a complaint

You know what I hate? I hate that hot cocoa mix doesn't ever fully disolve. I hate that I have to stir my mug of hot cocoa every 1-2 minutes in order to keep that chocolately goodness mixed in. Should you forget to stir, the top of your drink resembles a cup of coffee - eight parts creamer, one part coffee; and the last drink you take will be fully loaded with semi-disolved chocolate powder.

You'd think after all these years they could come up with a hot cocoa mix that mixes.

Until then, I'll be over here at my desk working on my hot-chocolate-stirring induced tendonitis.

BUT. JUST. ONLY.

I don't understand what the heck people are thinking sometimes. I know, terrible sentence to preface a blog with, but stick with me. Remember a few weeks ago when I was mad at the news for covering a Paris Hilton story? Well, forget that. The news has really gone and done it this time.

I was watching Fox 17 News last night, and one of the anchors was giving a brief two or three line summary about an attack on an American base in Iraq. The newscaster ended the summary with this line:

"But the only deaths were just Iraqi civilians."

Are we really so foolish to throw our hands up and say that we truly don't know why so much of the world dislikes us? Perhaps its because we demean even the people we claim to be defending.

"But"..."only"..."just Iraqi".

Give me a break, news editor. Do some editing.

emotional manipulation

Today at work we recieved a letter from Focus on the Family. With the coming elections, I have seen several mailings similar to the one I received today, but this one by far, takes the cake in the category of emotional manipulation. This letter is regarding the US Senate candidates, Debbie Stabenow (Democrat, pro-choice) and Mike Bouchard (Republican, pro-life). Christians can be very good at peppering political speeches and letters with "Christianese" words and phrases, that are generally not recognizable by people who aren't so fluent in this unofficial language. If you listen closely, you'll often hear them woven gracefully into presidential speeches. We don't always notice them consciously, but subconsciously we respond exactly as it was intended by the writer. Here's a fantastic example of this phenomenon:

"...To be more specific, one of your candidates - Sen. Debbie Stabenow - is such a die-hard supporter of abortion that the extremity of her position can hardly be overstated. In fact, Emily's List--the nation's largest pro-abortion PAC-- has made Ms. Stabenow the third all-time leading recipient of their money, giving her more than $666,000 in just the last six years."



Did you catch that? Did your stomach churn a bit when you read the numbers "666"? (appropriately followed by "six"?) This is a direct below-the-belt cheap shot at Christians who read this (the only people who receive this letter, as it were). Anyone who doesn't have a religious background may read that, perhaps notice the "666", and if anything find it a bit amusing, because most people know that three 6's in a row represent something that religious people consider to be "evil". But for Christians who read that, there is an emotional response to this number that is intentionally being associated with the anti-candidate in this appeal. They don't even have to try to notice it. The numbers stick out like more than a sore thumb and provoke all kinds of unease, dislike, and discomfort that are pointed directly at Debbie Stabenow, no matter what the reader actually thinks of her.

Way to exploit a huge demographic of people with a number.

Smart, but lame.

and as a post-lude, here is my friend Ben's response:

"you know, i heard mike bouchard voted against abortion 77 times 7 years ago. so you can keep defending the evil baby-killers. i, however am a christian and am not as weak-minded as you."

Haha, I liked Ben as soon as I met him.

nizlopi

here's the deal.  you need to go here and watch this video. 

its the coolest music video i've ever seen.  1000 kudos to those guys.