Blunders and Absurdities

Here’s a very sad case of an auxiliary bishop in LA who resigned from his post in the Catholic church after revealing that he has two teenage children holed up in another city.

From the article:

Throughout his tenure in Los Angeles, Bishop Zavala has spoken on behalf of working-class Americans, immigrant rights, ending the death penalty and reforming the criminal justice and prison systems. He also co-chaired Encuentro 2000, the U.S. bishops’ jubilee year gathering to celebrate and better understand the ethnic diversity of the U.S. church.

Born in Guerrero, Mexico, Bishop Zavala grew up in Los Angeles. He was ordained in 1977 and was named a bishop in 1994.

A man who wanted to devote his life to the Church and to social justice issues was forced to give his secret family the shaft for decades and now has to give up his work in the Church because… well… Jesus said that priests can’t have babies   it’s in the 10 Commandments  it’s too expensive for the Church to support priests and their families, especially considering the whole no-birth-control thing. There it is.

I certainly hope that former Bishop Zavala will man up and give his children what they deserve (a father) while continuing his work on behalf of the lowliest among us as a private citizen.

Today, the venerable New York Times Style section reports that sometimes young people in a relationship have sleepovers, that teenagers like to go to clubs and spend their parents’ money, and that the entire life of “a 60-year-old Macedonian immigrant” who “wields a subtle and steely power” can be handily defined by a few quips from the likes of Jennifer Aniston at what a great and discreet servant maître d’hôtel he is.

Also, oddly, Silence of the Lambs is referenced twice in the Style section today. Once in the above mentioned Tower Hotel story, and also, much more effectively, by Philip Gaines in the Social Q’s column.

This week I wrote a column for IrishCentral about the whole “our government is now censoring art based on right-wing rantings” thing.

(The briefest of recaps: The National Portrait Gallery is featuring an exhibit which displays the work of homosexual artists, and one video installment, created in the ’80s, includes shots of a crucifix on the ground with ants crawling over it. The artist, who died of AIDS, intended the image to convey the suffering and abandonment he felt as well as the idea that Christians at the time were forgetting the examples in compassion that Jesus set for them. When a conservative news site got wind of this, it blasted the Smithsonian and the government, and pretty soon John Boehner called for the exhibit’s removal, threatening to cut the museum’s budget. They capitulated and removed the video installation.)

In response to the column, titled “Smithsonian should have kept ‘ant-covered Jesus,’” several commenters called me ignorant and/or dishonest, which is par for the course, but what never ceases to surprise me, although I’m sure it shouldn’t, are the comments that spin the entire issue into yet another tirade against Muslims.

The general idea, which I’ve found on many other blogs as well, seems to be that Christians suffer far more greatly than Muslims in America, because people would never dare to depict Muhammed in such ways, or else the terrorists would kill them. (Also, the creation and exhibition of this particular video is supposedly a direct attempt to ruin Christmas. Obviously.)

Everywhere, conservatives are calling for a similar depiction of Muhammad. They are all over it. “Put a bacon-covered Muhammad in the Smithsonian!” Right now, American Muslims are shaking their heads, saying, “Hey, how exactly did we get dragged into this? Oh right, just by existing. Our bad.”

It’s a disgusting display of bigotry and hypocrisy, to say the least, that when Christians feel attacked, they think the most appropriate action is to… attack another religion? By their own logic, they find this kind of thing offensive, and so the answer is to offend another religion that has nothing to do with the exhibit at all.

The exhibit is not about Islam. The artist had no statement to make about Islam. I would personally hope that if an artist did have a statement to make about Islam and did so with a compelling, original piece of artwork worthy of our collective consideration, that the Smithsonian would display it.

“But no!” cry the conservative crazies. “If they did that, they’d be murdered by terrorists!” This is sadly a consideration. But shouldn’t it be a good thing that in general, American Christians are not inclined to murder artists for things they find offensive? No? Maybe these Christians think they should start slaying artists too so that people will think twice about letting ants crawl on Jesus!

The debate over whether or not Americans should display art critical of Islam is an important one, but completely irrelevant to this issue. It’s a sad day in America when not only does a Congressman think it appropriate to dictate what privately funded exhibit is displayed in a national museum, but the museum gives in to this partisan demand. It’s an even sadder day when right-wing pundits everywhere will literally use any excuse to denigrate Muslims, and will do so while supposedly defending religion.

We’ve officially entered that magical time of year: Christmas shopping! Job applications! I’m joining the ranks of those soon to hold Master’s degrees in Journalism in one hand while manically scrolling through Craigslist, MediaBistro, Ed2010, JournalismJobs, Gorkana Alerts, Career Builder, Monster, and the website of every single major (OK, and minor) publisher in a 100-mile radius with the other.

Luckily, my journalism program prepared me to be not just a reporter and a writer, but a social media strategist, camera operator, photographer, blog founder and promoter, video editor and general visionary for the future of the industry. But that’s not enough when you’re applying for the very few viable jobs in media right now. It used to be that if you wanted to write for newspapers, you’d get a job as a junior reporter and work your way up. If you wanted to work in magazines, you start as an editorial assistant, etc. Now, however, the paths open to young journalists are far more varied and uncertain, and the necessary qualifications just as varied.

Currently, I’m in the middle of trying to prove on paper that I am a social media goddess who lives and breathes Twitter feeds and can adopt the voice and expertise of a men’s health and lifestyle magazine, while simultaneously writing a cover letter that shows off my earnestness in conducting serious investigative journalism on topics such as government misconduct and healthcare. Later on, I’ll explain to an HR department that I am the perfect candidate to editorially assist the style department of a major magazine whose readership consists primarily of mothers of school-aged children, and then I’ll be sending out my resume to a local print newspaper, a national online magazine’s culture department, and a bridal blog.

In the meantime, I will continue to write an opinion column for an Irish news website, produce videos, blog posts and newsletters for a women’s magazine, review off-Broadway plays for a theatre site, pitch stories to a Brooklyn-focused blog, and crank out a profile of an award-winning high school. Oh, and I’ll also be putting the finishing touches on a 6000-word narrative, op-ed revisions, a film review, and an issues piece on race and theater. And blogging, for several different blogs. And drinking coffee. Lots of coffee.

Here’s the thing - I am utterly sincere in each of these endeavors. I genuinely love interviewing a minister to reconstruct his account of the day he felt renewed hope in his congregation’s fight for survival, as much as I love making holiday gift guides for food lovers and reviewing a graphic novel about Hurricane Katrina. I completely believe in my own ability to both dominate the social media side of a publication and to independently conduct investigations into corruption, or to write about neighborhood issues, or produce interactive content on hairstyle preferences, etc.

Are there some of these jobs I’d like better than others? Of course. But I would happily, proudly, enthusiastically accept any of the many positions I’ll be applying for - and I think I could do a cracker jack job at any of them, if I do say so myself.

I’m left to wonder, as I frenetically switch between Facebook maven and Very Serious Investigative Reporter, whether I should abandon it and stick to one strength. The problem with job schizophrenia, however, is that at some point you forget which personality is the “real” one.