At The Border

Well it’s finally happened. Despite the media’s attempt to ignore the issue, the word “abortion” has now made it into the lexicon of the 2008 Presidential election. You know I have already commented on the softening of evangelical resolve regarding this American holocaust in an earlier post. Now, I want to share a few videos with you. I came across the first two today. Each is a powerful presentation by the leader of “Priests for Life.” In it, he describes in medical terms what an abortion is (first trimester and second trimester). He doesn’t use bloody video or gruesome vocabulary, just simple speech to make sure we know what we’re saying when we speak that word “abortion.” The third video is of an evangelical leader describing the most radically pro-choice presidential candidate ever as a guardian of the family.

Now…remembering what that word “abortion” describes, consider this:

Coming this September! Our first major film effort, Consumers or Creators

I was checking out some news today and ran across a “progressive” blogger giving advice on how our country can move in a socialist direction. What he applied to the political, I’ve often seen at work in the church. Here’s a quote:

…to achieve long-term progressive realignment, we must shift the fundamental value frame for political and economic debate. We must re-establish the dominance of progressive values in the mainstream political dialogue, as the definition of what is political “common sense.”

In my book, Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, I make the case that while some people think that in order to win we must move to the center, adopt conservative values, and split the difference, history shows they are wrong. We don’t need to move to the center. We need to move the center. We need to redefine the political center in American politics.

A number of examples came to mind. But I’ve decided to resurrect the old BORDERLANDS BLOG PRIZE. The person who can provide the best example of this in the life of the Church will win a sweet prize. I promise you’ll like this box of goodies!

This year’s election will have profound impacts on the future of abortion in America. One cannot reduce the power of a president to influence the issue. At national and international policy levels, the president can stand against the injustice of legal infanticide or encourage it. And, without a doubt, the next president will help set the course for the next 30 years of Supreme Court decisions.

I know I’ve posted on this issue a few times already this year, but this article got me thinking:

A mother who decided to abort her son because he may have inherited a life-threatening kidney condition is overjoyed that he survived the procedure.

In November, Finley was born three weeks premature. He had minor kidney damage but is expected to lead a normal life.

So…I guess Marc pulled a late night editing fest! Thanks, bro. Here, in all its campy glory, is the final version of the Super-Secret-Special-Ops-Training title sequence:

For those of you following the development of the SUPER-SECRET-SPECIAL-OPS-TRAINING vids, here’s one more step towards a fully developed title sequence. We’re still working on the timing, text and colors, but…it’s getting there.

Thanks Marc!

Greetings All,

We’ve done some actual filming for Super-Secret-Special-Ops-Training. Here is some footage from our green screen shots. The two videos were shot in front of a green screen. Our editor, the indomitable Marc Vandermaas, is working to find the right fire, titles, etc to go with our physical images. But it’s just one more step towards the final product.

Recruits & Colonel Green Screen Test

Adam Green Screen Test

This summer, Corinth (the church I serve) will be going through a 14 week series called “Basic Training.” We’re going to look at key doctrines and how they affect our character and behavior. I’m teaming up with some friends to shoot a 14-week season of videos, following the trials and triumphs of a group of soldiers. They’re part of the “Super Secret Special Ops Training” program. It should be funny.

Thought you all might enjoy seeing the process unfold. Below is an example of “pre-visualization,” a way of planning out what certain video elements will look like. They’re the opening credits (minus the final graphics, words and characters, which we’ll be shooting in front of green screen).

Enjoy!

If you followed the story at all in my last post. You saw: A) The story of an artist who artificially inseminated herself then induced abortions, saving the blood and tissue, recording it all on tape for her senior art project and B) The story of Yale University officials saying the story was not true.

Well, the story continues. The artist has now spoken publicly, insisting she did, in fact, do exactly what the Yale student paper had reported. In her own words [WARNING: BEFORE YOU READ ON, SHE USES A FEW EXPLICIT WORDS]:

For the past year, I performed repeated self-induced miscarriages. I created a group of fabricators from volunteers who submitted to periodic STD screenings and agreed to their complete and permanent anonymity. From the 9th to the 15th day of my menstrual cycle, the fabricators would provide me with sperm samples, which I used to privately self-inseminate. Using a needleless syringe, I would inject the sperm near my cervix within 30 minutes of its collection, so as to insure the possibility of fertilization. On the 28th day of my cycle, I would ingest an abortifacient, after which I would experience cramps and heavy bleeding….

When considering my own bodily form, I recognize its potential as extending beyond its ability to participate in a normative function. While my organs are capable of engaging with the narrative of reproduction . the time-based linkage of discrete events from conception to birth . the realm of capability extends beyond the bounds of that specific narrative chain. These organs can do other things, can have other purposes, and it is the prerogative of every individual to acknowledge and explore this wide realm of capability.

Well, I guess that clears things up.

So, what happens when a culture embraces death with open arms as our own has done? What happens when we seek a secular foundation for human rights? What happens when “the will of the majority” or the pronouncement of black-robed gods becomes the arbiter of life?

I found an answer to those questions today.

The Place: Yale University, alma mater of Jonathan Edwards. The Person: Art major Aliza Shavarts.

Ms. Shavarts has prepared a unique senior arts project. Over the last nine months, she has been artificially inseminating herself, waiting for conception, then taking abortion-inducing drugs. She’s done it several times. Enough times, in fact, to produce sufficient tissue and blood to be pressed between two layers of plastic wrap and strung round a huge cube, suspended from the ceiling of a room that will display her work. Along the way, she has chronicled the pain of her bathtub-abortions on video.

The Yale Student Newspaper described her project:

The display of Schvarts’ project will feature a large cube suspended from the ceiling of a room in the gallery of Green Hall. Schvarts will wrap hundreds of feet of plastic sheeting around this cube; lined between layers of the sheeting will be the blood from Schvarts’ self-induced miscarriages mixed with Vaseline in order to prevent the blood from drying and to extend the blood throughout the plastic sheeting.

Schvarts will then project recorded videos onto the four sides of the cube. These videos, captured on a VHS camcorder, will show her experiencing miscarriages in her bathrooom tub, she said. Similar videos will be projected onto the walls of the room.

For those who think abortion should be a legal option yet find themselves rightly shocked by such a cavalier approach to life, I have a question: What is the basis of your indignation? If a person has the right to determine whether another person may or may not live; if abortion is a “difficult matter between a woman and her physician”; if the individual is the only one who may appropriately weigh factors for or against carrying another individual to term, then who are you to say that this artist has inappropriately exercised her right to choose?

AND NOW THE REST OF THE STORY
About twelve hours after this post was made, the following news was made public. Apparently, the Yale establishment rushed to get to the bottom of the story. The following is from Fox News:

Yale University officials issued a strongly worded statement Thursday night explaining that a student’s shocking claim that she had artificially inseminated herself “as often as possible” and then took drugs to induce miscarriages for her senior art project was “creative fiction.”

“She is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance art,” Klasky wrote.