Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Patheos Party

While perusing Facebook, which I've been timidly doing lately in an attempt to reintegrate myself into the social network that the vast majority of my relations use the vast majority of the time, I stumbled upon a post by a friend linking to Patheos article listing 10 reasons we should kill Christian music. While I doubt his seriousness or the degree to which he wants to "kill" Christian music (since he didn't recommend using fire), it nonetheless peaked my interest.

Two hours later, I found myself on the same site, reading article after article. While I didn't find a few of the articles as riveting or well thought out as the first, they were nonetheless well written by obviously informed people. Something that I have appreciated about the posts that I have read is their successful attempts to relate current events and patterns into larger movements of culture and religion (something that I've also admired about Peter Berger's blog, which can be found here).

With hints of philosophy, sociology, theology, and anecdotology (it will be a thing), these articles are both informative and entertaining to read, and you may even feel more educated when you come out the other side.

So without further ado, click here and begin. The blogs section is probably the best.

If you go to Covenant, you should look for the "J.G. & the Turabians" poster circulating around campus, if you haven't seen it already. It gets funnier the more you look at it. Like magic. Funny, funny magic. On a more serious note, send article ideas to sociologyws@gmail.com. Muchas gracias.


Friday, February 8, 2013

The Vos Strikes Back

Dear readers,

Our own Dr. Vos recently wrote an article about the Super Bowl. Yes I know it's over now, and you've probably forgotten most everything about it except for a few of the commercials. But the article isn't about the Super Bowl, per se. Rather, it is more a critique about women and sports, and what the Super Bowl can tell us about the consumerism and our theology of women.

You can find the article here in its original form. If you're in South Africa, the Saturday Dispatch newspaper is supposedly running an edited version of the article this coming Saturday.

Enjoy!

If you have a suggestion for an article, please feel free to send them to sociologyws@gmail.com. In the meantime I'll consume myself with Angry Birds: Star Wars.

Friday, February 1, 2013

Key, Peele, and Humorous Social Commentary

Because I am currently experiencing a lapse in interesting things to write about, I will instead make this post a plug for something probably worth your time to check out.

If you watch television at all, you may have come across a comedy duo that goes by the name of Key & Peele. This duo, composed of Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, produce a sketch comedy show that airs on Comedy Central. One of their most famous skits, incredibly relevant in today's political climate, is President Barack Obama's "anger translator" Luther.
I'll let you guess who's who.

As Obama is famous for his seeming inability to show strong emotion in most situations, he hires Luther to explain to the American public what he would really like to say to his opponents.

While the primary purpose of these skits is of course to be humorous, it is interesting to note the social commentary undertones of many of their skits. For example, this video (if swearing affects you at all, be warned):


Provides a scenario in which a substitute teacher is frustrated by how children say their names "incorrectly," according to him. However, the situation is reversed in that the teacher is pronouncing their names "incorrectly" according to most, and the students "correctly." This kind of dilemma has surely affected many, though perhaps not in this way.

So that's about it. If you're interested in the show, you can Youtube the majority of their skits, or go to their website.

If you have a suggestion for an article, please feel free to send them to sociologyws@gmail.com. In the meantime, I'll be listening to "I Just Want To" by Reggie Watts on repeat.