Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

Culture

What’s going on, who we are, and what the big deal is.

  • When I read the news that the White House would change the name of North America’s highest peak, I was elated. And thankful. Mt. McKinley will now be Denali. Outstanding! The article was posted under the headline on Yahoo!’s frontpage: Obama renames North America’s highest peak The president’s action is a symbolic gesture to Alaska Natives on the…

  • I’m going to the store! I tell her. We need milk for cereal in the morning. There isn’t enough in the fridge. I grab the keys. [bctt tweet=”‘There isn’t room in my brain for any of these other things.’” nofollow=”yes”] Do we need anything else? We could use some bread. She tells me. and some…

  • We are shifting toward enlightenment. Not The Enlightenment, for we are leaving much of that behind. But a certain enlightened view of the world that is more than logic and rational, ideological and fearful, more than cynical and compassionate. We’re moving toward being real and being forgiving. I know this sounds pie in the sky…

  • We are fond of the dialectic method of arguing. In this, there is always “us and them” and things are always “black and white”. We assign sides and it is simple and clean. Life is never so simple and clean. Those raising concerns about systemic violence in the criminal justice system, particularly toward young, unarmed, black…

  • When David was creeping on the roof, looking in windows like a perv, he saw this woman, naked, bathing. And in true Biblical form we’ll say that “lust was in his heart”. Which just sounds like the euphemistic excusing “boys will be boys” of Biblical interpretation. It makes David seem so innocent to his urges:…

  • Scholars speak of the book, Song of Songs as love poetry to GOD. That it takes its form from the romantic poetry genre and applies it to love of GOD. It possesses a certain sensuality that is scandalous, if for no other reason than it talks about breasts and sex in ways that would make…