Head/Law-based Christianity

A bit earlier I wrote about a problem I have with Christianity being too much about thinking-doing -- thinking/believing the right doctrines and doing the right acts (or avoiding the wrong ones). A friend sent me a perfect example.

This website lists the doctrinal beliefs one must hold in order to participate in communion, baptism or become a member in the reformed presbyterian church.

Here's an excerpt (there are actually a total of 134 questions that one must answer in order to be able to take the Lord's Supper):


Questions asked for admission to the Lord's Supper
Term #1
An acknowledgment of the Old and New Testament to be the Word of God, and the alone infallible rule of faith and practice.

1. What do the scriptures principally teach?
2. What does the phrase "alone infallible" mean?
3. How does the term infallible differ from inerrant?
4. What is the infallible rule of the interpretation of Scripture?
5. Where does our full persuasion and assurance of the infallibility of Scripture come from?
6. Do you read your bible daily?


Term #2
That the whole doctrine of the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the Catechisms, Larger and Shorter, are agreeable unto, and founded upon the Scriptures.

1. What is meant by the phrase "the whole doctrine".
2. How can uninspired documents be used as standards of the church if the word of God is the alone infallible rule of faith and practice?
3. What does it mean when we say these standards are "agreeable to" the Scriptures?
4. What are the subordinate standards of the Reformed Presbytery in North America (General Meeting)?
5. Do you have any known disagreement with these subordinate standards?
6. Are there any truths which are non essential or too small and insignificant to uphold as necessary to be believed.
7. Which of the three documents mentioned was produced first?

Gender Inclusive Translations

This isn't a new issue, but saw this article and liked it...
Some of the gender-inclusive translations include:
TNIV (Today's New International Version), NIVI (New International Version Inclusive Edition), NRSV (New Revised Standard Version), and CEV (Contemporary English Version). The best inclusive-language psalter is the The Grail Inclusive Language Version (sometimes called The Grail Psalms).

Inclusive Language Bible Translations
By Rebecca Merrill Groothuis

For all their professed concern over translating the Bible accurately, many of the inclusive-language translation opponents have repeatedly used words and phrases for the sake of their emotional impact, without regard for their accuracy. One of the most inflammatory accusations leveled against the NIVI is that it is a "unisex" translation that "neuters" the Bible and obliterates gender differences.

What is unisex about speaking of the human race with words that clearly indicate both sexes are present and accounted for? It would be much more logical to call "unisex" the practice of referring to both males and females with masculine terms, for this collapses both sexes into one, subsuming the female gender under the male gender and obscuring not only the inclusion of females in the human race but also the distinct presence of two sexes.

Inclusive-language opponents insist that when women come across terms such as "man" and "men" in Scripture, they are supposed to understand when women are included. Any woman who can't negotiate this internal translation process has simply been brainwashed by feminists. After all, you don't neuter the Bible and obliterate God-ordained gender differences just to make women feel included.

Yet if, in fact, "man" and "men" are used in Scripture to refer to males and females equally, then the meaning of these terms in such contexts is already gender-neutral, and the use of other, more obviously gender-neutral terms in translation does not change or further neutralize their meaning. In other words, if and when the the intended meaning of words translated "man" and "men" in non-inclusive versions is that of humans in general without respect to gender, then their translation into inclusive terms such as "person," "one," "people," or "mortals" does not change or neuter the meaning of the words in the original text, but rather clarifies their meaning.

But if, on the other hand, the generic use of "man" and "men" points to the centrality and normativity of maleness in both the divine and human agendas, then these terms are never truly gender inclusive; they refer primarily to men and only secondarily to women. In this case the use of masculine terms in the generic sense cannot be defended by insisting that women simply need to understand that these male-oriented terms include them too. If the underlying meaning conveyed by the generic use of masculine terms points to the spiritual primacy of maleness in any sense, then women are being excluded and marginalized by such language. Try as they might, opponents of inclusive language translations can't have it both ways.

If translations that fully include women in God's agenda for humanity "neuter" the biblical view of gender difference, then the Bible was written more for men than for women, and any talk of male/female equality is nonsensical. But if God's Word is for women and men equally, then translating it accordingly does not "neuter," render "unisex," or otherwise obliterate God-ordained gender differences.

Justice

"Justice is figuring out what belongs to whom and returning it to them."
-- Walter Brueggemann

Primaries

I have to admit that I don't understand how primaries work. The state legislatures (even some state constitutions) decide when a primary will be held. But the National PARTY decides whether a state's vote counts.

If Clinton and Obama are close, Clinton is going to try to get Michigan and Florida to count (because she "won" those states). But how does THAT make any sense since the voting in those states will not be accurate (poorer voters who I think are more likely to vote for Obama are not going to take time out of their jobs/lives to cast a worthless vote)? And apparently once a delegate is decided, the winning delegate will have the power to make Michigan and Florida votes "really" count. Huh? Run that by me again?


It doesn't make any sense to me.

If the National Party can decide whether a state's vote counts, why don't they decide WHEN the state have its primary? And for that matter, why don't all states vote on the same day like they do in the general election?

It doesn't make any sense to me.

Foreclosures

"Foreclosures up 75% in 2007" is the CNN headline. Wow. That's not good.

Obama linked to shady developer

Just came across this one. Normally I would ignore "guilt-by-association" hype. It's not Obama's fault that he's worked with a shady character. But I am troubled by this line:

"Shortly after his election to the U.S. Senate, Obama bought a house for $300,000 below the asking price. The same day, Rezko's wife bought the lot next door for full price. Months later, Obama bought a sliver of the Rezko land to expand his yard."

It's not clear WHO Obama bought the house from (it doesen't say Rezko), or how he got it on the cheap. But this is pretty much the same thing progressives have rightly slammed Ted Stevens (R-AK) for doing. I don't like it. At least, I'd like to hear more. Obama said that his mistake was "buying a sliver of land" from Rezko...I don't care about the sliver, I care about the house.

Update: I've been trying to research this, but other than some investigative articles from the Chicago Tribune, there hasn't been much to find. It seems that most people have poked around and decided to leave it alone or that there wasn't much there.

The house deal is still a bit weird to me. He didn't buy it from Rezko, but Rezko somehow helped Obama get a good deal. The house was 1.6 million historic home and bought for 300,000 under "asking price" (which is not necessarily the same as appraised). So Rezko didn't benefit directly from that. It appears to have been totally legal. Whoever sold it to him wasn't under any obligation, and whoever sold it to him received no direct or indirect benefit that I can find. So, at best, Rezko used his influence to get Obama a great deal. Perhaps hoping that Obama would later do him a favor (which he did).

Rezko bought the lot next to it, and a few months later, sold a piece of the lot to Obama to extend his back yard. That did benefit Rezko, but not greatly or unfairly, and although that is what Obama has apologized for, it really seems hardly worth the ink to write about. There doesn't seem to have been a real quid pro quo. Obama did some work on behalf of Rezko as a lawyer, but that seemed to be very straightforward, and he never represented Rezko directly when he was in the legislature.

About the only possible quid pro quo I found was that Obama sent a letter to some agency advocating Rezko's development company to create housing for senior citizens. That landed Rezko a good profit, and in turn, Rezko contributed to Obama's future campaigns. But, Rezko says he didn't ask Obama to write the letter, and Obama could not directly influence the outcome--he had no real control over what the agency chose to do, and the housing wasn't even in his district (although he says it benefited the people in his district). It's not like he "earmarked" a bunch of money to Rezko like a certain senator from Alaska.

So, it seems to be at the level of a political favor similar to Gov. Sebelius appointing Six to the A.G. job. Not squeaky clean, but not breaking any "rules."

Dodd Wins Again on FISA

The cloture vote to block debate/filibuster of the FISA bill containing telecom immunity failed. It wasn't even close. They got 48 votes and needed 60. At that rate, the bill would not have even passed.

Chaplains in Bars

From AP:

"A pastor plans to put teams of chaplains in local bars in this central Pennsylvania town so they can lend a sympathetic ear to patrons who may need one.

The chaplains won't preach against drinking or evangelize when the program starts at Market Cross Pub, organizer Chuck Kish said.

''We're simply going to be there to help anybody who wants it. Sometimes people really just want somebody they can talk to who is not going to be judgmental, but be sympathetic,'' he said."

Alternative to Animal Testing

From AP:

"With a European ban looming on animal testing for cosmetics, companies are giving a hard look at high-tech alternatives like the small, rectangular glass chip professor Jonathan Dordick holds up to the light in his lab at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

The chip looks like a standard microscope slide, but it holds hundreds of tiny white dots loaded with human cell cultures and enzymes. It's designed to mimic human reactions to potentially toxic chemical compounds, meaning critters like rats and mice may no longer need to be on the front line of tests for new blockbuster drugs or wrinkle creams."

Earmarks

Bush is expected to talk about cutting Congressional earmarks again in his State of the Union address. It's one thing I can agree with him on. I despise Congressional earmarks. Here's a neat little government website I just found from the Office of Management and Budget.

http://www.earmarks.omb.gov/

Among other things, it notes that in 2005, there was a total of $18billion in earmarks. There is a chart showing differences between the 2005 benchmark and the 2008 anticipated earmarks. At a glance, it doesn't look good.

The point?

A friend pointed me to a Christian audio site, and I signed up for their newsletter. Here is the first thing they said: "Welcome to Christianaudio! Our mission is to affect hearts to think and live right."

I know that they mean well, and that they have great books. But it is this kind of statement that summarizes one problem I have with what constitutes Christianity.

Perhaps I am over-sensitive, but to me, despite the word "heart" in this sentence, the real emphasis is a head-based, law-based spirituality -- right thinking and right behavior = Good.

There is nothing here about God or Jesus. Nothing about relationship, about BEing instead of DOing, about beauty, thankfulness, gratefulness, creativity, friendship, vocation, blessing, compassion, mystery, love, or joy. Maybe they mean more by the word "live" than I suppose. But I'm going to guess not (and if I'm wrong here, it's still ubiquitous elsewhere).

The assumption that marks this point-of-view is that if we think and do the right things (and avoid the wrong things), we will be in the right relationship with God.

Since the emphasis of this worldview is on right thinking and right behavior, that's what we argue about -- which denominations have the right doctrines and which ones promote the right behaviors (or more often, condemn the wrong ones).

We need a more holistic view of Christianity: head and heart, mystic and prophet. There are a few people beating that drum: Matthew Fox, Joan Chittister, Richard Rohr, Richard Foster, Wendell Berry, William Barry, Frederick Buechner, Brian McLaren, but not enough.

The Heart of the Temple

Where Is the Heart of the Temple?

Many years ago, I had gone into what I thought was the heart of the temple, the point at which the spiritual life was to become full, become real. At that stage of my spiritual development, it was the trappings of the temple, not really the heart of it, that captivated me. The candles soothed my soul. The chant calmed my spirit. The stained-glass windows and familiar shrines and unending rounds of ritual steadied my sense of spiritual direction. What more could there possibly be to the spiritual life than fidelity to the tradition, regularity in its forms, orderliness in its practices?

I thought that simply being there, in the midst of the message, at the core of the call in the temple was all that constituted living the call. More than that, I thought that the temple itself embodied the whole of what it meant to be holy.

Yet the truth is that I often found religion to be a disconcerting if not a discouraging experience. Good and decent people I knew—divorced women, often abused and battered, who had married again; the gay cousin who had spent his life taking care of his mother; non-churchgoing in-laws; committed activists; friends of various ethnic backgrounds—were standing suspect outside the gates of too many temples….

So, as the years went by, I found myself in the kind of confusion which, I came later to understand, makes the spiritual real. The temple preached a message I did not yet see—even in the temple itself:
In a country full of temples the hungry among us were still starving. Too many children were sick and uneducated. The poor were dying without care.

Even the temples themselves had no room for half of creation. Women were never accepted as full members, were always invisible, were forever dismissed—as useless but useful, a kind of heavenly mistake, functional, of course, but not fully human. In many temples, blacks were segregated and homosexuals were chastised, and those the temples called “sinful” were shunned.

Obedience had become the central virtue; law was whatever the system defined. And all the while holy disobedience was what was really needed.

In a country we called “Christian,” the Jesus story had become more fancy than fact.

Then, in the 1960s, the Second Vatican Council and its aftermath called the church, the whole people of God, even the keepers of the temple, to a cataclysmic examination of conscience. From inside the temple, and because of the temple, my whole life was put in question.

Suddenly, the new institutional examination of conscience made sense. All of life had erupted in one great burst of understanding that no amount of regularity and order could possibly bring. There was a world out there that was itself “the heart of the temple.” It was now a matter of bringing the temple to the world and the world to the heart of it.

-- from the introduction to In the Heart of the Temple: My Spiritual Vision for Today's World, essays by Joan Chittister (BlueBridge)

Frances

Dean's grandmother Frances Close Freiberger died at 7pm today, about 10 minutes after my last post.

Frances

Dean's grandmother is holding on, but still at death's door. We spent most of the day with her today. Lots of Dean's extended family were there.

St. Benedict is the patron saint for a happy death. The traditional prayer goes like this:

V. Intercede for us, O holy Father Benedict.
R. And obtain for us the grace of a happy death.

O holy Father Benedict, whose name signifies your blessedness, you most joyfully offered your angelic soul to God while you stood in prayer with your arms raised to heaven.

You have promised to defend us from the devil's attacks at the hour of death.

O God, who adorned the precious death of our most holy Father, Saint Benedict, with so many and so great privileges, grant, we beseech You, that our departure hence, we may be defended from the snares of the enemy by the blessed presence of him whose memory we celebrate. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Republican Debate

From Dkos:

Brian Williams: Gentlemen, each of you has claimed that you would be more aggressive than your competitors, as well as your Democratic opponents, in your role as Commander-in-Chief. Specifically, into which century would you bomb Iran? Governor Huckabee?
Mike Huckabee: Oh, I think bombing them back to the nineteenth century would do the trick, and I promise to do it as soon as I'm elected. With Chuck Norris as my Secretary of Defense, I figure it'll take about two weeks.

[applause]

Brian Williams: Please...we warned you to hold your applause and we're not going to warn you again. Continuing...Governor Romney?
Mitt Romney: I think Governor Huckabee's position is exactly the wrong position to take. I think you have to send a real message to the evildoers by bombing them back to at least the 14th century. Any shred of modernity in that part of the world leaves America vulnerable to attack by radical extremist varmints. But as much as I disagree with my colleagues up here on the stage tonight, I fear what a General Hillary Clinton would do more. She clearly hasn't gotten the message yet that peace is off the table.

[applause]

Brian Williams: Those who just applauded are being Tasered by Tim Russert as we speak. I dare you to try it again, people. Senator McCain?
John McCain: My friends, all of my colleagues up here tonight---with the exception of that squeaky Libertarian over there who's raised ten times more money than me---have many strengths. But I believe they're being too lenient on Iran. At an absolute minimum, you need to bomb them back to the 1200s. But I want to stress, my friends, that I would do everything in my power to ensure that we only use the smaller nukes in our arsenal. We want to level the place without being mean-spirited about it. I know many in my party disagree about using such a light touch, but sometimes being a Maverick means making unpopular choices. Have I mentioned in the last five minutes that the surge is working? It is, my friends. And it was all my idea.

[Clap Clap Clap...]

Brian Williams: I'll now ask the audience to eat the gentleman who just applauded. Quickly please, as we're running out of time. Thank you. Please dispose of the bones in the trash can as you leave the auditorium, and I trust this will be the last outburst of the evening. Mayor Giuliani?
Rudy Giuliani: I'd bomb 'em back to the year nine eleven. I was in the middle of nine eleven, y'know. You weren't there on nine eleven...
Brian Williams: Actually I was there.
Rudy Giuliani: Well, you were there but you weren't there there. I was literally there there. In fact, I was the only person on the scene for most of the day. I hoisted more girders to save more people than anyone. And my first act as president, besides bombing Iran back to nine eleven, will be to give myself the Medal of Freedom for nine eleven. I may give myself two. And one for Judith of course. She's sitting in the audience but she's also on my cellphone right now. Hello dear. I love you but I'm debating right now. Kissy kissy kissy! Daddy's got a present for you later tonight, oh yes he does. Mumumumumum...

[Stone cold silence]

Brian Williams: Congressman Paul?
Ron Paul: You guys call me the crazy one???

Here's the funny part: I didn't know this was a joke until almost half way through.

On Dying

Dean's grandmother (on his dad's side) is dying. We went to visit her in the hospital in Topeka earlier in the week. Dean has been there all day today. She's being taken back to the nursing home and calling in hospice.

A prayer for the dying:

Almighty God, in life and in death we are yours.
Here is that traveller
who has fallen and received many blows and injuries.
You are the physician of souls, our God Samaritan;
in the last hour of this pilgrim take pity
and open the gates of refuge to her.

We entrust her to God who created her.
May she return to you
and may she see her redeemer face to face,
and enjoy the vision of God for ever. Amen.

On Love - Part 4

Just to make this a bit more concrete. It's stuff like this that I'm talkin' bout. (Turn down the sound):

On Love - Part 3

This is my challenge -- to find a way to be loving towards the people that I honestly do not love. I do not love the Bush Administration. I am angry with him (and the people who work for him) almost every day. Even when I am at my most charitable, when I am most able to "be in his shoes," to try to see things from his perspective, I fail. That's just the truth of it.

I am unable, more often than not, to be hospitable, which in Henri Nouwen's words, is making space, for the "Other" which is G. Bush and the politicos like him. Despite often feeling like one of the "Others" who needs space (the very kind of space that G. Bush won't allow me), I find myself unable to grant the ones who think like him the same thing. Despite being one of the people who stands in the need of grace, I find myself unable to grant it.

Elsewhere Lamott writes about an episode in which a friend says, "I have had it with Hitler!" and she can hear herself say, "I have had it with Bush." My "I have had it" extends even beyond him. Fair or unfair, I have "had it" with Huckabee, Romney, McCain, Giuliani, Roberts, Brownback and Pelosi and Reid. And there are days when I have "had it" even with Clinton and Obama.

So I pray. Because if I am ever going to be loving, or hospitable, towards them, it will be a complete grace--that is, a gift of God. I see no other way. And if I don't love, I will just hate. And what a waste of energy that is turning out to be.

On Love - Part 2

"My faith has been so challenged because I feel such a deep hatred and sense of betrayal as an American by the Bush administration, and yet Jesus said about four things that are absolutely the core of Christianity, and one of them is you really don't get to hate anyone.
It doesn't say you don't get to hate anybody unless it's Dick Cheney. It's absolute that you break through this thing inside of yourself that thinks somebody is not welcomed at the table because you consider their behavior so reprehensible, so brutal.
There's a piece in PLAN B called "Loving Bush, Day 2." I went to church on a Sunday in this state of such discouragement and such rage, and we had a beautiful, beautiful sermon, and Martin Luther King was brought up and how he was adamant that you love the sinner as we ourselves are loved, and that you can hate the sin, and do everything you can to overturn the people in charge of things if you believe their behavior is destructive, but you have to love them.
That Sunday I happened to have a very spiritually evolved day, and I just felt like I could see who he [President Bush] was as a young boy and as a man -- he's been a total screwup as everything -- a first-term president, and I had this feeling of tenderness for him. Maybe "tenderness" is stretching it a bit, but I had this feeling of not-hate for him, of softening, let's say. But the piece is really about Day 2, when I woke up and I was okay more or less, and I had a cup of coffee, still fine, and then read the paper and just went "God! What are we doing?" Or, rather, "What are we going to do?"

--Anne Lamott

On Love - Part 1

"Socrates had it wrong; it is not the unexamined but finally the uncommitted life that is not worth living. Descartes too was mistaken; 'cogito ergo sum'--'I think therefore I am'? Nonsense. 'Amo ergo sum'--'I love therefore I am.' Or, as with unconscious eloquence St,. Paul wrote, 'Now abide faith, hope love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.'
I believe that. I believe it is better not to live than not to love."
-- William Slone Coffin

A Quest for Self

by Phil Cousineau

"Pilgrimage is often regarded as the universal question for the self. Though the form of the path changes from culture to culture, through different epochs of history, one element remains the same: renewal of the soul. The shape can be linear, as with the goal-oriented journeys to Mecca or Rome; circular, as on the island route of Shikoku, Japan; or spiral, as in many mountain ascents.

The purpose of the pilgrimage it to make life more meaningful. Through sacred travel, individuals can find the path to the divine, the ultimate source of life. The essence of the sacred way is "tracing a sacred route of tests and trials, ordeals and obstacles, to arrive at a holy place and attempt to fathom the secrets of its power. As Francis Huxley points out in The Sacred, "The sacred itself is plainly a mystery of consciousness, using the word mystery to signify not a problem that can be intellectually solved, but a process of awakening and transformation that must be acted out in order to be experienced, and experienced if one is to make it one's own.'"

Happy Camper

Neat article.

McMurdo Station, Antarctica - I nearly decapitate Ed as I heave a shovelful of snow over my shoulder. "Sorry," I say – again.

We're standing in a hole barely big enough for both of us, digging a snow cave called a quinzie, sort of a sunken igloo. We hope to sleep in this thing – but things don't look good: Four feet down we've hit a layer of compacted snow that repels shovels like Kevlar. This isn't the way you expect to spend one of your first nights in Antarctica, but here we are on a swath of ice the size of Rhode Island, learning to survive without so much as a tent for shelter. They call it Happy Camper School: a rite of passage for new arrivals at nearby McMurdo Station, the American research base on Antarctica's Ross Island.

Rest of the article, here.

Reid closet Republican?

Seriously--is Democratic Senate Majority Leader Reid a closet Republican? With his attempt to kiss Bush's butt on FISA, I really have to wonder.

GOP cognitive dissonance

Over at DKos, they point out, "Romney's the conservative alternative to McCain. McCain is the establishment alternative to Romney."

A few months ago, McCain's campaign was in the toilet with no money and everybody thought he'd have to drop out. Now he's the front runner. It suggests that Goopers suffer from cognitive dissonance too:

They cry out for leaders who aren't establishment insiders yet they continue to elect leaders who are establishment insiders and, all the while, they expect a different result for repeating their unfortunate and misguided choices....

So, I'm predicting that the General election will be the choice between the establishment insiders, too whit, Clinton vs McCain. And I'm giving it straight up 50-50 odds.

Cloverfield

Saw Cloverfield today with Dean. Dean liked it, but I thought it was boring. It had all the vertigo-inducing hand-held camera shakes of Blair Witch Project, without nearly as much of the suspense.

I found the actions of the characters to be wildly unbelievable (a Godzilla-sized monster just knocked down two skyscrapers...let's run towards it). It's so unbelievable that at one point, one of the characters, who as best we can tell, doesn't know or particularly like the main characters, actually says, "what am I doing here?" and her co-star has to say, "you could have gone over the bridge, but you decided not to, it's your own fault.")

The hype of the movie is clever--the trailers tell us that SOMETHING is going on, but not what. The answer is very straightforward--a godzilla-sized monster is attacking New York.
As the movie progresses, our interest in the monster rises, and the viewer develops questions (what is this creature, what is it doing here, why is it mad, what are those little creatures dropping from the big one?). But these are left completely unanswered. The format limits the story-telling ability, yet other movies of a similar nature (Blair Witch, the recent The Mist) still managed to provide tantalizing answers (evil spirits from a serial child-killer and giant aliens from a scientist-caused rip in the space-time continuum respectively) to those questions while keeping the details shrouded in mystery. So we know it can be done, but it doesn't happen in this movie, suggesting a real lack of capability of the writer/director.

Whereas the end of the Blair Witch Project literally scares the beejezus out of you, and Mist nearly so, here, the ending is anticipated and sad. I really had little sympathy for the main characters by the end of the movie. At the end, I left thinking, "well, if this were a real video diary, I wouldn't have any reason to show it to anyone, and there would be no reason for the FBI to keep it a secret (as is suggested)."


Overall, I give it a thumbs down.

Paul Cezanne

Today is French post-impressionist painter Paul Cezanne's birthday.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

The tantalizing Pleiades star cluster seems to lie just beyond the trees above a dark castle tower in this dramatic view of The World at Night. Recorded earlier this month, the starry sky also features bright star Aldebaran below the Pleiades and a small, faint, fuzzy cloud otherwise known as Comet Holmes near picture center at the top of the field. Starry Night Castle might be an appropriate name for the medieval castle ruin in the foreground. But its traditional name is Mörby Castle, found north of Stockholm, near lake Skedviken in Norrtälje, Sweden.

See the Astronomy Picture of the Day website.

Blue Like Jazz

Column: Donald Miller's Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality

By Associated Press
KELLI KENNEDY
Updated: 1/17/2008

ORLANDO, Fla.

Donald Miller still loves God and Jesus. Don't misunderstand him.

His problem is with Christianity, at least how it's often practiced.

''It's a dangerous term so I try to avoid it,'' said Miller, who considered giving up his career as a Christian writer and leaving the church in 2003 because he couldn't attend services without getting angry.

For him, the word conjured up conservative politics, suburban consumerism and an ''insensitivity to people who aren't like us.'' He sat in his boxer shorts and banged out a memoir of his experiences with God, stripped of the trappings of religion.

''Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality'' sold just enough to pay a few months rent. Then five years later, spurred by a grass-roots movement of 20-something Christians longing to connect to God without ties to the religious right, the book became a sudden hit.

Christians tired of the ''life is perfect'' mantra of some churches, revel in his ability to talk unashamedly about smoking pot, living in a hippie commune and the notion that God isn't a Republican.

Rest of the article here.

Argh...

The NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) says that Iran is not the threat Bush has made them out to be. Bush now says, "it's not our job to defend the NIE."

So, in other words, his job is to defend his fantasy land where Iran is a threat and needs to be blown up. Bush truly does not care about reality. God help us.

On fallacies

Textbook Slippery Slope fallacy:

Huckabee: "I think the radical view is to say that we're going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal," ..."Again, once we change the definition, the door is open to change it again."

BET, Clinton and Obama

The CEO of BET is a Clinton supporter who made a nasty remark about Obama that he has since had to apologize for. My question is this: why is the CEO of BET a Clinton supporter? It surely is not because Clinton has better race/minority policy credentials than Obama. So there is some other angle. I'm not sure what it is, but I bet it has something to do with business. Clinton is perceived as more pro-business than Obama is. Just curious, really.

Nunc Dimittis - Minnesota Compline Choir

My favorite compline choir singing my favorite part of my favorite office:




"Nunc Dimittis" is Latin that begins the Canticle of Simeon (Luke 2:29-32), Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine, (Now, Lord, you dismiss your servant). The text of the chant is:

Antiphon: Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping
that awake we may watch with Christ,
and asleep we may rest in peace.

Lord, now you let your servant go in peace:

your word has been fulfilled.

My own eyes have seen the salvation

which you have prepared in the sight of every people;

A light to reveal you to the nations

and the glory of your people Israel.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning is now,
and will be forever, Amen.

Antiphon: Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping
that awake we may watch with Christ,
and asleep we may rest in peace.

Ginger is growing up!

She is 7 months old today. I just realized that today is her birthday. A reminder of what she used to look like is on webshots. She's gotten a lot more black/dark hairs, and her "mane" is much more pronounced.

Budapest

This was SO FUNNY!!!!! Dean sent it to me, and he got it from Jennifer.

Budapest is the capital of what European country?

This is just funny on so many levels! First, a 3rd-grader knows the answer, and the adult doesn't. But that's not the funny part (cuz anybody could just not know or remember the name of the country). Here are just a few choice quotes:

"This might be a dumb question, but I thought Europe was a country!"

But here's my favorite. This, spoken in a charming southern accent reminiscent of Luann from King of the Hill, is what made me fall on the floor laughing and scare the puppy:

"Buda- Budapest?! I never even HEARD of that! Wait, I know they speak French there...."

Savor that one...she "knows" that a country she's never heard of speaks French. Priceless.

But wait, there's more:

"Wait, let me ask. Is France a country?"

And then this:

Jeff Foxworthy: Let's talk about your options.
Contestant: O-kay.
Jeff: "Kell...over here...focus." (pointing two fingers at his eyes)
Contestant: Wah, ? Alright. I'm listenin', but I'll only hear what I want to.

I peed my pants a little after that one. This one just tops it off:

Jeff: The right answer, is Hungary.
Contestant: Hungry?? That's a country?? I never heard of that! I've heard of Turkey!

Congress & Baseball

The democratic congress is investigating steroids in baseball again. Commissioners are set to testify to the Government Oversight Committee. Why?? I have no idea what legitimate interest Congress has in baseball.

Why is Congress wasting its time investigating steroids instead of keeping pressure on the Bush administration and its corruption of the Constitution? It's like a 6th grade bully who is so weak that they can't beat up on somebody their own size, so they pick on the little kindergartener.

Mind you, I don't think steroids is right. I just have no idea why Congress should care this much.

Smurfs Turn 50

I had no idea that the smurfs were this old. I thought they originated in the cartoon series I watched as a kid.

legislating morality

Allen Raymond was convicted of breaking election laws. He wrote a book about it, and he is guest blogging at TPM Cafe.

He writes,

Morality is the domain of organized religion, cults and Bill O’Reilly (allegedly), but not government. So when my judge derided me by asking, “Where was his moral compass?” I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. It was like comparing apples to fire trucks in Coptic. That was also a moment when righteous indignation got on its bench-level soap box and decided to make the law about morality, sending me the clear signal I was doomed to find myself on the same side of the wall as the felons and convicts.

He is mistaken of course. I am stunned that such an intelligent person cannot make the simple connection between LAW and MORALITY. Every single law ever written, since the beginning of time, legislates morality. Even a speed-limit law is based on the belief that it is immoral to risk driving recklessly fast and put other motorists into life-threatening danger.

Raymond violated election laws by jamming Democratic phone lines on election day. That's such an obvious moral issue, that I am simply stunned that he cannot see it. That he still cannot see it. He understands that he broke the law. But he doesn't understand that what he did was immoral. That scares me. It scares me to think that there are other lawyers with advanced degrees who are like this.

And yes, I agree with him that we as a nation do not handle our felons very well. Yes, we need compassion. But his lack of ownership, his almost psychopathic inability to comprehend morality, his OWN INABILITY to be compassionate towards those he harmed, isn't making it any easier for me to empathize with him. What I hope he does is not simply play the victim, but change his life in ways that create the kind of positive change he talks about.

Cognitive Dissonance

Lovely post over at DKos.

The Democratic Party and voters are codependent, insane and addicted to cognitive dissonance.

They cry out for leaders who aren't paid protectors of special interest groups yet they continue to elect leaders who are paid protectors of special interest groups and, all the while, they expect a different result for repeating their unfortunate and misguided choices.

How To Prepare??

Somehow I need to prepare for a big letdown. I think there's a good chance that McCain will win the Republican nomination, and if he does, he stands about a 50% chance of winning the presidency. I can't hardly believe I'm saying that, but I think it's true. It means that 50% of the country is still living in some alternate universe that I don't comprehend.

And if McCain, or any Republican, wins, I will be devastated. I'm sure I will find a way to live (I managed to after 2004), but it will hurt worse than ever. I hate fearing the future. I wish I could stay in the present. But the chance of 4 more years of everything going wrong -- of more war and torture and economic bamboozlement and corruption and hating brown people, women and gays is really disheartening.

Dodd Wins (on FISA)

Sen. Dodd wins on FISA (with no help from Biden, Clinton, or Obama). From WSJ:

Senator Chris Dodd's Presidential campaign died with a whimper in Iowa. But he still seems to be dictating national security policy to fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill, and unless the Bush Administration is willing to fight, perhaps to the next President too.

We're told that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is saying privately he now won't attempt to update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) on the wiretapping of al Qaeda suspects. Instead, he'll merely support another 18-month extension of the six-month-old Protect America Act. Among other problems, the temporary bill includes no retroactive immunity for the telecom companies that cooperated with the feds after 9/11.

D.C. Court Rules Torture Legal and Prisoners not Persons

I think my head just exploded into shards.

From McClatchy:

A federal appeals court Friday threw out a suit by four British Muslims who allege that they were tortured and subjected to religious abuse in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a ruling that exonerated 11 present and former senior Pentagon officials.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the detainees captured in Afghanistan aren't recognized as ``persons'' under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act because they were aliens held outside the United States. The Religious Freedom Act prohibits the government from ``substantially burdening a person's religion.''

``It was foreseeable that conduct that would ordinarily be indisputably `seriously criminal' would be implemented by military officials responsible for detaining and interrogating suspected enemy combatants,'' Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson wrote in the court's main opinion.

In upholding a lower court's rejection of all the claims but those under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the circuit court said that the interrogation tactics, which Rumsfeld first authorized in 2002, were ``incidental'' to the duties of those who'd been sued."


Torture was "foreseeable"? And so that makes it OKAY?!? What kind of f*ing logic is that?!
Say it with me: ALL HUMANS ARE PERSONS AND ALL PERSONS HAVE RIGHTS.

Brian McLaren on Truth

Excerpted from an open letter to Chuck Colson.

As I reflect on this, I think truth means at least seven very different things depending on the context:
1. Reality – Sometimes, we use truth to mean “what’s out there,” or “what’s really, really, real.”
2. A human perception of reality – Sometimes we use the term to mean how an individual human or group of humans perceive what’s really out there. For example, in court, when a person swears to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, we understand only God could fulfill that promise, unless we defined truth to mean “an honest and full accounting of what you perceived.”
3. Knowledge about reality - Clearly, there’s always some degree of difference between #2 and #1 above, and when we weave our perceptions into coherent, conscious generalizations and call those generalizations knowledge, the difference isn’t erased. In other words, reality as seen and known by our infinite and wonderful God is always fuller and to some degree different than reality as seen and known by limited, situated humans. Scripture affirms this, reminding us that we know only in part.
4. Statements or propositions about reality – When we take our knowledge, which arises in the context of our imperfect perceptions about what’s really out there, and then we share that knowledge with others in statements, we have to admit we add new layers of imprecision – through the wonderful but sometimes imprecise interplay of encoded, sent, received, and interpreted symbols we call language. Human statements clearly do some justice to the realities they describe, but if even half of my critique of your column (an attempt to make true statements about reality, I don’t doubt) is valid, you have to admit that our very best attempts to make true statements about reality still aren’t perfect. For example, do you believe, looking back, that all the statements in your column were perfectly, completely, absolutely, objectively true? If you give anything less than an unqualified “yes,” you are being sensitive to the same concerns postmodern people have about these matters.
5. Moral or ethical judgments – The situation becomes even more complex when our statements are judgments about moral or ethical behavior. Even for those of use who claim to know God and have faith in the Bible: we need to look back over our own history and realize that just as there are disastrous consequences to claiming there is no such thing as legitimate moral judgment, there are also disastrous consequences to claiming that we have unquestionably legitimate moral judgment. Our ancestors judged slavery as morally justified, and brought in Scripture to enforce their point; we now judge slavery wrong, also using Scripture. Are we so naïve to think that all our judgments are finally right, just because we quote the Bible?
6. A belief system or world view – I think that the concept of world view is very powerful. And for that reason, it can be very dangerous. For example, I suspect that for many religious broadcasters and writers, “The Christian World View” means “The Modern Western Christian World View” or “The Calvinist Systematic Theology” or “A Syncretism of Christian Theology and Conservative Republican Politics,” but neither they nor their listeners realize it. Anyway, there’s a lot of mystique and fog around the term. Adding the words “The” and “Christian” in front of a worldview doesn’t guarantee this worldview is now 100% in synch with #1 above, but it sure can give that impression to unreflective people reading a column in Christianity Today, especially if they’re already feeling intimidated and afraid by all the changes in our world, and are hoping for reassurance.
7. A feeling of certainty – When some people use the word truth, I think they mean a feeling of certainty, security, and rest that means they no longer have to think or ask questions. In other words, truth means “case closed.” This exemption from further thought is something we all desire at times, I think, especially after a long hard day of reading a column in CT and criticizing it (and then criticizing the critique). But one only has to talk to a person hospitalized for psychosis to realize that a feeling of certainty can have very little in common with #1 above!

Snow in Baghdad

Best news I've read in ages.

For the first time in memory, snow fell across Baghdad.

For a couple of hours anyway, a city where mortar shells routinely zoom across to the Green Zone became united as one big White Zone. As of late afternoon, there were no reports of violence. The snow showed no favoritism as it fell faintly on neighborhoods Shiite and Sunni alike, and (with apologies to James Joyce) upon all the living and the dead.

Art Linkletter

Things "turn out best" for the people who make the best of the way "things turn out."
-- Art Linkletter

Art is still alive at age 95.

Anne Rice Endorses Hillary

Anne Rice dreams of a Clinton/Obama ticket. I think that if Hillary won the nomination, and if she extended an invitation to Obama to be VP, I think Obama would be humble enough to accept it.

So, is Clinton/Obama unbeatable, or unwinable? Is a woman AND a black man on one ticket too much for the American people? My hope is that such a ticket would be unbeatable.

Winners People's Choice Awards

A few of my favorite celebrities won People's Choice Awards. Among them:

Talk show host: Ellen DeGeneres

Male movie star: Johnny Depp

Male action star: Matt Damon

Action movie: ''The Bourne Ultimatum''

Funny female: Ellen DeGeneres

Today's Horoscope

Horoscope

January 10, 2008: Good news! The stars do not control your destiny. You do.

Happy vs. Critical

Looking over my blog, I think that I might be spending too much time and energy being critical. I read recently that a good ratio of positive vs. critical is 4:1. I can't promise to make that ratio, but I'm going to try to do better.

Hot Pants

LONDON

From baggy briefs to the ultimate hotpants: A British woman's underwear saved the day by doubling as an emergency fire blanket when her kitchen caught fire.

John Marsey and his cousin Darren Lines were frying bread in Jenny Marsey's kitchen in Hartlepool, northeast England, on Sunday when their meal caught fire.

Lines grabbed the nearest thing from a pile of laundry to put it out: his aunt's billowing, powder blue, size XL underpants.

He ran them under the faucet and tossed them onto the flames, successfully smothering the fire, a spokesman for the Cleveland Fire Brigade said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.

Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck recently had some surgery that, in his words, "went awry." He talked about, despite being given huge pain-relieving cocktails, that he was in pain so bad that he became "suicidal" (his words). He goes on to say that the problem with healthcare isn't "universal healthcare" or insurance companies, but the lack of "care" in healthcare. Despite calling it a life-changing event, he seems to have failed to make some of the most fundamental insights available to him. Here are a few of those insights that I wish he had, that he seems to have skipped:

1) He talks about the lack of CARE he received in the hospital. What about his own behavior towards guests on his show? I hope he will come to realize that he is known for being callous, mean, and uncaring toward the people he invites on his show.

2) He was in severe pain for a day or two. What about those who are terminally ill and are in that level of pain ALL THE TIME? If he was suicidal after just one day, what must it be like for someone who has been facing that pain for months? With that in mind, I wish he would have greater insight into his past views against euthanasia.

3) He talked about the lack of CARE in healthcare, and says that this is a problem that "money" can't solve. But he fails to connect the fact that private hospitals (and insurance companies) don't have an incentive to care--they have an incentive to the bottom line. I hope that Beck will someday make the connection between CARE and universal health care for EVERYBODY.

Update: another blogger points out another obvious takeaway--at least Beck had the ability to afford the surgery AND the post-op medical care. Those who can't afford health insurance, or whose insurance decline authorization for treatment, can't do either.

Fox News Takes Facts "Under Advisement"

This is just too funny. From HuffPo:

I've [Paul Begala] been dealing with the media and politics for 25 years, but I've never had a more surrealistic day than January 8. Several times that day Fox News reported that I was joining Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign. It was a big story - at least until the stunning election returns.

The only problem was, it wasn't true.

After I told Fox it wasn't true -- and this is the surreal part -- they kept reporting it anyway. In fact, Fox's Garrett told me he'd "take it under advisement." Take it under advisement? I realize I'm generally seen as just another liberal with an opinion, but this was not a matter of opinion, it was a matter of fact. Fox now knew their story was flatly, factually wrong, and they took it "under advisement. My worry is that if this is what one of Fox's best and most respected reporters is doing, what are the hacks up to?"


You have GOT to go to the link and scroll to the bottom where Paul Begala has an email exchange with the reporter. Here is Paul Begala flat-out telling the reporter that he dead f-ing wrong, and the reporter saying, "but I have a great source."

George Burns

"It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can't remember if it's the thirteenth or the fourteenth."

George's birthday is the 20th.

Cheap Shots at Clinton

Now everybody is ganging up on Clinton. Granted, Clinton didn't do any favors for herself with her "false dream" comment attacking Obama. That line stunk bad.

But this whole business of Edwards (!) and others ganging up on Clinton because she got teary-eyed is nonsense, and the media making a big deal out of it is more nonsense. If you want to criticize the tears as being fake that would be fine (I really don't know), but don't criticize her for having emotions! What a crock! Bill Clinton got teary-eyed during a debate years ago, anybody remember that? And he was applauded as being able to "feel their pain." Clinton gets bashed because she doesn't show emotions enough, and when she does, she gets bashed for being weak.

King of the Hill - Church Hopping

When a new family sits in the Hill's pew at First Methodist of Arlen, they suggest to the Rev. Strupe that there be assigned seating. When she tells Hank to "get over it," they get offended and decide to go church hopping.




Some choice quotes from this episode:

Lucky: Me, I don't got to church - church goes with me. I'm worshippin' when I'm drinkin' a beer, diggin' a hole, or fishin' for trout.
Luanne: That's beautiful, Lucky!
Hank: Luanne, I happen to *know* it's asinine!

Reverend Neally: Thank you, Peggy, you are a gift straight from heaven!
Peggy: I really am. You know, Reverend Strupe never got that.

Dale: I'll be honest with you, Hank, you leaving Arlen First Methodist is the best thing that ever happened to me. Strupe is so desperate to keep members from jumping ship, she turned the last two pews into a smoking section!
Bill: Yeah, who knows how far she'll go to keep us! When I hugged her after the service, I lingered a little and I was not rebuffed!

My favorite moment: Peggy becomes the mega-church pastor's self-proclaimed assistant. When the pastor gets an emergency call from a parishioner, the pastor says that this is a very private and personal call and nods towards the door. Peggy says, "oh yes, of course!" closes the door (with her still inside), then boldly picks up the extension line next to the pastor to listen in and offer her advice.

Why not impeachment?

In a WaPo editorial, McGovern said that "the case for impeaching Bush and Cheney is far stronger than was the case against Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew after the 1972 election."

So why aren't there impeachment proceedings? I used to think it was because the Republicans wouldn't go along, and so the Dems won't bother. But the Republicans went ahead with impeaching Clinton even though the Dems were very much against it. Then I thought it was "9/11", as in, everything is okay because of 9/11. But the polls don't support that view. So what is it?

I think I finally figured it out: because the American people understand stealing and sex. Nixon faced impeachment because the American people understood "breaking and entering."* Clinton faced impeachment because the American people understood "sex."

But I don't think that the American people really understand violating the Geneva Conventions, extraordinary rendition, politicizing the Justice department, manipulating intelligence, the war as a violation of international law, deceiving Congress, subverting the national interest, signing statements, the VP office not in the executive branch, hiding/destroying public records, and the general chutzpah of Bush in deciding which laws he is going to obey and which he isn't.

It probably appears to the average joe as just political wrangling of the ordinary kind, and not crimes worthy of impeachment, indeed far more worthy than Nixon's breaking-and-entering and Clinton's sex.**

* Technically, in terms of Nixon, it was about cover-up, but I believe the people focused on it as the reality of breaking-and-entering, not about a cover-up.

** I think I finally figured this out while watching Giuliani's campaign implode. It didn't implode because Giuliani broke laws, is unqualified, or flip-flopped on issues. It imploded because of sex.

Bush still defies the Constitution

Sen. Reid kept the Senate open in pro forma sessions so that Bush couldn't create recess appointments behind their back.

But that hasn't stopped Bush. The head of mine safety was appointed by Bush in a recess last year, and that appointment has now lapsed. But 3 days after the end of his recess appointment, Bush has re-hired him as "acting" head of mine safety, not requiring senate approval at all.

By this logic, I guess that means that Bush can have an "acting" secretary of defense or "acting" secretary of state, or any cabinet position without senate approval for the remainder of his term. Sadly, we know that there isn't a damn thing anybody will do about it (because the only thing that CAN be done about it is impeachment, and the Republicans aren't honest enough to go there).


This is the same guy, by the way, that the Senate has rejected 3 times in Bush nominations, because he is an industry hack, who may well be responsible for many of the mine safety accidents we've had over the last year.

P.S. Reid tried to cut a deal with Bush that would have allowed him to appoint dozens of positions during the holiday recess, as long as he didn't agree to appoint Steven Bradbury to a permanent position at the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Dept. Bush told Reid to take a hike, and the deal was off.

Freepers on Obama

From the Free Republic. That people really think this way is very, very disturbing to me. I wish I could learn where this person lived so I could be sure never to meet him.

Did the weakest Dem candidate for the general election won tonight? I think so.

By sending forth Hussein Osama out of Iowa, Democrats have unwittingly weakened their general election prospects.

Hussein's exotic mixture of radical liberalism, Kwanzaa Socialism, antipathy towards the unborn, and weakness against his jihadi brethren will all come back to destroy him against almost any Republican opponent, even the snake-grope from Hope.

I think we as Republicans should be celebrating tonight at the coronation of Hussein, in whose presence millions of Democrat women, from elementary school teachers to journalism majors to law school grads to dykes on bikes will go weak in their knees.

As defenders of this great Republic, and of the pinnacle of Western civilization that it represents, we should all come together tonight and agree on a common strategy that will keep the White House from becoming a madrassa.

Hillary

From David Kuo:

Hillary's rally

Is there any bigger example of Hillary's problem than the visual of her concession speech?

The placard on the front of the podium reads, "Ready for Change."

The two most prominent people standing behind her? Former Clinton Sec'y of State Madeline Albright and President Clinton. They are the embodiment of the establishment.

Lilies

Dean sent me this.

Obama victory speech

Obama channels MLK in a great speech. You'll note several of the tag lines come from his famous 2004 speech. It still works.



Shame on MSNBC for cutting away at crucial moments and breaking the spell.

Media "Spin"

I expect pundits to spin the news--to frame reality according to their script.

Like last night when Chris Matthews kept saying that 2/3 of Iowa voted "against" Clinton (duh! 2/3 of Iowa voted against Obama and 2/3 of Iowa voted against Edwards, that's how a 3-way race works, idiot).

But I expect better from NPR.

Any normal person would conclude that Obama did great, that Edwards should be thrilled to come in 2nd given how far he's been trailing in the polls and money, and that Clinton should be concerned. But here's how NPR put it:

Obama barely eaked out a win, and not enough to take him to NH. Edwards can't be happy because he's been campaigning "for 4 years," and doesn't have any money to show for it, and Clinton is doing great because she has name recognition and tons of cash to take to NH.

In other words, the exact opposite of reality.

P.S. And sadly, Dodd has now closed his campaign, so I won't get a chance to vote for him. I'm still favoring Edwards as my second, but I have no illusions about Edwards' chances.

P.P.S. This year, Democrats turned out with a 400% increase in Iowa than 2000. I hope that's a sign that Dems and Independents are finally going to make SURE that there isn't another Republican in the White House.

GOP Iowa Caucus Results

Some interesting/surprising polling results on CNN.

Ron Paul got 54% of the vote of those who were "angry" at Bush. 33% of them were also Independents (the highest percentage of Independents). Now we know where Paul got his money from--pissed off Independents.

The #1 issue for GOP Caucusers? Illegal Immigration (32%)!!!! Yup, Goopers are more worried about Mexicans picking strawberries illegally than they are about the War, the Economy, or Terrorism. How f^$*@ed up is that?! This year "immigration" is the new "gay marriage." How many ways can Goopers hate others?!

Romney had the highest percentage of "Electability."

Some not surprising results:

Huckabee got the most Evangelical votes. Huckabee and Romney account for 78% of the evangelical vote.

Giuliani got 4% of the vote. I guess that endorsement from Pat Robertson didn't work. Can you say, implosion??

Is my daemon a match?

The Undecided Voter

A great blog entry.

My favorite line: "Undecided voters aren't as rational as you think."

Remembering Spiritual Leaders

There's a neat article on beliefnet about some of the spiritual leaders who died in 2007.

Here's a quick run-down:

Benazir Bhutto - Islamic democratic leader in Pakistan
Jerry Falwell - conservative founder of Moral Majority
Madeleine L'Engle - prolific writer
Ruth Bell Graham - wife of Billy Graham and independent thinker
Teddy Kollek - modernized Jerusalem; advocated peace w/ Palestine
Alice Coltrane - jazz musician turned Hindu guru
Tammy Faye Messner - wife of televangelist Jim Bakker & cosmetics aficionado
Ilyas ba-Yunas - muslim advocate in America
Ingmar Bergman - filmmaker & God questioner
Gilbert Patterson - pentecostal bishop
Jean-Marie Lustiger - french catholic archibishop
D. James Kennedy - conservative televangelist and co-founder of Moral Majority
Norman Mailer - writer & peace activist
Sherwin Wine - founder of Jewish Humanism
Sri Chinmoy - Hindu guru to celebrities and fitness freak
Rex Humbard - one of the first pentecostal televangelists
Maha Ghosananda - buddhist monk and peace activist
Avraham Shapira - Zionist rabbi opposed to the land for peace deals
Robert Drinan - liberal jesuit priest turned congressman
Anita Roddick - environmentalist
Bruce Metzger - Greek scholar & bible translator; all modern bibles are based on his work
Yolanda King - daughter of MLK, Jr., activist

I'm Not Psychic, and No I Won't Do Your Job For You

I am the victim of indirect communication all the time from people who are too scared to take responsibility for things that they are responsible for. I had it happen to me again twice today. Most of you know that I'm a web programmer for our company--I do all the technical work, but I don't decide on the "content"--that's always somebody else's job. Here is how one email chain went today. The names have been changed to protect the idiotic.

Suzy: My supervisor Mindy wants me to get our website updated. Can you help me with that?
Me: Sure. If you tell me how you want it updated, I'll do the programming.
Suzy: I don't know what Mindy wanted to update. Can you help?
Me: No, I'm not psychic either.*


Here is how another one went.


Jan: We have a spreadsheet linked on the web that isn't displaying right. Can you help?
Me: It looks to me like your margins are set wrong. If you send me an updated spreadsheet, I'll post the new one to the website.
Jan: I was told that I shouldn't make any changes because it might make it look worse. Does that make any sense?
Me: No, that doesn't make any sense. If you keep backup copies of the spreadsheet, why would you care if it turns out worse? You could just start over until you get it the way you like.
Jan: Thanks! But why would somebody tell me not to make any changes?
Me: I don't know. Maybe you should ask them.


Now seriously, this happens to me ALL. The. Time. Boss-A gives some ambiguous, unclear assignment to Staff Member-B who then asks ME to find out what Boss-A meant instead of finding out for him- or herself.

* = Okay, that's just how I WANTED to respond. What I really said was, "No, maybe you should ask Mindy."

The Golden Duke Awards

Named after Duke Cunningham, the First Annual Golden Duke Awards.

Top 10 Dumbest Legal Arguments of 2007

From Slate:

10. The NSA's eavesdropping was limited in scope.
9. Scooter Libby's sentence was commuted because it was excessive.
8. The vice president's office is not a part of the executive branch.
7. The Guantanamo Bay detainees enjoy more legal rights than any prisoners of war in history.
6. Water-boarding may not be torture.
5. Everyone who has ever spoken to the president about anything is barred from congressional testimony by executive privilege.
4. Nine U.S. attorneys were fired by nobody, but for good reason.
3. Alberto Gonzales.
2. State secrets.
1. The United States does not torture.

Obama & Cheap Shots

Obama is still taking cheap shots at Clinton and Edwards (and Democrats in general), seems inept in talking about his own policy strategies, and unable to actually be the "different" sort of politician he promised us he would be. I'd vote for him if he were the Democratic nominee in the general (because there isn't a Republican running that I would vote for), but he has lost my support in the primary. If I can't have Dodd, I'll take Edwards.

Voting machines

Why do we go through this every 2 years? How many more years will we go through it? Why does everyone sound surprised?



DENVER (AP) — With the presidential race in full swing, Colorado and other states have found critical flaws in the accuracy and security of their electronic voting machines, forcing officials to scramble to return to the paper ballots they abandoned after the Florida debacle of 2000.
.
.
"I was surprised," Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman said Friday of the failures his office found. "It's an awful position to be put in, but I feel strongly it's important that this equipment be secure and accurately count a vote."
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gFlZQFdIDo-SGvL7Stu-jKFoT4jwD8TSLQI00