Jesus Trinketizaton

This disturbingly interesting post is from youth worker Mark Oestreicher. The convolutions of owning and believing are curious indeed. I normally would not bother with god-botherin' types, but this is almost authorisation from above when he wants to get the law involved in terminologies/normative ideal typologies or whatever we might call em, that I am prone to use on the main pages of this blog, am I right? I reckon he can go ahead and copywrite "Trinketization of Jesus", but I do hope (and pray?) he will give me a free chain to put on the altar to Trinketization that I keep in my office at Goldsmiths. Whatever the ins and outs on smoking with the lord and so on, I think the best bit is the comment on the ipod picture by Patrick... Here is Mark O's post in its glorous entirety:

"a clarification on
the trinketization of jesus,
and, this doesn’t qualify as
jesus junk"

Friday July 06th 2007, 9:56 am
Filed under: church, humor

"so, you may know that i post these fairly irregular “jesus junk of the month” awards. they’re not monthly, in case you haven’t noticed. deal with it.

people mostly find them annoying or hilarious (as i do). but occasionally, i recieve a comment or email from someone who wonders why i feel the need to point out this stuff, because “it’s just good people”, and “can’t you just leave them alone and not buy it?” no, sorry. first, i think it’s funny stuff. but even moreso, i have a deep level of disdain for what i’m officially naming “the trinketization of jesus” (i just copyrighted that, and will be selling keychains with that phrase embossed on them in a few weeks). i’m not opposed to all products that have a christian angle to them; just those that cross the semi-fuzzy line into trinket-land. tchotchkes for jesus.

here are a few of my ‘favorites’:
the colors of faith duckey
p31 dolls
‘we are fishermen’ jesus figurines
weddings on water houseboat chapel (that’s a BIG trinket!)
the fire bible
‘your best life now’ board game
gospel golf balls
the jesus pan
jesus as a teenager painting

that said, i have a bit of hypocrisy on this subject. here it is: my stomach does not turn when the trinketization is done by someone outside christianity (most of the time). in fact, it’s at that point that i sometimes even want the product! yes, they are often kitchze. but that’s part of their charm! i bought a christian friend who smokes an ashtray with jesus’ face on it, and the phrase, “jesus hates it when you smoke”. i still think these bible jump drives are kinda fun. if they made this cross mp3 player, i might want one. i love wearing the t-shirt a friend made for me with a classical painting of jesus wearing a larry-the-cucumber t-shirt, or the one with a classical painting of jesus wearing a ys t-shirt.

and in that vein: i cannot give this “hymn book leather book cover for ipod” the coveted jjotm award. if it were in a christian bookstore, i’d disdain it. but created by a company called “suck, u.k.”, somehow i love it. sorry. my bad. jesus is probably rolling his eyes in my direction right now".

(ht to seth for the ipod cover link)

5 Comments so far
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the best part of that hymn book ipod case is that in the picture, the selected tune is a gorillaz track. from the album ‘demon days’. classic.

Comment by patrick 07.06.07 @ 11:53 am

Makes sense to me. This stuff kills me. Christian bottled water? I mean, seriously … let’s take the greatest gift in the history of all time, a relationship with God, and try to make money on it any way we can. Nobody is getting a testa-mint (Christian candy), and finally realizing they need a savior. I always try to explain to believers that this stuff makes them look like the extreme Star Trek fans. The ones that everyone else thinks is weird because they have bumper stickers, t-shirts, and Vulcan candy (which, by the way, I would totally buy in a heart beat). In other words, it only attracts other Star Trek geeks - to the rest of the world, it’s a giant “steer clear” sign!

Comment by Matthew McNutt 07.06.07 @ 2:11 pm

Marko - you should see the Youtube I’ve come across entitled Jesus Junk

Comment by Gman 07.06.07 @ 3:12 pm

This really does make a good ipod disguise. Someone sees an ipod on the seat of your car, he/she may take it. But who’s gonna nick a hymn book. Not b/c its a “religious” item (God will strike you dead, if you steal a hymn book!) - but your average joe just isn’t in the market for hymns these days.

Comment by doodah 07.06.07 @ 5:22 pm

The Jesus bobblehead doll is still my favorite. I received one a few months ago from ShipofFools.

Comment by Jimmy_C 07.06.07 @ 6:57 pm

No Borders Gatwick in Sept.

An Invitation To The Gatwick No Border Camp 2007

From 19th to 24th September 07 we will gather at Gatwick Airport for
the first No Border Camp in the UK. This camp will be a chance to work together to try and stop the building of a new detention centre, and togather ideas for how to build up the fight against the system of migration controls.

Gatwick Aiport - The Border Point
Gatwick is a border in the middle of Britain. People arrive hereeveryday. People are forcibly deported from here everyday. It is a place where people are imprisoned for unlimited lengths of time withouttrial, where people are forced to hide underground and be invisible,where people are treated as criminals for the 'crime' of crossing the border.In Britain, the government has recently announced its intention tobuild a new detention centre, near Tinsley House, another detentioncentre at Gatwick airport. This will be another in a long line of barbarous prisons across the world, imprisoning people who migrate.Unless we stop it from being built.Not far from Gatwick there are other border fortifications: theimmigration reporting centre at Croydon, the airline companies who charter deportation flights and the ID Interview centre in Crawley. Anda few miles away are the border posts at Dover and Folkstone, wherefear of detection by the border police forces people to risk theirlives hiding under lorries, or in suffocating containers.
While the physical borders get fortified, governments also tighten upthe internal controls: from international databases to videosurveillance, biometric ID cards to electronic tagging. Just recently,the UK government has announced the introduction of the Sirene System.
This will grant Britain access to the SIS (Schengen InformationSystem), a EU wide police database for refugees and migrants, plannedto be extended to keep protesters from moving around.
A Tactics Laboratory
How does daily life, from the need to work for survival to the welfaresystem, reinforce these borders? How can we fight against the commonacceptance of borders, the idea of an inside and outside? How can we claim freedom of movement as a basic right? How do we assert ourability to decide whether to go or stay, according to our needs anddesires, not the needs of the state or the economy? How can we escapecontrol, and start building a movement powerful enough to challenge the
divisions between people?We need to share knowledge with those who have broken these borders,the hackers who escape control, those who survive without work andmoney, those who fight the detention system , those who question identities, those who have learnt to organise themselves withouthierarchy or divisions.Camp(aign)ing Against BordersThis camp is continuing the tradition of the No Border camps across the world since the late 1990s, and like the camps taking place this yearin the Ukraine in August and on the US/Mexican border in November. Itwill be a space to share information, skills, knowledge andexperiences. A place to plan actions together against the system of borders which divides us.We are aware that the struggles for "no borders" reach far beyond "openborders". Without borders the idea of states will become obsolete,without states the national economies will be history. In a world without borders, nobody will ask for papers anymore.The camp will also be a laboratory of political and practicalself-organisation. The camp will consist only of people's contributionsto this. We are aware of the borders which divide ourselves from each other, be it sex, class, race, nationality, or whatever. The bordercamps are experiments in how to overcome these artificial andseparating identities.
No Borders
No Borders is a network of groups struggling for the freedom of movement for all and an end to all migration controls. We call for aradical movement against the system of control, dividing us intocitizens and non-citizens.We demand the end of the border regime for everyone, including ourselves, to enable us to live another way, without fear, racism andnationalism.
We move, we meet. We talk, we fight. Come camp with us.

< http://noborders.org.uk/>

And an idea for something to bring to the Camp... Let's bring a Uni. See here.
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Thomas for US President.

Europe launches her own presidential candidate for the US Election in 2008

The Europe 2008 Exploratory Committee is sending representatives in July 2007 to canvass the US for a suitable native-born American presidential candidate. The candidate will pledge to run for president in 2008 on a platform of European issues such as

· Enhanced international cooperation through bodies like the UN and EU
· To leave the case of Iran for Europe to deal with
· Withdrawing all US troops from Iraq, replacing them with UN forces and European intellectuals
· Quick implementation of the Kyoto protocol with a further pledge to cut greenhouse emissions by 50% in 2050
· Recommit Federal Government to the rule of law
· Recommit the US to the International Criminal Court treaty and 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties
· The immediate closure of the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay
· A universal national single-payer health care system
· Cutting federal funding for faith-based initiatives and charitable choice programs
· Banning religiously-based curricula in government-funded public schools
· Slashing all tariffs on European-make vehicles
· Limiting bans on indoor smoking
· Increasing federal funding of stem cell research, abolishing all restrictions
· An ambitious federal programme of subsidies for soccer and cricket schools across the nation

The delegation will be headed by PNEC Chairman Thomas Altheimer and Senior Press Officer Simon Robertsen, acting as exemplary Europeans.


Altheimer says this to the press:
“We have a huge task in front of us but I am confident that Europe eventually will win the hearts and minds of the great American people. The character and the abilities of our presidential candidate will obviously not be of capital importance, as he or she will be assisted at all times by a team of capable European advisers. The only requirements are to be able to appear likeable to the general public and to dress in style—except for the latter, not unlike the current incumbent.”

Simon Robertsen adds:
“Ours is a message of common-sense, secularism, good taste—and maybe also of slight decadence. Foremost it is a message of hope. Unlike the nationalist Europe of the past, modern-day Europe has, through painful experience, matured to offer the world thoughtful, visionary, multilateral leadership—moving the world towards an all inclusive future where every individual is given a voice. I believe we will see a new cosmopolitan world order arise from this campaign.”

CONTACT:
www.europe2008.org
robertsen@europe2008.org
Tel: +44 (0)7946 733 092
Tel: +44 (0)7812 796 740
Fax: +44 (0)8701 349 567
See www.parallelaction.com for further information and documentation

Camp Taussig

I promise there will be more reports here and on Trinketization about our visit to Camp Taussig, where we have much discussed over and under, inside and outside (by the river, by the campfire) the anthro predicament, the writing premedicament, the global indictment... and despite my well rehearsed reservations, there is something to be said for gatherings that challenge and provoke a revaluation/change of temperament... So, more to come, but for the moment this little bit will have to serve as a holding report on a talk Mick gave here in High Falls (I am writing by the river now) and just this gap in time will be all there is to evoke the deep method-anti-method thought that has churned out Indigo lives here. Hate to have to say it, yet there are reasons to think anthro can still be redeemed (if it changes completely). Yet even this only if everyone takes the time to work through politics/ghosts/writing/voodoo/imperialism/beauty/institutions/... and much more besides.

Short coins

Some years ago, I wrote a piece about the coins Job Charnok used to buy the three villages that eventually became the city of Kolkata. These were pieces of silver arned from the slave trade, making an interesting if brutal link between the great british adventure of exploitation in India and across the Atlantic. Coins are of course the potent symbol of capitalism. And I guess of stereotypes about Calcutta too - that scene with the coin tricks in the Swayze film City of Joy. THere is much more to say (so dig out my chapter on Calcutta coinages in Bell and Haddour's book "City Visions" 2000), but this little item caught my eye today as I was perusing the northern press (as one does):

"Mysterious shortage of coins grips Calcutta

This is from The Scotsman 16 June 2007

A MYSTERIOUS coin shortage gripping Calcutta has shop-keepers begging for change from beggars and buying coins at prices above their face value.

No one knows exactly why there is no change in the eastern Indian city, but the situation has spurred the Reserve Bank of India to emergency measures, distributing millions of coins to try to satisfy the demand.

Since the coin shortage became acute in early June, the bank has distributed five mill-ion rupees ($121,950) worth of coins, including a million on Thursday alone, said Nilanjan Saha, the bank's treasurer in the city. But the emergency supplies have failed to stem the demand.

"There is no reason for it ," said Saha. "But I have heard reports that some unscrupulous traders are melting coins because the face value of the coins is lower than the metal value."
"

Sons of Malcolm.

A post by Sukant on "Sons of Malcolm" alerts us to this reminder that Big Brother is not a television sit-com:

Sunday, 10 June 2007
‘OURAIM Magazine on Hamas & Hizbullah’ made illegal in Britain

OURAIM

Organisation to Understand Radical Arab & Islamist Movements

===========================================

‘OURAIM Magazine on Hamas & Hizbullah’ now illegal in Britain

By Sukant Chandan

Sukant.Chandan@gmail.com

Editor of OURAIM publications

09 June 2007

SUMMARY:

- Magazine containing articles, extracts of books from academics and intellectuals and leaders of Hamas and Hizbullah closed down and magazines seized by police on Saturday 09 June under Section 44 Terrorism Act 2000 for displaying the Hamas logo on front cover.

- An attack on the democratic freedom to write, print and distribute information

- Reject criminalisation of independent media and journalistic activity

- The OURAIM Magazine on Hamas and Hizbullah has no direct or indirect organisational link to either organisation, and OURAIM does not support any Islamist movement

- An attack on the development mutual-understanding and respect between British and Arab and Muslim people, specifically Palestinians and Lebanese

- OURAIM stresses the necessity for developing dialogue and understanding as opposed to conflict and hostility

Visit OURAIM here.

American Anthropologist reviews our Celebrating Transgression book.

Click on the image to enlarge.
Celebrating Transgression.

Stimulus Respond

Jack Boulton is on fire...
The Stimulus team proudly present it's eighteenth issue - Animals.

For more information on Stimulus and to subscribe for free, please visit www.stimulusrespond.com.

Articles edited by Tara Blake Wilson include:

Animal Astronauts
Words by Janet Harbord

Dead Meat
words by Michael Taussig
Illustrations by Cecilia Piemontese

The Politics of Cats
words by John Hutnyk
Images by Jan Cihak

Zoosex
Words by Rebecca Cassidy

Download the entire magazine here
.