Quote of the Day, 5/27/08

05/27/2008, 7:00 am -- by | No Comments

“This extraordinary war in which we are engaged falls heavily upon all classes of people, but the most heavily upon the soldier. For it has been said, all that a man hath will he give for his life; and while all contribute of their substance the soldier puts his life at stake, and often yields it up in his country’s cause. The highest merit, then is due to the soldier.” — A. Lincoln

One Hundred Words (7)

05/23/2008, 9:00 am -- by | 1 Comment

In the spirit of Proverbs 10:19, our newest regular feature will be a series of posts of 100 words — or fewer. Comments under ten words!

I walk to work, each day, past a theatre with sharp and jutting eaves, a lovely avian habitat. Spring is the season of life, and every morning the new birds scream and chirp with the bold insolence of youth.

This is much more annoying than you might think.

Wednesday, accosted for a solid block by high-pitched screech, I finally looked up to the overhang and implored the birds for silence. “Would you please shut up!”

Less than one second later, a blow to my head. Struck in the glasses, I staggered back.

They shut me up.

Thursday I carried an umbrella.

–sm

Joke of the Day, 5/23/08

05/23/2008, 7:00 am -- by | No Comments

This man got a job with the highway department painting lines on the middle of the road. The supervisor told him he was expected to paint two miles of highway every day.

The first day, the man painted four miles, and the supervisor thought, “Great!” The next day, the man only painted two miles, but the supervisor thought, “That’s good enough.” The third day, the man only painted one mile. The boss said, “Is there a problem?”

And the man said, “Well, I’m getting farther and farther from the bucket!”

One Hundred Words (6)

05/22/2008, 2:30 pm -- by | 1 Comment

In the spirit of Proverbs 10:19, our newest regular feature will be a series of posts of 100 words — or fewer. Comments under ten words!

The days are invariably warm cloudless blue, the doming unmarred sky curving above, when a smudge appears over a mountain ridge. Growing, the plumes engulf the horizon in hazy, faintly menacing, gray. The fear comes, though, only when the tiny line of fire pierces through, eating the hillside.

When I heard “Grapevine Fires,” on Death Cab for Cutie\’s recent Narrow Stairs, I heard the inevitability and helplessness that the California wildfires kindle, the searching circumspection. And the carefully resigned hope. We instinctively know it is “only a matter of time.” But we still believe that “everything would be all right.”

–KB

Four Myths

05/22/2008, 9:00 am -- by | 6 Comments

1. Racism

Racism — the idea that people hate other people for the color of their skin — is a myth.

How do I know? I grew up in Watertown, N.Y., a city so far north that we only had four black families in the whole city when I was a kid. So what did we do? We hated other white people, and it worked out just fine.

We hated each other for being rich or poor, fat or skinny, tall or short, Northsiders or Southsiders. We hated each other for living in the different projects: Maywood Terrace, East Hills, Cloverdale, Empire Flats. We hated people for being from Canada or Carthage, Adams or Alex Bay.

What people call racism is simply hatred and it has nothing to do with the color of your skin, but rather the color of your heart. If we were all the same color, ate the same food, listened to the same music, and even went to the same churches, we would still find a million reasons to hate and despise each other that had nothing to do with race.

2. The birth of a child is a miracle

A miracle occurs when God suspends the natural operation of this world and interferes with the outcome of a particular action or set of actions. As mind-boggling and incredible as the birth of my children was to me, it was still simply the most likely outcome of my union with my wife.

If producing a child is miraculous, then some of the sorriest examples of humanity ever to live have also been prodigious miracle workers, and should be able to avoid beatification and be immediately named as Catholic saints.

3. The tie goes to the runner

Anyone who has watched any baseball has to admit that this isn\’t the case.

I am too young, or perhaps too unobservant, to comment on whether it was ever true in the past, but surely today it is not. The tie goes to the infielder who makes a spectacular play. If a shortstop or third baseman makes a spectacular grab, wheels, and throws an off-balance strike that skips off the dirt and right into the glove of the first baseman, there ain\’t no way — if it’s at all close — that the runner will be called safe.

4. Southern Hospitality

I know I have said this before, but experiencing “Southern hospitality” for the first time is like drinking a Diet Coke: an initial sensation of sweetness that quickly dissipates, leaving an aftertaste that tells you it\’s not quite genuine.

Adults end every encounter with “Come see us!” (an updated version of “Ya\’ll come back now, ya heah?”) while secretly wishing you would never actually cross the threshold of their house. Children sweetly say “Yes, ma\’am,” “No, ma\’am,” “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir,” while lying to your face about the obscene gesture they made while your head was turned — and will make again as soon as you turn away again.

Quote of the Day, 5/22/08

05/22/2008, 7:00 am -- by | No Comments

“You will not find lasting happiness by pursuing it. Happiness is the byproduct of a contented life. And the surest path to a contented life is to put the needs of others before your own.” — W. McGurn, in a fantastic commencement address

Battle of the Bands LVII

05/21/2008, 9:00 pm -- by | No Comments

Here are the next batch of band names from Luke (onestone moves on!)

{democracy:244}

Bible Discussion — Luke 22

05/21/2008, 8:00 pm -- by | No Comments

This week, Bweinh.com looks at the next chapter of Luke, Luke 22.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSIONS:
Genesis: 1-4 | 5-9 | 10-14 | 15-18 | 19-22 | 23-26
27-29 | 30-32 | 33-36 | 37-39 | 40-43 | 44-46 | 47-50
Exodus: 1-4 | 5-8 | 9-11 | 12-14 | 15-18
19-22 | 23-26 | 27-30 | 31-34 | 35-40
Romans: Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3 | Ch. 4 | Ch. 5 | Ch. 6 | Ch. 7 | Ch. 8 (I)
Ch. 8 (II) | Ch. 9 | Ch. 10 | Ch. 11 | Ch. 12 | Ch. 13 | Ch. 14 | Ch. 15-16
Luke: 1:1-38 | 1:39-2:40 | 2:41-3:38 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14-15 | 16-17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

 
INTRODUCTION:
David:
Here Jesus says farewell to His puzzled disciples and faces arrest and trial before giving Himself for the sin of this world.

Steve:
The Last Supper and Christ’s prayer in the garden. Fascinating and compelling narrative that takes us back two millennia to personally witness the agony that brought our peace.

 
SOMETHING YOU’D NEVER NOTICED BEFORE:
Josh:
Verse 36, where Jesus tells His disciples to buy swords, seems a bit troubling, like an endorsement of violence. But one minute after telling them all to get a sword, He told them that two were enough for the whole group (v. 38). Then, when they actually used one — a mere flesh wound — He immediately stopped them and healed the man (vv. 50-51). In this context, Jesus\’ words seem more of a warning to be prepared for strife, because the real battle is finally coming.

David:
Even at the last supper, while Jesus discussed his death, the disciples were still carrying on the argument from the start of their trip: who would be the greatest after Jesus was gone.

Steve:
Verse 18 explains some of that confusion about the current generation not passing away until the Kingdom of God came — Jesus here seems to be explicitly referring to His resurrection.

 
BEST BAND NAME FROM THE PASSAGE:
Josh: Treacherous Kiss, Hour of Darkness
David: Perverting the Nations
Steve: Fervent, Stone’s Throw

Continued here!

News Analysis — Ted Kennedy

05/21/2008, 10:57 am -- by | 4 Comments

Conservative scientists were stunned today to learn of Sen. Ted Kennedy’s (D-MA) condition upon being released from Massachusetts General Hospital. Doctors diagnosed the aging Senator with a malignant glioma in his left parietal lobe — brain cancer.

Though details of his prognosis have not been released, speculation centers less around what they said, and more on what they did not say.

Listed as possible options for treatment were radiation and chemotherapy, but not surgery, leading many medical experts to believe the tumor is inoperable. Differing sources estimate the Senator has between one and three years to live — around 50 years longer than Mary Jo Kopechne.

Newsday reports that damage to the left parietal lobe can result in difficulty with words, math, and hand-eye coordination — symptoms most politicians suffer from. Gliomas are the most commonly diagnosed brain tumors — around 9,000 a year — but not common enough to explain away liberalism.

Clash of the Titans LXXXII: Married v Single

05/21/2008, 10:00 am -- by | No Comments

In this corner, defending the sanctity of marriage, is Tom!

 And in this corner, loving the freedom of the single life, is Djere!

Married life is the best kind of life there is. Trading freedom for security has always been the way we roll here in the U.S. of A! So many rough areas of a man’s life can be smoothed out bythe delicate touch of a feminine hand.

Decision-making is a prime example. Making decisions is a lot of work. Where to live, what job to take, what to wear? Who has time to figure out the proper choice in all of these important areas? Most single men learn to make decisions quickly, weighing options and coming to decisions so fast that the process seems almost primitive in its simplicity.

The married man can still quickly reach a simple decision, but it is never the end result. Instead, it’s just one stop on the interminable amusement park ride central to any marriage: the discussion. By looping around and around the many possible choices, a man with a skilled spouse eventually comes to see the ignorance of his original choice, and the unparalleled superiority of the course his wife has already selected. Eventually these “discussions” can strip a man of his desire to make an initial choice, streamlining the entire process!

Marriage also lets a man grow beyond the boundaries he places on his social life. Many single men prefer the company of a particular group of friends, spending the majority of social time with them, coming to know them well. Once a man is married, these constraints are taken from him, and he can come to full social fruition. New friends he would not have chosen! New activities he does not enjoy! An entire new family with whom to spend holidays, reunions, excruciatingly boring conversations, and arguments!

And chores! Once a man has a wife, he has a partner with whom to split the domestic tasks central to any household. A single man has no assistance in performing these chores, and no helper to decide when they should be done. It’s true that marriage brings a man a tidier house, but with a spouse helping, the net decrease in work will be offset by the extra discussions that will fill the saved time, in lieu of radio, television, or blessed quiet.

It’s true that some freedom is lost. If I were married, I couldn’t keep the random and flexible work schedule I enjoy. I wouldn’t be able to spend my leisure time any way I like, I wouldn’t have as much time for quiet reading, I might not amuse myself so much with the Internet dot com. I certainly wouldn’t be able to drop everything and take a trip, change my plans at the last minute, or do any of the other things that make me the man I am.

No, I would become a different man, a better man, with a thousand chips of my very nature shaved away by the delicate chisel in my wife’s knowledgeable hand.

I only hope that man will think of the old me fondly from time to time, as he lives his life to the beat of his life’s new drummerette.

If he can find the time between discussions.

You know, when you’ve been married as long as I have (almost three weeks!), you almost forget what it was like on the other side…

Being single has its advantages. Gas mileage, for example. With only one person in the car, you’ll use less gas, you know, when you drive places… alone. And you’ll never have to worry about another person changing your radio stations. In fact, you never have to be exposed to any tastes other than your own! Gosh, that does sound pretty good… cruising down the highway of life — alone — listening to the same old songs on the radio…

And there are benefits outside your motor vehicle as well. Like at work! Now that I’m married, Karen calls me at work once or twice a day. But if I were single, think about how great it would be: eight uninterrupted hours without hearing a friendly voice on the other end of the telephone line. Even better — eight uninterrupted hours without hearing the person I care about more than any other say, “I love you.”

Yep, being single sure has advantages. I mean, at home you’ll never have to worry about someone messing up your stuff, the kitchen, unmaking the bed, or leaving the toilet seat in your least favorite position… because there’s never anyone there. In fact, when you’re single, you have the immense joy of doing all the cooking, cleaning, laundry, and chores yourself. All by yourself. Sure, you can daydream all you want that the next time you’re at the laundromat, there’ll be a pretty, single girl there who shares your joy of separating whites from darks for a bleach load, or your cultivated taste in fabric softener… but probably not.

And who does this ‘God’ fellow think He is? “It is not good for man to be alone.” What’s that all about? Certainly people weren’t designed with a helper in mind, a divinely inspired counterpart, like that “Bible” of yours says in Genesis 2:18.

When you’re single, you’ll experience neither the joy nor the pain that having a spouse brings. You don’t understand what Solomon means when he writes, “you have ravished my heart with one look of your eyes.” Just the numb comfort of loneliness and hope deferred.

Man, those were the days!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a loving wife to attend to. Cheers.

{democracy:243}

One Hundred Words (5)

05/21/2008, 9:00 am -- by | 3 Comments

In the spirit of Proverbs 10:19, our newest regular feature will be a series of posts of 100 words — or fewer. Comments under ten words!

My mother is complaining about the heat. It’s 103, no A.C., and I say, “Remembering this got me through five months of snow.” And she says, “You like this?”

I’m happier when it’s hot. I love emerging from a dark, air-conditioned house into the dry heat. I love the warm wind cooling my sweat and messing up my hair. I love evenings when it’s 75, and my sister and I lie on her back yard’s broad wall, recalling childhood memories because that’s all we have in common since I moved 2000 miles away.

What was I thinking?

–CLA

Joke of the Day, 5/21/08

05/21/2008, 7:00 am -- by | No Comments

Why is Christmas like a day in the office?

You do all the work and the fat guy in the suit gets all the credit.

A Truth Universally Acknowledged

05/20/2008, 11:00 am -- by | 2 Comments

The much-beloved first sentence to Jane Austen\’s Pride and Prejudice (“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife”) is fantastic not only for its sarcastic poke at Regency culture, but also for the way it prompts the reader to think in similarly skeptical ways about his or her present context.

One might argue that being a skeptic is not a positive thing, but I believe that skepticism, in and of itself, can be beneficial. With the rise of postmodernism, where truth is here and there and everywhere, a mind that is discerning — skeptical? — is an advantageous acquisition for even the most casual perusal of, well, you know, those deep things in life, like faith, purpose, and relationship.

To deconstruct the idea of a “truth that is universally acknowledged” is a scary process for even the most moderately-minded Christian, and requires a certain depth of faith that I am not entirely sure I possess. In the last three days, my class has been engaging in this deconstructionist style of conversation. I admit that I love the dialogue, but I am terrified by what I know to be my weakness: accepting too much upon hearing it once. To what degree can I remain solid in my beliefs (and what are those anyway?) while still remaining open to the idea that they are an incomplete picture of a God who cannot be completely captured? This is the problem of amateur ecumenics!

Perhaps I should clarify what I mean by “deconstruct.” I do not mean that by deconstructing we can do away with the idea that a truth (and not necessarily the truth) is universally acknowledged. Rather, I mean that to deconstruct an idea is to attempt to strip it down to its birthday suit and understand it for what it really is: ugly, flawed, and badly in need of a trip to the health club. I believe that a truth can and should be universally acknowledged, but what truth (singular)?

The important thing, I am coming to realize, is that deconstruction is only useful if it is followed by reconstruction. Sure, tear down the poor slob of an idea, but for goodness\’ sake, give him back his clothes, hand him a comb, and point him in the direction of the YMCA. And do it with the knowledge that he might have changed in the process.

Do I believe there is truth that can and should be universal? Yes.
Do I think that I comprehend this? Not fully.
Do others have a better grip on this than I do? Absolutely.
Are all of these others Christians? Certainly not.

God, please grant me the discernment to suspend my biases, my criticisms, even my Western ethos, in favor of a telos that is You.

Quote of the Day, 5/20/08

05/20/2008, 7:00 am -- by | 1 Comment

“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times . . . and then just expect that other countries are going to say ‘OK.’ “ — B. Obama

A Living EthanHell

05/19/2008, 2:00 pm -- by | 5 Comments

A story is told — one you are probably familiar with — about a trap in China, with a hole just big enough for a monkey’s paw. Inside is a morsel of food; when the animal grabs it, his paw is too big to remove from the trap. Whether due to pure instinct, stupidity, or simply primal greed, the creature is easily captured — or so the story goes — caught because it refused to surrender its prize, because it failed to grasp how simple escape could be.

In the middle part of this decade, the drums of ethanol began to be beaten, along the river of rising energy costs. The President, along with our vast and intertwined agricultural and industrial lobbies, greedily stuck their proverbial paws inside the trap and grabbed fistfuls of corn, wheat, and even switchgrass.

The idea was, and is, a seductive one. A sprawling American breadbasket (you know the one, laid out in neat little squares 30,000 feet below our airplane seat) that can suddenly Abracadabra! fuel into our Fords, the dark shades of Big Oil and Sheikdoms plotting and profiting half a world away replaced by the light hues of soft-spoken Iowan farmers talking baseball at the Agway. The government seemed unusally bipartisan, aggressive, and strangely on board. There was an energy and a drive: incentives, programs, plans, timelines. It was the magic bullet to free us from the burden of dependence.

Silly little monkey.

Ethanol was not a necessary step towards energy independence, but rather a poorly timed distraction from it. In a time of obvious instability in global markets, a devalued dollar, and a two-front war in Oil’s own backyard, ethanol has served to make food scarcer and more expensive. It has demanded more attention for superficial environmental restrictions that push the dream of more refineries and nuclear facilities further into exile, and it has yoked oil companies, agriculture, and the government into an unseemly, uneasy, and overwhelmingly unproductive union.

In other words — not only do I spend nearly $4 for a gallon of gas, but I will soon spend that same amount for a bag of broccoli, while the few continue to profit immensely at the cost of the many, and the government comes to look more and more silly. When we expend more energy than we get in making the energy, the math is not hard to compute.

And it says, “Let go, remove your paw, and run like Jehu, little fella!”

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