3 random things (torture, Carnival and "Christian Rock")

I have come across 3 things to make you aware of:

1. rant warning- Did you see this? The New York Times reports that 2 of the terrorism suspects were waterboarded 266 times. One of them was waterboarded 83 times, while the other (a bad man I do admit- but punishment is for the courts to decide) was waterboarded an astounding 183 times. I have a hard time believing each of those times were to get info, and none were for other reasons. But, however we feel about these individuals, how can one not believe that waterboarding someone 183 constitutes anything but torture? Seriously, how blind to your own nationalism or belief system does one have to be to think this is acceptable behavior, especially if one believes in the concept of American Exceptionalism (if you believe in this, you must see that what makes American "great" is its "values"- and the values expressed by this, are not particularly exceptional). And if you are a Christian and feel this is justified, you need to reexamine your belief system, because something besides Jesus and Scripture are guiding you.

Un-freakin-believable.

Rant over

2. Did you check out Bono's latest op-ed in the New York Times? While disjointed it is worth reading, covering Carnival, Christianity, lent and Easter for believers and non-believers. There are lots of great little quotes, including:

I come to lowly church halls and lofty cathedrals for what purpose? I search the Scriptures to what end? To check my head? My heart? No, my soul. For me these meditations are like a plumb line dropped by a master builder — to see if the walls are straight or crooked. I check my emotional life with music, my intellectual life with writing, but religion is where I soul-search.

and

So much of the discussion today is about value, not values. Aid well spent can be an example of both, values and value for money. Providing AIDS medication to just under four million people, putting in place modest measures to improve maternal health, eradicating killer pests like malaria and rotoviruses — all these provide a leg up on the climb to self-sufficiency, all these can help us make friends in a world quick to enmity. It’s not alms, it’s investment. It’s not charity, it’s justice.

3. Manchester Orchestra's second album dropped today. It is phenomenal, seriously. Wow. I was writing a review and then saw Paste's. It literally said everything I was going to say, only better. Imagine a bunch of young emo influenced Christians that showed serious potential their first time around, realizing they wanted to make a big rock-n-roll album while channeling everything good about Nirvana and not sounding derivative. This band could be a future Emergent Idol band if they continue on this trajectory. The lyrics are for anyone except those with sensitive Christian ears, easily offended by doubt. The opening line of this album is, “I am the only son of a pastor I know who does the things I do."

Anyway, here is the review by Paste. I really needed this album after so much navel gazing post-rock and folky stuff. I needed something smart and rowdy. It is the perfect combo of the holy grail- intelligence, melody and noise.

Mean Everything to Nothing is only $7.99 on Amazon (Cd or MP3) and iTunes.

interesting Arcade Fire quotes

Quotes from Arcade Fire, usually Winn Butler, that I find intriguing (though most of them are not as compelling as the quotes from the previous article)-

on performing: “A good percentage of rock bands, when they perform it’s a totally sexual thing. But I don’t think we’re that sexual. At least that’s not what we’re singing about or acting out. On a goodnight, it’s more like the ecstasy of St. Theresa.”

on how the band makes decisions: "We basically share the same general vision. It's not quite the Quakers, where you have to be unanimous. I guess we're a democratic republic, a federal system."

why they remind me of the emerging church world and its ethos, instead of the modern megachurch system: (Richard Reed Perry- multi-instrumentalist): "We're trying to navigate a culture where people manufacture a lot of garbage. The goal is not to sell the most records or be the most famous. I think everybody in our band thinks we're trying to do something that's real and has some lasting value to it."

on community: "Boarding school, the army, or church are the only places where people are forced to be in a community with people they wouldn't choose to be. I think it's valuable to be in a community with people you have nothing in common with."

and

"The band is definitely a community. The bands that last are the ones that realize that and put priority on that first. But it's the same principle with a two-piece band. In a large band, there's just more relationships to maintain."

on religion: "There are things about organized religion that I find interesting. I'd probably have a more interesting conversation with the Pope than with Howard Stern. I think that people mistake describing something for understanding it- that happens in religion a lot. There's a lot of metaphorical language in the Bible, but I think that the human imagination isn't equipped to deal with the idea of eternal life."