Refreshingly humorous, yet strangely sad...

If you read my post from Wednesday of last week, you know that I'm fond of 'text generators'.

Some of them are quite humorous, some are silly and some are... well, inappropriate.

The technology used to do this is pretty simple: a programmer takes a list of words or phrases and then uses a javascript code to parse the text to return a random sample which is then combined with other such snippetts to produce something silly or funny or... well, you know.

I use a closely related technique to produce the 'random' quotes near the top of my website. Of course they're not rally random at all. I entered a list of my top twenty favorite quotations into a text list and then I let a javascript chose one to display upon opening or refreshing the page. To get a different quote, all you have to do is reload the page. Try it.

But my quote list is random only in the sense that the javascript randomly selects one of the texts that I have already entered. I control what is available to be produced and, hopefully, the text list would make sense even if read from paper by human eyes.

Text generators are somewhat different in that they recombine text snippetts to produce outlandish, outrageous, humorous or even offensive results.

I realize this is a long introduction for a simple topic, but some of you have to understand what I'm talking about before I get to the meat of the story.

This is that: I was poking around the web recently looking for some of these text widgets. I'm not sure how exactly, but on some sub-list of someone's daughter page out there in cyberland, I clicked a link that took me to this.

A sermon generator.

(!)

Yes, someone has used this technolgy, in an advanced form to be sure, to produce sermons.

It reminds me of when Simon Peter used a C++ recursive code to confound the Pharisees.

Not really.

At first, I thought this was funny - I laughed. Then, it slowly started to dawn on me that this is not a joke. This is a real product. People are actually using this thing to produce 'sermons'.

That could explain some of the ones I've heard.

Seriously, though, I can't imagine using a computer program to produce a sermon - select a text, plug in some variables and, viola, you've got it made.

All you have to do is stand up and read the thing.

Again, the sad part is that there are folks out there actually using this product.

Bad, bad news...

While Mel Gibson desperately tries his hand at damage control, war continues to rage in the middle east.

I got into a discussion this morning with some folks about who's 'right' and who's 'wrong' in this conflict. Personally, I don't care who's 'side' you're on, innocent people, many of them children, are dying by the dozens and that's just plain wrong. I'm on the side of the killed, maimed and orphaned children. No one else seems to be.

As Jimmy Carter said, “War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.”

Amen, brother Carter, Amen. What a great ex-president he is.

The situation in the Mideast, though, has become so bad that Condoleezza Rice cancelled her scheduled trip to Lebanon. And people the world over are starting to view this as a proxy war between the U.S. and Iran.

Bad, bad news.

History, like God, is watching what we do.

I was recently reading over the text of Bono's speech to the National Prayer Breakfast back in February. I had skimmed it at the time and then moved on.

Funny how things work. Months later, I got interested in the problem of world hunger. I discovered One.org, Bread For The World, The Hunger Site, and MercyCorps.

See my sidebar for links.

In the Advocacy section of MercyCorps' site, I rediscovered Mr. Hewson's speech.

It was inspired. I cannot tell you how uplifting and inspiring it is to read these words or how saddening it is to realize what a problem this is.

It's also refreshing to realize that a guy who has enough money to buy himself a fully stocked tropical island has neither lost his artistic voice nor his connection to, and care about, humanity.

This speech says exactly what I feel and believe. As I read it, I felt myself thinking, "Why didn't I say these things? Why was it not me who originated these ideas?"

I realize I have little chance of ever being invited to speak before a collection of national leaders, but why have I not articulated these very important ideas to whatever audience that I have?

In some ways, perhaps, I have. But not enough. Not often enough. Not emphatically enough. Not loud enough.

I have not done enough.

As long as 1000 people are dying every hour, no one has done enough.

Not me, not you, not Bono, no one.

History, like God, is watching what we do.

A Stain Upon Silence.

I guess some people think that there are a lot original ideas out there in pop culture land.

I'm not one of them.

In fact, I think 'pop culture' is an oxymoron. 'Culture', to me, implies a certain amount of originality - and that is precisely the thing I find most lacking in anything 'pop'.

Take the old sitcom Seinfeld, for instance.

A show about nothing.

How original.

Not really.

A generation (or two) before Jer' and company made a sitcom about nothing, a Protestant, French-speaking, Irish-born playwright and novelist produced a body of work that was exraordinarily original, engaging, darkly humorous and, well, all about nothing.

Except that it was about everything.

I'm talking about Samuel Beckett of course.

I like Beckett - English translation only, though - thank's anyway.

Beckett's one of those truly original thinkers that come along every so often and transform their genre.

And my mind.

I also like The Onion.

Is it a coincidence that I like both Beckett and The Onion? Maybe not.

I was poking through the Onion archives recently and found this.

The 'article' claims that some blank paper found in Beckett's estate might possibly be one of his lost works.

It put such a huge grin on my face.

Slyly hillarious.

Get it? Beckett was a minimalist writer... Blank paper? Anyone?

Well, I found it amusing and I think Beckett would have too.

En attendant Godot: "We are all born mad. Some remain so."

So when they had eaten their breakfast...

Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I have affection for you." He said to him, "Feed my lambs."

And the Lord repeated "Feed my lambs" several more times.

According to historical world population experts, the popualtion of the entire world at the time of Jesus' birth was probably less than 200 million people.

According to The Hunger Site, about 24,000 people die every day from hunger or hunger-related causes.

If people had been dying at that rate from anything at the time of Jesus' birth, human beings would have become extinct a decade before Jesus began His public ministry.

Feed His lambs.

Buckaroo Johnson and the Murder City Crickets...

I just read a very interesting post from Justin at Radical Congruency about postmodernism and its implications for the church. If you don't read Radical Congruency, you should.

Now.

It follows a post that links to, and references, a site called Communications from Elsewhere that looks like your pretty much standard personal blog, online journal or web-based notebook. But in this blog's sidebar is a list of 'text generators'. One is called 'postmodernism' and uses parsed snippets of real text to assemble nonsensical but quite humorous 'papers' on postmodernist themes. Try it.

That, of course, is the connection to Justin's post at Radical Congruency.

But wait, there's more - including 'adolescent poetry', 'subgenius brag generator' (warning: strong language), 'time cube' (ditto: irreverent themes) and 'band names'. Same idea: take a list of meaningful words and use a computer script to jumble them into something much less meaningful but much more entertaining.

Band names is especially good. I laughed out loud.

And that, just so you know, is how I came up with the title of this post.

News!

Israel continues to bomb Beirut into oblivion in their quest to eradicate Hezbollah militants. This is either the beginning of World War III or a 'limited, local conflict'. We might remind Mr. Rosner that both previous world wars began as 'limited, local conflicts'.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice has secured a promise from Israel to allow humanitarian flights into Beirut. I've always been puzzled when a nation will blow their neighbor to smithereens and then turn around and give or 'allow' humanitarian aide. We've done the same thing many times.

And now this: Arlen Specter is preparing to sue the president over 'signing statements'. Signing statements are addenda that the president attaches to the the bills that Congress submits to him for approval. I view them as a presidential 'yes, but...'. They have little real meaning because they are not constitutionally outlined and would probably not hold up in court. Why bother. At least the Republicans are sticking together about as well as the Democrats. Ha! Did I hear someone say 'third party'?

Microsoft is now struggling to do what it does best: take someone else's idea, improve it and make zillions of dollars mass marketing it. Microsoft is deveolping the Zune music player to compete with Apple's IPod. There are several problems in this scenario for Microsoft: First, There's not a lot they can do to improve on the IPod idea. Second, the IPod has already become popular, ubiquitous and entrenched in the market. You can buy 'em at Wal-Mart for pete's sake!Third, the name . Zune?

Finally, the understatement of the week: Christie Brinkley's estranged husband says, "I'm stupid" for cheating on his supermodel wife of ten years with an 18 year old employee. He's 47 - almost old enough to be his conquest's grandfather - and it's not the first time. Apparantly this guy was carrying on with a nineteen year old singer when he married Brinkley. Stupid indeed.

Bush's NAACP speech.

I've been reading over the transcript of the president's address to the NAACP which I incorrectly predicted wouldn't happen.

It's good speech. I especially liked the closing.

There's an old Methodist hymn that speaks of God guiding us with a hand of power and a heart of love. We cannot know God's plans, but we trust in his purposes, because we know that the Creator who wrote the desire for liberty in our hearts also gives us the strength and wisdom to fulfill it. And the God who has brought us thus far on the way will give us the strength to finish the journey.

Amen.

But I know two things about public addresses at this level of politics: 1, a professional speechwriter, not the speaker, writes the words and 2, politicians tailor their comments to the audience they are addressing.

Fair enough - all presidents and most nationally known leaders do this so it's not a jab against Bush. But it does make me wonder if he believes all the things he said before the NAACP.

Another busy weekend...

Of course.

The van is fixed, Stacie's car got serviced, Shelby's room is on its way to being normal again, part of the school supplies have been bought and VBS is over.

Whew!

Speaking of VBS, I did end up portraying Jesus again. But only briefly - my main acting role was the prodigal son. I also helped out with crowd control and cooked the hamburgers and took a lot of pictures - which I may get around to uploading someday.

In the midst of all this, Jack called me into his office. Now Jack's a great guy and one of the best pastors in the world, but he is in a position of authority. I felt like I was going to the principle's office. I began to wonder if I had offended someone with my sometimes unconventional understanding of theology.

No, nothing like that. But he did have something very interesting to tell me. And come to think of it, I probably shouldn't even mention it yet. So I won't. Maybe in a few days...

In the meantime, Stacie, AKA Supergirl, AKA Volchic has become addicted to Yahoo Answers. Why anyone would want to engage in some frivolous activity like this I have no idea. She could be spending her time posting her thoughts on a blog instead. But she enjoys this and she's quite good at it - one of her anwers was the top pick in the Religion and Spirituality category.

She would be the redheaded avatar right under the original question. NEAT!

See ya!

Religious Liberals

This one of the funniest things I've ever seen on the internet. It's a pieced-together video of President Bush singing a karaoke version of U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday". Must be seen to be believed.

Even Stacie, the former would-be Anne Coulter Jr., found it hillarious.

After seeing the vid, she mentioned that she'd like to have the real SBS, since it's not on any of our U2 CD's. I'm a good husband, mostly, so I went out and bought her the 'War' CD.

We were listening to it in the uber-vehicle this afternoon. I commented that either U2 were way ahead of their time, or they were monumentally influential to popular music, or I'm just gettin' old - because this song does not sound dated at all and it's 23 years old!

Stacie said it is because of all three of those reasons, by the way.

Then she said something really profound: "It also speaks so strongly about the condition of this society and this world that the subjects this song addressed are still unsolved problems."

!

Wow. Sometimes, Stacie really amazes me. Would-be Anne Coulter Jr. no more. Hey, you live and you learn, right?

On a sorta related note (not really), I've been reading some new blogs. This isn't really anything new. I read hundreds of blogs. Some regularly, some daily, some once, shake my head and never go back.

But I've been looking at this one from a guy named Dwight (I won't hold that against him - he can't help it). It's called "A Religious Liberal Blog".

It's good.

My first reaction, though, upon reading 'religious liberal' was: THERE ARE MORE THAN ONE OF US?

Of course, intellectually, I know that there are, but it seems that the folks who get all the attention are the ones from the religious right or the secular left. Not to mention the fact that , around here, the average rank and pew churchgoer is about as far right as you can get.

Even in a mainline, progressive, socially conscious denomination like my own, (see sidebar), you find some extraordinarily backward and ignorant ideas.

It's enough to make you feel like crying. Literally.

For instance:

Someone asked me recently (in my role as pretend Bible expert) if there were 'polacks' back in Jesus' time.

No, I am not making that up.

I said, "Yes there were and Jesus didn't call them 'polacks'.

I couldn't think of anything else.

I'm glad that there are people like the anti-Anne coulter Jr., Stacie and blogger Dwight.

I just wish there were more of us!

My week...

To say that I've had a busy week would be something of an understatement...

So I won't say that.

I will say that it has been strange, frustrating, and expensive.

First, my van overheated last Saturday - a busted radiator hose - no big deal. I replaced the top radiator hose, filled it up with anti-freeze and went on my way.

Then it happened again - The bottom hose this time. Did it all again.

The next day the van overheated once again. No signs of hose bustage this time, just scalding, noxious, green liquid spewing out of the overflow tank.

A new thermostat has hopefully (please?) fixed the problem for good.

While all that was going on, Stacie and Shelby were having a running argument about drinks getting spilled on the floor of Shelby's room. It went something like this: "Ididnot-youdidtoo-ididnot-youdidtoo" ad infinitum. Ok, there was more, but I tuned it out.

For once, Shelby's protestations of innocence were valid. She hadn't spilled anything in the floor.

But the floor was wet again. I went feeling around the wet spot and traced the dampness back toward the wall.

The wall that adjoins the master bath.

You know where this is going, right?

The baseboard was damp and the wall was too. I felt my way up the wall until I got a point about three feet up - right about where the water pipe connects to the bathtub valve - and came away with two wet gooey handfuls of what used to be drywall material.

Not to mention a large sheet of still intact, bright yellow latex wall paint lying at my feet.

We immediately began to empty her room of everything wet, damp, soggy, musty, moldy or gooey. Including a good sized chunk of wall:



I then got my dad to come over to help me fix the now exposed leaking water pipe.

We should have turned off the water main first.

Yes it did.

Now the carpet has to go too.

In the meantime, Shelby has pretty much moved into B's house as we work to patch, repaint and recarpet her room.




Ah, the joys of home ownership!

In addition, I've had a full workweek, I took Stacie's new car/truck to get its first regularly scheduled service, and we're preparing for VBS at church and my once-a-year acting gig. This year, I'm the prodigal son - someone else gets to be Jesus this time. Of course I'll also be a stand in for any other Biblical characters whose portrayers don't bother to show up.

I'll also serve as the hamburger cook, the trash take-out guy and the 'we need somebody to go get this or do this five minutes ago' guy and probably a couple of other unforeseen roles.

Can you tell that my lovely wife is heading this thing up.

In the spare fifteen minutes I was able to carve out of this train wreck of a week, I went to the library and got some books on computers, music and the book of Ecclesiates. I also re-checked out Jimmy Buffett's 'A Pirate looks at Fifty' which I never finished last time.

With Jimbo's first chapter as inspiration, I've decided to write the story of My Life (in 400 words or less).

I've got a start, but this is not as easy as it sounds. I'll share it with you when I'm done. I'm predicting that I'll come in at somewhere between 398 and 400 words.

More News...

Even conservatives are now questioning Bush's policies both at home and abroad.

What do you expect? He's the son of the most liberal Republican president since, oh, Teddy Roosevelt...

Seriously, though, everyone knows Bush is an arch-conservative - like it or not - but when Kenneth Adelman starts to compare the President to John Kerry, the end must be near...

If there's anything humorous in this article, it's the quote from Newt Gingrich on Bush's foreign policy: "I am utterly puzzled...". With 'ol Newt, that statement could apply to almost anything.

Gingrich, though, is trying to distance himself from Bush in a lead up to the '08 presidential contest.

As if...

Compounding Bush's problems, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales admitted Tuesday that the President "personally personally blocked Justice Department lawyers from pursuing an internal probe of the warrantless eavesdropping program that monitors Americans' international calls and e-mails when terrorism is suspected".

Personally, I don't think this is "unwarranted". I really don't care that suspected terrorists aren't given the same considerations under the law as you and I.

Most Americans agree... So why block the probe? This could be big...

Meanwhile, most eveyone seems to be against Bush on another front: expanding Federally funded embryonic stem cell research. If this is passed into law, the President will use his veto power...

For the FIRST TIME.

Really, Dubyah, you're going to burn your first freebie on this?

More bad news - Bush's little buddy, Ralph Reed can't even get his party's nomination for Lieutenant Governor of a major Red-State.

As I predicted some time ago (archive coming soon), Reed has suffered from the Abramoff scandal fallout. Nice!

This is just too much: "All We Are Saying is Give War a Chance" was the headline from the Republicans and Conservatives Archives at Watchblog. They've got to be kidding, right?

Unfortunately, NO, they're not. All I can offer in response to this is what Jimmy Carter once said: "War may sometimes be necessary, but it is always evil." They wouldn't get it, I'm sure.

Give war a chance? Please!

To lighten the mood a bit, a five year old boy took off in his grandmother's SUV. Hey, he was mad.

Not to be outdone, a 66 year old would-be robbery victim beat the snot out of his potential assailant with a can of applesauce causing assailant to accidentally shoot himself in the head. Ja Wohl!

And I have to end with this "story" from The Onion. I know this is totally a joke. I know that it is blasphemous, irreverant, offensive and probably makes Jesus cry. But sometimes, this is exactly how I feel. I hope you enjoy my misery...

Tschüß!

In the news...

I guess I ended last week's posts on a bit of a downer. Sorry.

Here's a few things to cheer you up!

Democrats pulled an ad featuring flag-draped coffins. Something about a bipartisan uproar over the inappropriate use of the American flag in advertising. Call it 'Desecration' maybe?

A top Chinese Military man is coming to the U.S. for a visit. Maybe he'll defect. Hey, we could could send them Rumsfeld in return.

The NAACP has invited President Bush to its annual meeting. Again. Bush is the only recent president who has never spoken to the NAACP. He left a 'TBA' in his schedule just to fake them out.

A pro abortion / pro gay rights Republican presidential candidate in '08? Could be. Giuliani vs. Clinton maybe?

Peter Coors was arrested for driving under the influence. He says he only had one beer. I wonder what brand?

Finally, Eric Simonson has got his panties in a wad over a post on DailyKos. The offending post imagines a peaceful world without Israel in it. Simonson almost goes berserk over this and imagines a 'better' world without liberals in it. This reminds me of the protests against the song "Imagine" because it says there's no heaven. Actually it doesn't, it says imagine there's no heaven. Like the poster on DailyKos wrote: imagine a world without Israel. There's a big difference. Man, buy a dictionary or something.

Daily Kos blasts Anne Coulter over reference to Bush Bashing love of Sex, Drugs and Rock-n-Roll free movies

Would I create a fake blog post title just to increse traffic to my site?

Moi?

Well, if it's for a good cause, you betcha!

This is what I have to tell you now that I have your attention:

A little girl died yesterday.

The child died on my daughter's birthday.

I didn't know her and I don't know her name.

I don't know what she looked like but she probably had brown skin and black hair.

She never went to school.

She was quite beautiful.

No one ever told her that they loved her.

She had big, watery eyes and a lovely smile.

It is likely that one or both of her parents, and maybe multiple siblings, preceded her in death.

She had a lovely voice.

She lived out her short, painful life in sub-saharan Africa.

She could have done great things.

By anyone's estimate, she never had a chance.

She could have used some help, but...

According to the evidence we have, no one gave a damn about her.

This young girl I describe is not a real person...

... but there are thousands upon thousands of real boys and girls dying each and every day.

Most of them are under the age of five.

FIVE!

They die because people like you and I do nothing to help them.

18,000 children died today from malnutrion, starvation or complications thereof.

18,000.

Eighteen thousand...

... children.

Dead.

Why?

Happy Birthday Shelby!

Shelby turns 12 years old today!

I can't quite believe it's been twelve years. The day she was born was one of the happiest days of my life. I still recall it vividly. I was excited, nervous and scared out of my wits but mostly just happy:


July 13, 1994 --------------------------------------------------------- July 13, 2006

Hope you have a wonderful day!

Love you!

Dang!

Syd Barrett died!

You can read more here and here and here.

If you don't know who Syd Barrett was, skip to the next part of the post...

Syd was one of the most influential (but under-recognized) popular musicians and composers of the past half-century.

In my teen years, when I was exploring each and every musical sub-genre that caught my interest, the pshyc-rock of early Pink Floyd was high on my list. I had "Piper at the Gates of Dawn", "Relics" and "A Saucerful of Secrets".

I pretty much wore the iron oxide off the tapes.

'Arnold Layne', 'Corporal Klegg', 'Bike', 'See Emily Play' - these were songs that were so silly that they were laughable and yet were compelling enough both musically and lyrically that you just could not help but listen to them over and over again..

'Corporal Klegg' and 'Bike', especially, were part of my life's soundtrack and, even though I have actually heard neither in years, sometimes, out of the blue, these songs just pop into my head.

Just imagine what he could have done if he hadn't fried his brain...

I've got a bike
You can ride it if you like...
I'd give it to you if I could
But I borrowed it.

Syd Barrett's real given name was not, of course, 'Syd" - It was 'Roger'. But he couldn't call himself 'Roger', now could he? Especially since his Pink Floyd bandmate was also named 'Roger'.

Only that Roger's given name was 'George'.

So George is Roger and Roger was Syd.

Hey folks, you can't make this stuff up. After all they're English.

But it's a nice segue into another story I saw on the web news today concerning names. Namely - huh - that having certain, well, names in some parts of Iraq can get you kidnapped, beaten, tortured or worse.

It all relates to the Sunni/Shi'ia thing (which I do not pretend to understand). But I do understand that it is quite ridiculous to wish another person dead because of what their parents named them.

The only thing in this story that I found somewhat clever: some Sunni's in Iraq are trying to 'pass' as Shi'ites by adopting southern accents.

The mind wobbles if you try to translate this into our culture... think northern Catholics affecting an Alabama drawl in order to appear Baptist.

It's about as clever as our President claiming success over a $300 BILLION federal deficit.

Tell me, how in the name of anything you like, that it is 'good news' when this country is $300 BILLION in debt.

That makes about as much sense as killing people because they are named 'Omar' and have a northern accent.

Then again, Bush has a southern accent - Maybe he's one of those dirty Sunnites?

Nah, he's UMC, DANG it.

And all this makes about as much sense as writing songs about mice, crossdressers, stolen bicycles and amputees.

Nice segues, huh?

No shi'ite!

In barely related news, it seems the infighting in the Democratic party continues and Moulitsas always seems to be in the middle of this.

They're getting as bad as the Republicans.

It's looking more and more like Thoreau's political gizzard is being split into quarters instead of halves.

I can't wait.

Help make poverty history.

I've just signed the ONE Declaration committing myself to help fight the emergency of global AIDS and extreme poverty.

The first thing I'm doing is asking you to make that commitment, too.

ONE is a new effort by Americans to rally Americans - one by one. So far, over two million have signed the declaration in support of a historic pact for compassion and justice to help the poorest people of the world.

I think your name belongs on that declaration, too. You can put it there by visiting:

www.one.org

Together as ONE we can make a difference!

Numinous Synchronicity...

This weekend, as I pondered the silliness of some this nation's political debates, I took the opportunity to do some research on ways that our (and my) energies could be better used. I shared some statistics from One.org yesterday.

You should go to this site, give them money, link to them and generally do what they say. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who'll tell you that this is just one more instance of the liberal Hollywood cabal trying to tell us what to think. Maybe. But in this case at least, the Hollywoodistas are right. Read for yourself. If the stats on this site don't cause you to do something then you're just not thinking correctly.

I originally went to this site to gather some quick stats to use in my Sunday school class. The lesson was on Mark 10's 'rich young ruler' and how he refused to follow Jesus because he did not want to give up his riches to help others. The title of the lesson from James W. Moore is "Can you Feel the Call to Discipleship". As we discussed discipleship, predictably some comments were made along the lines of "We should help people here first."

I was prepared. I started throwing out figures about median income levels in the developed countries, GNP's and the saddening facts I got from One.org. I mean, no one is expected to live on $1.00 a day around here. I think that actually made an impact on my class.

The class ended and we prepared for the worship service proper. The choir was good and Tad didn't embarrass himself too badly during the children's sermon.

Then came Jack's message on Mark 6:1-16. The people in Jesus' hometown "took offense" at Him. Jack started off with how prophets are never accepted by people who know them and how we are never quite grown up in our small towns. I thought of that country song "You're always 17 in Your Hometown". Good so far...

Then as he seems to do more and more these days, Jack launched into something unexpected and quite brilliant. He asked, "You and I would never 'take offense' at Jesus would we?" He then spent the remainder of the sermon eloquently and powerfully telling us exactly how, yes indeed, we do take offense at, and offend, our Lord by refusing His call to... Discipleship.

My mind rushed back to the stats I had read on the millions of people dying of AIDS, the starving and thirsty children, the people being blown up by land mines as they walk five miles in the desert to get a drink of water and how 1% of our nation's budget could virtually eradicate this worldwide.

It might have been one of the best sermons I ever heard but it wasn't a particularly pleasant feeling to realize that he was speaking to me. Telling me that I have taken offense at Jesus' call to discipleship. Telling me that I have offended God by ignoring the least, the last and the lost.

It was unpleasant because it is true.

Later, on the way home from church, Stacie told me that her Sunday school class had also discussed discipleship...

Just one more, you know, coincidence...

But while we were still at church, near the end of the service, Stacie played a piece of music that is somehow connected to Emma Lazarus' "New Colossus". I'm not sure how. Anyway, Jack picked up on that and started preaching again. He recited some lines from the poem:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me...

And he related how these famous words engraved on the Statue of liberty have welcomed millions of immigrants into this country. Then he said, "The next time you get into a debate about immigration, remember that!"

Amen, Brother Jack, Amen!

I'm a liberal...

After the comments I received on Friday's post, I started to write a rebuttal.

I really liked the first one's unorthodox use of grammer, spelling and syntax (done purposely in order to catch attention, of course).

But then I started to think again about how silly that whole argument is and how humanity would be so much better served if we devoted our mental energy to someting more important.

That, by the way, was one of the points I made in the original post about the 'flag desecration' ammendment.

Again, I do think flag descration is a bad thing -

Just not as bad as 38 million people around the world dying from an incurable diease,

20% of the world's population living on less than $1.00 a day,

104 million children who can't go to elementary school or

1 out of 7 people in the world do not have clean water to drink or enough food to eat.

Those facts and others make some idiot burning an American flag seem like a non-issue by comparison.

Then again, I'm a liberal.

God loves you, man. I'm going to church now.

Think and exist...

You have, no doubt, noticed the subtle but important changes to my main page.

I now have a daily quote courtesy of ThinkExist.com.

It's just an experiment, so we'll see how it works out.

I also added a link that that takes you to a random blog ala blogger's nav bar code. Please keep in mind that I have absolutely no control of (nor no idea of) what you will see if you click this link. It is a random blog after all. But I love doing this and you might too - you just never know what you'll find!

I also made a hasty revision to my 'about' page in accordance with Supergirl's wishes and I'll do a proper one soon.

There are also some changes to my blogger profile and some new buried links and such...

I'm also in the midst of trying to get my archives all straightened out. Bear with me while the links go all freaky for a few days and, I promise, it will all be good in the end.

Some day, this blog will be finished...

Nah, I knew you wouldn't fall for that!

In the meantime, I'm reconsidering the tone of my position on the 'flag desecration' debate.

No, I have not changed my basic position, but I have started to realize that my tone may have been too strident and combative for what I really wanted to say.

Personally, I would never desecrate a U.S. flag. For one thing, it's just too obvious. Fight bad ideas with words intead of actions and all that... It also hacks off a lot of people. Generally, that's not a good way to win people over to your way of thinking. It's sort of like telling people that they are going to hell if they don't don't attend your personal church. It may be what you believe in your heart, but there are not a lot of converts made with that kind of argument...

And I also have a lot of friends and relatives who have served, or are serving, in the military. It is not, nor was not, my intention to alienate or offend any of them. I admire and respect them for what they have done and are doing.

So I revised my post of June 28th somewhat. I toned down the name calling at least. I'm now willing to admit that Frenator Sist and others on the opposite side of this argument have some well-intentioned (even if logically flawed and purely politically motivated) ideals in mind.

I still think they're confusing the issue. Like I said, it is the tone of my position that I'm reconsidering, not the basic facts.

Just so we're clear on this this: I think flag desecration is a bad thing. But it shouldn't be a criminal offense... or a constitutional ammendment.

There are just an awful lot of other things that we should be directing our attention to at this time...

And, given enough time, I will tell you precisely what you should think about each and every one of them !

C. S. Lewis once said,

"Experience is that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God, do you learn."

And I've learned a few things over the past few days. Actually I love learning - it's one of the few things that make us human but sometimes, like Lewis, I realize that learning by asking questions or observing would have been a lot easier than learning by experience.

For instance, no one bothered to tell me that it's about 100 times easier to get a computer virus with broadband than it is with dial up. I know enough about computers that I should have thought about that and taken some precautions. I didn't and basic Windows Security and the ancient virus program that had not been updated in who knows how long let something in.

Actually it was several somethings but one really bad one. The first clue was the computer slowing down to a crawl. Next windows started disappearing or popping up out of the blue. Finally, a small red box popped up in the lower right of the screen telling me that my computer was infected with a virus and directing me to a certain website to fix the problem.

If I weren't so naturally skeptical and suspicious, I might have done just that. But something caught my eye. The warning pop up did not come from Windows or the virus program I use. Furthermore, the website this thing was trying to direct me to was not anything I'd ever heard of before. So I went and bought a new, trustworthy virus protection and removal package and have spent the past couple of days installing, scanning, cleaning and quarantining.

The computer's back in working order now with no viruses present and only a couple of minor but annoying problems left from the episode.

In addition, I learned that the malicious little pop up wasn't even a virus - it was a non-replicating Trojan that only told me I had a virus so I would go to it's website and pay good money to get a fake virus removal program to remove the malware that it put on my computer in the first place. Slick. And Evil. Why can't they track these people down and lock them up?

I did some reading too during the hours of automated file scanning and stuff and I also learned that growing Bonsai trees is just a little more involved than I had hoped.

At least I learned this the easy way.

Independence Day has come and gone...

The yearly festival where the 'patriots' come out en masse to display their flags, blow stuff up and yell 'God bless America'.

Oh, the fireworks are okay. I mean I love blowin' stuff up as much as the next guy... maybe more. But the flag thing really gets to me for some reason. Folks who haven't given a thought to our flag or to what it really represents in, oh 363 days or so, roll them out for the fourth and make a big display of it.

Well, there's Memorial day too, sorry.

But the whole thing just screams "Look at me! I love America!" a little bit too loudly for my tastes.

In my mind, the Memorial/Independence Day patriots are a secular, nationalistic version of the C&E Christians. You know, the folks who only come to church on Christmas and Easter.

Now, admittedly, in my theological understanding, church attendance cannot equate one to one with salvation - having a relationship with God is much more important than how many times you've gone to church or mass (or temple or mosque or shrine) in the past year. I'm perfectly willing to admit that those who attend the worship service of their choice once or twice a year may, in fact, understand God just as much as I do.

Maybe more.

But why bother showing up once or twice a year? If you truly believe that you've got a direct line to the Almighty without organized religion, then stay at home. On the other hand, if you believe as I do, that regular corporal worship adds to and enhances an individual's spirituality, then why only do it a couple of times a year? I've been in both places (and some others) but a few years ago, I consciously and deliberately made the decision to participate fully and regularly in my church's celebration of God.

Shouldn't this same logic apply to nationalism/patriotism? What does it mean to roll the flag out a couple of times a year? Shoot some fireworks off, eat yourself into coma, get drunk, and then
go back to work the next day? How in the world does any of this demonstrate one's patriotism or one's understanding of what makes this country great?

Exactly!

Perhaps those folks who bear their flags twice a year could spend at least as much time meditating on what the flag represents, why it is important, and what that means to a 21st century U.S. citizen. My eight year old son can tell you more about that than most grown up 'patriots'.

While they're at it maybe they could quit watching American Idol or General Hospital long enough to read some of the really great thinkers who have shaped the thought of this nation.

Like Washington, Lincoln, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry David Thoreau, Martin Luther king Jr., and about a dozen others I'm forgetting to mention right now.

Sometimes I wonder if it has not been against her better judgment, but God has blessed America.

The weekend was short and busy...

but I got a few things done and spent some time with my family. I successfully transferred 'content management' of my blog and, apparently, it was a success - Stacie didn't even notice anything different until she clicked the comment function. That's what I wanted. Now I'm looking for simple background graphic and I'm working on a graphic for my title.

As if I haven't already crammed every waking moment with some kind of activity, I'm now barbecuing a pork butt for tomorrow's lunch and reading about Bonsai trees.

See, there's a few activities I've always wanted to try. Doing authentic barbecue and having my own website were on the list. Fly fishing, beekeeping, jumping out of an airplane or off a cliff and growing Bonsai are still there. Fly fishing and beekeeping require considerable investments of both money and time and Stacie doesn't like the idea of me jumping out of or off of anything.

That pretty much just leaves Bonsai.

I almost forgot: Stupid News!

How can the Supreme Court be both too conservative and too liberal?

And a monkey is loose in Virginia. Oh, I can't top that.

Tschüß.

I've been doing some reading lately.

Actually two books at once. Well not really at once. I mean I'm not literally reading them each at the same time... Oh heck, you know what I mean, right?

O.K. then.

The first book is "A Pirate Looks at Fifty" by Jimmy Buffett. For me, this had its genesis while we were vacationing on the gulf coast. As we drove the new six-disc-CD-changer-equipped uber-vehicle though the sun-washed, palm-lined streets, Stacie commented that she'd like to have some Buffett CD's to play. I went and bought the 'Live in Hawaii' 3 disc set figuring they'd get tossed in some drawer with the Beach Boys CD's until the next summer vacation. But since coming back home, Stacie has played Buffett almost non-stop. I think she may be turning into some kind of Parrothead hippie-chick or something. She then mentioned that she'd also like to read some of Buffett's books. Hey, I didn't even know the guy could read! Anyway, when I took the kids to the library last week, I snagged "A Pirate Looks at Fifty" for Stacie and, of course, I've been reading it too. It's pretty good. So far.

The second 'book' is actually a collection of essays by Henry David Thoreau. It's one I own. I dug it out after experiencing the hurricane-like 'flag amendment' debate debacle. I've found that when a political and civil debate turns into something a little more political than civil, reading the classics is a good way to gauge one's own thoughts and reactions. You can't get much more classic than "Civil Disobedience" or "Life Without Principle". I think both of these essays should be required reading before getting a speaking license in this country. I know we don't have that here, but sometimes I think maybe we should.

To the average person though, there could probably not be two more different people than Henry David Thoreau and Jimmy Buffett. The interesting thing is that, as I read their respective words, Buffett and Thoreau have started to seem like very similar thinkers. Sure, there are obvious differences, but in terms of their ideas and approaches to things like society, government, personal responsibility and life in general, they seem to be cast from very similar molds.

One quote from Thoreau's "Life Without Principle" particularly struck a chord with me this time around: "Politics is... the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are it's two opposite halves... which grind on each other. Thus our life is not altogether a forgetting, but... a remembering of that which we should never have been conscious of..."
Thoreau meant this, I think, in a rather negative way. But what is implied in his metaphor, however unintentionally, is that the 'gizzard' is a requirement. After all, a bird can't live without its gizzard.

And this bird we call the good ol' U. S. of A. needs it political gizzard more so now than ever, however unpleasant it may be. But perhaps, as Thoreau also said, the 'gizzard' needs to be "... sometimes split into quarters" instead of halves.

I think I would agree and so would Jimmy Buffett.