensed CC BY-NC-SA

I’m not sure that I can say quite the same about October Baby, but I definitely enjoyed it. The movie tells the story of college freshman Rachel, who collapses on stage at her first major theatrical performance. Her suddenly worsened illness is linked to her lifelong health problems, which began with her difficult birth. Eventually, Rachel’s parents reveal that they adopted her after she was born during an attempted abortion. (Many pro-lifers will recognize this as the story of Gianna Jessen.) Torn over this new facet of her identity, Rachel sets out with her best friend Jason to find her roots and figure out who she’s going to become.

Without giving away too much of the story, I found it reasonably realistic. Some of the secondary characters were either too heavy-handed with the comic relief or entirely useless, though, which annoyed me. There’s a line between a background character and a flat secondary character, and it must be respected. Having lived in the areas where the film takes place, I can attest to the general behavior of those locals, as strange as it may seem. Sometimes people really are too nice to believe. Despite those odd characterizations, the acting left me with no complaints. When I learned that Jasmine Guy and John Schneider were featured, I knew this movie would be different. Hiring recognized actors brings so much credibility to a film such as this!

One of my favorite aspects of the movie was that Rachel and Jason demonstrated a beautiful and healthy relationship. He treated her with respect and protected her without being controlling at all, and she accepted his affection without losing herself in him. She was still independent, but he helped lift her up. They had a long history that contributed toward their future, and I believed that they had a genuine and Christlike love for each other. I can’t say that about every movie pair.

October Baby is clearly a message film. Its tagline, “Every life is beautiful,” suggests a kind of hope that many people have lost these days. Whether you find hope in God or in the balancing power of “the universe,” October Baby will help remind you that there is goodness inherent within people. The future may not be dazzling, but it can still be bright.

You might also enjoy these posts:

Tags: , , ,

Oct 18 2011

Deep in the Shallows (Review: “The Giver”)

Category: General — Lindsay @ 7:00 am

photo by London looks

We Americans live in a world where choice reigns supreme. Everything from what exotic fruit to enjoy at any given time of year to when and whether to have children is up to our choosing. Whether we should make those choices is an entirely different question. That requires wisdom, faith, and a well-formed conscience. But what happens when people aren’t willing to learn, to trust, and to reason? What if they choose incorrectly? Would it be better to just take away their ability to choose?

In the futuristic world of Lois Lowry’s barely twenty-year-old classic, The Giver, the government has reached exactly that conclusion.

Read the rest at Austin Catholic New Media. This one’s nicely timed with the Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity, if I do say so myself.

You might also enjoy these posts:

Tags: , ,

Oct 07 2011

Friday Five: Thought Experiments

Category: Friday Five,Memes — Lindsay @ 10:21 pm

The title and the length of the questions alone makes me wonder if I shouldn’t have attempted this F5 a bit earlier in the day.

  1. What is your response to Philippa Foot’s infamous trolley problem? (For those who don’t know, the problem is thus: “A trolley (or train, if you prefer) is running out of control down a track. In its path are five people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. Fortunately, you could flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch or do nothing?”) Why should/why shouldn’t you flip the switch? I shouldn’t do anything. If I flip the switch, then I am directly responsible for the injury or death of the single person. The number of people matters to the law, but not to my soul. I shouldn’t directly be involved in killing someone who isn’t trying to kill either me or someone I have to protect. If I don’t flip the switch, I’m not directly responsible for killing. Besides, I don’t know for sure that they’re going to die. I don’t have out-of-control train ESP.
  2. What if the only way to stop the trolley from killing five people would be to physically push someone into its path? Should you push that person or leave them be? Why/why not? I’d leave him or her alone. This situation is just like the previous one. Pushing a person into the path of danger would take more work on my part, but flipping a switch has the same result. I’m still getting directly involved.
  3. What if the person on the other track is a child? Should you flip the switch or do nothing? What if you had to physically push the child instead of flipping a switch? Why/why not? I’m sticking with my answers and doing nothing. If I’m not directly involved, I can’t be blamed. Any action I take makes me responsible for everything that happens.
  4. A sailor builds a ship and names it Vessel of Theseus. He takes it on a long voyage and along the way, he is forced to repair it with new parts at every port. By the time he reaches home again, not a single piece of the original ship remains attached. Having lost all its original pieces, is it still the same ship? Why or why not? I’ve never heard of this one before. It comes down to what makes a ship a ship: the physical structure or the name. You could say that it’s still the same ship because it has the same name and the object of doing all those repairs was to augment the original ship, not to build a new one. You could also say that it’s not the same ship because the structure is completely different even though it has the same name. This would be different if it were a person, though. As long as the soul (and brain, I guess, since you can’t see or touch a soul) is the same, you can replace all the other body parts and have the same person underneath, whereas having a replacement baby for a dead child and giving it the same name does not make the new person the same as the old one.
  5. What if the original pieces of the Vessel of Theseus were then gathered up and used to build another ship, christened Hobbes’ Way? Which ship (if either) is the original Vessel? Why? In this case, I think only the first ship is the real Vessel of Theseus. The new one has a different name, and it was not assembled to be the Vessel of Theseus, only made using its parts. Hobbes’ Way is a different ship.

Questions 1-3 have awakened my pro-life side. They’ve specifically got me thinking about miscarriage versus abortion. It would seem heartless to have no sympathy for a woman who miscarries, but it’s somehow offensive if I do have sympathy for a woman’s aborted child. Directly intervening in the development of the unborn child is very different from not stopping a miscarriage. The result is the same, but the actions taken are not.

I don’t think this was my favorite F5, but it was definitely the one that made me think the hardest.

The Friday Five

You might also enjoy these posts:

Tags:

Sep 06 2011

Really Knowing Both Sides (Review: “Unplanned”)

Category: Entertainment — Lindsay @ 7:00 am

I pray every time I pass a Planned Parenthood. I have also prayed outside Planned Parenthood clinics that do abortions here in Austin and back home in D.C. I pray for a world where no one will desire abortion. I don’t think making abortion illegal will change hearts, but it might be a start. By far, though, the most important part of the struggle is remembering to do all things in love, as Jesus would. Jesus called people out for their sins, sure, but then he called them to something greater (remember, he told the woman caught in adultery to “sin no more”). Abby Johnson knows exactly what it’s like to love both people who provide abortions and people who pray for an end to them. She worked for Planned Parenthood for eight years, but one day, she knew she had to switch sides. Her book, Unplanned, cowritten with an editor from Christian publisher Zondervan, tells the story of her life up to that day and its heartbreaking aftermath.

photo by Martina Thompson, licensed CC BY-NC-SA

I first heard Abby Johnson’s story last year. I was astonished. It was picture-perfect: someone who knew Planned Parenthood from the inside had literally gone from standing on inside of the fence to praying on the outside. She begins her story with the turning point. She had been director of the Bryan, Texas Planned Parenthood affiliate for some time when she was asked to hold the ultrasound probe during an abortion. As she watched the procedure, she was horrified, and she knew that day that she needed to get out. The Bryan Coalition for Life next door took her in and defended her in the ensuing legal battle. She had joined Planned Parenthood as a college volunteer to help make abortion “safe, legal, and rare” (Planned Parenthood’s alleged goal) and to help women in crisis. When her supervisor told her that she needed to increase abortions to stay in business, and that her personal mission to reduce abortions was going to hurt the bottom line, she knew that Planned Parenthood was not the place to achieve her goal of “safe, legal, and rare” abortion, and she gave up her career for what she believed in. Could you be that brave?

Read the rest at Austin Catholic New Media.

You might also enjoy these posts:

Tags: , , ,

Sep 04 2011

A Balm in Gilead (Review: “The Handmaid’s Tale”)

Category: Entertainment — Lindsay @ 10:52 pm

I knew Bumped reminded me of something. Various other reviewers online have mentioned the similarities between the premise of Bumped and that of The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood. I knew I’d read The Handmaid’s Tale, and besides being more contemporary and having younger characters, I knew something was off with that comparison. Logically, I decided that it was time to figure out why The Handmaid’s Tale seemed special enough to make the cross-country move with me last summer.

photo by Sarah T.

I first read the book in 2005 for my women’s studies class (my university had distributive learning requirements). I was just beginning to make my way back to the Catholic Church then, but I knew that the Church’s stance on marriage and family planning wasn’t quite as harsh as many critics claimed it to be. The premise of this novel from 1986 is that, sometime in the near future (before 2125), most of the population has lost its fertility. There is no single cause, but the U.S. is well below replacement rate (meaning that people are dying faster than they are being born: a reality in parts of western Europe today). As readers learn well into the novel, a massive militant strike on the U.S. capitol led to a suspension of the Constitution and theocratic martial law. Women’s rights to own property were eliminated. Adultery and remarriage are made illegal. Surrogacy is highly promoted among the aged wealthy, since it has a biblical precedent in the stories of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar and of Jacob, Rachel, Leah, and Bilhah. Offred is a Handmaid (the Handmaid Of Fred), a woman who has had at least one child and is enslaved to high-ranking couples to attempt surrogacy. If she cannot give birth to a healthy child after trying with three different men, she will be sent to the Colonies to do toxic hard labor until she dies. The situation is much, much more bleak than I even want to consider.

Read the rest at Austin Catholic New Media…two weeks ago. I had such a hectic day that I forgot to link the post from here!

You might also enjoy these posts:

Tags: , ,

Aug 13 2011

Life Issues in the News

Category: Catholicism,Life — Lindsay @ 6:58 pm

As you might imagine, I try to keep abreast of pro-life issues that wander into the news. Two articles of note popped up this week. The first I found through the Facebook profile of an acquaintance of mine whose baby is due today, actually. The second I found through another friend who has two children, a boy and a girl. Both made me think a little more about the perspective of most of the United States on family, life, and pregnancy.

I first heard the term “selective reduction” when I read about it in a WashPo Magazine article in 2007, “Too Much to Carry.” It described a doctor treating a young Hispanic woman who was pregnant with triplets through IVF. They were observing an ultrasound of all three babies, labeled by letter, and trying to determine which of them would receive the saline injection. I remember my heart breaking when the mother asked, “It can’t be three?” Her own mother refused to let her keep all the babies, calling it one of the “unpleasant things” one “must” do to have a family. The one easiest for the doctor to access was aborted. No magazine article has ever made me cry before. That one did.

photo by Erin Ryan

This past week, a feature article in the NYT Magazine, “The Two-Minus-One Pregnancy” detailed a newer trend in selective reduction: reducing twins to single births. I’m even more heartbroken and horrified. In all of the cases detailed in the article, women simply refused to have twins (most conceived artificially). Their reasons included being over 40, already having a child of the gender of one of the twins, and in the case of a lesbian couple, both partners trying to conceive artificially and miscarrying or reducing in various combinations. A doctor quoted in the article is noted for initially resisting reductions below twins, but then doing a complete reversal on his own statements as his patients aged. Nothing else had changed. Honestly, since abortion laws permit you to terminate a pregnancy at any point, this new development makes perfect sense. But, as Jennifer Fulwiler points out in the National Catholic Register, why is it that no one thinks mourning a miscarriage is silly, but regretting an abortion somehow is?

Finally, I read a WashPo Magazine article and the follow-up Web chat of a family in Rockville, Maryland, with eleven children ages 1 to 12. It was one of the most balanced big-family articles I’ve ever read. The mom noted that they family does not ask for help from anyone beyond carpools to sports practices, but people give it anyway: meals during illnesses, clothes at various times. That’s not “taking charity,” as one chat participant claimed, but accepting a gift. She also realistically admitted that, in the future, Catholic school may simply not be financially feasible, but they’ll cross that bridge when they come to it. She and her husband have a system that works. The chat participants brought up the usual arguments of the parents’ selfishness and large carbon footprint, but she replied graciously. In general, the article and chat reinforced the common implication I’ve found that the only acceptable way to have a family is to do whatever you can to get one of each gender, and maybe another, and then you must stop.

In the end, laws and science and changes in the medical field will never change real people’s choices and desires. Only hearts will. Change hearts, change the world.

You might also enjoy these posts:

Tags: , , ,