MyKenk's Musings

Dissecting CNN... (Part 1 of 2)

2010-12-28T11:08:00.000-08:00

Here's what passes for news at CNN.com these days. Let's destroy this nonsense:

Harry Potter was a good Christian?

Actually, he was/is a fictional character. I'm not sure why we're even approaching this topic, given that, you know, "our" major holiday just passed, and I'm sure there's a Christmas story to talk about, but instead, let's just whore ourselves out for teenage readers. Also, why is that in the past tense? When did Harry Potter take place. Crap, I'm losing interest already. Also, solid headline.

By Eric Marrapodi, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor

The fact that this position exists blows my mind

In a new book out this month, author Danielle Tumminio asserts Harry Potter is good Christian. Tumminio argues Potter lives a life that lines up with Christian values.

Lives a life? Again, FICTIONAL. Also, does "lives" go with the "was" in the title of the article? Apparently there's no editor.

“I see him best as a seeker in a world where Christianity is not the vocabulary. I see him best as a seeker trying to live a life of faith in the same way a Christian seeker tries to live a life grace,” Tumminio told CNN.

I don't even know what that means. Seriously, I'm pretty sure that there's sentence structures all over that paragraph. Personally, though, I see him best as a fictional wizard people all over the world have an unhealthy obsession with. But, yeah, he might be a seeker trying to live a life of faith. That's almost as realistic.

Tumminio said she wrote God and Harry Potter at Yale: Teaching Faith and Fantasy Fiction in an Ivy League Classroom, to explore the contention by conservative Christians that Harry Potter is akin to heresy.

I remember all the articles comping HP to heresy back in the day, and I thought they were all dismissed as nonsensical at that point. But, apparently not, let's have some clown write an entire book about one fictional character believing in another fictional character. Oh, sorry. Moving on. Alternate Joke: So, is God the "faith" and Harry Potter the "Fantasy Fiction", or is it the other way around?

“I felt like the conversation about the Harry Potter series among Christians was really narrow,” Tumminio said.

Really? Religious fanatics having a narrow point of view about something? Damn, this IS breaking news. I'm gonna need to lie down. Oh, not just religious fanatics. All Christians. Yep, all Christians had really deep discussions about the religious allegories of Harry Potter. I know I did. Oh, wait. I haven't/won't read the books, and I think ~~organized~~ religion is silly.

Tumminio self-identifies as a Christian in the Episcopal tradition and has a two Masters degrees in religion from Yale University’s divinity school. The book grew out of an undergraduate course on the Potter series she taught at Yale.

How do you get 2 masters degrees, in the same thing, from the same school!? Also, how do you teach a CLASS ON HARRY POTTER?! Coming next year is my class teaching about pre-1860 American History through Stargate:SG-1 metaphors. Sign up now!

When the Harry Potter series first burst on to the scene in 1998, some Christians denounced the book about a young wizard learning the ways of magic. Several small independent churches even publicly burned the books. The series ranks first in the American Library Association’s Top Banned/Challenged books from 2000-2009.

Ah, churches. Remember when they used to be good for something?

Lauve Steenhuisen, a visiting assistant professor at Georgetown University, says the criticism is understandable given the framework of faith for many conservative Christians.

“The Christian paradigm is that you implore the divine - you await the grace of the divine - God is in total control. It’s dueling kingdoms,” she said. “In conservative Christianity there’s two kingdoms: the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. If (Harry’s) not on one side, he’s on the other.”

Sigh. Well, here: If god is in total control, then no human being has free will, and everyone's life is predetermined. So, either you're a puppet of God, or God isn't as omnipotent as he's been made out to be, which doesn't make him much of a God. Whatever. I do love how they point out the general problem with every religion: Either you're with us, or you're against us. And that's not a "Conservative Christian" thing, that's a religion thing. It's also a political thing, and it's also the problem with most of society. Stubbornness.

But the criticism of the books stung Tumminio on a personal level. She said that criticism “wasn’t’ just doing the books an injustice, it was doing Christianity an injustice. First of all I was astounded so many of (the critics) hadn’t read the books.”

Awww, she liked Harry Potter, so she felt hurt that someone was making fun of them, or saying they were a bad thing. Again, people had a difference of opinion from her, and she decided to take them down in a book. Definitely a more thought out approach that her opponents, but still evidence of the binary point of view she's taking . And crap, am I going to get in trouble for talking about HP without reading the books? I hope not. Jeez, is this an American or not? Pretty sure everyone in this country has strong feelings about stuff they don't understand. Pretty sure it's one of the amendments.

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Okay, that's more than enough for now. Part 2 will probably come later today or tomorrow morning. Or in 8 weeks. Or never. All equally likely.

On really getting started...

2010-11-05T11:20:00.000-07:00

... so, it's that time of year. (Maybe I started my last post like that, I don't remember, I'm a bad blogger).

Bet you didn't realize that CAS Exam 9 is exactly 6 months away, did you?? Seems like as good of a starting point as any, I guess. Though, realistically, I'm not going to start until next week Wednesday, as I'll be at the Annual Meeting in Washington the early part of next week.

But, I've got the textbooks, and the webnotes have been printed. It's unfortunate that the CAS doesn't release the study kit until December, I'd really like to have everything organized before I get started, but, you can't win them all.

I've plotted out my study strategy for the exam, and for those of you who care:

1) Original Source Materials
2) Goldfarb Review Seminar
3) BKM & Hull Textbook Questions
4) Old Exam questions via CSM Manual

I've got a litany of other supplemental materials that I may or may not be using along the way where it's needed. We'll see. Everything I've read states that this exam's source material has generally been the best written of the exams, and considering that 2 of the major sources are textbooks, I'm inclined to agree (a priori, of course, we'll see).

My plan of attack is to start at the top of the syllabus and work my way to the bottom. This should result in me finishing section "D" (the carryover from the OLD exam 9) last, before the review seminar. I've studied that material twice before, so I'm not allocating a significant amount of time to it.

But, anyway, I'm starting in on BKM Chapter 6 next Wednesday... hopefully will be posting more when I get into full-time study mode.

-m

On getting started...

2010-10-15T08:44:00.000-07:00

Well, it's about time to start firing up the blog again. My goal is to document/elaborate on my study process studying for what, hopefully, will be my final CAS exam, the "New" Exam 9: Financial Risk and Rate of Return.

Now, the syllabus isn't even released yet, but I've already begun plotting my course of action on how to tackle this exam. My plan is to start studying December 1st, although odds are I won't be able to wait that long. More on that later.

When tackling a CAS exam, how does one get started? Obviously there's a lot of material on all of the exams, and it's very easy to get overwhelmed. But, if you accept the dearth of material on the exam, and approach it with a strategy, it'll help you out later on down the line.

I remember when I started studying for exam 5, my first "upper level" essay exam. I started studying very early, very randomly, and had no idea what I was doing. I realized 1.5 months in that my method of studying wasn't working for me, I wasn't retaining anything. What did I do? I threw away all my notes, and started over, with a more organized approach. It worked, I passed. It was a lot of work starting over, and it took a lot of time that I'd rather not have had to spend, but it was worth it. That taught me that organization was key, and I've never had a problem since then.

So what's my approach? I'm one of the guys that reads the source material, so obviously, the first thing to do is to get your hands on the material, order what you need, print what you need. Secondly, get the old exams printed. You're gonna need them later on, and you want to have everything up front, so you don't need to worry about the logistics later on.

Now, a personal preference for me is to get everything spiral bound. Assuming you've gotten everything printed (at work, hopefully), spiral binding is cheap, and it helps keep things together. I get one bound "book" for each section of the syllabus (unless a section is tiny, or covered by a textbook). I also get 2 books of the old exams, 5 years in each (though I'm not sure how I'm going to tackle the "new" exam, quite yet, check back later).

Finally, you need a third party study aid. Okay, to be honest, you don't need it, but it'll help you out, and there's really no reason not to take all the help you can get. I'm not going to recommend any in particular, there's plenty of discussion about that on the AO, there's no need to re-hash those arguments here. Order what works for you, talk to others about what worked for them, and make a decision.

I take all my notes by hand, though I generally like to transcribe those onto a PC at some point, more for review, and partially to share with others. So, I need notebooks. Again, I get one for each section of the syllabus, and get a few to work old exam problems in. So, for this exam, I'll probably buy 8 notebooks...

And you need nice pens. Something you like, something that writes easy, and writes a lot, because you're going to need to. You can't use pencil. Okay, you can, but I don't recommend it. If you make a mistake, and have to cross it out with a pen, when you're reviewing, you'll see where you tripped up before, and are less likely to make that mistake again. If you erase your mistakes, odds are you're probably not going to remember them, and are more likely to make the same mistake.

So, that's me rambling about how to get organized, which is pretty bizarre, I think... but yeah, I'm getting a little stir-crazy waiting to get started on this exam, expect more posts soon.

-M

On Friendship...

2010-10-04T18:23:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged in months. I've had a lot to say, but not a lot that I've cared to share. I'm getting to the point where I'm feeling better about myself, and feeling like I'm ready to start getting my thoughts back out there. So maybe I'll be blogging more, maybe I'll forget. It's 50/50 at this point. Anyway, on to the post:

So, I've been thinking a lot about friendship lately, and listening to Marc Maron's latest podcast, heard something that I need to share. Obviously I don't live the life of Marc Maron, but his comments on his friendships remind me of mine (to a certain extent, it's not perfect).

Anyway, here you go:

"I read this article today about friendship, and about how we've become a community of loners, of people that are isolated in their lives, even if they're surrounded by family, they don't have true friends, necessarily. We spend a lot of time online, we spend a lot of time in our heads, and I've talked about this before. And someone sent me this article, one of you guys did, from the 'Wilson Quarterly,' it's called 'America: Land of Loners,' and I'm just talking about this because, in relation to this podcast, what I've begun to realize about myself, and about all of us, is that I sit down and talk to people here, I have real conversations with people I either know well, or know kinda, but I do usually share some sort of interest with the people, or we're in the same business, or we're creative people, or there's an understanding there. But the fact, and the reality, of having an hour long discussion with somebody... how the fuck often does that happen in our lives? I mean, when do you sit down and just talk to somebody for an hour? When do you show up?

When I'm sitting here, all I want to happen is to connect with someone, emotionally, around things that are important to each of us, and either be funny, or be honest, or be emotional, just as long as the conversation is authentic, I don't really care what's being discussed, because that is a rare bit of business, and it's sometimes exhausting, to listen, to engage, to evolve a conversation, it's something that I'm not incredibly used to. And it made me a lot more sympathetic towards therapists, because it's a little bit much, but it really is what being human is about, and it's an important part of being human. [...]

I'm a guy, if I have one good friend, I lean on that person. That person is important to me, I expect a lot out of them, and quite honestly, I expect too much out of them. We all have friends, but friendship for me has been a little tainted by the fact that I'm an emotionally needy person, and the fact that however I was parented, I look to replace parents with friends, and I expect them to make me feel better at any cost, and then when they disappoint me, I resent them, or I resent them for other reasons. I'm a very demanding friend, and it's unfair, and I've tried to evolve out of that.

Some friendships are built on bonds of loyalty that are beyond anything I can understand, whether they're wartime friendships, or whether you shared something, like you know, killing a person, that you can't talk about to anyone else, and you have to trust each other with that. Or whether you share other secrets that are completely entrusted to each other, that's part of friendship, part of friendship is being there for the other person if possible, when you need them. Part of friendship is having the kind of relationship that after years even if you don't see each other, you're right back where you used to be, and this incredible emotion comes over you that this is good for you, good for the world, and we're there for each other no matter what or how much we see each other."

Well said, made me think... Agreed with most of it. I was going to comment and add my thoughts, but you can't really type out *nodding my head* that many times. Oh well.

Obviously, emphasis added, apologies where I missed transcription. And if you're not listening to the WTF podcast, you're definitely missing out. Mondays and Thursdays, one of the Great comedians interviewing other comedians. It's fantastic.