Recently in Main Category Category

I didn't do any posts last night, but if I had, I would have said that 38 years ago last night, MLK was shot.

I forgot about the time change (I thought about it briefly late last night, and was going to check to see if it was this weekend, then I forgot). When I checked email this morning, I saw the notice that my clock had been changed for Daylight Savings Time. I thought it was 8:30 am, when It was really 9:30.

We spent last night in Cincinnati with Janet's folks , and are up and about ready to hit the road again this morning back to Nashville.

I was happy to include amongst my "vacation happenings" some more reading and jostling about with RO, Eric, and Charlie. I am happy whenever someone "stops by" more than once to comment, and feel like (almost) someone has dropped by my house to see me. OUr blogs are a lot like "hangouts", and the line between "turf" seems to blur. The "social space" we have here is something I would like to delve into more deeply, being the "Sociology type" that I am (and Tony Campolo fan, as most recently Hauerwas, who provide us with a good bit of "distinctively Christian" sociological insight.

Talk to you all later (we'll be home late afternoon, and return the van by 3pm CST. Better get going.

From the balcony of our rental condo....there's Lake Erie behind the trees

This was sent to me by a colleague, whose grandmother sent him this (so I don't know the origin of it) But hilarious!

"Who's On First" -- new version

George: Condi! Nice to see you. What's happening?

Condi: Sir, I have the report here about the new leader of China.

George: Great. Lay it on me.

Condi: Hu is the new leader of China.

George: That's what I want to know.

Condi: That's what I'm telling you.

George: That's what I'm asking you. Who is the new leader of China?

Condi: Yes.

George: I mean the fellow's name.

Condi: Hu.

George: The guy in China.

Condi: Hu.

George: The new leader of China.

Condi: Hu.

George: The main man in China!

Condi: Hu is leading China.

George: Now whaddya' asking me for?

Condi: I'm telling you, Hu is leading China.

George: Well, I'm asking you. Who is leading China?

Condi: That's the man's name.

George: That's who's name?

Condi: Yes.

George: Will you, or will you not, tell me the name of the new leader of China?

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: Yassir? Yassir Arafat is in China? I thought he's dead in the Middle East.

Condi: That's correct.

George: Then who is in China?

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: Yassir is in China?

Condi: No, sir.

George: Then who is?

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: Yassir?

Condi: No, sir.

George: Look Condi. I need to know the name of the new leader of China. Get me the Secretary General of the U.N. on the phone.

Condi: Kofi?

George: No, thanks.

Condi: You want Kofi?

George: No.

Condi: You don't want Kofi.

George: No. But now that you mention it, I could use a glass of milk. And then get me the U.N.

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: Not Yassir! The guy at the U.N.

Condi: Kofi?

George: Milk! Will you please make the call?

Condi: And call who?

George: Who is the guy at the U.N?

Condi: Hu is the guy in China

George: Will you stay out of China!

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: And stay out of the Middle East! Just get me the guy at the U.N.

Condi: Kofi.

George: All right! With cream and two sugars.

I picked up Hauerwas' Performing the Faith last November as I was seeking out material by and about Bonhoeffer, as a way of "coping" with what seemed to be the "glaring reality" of the world , post 11/2 (election). I had heard some good things about Hauerwas, and seen some of the titles of his books, and so this book by Hauerwas ABOUT Bonhomie seemed the perfect fit.

I think I must have skipped over Habeas' introduction of Bonhoeffer and his summary of Bonhomie's "political" readings of the gospel (or better, "implications" of the gospel) since I had just watched the DVD Bonhoeffer, and wanted to get straight into the theological confrontations of Kingdom vs Empire. I also had picked up Crossing's In Search of Paul: How Jesus' Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom, for the same reason. I picked up Performing the Faith again last night, after hearing some audio of Hauerwas talking about Bonhomie and non-violence. The reading seemed much less "bogged down" than I did in my initial reading. That was a bit over 6 months ago when I bought Performing the Faith, and I was , I suppose, not "accustomed" to Hauerwas' style yet, nor with some of the concepts such as "narrative theology" or "theology from narrative" or "theology AS narrative" (you see? I have become familiar). Anyway, I either skipped over this entirely or felt impatient to get to more of the theological rationale for political dissent (given the disgust I was feeling about the incumbent administration). I ran into the chapters on Milbank and Fletcher and Performance in the Arts , and Narrative, and felt disappointed , and maybe also a little stupid that I didn't seem to "get it". But later readings of both Bonhomie's own writings and a few of Hauerwas' books and articles over the next 6 months , and I feel much more conversant with Hauerwas, and very much in step with his view of the church ; and his recognition of Bonhomie's theological relevance to our day, and our politics, and our experience of the failure of the church in America to "be the church".

Exhibit A: p. 40-41, Performing the Faith

In 1933 he was appointed as pastor to the German church in London in hopes that such an appointment would allow him to make contacts in order to help the world understand the dangers the Nazis represented. That danger he understood to be nothing less than the "brutal attempt to make history without God and to found it on the strength of man alone"

Anyone familiar with the disdain for the truth exhibited by this White House is surely seeing in this warning of Bonhoeffer a contemporary recognition of a politic gone wrong; and the hubris of the neocons is a sobering reminder of how unchecked political expansion of a fear-induced sanctioning of questionable justification can take hold and convince an entire church that "the best interests of the nation are at stake", and that the government has a firm grasp and belief in basic Christian principles. Yes, Hitler invoked the name of God and Jesus.

This in no way is an attempt to compare Bush and Hitler; only to raise the question of how subtly ideas can change and a "mob mentality" can take hold and sanction unspeakable evil. I don't or won't compare the evil of the Holocaust with the evil of the War on Iraq, only to say that even though the Holocaust ended up being far worse in terms of human life lost; the legitimacy of sanctioning any "lesser level" of "loss" is still inexcusable for a people such as the church who are called to be, as Hauerwas names them, a "Peaceable People".

With the success of Fox News, it is small wonder that "outlets" such as World News Daily have as much hearing as they do. It is an "outlet" that brings us "News" only a Christian Fundamentalist , Premillineal, Post-Rapture, Bible and Left Behind-Thumping Convert could love and/or trust. I was reminded of it by its being summoned by a commentor on Jesus Politics who calls himself "Bubba", and who has a blog defending slavery and sports a confederate flag. If I didn't know Carlos better, I'd be suspicious of Bubba, as to whether this character was really on the up and up, so stereotypically bigoted he is, and so stereotypically hardheaded in his "Interpretative methods".

Actually, I find Fox News much more of a threat to America. It is turned to by millions of Americans, and I find this extremely scary. Fox News is everything (and more) that the Right wing fears in the "liberal media conspiracy", in support of that Right wing; even worse, in support of the hubristic, dishonest, elitist apologists and reverse Robin Hoods of the neoconservatives who have turned even a secular ideal of Democracy on its head, and thus have scores of traditional (and honest, unconvinced, non-duped) conservatives running from association with them.

The very article I was reading where "Bubba" piped up with "Jesus is still the same yesterday , today, and forever", I KNEW that the comment must have come from a member of the Radical Right (even before I saw his handle "Bubba") was a satire on just this kind of macho, all-for-me, me-and-Jesus kind of bullshit. I hear it creeping into the attitudes of people normally sane. I also blame Fox for this. It's exactly what they want. They WANT people to accept this macho veneer so that their empire can gain legitimacy. If only Fox had started when I was a student in United Theological Seminary's Master of Arts in Religious Communication program (1990-91) . Then, we were observing the media's coverage of the the first Gulf War. Today, Fox News would provide us with daily and endless footage and messages to analyze. It has "made" outlets such as Media Matters into a massive undertaking.

No, it's not the "Satan worshipers" that were depicted on NBC's miniseries (and mini-theology) Revelations that are the insidious evil that seeks to destroy us and pull us away from God's kingdom. It's the "wolves in sheep's clothing"; the "Religious Ones" who call themselves agents of God who are able to deceive (isn't this also one of those "signs of the end times"?)

It seems as if its time for a sequel (or maybe a regular series on media) to Outfoxed, which I have in my media library (along with The Truth About Iraq)

I'll be down at BlogNashville all day today, so talk to you all tomorrow (or late tonight)

Here's the Technorati BlogNashville tag results (which , if it works, should include this post in the results.

Complete with spell checking

My MT install is giving the server fits....the spammers are hitting hard (one hit with about 300 comments while ago and lcoked up the ISP's server. Since I haven't been able to get MT-Blacklist working on MT3, they've returned with avengence. Boy those people are scumbags)

So, until I find a better solution for comments (like figuring out how to use the TYpeKey registration), they're back off again.

Does anybody know how I can put an email link on the site that hides the actual email address?

I have to turn comments off for a while...they shut me down today...

Into the Smokey Mountain National Park (click the image to see larger version)

In Pigeon Forge , just north of Gatlinburg, headin' in on Monday Oct. 4th to see some beauty.

It was beauuuutiful! The place to the left is where we stayed, our front door circled. I'll sprinkle several mountain pictures through some of my posts.

I'll be offline (unless some miracle happens) for the next week. We're takin' a week off to go just down the road to the Cumberland Plateu, and then spend 2 of those days of the next 7 in the Smokies. I have my Canon Digital Cam, so there will be pics when I get back, and maybe even some DV Video. I have a few of my books (Intelligence Matters (Graham), Chain of Command (Hersh), Crusade (Carroll), and A Generous Orthodoxy (McClaren), and the latest WIRED to keep me occupied in non-active moments.

Feel free though to do comments and stuff (maybe I'll find a cafe somewhere where I can look at my mail and check Bloglines). Anyway, be good.

With my own organization looking hard at RSS-ifying our offerings, I've started collecting various "implications" articles....this one sent to me just a few minutes ago by a fellow developer:

Microsoft flip-flop may signal blog clog | CNET News.com

"In the blogosphere, there is hardly anything more irritating (than) an abbreviated RSS feed," blogger Steve Main wrote on his blog. "The whole purpose of an RSS aggregator is so that I don't have to open my freaking Web browser to 100 different pages. By having the content right there in my aggregator, I can skim an entire article in the time it takes to open up a new Web browser. By not including full content in the RSS feed, you take away some of the productivity gains that RSS offers."

I have looked briefly, but never really saw an explanation of why Dave Winer left Harvard. Was it just a one-year contract or something? I never saw an explanation. When I read of Winer's travels, I wonder what happened there.

Cable outage is over (all morning , finally back on at around 1pm)

in my dotText blog , back in the beginning of it (Nov. 2003), I was wondering why MT trackbacks weren't being seen. I blogged a link to somebody on weblogs.asp.net , and the trackback worked there (on that dotText blog!). so here's another try, since I've moved the blog to a subdomain dedicated to it at http://blogs.theoblogical.org/blog.

The post , back in Nov 2003

I just returned a while ago from the Coffeeshop down the road a bit (Perk Central) where I spent about 2 hours sitting on the comfy leather couch and sipping a cup of coffee, and having one thing after another occur to me that seemed noteworthy, so I wrote down some things, and then some more, and when I was done I had about 8 pages of things (some were ideas of things to work on in the dyas ahead, conversations to re-start, software to invesigate, existing applications installations to tweak and extend or get working something that's broke in those apps. Also , several things to do with the Old Saint George web development, something I thought was immanent back in November, and well,,, you know how that goes. Anyway, I'm gonna put the rest of this into the extended "Read More" section below.......

A 13-year old was suspended for 3 days from school for trying a DOS command (built into the system) to send a 1-word message (consisting of "Hey!") to all the computers on his school's network. A Computer instructor at his school , Mrs. Sweeney, called it "hacking" and apprently convinced the principle that an example should be made.

In a letter written to Dave Lieber (the writer of the article in Dallas-Ft.Worth Star telegram, Sweeney wrote:

"Hacking into a system should be highest on the list of tampering violations. I believe the other students are now aware that the district takes this seriously and will not tolerate such misuse of our equipment.

"I invite you, parents, our state representatives, and anyone else that thinks The first problem here is that Sweeney, a computer teacher, apparently doesn't understand the term hacking. Hacking is not using a built-in command to send a message. Hacking is defined in two general ways: 1) use of a computer to break into someone else's computer system, and 2) the sophisticated techniques used by an adept computer programmer.they know how a teacher or a district should react to ANY situation to come live with us for a while -- be a substitute teacher for a few weeks and learn the real world of public education.
"Beverly Sweeney."

Lieber responded in his article:

The first problem here is that Sweeney, a computer teacher, apparently doesn't understand the term hacking. Hacking is not using a built-in command to send a message. Hacking is defined in two general ways: 1) use of a computer to break into someone else's computer system, and 2) the sophisticated techniques used by an adept computer programmer.

I want to expound a bit here. "Breaking In" did not even occur. The student's "transgression" exisits only on the level of a "snicker" or a noise made in class to which most teachers would simplyrespond with a look or a calling of the student's name as a warning to "stop it". I once did a similar thing using a Windows based network messaging program about 10 years ago, in a place of business with about 400-500 people on the network. I didn't get fired, or ven reprimanded. The network people called and asked, and I said that I didn;t realize how completely the message would be broadcast (which was, to everyone). That was enough. I didn't do it again. We laughed about it. They may have taken some steps to gaurd against similar utilities being able to "broadcast" from a client workstation in the future. This was an obvious case of a "Computer Teacher" (whose use of "hacking" and "breaking in" gives me much pause to wonder if I would want my "tax dollars" paying for such puny computer knowledge and understanding in a "Computer Teacher".

via Dowdell at Macromedia

From Emergent Report's list of Emerging technologies for 2003:
Overblown Technology of 2003: WMD
Upside: We have them.
Downside: So does everyone else except apparently IRAQ.

Continued from my previous post, picking up where I left off with the "historical/Kairos convergence" of my journey and history with Old Saint George.

I can hardly begin the blogging of 2003. It seems so intimidating. There were scary times when I went through a second prostate biopsy in 18 months (in March , after the one in September 2001), disapppointments , like not landing a job I thought I might be getting, and then continued to draw blanks in the search for work. I worked frantically at various "possibilities" for projects that seemed to promise some ongoing work.

Then, the Old Saint George development began as decade-long discussions about "Great Good Place" and "Online Community" began to be talked about in terms of specific projects, and actual web development started.

At ethicsdaily.com, more response to the SBC's move to sever ties with the Baptist World Alliance.

from the above link: Robert Parham: The decision represents more evidence that Baptist fundamentalists are retreating to a 19th century castle of racial and cultural homogeneity

In a couple of posts today on Theoblogical.Net , I lament a futher sign of the SBC becoming an "island to itself" , moving further from its heyday as a community of diversity. Of course, as the posts suggests, this ("diversity") is anathema to them, and precisely what they can't seem to handle, and taking further steps every year to assure that such "infidel notions" are rejected.

On my .Net blog, I found the reason for WIRED's "tardiness" these past couple of months

Last month, the issue did not arrive until the 17th, about 10 days late. It looks like the January issue won't be here until at least that late. It's not even up on the Website yet, whichstill shows the Phillip K. Dick/December issue. I was wondering whatmight be going on.