Hasta La Gadget!

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea held a mass rally Tuesday in its capital to protest a United Nations resolution condemning its human rights record.

Thousands of protesters in Kim Il Sung Square carried banners praising their leaders and condemning the United States. Such mass rallies are organized by the government and are used to express its official line. North Korea has denounced the U.N. resolution, which is the first to urge the Security Council to refer the issue to the International Criminal Court. That would open the possibility of its autocratic leader, Kim Jong Un, being targeted by prosecutors. The non-binding resolution is to come before the U.N. General Assembly in the coming weeks.

North Korea says the U.N. move is based on trumped-up allegations by defectors and backed by the United States and other countries seeking to overthrow its ruling regime. Its state media have been producing articles critical of the human rights situation in the United States and threatening severe retaliation against any attempts to bring down its government.

The resolution followed a U.N. commission of inquiry report early this year that said North Korea’s human rights situation “exceeds all others in duration, intensity and horror.”

In 2005, two congregations left the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) In 2006, three churches departed.

But the floodgates have lifted since then as decades-old tensions between liberals and conservatives have reached breaking points.

After a 2011 decision allowing gay ordinations, 270 congregations left in 2012 and 2013. And church analysts estimate upwards of another 100 churches may leave by the end of the year as presbyteries vote on a proposal to rewrite the church’s constitution to refer to marriage as being between “two people” instead of the union of “a man and a woman.”

In the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, some 600 congregations left in 2010 and 2011 following the denomination’s 2009 decision allowing the ordination of pastors in same-sex relationships.

That the denominations’ changing stances on gay ordinations and same-sex marriages were a key factor in the exodus is without question. But new research into why congregations decided to leave reveal differences on sexuality issues were only part of a much larger divide.

Among the broader, longstanding concerns that convinced departing congregations that they no longer had a home in their denominations that Carthage College researchers found were:

• “Bullying” tactics by denominational leaders.
• A perceived abandonment of foundational principles of Scripture and tradition.
• The devaluation of personal faith.

“The ones that left said reform was not possible,” said Carthage sociologist Wayne Thompson, study leader.

The Final Conflict

Each side suffered losses in the congregational exodus, according to researchers taking an in-depth look at the process at the recent annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and the Religious Research Association.

The congregations that left were larger than the typical congregation, with some having more than 1,000 members. The losses for denominations already hemorrhaging members at historic rates have been significant.

For example, the more than 70,000 members in congregations leaving the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in 2012 and 2013 accounted for more than a third of the denomination’ s 192,000 net membership loss for those years, researchers Joelle Kopacz, Jack Marcum and Ida Smith reported.

In turn, many of the congregations that left faced bitter battles over church properties. And a majority in the Carthage study reported at least some members left rather than switch.

So why did the congregations break away?

Leaders of churches departing from the ELCA said along with the policy on gay ordinations that the denomination was no longer a good fit for their churches and it was important for them to disassociate with the reputation of their former governing body.

More specific reasons included claims that some ELCA leaders were “dictatorial” and that the denomination was undermining the authority of scripture and was more interested in social justice work than traditional ministry, Carthage researchers John Augustine and Brian Hansen reported.

Departing Presbyterian leaders also characterized the policy on gay ordinations as “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” but far from the sole reason.

Their concerns included claims that the denomination was overly politicized and weakening biblical authority and traditional teaching on the divinity of Jesus.

“The situation in the PC (U.S.A.) was hopeless as I see it,” said one Presbyterian pastor who left with his congregation to join the Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians.

“Our new presbytery is … trying to help us be successful without being bullied by a denomination that has turned its back on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

New homes

It was not as if these congregations chose the most theologically conservative new homes.

The great majority of congregations leaving the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) chose to join the Evangelical Presbyterian Church or the Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians. Few chose to join the larger Presbyterian Church in America, which does not permit women clergy.

Similarly, congregations leaving the ELCA overwhelmingly bypassed the more conservative Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod denominations for the new Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ and the North American Lutheran Church.

Still, the future does not look bright for reconciliation, analysts noted.

“There is an exhaustion factor of having fought for decades,” Thompson said.

Among some denominational leaders, he said, there is a sense, “The bad guys have left.”

And leaders of congregations departing their former mainline Protestant denominations told Carthage researchers they were happy to be in a new place.

When the church leaders were asked if they had any regrets about their decision to leave, “The only thing they’d ever say is we should have left sooner.”

David Briggs writes the Ahead of the Trend column for the Association of Religion Data Archives.

The newest addition to the Hunger Games franchise has recently hit theaters, and between that and the success of “The Leftovers,” the dystopian genre is back in the spotlight. I’m not a scientist or anything, but I predict that many gifts of grim futures will be given this holiday season.

Dystopia can be bleak, which may make its popularity seem odd (even Cormac McCarthy probably reached for a comedy to read after Mockingjay). But the genre holds a certain allure. A typical tale involves a future society with an oppressive government that demands conformity. Sometimes this is in the wake of a disaster that has befallen humanity. Sometimes the oppressive government exists just because its rules are convenient to the plot.

Stakes are high. Resilience is tested. If you can look past the occasionally goofy names of characters and places, it’s material that makes for compelling drama.

Like all genres that skyrocket to trendiness, there are many authors that jumped on the dystopia bandwagon who possibly shouldn’t have. So if you find yourself curious about exploring the crowded genre, I thought I’d take this opportunity to help you weed out some gems from the duds.

I’m mostly focusing on contemporary books, but I can’t talk about dystopia without mentioning its MVPs: Ray Bradbury, H.G. Wells, and Aldous Huxley. Now, here is an eclectic range of corrupt-authority-ridden goodness:

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
I couldn’t possibly make a dystopia list and not begin with this. Although this isn’t Atwood’s best work (that’s The Blind Assassin) it’s a good introduction to dystopia. It’s short and it tackles the big guns of potential Horrific Future Regimes: religion and the subjugation of women. I will say, slight spoiler, the end is maddeningly frustrating because there is none– the story stops abruptly in the middle of a scene. However, this is a good litmus test for the often-frustrating genre: if you can handle this ending, than you can handle dystopia.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
This book is more concerned with what a post-apocalyptic world means for the humans living in it than it is with sensationalizing a Disaster or whatever else you might expect from dystopia. If that’s not enough to hook you, the world involves a traveling Shakespearean theater company. The plot also includes an homage to “Star Trek.” Now, I’m a terrible failure of a nerd and am not actually into “Star Trek,” but I hear a lot of people are. So. That’s worth mentioning.

Unwind by Neal Shusterman
This is by far the best entry in the overstuffed category of YA dystopia, even beating classics like The Giver. The premise is America in the not-too-distant future in the aftermath of a civil war between Pro-Life and Pro-Choice factions. The compromise they reach mandates the sanctity of life for all babies, but if they grow into problem teens, they are sent away for organ harvesting.

Calling it a beautiful book might sound odd, because parts of it are horrifying. But it explores its concept with grace and thought and humanity, and it will stay with you long after you finish the last page. If the last few chapters don’t have you feeling all of the emotions, you have no heart. It’s the first in a quartet, but you can also treat is as a standalone. The fact that this book isn’t seeing the same level of popularity as The Hunger Games is a capital crime.

How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
A stream-of-consciousness style would normally cause me to put a book back on the shelf. But somehow, not only does Rosoff make it work; I couldn’t imagine the story told any other way. Unfortunately, this means the film adaptation did not work. But the book is engrossing and even includes magical realism — just enough to give the world a certain tone, not enough to turn it into Hogwarts.

Just so that you don’t say, “Yuck, why didn’t you warn me?” if you read it, I should warn you about the main relationship. Let’s just say the Lannisters would approve. However, this is one of the few stories in which I can actually say incest works, or at least doesn’t make me vomit, because that’s the point: the dystopian situation creates an environment in which that seems like the least irrational thing happening. But if it sounds too off-putting, I can assure you it’s a minor part of the story and most sexy-time occurs off-screen.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
I have to be vague about describing this one if you haven’t read it. However, plot aside, this is an example of a male author nailing a female voice. Some authors writing opposite gendered characters go overboard in their attempts, but this is just right. Plus, what’s not to like about an English boarding school setting? I did have problems with the ending and I think Ishiguro could have made a different choice, but the book is highly acclaimed so it looks like I’m in the minority.

The Silver Metal Lover by Tanith Lee
The premise of this book sounds like a bad porno: a girl falls in love with a robot. The cover isn’t much better. In the hands of another author, it might be one of those stories that’s so busy being Shocking for the sake of being Shocking that it forgets to say anything at all (I’m sure you know stories like that). But Lee, a veteran of weird tales, spins a surprisingly touching and philosophical story that explores the nature of being, sentience, consciousness, and superficiality.

The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta
I’ll be honest, I hesitated to include this because not only did I not love it, it actually made me angry. It was a great premise… that went nowhere. Wasted good ideas might be even worse than bad ideas. If only someone who was willing to do something with it had thought of it! That’s where the show comes in. But, with some exceptions, I believe if you watch an adaptation, you should read the book. So I begrudgingly include it. It helps that Perrotta is a sharply witty, engaging writer even when he says nothing. And there is one aspect of the book that is superior: the son’s storyline, which is blander than watching beige paint dry in the show, is mildly interesting in the book. Maybe if you try listening to the show’s dramatic soundtrack while you read, it will trick you into feeling like more Meaningful Things are happening.

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
I’m including this one as a bonus because isn’t a novel. It’s also breaking my rule of making this list contemporary. I won’t even describe this short story vaguely; I’ll only say read it if you want goosebumps. I don’t know that it’s traditionally classified as dystopia, but I’m giving it my non-existent Dystopian Seal of Approval.

Have others to add? Disagree with me? Have at it in the comments.

When it comes to music, the mood prompted by digital technology has shifted in recent years, from carnivalesque to callous. Pop star Taylor Swift is only the latest to bring attention to the trouble musicians are in, recently withdrawing her recordings from the streaming service Spotify, protesting its royalty scheme. In light of such high-profile outrage, it is easy to forget that there are still opportunities to use the Internet to access music more ethically–Bandcamp is one, and so (I’m told) is Drip.fm. In these alternate economies, artists and audiences can mingle, and build one-to-one relationships, to a degree that was rarely possible in the analog era.

For such alternate economies to stand a chance, however, we listeners will have to become more curious, occasionally taking risks with art we might not like. Some would say that that’s a lot to ask of human nature, especially in an age of profusion. When music has become yet another set of big data, choosing what to listen to can feel like an existential dilemma. A study from a few years back suggests that though we finally have our celestial jukebox, many of us are inclined to tune most of it out, gravitating toward music we think other people like. Call that laziness, or fear, or ennui–in any case, amid predictions of an otherwise bleak financial future, it’s a godsend for the mainstream music industry, whose business model has always preferred that listeners obsess over superstars and hits (or, in the highbrow formulation, geniuses and masterpieces).

Indeed, more than a century since the first commercially successful recordings, that obsession seems harder than ever to shake–for record executives, artists, and fans alike. Our mania for music sanctioned by both market and culture has trickled down to even the fringiest genres. Consider an argument recently made by Jeff Winbush in a review of a new disc by the pianist Hiromi. “For jazz not only to thrive, but survive,” Winbush writes, “it must begin to create its own superstars who can deliver a much-needed shot of adrenalin to the flagging art form, but possess skills in social media and marketing, creating a global brand, and finding new forms beyond record sales, radio play and live gigs in fewer clubs and concert halls to reach the new breed of jazz fans.”

Call me crazy, but I think that’s terrible advice, however well-intentioned–not only for jazz (which is hardly flagging, by the way), but for music as a whole. What we need are not more superstars, but none. To me, the real gift of digital technology is not the feeding frenzy of infinite free music; it’s the possibility of fostering artistic communities that are viable precisely because they are intimate and idiosyncratic, and because they form spontaneously, through the unprecedented channels of communication to which we now have access. If such communities are allowed to derive from shared passion, shared passion itself will nurture economic justice.

I know the counterargument: to get quality music, you need institutions, hits, and a marketing budget big enough to feed a small country. I’m not convinced. Even in the industry’s heyday, plenty of beautiful recordings were made on relatively primitive equipment, and with a serendipitous spirit (listen to Elvis’s early Sun sides, for instance). Even if they hadn’t been, in 2014, the state of the art has been democratized, mostly. More to the point: we no longer need the external validation of a hit single or top ten list or some other impersonal arbiter to show us where the “good stuff” is. There is so much music being made now that, whatever your taste, good stuff is everywhere. You’ve just got to be willing to listen for it.

The sad truth is that, whatever desire for mass ritual it fulfills, the top-down idea of music has proved to be about as culturally healthy as a factory farm, or a big box store, or a for-profit university. Concentrated into the hands of fewer people than ever, musical fame now mirrors other societal wealth imbalances (“the top 1 percent of bands and solo artists now earn 77 percent of all revenue from recorded music,” Derek Thomson reports). It turns the long tail into an especially lonely place, duping too many listeners into thinking they’ve found what’s important before they have even started looking. Indeed, we ought to stop this talk about a long tail altogether–as if some music belongs at the rump of the industry. We need a new metaphor–a “wide meadow,” perhaps, with an endless variety of flora, and no one species ever getting so big that it takes over.

A recent Matthew Inman (aka “The Oatmeal”) comic summarized in four frames what most critics of the situation, understandably focused on the short-term, tend to overlook. In “The State of the Music Industry,” Inman moves from the big label greed of the old days, to the Internet’s disruption of that system, to the digital monopolies that hound us now. But in the last frame, he envisions a future in which music is what it should have always been: a meaningful interaction between two people, probably friends. One who plays, and one who listens. Note the former middleman reduced to a whinging figure in the background.

That’s what the Internet could still bring us, if we bother to meet the technology halfway. Some psychologists say our brains are wired for fluency–“people prefer things that are easy to think about,” as Tom Kuntz recently put it–suggesting that we can’t help mainlining the same old hits. But wiring can be rewired. A yoga teacher I know once described the feeling of reaching beyond the familiar as finding “comfort in discomfort.” I like that way of putting it. If you love music, you already know it will survive the current era–but know too that how it survives may depend on your being uncomfortable, at least some of the time.

Andrew Durkin is the author of Decomposition: A Music Manifesto.

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Words. Words. Words. Millions of them. Delightful little toys for wordsmiths like me. I particularly enjoy special categories of words which have something in common, e. g. Contronyms. Every schoolboy and schoolgirl knows synonyms and antonyms, but what are contronyms?

Contronyms are words (or sometimes short expressions) which have two more or less opposite meanings. No, “bridegroom” is not a contronym, though it includes two contradictory words but not opposite meanings. It is a synonym for “groom.” The word strike is a contronym; It can mean hit, as in hitting someone, or it can mean miss, as used in baseball.

Contronyms (sometimes spelled contranyms) can also be called self-antonyms, auto-antonyms, antagonyms or Janus words (two-faced), though the word contronyms is most widely used. They have existed as long as most languages, with the possible exception of those using Chinese characters or pictograms. For example, the Spanish word huésped means both host and guest. In Hebrew and Yiddish, shalom means both hello and good by, as Aloah does in Hawaiian. Shalom means peace and aloah means love, which possibly explains both these uses. The word “contronym” itself, however, probably did not appear until 1962 in the works of Jack Herring.

If you like to play with words, the English language gives you many opportunities. For example, Palindromes are words or expressions spelled the same backwards and forwards, e.g. words such as deed, noon and level, or the names Hannah and Otto, or a longer word such as redivider. If you include expressions, you can find much longer palindromes such as Madam, I’m Adam or a Toyota, race car. [Ignore the punctuation.] Lots of fun; Try to see how long an expression you can put together. Retronyms are old words, which need an additional amplifier to bring them up-to-date, due to social, political or technological changes. Examples are acoustic guitar, analogue clock, fresh air and unsafe sex. (Figure it out yourself.)

In addition, there are language categories which bring a smile to the face or a loud guffaw –Spoonerisms, Wellerisms, Malapropisms, Tom Swifty’s and Paraprosdokia. Spoonerisms are tongue-twisters such as “tips of the slongue.” Malapropisms involve words which sound alike but, when misused, embarrass the speaker. Example: Going way back to Gracie Allen, “You could have knocked me over with a fender!” Users of Wellerisms quote a common saying, and follow it with a ridiculous example. “I see,” said the blind carpenter, as he picked up his hammer and saw.” Tom Swifty’s (based on a children’s book) start by stating an action and following it with an amusingly descriptive adverb, e.g. “We must hurry,” said Tom swiftly. {Get it?] Paraprosdokia means starting a sentence with one thought and then abruptly shifting to a totally different (and usually contrary) one. Quoting Groucho Marx, “I’ve had a wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.” Comedians love paraprosdokia.

Add twisted, double-meaning newspaper headline bloopers (New Bridge Held Up by Red Tape) and words spelled the same but pronounced differently (An immigrant coming into a bookstore, asking for a book to “Polish my English.”) and you have a cocktail of amusing and fascinating examples of things which make our language exciting.

Add to these words which combine letter and number sounds to cut down on verbiage. e.g. 4C for foresee, K9P for canine pee and LEV8 for alleviate, and you have additional material for playing language games.

But, let’s get back to contronyms. I have nearly 100 of them in my knapsack. Let’s provide the reader with a few prime ones:

Bolt
To hold together (as in mechanical bolting) or to separate by fleeing.

Clip
To connect (as with a paper clip) or to detach (as in clipping your hedge).

Fix
To repair (as in putting together) or to castrate (as in cutting apart).

Garnish
To add to (as with food preparation ) or to take away (as with wages).

Handicap
An advantage (to insure equality, as in golf) or a disadvantage (that prevents or minimizes equal achievement).

Hold up
To support (as in Liberty holding up the torch) or to impede (as in holding up legislation).

Lease
To rent property, or to offer property for rent.

Out
Visible (as with the moon) or invisible (as with an electric light).

Sanction
To approve, or to boycott.

Screen
To present, or to conceal.

Skin
To remove (as in skinning an animal for its fur). or to cover.

Trim
To decorate (as with a Christmas tree) or to remove excess (as with a mustache).

Wear
To endure, or to deteriorate.

Wind up
To start (as with a clock) or to end (as with a business).

How do these contradictory meanings come about? We don’t always know, but they do originate in different ways. For example, cleave (to adhere or to separate) come from Old English roots, the first from clifian and the second from cleofan. Oversight probably resulted from confusion of the verbs overlook and oversee when people started the use them in nouns. Other contronyms such as seed and dust probably had similar origins when verbs were appended to describe how they were to be moved. Dusting involves either adding dust or removing dust. Seeds are scattered during planting, but removed from the resulting fruit. A number of others arise from different usage in the United States and England. For example, to table a bill in the English Parliament is to put it on the table for consideration. In Congress, it means to set it aside. When an American Judge enjoins someone, he forbids him or her from carrying out a certain action. When a British Judge enjoins, he is directing the party to act. If a West End play in London is a bomb, it is a huge success. In America, a bomb is a failure. There are undoubtedly other reasons for the rise of these words, but origin of these contradictions is often obscure.

I hope the reader has enjoyed this awesome blog on Contronyms, even though, in Old English, it would have been considered “awful.”

Marv Rubinstein is the author of The Compendium Of American English.

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