NEW DOMAIN!

Stop coming here! I don’t write here anymore. I have this exact same blog, except for the design and domain somewhere else.

I will be writing at http://www.decruzp.com from now on. Please visit me there. I’ll leave this post up as a reminder to people.

The Infamous Centerspread

Last semester I walked into a classroom to see a white man talking in an Indian accent. Three blonde-haired blue-eyed women laughed openly as he continued to talk in his mocking tone. I stopped in my tracks. I was more surprised than offended as the man continued. He turned and saw me staring directly at him. He stopped immediately. I continued to stare. He attempted to meet my stare but gave up after a few seconds. I went to my seat while my mind was racing furiously. I started thinking about other minorities on campus and whether they felt the same way. I was angered for a reason I couldn’t understand.

I talked to a couple of other minorities. They told me about how they had been treated on campus. Even a staff member shared a story about something that had happened to them.

In situations like these, I respond with one thing: I write.

And so I walked into the Clause meeting on a Tuesday night and asked to write this article. Nenji Yilpet, the senior staff writer decided to help me and we started working on it together. It didn’t even print. All hope was lost until this semester when the editor-in-chief wanted to print it again.

This was an emotional piece for Nenji and I. We were trying to do our journalistic duty while still recognizing the fact that as minorities these issues were important to us. It finally got printed this past Friday. You can find it here (WARNING: pdf file).

Happily, nothing was chopped and both Nenji and me were pleased with the final product.

I had good conversations with a large number of people with this article and came away with the conclusion that APU, as a Christian university, has a long way to go.

Something that didn’t make it into the article but was important was Woody Morwood’s comment to me during a hour long conversation. Woody is the campus pastor and is an all around nice guy. Woody said that it was difficult to get to a point where we had little problems simply because of the new students that come in every year. The university has to reteach an entirely new generation of students. That is an important fact to think about and I hope can be addressed somehow.

I recognize that racism will always be a problem. I just don’t get why ignorance still is.

Valentine’s Day

Screw it all.

Front Page!

I had my first front page story ever last week. It was about “Going Green Week” at Azusa Pacific University. The only problem was that because of the increased concern for the environment, there was no print edition.

Damn. I really hate the earth now.

The article got a bit chopped and put online. Some things that didn’t end up in the article:

• 197 shower heads were replaced across the campus which will save the University about a million gallons of water each year.
• The administration has a huge part in this entire thing. Terry Franson, the vice president for Student Life and the Dean pushed for this and has recieved criticism from others in the Evangelical community.
• The money issue is huge. This part really got me: at one point, during a move-out month, the school had to spend $25,000 to dispose of garbage.
• Toney Snyder, who I mention in the article has even looked at wind power as a way to conserve energy. Sorry kids, we’re not in a wind zone. Oh! Fun fact– wind turbines need to go seven mph to be even of any value.
• Your cafeteria grease ends up as bio-diesel. And we give it away for free.
• Point Loma is way ahead of us in the green sector.

Way too many bullet points for one post but it really was a lot of information. I heard from students who were critical of the Cafeteria for giving up styro foam containers for the week and not offering an alternative for those who couldn’t eat inside.

Stay tuned in for more articles.

World News Story: Russia is Scaring the Crap Out of Us; don’t steal from A.P!

I think I got a call at about 12:30 A.M from my editor about the world news story that I had turned in.

“You just cut and pasted half of this article!”

Before you call me stupid, just know that I really was under the impression that we could use the Associated Press wire and that my editor would just credit them and not me. Apparently I have to change a lot of stuff around in order to make it work.

Story has a happy ending though: I cleaned it up and rewrote the article but not before my roommate had the nerve to say “Shattered Glass” in a very sleepy and snarky manner. I learned my lesson as I always d and submitted the article.

It’s about this new row between Britain and Russia about the British Council. Putin’s regime is so obviously anti-democratic and anti-West that I am just waiting for Lenin to rise from the dead like in that old Simpsons’ episode. Remember that?

Lenin: Must crush Kap-it-a-lism!!

people run in fear.

Enough fun reminiscing– here’s that article at The Clause.

enjoy

Blogging is Fun!

It is SUPER FUN TIME!

Anyway, I’ve started blogging again but more importantly, I’ve started writing for the College newspaper. The Clause is a decent publication and I do enjoy writing for it even if it gets seriously stressful a lot of the times. I’m struggling a lot with coming up to A.P style since I’ve been writing for Broadcast for the past few years. I’ve gotten one opinion piece in about Feminism in Christianity and you can find it here.

This was an interesting piece because I actually came around to a different point on the religious spectrum from what I had thought before. I met with Murray Flagg who happened to be a “pronounced feminist.” I also talked to Jamie Noling for a few minutes but didn’t really include any quotes from her in the actual article.

I think my biggest surprise was simply the amount of women who told me that they were not feminists. And I was even more shocked at the amount of women who found it incredulous that I considered myself a feminist.

I’m working on a Wesley piece right now which I’ll get back to you on.

Thank the Lord

Over at the Mutineers’, Razib just posted a link to a map that shows high incidences of “cousin-love.” I freaked out a bit, because India was pretty dark but thank the Lord! Kerala is pretty light– we’re aren’t screwed up!

Incidentally, I always made fun of those bloggers who link to every freaking word.

Sad huh?

How bad ass are we?

Thanks to the new Firefox, I now know that bad ass is two words.

The question, though, is how bad ass are we? I am referring, of course, to the new Portland Trail Blazers. Oregon’s only professional sports franchise is set up for a historic decade with the addition of Greg Oden to the team. Greg Oden is not only a monster in the paint, he is also a nineteen year old child who has brought charisma to the once hapless Blazers. I think I saw it somewhere a long time ago, the iconic image of the beloved Lithuanian, Arvydas Sabonis being assaulted with a towel by current Piston bad boy Rasheed Wallace. According to current coach, Nate McMillan, we were the laughing stock of the entire league two years ago. When was humiliated with the towel on national television, all of us were humiliated. Our city looked like it was filled with jackasses carrying around towels meant to throw at centers who gave their heart and soul for what seemed like a cold and ruthless team. Ever read about Bill Walton’s last season with the Blazers? The poor bastard had to call himself a timeout and leave to the locker room to find that he had been playing on a broken foot. So what happens now, thirty years later? We’re so bad ass that once the league knew we had the number one pick, we were getting offers with sentences that mixed the words “hall of famer” and “trade”. Why this sudden change of pace? What caused this team to embark on this momentous journey? Nate McMillan has an idea. At the rally which introduced 7 feet tall Greg Oden to the city of Portland, Mr. McMillan had only one thing to say: “God works in mysterious ways.” I laughed, because it seemed like it took a ping pong ball to bounce a certain way for the Number One pick to land in Portland’s favor. Greg Oden is here. LaMarcus Aldridge is here. Brandon Roy is here. Steve Blake is here. Channing Frye is here. We’ve assembled a young team that is determined to play together and play hard and get this city to a championship again.

I spent eighteen dollars on a book written by Matt Love called “Red Hot and Rollin”: A retrospective on the the Blazers championship season thirty years ago. It is fitting that the most incredible season in Blazers history happened thirty years to the year the Blazers embark on what could be the greatest era ever.

We’re pretty damn bad ass.

There, I did it. That’s my Blazers post.

Gay Marriage: My View

It is difficult for me to deliberately write. My friend Ashish finds writing an enjoyable thing to do and seems to be able to do it daily. I am what many people could call a flake. I go on spurts of writing essays non stop then I hit a wall and, well, stop completely. In order for me to get going on writing again, I decided to start up a little debate with Ashish about gay marriage.

I shock Pentecostals frequently when I express my views on gay marriage. Before I even begin, its important that you have a background for my current viewpoint. Ask anyone who went to high school with me: I was a red-meat conservative. I was all about God, Country, and Guns. I was to the right on just about every issue from abortion to the Iraq War. Over the past few years I’ve become increasingly challenged by the holy spirit on my political and personal views. What used to be a knee-jerk response to the liberalism that surrounded me in the public school system has led to an increased awareness of the need of Christ’s love in this broken world. So, like I said, I shock Pentecostals. Not just Pentecostals, I shock most evangelical Christians. Whenever I proclaim that “People of the same sex should be allowed to marry eachother.” The response is incredible. Instantly, my sanity is questioned by those listening. The initial question always is “How can you say that gay marriage is OK?” Here is my response for the umpteenth time. I also promise you that I will be repeating this response for years to come. I don’t think gay marriage is OK. I wouldn’t marry someone of the same sex. This doesn’t mean that I have to stop others from doing it. It’s interesting to note what Ashish said about this issue:

I’m personally not sure what my stance on this issue would be. I find myself stuck in between these two approaches, grasping for a middle ground. I have to go back to what it truly means to be a Christ-follower. I have to go back to what it means to be Christ to people.

If you look through the gospels, there were always the religious leaders who kept the law down to the last letter. This law was not only the original law, but also included many more amendments. They placed the weight of this unbearable law upon the people. In doing so they also effectively made it impossible for anyone who was not a religious leader to keep it. When I think of this issue I am brought back to a time when these religious leaders brought a prostitute to the feet of Jesus and asked whether she should be stoned. Jesus realized that these religious leaders were the biggest hypocrites and illustrated to them that showing grace and not punishment is always the higher road in any situation. Jesus also illustrated to them that the worst sin of all is believing oneself to be above sin, which is in essence pride.

I recognize the example of the adulterous woman in the Gospels and see it as an extension of Christ’s word on where the personal and the public spheres converge. The religious leaders desire to public stone this woman. His response to the elders who foaming at the mouth and twiddling their fingers is so powerful that it shakes the Evangelical mindset in me. Our Lord is silent as one by one each of the religious people left until the woman and Jesus are left. What does Jesus mean when shatters the silence? “Has no one condemned thee?” I believe that Jesus is making a simple statement on the lack of authority that the society has to punish the woman.

Ashish and I seem to be on the same side in this one. In further conversations with Ashish, he said that he might vote no if the issue of legalizing gay marriage came up but that he would not consider bringing it up as an issue. I would go a few steps further and say that I might not only abstain from voting but might actually actively campaign against anyone that sought to make marriage between people of the same sex illegal. Ashish moves further along and says something here that I found powerful:

I believe that it is not the job of the Christian to mandate rules and regulations per say in society, but to illustrate Christ’s love to people. Our job is not to convict the sinner. The Holy Spirit does a pretty good job of that. Our job is to be Christ to the sinner.

Every man has sinned, we are all condemned. Jesus tells the woman to then go and “sin no more” bringing a fitting conclusion to this topic. The concept of correction with love is sorely lacking in today’s church. Rather than campaigning against giving these people rights? Can we show love to these people? Can more Christians work in areas of hospitals where a large portion of the population are gay and infected with HIV? Ashish makes the best point when he says that we have to be Christ to the sinner. It’s understandable that many Christians, including myself, are terrified at the prospect of the future. Some of us are terrified to raise kids in this current climate. I’d like to end with a simple sentence that I hope you can cling to: Christ does not change. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Banning gay marriage will not bring gay people to Christ, showing love to them and showering compassion and mercy on them will.

Eh, Boys?

We walked out of the theater when the film was done.

Moviegoers were hustling out through the aisles, stepping over popcorn kernels and crushed soda pop bottles. The Pasadena Playhouse had been packed to watch a showing of a South Korean film The Host. My friend and I walked slowly, in no rush to leave the universe of the movie. It was an enjoyable experience, a horror film with a lot of laughs interwoven with the truly horrifying. We stepped out into the brightly lit Pasadena streets. Bits and pieces of conversations were floating towards me with the evening breeze. I was picking this up above the din of city traffic.

 ”I didn’t understand what happened there in the end.”

 ”The Host looked amazing!”

 ”You think there’s going to be a sequel?”

I sighed and looked at my friend. A knowing smile crept across his face. He knew I hated to hear bits and pieces of conversations. It has to be somewhere in the middle on my incredibly long list of pet peeves. We walked on the cracked sidewalk towards the car. We passed little boutiques with minimal life inside, an art gallery filled with people who pretended they knew what they were looking at, and a homeless man resting his head on what were his sole possessions in this world.  I took the sights in, still in awe of the beautiful city and amazed at the different stores. As we were at the crosswalk waiting to shuffle ourselves over to the other side, we heard a yell right next to us. Right across from us was what looked like a homeless man screaming at us.

“You gave up all the porn,” shouted the man, “eh, Boys?”

The friend turned to me with a nervous look of concern.

“Turn to Jesus Christ, so no more porn for you!”

The man continued to shout. I turned to confirm that he was speaking to me. Yep.

Crazy dude was pointing right at me.

“No more porn, eh boys?!”

My friend and I crossed to the other side of the intersection, away from him. We laughed as we quickened our pace away from the theater, shops, and crazy homeless man talking about our salvation from pornography. We stepped into the car and I sat down and fastened my seat belt.

Perhaps the reader understands when I mention those pictures we see in books or online with a large caption that someone other than the individual photographed has written. The caption is usually attributed as what that fellow is thinking at that exact moment in time. I felt at that moment that if anyone took my photograph at that point the caption would have said in bold letters:

“How did he know?!”