“And you will keep me safe, and you will keep me close, and rain will make the flowers… grow”

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The Correct reaction To A Farewell to Arms

“I’m afraid of the rain.. because sometimes I see me dead in it”.

Since the dawn of christianity, rain has been used to symbolize renewal and rebirth through a form of natural baptism. Water supports life, and in many songs i embodies growth, life and the return of a joyful spring.

“Even in the darkness every color can be found
And every day of rain brings
water flowing
to things growing in the ground”-Story of a Girl

“Rain, I don’t mind.
Shine, the world looks fine.”-Rain the Beatles

However, Hemingway twists this meaning, relating rain to death and despair, something that was begining to be hinted at in Les Mis’ A little Fall of Rain. Although, in Les Mis even though Eponine is dying this is the happiest moent of her entire life, muddling the two definitions.

The world of Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms is a realistically depressing one. He states: “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially.” Each death and source of melancholy is accompanied with a “little fall of rain”. Rain is a source of fear for Catherine, who *spoiler alert!!!* eventually dies in childbirth for a still born baby.

“I don’t know, darling, I’ve always been afraid of the rain.”

“I like it.”

“I like to walk in it. But it’s very hard on loving.”

“I’ll love you always.”

“I’ll love you in the rain and in the snow and in the hail and—what else is there?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’m sleepy.”

“Go to sleep, darling, and I’ll love you no matter how it is.”

“You’re not really afraid of the rain are you?”

“Not when I’m with you.”

“Why are you afraid of it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me.”

“Don’t make me.”

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“Tell me.”

“All right. I’m afraid of the rain because sometimes I see me dead in it.”

“No.”

“And sometimes I see you dead in it.”

“That’s more likely.”

“No, it’s not darling. Because I can keep you safe. I know I can, But noone can help themselves…It’s all nonsense it’s only nonsense. I’m not afraid of the rain. I’m not afraid of the rain. Oh, Oh God I wish I wasn’t”

She was crying. I comforted her and she stopped crying.But outside it kept on raining”

It rains almost continuosly in the book, with a few scenes that offer a ray of light breaking through the looming storm clouds. While in a traditional sense, ice and new usually symbolizes danger and despair, Hemingway makes yet another role reversal: having snow symbolize hope. Snow surrounds the happy couple in the alps, where all seems safe and far away from the insanity of the outside world, the war, and the rain.

Even though Hemingway makes it painfully obvious from the beginig of the novel that rain symbolizes death (bringing with it deadly diseses such as chlorea), Henry seems to love the rain despite its constant presense surrounding death.

“‘It’s raining hard.’

‘And you’ll always love me, won’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the rain won’t make any difference?’

‘No’

‘That’s good. Because I’m afraid of the rain.’

‘Why?’ I was sleepy. Outside the rain was falling steadily.

‘I don’t know, darling. I’ve always been afraid of the rain.’

‘I like it.’

‘I like to walk in it. But it’s very hard on loving.’

‘I’ll love you always.’

‘I’ll love you in the rain and in the snow and in the hail and – what else is there?’

‘I don’t know. I guess I’m sleepy.’

‘Go to sleep darling, and I’ll love you no matter how it is.’”

Catherine’s perception of the rain is muddled, in her drems she has perfect clarity of its meaning, but while she is awake she sees it as only an obstacle between her beloved Henry and herself. Little does she know, rain bring sthe ultimate thing that would seperate them: death.

“But after I got them to leave and shut the door and turned off the light it wasn’t any good. It was like saying good-bye to a statue. After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain.”

 

TECH TECH TECH

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Adelina Richards
ENG 138T
Kyle King
March 11, 2013

Online Deliberation

We engage in deliberation everyday. Whether it be about where we want to eat lunch or who should be the next president, everyone has their own opinions and are entitled to those opinions. A medium of deliberation most commonly used is the internet. According to Chomsky, the current generation is a generation of digital natives. Digital natives each have a virtual identity through which the users thoughts and beliefs are shown through a digital medium.
Now-a-days everyone has a Facebook. I’ve friended friends, old teachers, random people with names I can barely pronounce, and, begrudgingly, family. Facebook is a global online community whose users have the widest range of ages, cultures, socioeconomic backgrounds, religions, and opinions. A setting such as this allows all sides of an issue to be heard, and isn’t clouded by a “majority”. The immediate problem then, is that since I am of a certain background that my particular group of face book friends are mostly high-school or college age who are rather liberal. However, it also creates an atmosphere where people are comfortable sharing their complete thoughts on the subject, without fear of being judged or even having to interact with the people they talk to ever again. I had several civilized interactions from people of different age groups, who never would’ve been able to collaborate on the issue without the use of the internet because they lived in different states. The site also keeps the participants updated and notifies them whenever someone comments on the status, or “likes” their own comment. Linking is another significant benefit, because it allows users to show their agreement in a succinct, convenient way.
I had my idea planned out to a tee. Since my topic involved religion, I waited until Sunday afternoon to post my topic, making it seem like a legitimate question rather than an out of the blue semi-deep status. I asked a single question, using a laid back tone, “ Seriously, why does everyone think Christians hate gays?“ rather than saying ‘ In recent years, it has become evident through protests, church law, and exclusion, that the Christian church is against the union of homosexuals. This has created a divide between the homosexual community and the Christian community. How can we fix this?“ I later introduced the question of how can this problem be fixed, after the participants had already created a background on their own. I didn’t provide a large amount of feedback, I only questioned some of the points brought up and added in short comments of my own experiences to keep the conversation flowing, acting as a moderator.
Many people had posted in a face book page dedicated to the online deliberation project that consisted entirely of freshman at Penn State taking the course. They were getting feedback that was well thought out and intelligent, not to mention long. I was worried that by posting my topic in the form of a status, I wouldn’t get quality responses. To my surprise, people I haven’t talked to in years posted excellent responses with sides of the issue I hadn’t thought of before. For instance, Kevin Marble immediately linked the issue to the Catholic church, and Marilyn provided an example of a hate crime I hadn’t even heard of before.
Everyone who posted on my status seemed to be one the same page. It seemed to be true deliberation since there was no debate, and no one tried to be “right”. A conclusion was reached as to why and how the problem was happening and that there was no real way to fix it. All of the comments seemed to flow and respond or agree with previous comments, but very few came out and repeated something.
The topic was one people felt strongly about. Knowing the people in the conversation, a large majority of them have had gay friends or were gay themselves, or were Christian, directly involving them in the topic. Although each were involved in the issue, the discussion did not become heated, perhaps because the only person who thought homosexuality was wrong handled the situation calmly and maturely. Kevin Marble shared his views and defended the church, but in no way put down homosexuals or other participants in the conveersation. The only comment that had even a bit of sass was Meghan Renne’s “Not everyone thinks the way you do” which hints at a past with less than stellar experiences.
The most notable difference between online deliberation and face-to-face deliberation is the idea of a virtual identity. It acts almost as a shield which allows you to say almost anything, and yet restricts you into keeping your certain mold. Meghan Renee always talks down to Christians and their thoughts of homosexuality, and her single comment and the comments she liked reflected this. Others said several sentences, something that probably wouldn’t take place in a face-to-face deliberation because one is so easily interrupted. On the other hand, a face-to-face deliberation has more of a conversational style, where it is easy to comment on a face book status and not read any of the previous comments or any responses. Also, the participants aren’t all on face book at the same time, it is easy to log off and not see a response, or to ignore any that would disagree with your ideas. Also, if no one is online at the same time as you, it is possible that no one will see the post, and it will be buried by the see of other statuses. where in a face-to face deliberation many of the responses are people agreeing with one another instead of building off of previous comments, on face book people will just like the comment.

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“I have been rich and I have been poor. it is better to be rich” -Gertrude Stein

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Gertrude Stein was the mother of the Lost Generation. Every Saturday night, the best and the brightest would show up at her doorstep begging for her approval. An acclaimed art critic, she mentored Picasso, Hemingway, and Scott Fitzgerald. If not for her, many of the great works of the time never would have been completed. For instance, after the Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald felt like his talents had been spent and much like his character longed to return to his past self. However, Gertude insisted he return home immediately and begin writing, resulting in his great novel Tender is the Night.

I compare Gertrude to a mother because as she nurtured its members, she literally created the term “Lost Generation”. While Hemingway swears that she declared his generation lost after the world, holding onto nothing, Gertrude Stein herself sings a different tune.She claims a mechanic had told her this very idea, since they came back from the war knowing nothing their knowledge of simple tasks lost, and she had simply reiterated  No one knows for sure what happened, since what had once been pleasant relation(resulting in Gertrude becoming Bumby’s godmother) turned into a bitter nuclear wasteland.  However, this is how Hemingway lived, and it was only a matter of time before an over emasculated woman clashed heads with him.

Gertrude had always known she was different, but it wasn’t until she entered medical school that she realized her true sexual orientation. She would struggle with her identity for years to come, often embracing gender stereotypes and branding herself more man than woman, which is exemplified by her making her wife chat with the other men’s wives and children while Gertrude and the men had “serious talk”.This of course, led to major issue in WWII, where being the most well known lesbian couple sent the nazis after them, itching to throw them into a camp.

However, Gertrude always stuck true to the things she knew for sure about herself. She published several books, such as Three Lives which was based on her sexual awakening and I am a Rose. She is perhaps most famous for her many quotes, including ” We are always the same age inside”,” There ain’t no answer. There ain’t gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That’s the answer”, and “A rose is a rose is a rose” to which Hemingway retorted “A bitch is a bitch is a bitch”. 

She paved the pathway for the Lost Generation’s style of writing, and while she may not be remembered for her own work, she will indeed be remembered for her thoughts, opinions, and actions.

Gertrude Stein

“There are many humorous things in the world, among them the white man’s notion that he is less savage than the other savages”-Mark Twain

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“Your white privilege is showing!” my sassy black coworker announced last week to a group of white girls shopping at our store. They had come in, blatantly ignored him and started trashing the store figuring out what to get with the money daddy put in their bank accounts. They either didn’t hear him, or simply chose not to.

I hope to discuss a stereotype not commonly recognized, the classic “white person” well described by Lawrence Auster:

“For example the area of Pennsylvania where I am now residing. It’s just twenty miles from the black-dominated jungle of Philadelphia, yet it is all white, and its all-whiteness is reflected in the extraordinary pleasantness, peacefulness, freedom from disorder and crime. The people here are clearly drawn to such a white environment, but they never state openly that that’s why they’re here. In fact they are ultra liberals in their politics.So they are divided beings: they passionately prefer to live in an all-white community, and they pay exhorbitantly to live here, but they would never say that.”

Whites are racist  arrogant, and ignorant. Whites are all republican. Whites are spoiled and rich. According to urban dictionary white people are:

Single handedly, the most violent race of human beings throughout the history of mankind. No other race of human beings has killed more people, raped more women, destroyed more cultures, or has stolen as much land as white people. White people are the most hated race of human beings.
Read any university level history book to learn the truth about “White people”.

Have whites earned this stereotype? Anyone of a different color would answer: yes. However, my dad would rant for hours that he isn’t paid any more than anyone else, he certainly isn’t rich, and that he does NOT hate other cultures.

The truth is that Whites are judged almost entirely off the actions of their ancestors and the way they are treated. White privilege is a statistical fact, but not one that applies to all. Not all whites are racist. Not all white girls are spoiled. Not all white people are murderers and rapists. I was shocked and appalled to learn that something this serious was joked about. Yes, we’ve all seen the spoiled white girls and the successful business men who literally do nothing but inherit daddy’s wealth, but NOT ALL STEREOTYPES ARE TRUE. The atrocious acts done by white ancestors, which span an extremely broad span of European countries, must be forgiven. If we can get past the Japanese for Pearl Harbor, the Germans for the Halocaust, and the Huns for conquering the Germanic tribes leading to the demis of the Roman Empire and the dawn of the Dark Ages, we can get over the acts done by people long buried. In the civil war, hundreds of thousands of white men died for the freedom of slaves, proving not all of them are bad.

In order for whites to be accepted, society would have to change its ways. White privilege IS a thing, a thing that isn’t commonly recognized by the white race.

 

We associate with people we are most like, and often without realizing it exclude others. Although whites are not the overall global majority, they hold the most power and influence in the world. Stereotypes are always an exaggeration of a small truth, and it’s easy to see where the hatred of whites comes from. When you’re constantly being asked if you’re the help, falsely accused of crime, or judged based on your skin color, you tend to hate its source. White people stereotypes stem from more then just hate, they extend from envy.

 

 

This is an issue that will never go away, with two of the seven deadly sins fueling it. We are still far from equality, and only with tolerance and peace will other cultures stop hating whites. Rascism is a viscous cycle, it is a crime committed by people of all colors. Just remember, don’t live up to your stereotypes.

On another note, the definition of white people on urban dictionary: people who are white and the only people who change color

PersonA: You look a little red there child.

PersonB: Damn white people always changing colors when they’re sick or hot.

Blogging? What Blogging?

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Last semester, I struggled with giving my blogs the happy balance between comedic writing and quality writing. Hence, this semester, I tried to choose blog topics that I had a strong emotional investment in, but could still talk about academically.

However, I wonder if my blogs are too boring and don’t get to as deep of a level as I would have liked. I’m satisfied with their content, but I feel like they aren’t masterpieces in any form of the word.

I think when it comes to commenting, I make some good points, but have never actually taken part in a conversation in the comments( Something made nearly impossible by sites lack of notifications or replies).

All in all, I believe that my blogs are decent, but could use some improvement in all honesty, but I’m not quite sure how to take them to the next level.

Gatsby? What Gatsby?

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As I alluded to in my last post, I believe the Great Gatsby has such an impact on people because of its theme of returning to the past. The characters are enchanting because, much like the Gods of Greek mythology, they posses thoughts and desires that are so innately human. While many people may describe its characters as a collective group of annoying, lazy, and rich people with way too much free time, I think it is better to describe them as lost human souls whose actions bring about their own demise. The whole book is this shining beacon toward the truth about our self destruction.

“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.”

“You see I usually find myself among strangers because I drift here and there trying to forget the sad things that happened to me.”

“I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library”

 

“I love her and that’s the beginning and the end of everything.”

“And all I kept thinking, over and over was; you can’t live forever, you can’t live forever”

But perhaps the best example can be found in the unforgettable scene where Gatsby is looking off to the unreachable green light that is Daisy. He cannot have her, and something about this knowledge makes him long for her ever more. But how many times have we, or someone we know and love done the same? If we call these characters pathetic, really we’d be calling ourselves pathetic


Fitzgerald sheds light behind that impenetrable mask that most of society tries to hide behind. The world is not perfect and The Great Gatsby is an excellent paradigm of why humans can never be satisfied with what they have. Through the cynical views of the narrator Nick, we can see how the lower class wished it could become one with the fantastical world of the rich and wealthy, even though it is clear their lives are not as perfect as they may seem. Is that pathetic? Is the fact that Daisy doesn’t know whether to choose love or stability pathetic? Even in Nick’s case, wants to be more than he was born to be pathetic?

 

I think they’re beautiful. Everything about the book is absolutely beautiful.  For example the final words of the novel have moved me like nothing before,

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eludes us then, but that’s no matter tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… and one fine morning—-

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back carelessly into the past.”

Fitzgerald shakes the very core of our being, reaches out to our hopes, our dreams and forever crushes them. However, while this may shed a depressing light on The Great Gatsby , I see it as the most brilliant passageway to a whole new  way of life ever created. It challenges the reader to live life without regret, and to succeed where its characters have miserably failed.

So go forth readers, don’t be a Jay Gatsby. Be yourself, and write your own story, but make sure that you are always looking to the future, not the past.

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“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” — Benjamin Franklin

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As someone who has taught kids for almost two years now, and have tutored since eighth grade, teaching is a subject that gets me really emotional. So, as anyone who knows me personally could guess, my favorite teaching style is the last one, by Jackson J. Spielvogel.

As a student, I am extremely teacher oriented, and when I feel as though a teacher doesn’t like me, or if they don’t seem to care about what their teaching, my learning suffers. For example, I took Calculus in high school and dreaded going to the class every day. The foreign signs and symbols made my head spin, and as the teacher droned on and on I found myself daydreaming. But when I took calculus in college with Marc Fabri, it became my favorite subject! I got 100 on almost every quiz; I even looked forward to homework! When I see a teacher love his or her subject and enjoying interacting with their students, it makes me want to be more engaged in the subject matter and the class as a whole. Not to mention that communication is key, and where my U Penn graduate calc teacher would start speaking another language

As a teacher, I couldn’t imagine being able to teach if I hated my kids. I could care less about the sounds the letters made, but watching my students light up when they recognized letter sounds, and then progressed into being able to read full words filled my days with joy (corny I know, but it’s true). Since I was much more fun than their previous teacher, and was able to explain concepts in simpler words, the students flourished when I taught them, and progressed at a much faster rate. I turned tracing letters into race car games, sang songs to help them learn, and read to them when their mommies or daddies were late. As mentioned in several of the samples, students look up to teachers as role models, but I wouldn’t look up to someone who didn’t even like me. Emotion is an essential part to teaching, whether it’s emotion for the subject matter or the students (in a purely platonic way) and I believe it could make or break a class.

One the other hand, my least favorite teaching style is exemplified by Larry D. Spence. I want to start out by saying that in some cases, this learning style is the most effective. Engaging and challenging the students is all well and good, but damaging their self-esteem is not going to make them better students. I will try harder if I get an A- than if I get a C, because an extremely low grade basically makes me give up. I try, but I convince myself that I’m just not smart enough for the material. However if I’m just knocked down a little, I know I have the ability to do better, and therefore reach for that goal. I do not believe that making a student teach themself is helpful. Yes, a student should read ahead and try their best, but I usually do that and still have questions regarding the material. Also, it is important to get feedback from students about the course, because to truly teach is to be constantly improving upon your lesson plans and ideas. You learn with your students, and should always try to improve upon yourself, because as the world is constantly changing so are you. Regardless to say, we need teachers who will challenge us and knock us off our pedestal, but the question is where is the balance between being too strict and too laid back?

 

“That Paris exists and anyone could choose to live anywhere else in the world will always be a mystery to me.”

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Let me just begin by saying I hate all Woody Allen films. I can’t stand his comedy, his style, basically just him in general. But considering how obsessed I am with the Lost Generation, I figured I’d give this film a try.

Let me tell you, it was gold. Even if you’re not an uber Lost Generation fan like me, you can’t help but fall in love with the film and the ideas it presents. There has been some time or another where we have all sat down and thought ” I was born in the wrong era”.

That’s exactly what Owen Wilson thinks in this film. An aspiring novelist, he writes screenplays to keep his fiance happy. He has a great life in the present, a beautiful (if not stupid and rude beyond belief) wife, prospects, a big house in Florida,but he dreams of one place: Paris in the 20’s in the rain.

On night he goes out for a walk, and an ancient car transports him back in time to meet his idols, and a few of their friends. The film features cameos from Hemingway, Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, Dali, Picasso, and many more.Each character is represented perfectly, from Hemingway’s pessimistic and blunt dialouge, to Scott’s fascination with Zelda’s ditzy personality. Night after night he meets with these people, and becomes one of their inner circle.

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It’s strange how Owen Wilson is almost a mirror image of Nick from the Great Gatsby. he seems to fit  in with the crowd, but no matter how much he loves being a part of their world, he will never truly belong. And oh how he loved it, especially after he met Marion.

Picasso’s lover, the flapper,fell in love almost instantly with the young writer. However it seemed more like understanding than love. She too believed she belonged in another time, she thought Paris was in it’s prime in the 1900s.

Owen Wilson tries to get her to see that she’s living in the golden age of Paris, but try as he may when a carriage comes and transports them to the 1900s, he can’t persuade her to return back to the 20s with him. He then makes the grand realization of the movie. The past always has a beckoning glow to it because it’s something different and exciting, but there was no perfect time, there wasn’t even a better time than the present.

The one of the  grand themes of The Great Gatsby is wanting to return to the past, and realizing that you can’t.

“‘You can’t repeat the past….’

“Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!'”

Although Owen Wilson has the ability to stay in the twenties and live the life he’s always dreamed of (the superior choice I would have made), he decides to take control of his own life in the present, and sets out carve a new for himself in this brave new world.

So I implore you, watch this film that is really really good, despite it’s director Enjoy the beauty of Paris and the complete and utter confusion that is Salvador Dali.

“It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice”- Deng Xiaoping

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The  “Ain’t nobody got time for that” meme has become a world-wide phenomena, from studying for tests to bronchitis, this meme has become an excuse for everything.

Apparently now, it’s become an excuse for racism. But as shockingly offensive as this is, it’s nothing new. For centuries, Blacks have been stereotyped in some of the worst ways possible. For example, in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, he described African natives as creatures, not even daring to consider them human.

“While I stood horror-struck, one of these creatures rose to his hands and knees, and went off on all-fours towards the river to drink. He lapped out of his hand, then sat up in the sunlight, crossing his shins in front of him, and after a time let his woolly head fall on his breastbone.” (1.39-41)

However, as a reader we can hardly blame Conrad. His views were based entirely on cultural ignorance. However, cultural ignorance also was one of the main reasons Africans were enslaved in the first place. Hence, that doesn’t seem like a very valid excuse in our times, where things like Things Fall Apart and you know, that whole civil rights movement thing exist.

On the other hand, even though slavery has been abolished, Black stereotypes have not. People even use modern science to dehumanize African Americans, saying that genetically they are more closely related to apes( ,By the way, this is an incorrect assumption. Just because all humans originated in Africa and then adapted to their environment does not mean they are more or less “ape-like”).

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But don’t take my word for it. Pick up To Kill a Mocking Bird, read The Help, type Successful Black Man meme into google, look at the white actors who used to paint themselves black, or watch this clip.

Successful Black Man

The worst part is, that now the African American stereotypes have shifted from making fun a of a “primitive” culture and skin color, to associating a skin color and facial features to a socioeconomic class. Even more disturbing is the fact that many African Americans are most frustrated by the fact that the stereotype is pushed on them by their own people more than by other races and cultures.

“And I ask why am I black, they say I was born in sin, and shamed inquity. One of the main songs we used to sing in church makes me sick, “love wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.”

– Peter Tosh

Perhaps it’s a way to deal with the identities forced upon them. It’s hard to accept that you are you’re stereotype. Some embrace it, choosing to act “ghetto” because it’s who they are because their skin is a few shades darker than mine. Others engage in a discrete sense of self-loathing. Many Black men prefer women with lighter skin, long straight hair, and “non-ethnic” features. Some black women share the same views about themselves, going as far as to buy weaves to get the “beautiful” hair they want. And yet, they will still hear the phrase ” You’re pretty, I mean… for a black girl” more times than they would ever care to count.

 

When it comes to Stereotypes concerning African Americans, I wish I could say ignorance was the sole reason for stereotypes. Sadly, I believe the leading cause is hatred combined with just a touch of fear. People see African Americans in impoverished areas, they generalize everything they see, and label what they simply don’t understand.

Yes, a lot of it is based on stupidity, but there is a lot of awareness and programs to help people who are trapped by the stereotypes that define them. The increasing number of African American graduating from high school, college, and grad school shows that we as a nation are moving toward changing how we define a skin color. From our half Black president, to our beloved Beyonce, the public’s views on African Americans is changing, which is somewhat of a miracle. No stereotype will go away, especially if people continue to embrace it, but as long as we strive as a nation to inform others and reduce ignorance as well as hatred and fear, we can continue to grow and move on.

 

 

As a side note, I ran into this post while doing research for this post. Although yes, some fair skinned or mixed children with African ascent are born lighter until more melanin is produced in the body, most Black babies are NOT born white…

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Unit Six

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I think the most important thing to consider in online deliberation is the target audience. People on tumblr care more about gay rights and eating disorders than people on a conservative republican site(*cough* fox news *cough*). However at that point you have to consider how to get your post out there.

You could put interesting tags, a million tags, and maybe someone would come across your post, but then a million more will probably come before it. In a place like tumblr, you already have to be “tumblr famous” to get attention.

But if you go to a more formal setting, an online news article for instance, you are unlikely to get much of a response, since no one gets any sort of notification if you have responded to them or not, therefore KILLING a conversation.

So what do I suggest?

Facebook.

Oh facebook, mother of wasting your time and sharign things literally no one cares about. No one will respond to your post about how great your day was, but put up a slightly religious photo or status and people are on you like a hot potato. I once had like a 123 comment conversation with a guy who posted a picture demeaning Christians. I felt that it was untrue, and wanted to stand my ground and support my beliefs. In the end I just ended up getting mad at the guy and several others because they could grasp the concept that all Christians DIDN’T sit around condemning gays with brooms up places it’s not polite to mention.

 

All in all, I’d like to address the issue about Christians accepting homosexuals, I’m not sure how whether to instigate or see if someone responds through civil discourse.