If you are not a pro-basketball fan, you may not be aware of who Jeremy Lin is. Well, maybe you would have to not be a sports fan at all. Jeremy Lin is the shooting star of the New York Knicks, whose rise to stardom happened just this month.
Lin is a six-foot, three inch pro-basketball player who has an Asian heritage. Though he was born in America, his parents emigrated here from Taiwan in the 1970’s. His facial features quite readily reveal his ancestry; his height does not. Both of his parents are only five-foot, six inches tall.
Though he has been a talented basketball player, he has not been viewed as a great basketball player. He has spent most of his professional basketball career in the development league. Even when being acquired by the Knicks, he was not considered a starter, but a good addition to the depth of their bench. But then, in a series of games where he played quite impressively, he gained and has maintained a starting slot with the Knicks. After putting up a game-winning, three-pointer against the Toronto Raptors on Valentine’s Day, another pro-basketball player began running around shouting “Lin-sanity!”. The term has stuck. It’s official. Court battles over the ownership of the term now rage.
That is Lin-sanity. Now I want to talk about the Insanity attached to this. The Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream company put out an ice cream flavor they named Lin-sanity. One of the ingredients was broken up pieces of fortune cookies. A few people complained to the company that this was racially insensitive, so they removed the fortune cookies and have given broken up waffle cone pieces on the side to appease the complainers.
Of course, the company denies that the complaints were the reason for the recipe change. They said that the fortune cookies got soggy in the ice cream. Well, MAYBE. I am betting that they caved to political correctness gone wild. To be sure, our insane world contains many racially prejudiced, racially insensitive people, but it most certainly has as many who are racially overly-sensitive.
On MLK Day, I had a personal experience with this. That day I posted on Facebook what was supposed to be a bit of dry humor. I predicted that there would be no bank robberies in Tulsa that day. All that was in my mind was, there would be no bank robberies because no banks were open on the holiday. This innocent post, however, turned into a firestorm of controversy in which it was stated or implied that I was racially insensitive at best and perhaps a real racist at worst for making such a post. I suppose I should have waited to make the post on President’s Day, but I am so un-racist as to even imagine someone would make the illogical leap that my post was racial in any way.
Since the dismaying conflict of that day, the man who originally wrongly interpreted my post and attacked me, apologized. Sincerely apologized. I have forgiven all that, yet it stands as a very personal reminder that racism is quite alive in my world and it is a quite complex issue. It is absolutely not a concept restricted to white people holding bad attitudes toward white people.
I think, if I had been in charge of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Company, I would have been even more determined to keep the fortune cookies in the recipe. If the fortune cookies becoming "soggy" was a real issue, I would have told my workers to figure out how to solve that problem. And to anyone who called or wrote in protest of the fortune cookies, I would have this simple message: Get a freakin’ life!
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Tongue Control and Finger Control
In his little letter to the Christians in the 1st Century, the Apostle James had some potent things to say about “tongue control”. What James said then was probably sufficient for the most part. Though written communication had existed for a very long time then, it was much more of a laborious task to write than we think of in our modern day. Back then, most communication between people was verbal. But, times have been changing ever since. And in my lifetime, things have changed drastically.
In the middle of the 15th Century, moveable type printing machines were created for use with western languages. This multiplied the potential to mass-produce written messages for distribution. A mechanical typewriter was first marketed in the 1870’s. In the 1930’s, IBM marketed an electric typewriter, mostly used in business settings. In the mid 1960’s, IBM marketed a new innovation, the Magnetic Tape Selectric Typewriter, which provided a memory of the typing so that corrections could be made without having to re-type an entire document. In the early ’70’s, word processors began to be created to utilize the power of computers. Today, we have very powerful and very fast computers with very powerful word processing programs. Beyond this, cell phones and other portable devices allow us to communicate with others verbally and in print at exceptional speeds.
It seems we are able to communicate faster than we can think in this modern world. At least, a lot of stuff I see posted online (Facebook, etc.) doesn’t seem to have been very well thought out before being blurted out.
Before I go on, let’s look at what James had to say about the tongue.
“We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check. When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
"All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.” (James 3:2-10)
I suggest that we all think about this. Perhaps finger control is needed today as much as tongue control ever was. Let us think about what we are communicating, the appropriateness of our words – not only when we speak, but when we tweet, text, email, post comments on Facebook, etc. Personally, I see so much stuff posted on Facebook that it inappropriate, out-of-line, and damaging.
Recently, an offended dad posted a video online in response to his daughter’s disrespectful Facebook post about her family. The father’s video has been viewed more than 20 million times on Youtube. He talked to his daughter in a very stern manner about her disrespect and ingratitude. He had recently invested $130 in upgrading her laptop computer, and he was incensed that she would publicly complain about her life. He was also justly repulsed that several of her "friends" had clicked “like” to her grossly disrespectful comment. He ended his powerful rebuke by pulling out his 45 cal pistol and shooting nine rounds into her laptop. (This was filmed outside, of course.)
Though I wouldn’t recommend the Dad’s approach, I must admit I enjoyed it and hoped that a lot of young people would be inspired to think about what they post before they post it. When I was growing up, I probably complained about my home-life to a friend or two here and there. What would have been a pretty private conversation out in my yard or on the playground back in my day, winds up being a notification to literally hundreds of “friends” via a Facebook post today. So, I would encourage all of us to cautiously control our tongues, but just as cautiously control our fingers.
In the middle of the 15th Century, moveable type printing machines were created for use with western languages. This multiplied the potential to mass-produce written messages for distribution. A mechanical typewriter was first marketed in the 1870’s. In the 1930’s, IBM marketed an electric typewriter, mostly used in business settings. In the mid 1960’s, IBM marketed a new innovation, the Magnetic Tape Selectric Typewriter, which provided a memory of the typing so that corrections could be made without having to re-type an entire document. In the early ’70’s, word processors began to be created to utilize the power of computers. Today, we have very powerful and very fast computers with very powerful word processing programs. Beyond this, cell phones and other portable devices allow us to communicate with others verbally and in print at exceptional speeds.
It seems we are able to communicate faster than we can think in this modern world. At least, a lot of stuff I see posted online (Facebook, etc.) doesn’t seem to have been very well thought out before being blurted out.
Before I go on, let’s look at what James had to say about the tongue.
“We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check. When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
"All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.” (James 3:2-10)
I suggest that we all think about this. Perhaps finger control is needed today as much as tongue control ever was. Let us think about what we are communicating, the appropriateness of our words – not only when we speak, but when we tweet, text, email, post comments on Facebook, etc. Personally, I see so much stuff posted on Facebook that it inappropriate, out-of-line, and damaging.
Recently, an offended dad posted a video online in response to his daughter’s disrespectful Facebook post about her family. The father’s video has been viewed more than 20 million times on Youtube. He talked to his daughter in a very stern manner about her disrespect and ingratitude. He had recently invested $130 in upgrading her laptop computer, and he was incensed that she would publicly complain about her life. He was also justly repulsed that several of her "friends" had clicked “like” to her grossly disrespectful comment. He ended his powerful rebuke by pulling out his 45 cal pistol and shooting nine rounds into her laptop. (This was filmed outside, of course.)
Though I wouldn’t recommend the Dad’s approach, I must admit I enjoyed it and hoped that a lot of young people would be inspired to think about what they post before they post it. When I was growing up, I probably complained about my home-life to a friend or two here and there. What would have been a pretty private conversation out in my yard or on the playground back in my day, winds up being a notification to literally hundreds of “friends” via a Facebook post today. So, I would encourage all of us to cautiously control our tongues, but just as cautiously control our fingers.
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