The message they want to get across: the typical American couple spends $27,000 on their wedding.

This is bullshit. In this case, “average wedding” does not mean “typical wedding.”

A quick statistics rehash

The statistical average, or mean, is calculated by adding up all the values in the survey and dividing the sum by the number of values in the survey.

The median of a set is the value that evenly divides the set of values so that half of the values are lower than the median, and half are higher.

The problem with the statistical mean is that it is affected by outliers, like the exorbitantly expensive weddings ($100,000 and up). For large surveys, the median is often the more reliable statistic to refer for a look at a typical value. Large surveys such as the cost of a typical American wedding.

The median cost of American weddings

$15,000.

Almost half of the average that was reported by The Knot and Conde Naste. This means there were just as many weddings in America that cost under $15,000 as those that cost more than $15,000.

How much you spend on your wedding depends greatly on a lot of factors of personal preference.
Just don’t buy into the messaging: the typical American wedding costs $15,000, not $30,000.

Now, five years later, after a lengthy hiatus from playing in church, I help lead worship at Highrock Arlington. Now it seems Passion and Delirious are no longer kings of worship. Over the years Hillsongs has branched out from their hokey adult contemporary offerings into more modern rock territory with Hillsongs United and is now the most popular go-to for worship songs in contemporary evangelical churches. Really, what do you expect when you combine the Queen of Worship, Darlene Zschech (of “Shout to the Lord” fame) with a guitarist who has dreadlocks and a male singer with an earring? I bet they have tattoos too. How can clean cut Redman and pretty boy Tomlin compete with that (crazy Skeletor Crowder does help though)?

What’s even more interesting than the physical differences is the contrast in musical styles. While both camps make gratuitous use of big anthemic choruses (where you just can’t help but lift your hands to the air like when singing along to “Livin’ on a Prayer”) the instrumentations and rhythms vary widely. If I had to sum up Passion’s sound in one word I’d say “80′s-U2-meets-90′s-pop-country.” That hasn’t changed in five years. For our Australian friends at Hillsong United, I’d describe them as “Creed-meets-Blink182.” Hillsong United has tons more attitude in their songs. The guitar tones are crunchier, the male vocals have more of a grind, as if he’s been smoking for years (although you know he isn’t because he’s Christian and Jesus hates cigarettes) and the drum beats are more syncopated. However, some of that edgy hip attitude is lost whenever the background choir joins in. I mean, has there ever been an edgy rock song that made use of a background choir? OK, Pink Floyd pulled it off with “Another Brick in the Wall” but that was a children’s choir singing about rebelling against their teachers. That was freaking epic.

I don’t have any closing points or any more sarcastic jabs at worship music. It’s just that lately, I’ve been reflecting more on how things have changed over the years in my life, and worship music has not been exempt. I’ll end with Youtube videos for you to compare.

Hillsong

Passion

This past Wednesday at an AIDS in Africa Symposium put on by the Harvard School of Public Health, two speakers expressed their excitement of Obama’s victory, both of whom were from outside the States: France and Uganda.

That same evening I went to go hear noted MIT linguistics professor Noam Chomsky give a talk about what Obama’s election means and what will change. Chomsky said, based on Obama’s recent Cabinet appointments, he does not expect politics to change much. His Cabinet has been made largely of Clinton-era politicians, who some blame for the roots of the financial crisis. Chomsky however did acknowledge that his victory is momentous and a historical one. He credited the election of a black president, and the viable candidacy of a woman, to the efforts of the activists in the 60s. Had the 60s “liberals” not taken the risks and organized, this year’s election would have been very different.

Chomsky made it a point that Obama is not an agent of change, but he is an indicator of it. We can’t depend on politicians and governments to instigate change. Progress and change comes from activism. What happens in the future is up to us.

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.

The Lovings escalated the case to the Virginia Supreme Court, which upheld the ruling. They then took the case to the United States Supreme Court, which in 1967 unanimously ruled that the freedom of choice to marry is to not be restricted by racial discriminations. The ruling made all state laws banning interracial marriage unconstitutional and therefore null.

In commemoration of the legalization of interracial couples, June 12th is Loving Day.

Prior to the 1960s, an overwhemling majority of white Americans approved the illegalization of interracial marriages. Religious beliefs were the only justifications they had, besides old-fashioned racism. Old Testament verses were often cited, saying it was against God’s will to have races inter-marry. Even today, if you Google “interracial marriage” there are numerous entries about the Bible and interracial marriage, though they are mostly just clarifications of why interracial couples are not prohibited in the Bible. Mostly.

It took between 50 – 100 years for anti-interracial marriage laws to be overturned, depending on the state.

Forty-one years after the Supreme Court overturned anti-miscenegation laws, religious beliefs and/or bigotry are still hindering the rights of minorities.

Further reading on interracial marriage:
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• Wikipedia entry on Anti-miscegenation laws
• Official Loving Day site
• Is interracial marriage Biblical?

Further reading on homosexual marriage:

• Wikipedia entry on same-sex marriage
• Official California Proposition 8 site, banning same-sex marriage
• Same-sex marriage bans are different from interracial marriage bans – by Baptist Press
• 12 sarcastic reasons gay marriage will ruin society

What are the implications of the question and why was it so important in the debate?

Obama’s response is direct, detailed, and reasonable, but the GOP (and Fox News) immediately jumped on this encounter, splicing away everything except “spread the wealth.” Now the issue is certainly an important one, and highlights the difference between Democratic and Republican approaches to tax reform.

Obama (and Democrats) repeatedly talks about helping America through a “bottom-up” approach, where you cut taxes for the lower and middle classes, which helps stabilizes the majority of the country’s population, and therefore stabilizes the country.

McCain (and Republicans) believes that prosperity trickles down, so they support tax cuts for businesses and the wealthy. With strong businesses, more people will be hired and given higher salaries. The lower and middle classes benefit and every one is happy.

Which approach you prefer is a matter of policy debate combining economics and personal values. The Joe the Plumber encounter frames the issue in a manner that benefits the Republican approach. The GOP really likes Joe the Plumber because he’s a normal middle-class American and Obama’s plan would hurt him. Joe is a white male with a slight accent, he’s a plumber, lives in the mid-west, and is about to buy a successful business that makes more than $250,000 a year.

Wait a second, what?

The genius is that everything besides his finances oozes red-white-and-blue America, and that’s why the Republicans are using him as a platform to convince us that Obama’s plan doesn’t benefit America. Joe the Plumber’s point about how he’s pursuing the American Dream and he shouldn’t be penalized for achieving it, is one that is easy to sympathize with. But imagine if it had been someone who doesn’t carry the image of “Normal Hardworking American,” say an Arabic psychiatrist named Ahmed or Chinese lawyer named Wei-Sung who also worked hard to attain the American Dream and make six figures. They would be shrugged off as wealthy elitists. Or immigrants stealing American jobs.

Diane Sawyer interviewed Joe and pointed out that it would only be a 3% increase in taxes, but to Joe it’s a matter of principle. Joe responded

Well, I mean, quite honestly, why should they be penalized for being successful? That’s what you’re telling me, that’s what it sounds like you’re saying. It’s wrong. I mean, because you’re successful, you have to pay more than everybody else. I mean, we all live in this country, you know, I mean it’s a basic right. And Obama wants to take that basic right and penalize me for it is what it comes down to. I mean, that’s a very socialist view, and it’s incredibly wrong. I mean, if it’s $250,000 now, what if he decides, “Well, $150,000 you’re pretty rich, too. Let’s go ahead and lower it again.” You know, it’s a slippery slope. When’s it going to stop?

I don’t get, in my naive youth, this fanatical fear of anything that even remotely approaches sounding socialist. Spread the wealth?? I earned that wealth! Get your own wealth. Take my money and give to the poor? Why? They’re poor because they didn’t work hard enough. Healthcare for everyone? Everyone should be equal? Support the lower and middle class? What about the upper-class? We’re people too!

It’s only socialist-sounding when the government is taking a little from the rich to help the poor, not the other way around. When the government signed off on the $700,000,000,000 bailout for the financial sector, there was only a small cry of socialism…nothing like what you hear when universal healthcare is mentioned. And that $700,000,000,000 is just an estimate. We don’t actually know how much money they’ll need. In addition, the week before Wall Street was bailed out by the federal government, Detroit carmakers got a $25 billion bailout as well.

Admittedly, there was and still is a lot of contention over the bailout, by both parties. But the fact remains, America is more willing to give tax money to save the wealthy than to help the poor. Like healthcare. I’m pretty sure $700,000,000,000 could do wonders to provide healthcare to everyone.

I think the idea that socialism is anti-American and avoided at all costs comes from our Puritanical early settler roots. They brought the Puritan work ethic which says “work hard and get what you deserve, worship God, and then die of cholera.” This eventually led to capitalism which is “work hard and get what you deserve, compete with others, work harder and get more of what you deserve, then spend it on what others have made in sweat shops for pennies.”

What’s often overlooked of the Puritans though, is that their beliefs expanded beyond their work ethic. John Winthrop, of “city upon a hill” fame, in that same sermon (“A Model of Christian Charity”) stressed that “Man is commanded to love his neighbor as himself” and quoted the book of Romans “If thine enemy hunger, feed him.” Winthrop continued “If your brother be in want and you can help him…if you love God, you must help him.”

Ronald Reagan neglected to mention that part of our “shining city upon a hill.”

I first read about Janelle Monae in a cover story of Paste Magazine (“that magazine for white guys who like Wilco”) listing her as an artist to watch for. I (illegally) downloaded her EP, Metropolis: The Chase Suite to see if Paste knew what they were writing about. Her music was a mixture of Outkast, James Brown, West Side Story, Lauryn Hill, Jimi Hendrix, and The Flaming Lips. The album is inspired from the 1927 film of the same name and tells the first part of a sci-fi space opera about a robot that is targeted for destruction for falling in love with a human. Weird right?

Onstage, the energy she brought expanded far beyond what was expected in the small space of the Paradise Rock Club. She sang everything pitch perfect while dancing back and forth, making eye contact, and obviously having a good time. In between each song she would run off stage while her band (a drummer and electric guitarist) played an extensive rock interlude that would lead perfectly into the next song, when she would run back onstage to the cheers of the crowd. During the closer “Lettin’ Go” she jumped down into the crowd in front of me and danced with whoever was around, before going back on stage only to jump down again to crowd surf. Her set was all too short, and I wished she had an encore or two. After she was done, a lined up with another hundred or so people to (legally) buy her CD and get an autograph.

I can’t wait to see her again and everyone should see her. She’s the real deal.

Just like there are blockbuster movies and indie movies, there are blockbuster video games and indie video games. And just like indie movies, indie video games tend to be me creative, and dare I say, artistic.
The indie game “Braid,” which was released on the Xbox a couple months ago and largely been the work of one man, has been garnering rave reviews from video game sites, as well as major media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal and NPR (which is worth a listen). The best way I can describe Braid is this: it’s like Super Mario Brothers, except with puzzles based on manipulating time. It is one of the best examples of “games as art.” The most obvious aspect of Braid is the visual style. Video games aren’t expected to be pretty or contain a unique style, and most games don’t, but Braid does. The game looks like a painting, dream-like and fluid, which fits in perfectly with the rest of the game.

Braid’s plot is loosely narrated via lines of text found in books at the beginning of each “stage.” The plot is more like a poem than a script, in that it sort of makes sense as you read go through it.. but not really. The texts are all fragments of a story that piece together in the end, but not in a nice, tidy way. It’s like “Citizen Kane” or “The Shining,” where people are still discussing and interpreting what happened in the movie. If you Google “Braid plot” you’ll find pages of blogs, articles, and forum posts detailing different theories. The game is about a character named Tim who is searching for his true love, that he somehow lost. Regret and longing are the most obvious and indisputable themes in the game.

What makes Braid a particularly cohesive experience beyond jumping around and solving clever puzzles is how the form is not separate from the message. The puzzles all revolve around manipulating time. Whenever you make a mistake, you can rewind, and undo the error. You must reverse and fast-forward time in ingenious ways in order to solve the puzzles. The time travel mechanic is, as the NPR story says:

a metaphor for Tim’s attempts to figure out what went wrong in his relationship and where exactly he fits into the universe. When you rewind time, the screen turns red and the music plays backwards — it’s disconcerting and disorienting, just as plumbing your own past can be unsettling.

This blog post points out how few works of art/entertainment actually combine form and meaning in the way Braid does. The blogger points specifically to the book House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski. The book is a great horror novel and deserves its own blog post, but here is an example page from the book showing how the text accompanies the meaning:

I’m aware of how pretentious and ridiculous it can sound to analyze and critique a video game. I haven’t even mentioned the great music, or just how fantastic the puzzles are, or the references to Donkey Kong. I hope some day it won’t be so nerdy to view a video game as intellectual, emotional, and meaningful as books, movies, or poems are. I really do think every one can, and should experience Braid. Watching Youtube videos just doesn’t convey it properly.

Of course Obama’s campaign isn’t innocent either. The NYtimes ran an article detailing how Biden and Obama had voted for a bill that specifically approved the “Bridge to Nowhere” that their campaigns had been ridiculing Palin for. On and on and on.

I’m a pretty strong Obama supporter, but I’m ready for this to be over with. Let’s see the debates and then hit the polls. I just need to hang on for six more weeks. What more can happen in six weeks?

After the show we talked to both Steven and the Bittersweets. Like true Asians we took pictures with them, and our group pic is now part of the slideshow on their homepage. I feel slightly notorious!