FireUpChips10

FireUpChips10's Journal

November 25, 2016

Segways and selfies: It's the hipster nativity

Few iconic cultural events have such clear hipster readings as the birth, or startup if you prefer, of Jesus. There is the stable – an ancient form of glamping. And the candlelight – very hygge. The three wise men have the kind of names hipsters give their children – Melchior, Caspar and Balthazar. There are the beards. And shepherds (very now – look at the success of James Rebanks’ memoir about sheep rearing).

Still, one company has decided that nativity scenes need an overt hipster makeover. And lo!, San Diego-based company Modern Nativity has created a set featuring three wise men on Segways, bearing boxes containing gifts from Amazon Prime, Mary and Joseph taking a selfie over the baby Jesus in their stable with its solar-powered roof, and an organically reared cow eating gluten-free feed.

The company’s founder, Casey Wright, has described the response as “very polarised. It’s usually, ‘This is hilarious. I need one,’ or ‘This is sacrilegious. I hope you burn in hell,’ and almost nothing in between those two extremes.” Although Wright added, to CNBC, that what is perturbing many people is the authenticity of the hipster details. The company has had comments such as: “Segways aren’t hipster. They’re technically early-stage millennial with a tinge of east coast liberal.”

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2016/nov/23/segways-and-selfies-its-the-hipster-nativity

November 16, 2016

DiNardo, Gomez to lead USCCB

To no one's surprise, the first ballot of this Tuesday's election produced the next President of the United States (Bishops) – keeping with the body's half-century custom, the incumbent VP, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, was given the chief's chair with an easy 55 percent of the vote.

Once the traditional formality wrapped up, the selection of DiNardo's deputy indeed produced a choice between the respective lead contenders from the "messenger" and "manager" schools, with the premier option among the former – Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles – taking the post in a 131-84 result over one of the top masters of Mothership process, New Orleans' Archbishop Gregory Aymond.

With the outcome, the incoming executive team already enjoys a solid relationship, DiNardo and Gomez having spent five years together as the twin archbishops of Texas. Given the fresh charge for solidarity with immigrants shared by Pope Francis and the Stateside bench, however, the collision course between the church's stance and that of the impending Trump administration makes the choice of a Mexican-born migrant, as well as the first Hispanic ever raised into the USCCB's topmost leadership – and with it, Gomez's positioning as the body's first Latino chief come 2019 – an all the more potent signal. (To be sure, from the outset of last weekend's committee meetings, the LA prelate's searing homily in defense of the undocumented at a sudden prayer service for healing in the secular campaign's wake was seen to have made a profound impact among this electorate.)

Considering DiNardo's longstanding all-in role helping to guide the Texas' bishops decades-old focus on immigration issues as the state's top prelate, the body's movement to put Gomez at his side on the national stage indeed represents a doubling-down on the premier fault-line between the US' largest religious body and January's reality of a Republican White House and Congress.

http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/2016/11/houston-and-hollywood-with-new-top-team.html

November 3, 2016

Suggestive costume at Trunk or Treat event prompts outrage from village residents

Several citizens in the village of Shepherd are furious after a young man showed up at a Trunk or Treat event dressed as a penis.

The Shepherd Police Department received several 911 complaints as well as messages on its Facebook page. Shepherd Police Chief Luke Sawyer took to Facebook to explain the situation in a video posted on Tuesday, Nov. 1.

Sawyer said it's too bad the incident is overshadowing an otherwise incredible event and that the department talked to the young man before sending him on his way.

He added that as a father himself, he thought the costume was inappropriate, but as a police chief there was nothing that could be done.

http://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw/index.ssf/2016/11/penis_costume_at_trunk_or_trea.html

Profile Information

Gender: Male
Hometown: Kentwood, MI
Home country: USA
Member since: 2001
Number of posts: 23,980