Piqued

Here at Texas A&M, the student organization responsible for bringing a bit of culture our way is MSC Opas. The few shows I’ve attended in the past have been most enjoyable. The Irish Tenors concert last November was particularly fantastic. Last night’s East Village Opera Company performance was no exception.

Since I procrastinated about finding someone to go with (being single has its drawbacks), I didn’t find someone to give my second ticket to until 45 minutes before the show. But thankfully, a friend of mine was interested in going on short notice so the ticket wasn’t wasted. And he knows more about opera than I do, so it was interesting to hear his perspective on this opera company meets rock band.

Indeed, if you’ve never heard this mixture before, you’re really missing out. Although last night was the first time I had heard true opera performed in a rock fashion, it’s not the first time I’ve had the joy of listening to amazing opera singers against the backdrop of crunchy guitars and bombastic drums. Finnish gothic/orchestral metal band Nightwish featured a female opera singer until recently, and their stuff sounds amazing. Less opera-influenced but similarly enjoyable rock bands are Within Temptation and Trans-Siberian Orchestra (best known for their excellent Christmas albums, but which also did a great Beethoven-themed album). So, since I was already a big fan of this sort of band, I was interested to see what EVOC was all about. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting anything quite as polished as the aforementioned bands since I hadn’t heard of EVOC before, but half-way through the show I was glad to see I was wrong.

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So I just saw this article on MSNBC about that extreme Baptist church in Kansas which protests the funerals of soldiers and AIDS victims, all in the name of God. These people (including their children) can be seen carrying signs that say “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” “God is America’s Terrorist” and “God Hates Fags.” These people are disgusting, but particularly to me as a Christian. Their argument is that God hates homosexuality (which the Bible does clearly state is a sinful lifestyle), America is becoming too tolerant of homosexuality (a sign of America becoming more sinful), and that God is now attacking America as punishment for this degradation through war, disease and natural disasters (an argument that commits the post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy).

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Greetings:

It’s been a while since I’ve attempted blogging; my reason for giving up before was lack of readership (I think my only loyal follower was my mom…not that that’s bad, but a phone call is a much more efficient way to catch up with her). But the subject matter of my previous blog was also narrow in its appeal. That is, it was pretty much all about what I was up to rather than topics that have broad appeal.

Which is what makes this attempt different. Since I realize how boring it is for most of us to read about what’s been going on in other people’s lives beyond the occasional Christmas letter, my goal now is to comment on whatever piques my interest in hopes that others might appreciate my perspective. Since my interests are rather diverse, so will be the issues I write about. I hope to address anything ranging from entertainment to science to technology to religion to politics to…well, anything. If you find my ramblings worth the few minutes of your time, please bookmark it and/or subscribe via RSS! And digg/reddit/stumble me, while you’re at it. Right now I’m hoping to write some sort of a post nearly every day. Many will probably be short blurbs about something I found online or random thoughts I had. But I hope to occasionally write longer and more thought-out pieces on issues I find especially important. Also, I realize the visual layout is really generic right now…I hope to change that up at some point as well.

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