what blogs may come

To everyone

2009-04-02T12:27:00.000-07:00

Hello All,

I might not be writing here for a while (to which, of course, you answer, "but WBMC, you already haven't written for a while." And of course you would be right.

You may have heard in the news that What Blogs May Come has had to consolidate with a couple of other blog agencies (due of course to the recession).

The rumors are true. You will be able to find biting political satire, eloquent poetry, and witty comments from Orwell (maybe)-- in short, everything you've grown to know and love at WBMC-- at our (Shaun Cross, Chuck Wade, WBMC) new site:

The Lost Road

I have to commend Shaun for an excellent choice of blog names. I'm quite proud to join.

So all you readers (you mass of humanity, you)-- change your bookmark to the link above.

a Mother and a Piper

2009-03-11T11:01:00.000-07:00

I've noticed a theme on my blog. I find myself writing often of abortion and the ensuing public debate.

Maybe part of the reason is that there seems to be a madness surrounding it; mention the word to the wrong person and you'll get tension, anger, and hostility. Those who speak out in the public sphere in support of life are often labeled "backwards" or even "barbaric." Any debate between the two sides is likely to side-trail into discussions of the hypocrisy of people who blow up abortion clinics.

There is no consensus even within the evangelical community. Responses can range from "look, of course abortion is important, but there are thousands of other important issues," to "until we have a better system set up to care for mothers and children after the birth, abortion is a necessary reality."

There are of course hundreds of valuable tangents to follow. But, I think I just post a couple of responses to abortion that I find meaningful:

Please don't kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child.

This is of course Mother Theresa in a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in 1994. While of course WBMC cannot endorse everything she says in the entire speech, I cannot help but admire her passion to save the lives of the world's most marginalized, most defenseless, most disadvantaged, most poor.

Another topic is of course the new administration and abortion. WBMC has made it no secret that we believe the President's (and those beneath him's) consistent posturing to be subtle and yet ultimately deceptive and incredibly harmful.

But another has much better words than I:

How do we fix the economy?

2009-03-03T11:34:00.000-08:00

The answer, my friends, is actually quite easy. It's actually unrelated to stimulus bills, consumer spending, or market regulation.

No!

The new administration has really done a tremendous job of rooting out national leaders of all brands who haven't paid their taxes.

To fix the economy, then, all President Obama has to do is keep "tapping" politicians all over the country! Once they realize they are in the limelight, they will disclose some obscene amount of money they spent on luxurious dinner cruises, personal masseuses, private jets, etc.

We here at WBMC estimate that the back-taxes generated from Obama's choosing every politician in the nation to serve under him would create $1.1 trillion in wealth, thus paying for the stimulus bill and then some!

Everybody wins!

Human Rights? Well... you see... er... uh...

2009-02-21T13:55:00.000-08:00

"Human rights cannot interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crises," Clinton said in talks with China's foreign minister.

Yes, that would be Hillary Rodham Clinton, our new Secretary of State.

We here at What Blogs May Come just want to applaud the new administration's commitment to social justice across the world.

Source.

Open Letter of Discontent

2009-02-19T13:16:00.000-08:00

Dear Russian Government,

You are a joke. The whole world knows it (and there is not much the whole world knows).

How long will you keep killing dissidents? How long will you keep lying, stealing, and pillaging?

You will not last forever. The Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Mongols, the Nazi's-- they could tell you themselves if they were still around (but that kind of proves the point).

I know that if I wrote this blog in your country, you could and probably would poison, shoot, or beat me to death (or at least members of my family). I am sad and I am angry that people have to live under your rule.

You will be held accountable for your actions on this earth. Maybe not by any "concerned group of citizens," the media, or another nation, but be aware-- there is a God who has promised to hold you accountable.

sincerely,

Jared James

Valentine's Day

2009-02-14T15:09:00.000-08:00

I used to think Valentine's Day was a over-commercialized joke. Of course, companies do still make an absurd amount of money on flowers, chocolates, and cards. But now I have a beautiful wife that makes V-Day amazing.

Her name is Julie. I think all of you who read my blog have met her, but I just wanted to throw that out there for any random people I don't know about.

She's basically the most beautiful woman on earth. And she's patient, kind, thoughtful, compassionate, passionate, wise... and... perhaps most amazing of all, she loves me. She knows me better than anyone on this planet, knows my faults and weaknesses and sins, and yet, she loves me.

Pretty amazing, huh? I know I'm amazed!

But she gets even better-- she knows that she can only love me or anyone because Christ loved her first. And this just makes her all the more lovely.

And Christ all the more loveliest of all.

International Aid?

2009-01-22T18:20:00.000-08:00

Well, it's happened. THE inauguration has come and gone. The crowds and the mass hysteria have reached decrescendo stage. President elect-no-longer Obama is furiously signing bills and finding just what a difficult job "President of the United States" is.

However, amidst this flurry of signed policies and rapid reversals of 43's agenda, President Obama has lifted the ban on giving US money (internationally) to groups who either provide abortion services themselves or provide information to direct people to abortion clinics. The ban has been called "The Mexico City Policy."

Here's Obama's words on it:

"For too long, international family planning assistance has been used as a political wedge issue, the subject of a back and forth debate that has served only to divide us. I have no desire to continue this stale and fruitless debate. In the coming weeks, my administration will initiate a fresh conversation on family planning, working to find areas of common ground to best meet the needs of women and families at home and around the world."

Now, at least we can say he's consistent on honest on this issue. He does have a voting history replete with bills against allowing babies to live. He has made several promises to pro-choice-for-abortion groups that he would, for example, sign the "Freedom of Choice Act," a grotesquely misnamed bill that would pare back almost every limitation put on Roe vs. Wade since 1973.

Even so, I'm astounded at his words. His contention seems to be that those who don't side with him are dragging out a long-dead issue, dividing American into pieces in the process. His "fresh conversation" will only occur on his terms, where the fact of abortion is assumed and thus no longer up for debate as to its morality.

It's like a husband who has stopped questioning whether it's wrong to beat his wife, and only asks himself now how large a stick is fair to use.

Backing the President are two other statements that I find equally appalling. They are, respectively, made by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator John Kerry:

"[the ban] will help save lives and empower the poorest women and families to improve their quality of life and their future."

"Today's announcement is a very powerful signal to our neighbors around the world that the United States is once again back in the business of good public policy and ideology no longer blunts our ability to save lives around the globe."

I understand that what they are saying, is, in a sense, true. Some women's lives will be saved because of this act. But to say broadly, without qualification, that reversing the Mexico City ban will "save lives" is an atrocious lie.

The reversal of the ban will have the net effect of ending many thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of lives (perhaps more). Contrary to what our leaders are telling us, this public policy decision actually enables us to kill more people, not save them.

This, sadly, is not where it ends. The ban was on using public money to fund these groups. Now, our tax dollars will be used to perform abortions all over the world.

I do not think that this is a situation that deserves pretty words and cordial eloquence. As per previous posts, I still believe that the above-mentioned people have deliberately violated human rights. They are oppressing a minority group; a group with no voice to represent itself whatsoever. By the stroke of a pen, by the implementation of an insidious policy, they are choosing to end the lives of countless people.

(quotes can be found here)

Good Job

2009-01-07T06:44:00.000-08:00

There's a guy I'd love to hate in the upcoming college football "national championship" (dare we call it that?)-- Florida quarterback Tim Tebow.

For starters, he plays for Florida. That should be enough reason right there. Florida wins everything, every year, all the time. It's getting old, guys. Can't you throw a game or something?

Then, he's an amazing athlete, and the press gushes about him. That's another point against him in my book, as I'm usually anti-anybody-the-press-is-for.

Despite all of this, I just can't dislike the guy. Among numerous other things, the following quote I found is one of the reasons why:

Pressure is not having to win a football game; pressure is having to find your next meal," Tebow says. "From being in a lot of places that I've been with my dad and on mission trips, you kind of find out what true pressure is and what just is a game. Even though we love it so much, football is still just a game.

"A lot of people bleed over it and love it, and I'm one of those people. But at the end of the day, I know what's more important, and football is not more important than life and pressure is definitely not football. So I think when you can put that in perspective, I think it really gives you a much better outlook.

So, that's why I give Tim Tebow a "Good Job."

But... I'd still like to see the Sooners humiliate the Gators.

Humanity

2008-12-11T12:00:00.000-08:00

I'm going to chime in on the hackneyed question "What does it mean to be human?"

But i don't mean to (and i know i can't) chime definitively. I'd rather chime adjectively, or, in other words, to slap a label on us humans-- Are we good or bad? Malevolent or beneficent? Nice or mean? Selfish or altruistic? Dark or light? Team Sauron or Team Gandalf?

National Public Radio has time each week that they devote to listener-generated essays titled "This I believe." Now, I don't think they would allow my essay on the air (NPR is given to a rather narrow worldview), but in spite of that, this i believe: both history and the Bible are crystal-clear in their testimony of humanity's evil.

Do I need to catalog the countless horrors humanity has wrought against man, and woman, and child? I suppose the objection could be made that these horrors were the result not of an inherent problem in humanity, but rather a learned evil. Bad conditions make good people bad. But whence came the bad conditions? From other people who were under other bad conditions?

I have also heard it said that evidence for people's basic goodness is in their doing heroic deeds in the face of the worst conditions. I would offer, as counter-evidence, tales of people doing the worst possible deeds in the best possible conditions, such as Enron's upper echelon stealing millions when they already had millions.

The Bible is even more clear than history in this regard. Let me sum up what I consider a major theme of the entire Bible in the verse from Isaiah:

"All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away."

Also, in the Bible we are faced with the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. If humanity were intrinsically good, why would God murder His own Son? Why would Jesus be such a big deal in the Bible at all? I feel as though it is necessary to fully embrace an evil humanity if we are to fully embrace Christ. Otherwise, our Lord and Savior becomes something of a megalomaniacal fool, greatly deserving our pity, not our reverence and worship. I think C.S. Lewis makes this point somewhere, much better than I.

I know the above is quite incomplete and inadequately argued; but hey, this is a blog. No one would would publish a book I wrote! Others have written far more eloquently and completely on this very issue.

My point in all this (besides making a general case for a biblical doctrine) is basically the way we use the words "human," "inhumane," and "humanity." It is not uncommon to hear "the act was inhuman" or "the inhumane treatment of people" or "what happened to his/her humanity?"

That's backwards. We should be using those words the other way around. It is very human of a person to treat another person with malice. Genocides are humane. They are committed by humans, no? When warlords in the DRC commit horrendous atrocities; when politicians allow the deaths of unborn children into laws, and when people kill other people, they are doing this because they are human. They are acting completely within, not without, their humanity.

in quotation...

2008-12-09T09:30:00.000-08:00

Once when a Buddhist teacher said that he could not believe that Christ suffered the death of the cross because no king allows his son such indignity, "Judson responded, 'Therefore you are not a disciple of Christ. A true disciple inquires not whether a fact is agreeable to his own reason, but whether it is in the book. His pride has yielded to the divine testimony. Teacher, your pride is still unbroken. Break down your pride, and yield to the word of God.'"

- Adoniram Judson, a Christian who lived 38 years in Burma. Source.

Hell

2008-11-25T09:35:00.000-08:00

Tim Keller, pastor of a large church in New York City has a great article on The Importance of Hell.

You can read the article for yourself, but here are some of my favorite parts:

Why is [Hell] so extremely important to stress in our preaching and teaching today? The idea of hell is implausible to people because they see it as unfair that infinite punishment would be meted out for comparably minor, finite false steps (like not embracing Christianity.) Also, almost no one knows anyone (including themselves) that seem to be bad enough to merit hell. But the Biblical teaching on hell answers both of these objections. First, it tells us that people only get in the afterlife what they have most wanted-either to have God as Savior and Master or to be their own Saviors and Masters. Secondly, it tells us that hell is a natural consequence. Even in this world it is clear that self-centeredness rather than God-centeredness makes you miserable and blind. The more self-centered, self-absorbed, self-pitying, and self-justifying people are, the more breakdowns occur, relationally, psychologically, and even physically. They also go deeper into denial about the source of their problems.

And, from the great Clive Staples:

Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others . . . but you are still distinct from it. You may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it. But there may come a day when you can no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine. It is not a question of God 'sending us' to hell. In each of us there is something growing, which will BE Hell unless it is nipped in the bud.

From the conclusion:

We must come to grips with the fact that Jesus said more about hell than Daniel, Isaiah, Paul, John, Peter put together. Before we dismiss this, we have to realize we are saying to Jesus, the pre-eminent teacher of love and grace in history, "I am less barbaric than you, Jesus--I am more compassionate and wiser than you." Surely that should give us pause! Indeed, upon reflection, it is because of the doctrine of judgment and hell that Jesus' proclamations of grace and love are so astounding.

I hope these entice you to read further.

Campbell... Routs?

2008-11-23T14:32:00.000-08:00

Any time you see Campbell "routing" anyone in anything other than driving directions, you've got to shout that to the world (or at least to those people who read your blog).

Campbell Routs

I love it...

2008-11-07T15:01:00.000-08:00

Beautiful.

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Language and Death continued

2008-11-02T11:17:00.000-08:00

Well, I thought we were done. But then I saw a couple of things on other blogs that I thought were incredibly relevant (even down to using some of the same words we were using) to what we were just talking about, that I want to throw up a couple of links. But don't forget to send me your "lemons/lemonade" updates (see post below). Here are two relevant blogs:

Justin Taylor

Robert P. George

Please note that I am not trying to come down on Barack Obama per se... though of course by effect that is what is taking place. I feel that this is because of his choices (which I think, by the evidence in the two articles, are indeed aggressively pro-abortion), not my words.

Also, I agree with the notion that there are lots of other issues to be concerned about in elections. But let me take some categories from statistics to explain why I keep harping on abortion.

Statisticians speak of "sufficient" and "necessary" variables. Sufficient is far more powerful than necessary. For example, in making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, it is necessary to have bread, but bread alone is not sufficient. You need the other necessary variables of peanut butter and jelly.

Similarly, when we speak of presidential platforms and abortion, I think a "pro-life" stance (see discussion of Piper's argument in post titled "Human Rights") is a necessary, but far from sufficient variable.

Thus, to belabor a point made in "Human Rights," a pro-abortion candidate must be disqualified.

Comedic Relief

2008-11-01T14:16:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about the old saying "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade." I like it, but it's just not far reaching enough. I've managed to squeeze out a few more:

- When life gives you brown bananas, make banana bread.

- When life gives you old newspapers, make post-consumer recycled content.

- When life gives you Venezuela, make nationalized industries (this one only for Hugo Chavez).

That's all I've got. What can you come up with?

Language and Death

2008-10-14T07:21:00.000-07:00

Just for teaser's sake, I think my next post will be on the Economy, so you can all pop your popcorn and microwave your edamame beans for that. Perhaps I've got another rant against the Media in store too.

But I digress.

Language is crucial; it is a backbone; it is an infrastructure; it is a box. It not only communicates ideas from person to person, it forces those persons to think about ideas in certain ways. This was the lesson we learned from Master Orwell in that novel of novels, 1984.

So it is important not only that we use language precisely and delicately to communicate our own ideas, but also that we understand the control that language has over us when other people are telling us things.

And thus, my point: the language of abortion has long been dictated by those who are "pro-abortion."

I intentionally refuse "pro-choice." This changes the nature of the debate. When we talk about "pro-choice" we no longer talk about life and death, but we talk about choice, marginalized groups (women), and freedom. An attack on "pro-choice" is an attack on choice and on freedom.

Again, I refuse this. I refuse the "pro-choice" designation, because we ARE talking about life and death. We are talking, more specifically, about the life and death of people. We are talking, as per my last post, about human rights.

To take it a step further, I think "abortion," "pro-abortion," and "anti-abortion" may be too euphemistic, too sugar-coated. Abortion is a technical word for an act of murder. Passion and emotion are lost in this technicality. Our sense of life and death are lost in this technicality. Most tragically, millions of humans are lost in this technicality.

Our ability to feel horror at the massive tragedies happening in Sudan, Cambodia, Uganda, etc., comes from the descriptions we hear of them: "genocide," "mass-rape," "mass-murder." Our inability to feel rage at the senseless murder of tens of millions of human beings comes from the descriptions we hear of it: "abortion," "an act of choice."

This is why I refuse these words. I refuse to couch my argument in the terms of my opponent. Maybe a more appropriate label for abortion would be "pre-birth infanticide," as I have heard it described before. Certainly it is murder. Certainly it is genocide. Certainly, it is a crime. Certainly, a marginalized group, with no voice, is being oppressed by a dominant group that holds all power in the situation.

I feel I can go even further. Those who perpetrate these crimes are thus criminals. We can place them in the same category as Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Hitler, and Stalin. This was something of the point of my last post, so I'll go no further.

Basically, I'm just trying to say that using "pro-choice" language is like trying to paint a sunset with a pencil someone else handed you. It fails to capture the utter magnitude of the situation.

"Human Rights"

2008-10-03T20:57:00.000-07:00

I'm going to make a very serious accusation.

It's not a joke. I do not make it lightly. I'm not trying to be snide or funny or petty or even clever. I do not mean to be partisan (as far as politics go), but I guess it could possibly look like that. It is indeed a serious accusation.

I think Barack Obama has one of the worst human rights records on the record.

My equation is simple. Abortion is a crime against humans. It is stealing human life from those who cannot defend themselves-- the ultimate crime of the haves against the have-nots. The quintessential victory of a powerful elite over a marginalized, underprivileged class. The greatest oppression of the greatest right we have: life itself.

So when I say that Obama has one of the "worst human rights records," that's pretty serious. Because, I mean, I'm throwing him up there with some BAD guys, like Pol Pot and Joseph Stalin. I'm really not pulling any punches here.

But I feel justified in this. All we need is a direct comparison between our likely next president and the aforementioned terrorists. Pol Pot took great pains to end the lives of millions of human beings. Joseph Stalin took great pains to end the lives of millions of human beings. Barack Obama, his voting record proves, has taken great pain to end the lives of millions of human beings.

I really don't even feel a need to provide any kind of reference to what he actually voted on. It's no secret. He's made no secret of it himself. How has he "taken great pain?" you ask? There are numerous bills which even his fellow Democrats have felt were too barbaric to vote for that he supported. He has one of the most consistent pro-abortion voting records that exist, and consistency like that in a system like ours takes pain.

There are, of course, those who will snivel at my lack of sophistication, and tell me that Christians need more rounded voting criteria. That Christians need to get off the two-issue platform and stick up for the rights of the poor. Aside from the fact that this is exactly what I feel like I'm doing, and the fact that the Bible doesn't support socialism just as much as it doesn't support capitalism, I turn also to John Piper.

This article that my lovely wife sent me says it better than I ever can, but I'll summarize anyway (because I realize I've gone on a little too long myself). Basically, his argument is that while a pro-life stance does not qualify someone for public office, a pro-abortion stance disqualifies them from public office.

Ergo, Obama is disqualified from office. Has he community-organized on behalf of the poor of Chicago? Wonderful. Has he developed a deep sense of the inequity of our current market system? Beautiful. Has he wrought on the anvil of civil society a magnificent socialist government that will rise from the ashes of a W administration? Marvelous. But has he also thoughtlessly bereft millions of their lives with a stroke of his pen?

Disqualified.

It's Coming...

2008-09-27T07:01:00.000-07:00

That's right. WBMC back in action. We were shut down for a while following a raid on our offices after our criticism of Kim Jong Il.

But soon, you'll see a brand spankin' new post, set up for your reading pleasure. What will we unearth? Who will be exposed? How can you possibly sleep at night?

The NCAA, weddings, and B.O.

2008-03-21T20:33:00.000-07:00

We're in the midst of the Madness-- upsets are mounting, threes are dropping, hearts are pounding: it has come.

But i've found that i don't like it so much this year. i can't pick teams that win. Who seriously has time to sit around and watch all these teams play so that they can predict a 13 beating a 4? Not me, that's who. The whole thing is really starting to make me mad-- sort of like last year, when Julie beat me by ten points. I think i swore then never to play again.

Speaking of Julie, we're getting married on April 5th. If you're reading this, you're probably invited. If you didn't an invitation, feel free to come. We're going to have cake. And punch. And everyone likes those things.

Julie brings a good balance to my life. She injects my cold, objective analysis of the world with an eloquent compassion-- and i'm very thankful. Where would i be without God's compassion on me? Thanks Julie.

To turn a corner, I've been itching to write about the latest political fiasco.

Barack Obama's pastor is exposed for extremely racist, hate-filled, ethno-centrist, anti-American (i could keep going with the adjectives) comments. What follows?

Republicans jump all over it. Hillary sits back and smirks. Most of the major news networks fall all over themselves to defend him and point fingers at other people. Democrats look kind of sheepish.

To be honest with you, i wasn't going to vote for Obama to begin with. i wouldn't know what i was voting for. Change? Hope? Unity? Buzzwords? Come on. Here's some buzzwords for you: substance. policy. reality.

As for the current situation, i don't think i'm being too simplistic to say that Jeremiah Wright is a racist. Not only that, but he lacks a lot of credibility when he lambastes America and "the white man" from a cushy Chicago pulpit. i might listen more closely if he were speaking from an African village.

As for Obama, of course he knew what his pastor has been saying all this time. Let's not be absurd. But assume for a second that he doesn't know what's going on at church, and you have a 20 year lapse of judgment and failure to read the writing on the wall. Not such a great defense.

The biggest issue of all, for me, is not the race or the anti-American sentiment. It's the fact that this guy has "Rev." in front of his name and has been called "pastor" and ran a "church" for so long. It's the fact that he is spewing hatred from the pulpit. i don't care if i've only heard selected sound bites. There shouldn't be a single sound bite like what i've heard. Not one. His vitriol has nothing to do with God's kingdom.

The real villain here has not been Barack Obama. It's not even Jeremiah Wright. It's the media. Their unthinking, banal analysis and willingness to fawn over celebrity politicians, combined with their maddening double-standard when it comes to racial issues would cause anyone else to lose their jobs. But this is exactly what keeps their jobs safe.

Shame on you, media. Shame.

The good Clive Staples

2008-02-20T18:57:00.000-08:00

"The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself.
We are told to deny ourselves and to take
up our crosses in order that we may follow
Christ; and nearly every description of
what we shall ultimately find if we do so
contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks
in most modern minds the notion that to
desire our own good and earnestly to hope
for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I
submit that this notion has crept in from
Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the
Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the
unblushing promises of reward and the
staggering nature of the rewards promised
in the Gospels, it would seem that Our
Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but
too weak. We are half-hearted creatures,
fooling about with drink and sex and
ambition when infinite joy is offered us,
like an ignorant child who wants to go on
making mud pies in a slum because he
cannot imagine what is meant by the offer
of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily
pleased. "

taken from The Weight of Glory, a sermon C.S. Lewis preached at the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford,on June 8, 1942: published in THEOLOGY, November, 1941.

Jong Il: A History of Corruption

2008-01-31T17:03:00.001-08:00

Michael Lee is WBMC's Asian affiliate based in Shanghai.

Pyongyang- Today a Pyongyang insider, at the obvious risk of his life, made a bold accusation: North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Il has been stealing donated money all of his life.

It seems that when Jong Il was just seven years old his mother gave him some money to walk down to the market for some rice. Along the way, Jong Il was lured into a back alley where he saw a sight that would mark his course for the rest of his life-- a jagged, dull Swiss Army knife.

Jong Il's eyes bulged, his palms sweated, his fingers trembled; he gave up his rice money and his soul.

From that day forward his pockets have been getting deeper and his lies bigger. In the 7th grade Jong Il actually convinced the rest of his class that he was raising money to take to "Mothers of Pyongyang," an NPO that distributes funds to mothers who had lost husbands and sons in the war with South Korea. Jong Il took the funds and bought a handgun.

And now we see the culmination of a corrupted life; Jong Il uses UN funds to feed his starving population to supply his military with guns, tanks, and uniforms.

What can stop this madman? Who will stand between him and the starvation, exploitation, and utter abuse of his people?

They are no Patriots

2007-12-29T22:22:00.001-08:00

The Patriots haven't accomplished a thing-- except for proving that the NFL cares far more about the money they can pull in from a team going "16-0" than it cares about following the rules and maintaining integrity.

So here's a big BOO for the Patriots and a bigger BOO for an NFL who won't call cheaters out. Both of you have showed poor form and no class in a disgusting show of commercialism and shame. Both of you have brought sports and our nation to a new low. Both of you have showed all of us that it's ok to break the rules when there's enough money involved.

Inconclusive

2007-12-07T15:46:00.000-08:00

i should have explained myself a little better.

My argument is not necessarily with the study itself, nor even those particular scientists. i do have a problem with the conclusion those particular scientists drew from the study itself.

From the evidence of "people who have sex 'too early' or 'too late' in life experience sexual dysfunction," their response is "ergo, abstinence-only education is harmful." This is precisely where i think the bias lies. They have stepped over the boundary of scientific investigation into a political, social, and moral arena. Non-sequitur, my friends.

It does not follow from the evidence presented that we can make such an over-generalization.

But in a much larger sense, what really does not follow is why we've given scientists the voice in society that we have.

And that's really what i was getting at in my first post on this.

I fully agree that to extrapolate from this one incident to generalize bias over all scientists would be wrong. In the same way, we cannot extrapolate from one suicide bomb attack that all Muslims are extremists. But we can use each attack as an indication of how some Muslims act. As my favorite professor always said, "stereotypes exist because there are 50,000 examples." So i didn't mean to use this for extrapolation, but rather indication. It's one example among countless others that scientists are not computers.

They have motives. They have biases. They have wallets that need filling. They are not unlike the priests of the middle ages who kept scriptural knowledge, and thus knowledge of God, to themselves. It was a mechanism of power. Today, science is being used as a mechanism of power (by some, not by all, of course) in the same way priests used the "mysteries of God" to wield power. Sound dark and pessimistic? So is human history.

What i was really after here was the ethos of epistemological superiority assumed by (some, maybe most) scientists, and willingly given them by an all too uncritical public.

When the argument moves from "the evidence suggests" to "scientists say," i get wary and suspicious. It does not follow that someone is right just because they are a scientist. They are as suspect as anyone else because they are a human with motives and biases.

i think that's all i wanted to say. i'm not anti-science, by any means. Science is great. Scientists are great. But they do not have exclusive claim on the truth.

Science?

2007-12-04T18:12:00.000-08:00

i know i've not posted in quite a long time, but this was so unbelievable that i couldn't help but put it up.

Well, maybe "unbelievable" is completely the wrong word.

I think it's actually quite believable, and proof-positive that scientists are as subjective as the rest of us. This is such a shoddy example of the scientific method that it brings the whole community into suspicion (as though they were somewhere else).

Thoughts? Am i wrong?

China in all her glory

2007-06-25T18:31:00.001-07:00

My ire with China groweth.

Palestine: The Divided House Falls

2007-06-19T19:58:00.000-07:00

It's hard to sift through all the layers of silt here. As though the Palestinian-Israeli conflicts weren't bad enough, now Hamas and Fatah have finally decided they've really had enough of each other this time. Then there's the more global issue of Islamic militancy; Hamas sticking its proverbial finger in the proverbial eye of the somewhat proverbial West.

But the silt has somewhat settled, and the murkiness is a little less murky, and some interesting things have come to light:

The somewhat proverbial West has resumed payments to the Fatah government under Abbas in the West Bank. For once, i think an Islamic takeover has done the world some kind of good, indirectly of course. Hamas won't be able to function economically without international aid, whilst the Fatah government should at least be able to pay their civil workers salaries they've been denied for a while, which should result in some kind of stability and economic progress. This is probably going to be a banal oversimplification, but i see this as a black eye for Islamic militant ideology.
Israel has surprised me. Maybe they are just acting as pawns of the US and the rest of the proverbial West, but this article describes doctors from Israel helping Palestinians trapped when trying to flee from Hamas fighters. i only have a surface knowledge of the situation here, but it looks to me like Muslims, fleeing death at the hands of Muslims, are being helped by Jews. Interesting.
The larger picture here looks to me like a dead end for the kind of "angry Muslim" worldview. Palestinians are dependent on foreign aid, most of this aid coming from the US and the EU, both of which are more or less the named enemies of radical Islam. If Al-Qaeda or other groups do succeed in toppling "The Great Satan" and her allies, a rampage of poverty would shock the non-Muslim and Muslim world alike. i realize this is farcical and somewhat slippery slopish, but i exaggerate to make a point.

Well. Those are my bulleted thoughts. Take 'em or leave 'em. Just don't box me into one of those "Americans only talk about their own country" boxes. It's crowded in there.

Blogs and the Bible-- Literally

2007-05-07T20:35:00.000-07:00

i sat one day clicking links faster than i could keep up with, and i came across Slate.com's "Blogging the Bible."

And i thinks to myself "this should be an interesting read" and i sits me down and reads for a while.

Author David Plotz goes through every chapter of every book (i think he's made it up to Job now) and kind of... writes things... about them. At times he's irreverent. At times he's blasphemous. At times he's insightful. At times he approaches worshipful.

i guess i can only give it a mixed review. Plotz seems more given over to banterous entertainment than delving the mysteries of the written Word. But really, could more be expected? Who would go to Slate.com to read something that wasn't entertaining? And i think he admits as much in the following Q and A:

Potomac, Md.: In your reading, are you looking at any secondary sources for guidance, such as the commentary in the footnotes in Etz Hayim?

David Plotz: I try to avoid commentary as much as possible. One of my translations has no commentary at all in it; the other has a few footnotes that I try to ignore. Avoiding commentary is a conscious effort. I want to encounter the book as rawly as possible. Most people encounter the Bible through someone else—as their rabbi or pastor or professor or priest interprets it for them. My goal for Blogging the Bible is to read it with as clear a mind as possible.

This means, of course, that I massively misinterpret certain passages, because I don't have sufficient education and context to understand them, and it means that I skip important verses or stories, and miss connections. But that's okay. The value of the experience for me as a reader (and as a writer) is to make sense of my holy book for myself—not to succumb to the interpretation that someone else imposes on it.

Something's got to be said for his trying, i suppose. But not much. i feel i have to protest his literary theory. Understanding what the text says or means doesn't matter to him, he claims: "i massively misinterpret certain passages... But that's okay." It's only important that he "experience" the text.

My protest is this: why is it "okay" to treat the Bible this way, but no other literature? How about a letter from your insurance company? A letter from your wife? A speeding ticket? A court summons? Your bank statement?

Is it "okay" to "experience" these pieces of literature instead of accurately pulling meaning from them? To feel the weight of social responsibility and civic duty but never actually go to court? To experience some vague feeling of familial love from your wife but never to actually meet her?

i don't think so.

our national pastime

2007-04-22T17:37:00.000-07:00

When i was little i ate it up. Baseball cards (complete with chalky chewing gum), T-ball, Little League, the Richmond Braves (a farm team of Atlanta's), Oral Hersheiser, Nolan Ryan, Jose Canseco... i could go on forever.

My coaches always proclaimed me a hitter, but i never really delivered big in games, except the very last year i played when i took the lead-off spot and suddenly my batting average rose to nearly a thousand. i pitched and played third base, but i was so blind that i couldn't read the signals my catcher gave me. i nodded anyway, and sometimes shook off pitches that i couldn't see to begin with, just to keep up the image. i really only threw two pitches anyway.

So to be honest, it's only with somewhat limited expertise that i approach the modern halls of America's pastime.

And to be even more honest, i don't think i would be approaching them at all but for my lovely lady, who is undoubtedly the most loyal St. Louis Cardinals fan the world has ever been graced with.

i thoroughly enjoyed watching the Cards defeat the Mets and then the Tigers last year for the World Championship. They were definitely bet against, but the power and shine of Albert Pujols, the solid defense of David Eckstein, the grace and resilience of Chris Carpenter, and the surprise power of Jeff Suppan (the man hit a homerun-- what pitcher hits a homerun?) pulled these underdogs through with beauty and prestige.

And now, our esteemed World Champions are back again with a stunning victory over those atrocious delinquents, the Chicago Cubs.

So funny...

2007-03-27T21:44:00.000-07:00

Al Gore Caught Warming Globe To Increase Box Office Profits

Worth a Blog...

2007-03-24T09:30:00.000-07:00

We almost witnessed a fiasco last night; the Tarheels were down 16 to the Trojans in the second half.

But, as you can see, they came back to win by 10. Good job ACC.

But what's worth a blog is not Tyler Hansbrough, the much-touted big man for UNC. He scored 5 points. Come on Tyler, get in the game.

Neither necessarily is Brandon Wright's game-carrying 21 points, although it's definitely worth a caveat or two. Good job B. Wright.

No. The hero of this game is Reyshawn Terry, the somewhat overshadowed senior in a crowd of underclassmen. He had strep throat. He played 5 minutes. He scored 9 freaking points. In 5 minutes. 9 points. In 5 minutes. With strep throat.

And that's worth a blog.

Check it out.

Who'da thunk?

2007-03-09T15:26:00.000-08:00

Jeremiah found this the other day, and well, it just felt like home.

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) -- When dozens of chickens went missing from a remote West Bengal village, everyone blamed the neighborhood dogs.

But Ajit Ghosh, the owner of the missing chickens, eventually solved the puzzle when he caught his cow -- a sacred animal for the Hindu family -- gobbling up several of them at night.

"We were shocked to see our calf eating chickens alive," Ghosh told Reuters by phone from Chandpur village, about 240 kilometers (150 miles) northwest of Kolkata.

The family decided to stand guard at night on Monday at the cow shed which also served as a hen coop, after 48 chickens went missing in a month.

"Instead of the dogs, we watched in horror as the calf, whom we had fondly named Lal, sneak to the coop and grab the little ones with the precision of a jungle cat," Gour Ghosh, his brother, said.

Local television pictures showed the cow grabbing and eating a chicken in seconds and a vet confirmed the case.

"We think lack of vital minerals in the body is causing this behavior. We have taken a look and have asked doctors to look into the case immediately," Mihir Satpathy, a district veterinary officer, said by phone.

"This strange behavior is possible in some exceptional cases," Satpathy said.

Hundreds of villagers flocked to Chandpur on Wednesday to catch a glimpse of Lal, enjoying his bundle of green grass for a change.

"The local vets said the cow was probably suffering from a disease but others said Lal was a tiger in his previous birth," Ajit added.

So... how come nobody ever accuses China of Imperialism?

2007-03-03T08:16:00.000-08:00

Story is here.

Duuuuuuuude

2007-02-25T20:08:00.000-08:00

i want to travel again.

The Kidz of East Lane Street

2007-02-03T20:10:00.000-08:00

Today i walked a block from my house.

take a walk.
out the gate you go and never stop.
past dollar stores and wig shops.
quarter in a cup for every quaff
and watch the buildings grow
smaller as you go

Our church hangs out with kids on Saturdays at our basketball courts. i say "our" because i live here, and they belong to the community of downtown Raleigh. Maybe that's an arrogant "our," and maybe i haven't been there enough times to use such a powerful possessive. But maybe i want to grow into the responsibility.

down the tracks
beautiful McMansions on a hill
that overlook a highway
there's riverboat casinos and you still
have yet to see a soul

i played futbol with Angel, Trayshawn, Brandon, James, Jeremiah, Ben, Blair, and Lilo. Sometimes Bishop would roll through on his long skateboard, and i would get a little angry, because, hey Bishop, we're playing futbol here. It was ok though.

Lilo is about 2 feet tall but a stellar player. His older brother Angel is a serious challenge to Ronaldinho and Ronaldo. i've never seen such a small kid with such great feet. Brandon is always a surprise-- sometimes he comes over to play video games with Tyler, and he wrote a synopsis of John 2 without anyone even asking him to. Trayshawn is a great goalie.

town to town
broadcast to each house, they drop your name
but no one knows your face
billboards quoting things you'd never say
you hang your head and pray

Afterward, when most everyone had left, i stayed back because some of the little girls wanted me to pick them up on my shoulders so that they could make a basket; it was pretty high for them. i was just honored that they liked me so quickly. They'd never seen me before. They are black and i am white. We live next door to each other, but we live in worlds that don't mix much. But there we were, hanging out on our basketball court as the sun set on E. Lane st.

And i wondered, as i picked them up and watched them run races down the blacktop, what life was like at home for them. Are they here because home is horrible? What have they seen? Are they still children or have they been forced to be adults? Or am i completely wrong?

miles and miles
and the sun's goin' down
pulses glow
from their homes
you're not alone
lights come on
as you lay
your weary head
on their lawn

i wonder now, most of all, and perhaps most importantly, what or who it is that i love. Do i love my neighbor? Do i love my neighbors? Do i love the aspiring little girls and the budding futbol players and the game-crashing skateboarders? And do i love God who made them in His image? Because all the law and the prophets hang on these things.

parking lots
cracked and growing grass you see it all
from offices to farms
crosses flying high above the malls
along the walk

Yes, today was a good day.

Thanks to Ben Folds for the lovely lyrics.

A Pressing Social Issue

2007-01-16T10:38:00.000-08:00

As you may or may not well know, we here at What Blogs May Come are all about the pressing social issues of the day. From North Korean madness to American consumerism to Enronian ethics, we've got it all right here.

Today's edition is about the social issue. It's an announcement to all ages, races, and families. Panta ta ethne. Para todo el mundo.

An issue, nay, an axiom so fundamental to existence, so critical to the sustainability of human economy, that it affects every aspect of this empirical experiment we call life.

What is this axiom, you ask? This ultimatum of all ideas? This end-all of every conversation?

Orange Juice.

It's delicious. It goes well with every meal. It's nutricious. It's economically viable. It's available every season. It exists without need for category or label. Rain or shine, day or night: Orange Juice is there for you.

The best thing is that you don't have to take my word for it. You see, Orange Juice is objectively good. That means it doesn't depend on me or on you to for its great taste. It's just good. Period. You can take it to Thailand, India, China, Russia; you can take it to black people, white people, Hispanics; you can take it to Europeans and Africans and Antarticans; it's still good.

Here is a brief poem i have written in honor of Orange Juice:

O' Orange Juice,
Orange Juice.

Can i shoot thee down a sluice?
Can i rein thee in a noose?
Why is thy color not on a caboose?
For thee nations shall call a truce.

To thee and thine my heart doth rise;
Beauty like a skylight doth surmise.
Let me get a good surprise,
And let it be Orange Juice.

And there you have it: my ode to Orange Juice. So go, buy lots of Orange Juice. WBMC is not currently endorsing any specific products, but corporate sponsors are certainly welcome. Buy Orange Juice and unite; buy Orange Juice and rejoice; buy Orange Juice and live.

I have no words... again...

2006-12-22T08:54:00.000-08:00

i know i used that as a title for my last post, but this is so truly disturbing that once again, i have no words.

Well... ok. Maybe i do.

How dare you? This is obscenity. This is blasphemy.

i think i'm going to write them a letter. Please join me.

i have no words....

2006-12-13T00:29:00.000-08:00

...and i don't think any are needed.

"Iran is your home and is the home of all freedom seekers of the world," [President of Iran] Ahmadinejad said. "Here you can express your views and exchange opinions in a friendly, brotherly and free atmosphere.

quote from here

Brave Saint Saturn

2006-11-28T18:08:00.000-08:00

Ever heard of them?

The first time i did i was packed into a crowded van, bumping along some mountain road in southern India. The cd was Chuck's, and he was very patient with me over the next month as i listened to this song over and over and over again:

Yesterday while walking
Beneath an overpass
I saw the figure of Jesus
Standing barefoot on broken glass

His beard was graying
Smell of urine filled the air
Asking if I had some change
Anything that I could spare

Emaciated
His shaking fist balled up
Influenza and pneumonia
Begging God to take his cup

So different from his pictures
Breathing air through yellowed tubes
Jesus Christ, dying of AIDS
Can look right through you

And all have hated
Crucified and walked away
Savior of the prostitutes
Drunkards, rapists, and the gays

Under Bridges,
With hands raised
From the ghettos
They praise His name

Broken, crippled
In the dark of night
Raise your voices
To Jesus Christ

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

i listened to it several times a day. i couldn't get enough of it. Reese Roper's poignant lyrics and striking voice spoke directly to my situation. i saw these men and women and broken and crippled lining the streets of India. i felt them grab my clothes as i walked by. i smelled their urine and their alcohol.

Then, several years later, on the beach for a college graduation day camp-out i listened to Reese again:

did you hear the news today
i'm not coming home,
no
and i wished it all away
i felt so alone
and the darkness crept it's way
like stars we know will die too soon
there is never any sunrise here in the shadows of eclipsing moons
crawling on a tightrope
the bravest thing i have is hope

daylight, save me
daylight, save me
tonight, tonight

halogen, the lights will flicker
incadescent burning lies
and the silence stands for nothing
desperate i search the skies aching for a spark
trembling in pitchest dark

Mission Control: U.S.S. Gloria, this is mission control, do you copy?
we have lost contact with the U.S.S. Gloria

U.S.S. Gloria: Mission Control, this is the U.S.S. Gloria, do you read me?
Mayday, we have lost primary guidance functions

News Reporter: The crew is now out of radio contact.
presently there is no way for us to know whether they
are alive or dead.
our hopes and prayers go out with you all.

Mission Control: U.S.S. Gloria, this is mission control, do you copy?

U.S.S. Gloria: Houston this is the U.S.S. Gloria.
good to hear your voice
we are coming out of the eclipse now.
i see the sunlight. it's beautiful
the sunlight is beautiful.

Jesus Christ, Light of the World
You never did forget me
and when i bled in darkness, You held
me
still held me
when desparate nights i cursed You
You loved me, still loved me
Jesus Christ, You dry the tears
You break my heart of stone
Your words are life
cut marrow through
the darkness, to the bone
a heart of flesh You gave me
only You can save me

Savior
Daylight
I am coming home

i can't really reproduce the full effect of the song, and it's not available free anywhere to post here. All i can say is that i remember being in tears at my sin and at Jesus' mercy in saving me as the raw honesty of this song showed me who i was.

Most of the other songs are equally intense; the imagery is consistent, appropriate, and subtle enough to be appealing. Roper has this dangerous compassion that is really intriguing and powerful and convicting. One of the songs on the newest album, "Heart Still Beats" talks directly and honestly about compassion for prostitutes and the homeless and and how nobody seems to have it.

The main theme, however, is hope. "The bravest thing of all is always hope." i like how subtlely and yet directly Roper points to Christ as our hope in the midst of our realization that we lack compassion and true devotion to Him.

All that to say that they are a band worth listening to every once and again.

Picture Pages (edited)

2006-11-26T20:58:00.000-08:00

This is me lying on the ground somewhere in Nepal close to Mt. Everest. Its only purpose is to prove to Julie that i know how to post pictures on my blog. Or well, its only purpose besides appeasing Ryan, who says that "text needs to be kept to a minimum and graphics plentiful...at least for us simple minded knaves."

Many apologies to Ryan for misquoting him. We here at What Blogs May Come are flailing ourselves in penance.

You wanna know what really annoys me?

2006-11-16T21:05:00.001-08:00

Rich white kids at UCLA.

It isn't clear what this guy did. It isn't clear who he is. The title says he's Iranian-American, which i suppose is supposed to tell us that the cops are picking on him because he's Muslim.

What is clear is that in the video he's resisting arrest. What is clear is that the spoiled rich white kids think that the cops are abusing their power.

Bull.

Cops abuse their power when they shoot your family because you won't give them a bribe. Cops abuse their power when they take money to look the other way while women get raped every night in red light districts. Cops abuse their power when they allow corrupt money-lenders to employ 5 year olds to roll cigarettes because their parents can't pay him back. Cops abuse their power when they walk over every imaginable human right simply because the people around them are too poor to oppose them.

So this post is for you, rich white UCLA students. Get a grip on reality. Visit a third world country. Subject yourself to real injustice before you go on your grand human rights crusade.

Public... Health?

2006-11-10T06:34:00.000-08:00

i'm thinking of getting a degree in Public Health next year, so when i saw this, it caught my eye.

But i hadn't even read half the article about a meeting of the American Public Health Association in Boston before i saw:

"The association notes that while abstinence from sexual intercourse is theoretically fully protective against pregnancy and disease, in actual practice, abstinence often fails, leaving students unequipped to prevent unintended pregnancies and protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and other consequences," the group said.

Now i just have to wonder... "theoretically fully protective?" Come on guys. And then they hit us again: "abstinence often fails." Really? Is it abstinence that fails or is that people fail to be abstinent?

i'm a little dissapointed in my new profession's professionals already.

i think i see what they want to say-- that abstinence should be taught alongside of contraceptive use and whatnot-- but when you are APHA, reportedly the largest body of Public Health professionals in the world, and you are blaming "abstinence" for "leaving students unequipped to prevent unintended pregnancies and protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections," then you sound quite ridiculous.

Richard Dawkins and Francis Collins: head to head

2006-11-05T13:44:00.000-08:00

i just read this.

It was definitely interesting. i'm still not sure entirely what to think about it, but here's some thoughts:

Richard Dawkins is certainly intelligent, and knows his field well. It seems like there are a couple of points in the discussion where he accuses Collins of being narrow-minded, all the while pretty much ridiculing him for his irrational and unscientific belief in God.

It's been a while since i've heard Francis Collins' name mentioned. He seems a pretty sharp fellow as well. There are several points where Dawkins seems to be saying that Collins is not really a good scientist (good being my word) because he believes in God, but standing up as bright shining evidence against this is Collins work IN THE HUMAN GENOME PROJECT. i'm not really sure you can just call the director of the HUMAN GENOME PROJECT a bad scientist. But oh, he went there.

Finally, Dawkins sums up with:

When we started out and we were talking about the origins of the universe and the physical constants, I provided what I thought were cogent arguments against a supernatural intelligent designer. But it does seem to me to be a worthy idea. Refutable—but nevertheless grand and big enough to be worthy of respect. I don't see the Olympian gods or Jesus coming down and dying on the Cross as worthy of that grandeur. They strike me as parochial. If there is a God, it's going to be a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more incomprehensible than anything that any theologian of any religion has ever proposed.

Interesting.

i'll just go ahead and say it. i know what you're all thinking.

You're right Richard Dawkins. God is bigger than what any theologian of any religion has proposed. But you're also wrong Richard Dawkins. Jesus and the Olympian gods don't belong in that sentence together. They don't even belong in the same category.

Ode to John Kerry (you jokester you!)

2006-10-31T12:14:00.000-08:00

Story is here.

My response? i don't care if he really was leveling criticism at George Bush or anyone in the White House. His comments were completely insensitive, tactless, and if nothing else, ill-timed (or well-timed, depending on who you bat for).

"Get stuck in Iraq" if you don't get an education? Tell that to dozens of millions of Iraqis who can't get out whether or not they have an education. Tell that to soldiers who have had limbs blown off and friends blown up because they're "stuck in Iraq." Obviously they don't have "enough education" to stay out of it.

Perhaps even more stunning is that he won't apologize, choosing instead to stand his ground:

"But Kerry refused to relent, calling the criticism part of the 'classic GOP playbook.' "

So basically his position is that the GOP should just back off when he insults millions of people.

Sure, he's a Democrat, and some may accuse me of bias since i have said in the past that i don't trust the Democrats more than i don't trust Republicans (hardly an admission of partisanship), but what really makes me angry about all this is political war-mongering. The GOP is just as guilty, i know.

If our politicians (on both teams) spent half as much energy ironing out sound legislation and dialoging for a decent compromise, we might actually get somewhere on issues that continue to pendulum swing depending on who's in power. The constant undermining and polarizing both parties spend their time and their dollars on is absurd.

And i'm not just whining "can't we all just get along?!" i know issues are difficult. i know people disagree. But when, for example, i hear about the Mark Foley scandal coming out "just in time for elections," i have to wonder along with Jack Johnson "where'd all the good people go?"

So thank you, John Kerry, for giving our students motivation to get a good education. Thank you for playing the same destructive game everyone else is playing.

And thank you, national government, for acting like a bunch of three-year-olds in a sandbox.

Bias in the media?

2006-10-22T21:01:00.000-07:00

I told you so.

My favorite line is:

"To improve coverage, BMI recommends that the networks carefully select a range of economists and analysts to balance negative reporting and cover stories that reflect the economic data, not the reporter's opinion."

i'm sure that because of BMI's work ABC, CBS, and NBC are now all scrambling to find economists and analysts who aren't yes-men, as though they didn't already know their "analyses" were filled with half-truths and blatantly editorialized reality.

Henceforth, i will refer to the mainstream media as "the Man" and interpret all statements referring to "the Man" as such. For example:

Random Passer-by: "The Man is holding me down."

Statement as i henceforth choose to hear it: "The mainstream media foregoes truth in lieu of their agenda."

Ladies and Gentlemen, The North Koreans

2006-10-15T21:16:00.000-07:00

Just when i thought things on the Peninsula couldn't get any more absurd, i run across this statement from here:

North Korea has boycotted the talks with the South, the United States, China, Japan and Russia since last year because of a US crackdown on firms it suspects of aiding Pyongyang in illicit activities such as counterfeiting.

I had heard this on NPR a couple days ago, but i'd forgotten it. Let me re-state this for clarity-- North Korea left the six-party talks because the US refused to allow it to counterfeit our money.

Unbelievable.

Or wait, no. Completely, utterly believable.

Real Change

2006-10-05T10:17:00.000-07:00

i've been following the Amish school shooting a little today. Nobody can really explain it. Apparently the man had children of his own, and he entered the school building after he dropped them off at the bus stop.

But my focus is somewhere else. i've actually seen several of the Amish reporters have interviewed talk about forgiving the man.

Forgiveness. They forgive him.

It just happened, it's still fresh, and they forgive him.

With all the bad things it seems Christians are into these days, here's something good. The Amish forgive this man for what he did to them, even without knowing the reason; there is as of yet no solace in "a good reason" to shoot 10 young girls in a school room. No one knows.

And they forgive him.

In startling contrast to this, i see the entire rest of the world. When the rest of the world is wronged, it decides it needs to make it right by rioting, suing, or finding any other way possible to hurt back.

But the Amish forgive him.

In particular, i see this in contrast to the Muslim world. They believe they have been wronged by America, so they blow up buildings and cars and people.

So what is the crux? What is the difference? i'm just going to be blunt and say that people without Christ have no category for the difference between true Christianity and Islam. Pluralists, secularists-- what sense would it make to them? Aren't all religions the same?

i think this is part of the proof that they aren't.

They forgive him.

As He forgives us.

Here's a song i've been listening to lately

2006-10-01T05:28:00.000-07:00

what will be left when i've drawn my last breath,
besides the folks i've met and the folks who know me,
will i discover a soul cleansing love,
or just the dirt above and below me,

i'm a doubting thomas,
i took a promise,
but i don't know what's safe,
oh me of little faith,

sometimes i pray for a slap in the face,
then i beg to be spared 'cause i'm a coward,
if there's a master of death i'll bet he's holding his breath,
as i show the blind and tell the deaf about his power,

i'm a doubting thomas,
i can't keep my promises,
'cause i don't know what's safe,
oh me of little faith

i'm a doubting thomas,
i can't keep my promises,
'cause i don't know what's safe,
oh me of little faith,

can i be used to help others find truth,
when i'm scared i'll find proof that its a lie,
can i be lead down a trail dropping bread crumbs,
that prove i'm not ready to die,

please give me time to decipher the signs,
please forgive me for time that i've wasted,

i'm a doubting thomas,
i'll take your promise,
though i know nothin's safe,
oh me of little faith

--Nickel Creek

Priorities

2006-09-21T17:52:00.000-07:00

i'm about to state my opinion, so cover your ears if you don't want to hear it.

i think world poverty is a more pressing and important issue than global warming.

So shame on you, Al Gore. Shame on you, Sir Richard Branson.

Good job Bono.

thank you. that is all. good night.

* DEEP THOUGHTS * by Jack Handy

2006-09-13T18:10:00.000-07:00

I'd like to be buried Indian-style, where they put you up on a high rack, above the ground. That way, you could get hit by meteorites and not even feel it.

If I lived back in the wild west days, instead of carrying a six-gun in my holster, I'd carry a soldering iron. That way, if some smart-aleck cowboy said something like "Hey, look. He's carrying a soldering iron!" and started laughing, and everybody else started laughing, I could just say, "That's right, it's a soldering iron. The soldering iron of justice." Then everybody would get real quiet and ashamed, because they had made fun of the soldering iron of justice, and I could probably hit them up for a free drink.

Fear can sometimes be a useful emotion. For instance, let's say you're an astronaught on the moon and you fear that your partner has been turned into Dracula. The next time he goes out for the moon pieces, wham!, you just slam the door behind him and blast off. He might call you on the radio and say he's not Dracula, but you just say, "Think again, bat man."

One thing kids like is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take my little nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to an old burned-out warehouse. "Oh, no," I said. "Disneyland burned down." He cried and cried, but I think that deep down, he thought it was a pretty good joke. I started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but it was getting pretty late.

The people in the village were real poor, so none of the children had any toys. But this one little boy had gotten an old enema bag and filled it with rocks, and he would go around and whap the other children across the face with it. Man, I think my heart almost broke. Later the boy came up and offered to give me the toy. This was too much! I reached out my hand, but then he ran away. I chased him down and took the enema bag. He cried a little, but that's the way of these people.

I bet the main reason the police keep people away from a plane crash is they don't want anybody walking in and lying down in the crash stuff, then, when somebody comes up, act like they just woke up and go, "What was THAT?!"

The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.

If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.

Contrary to what most people say, the most dangerous animal in the world is not the lion or the tiger or even the elephant. It's a shark riding on an elephant's back, just trampling and eating everything they see.

If you saw two guys named Hambone and Flippy, which one would you think liked dolphins the most? I'd say Flippy, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong, though. It's Hambone.

The next time I have meat and mashed potatoes, I think I'll put a very large blob of potatoes on my plate with just a little piece of meat. And if someone asks me why I didn't get more meat, I'll just say, "Oh, you mean this?" and pull out a big piece of meat from inside the blob of potatoes, where I've hidden it. Good trick, huh?

Sorry. i just couldn't help myself.

My Theory of Reconciliation

2006-09-10T21:22:00.000-07:00

Here's the rub: maybe it's a better idea not to view the Media as a relayer of events. Or to put it another way, let's limit them to editorials.

Any event or fact reported by the Media is going to have some kind of spin on it, whether intentional or unintentional. So what if we consciously made an effort to see everything they reported as an opinion? Every war statistic from Iraq, everything that Osama Bin Laden says, everything Cindy Sheehan does, every fact about global warming we start to consciously tell ourselves "every reporter an editor and every article an editorial."

i don't think it's that revolutionary or far-fetched.

It's long been known that eye-witnesses to crimes are terrible evidence. There is simply too much that can happen to their stories; again, either intentionally or otherwise. And eye-witnesses are usually unbiased as they witness events, because most of the time they don't know what's happening or is about to happen.

In ugly contrast, reporters do know what's happening or is about to happen, and it's quite likely they already have an opinion on it. This significantly shades their interpretation and their reporting, to such an extent that i would say it's worth sticking it in the Opinion section of the paper. In statistics, a voluntary response sample is the absolute worst method of finding people's opinions. Why? Because only those with the strongest opinions will take part. Reporters are a lot like voluntary response samples; they have very strong opinions about world news.

I was about to say, "and this makes them the very worst people to report it," but i think that would have destroyed my whole theory. In fact, it's at the very core of what i'm saying-- let's stop expecting the Media to be objective. Let's stop viewing them as simple purveyors of truth.

Do they want to be biased? Fine! Do they want to put a spin on what they see? Ok by me! What i want instead is for myself and anyone who could possibly watch the news to stop accepting their word as bona fide Gospel Truth. Let's stop even thinking that they want to tell us things that are true. Let's instead listen to the news as we would an acquaintance in a coffee shop; he or she is sharing their innermost philosophical views, and it does us good to listen.

It doesn't do us good to start imbibing every Nietzsche and Hegel philosopy that comes our way.

For a brief addendum, to those of you who are wondering (and if you aren't you can skip this part), i am not advocating language deconstruction theory. My theory as it stands applies to news and news only; news as propagated by the Media. This is not a literary theory by any means.

The Big, The Bad, The Ugly: The Media

2006-08-31T20:18:00.000-07:00

They call it the "Information Age."

I'm guessing this is someone's coined cute quote rather than an official label, but isn't that how all labels start? Somewhere back there? Like the "Law of Thermodynamics?" Maybe not.

What is the Media?

"Media" as I am sure you, the well-informed, exquisitely educated blogsmith (now how's that for coining?) that you are, know, is simply the plural for "medium." Thus our concept of "Media," signified by reporters running about with pads of paper and cameras uses the language of one who would transmit something, or bring something to someone else. It's kind of like we call them "Vehicles" or "Bicycles." The News Bicycles. The Media.

But I'll say right off that I don't buy it. No sir. They are more than a Vehicle, than a Medium. Perhaps over the next several posts, I want to show why I believe the majority of mass Media completely ineffective for proper mass communication. Maybe "ineffective" is a bad word. It may be more accurate to say that I think what the majority of "Media" are today are not even capable of delivering truth to citizens of the world.

It's in all fairness to say that they are by necessity more than simply a Medium. First off, they have to select. They have to pick some "news" over other news. Also, they are also by necessity human. They think and act and speak and are subject to the same laws of subjectivity and error as other humans. By being human, they are also part of a particular meta-culture(a word which i use simply to distinguish over-arching culture e.g. worldviews, religions, etc. with more specific culture, democrat, liberal, hippie, etc.), chronologically placed within that culture, and part of a several subcultures that are both in reaction against and subject to themselves and the meta-culture.

I could go on, but there's more than enough here to deal with. Let's take the first one. What governs the selection process of the Media? What makes an editor choose "film A" over "film B?"

Time is certainly a factor. Some programs are a mere thirty minutes. Subtract maybe 10 of those minutes (i'm being generous) for commercials, and you're left with 20 to describe the news of the entire world. But that's just television, you say. There are other forms of Media-- after all, you've just told us it's the plural for medium. Indeed I did. And indeed there are other forms. What about Newspapers? Newspapers have a deadline of one day, for most articles. Radio programs have time constraints. I know there are exceptions, but I know also that the issue remains; keeping a program short enough for modern listeners and/or readers is more important than developing a well-informed program.

Money rules the world. What buys newspapers? What pays for television programming? What makes advertisers want to advertise during your show? I know we've all seen some stirring Hollywood blockbusters about noble journalists who fight for people's rights and who "just want the truth" and all that, but, well, as usual, Hollywood speaks for itself. Papers, magazines, and television have to sell a product. It's that simple. You don't sell the news, you go off the air. Sometimes lies sell more than truth. You don't think it happens? The Media take oaths in college to uphold ethical standards when reporting and editing? Not quite. Or if they do they're not working.

Thus selection follows, not truth and justice, but the dollar. The big fat American dollar. Selection occurs when time is of the essence and the exact story isn't.

Next time: Mass Media and Truth: A Theory of Reconciliation

Observations on and from a New World

2006-08-21T11:24:00.000-07:00

i just wanted to throw down some observations i've had recently, with little to no commentary, so here they are, in random order:

1) i rode the bus to school today, for the first time in several years. i loved it. Got two miles' worth of exercise by walking to the bus station, spent absolutely no money on gas, and i felt like a human being, in the sense that i wasn't separated from other human beings by the 4 other empty seats in my car and locked doors. i actually talked to other humans and sat beside them.
a) i've never been one to loudly point out financial differences among races, but it does seem like i see white kids in the parking lot and black kids on the bus, for the most part.
b) Why is that?

2) i remember from my Moon days when i would walk down the street and see, on any given day, hundreds of violations of The Moon's child labor laws. Children as young as 5 or 6 would be washing dishes, sweeping sidewalks, etc.

Now as i walk down the street i see the differences in houses and cars and people. i've heard Raleigh is "renovating" its downtown area, and this is quite apparent. All the po' folks are being pushed out and the rich ones are being pushed in. i'm sure that if you were to ask a city councilman (we do have those, right?) what kind of remuneration was taking place for those being essentially kicked out, he would have a satisfying answer for you. But i'm just as sure that those being kicked out wouldn't be so satisfied.

Point is, i wasn't really expecting to find social justice violations so quickly when i came back to my native land. i mean, i knew they were there, but i always thought they happened in Chicago, or New York, or Montana. Never at home.

3) i was reading this:

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C46DA5C1-D200-48E6-8B24-76EE739EC243,frameless.htm

(will someone PLEASE tell me how to do hyperlinks?)

and these were the things that sort of jumped out at me (italics are mine):

"Sadly over the centuries Islam grew weak and we forgot that the Prophet carried a spear when he spoke. The spear was replaced with a staff (tongkat) instead, as if Muslims were weak and needed a walking-stick to stand up! We need to go back to this original, strong, robust Islam. Like the Prophet we need to carry the spear (tombak) again. If the Prophet carried a spear, then for us today we can carry an M-16!"

"Democracy is shirik (unbelief) and haram (unclean). Here we do not compromise. Those who claim to be Muslims and do not support Shariah one hundred per cent are all munafik and kafirs, they are out of Islam. No need to discuss with these people, they are not part of the ummat (community of Islam) anymore. There is no need to listen to public opinion: kafirs, apostates, liberals, atheists - they are all non-believers."

"There can be no Islam without jihad."

Killed that sucka

2006-08-08T20:28:00.000-07:00

The GRE has come and gone.

I did pretty well. I went over the composite score that was my self-set goal by 220 points, and the math score that was my self-set by 80, so i'm pretty happy about that.

And oddly enough, i scored exactly the same as i did in high school.

Maybe i've been on steroids too. Don't tell the Olympic committee.

Thanks to all of you who prayed for me.

The Fat Lady Sings

2006-08-07T20:14:00.000-07:00

This is it folks.

Tomorrow at 11:30 am i take the GRE. i go to battle with the forced of standardized testing. i don my armor to slay the dragon of scaled scores and percentiles. i become a statistic as i answer ridiculous quantitative and verbal questions to escape being just that. Tomorrow i prove myself to the world through two essays, 30 English questions, and 28 Math questions.

"How will it all end?" You ask. "Will he win the girl, kill the bad guys and drive into the sunset?" "Will there be a high-speed car chase on the way to the test?" "Will armed gunmen attempt a takeover of his testing facility for the evil schemes of their communist government?"

Only time will tell. You'll just have to tune in tomorrow, same... er... place.

(say a little prayer for me)

i'm plugging away

2006-08-02T19:57:00.000-07:00

It's gonna be a while before i can put anything of substance up here folks.

i'm wrapped in a dark web of GRE cocoon. It's kind of warm and sticky in here. There's all kinds of difficult vocabulary words and tricky arithmatic problems.

It's an insular world, to be sure, with no access to outside influence and no communication with the rest of the human race.

But it's the only way to grad school.

C'est la vie.

Dang

2006-07-26T11:30:00.000-07:00

The GRE is like the SAT on steroids.

And a few years at Gold's Gym.

And Creatine.

The Isle of Manhattan

2006-07-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

was purchased by Peter Stuyvesant from Native Americans for the equivalent of $24 in beads.

Good deal? Only time will tell.

i spent the last three days with my family ducking in and out of various subway stations and "seeing the sites" of the big city. And according to my little sister, "seeing the sites" sometimes meant "getting a picture in front of Tiffany's" or "going in the NBC store," which was, to say the least, a bit superfluous.

But at least i got to be in the city again. i think i decided that this was my sixth time there, and i still love it. i love the madness, the frenzied energy, the exotic and diverse people, the attitude: basically the bustle of New York.

Unfortunately, however, i think i also found myself attracted by what i'll call the glitz of its materialism; i wanted to be the suave businessman, suit and tied executive with a cell phone on his ear and an itinerary at all the big hotels. i used to mentally chastise India for its money-hounding and grubbing, but in the couple of weeks since i've come back it's seemed to me that Americans have just been at it a lot longer and are a lot better at it.

What also struck me was the lack of English that i heard: my native tongue seemed almost a foreign language, and was definitely a minority among the samples i heard on the subways and streets. i like that.

We got to go to Ellis island where a third of America's ancestors entered the "Land of Opportunity. " They had mostly restored the place to the way it was 80 or 90 years ago when millions of people were pouring through there. The floors were tiled and the rooms were bare and cold. The bunk-"tarps" were piled three high and stretched down the center of a white room.

After seeing what i've seen in India, i'd have to say that the conditions, at least as they've been reconstructed, were pretty good. They had tons of hospital space, gave out free meals, and had lots of other kinds of staff support, and over 90% of the immigrants stayed less than a few hours.

Even with all this, however, it must have been a terrifying experience: being in a new land, not knowing the language, the roads, the people, the culture, the food, the diseases, etc. So my hat's off to the bravery and durability of a people long gone. i guess as i walking through the museum, i just got this sense that i was looking from non-reality to reality. Like i was outside experience looking in at real life. All of life had happened and passed before already, and i was just watching. But i guess that's the way of these "museums."

So when does life begin?

Still Around...

2006-07-15T21:04:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to let everyone know that i wasn't dead.

In fact, far from it. i've just returned from the Moon, which should explain my prolonged absence.

An update? Well, tomorrow i'm going to New York City, NY, Boston, MA, and Bangor MN with my family for vacation. I've been to NYC several times before, but never Boston or Maine, so i'm pretty darned excited, if i may say so myself. Maybe i'll bring you back some lobster if you leave a nice comment.

After that, i'm moving to Raleigh for a year or so to take some pre-req science classes at Wake Tech, and then, Lord willing, i'll start a PA program at ECU next fall.

Oh, and wonder of wonders, i bought a cell phone. If you want the number, you'll have to email me, because i feel like writing my number on a blog is kind of like writing it on a bathroom wall.

How does it feel to be home after two years on the Moon? Well, honestly, the oddest thing is that it feels so normal. Seriously. i don't understand it. India seems like a dream; like something completely separated from my "real" life. The cars seem normal, the people seem normal, the food seems normal, the steps up from my basement seem normal: i just kind of fit right in. i don't know what that means.

Today, two of my very great friends Trent Cormier and Jean Hawthorne got married. Of course, now she's Jean Cormier. I don't know if anyone who reads my blog knows them except Ryan, but i just wanted everyone to know that they're married and i think that's just one of the best things that could have possibly happened today. Trent and Jean are stinkin' amazing, and i'm stinkin' glad they're married.

I think that's all. You can look forward to some upcoming blogs about The Media, China, and The Equator (hint: one of these new exciting blog options isn't real).

And again...

2006-06-21T06:47:00.000-07:00

Thought I’d proclaim the glories of C.S. Lewis one more time. He deserves it.

This time i have to express my profound appreciation for The Great Divorce. I simply can’t think of another book (aside from the obvious) that gives me more longing for heaven or more desire to turn from sin.

Here’s a little of the best stuff:

“When did we put up one moment’s real resistance to the loss of our faith?”

“’Listen!’ Said the White Spirit. ‘Once you were a child. Once you knew what inquiry was for. There was a time when you asked questions because you wanted answers, and were glad when you found them. Become that child again: even now.’
‘Ah, but when I became a man I put away childish things.’
‘You have gone far wrong. Thirst was made for water; inquiry for truth. What you now call the free play of inquiry has neither more nor less to do with the ends for which intelligence was given you than masturbation has to do with marriage.’”

“The Ghost made a sound something between a sob and a snarl. ‘I wish I’d never been born,’ it said. ‘What are we born for?’
‘For infinite happiness,’ said the Spirit. ‘You can step out into it at any moment.’”

“Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells, to love of the telling, till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him.”

“I do not know if I ever saw anything more terrible than the struggle of that Dwarf Ghost against joy.”

“’The morning, the morning!!’ I cried. ‘I am caught by the morning and I am a ghost!’”

Well that’s enough I suppose. I was thinking of actually just typing the entire book word for word over my next 300 posts, but I’ll spare you. Read it!

In other news, is anybody watching the World Cup? I’ve really enjoyed following it so far, but I’m a little disappointed at our boys, who lost 0-3 to the Czech Republic and tied Italy.

I guess Italy should have gone our way, really. The Ref called back a shot. So that must mean it shouldn’t have been. :)

We play Ghana tomorrow, but I think we have to beat them by 3,000 points in order to advance to the next round, and Ghana beat the Czechs, so… hmm…

Oh, and by the way, I went to the same high school as Eddie Pope. That’s right, the guy who got red-carded out of the Italy game. Again, this was the same ref who called back our second goal. Who does this guy think he is?

The Good C.S.

2006-06-14T05:58:00.000-07:00

I love this guy. Can I count how many intellectual quandaries he’s led me out of? I don’t think so. And the Chronicles of Narnia—priceless.

But today I’d like to share something I’ve been dealing with for a long time:

Suffering.

It’s so real here on The Moon. It’s so present. It’s so terrifyingly awful.

Let me just throw out some numbers that I have no actual source for. I just want to give an example. Let’s say that there are 18 million people in the city where I live. Then let’s say that 95% of those people will never hear the Good News. Now, some like to explain this next step away theologically, but I really can find no way around believing that people without Christ go to hell (and still hold a high view of scripture).

Now we’re at the man on the street. The skinny little man with no legs. He sits on a piece of cardboard that he’s attached to himself somehow and uses his arms to drag himself through scalding hot, crowded, filthy streets. Sometimes he wears flip-flops on his hands to protect his skin from the tar and asphalt.

I think the likelihood that this man, or 500,000 others like him, will hear the gospel and be loved by the love of Jesus through His Church is effectually zero.

So this man lives a life of incredible suffering, and then goes to hell?

Enter C.S. Lewis.

In his book Till We Have Faces, he retells the myth of Cupid and Psyche. One of the characters is a queen who nonetheless goes through a terrible amount of suffering. Finally, she is summoned to the court of the gods to read them her grievances. After she reads a small manuscript over and over again (she thought it was longer and didn’t know she was re-reading), she is simply left with the conclusion “the gods themselves were the answer to my complaints,” and “how can we meet the gods face to face until we have faces?”

Now I’m not going for pie-in-the-sky here. What I am saying is that I think Lewis really helped me see that when we come face to face with God, our questions about suffering, sickness, death, corruption, third world poverty and oppression, child labor, forced prostitution, and on and on will end with that encounter.

For another side of the picture, see The Brothers Karamazov, where Ivan talks to Alyosha in the tavern. The chapter’s name is Rebellion.

Mission: Predictable

2006-06-10T22:29:00.000-07:00

I saw Mission: Impossible III last night. It wasn't bad. Exciting. Decent plot line. Special effects and "gadgets" were mildly entertaining.

Of course, at the end we get one of Hollywood's sermons. One of the characters (i'll try to leave this vague in case you haven't seen it and want to) is a mole inside Ethan's organization. He is faithful, however, to the US government, and plans to allow a Middle Eastern country to buy a dangerous weapon so that the US can, in his words, "do what they do best: clean up. There will be a military strike within a week, and we'll go in, build infrastructure, democracy..."

I have to say this line made me want to puke, as does all Hollywood's pedantry. We get it Hollywood. You're against the war. Thanks. We get it Hollywood, you think all religions are the same, except for Christianity, which is ludicrous, barbarous, judgmental, and evil. Thanks. We get it Hollywood, you're all for Euthanasia. Thanks.

Further, the simple fact of Hollywood's being against the war is almost in itself enough to make me for it. Same goes for just about anything Hollywood gets on a soapbox about. I think, next election, i'll tune in to see who most of the Starry Lane's characters are voting for, and then vote the opposite.

For a surprising example of a decent piece of art, see Saints and Soldiers. I'm not sure who the actors were, but this movie actually portrays a Christian as someone other than a proselytizing, deceptive, backstabbing, selfish nincompoop. He helps people, is kind and caring, forgives other people, and makes sacrifices on other's behalf. He's really a good character!

And on another note, since this is my blog, i get to declare the winner of the Death Penalty debate featured below.

Winner: Death Penalty opponents, by a landslide. :-)

Yankee Go Home! (and take me with you)

2006-06-08T04:30:00.000-07:00

I actually have a couple of blogs that I’ve been working on but haven’t been able to complete—and then this comes along, and I just can’t help myself.

Here’s the link (would someone please tell me how to do hyperlinks?):

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/indonesiaquakeusislam

I guess first of all I’ve got to say that I like to point out absurdity in real life, if only for my own sanity. When something that makes no sense comes along, it sort of helps me take my hands out of the air after I’ve thrown them up and close my dropped jaw and makes me really sit down and try to think something through from another’s position.

And yes, it strikes me as absurd that Muslims in Asia are complaining about US aid. But after living here on The Moon for nearly two years, it really doesn’t surprise me.

It’s absurd because others are complaining that the US isn’t helping enough with the Indian Ocean tsunami of ’04, or the Pakistani earthquake of ’05, or now the Indonesian earthquake of ’06. We’re not giving them enough—and we’ve got so much, so why can’t we share?

Now I agree with those who’ve said we haven’t done enough. We haven’t. But I would also add that no nation or individual has done “enough”; we should have done more to help.

But to those who are “cynical” of US aid, like Mr. Matin Rahimi of Afghanistan, I just want to know what would you like us to do? If we help, you accuse us of propaganda and occupation. If we don’t help, you accuse us of indifference and selfishness.

Maybe it’s entirely accurate to say that we want to win brownie points by giving out aid. The US doesn’t have the greatest of reputations in the Muslim world— Muslims (of course, not all Muslims, but only some) routinely chant “Death to America” after they leave Friday prayer at the Mosque. Some Muslims really won’t be happy until America—The Great Satan—is “wiped off the map” along with Israel and several other European countries. Some, not all, I agree. Some.

The case is that we want friends! We want allies in the Muslim world! We want Muslims who can tell other Muslims not to fly jets into towers or shoot up an American embassy. So let it be the case that some of our motivation in helping the Muslim world is because we want peace.

And maybe somewhere in our American hearts of darkness we may just want to help suffering people. Somewhere. Maybe.

Thoughts?

Throw it out the window

2006-05-28T10:27:00.000-07:00

Several of you have asked why I think we should abolish the death sentence. This is exactly what I wanted—you’ve played right into my hands… ha ha ha…

But I suppose that it’s truly an issue that needs a defense. So let’s see what happens.

The main thrust of my argument comes from consistency. I am adamantly opposed to abortion, ergo (now there’s a good rhetorical word for ya!) I find it inconsistent to continue to support a death sentence. We argue from life; a pre-born child is alive, is a human being, and thus we cannot end its life. How is it that this does not apply at the end of said life? We are ending a life. We are ending a human being.

But wait! You say. That man or woman has committed a horrible crime; otherwise, he or she wouldn’t be subject to a death sentence in the first place. Indeed, I say, indeed. That man or woman has committed a horrible crime. He or she has raped and killed to such a degree that he or she is no longer fit for life on this earth, lest he or she continue to be a menace.

I would go further.

The reality of hell is more than a player here—that man or woman’s crime is part of what has merited him or her a permanent stay in the living fire. When we sentence a person to death, we sentence them, in an overwhelmingly majority of cases (barring some death row conversions) to hell. Plain and simple.

I know that this does not consider God’s sovereignty. But allow me that it is entirely inappropriate to consider ourselves agents of God’s sovereignty in regard to who lives and dies.

Controversy

2006-05-19T05:31:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to stir things up a little bit, so here goes:

I think Western nations should give Iran freedom to have peaceful nuclear energy.

I think we should abolish the death sentence.

I think the Da Vinci code could actually be a good way to start talking about the truth (although the book was an atrocity of literature).

I don't think Coach K (of Duke) can handle himself in the Big Dance.

That's it for now. "holla"

Money and Children

2006-04-20T08:57:00.000-07:00

I recently went to an orphanage here on The Moon.

But I get ahead of myself. Years and years ago (well, maybe like four years), I worked at Falcon Children’s Home in Falcon, North Carolina. It’s maybe a 35 minute drive from my prestigious alma mater, Campbell University, but if you’re on I-95, it’s barely a 30 second scoot.

I was a temporary helper for the Summer Program. In my charge were about 10 young boys who were roughly about 10 years old, give or take two years. My responsibilities were to entertain them during the day with games, swimming, snacks, crafts, reading, etc., and of course a peppering of Bible studies here and there, made easy by the use of a cartoon Jesus and disciples telling the NT stories.

I actually really enjoyed the summer. My personality has changed a bit since then, so I don’t think it’s really the thing for me anymore, but way back in the day I had a great time. The boys were tough to handle sometimes, but there were always weeds to pull and swim time to take away and snacks to withhold, so we did ok.

We went deep sea fishing, ice skating (at Fort Bragg nonetheless), and to Busch Gardens. We played basketball, kickball, hockey, football, softball, and went roller-skating, and we had a Nintendo 64 and every snack a child could ever dream of. There was a nice pool and a full gym. Every boy had a room entirely to himself, replete with his own personal toys and clothes. The houses were air-conditioned, had televisions and were air-conditioned.

Wouldn’t you think this was every child’s dream come true? That they would be living in child-heaven itself?

Most of the boys had no respect for any authority other than the vague suffering brought about by physical labor. Many had serious psychological problems, and several could not control their anger whatsoever. All summer long they complained about the activities, fought with each other, threw temper-tantrums, stole things from one another, whined incessantly, and were generally indifferent to the immense amount of luxury they lived in and attention they received.

Now move forward four years to April 2006.

I’m in West Bengal, India. A man there has started an orphanage for 200+ children from a tribal background. He told me that when he found them, most of them lived “like animals,” unclothed, uneducated, certainly unloved, and rarely fed.

Every morning the children wake up at roughly 5 o clock. First off is mandatory morning worship service. Then it’s a meal of rice, potatoes, and dhal (a lentil soup), and various chores around the compound, which is a cluster of roughly made cement and tin buildings. Chores may include washing clothes, cleaning one or another of the buildings, sweeping the grounds, tending to the cows, ducks, geese, rabbits, or dogs, and of course, getting ready for school.

The temperature can easily get up to and stay at 110 degrees Fahrenheit in the hot months, and there is no air-conditioner. There aren’t even any fans, because for most of the day, there is also no electricity. Water is either hand-pumped from a well or drawn up in large buckets by children as young as 4 or 5.

Lunch is again, rice, potatoes, and dhal. The afternoon, if they’re not at school consists of staying in the shade to avoid the absurd heat. As the day’s heat breaks the kids run outside to play with sticks, dirt, old tires, rocks, a couple of old, dirty balls that someone gave them one time, and maybe to terrorize the many animals who are trying to hide from them.

At night, the children have another worship meeting, which can last up to a couple of hours (a loooong time for small children), and then go to dinner, which is, you guessed it, rice, potatoes, and dhal. They wash their plates, pull out their grass mats, and go to sleep two or three per bed, on the roof, for the boys, and on the balcony of another building for the girls, because it’s too hot to sleep inside.

Now, I will say that I wasn’t able to speak their language very well, and that may have changed things some. But some things don’t need language.

These kids were much, much happier than the kids at Falcon Children’s Home.

I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

The America of the Imperialists? (Part 2 of 2)

2006-04-11T06:26:00.000-07:00

I don't want to beat a bleeding horse, but i do want to make truth known, so i'll just briefly lay down a few more stories and then let it go.

Recently i read a story in the newspaper about an old woman who was living at a railway station outside of town. She was maybe 70+ years, had no money, no food, no bedding, no water, and only the clothes on her back. She had gotten to be a burden on her family, who, when interviewed by a Moon newspaper, said that they could not afford to "keep" her. They have a house in town.

Am i building my case off an oddity, a freak occurence quickly rectified by a caring public? I used to work at H-- station, one of the major hubs of transportation on The Moon. Every day i and others would walk up and down the platforms, looking for the hungry, the sick, the wounded-- the neglected. Nearly every day we would take people to a home where they could receive food, shelter, and care for their wounds, most of which were maggot-infested. Why were they there? How had these people managed to live 60-70 years only to die alone and beaten down in a crowded train station, completely alone and cut off from the rest of the world?

Their families, too poor to take care of them (or so the story goes), send them into town on trains, where they crawl off and eventually die.

Justice, in most areas of The Moon, is served by vigilante forces. Oftentimes, when a car or bus or motorcycle accidentally hits a person on the side of the road, the driver will speed off, lest a mob quickly form and beat him (maybe to death) and burn his vehicle. When a woman is raped, men from her family and community will gather to hunt down and destroy the rapist. Sometimes the police show up at the scene, but they can easily be paid to look the other way or to join in the fray, depending on the price.

That's enough about The Moon. What atrocities are committed every day in countries all over the world? Violent suppression of freedoms in China and the Middle East. Systematic rape and genocide in Sudan. Civil war in Uganda. Do you remember Abdul Rahman, the convert to Christianity in Afghanistan? The clergy of that country were all calling for his immediate death, or at least his immediate brainwashing in a psychiatric ward. He got a free trip to Italy, but how many countless thousands of others never got the privelige of a media coverage and subsequent world outcry?

My point is that flagrant violations of every imaginable "human right" happen every single day in evry single country on the face of the earth. There are no virtuous nations. There is no example, no ideal, no utopia. All, like sheep, have gone astray.

So when we start to single out the U.S. as "the oppressor," "the war-monger," etc., i grow a little skeptical. It is because we are U.S. citizens that we can say that the U.S. is a war-monger. What happens to Chinese journalists who go too far in criticizing the government? What about Iran? Syria? North Korea?

And i think i've shown above how things like "law" and "justice" and "equality" are essentially non-existent on The Moon. There is corruption in our government, but it is like one malignant cell compared to the tumors that feed off third world countries. There is injustice in our imperfect country, but the chances of it being found out and rectified are astronomically higher than they are in developing nations. We have inequality, racism, materialism, murder, pornography, rape, greed, slander, lust, hatred, violence... but so does everyone else. There is no virtuous nation.

So why do i write all this?

I'd like to repeat that it certainly is not an apologetic for America. I have no desire or ability to defend her sins. We will answer to God for our past, present, and future.

I did want to show the privileged position we have. Not in the "we're just spoiled rich American brats complaining about the leather in our Lexus's" sense, but in the "let's look at the global picture" sense. We need to understand injustice in the world before we can look for ways to pray against it, speak against it, write against it, campaign against it, give money against it, fight against it, etc. Over and over again these are our commands in Scripture.

I did want to express what i think is an unfair assessment of America. Living overseas for a year and a half shows you both things you hate about your country and things you love. I love justice. I love to be able to hear the Truth in my own language. I love opportunity. I love hope. These things are available to an excruciatingly small percentage of the population of The Moon.

I did want to set my heart searching in yet another way for the virtuous nation we're promised in the last book; "A new heaven and a new earth."

Come quickly Lord Jesus. Amen.

Imperialist America

2006-04-09T03:48:00.000-07:00

Allow me a bit of banality for clarity’s sake for a moment: living in a foreign country, you hear and read and see a different perspective on your own. I’ve read numerous articles, seen countless opinion letters, and heard endless conversations calling America “imperialist,” or perhaps “the great oppressor,” or, the favorite of the Muslim world, “The Great Satan.”

Now it is not my intention in the least to defend America as a “godly” nation, nor even as an ideal nation. Our sins are certainly plain as day—I don’t even think a brief list is necessary here. What I am asking, however, is that we use some balance and perspective in the way we talk about our country and others.

Let me take, for example, the current South Asian country in which I live—let’s name it The Moon. On The Moon, justice, or perhaps I should specify “social justice,” is negligibly existent for those with no money, power, or class.

An American friend of mine who lives nearby told me once of a friend who had come to visit him. He asked for a rather sizable loan for a trip he was making to see his brother in a distant state. My friend refused as the man wouldn’t clarify exactly what the money was for, and, as he later found out, was quite justified in his decision. It turns out the man had gone to “help his brother win an election” in a rural area. Their method of campaign was to fight the opposing party—and I mean physically, with fists and sticks and weapons—and then to pay the police to only arrest the members of the opposition. Needless to say, without any competition, the man won in a landslide. Thus goes democracy on The Moon.

And this is not an isolated incident. I told this story to one of my friends who is from The Moon, and his response was not utmost surprise but rather a knowing nod and a “yes, this happens very often.” In a country neighboring the Moon, I heard a story about a man put in jail for insulting the prophet Muhammed. Fortunately (a word used relatively in this case), he was put into a “VIP” cell with members of a political party who had been thrown in jail for, well, once again, being the opposition.

I could go on. But there are other issues to see.

Child marriages are far too often the rule on the Moon, not the exception. Girls as young as 5 (and younger) have been married to men far, far older. They are not allowed to reach full physical maturity before the marriage is consummated.

Girls who are taken from their villages and sold into prostitution may consider the married ones lucky, however. These girls (and yes, I mean girls, not women) are taken from their families and homes into large cities where they are stuffed into rooms about the size of your bathroom and forced to have sex with strangers for money. Why forced? Because of the massive debt they must pay off before they can gain “their freedom.” Most girls are never able to pay off their debt, as they are charged astronomical (again, a relative term) prices for the rooms they rent, and because they soon have children to take care of, with no husband or any male figure whatsoever to help.

The Moon has some wonderful laws. Good laws, great laws even. They are enforced insofar as no one can make money from their not being enforced. Bribes are the rule—it wouldn’t be amiss to say The Moon runs on bribes. Moon politicians regularly hold “offices of profit.” What this means is that when they assume a position of power, they are “entitled” to another position in which they do absolutely no work, but simply collect the salary from at the end of the month.

I see I’ve gone on too long. More about The Moon and conclusions to come.

High Art

2006-04-06T19:23:00.000-07:00

Just thought you'd like yet another college poem. This one has a bit of a different flavor to it.

a merry monday
feasts of infinite surprise
dashingly, princes surmise
their swords to fall one day

a cordial tuesday
slowly, the field is won
slashingly, rivers, streams run
it was meet to rue the day

a hallowed wednesday
reckoned with ever barer leaves
misanthropic hang the eaves
drop upon us your golden ray

a fertile thursday
nonetheless partial to it's time
justice serves a light red wine
spoken has the green hay

a whimsical friday
mystified, entrenched in tears
ensconced with truth, these long years
suddenly there is an end.

If you can correctly interpret it, i'll take you out to La Hacienda when i get home.

Much thanks to thePrentice for pulling it out of his archives.

it's an all-new me

2006-04-04T10:04:00.000-07:00

This is me on my big bad blogspot website. No more xangas for me!! I've graduated, crossed the line, made the big leap.

Are you as excited as i am?