Just updated this site, using the TwentyTen theme just to see how it works. Not bad at all!
Everything went fine – the upgrade process went without a hitch! Updated some plugins and themes, also no problems.
Beautiful piece of work from the WordPress development team!
Kudos and Huzzah!
In this vineyard
I have waited
parched of throat
despairing of kinship
hiding in the shadow
Comes a vintner now
eager and joyous
blessed by the light
unafraid of the dark
to lead me forth
Working as one
we prune away the dead
shore up the weak
and harvest together
the sweet fruit of life
When the wine is ready
bloody red and warm
fill the cups
brimming full
and raise them high
Let us toast this day
and vow between us
to always drink deep
until the cups are empty
or stricken from our lips
MDW 6/98
to Marilyn on our wedding day
I often hear it said that parents ‘…would give their child the moon and the stars…’
My father did.
I will never forget
late on a summer evening
deep in the humming heart of science
my father, master of machines
said “Come here,
I want to show you something.”
With careful hands
he took a small wooden box
from a locked cabinet
and opened it, carefully
so carefully,
like a priest.
Inside the box,
inside a glass jar,
perched on a wire,
was a stone
more a cinder, really.
Removing the glass
he plucked it free
and told me to hold out my hand.
“Be careful, don’t drop it” he ordered
as he placed it in my palm.
As I inspected this nondescript clinker
he said
matter of factly,
“That’s a piece of the moon.”
Just able to realize what it was
I goggled in awe
at the wonder of it.
Now, in the night
looking up at that gleaming coin
sliding through the clouds,
I realize what he gave me that night,
most precious of all,
respect.
MDW 7/98
From Laughing Squid:
Beard Team USA National Beard and Moustache Championships
World Beard & Moustache Championships official site
True madness.
You Raise Me Up
by Josh Groban
When I am down and, oh my soul, so weary;
When troubles come and my heart burdened be;
Then, I am still and wait here in the silence,
Until you come and sit awhile with me.
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up: To more than I can be.
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up: To more than I can be.
There is no life – no life without its hunger;
Each restless heart beats so imperfectly;
But when you come and I am filled with wonder,
Sometimes, I think I glimpse eternity.
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up: To more than I can be.
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up: To more than I can be.
-
To all of you who have come to ‘sit awhile with me’ when it was the darkest, bless you. Your names are written in my deepest heart, not to be forgotten.
Hat tip to LaughingSquid!
From Drudge Retort:
Apple Passes Microsoft as No. 1 in Tech
As of Wednesday, Wall Street valued Apple at $222.12 billion and Microsoft at $219.18 billion. The only American company valued higher is Exxon Mobil, with a market capitalization of $278.64 billion.
I’m grinning ear to ear.
Oh my GOD this is beautiful.
By DJ Cline
I am the thing you thought you had destroyed.
My hammered chains and broken rings
Smoke up the chimney
Riding the wind and falling from the sky
The soul from a coal.
The ash from the flash
The grit that grinds
The dust in the very air you breathe
I am everywhere now and cannot go away.
I am part of you.
You could not exist without me.
I am the balance.
Without my comedy
There is only your tragedy.
Be careful what you burn.
Copyright 2010 DJ Cline All rights reserved.
Seen at Slashdot:
German neuroscientists made a breakthrough in ‘age-related cognitive decline’, a common condition that often begins in one’s late 40s (especially declarative memory — the ability to recall facts and experiences). Their new study identifies a genetic ‘switch’ for the cluster of learning and memory genes that cause memory impairment in aging mice. By injecting an enzyme, the team ‘flipped’ the switch to its on position for older mice, giving them the memory and learning performance they’d enjoyed when they were young. Now the team ultimately hopes to recover seemingly lost long-term memory in human patients.” The video, which explains the gene flipping mechanism, is worth a watch (2:18).
Fantastic video using the Red camera.
Watch in HD at Vimeo and go full-screen.
Breathtaking.
This is just weird.
Oh dear… I can only imagine how many ways this will be misused.
I remember reading about Dick Tracy in the funny papers when I was a boy. I always marveled at his nifty-neato wrist radio that sent pictures too. Years went by and I dabbled in all sorts of communication media, eventually finding my way to the wonderful world of webcams. At last I can chat with family and friends and there will be none of the maddening misunderstandings brought about by primitive text-only e-mail! Whoo hoo! Dick Tracy lives!
Excited beyond words (but not to worry, gestures come through fine on a webcam) I set about getting my friends and family set up to use their webcams – and thereby hangs this tale. While some of them had computers with built-in cameras others needed to buy an add-on. In some cases I discovered their computer simply didn’t have the oomph to make a webcam work properly. Eventually I came up with a short list of notes that any aspiring Dick Tracy would need to read:
Now that I had them wired up, the next step was getting on the right ‘wavelength’ – there’s a couple of ways you can connect webcam users:
Skype – originally an internet telephony tool, it now supports video and is available for PC and Macintosh computers. It’s fairly easy to set up and lets PC and Mac users connect seamlessly. You’ll need to get a free Skype account.
iChat – exclusively Mac but comes standard on new machines and is fall-off-a-log simple to set up and use. Requires an AOL instant messenger (AIM) account.
There are also literally dozens of other webcam-support programs out there but those two will give you the best chance of getting a relative newbie up and running.
So now that I’ve gotten my coterie of communication-savvy geeks and geekettes set up with webcams, good computers and software there’s only one question left:
What do we talk about?
Tune in next time when I’ll be discussing digital video. Until then remember: Webcams and wine don’t mix.
–
Doug Wray is webmaster for the CU-Boulder Alumni Association, an instructor at Boulder Digital Arts and a huge geek.
by Alan Moorhouse
Go here to listen and here to see a photo of the band
It was Saturday night
and we were tight
and the maids were locked indoors
and we planned to meet at Union Street
mid the sailors and the whores
On our forth round
we heard the sound
they singin’ Trelawney song
they fisher-boys makin all that noise
and from then it didn’t take long
When the East Looe Boys come in
with a shout and a terrible din
we would smack some chins
and get stuck in
when the East Looe Boys come in
We would fight they boys whenever we could
in the pubs or county fairs
we’d fight they Bodmin and Liskeard boys
Anytime anyplace! anywhere
For we worked six days
in frost or blaze
on the land throughout the year
and on Saturday night we’d go out and fight
and we’d fill our ‘eads with beer
When the East Looe Boys come in
with a shout and a terrible din
we would smack some chins
and get stuck in
when the East Looe Boys come in
By ’41 me friends had gone
and the woman worked the land
but at last I turned eighteen
and the Army took this young farmhand
The basic training soon brought home
there was worse than a big black eye
for fightin’ that meant somethin else
at the old DCLI
When the East Looe Boys come in
with a shout and a terrible din
we would smack some chins
and get stuck in
when the East Looe Boys come in
At Tobruk, Benghazi, and El Alamein
we left good friends behind
and we landed ashore at Salerno
and the bloody place was mined
With a shattered leg under firin’ shell
I was scared out of my skin
and I thought me time had come as well
till the East Looe Boys come in
When the East Looe Boys come in
it was then we knew we’d win
and this frightened boy nearly cried for joy
when the East Looe Boys come in
They cleared the ridge that had pinned us down
they led us through the wire
Jim Batten grinned as he led me in
to a place not under fire
And they saved me leg and the German lad
who was lyin next to me
and I raised me thumb and I never made
another enemy
When the East Looe Boys come in
it was then we knew we’d win
and this frightened boy nearly cried for joy
when the East Looe Boys come in
So we go back there
just now and then
just Jim and Hans and me
and the crosses of so many men
it breaks your heart to see
And we fought back tears
these many years
we are old and grey and thin
but wherever we are they’ll be pints on the bar
when the East Looe Boys come in
When the East Looe Boys come in
When the East Looe Boys come in
this frightened boy nearly cried for joy
when the East Looe Boys come in
When the East Looe Boys come in
When the East Looe Boys come in
and wherever we are they’ll be pints on the bar
when the East Looe Boys come in
—
Thanks to my dear friend Rebecca Jessup for introducing me to this song – it touched my heart.
I’ve linked all the place-names and other info I could guess at. Still not sure what ‘get stuck in’ means but I surmise it has to do with getting one’s arse kicked roundly.
Nanoparticles to destroy cancer cells. Report says it works perfectly.
How many more people will have to die of cancer before this cure is perfected?
Solar Powered Augmented Reality Contact Lenses
ByronScott writes “Want eyesight that could put your neighborhood cyborg to shame? Well, University of Washington professor Babak Amir Parviz and his students are working on solar powered contact lenses embedded with hundreds of semitransparent LEDs, letting wearers experience augmented reality right through their eyes. If their research proves successful, the applications — from health monitoring to gameplay to just plain bionic sight -could be endless.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Hilarious and spot-on attack ad parody. Rover will be banging his head on the desk, wishing these guys worked for him. The ad’s production quality is superb.
All my life I’ve kept journals ― at first loose pages in a three-ring binder (remember THOSE?), which led to spiral-bound notebooks, hard-bound journals and finally as electronic files. Once I made the jump to the computer I thought, “Great! Now I’m really saving time and space.” But the further I got down the digital path, the more I realized I’d traded one set of limitations for another. Paper has a lovely random-access nature to it. You can leaf through a book and find an entry quickly, but not so with digital files. Folders of word-processor files are overwhelming and I didn’t dare keep it all as one big file. One mistake and I’d lose everything! So… what to do? About that point I started working on the web and fell in love with HTML and hyperlinked text. Now I was cookin’! Off I went building websites, linking pages and cranking out tons of content. Ultimately, I found the biggest obstacle to finding things was navigating to them. My navigation schemes got more powerful but were harder to maintain. There had to be a better way. That way turned out to be Web Content Management Systems (WCMS).
It’s a system for organizing information on the web by applying a navigation scheme/appearance to it. The navigation scheme/appearance is called a ‘theme’ and can be changed, essentially redesigning the site. The core of the WCMS is expandable via software plug-ins that add new features or change the behavior of core features.
First, it’s a neologism and a portmanteau word created from “web log,” which is a system of posting material organized by date and subject category. Readers are generally allowed to leave comments and some sites moderate user remarks while others just allow everything but investigate reports of bad behavior. So blogs now are very common and have spawned other forms of social media such as Facebook. There’s a lot of CMS systems out there – the ones that I considered using were Drupal, Joomla, MoveableType and WordPress.
First, a brief overview: WCMSes create both pages and posts. The pages are what most people consider the website and there are parent and child pages, so information can be organized by the user rather than by date and category. So pages are the part of the site that’s more-or-less static and has fixed relationships, while the regular articles/announcements/etc in categories are the blog posts. CUAlum.org has blog postings in these categories:
Posts enable, for example, your company’s event team to announce upcoming events, the communications team to publish their newsletter, the travel group to publish their upcoming trips and so on. It’s just dated material in categories. All these groups can enter new posts or update their information pages at the same time. It’s all done through the web. You surf to a page, enter credentials and step behind the curtain where you can edit the site’s content or appearance. Heady stuff.
One of the features of WCMSes is RSS. Sorry for the series of sequential sibilants. It’s for a website that has an audience (however small!) that wants to know when there’s something new to read. E-mail was the usual way until some bright person thought up aggregation and suggested that site operators have their CMSes produce a file ― the RSS file ― containing a standard list of the latest posts in their blogs. Then browsers like Firefox and aggregating programs can collect new post listings, alerting the faithful that the Wall Street Journal has a new article or their favorite cartoon superhero has a new adventure. It’s more of a user pull method than a provider push using e-mail. You get the news faster and have the ability to monitor many news sources at once. It’s created a whole new breed of netizen: the news junkie. So if a friend tells you about a great new way to get your news, beware. You may be on the road to news addiction! Here’s a little taste of RSS to help you get hooked started:
Note, you might want to investigate an RSS ‘aggregator’ like NetNewsWire for the Apple Macintosh or FeedDemon for IBM-PC. While your browser can aggregate RSS feeds, these programs provide some great features. I encourage you to check them out. So, ’til next time, keep your passwords obscure and your cache files clean when I’ll be talking about webcams. Doug Wray is the webmaster for the CU-Boulder Alumni Association.
Lovely little interactive ActionScript. This person is available for freelance and he looks worth it.
From the National Archives.
Outstanding collection.
Captivating little HTML5 drawing app by Ricardo Cabello. Works swell on the iPhone too. (Via Federico Viticci.)
Wait for it… waaiit for it…. oh. my. gawwwd. (about 0:40)
“…we just took out half the house…”
Reading this story:
Wash. man electrocuted by urinating on power line (courtesy of Drudge Retort)
I was reminded of a song from Ren and Stimpy (“Don’t Whiz on the Electric Fence”)
and the last line in the story tells me why there wasn’t a photo:
Pimentel says there will be an autopsy but burn marks indicated the way the electricity traveled through Messenger’s body.
owie
From Bifurcated Rivets and orginally from Corante:
Posted by Derek
The latest addition to the long list of chemicals that I never hope to encounter takes us back to the wonderful world of fluorine chemistry. I’m always struck by how much work has taken place in that field, how long ago some of it was first done, and how many violently hideous compounds have been carefully studied. Here’s how the experimental prep of today’s fragrant breath of spring starts:
The heater was warmed to approximately 700C. The heater block glowed a dull red color, observable with room lights turned off. The ballast tank was filled to 300 torr with oxygen, and fluorine was added until the total pressure was 901 torr. . .
And yes, what happens next is just what you think happens: you run a mixture of oxygen and fluorine through a 700-degree-heating block. “Oh, no you don’t,” is the common reaction of most chemists to that proposal, “. . .not unless I’m at least a mile away, two miles if I’m downwind.” This, folks, is the bracingly direct route to preparing dioxygen difluoride, often referred to in the literature by its evocative formula of FOOF.
Well, “often” is sort of a relative term. Most of the references to this stuff are clearly from groups who’ve just been thinking about it, not making it. Rarely does an abstract that mentions density function theory ever lead to a paper featuring machine-shop diagrams, and so it is here. Once you strip away all the “calculated geometry of. . .” underbrush from the reference list, you’re left with a much smaller core of experimental papers.
And a hard core it is! This stuff was first prepared in Germany in 1932 by Ruff and Menzel, who must have been likely lads indeed, because it’s not like people didn’t respect fluorine back then. No, elemental fluorine has commanded respect since well before anyone managed to isolate it, a process that took a good fifty years to work out in the 1800s. (The list of people who were blown up or poisoned while trying to do so is impressive). And that’s at room temperature. At seven hundred freaking degrees, fluorine starts to dissociate into monoatomic radicals, thereby losing its gentle and forgiving nature. But that’s how you get it to react with oxygen to make a product that’s worse in pretty much every way.
——–
Holy shit. Read this. Here’s an excerpt:
Children starve and die while we make these horrors? I lose hope for mankind.
Hat tip to Pink Tentacle (which has excellent background on this video)
Special south-to-north-of-the-border America to Canada hat tip to
for
Read about the dreaded ‘mud butt’
This is the inaugural posting of GeekSpeak, a monthly snapshot of web technologies (existing and brand new) as well as advice on how they can benefit you as a netizen.
This month I’ll be discussing the new Apple iPad and my thoughts on it.
When I was growing up information came in only a few channels: word of mouth, print and broadcast (tv and radio). The “information superhighway” wasn’t even a rude trail in the forest yet.
By the time I graduated from college the internet had appeared along with some new information channels: websites, e-mail and chat rooms. Computers went from being rare curiosities to commonplace fixtures.
With the rise of the internet came the decline of newspapers and magazines, rudely shoved aside by news sites and a wave of web logs (blogs). Consumers of this “new media” insist on up-to-the-second information and use specialized monitoring programs (feed readers and aggregators) to watch scores of sites for any tidbits that might appear.
For content-hungry consumers the smartphone isn’t quite enough (too slow, too small) and a laptop is too much (too bulky, too heavy). Apple’s “Air” portable sought to address those issues with an ultra slim design and improved battery life but was just slightly wide of the mark. Users wanted something compact, fast enough for general use and light enough to take everywhere – and I mean everywhere – remember the shower radio?
Enter the iPad.
A tool for web browsing, email, video and data entry, the iPad is a LCD touchscreen with a proprietary Apple chip driving it. The iPad eschews ungainly hard disk drives, using compact chip-based “flash RAM” instead. The all-solid-state storage has some excellent advantages: size, higher efficiency (i.e. longer device battery life), superior durability (no head crashes) and fast read/write speed. The primary drawback is price – roughly 10x the price of hard disk storage – so the advantages come with a hefty price tag.
However, once past the wallet-clubbing troll you’re over the digital bridge into a world where all the major newspapers are literally at your fingertips. A tap opens a story, a pinch-open gesture enlarges and a hand-swipe pans or scrolls. Video and music are simple and fun. You can video conference with a friend while you’re riding the bus to work thanks to the device’s 4G network connection. In short, it’s lighter than a laptop, nearly as fast (faster in some cases) and big enough to read like a folded-up newspaper – and no ink stains!
Oh, did I mention e-books?
Apple’s online store lets users download music, e-books and video effortlessly. Hear of a great new novel on a website? A few taps, pinches and swipes and you’ve got it in your hand. Love the book? Drop the author a kudo via e-mail. Did I mention you’re still on the bus? Reach your destination, drop the iPad into your briefcase or messenger bag and it will sleep (power save) on its own, ready to jump back to work when you pull it out at coffee time or lunch.
We may just be seeing the beginning of the end for paper-based content.
My only question is: where’s all the content for this brave new world coming from?
We’ll talk about that next time when I discuss blogging software and content management systems.
Till then, keep geekin!
Less – if you use CSS for design, check it out.
Wilma Maria Dirks Jan 1, 1923 - Jan 28, 2010
Born in Italy on Jan. 1, 1923
Departed on Jan. 28, 2010 and resided in Longmont, CO.
Visitation: Sunday, Jan. 31, 2010
Service: Monday, Feb. 1, 2010
Reception: Monday, Feb. 1, 2010
Cemetery: Foothills Gardens of Memory
Wilma Maria Dirks died peacefully, surrounded by her family, on Thursday, January 28, 2010. Wilma was born on January 1, 1923 in Cividale del Friuli, Italy, to Giovanni and Angelina Caucigh. She had a happy childhood, survived the trauma of war, and fell in love with an American Master Sergeant, Fred H. Dirks, while he was stationed in Trieste, Italy. They married, lived on the Presidio in San Francisco, and eventually settled in Longmont, where they raised 6 children.
Wilma had a mischievous spirit, a love of life, and constantly taught her children and grandchildren what unconditional love is. Her house, which she lovingly kept, was frequently filled with family gatherings, great spaghetti, music, and laughter. Everyone who met Wilma loved her, because of her engaging, positive attitude, and her ability to always be true to herself. She worked hard at everything she did, including being a professional and very creative seamstress. She faced the challenges in her life––Fred Sr.’s passing in 1975, her diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease and Diabetes––with a determined and passionate energy. She was an inspiration and we miss her.
We are heartened knowing that she is now with Dad again. Mom is survived by her sisters, Ada Haire and Fermina Pease; Her children, Angella Dirks and her husband Ellwood Pickering, Isabella and Robert McCarthy, Daniela and John Peterson, Fred Dirks Jr., Marisa Dirks, and John Dirks; Her grandchildren, Liliana Dirks Goodman, April Peterson and fiancé Chris Hennig, Bailie Peterson and husband Oliver Uhlig, Elisa McCarthy, Caitlin Peterson and Erin McCarthy. Wilma is also survived by her nieces and nephews.
Visitation will be Sunday, January 31 from 5:00 until 6:00 p.m., followed by a Rosary at 6:30 p.m. at Howe Mortuary Chapel. Mass at 10:30 on Monday, February 1 at St. John The Baptist Catholic Church. Burial at Foothills Gardens of Memory, Longmont, CO. A reception will be held at Howe Mortuary Event Room following the burial. Memorial contributions may be made to:
The American Parkinson Disease Association
135 Parkinson Avenue
Staten Island, NY 10305.
…had a brain.
See Wendy’s Wizard of Oz site for complete lyrics and sing along!
Interesting MIDI rendition… and lots of other fascinating stuff.
By Jim Winkler, General Secretary, General Board of Church & Society
I confess that I have never thought of a corporation as a human being. It has never made any sense to me to consider the notion that God created General Motors or Wal-Mart or Goldman Sachs or Smith & Wesson in God’s image. Yet, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 5-4 last month that corporations are akin to individual people. The court ruled corporations should therefore have the right to spend as much money as they want to influence elections.
From past experience we know this is a bad idea. In the late 19th century, corporations virtually owned the U.S. Congress. It was no secret. They paid for and arranged the election of many members of Congress and, in return, they expected those representatives and senators to vote as they were directed.
From past experience we know this is a bad idea.
This permitted corporations to create monopolies and oligopolies. The sugar trust, the copper trust, the steel trust and other collusive arrangements existed. Regulations were evaded. Pollution and poisons killed countless numbers of people.
The power of money remains far too influential on Capitol Hill to this day. It is not difficult at all to trace corporate contributions to members of Congress to their voting records. Follow the money trail and you will see that our elected officials are all too beholden to the power of money.
The prophet Amos spoke against those merchants who “sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals.” Psalm 15 defines upright persons as those who “…stand by their oath even to their hurt … and do not take a bribe against the innocent.”
If politicians are to focus on the well-being of the people and the nation, they must be able to depend on public financing that would take government away from special interests and return it to the people.
Money, you see, equals free speech.
The Supreme Court has already ruled that individuals can spend as much as they want on their own political campaigns. Money, you see, equals free speech.
That reminds me of the old story from West Virginia when the billionaire John D. Rockefeller IV ran for the U.S. Senate against Gov. Arch Moore. A popular bumper sticker read, “Make him spend it all, Arch.”
The rich and powerful always concoct reasons why they should have prerogatives not available to others. Kings argue they have a divine right to do what they want. The wealthy would have us believe that through their beneficence riches will “trickle down” eventually to the poor.
The Supreme Court decision defies common sense.
The Supreme Court decision defies common sense. In his dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens pointed out that corporations are not people. Corporations should not be permitted to spend whatever money they want to influence elections. Neither should individuals or interest groups. We need elections to be played on an level field.
The United Methodist Church has long supported campaign finance reform. Our highest policy-making body, the General Conference has been calling for campaign finance reform since 1996. It approved a resolution in 2008 that specifically calls for strengthening campaign finance reform laws. The resolution, “Pathways to Economic Justice,” calls for laws “that prevent corporations and special interest groups from dominating elections and the legislative process.”
Our denomination’s efforts to fight the power of predatory gambling, alcohol and tobacco interests have long been thwarted by the fantastic sums of money those enterprises pour into the campaign coffers of politicians.
Fortunately, although they are treated as individuals, corporations don’t vote. We do. Politicians know that. We have to encourage them to do the right thing. Right now, that means contacting them in support of the “Fair Elections Now Act” (S. 752 and H.R. 1826). The Supreme Court has made an egregious error in its ruling. It is crucial to encourage your members of Congress to rectify that error through strengthening laws that will level the playing field for all of us.
Editor’s note: More than 200 faith leaders representing diverse religions sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., this week urging passage of the Fair Elections Now Act.” You can read about their effort in this issue of Faith in Action, at “Pass Fair Elections Now Act”. Date: 2/5/2010
Great web app to make your own absurd signs – help lampoon the Westboro loons!
Absurd Sign Generator at ‘GodHatesSigns.com
Killer funny animation. Long, too. Hat tip to Bifurcated Rivets.
Long ago, like yesterday
she warned me
“You’ll miss me
when I’m gone”
Now the grief lies frozen
beneath my feet
till something breaks it
and casts me in
All the strength I took from her
washes away in a moment
the icy knowledge crashing in
that I will hear her no more
Small silences loom large
stopping my voice
the silence bursting with absence
of a love that defined my life
The days pass
the sun keeps rising
the ice seems thicker
and safer to walk across
The pain stays the same
fewer cracks in the ice
the truth still beneath my feet
just a little further away.
MDW 11/98
For Marilyn
on the loss of her mother
The Word from Winkler – News and Views from the United Methodist Board of Church and Society. – Word from Winkler
My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better.”
—South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer (R) (The Greenville News, Jan. 25)
I prefer to think of impoverished people as sacred children of God. I read this stunningly uncharitable and unChristian statement several days after reading a posting on a United Methodist Web site that counseled people how and why not to give money to poor people who may approach on the street.
Surely, these are not among those he wants to stop feeding.
In Lt. Gov. Bauer’s own state, 58% of South Carolina school children participate in the free or reduced-price lunch program. Surely, these are not among those he wants to stop feeding.
One of The United Methodist Church’s focus areas is ministry with the poor. Many of our congregations support ministries for impoverished people. I doubt any of them withhold food in order to hold down the population, though.
When times get tough economically, some people always search for a reason to punish the poor. Years ago, the Reagan administration attempted unsuccessfully to classify packets of ketchup as vegetables in an effort to reduce school lunches for impoverished children.
The unfortunate news just arrived that President Obama intends in his “State of the Union” address to recommend no additional money be given to programs that help impoverished people. He’s also squeezing money to education, health and human services, housing and urban development, agriculture, environmental protection, national parks, nutrition and other non-defense spending.
At a time of great need, those in need will have to do without.
The military machine, as always, will be fed. Wars must go on. The merchants of death must receive their due. Regretfully, there will be scant opposition in Congress to the continually growing military budget. Anyone who questions money for war risks being portrayed as soft on terrorism, a charge that frightens many elected officials.
Lt. Gov. Bauer tried to clarify his faux pas by stating he just wants to end the “culture of dependency.” Me, too: I want to see an end to our dependency on military spending and violent solutions to solve problems.
Money spent on nutrition, education, and health and human needs is a wise use of our resources. Well-fed and well-cared for children and adults are more productive and valuable to society. Let’s care for all of God’s creatures.
Date: 1/27/2010
©2010
Screamingly funny twist on Casey at the Bat.
From the comments at Wired.com’s live coverage of the Apple event
“Jobs at the Bat”
by Daren Gray
(as largely thefted from Ernest Lawrence Thayer)
.
The Outlook wasn’t brilliant for the older tech that day:
The score stood ten to one against, with but one inning more to play.
And then when Kindle died at first, and Nook did the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.
.
A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, if only Jobs could get but a whack at that -
We’d put up even money now, and possibly our cat.
.
But first some stuff about that phone, and more of AT&T
And the former was a lulu and the latter an atrocity;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Jobs getting out of that.
.
But soon the music swelled and to the wonderment of all,
To ringing chords of Coldplay came Jobs into the hall
And when the dust had lifted, and the men saw what had occurred,
There was Jobs upon the stage, and Ballmer flipped him the bird.
.
Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through the building, it rattled down at Dell;
It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Jobs, mighty Jobs, was advancing to the… WHAT THE F*** IS THAT?!
.
There was ease in Jobs’ manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Jobs’ bearing and a smile on Jobs’ face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lofted high the gizmo,
No fanboy in the crowd could hold their ever-building jizzmo.
.
Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with balm;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped it on his palm.
Then while the writhing members ground their hands into their hips,
Defiance gleamed in Jobs’ eye, a sneer curled Jobs’ lips.
.
And now his withered old man finger came whizzing cross the screen,
And Jobs stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur keen.
Close by the sturdy CEO the clock unheeded sped -
”That ain’t my style,” said Jobs. “Strike one,” a critic said.
.
From the aisles, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore.
“Kill him! Kill the blasphemer!” shouted someone on the stand;
And its likely they’d a-killed him had not Jobs raised his hand.
.
With a smile of Christian charity great Jobs’ visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the show go on;
He signaled to the projector, and once more the hype did flew;
But Jobs still ignored it, and the critic said, “Strike two.”
.
“Fraud!” cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered fraud;
But one scornful look from Jobs and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Jobs wouldn’t let that moment pass again.
.
The sneer is gone from Jobs’ lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence the tablet on his pate.
And now the critic holds his tongue, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Jobs’ blow.
.
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children tweet;
There is no joy in Redmond, but, MAN… this tablet’s sweet!
#
Posted by: daren_gray | 01/27/10 | 2:13 am
Hat tip to Daring Fireball – always useful.
What I Hope Apple Unleashes Tomorrow
I refuse to excerpt from this wonderful article.
Go read it. Derek Powazek. Add to aggregator.
