{"id":51602,"date":"2020-04-14T15:57:51","date_gmt":"2020-04-14T19:57:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=51602"},"modified":"2020-04-14T15:57:51","modified_gmt":"2020-04-14T19:57:51","slug":"whatever-you-want-to-do-is-alright-with-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2020\/04\/14\/whatever-you-want-to-do-is-alright-with-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Whatever you want to do is alright with me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Here is your open thread for April 13, 2020. [Checks calendar. Curses softly under his breath.]<\/p>\n

~~Today<\/del>\u00a0Yesterday was the 74th birthday of the Rev. Al Green.<\/p>\n~~

<\/iframe><\/p>\nThe Battle of Bound Brook took place on April 13, 1777, a temporary setback in America\u2019s war of independence. This was the battle that caused Washington and his army to retreat to the Watchung Hills, making camp in Washington Valley and using Washington Rock as a lookout post from which to keep an eye on the British. That\u2019s all notable for me, in other words, because it\u2019s the source of the names of several landmarks around where I grew up. (On a clear day, you can see New York City from Washington Rock, and they had those old coin-op binocular things for an even better view.) Plus also my dad was the township attorney for Bound Brook for more than 20 years. So.<\/p>\nThe Colfax Massacre took place on April 13, 1873. It was Easter Sunday in Colfax, Louisiana. White people unwilling to accept the rebirth of liberty enshrined in the Reconstruction Amendments grabbed their guns and slaughtered more than 100 black Americans for the crime of winning fair elections.\u00a0Nowadays, white people who hate liberty and the Reconstruction Amendments just vote for \u201cthe judges\u201d \u2014 meaning Federalist Society judges who are sworn to restrict, erode, erase, and nullify the meaning of those amendments at every opportunity. For some reason, this antipathy to the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments is referred to as being \u201cpro-life.\u201d<\/p>\nOn April 13, 1958, at the height of the Cold War, the American pianist Van Cliburn won the first International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. I wrote about Cliburn here \u2014 \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/02\/28\/van-cliburn-musical-legend-faithful-baptist-gay-man\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">Van Cliburn: Musical legend, faithful Baptist, gay man<\/a>\u201d \u2014 when he died in 2013.<\/p>\nApril 13, 1970: \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Apollo_13\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Houston, we have a problem<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\nGuy Fawkes was born on April 13, 350 years ago. Project onto him what you will but remember, remember, he failed.<\/p>\nThomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 277 years ago. He founded the University of Virginia and wrote Virginia\u2019s statute on religious freedom. (Those are the only two accomplishments he said he hoped to be remembered for, perhaps revealing that even he realized that for all his brilliance, he was ultimately a frustrating and self-frustrating figure. Because he eloquently articulated that he knew better, and yet he didn\u2019t. Ain\u2019t that America.)<\/p>\nButch Cassidy was born on April 13, 154 years ago. After escaping the Bolivian army in 1908, he and Harry and Etta moved to Australia where they enjoyed a long and happy life in quiet retirement.<\/p>\nSamuel Beckett was born 114 years ago <del>today<\/del> yesterday. \u201cI can\u2019t go on, I\u2019ll go on.\u201d<\/p>\nEudora Welty was born 111 years ago today. This audio of her reading \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bmnzdozWfxw\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Why I Live at the P.O.<\/a>\u201d is, sadly, a bit rushed, but Eudora Welty reading Eudora Welty is always a treat.<\/p>\nMadalyn Murray O\u2019Hair was born 101 years ago. The religious liberty activist died in 1995 and, despite what you may have heard, she did not<\/em> have a dramatic deathbed born-again conversion in which she proclaimed that white evangelicalism was the One True Faith and that white evangelicals were Right All Along and that she was Desperately Sorry To Have Ever Questioned The Best And Smartest and Goodest Good People Who Ever Lived.<\/p>\nWeirdly influential artist and massively counterproductive \u201cevangelist\u201d Jack Chick was born on April 13, 96 years ago. Here\u2019s what I wrote after his death in 2016: \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2016\/10\/24\/haw-haw-haw\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">Haw haw haw<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\nStanley Donen was born the same day as Jack Chick. He created joyful, beautiful artworks that make people happy, thereby functioning as a kind of anti-Jack Chick who restored the cosmic balance.<\/p>\nApril 13 is the birthday of Paul Sorvino (81), Ron Perlman (70), and Peabo Bryson (69).<\/p>\nCCM star <a href=\"https:\/\/spiritualsoundingboard.com\/2020\/04\/12\/christian-music-artist-and-pastor-steve-camp-puts-god-to-the-test-with-covid-18\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">turned right-wing raving loon<\/a> Steve Camp turns 65 today.<\/p>\nMy one non-evil senator, Bob Casey Jr., turns 60 today. For a U.S. senator, 60 is downright youthful.<\/p>\nChess-master Garry Kasparov, humanity\u2019s long-time representative against the machines, turns 57 today.<\/p>\nDelightfully odd acquired taste Nellie McKay turns 38. Here\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=4httaMdvYrY\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Toto Dies<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\nTalk amongst yourselves.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here is your open thread for April 13, 2020. Talk amongst yourselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>Whatever you want to do is alright with me<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here is your open thread for April 13, 2020. Talk amongst yourselves.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2020\/04\/14\/whatever-you-want-to-do-is-alright-with-me\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Whatever you want to do is alright with me\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here is your open thread for April 13, 2020. Talk amongst yourselves.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2020\/04\/14\/whatever-you-want-to-do-is-alright-with-me\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-04-14T19:57:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2020\/04\/14\/whatever-you-want-to-do-is-alright-with-me\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2020\/04\/14\/whatever-you-want-to-do-is-alright-with-me\/\",\"name\":\"Whatever you want to do is alright with me\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2020-04-14T19:57:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-04-14T19:57:51+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"Here is your open thread for April 13, 2020. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Whatever you want to do is alright with me","description":"Here is your open thread for April 13, 2020. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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