3.31.2005
Look At My Striped Shirt
P.S. - check out some of the other classic articles like, "I Have A Black Friend" and "Jesus Hairdo Not Worth the Trouble".
It's Pretty Much My Favorite Animal
In what local zoologists are calling a miracle, a Bengalese tiger has given birth to a healthy tiger-lion cub at a Novosibirsk zoo.
The cub is a cross between the female Bengalese tiger and an African lion. The animal resembled a lion cub except that it had stripes, and has been dubbed a “liger”, the Russian Information Agency Novosti reported.
“This was not the result of a scientific experiment,” Novosti quoted zoo director Rostislav Shilo as saying. “It’s just that the lion and the tiger live in neighboring caves in the Novosibirsk zoo, and got used to each other. It’s practically impossible in the wild.”
Shilo said that the “miracle cub” was christened Zita, and will remain in the zoo. But what will happen to the cub in the future, “no one can say”.
3.29.2005
Oh Crap
PRAGUE, Czech Republic - A Czech tractor driver died under eight tons of manure in a bizarre accident that has baffled his employers, local media reported.
The 34-year old man, identified only as Martin T., suffocated after the load fell on him while he was dumping it in a field near the western Czech city of Karlovy Vary, news web site reported on Sunday. “It absolutely beats me how this could happen,” said Vladimir Erps, chief of the company employing the victim.
“The truck is operated from the tractor cabin, using hydraulics. There was nothing for him to do under the truck, but it’s tough to blame him now that he is dead,” the news site quoted him as saying.
Police are investigating the death as a work-related accident.
3.27.2005
The Vision of the Living
The Living see beyond themselves and their own desires.
The Living see the basic needs and hopes of others as the same as their own.
The Living know that even “dead men walking” can turn away from death toward life.
The Living recognize and practice a “community of life.”
The Living know good and evil tendencies are in every human being.
The Living practice repentance and forgiveness.
The Living are peacemakers.
The Living seek justice for all.
The Living are informed by history.
The Living see beyond their generation into the future.
The Living seek the same opportunity for others that they seek for themselves.
The Living respect, conserve, and share the resources of the Earth.
The Living serve the spirit of love.
The Living would rather build than destroy.
The Living seek truth instead of lies and illusions.
The Living choose trust over suspicion.
The Living celebrate life:
In the smile of a child,
In the loving touch of hands,
In the sharing of food and drink,
In the healing of the sick,
In the unique quality of each individual person,
In shared laughter,
In shared work,
In the beauty and sternness of nature,
In song, dance, and story.
Why I Stopped Going to Church
There is much talk today about an emergent church, one that is more authentic, relational, liquid, culturally relevant, organic and missional. This is a church that works for nonbelievers, where unnecessary barriers of traditional church are removed, via alternative worship gatherings, while at the same time integrating the spiritual in the warp and woof of everyday existence, by practicing the Divine Hours, for example. This is encouraging. But in too many cases, these postmodern alternatives confuse the symptom for the cause. The church is still conceived as another structure, albeit sacred, along side those of family, work, neighborhood, education, etc. The church is an add-on to real life in the world.
The biblical notion of church, the “ekklesia,” however, is far more radical. It is a community that is called out, called together and called forth—a community in which the presence of the risen Christ transforms existence itself. Church is the locus of Christ’s ongoing work of reconciliation and redemption, where people exhibit a new way of living together as an expression of their new life in Christ. Church is not about what gets proclaimed by a preacher or taught by an instructor. It’s not just songs, sacraments and ceremonies. The church is what gets lived out in daily life by a people who bind themselves together to live for God’s kingdom of unity, justice and peace.
3.26.2005
a handshake of carbon monoxide
No Surprises
A heart that's full up like a landfill,
a job that slowly kills you,
bruises that won't heal.
You look so tired-unhappy,
bring down the government,
they don't, they don't speak for us.
I'll take a quiet life,
a handshake of carbon monoxide,
with no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises,
Silent silence.
This is my final fit,
my final bellyache,
with no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises please.
Such a pretty house and such a pretty garden.
No alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises please.
3.22.2005
Find-A-Human
As more and more companies turn to automated computers to handle consumers' questions, one Web site shows you how to bypass the annoying messages and speak right with a person.
QuickBase.com's Find-A-Human service lists toll-free phone numbers for dozens of companies and tells you what numbers to dial to reach a live customer service rep.
For example, when you call American Airlines press zero twice, then say "agent." If you have questions about your T-Mobile bill, just dial your phone number.
HIPSTER BINGO
3.19.2005
Speechless
Excuse me while I go puke.
3.17.2005
You're Breaking Your Mother(Earth)'s Heart
Jeremiah 12:4
How long will the ground be dry and the pasturelands parched?
The birds and animals are dead and gone.
And all of this happened because the people are so sinful.
They even brag, "God can't see the sins we commit."
But big oil has been greedily devouring the lands surrounding this virgin wilderness area, turning them into an industrial site riddled with scores of contaminated waste sites and daily pollution spills. And now, after using backdoor tactics disapproved of by the overwhelming majority of Americans, right wingers in the Senate and White House have set the stage for big oil to drill through the very "biological heart of this untamed wilderness," with the hope of drilling in other environmentally sensitive areas.
Drilling in the Arctic refuge "serves neither short-term demand … nor long-term national policy." After the decade or longer it will take to begin oil production on the land, the United States Geological Service estimates the amount technically recoverable and economically profitable to recover "represents less than a year's U.S. supply." At the height of production, "the refuge would produce a paltry 1 or 2 percent of Americans' daily consumption." Tire changes and updated fuel efficiency standards could individually save more oil than is likely to be found in the refuge.
(UPDATE) Bono For President
President Bush yesterday surprised the world with his announcement that he was nominating Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to be the next president of the World Bank. The World Bank is a 184-country institution that "has always operated by consensus." The president of the World Bank must be adept at forging international cooperation and building global compromise. Wolfowitz is a strange choice; at the Department of Defense, he was known for his go-it-alone attitude. His single-minded drive to invade Iraq and blatant disregard for building an international coalition before the war enraged and alienated much of Europe.
3.14.2005
I Am Jack's Smirking Revenge
I must preface this post with, I am experiencing one of the most frustrating and stressful periods of recent memory. I must have forgotten to pay my utility bill, because the light at the end of tunnel has been shut off.
Here's the story.
I am minding my business, trying to decompress on the way home from work. I am gliding down the hill on 10th St heading towards my garage on Wyandotte when a car races up behind me, gets right on my bumper and begins to honk the horn repeatedly. I cannot figure who is doing this or why they are doing this, but it is really starting to piss me off.
So, I turn the corner on Wyandotte (busy intersection at 5:30pm mind you). I begin to slow down and steer to the side of the road. The car racing behind me like a lunatic does the same, the driver storms out of his car, slams the door, and marches toward my car. I step out of my car and can't imagine what this guy wants.
This is where it starts to get good (I guess).
I get out of the car and the guy begins a professional cursing tirade. He called me names that I had forgotten anyone uses anymore. I asked him to calm the "freak" down and explain what his problem is. With flailing arms and beady eyes, he begins to give me some story about me driving past him and my side mirror 'nicking' his side mirror. He goes on and on and on and on about this, becoming louder and crazier by the second.
At this point not only I am starting to really feel the full effects of an emotionally draining and down right horrible 7-day stretch of my life, I am beginning to get annoyed and super pissed at this guy for accusing me of something I didn't do and wasting my time.
After I told him I didn't know what he was talking about and asked him to calm the "freak" down (for the 400th time), that is when "IT" happened. I am still not sure what "IT" was. I have never experienced "IT", but "IT" was real ! ! !
This guy steps right up to my face, nose to nose (mind you in the middle of a busy intersection), stabs his finger into my chest and say's "I ought to kick your ass ".
I snapped. Snapped. It was a David Banner moment.
All I remember at this point is him re-engaging in his professional cursing tirade, screaming at the top of his lungs, threatening to break every bone in my body; yet I really couldn't hear him (ala - Peanuts school teacher).
I just stood there; fists clinched, teeth grinding, eyes as big as tractor tires, pupils dilated, a psychotic smile stretching from ear to ear, slightly bouncing up and down, mumbling "oh yea, oh yea, oh yea, oh yea, oh yea" like Rain Man.
At this point we are nose to nose, him screaming, me bug eyed and smiling, both of us ready to throw down. I know "IT'S" going to happen and I am more than ready ! ! !
OK, short story even shorter, nothing happened. I eventually got back into my car and drove off.
For about an hour after this episode, my adrenaline was pumping in overdrive, I was shaking. It took the loving comfort of my awesome wife to eventually calm me down and bring me back to some semblance of sanity.
What is "IT" ? I have never experienced "IT". "IT" is not really a part of my character, is it ? I never would have thought I would have ever been in a situation like this. Standing in the middle of an intersection . . . waiting to fight. What is that ? ? ?
Again, I have had a miserable week, miserable. I am carrying a load of stress and aggravation (I might go in to details once this stuff ends), but am I really capable of hurting someone ? This is so scary to me, the "nonviolent/(quasi)pacifist guy" wanting to crack skulls ?
What happened ? What is happening in me ? Oh Lord help me.
3.13.2005
New Age of Prepackaged Television News
New York Times
By David Barstow and Robin Stein
It is the kind of TV news coverage every president covets.
"Thank you, Bush. Thank you, U.S.A.," a jubilant Iraqi-American told a camera crew in Kansas City for a segment about reaction to the fall of Baghdad. A second report told of "another success" in the Bush administration's "drive to strengthen aviation security"; the reporter called it "one of the most remarkable campaigns in aviation history." A third segment, broadcast in January, described the administration's determination to open markets for American farmers.
To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government produced all three. The report from Kansas City was made by the State Department. The "reporter" covering airport safety was actually a public relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration. The farming segment was done by the Agriculture Department's office of communications.
Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production.
This winter, Washington has been roiled by revelations that a handful of columnists wrote in support of administration policies without disclosing they had accepted payments from the government. But the administration's efforts to generate positive news coverage have been considerably more pervasive than previously known. At the same time, records and interviews suggest widespread complicity or negligence by television stations, given industry ethics standards that discourage the broadcast of prepackaged news segments from any outside group without revealing the source.
3.12.2005
The Future of Food Revisited
The documentary offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade. It also explored the complex web of market and political forces that are changing what we eat as huge multinational corporations seek to control the world's food system and alternatives to large-scale industrial agriculture, placing organic and sustainable agriculture as real solutions to the farm crisis today.
A significant portion of the film featured an in-depth look into the fields and farmers of Oaxaca, Mexico and the Mexican governments refusal to allow genetically engineered seeds into their country. Food is sacred to the Mexican heritage and maintaining its integrity and purity is of utmost importance to their culture no matter how much money is offered from U.S. corporations to infiltrate their crops with genetically modified seeds . . . until a few weeks ago.
On February 15, the Mexican government voted to legalize genetically engineered (GE) crops. Up until now, GE crops have been banned in the country in order to keep GE contamination away from what is the world's most diverse, important, and pure collection of maize (corn) varieties. Although surveys reveal the vast majority of Mexican citizens oppose the legalization of GE crops, intense pressure from the U.S. eventually won over. Monsanto, which owns the patents and distribution rights to 91% of GE seeds in the world, is now one of the leading advertisers in Mexico, second only to Coca-Cola.
This is devastating.
A few days ago I come across an article from Bruderhof, In Pursuit of Happiness : The Cost of Prosperity and the Future of Agriculture, which further expounded on this very theme of community sustainability. Here is an excerpt:
Equally important and equally troublesome, the industrialization of agriculture has disconnected people from the earth. We are still as dependent upon the earth, upon farmland, for our physical survival as when all people were hunters and gathers. Our dependence is less direct and our connections more complex, but human life is still critically connected to life in the soil and to the farmers who help nurture life from the soil. With industrialization, farmers came to rely on commercial chemicals rather than the natural health and fertility of the land. These agrichemicals now threaten the natural productivity of the soil, and pollute the natural environment. Perhaps more important, the productivity of industrial agriculture now depends upon non-renewable sources of energy, rather than the self-renewing photosynthetic capacity of living organisms. Such an agricultural system is fundamentally incapable of sustaining human life on earth. In our pursuit of wealth, we have sacrificed our ethical and moral responsibility to the Creator to be good stewards of the earth.
3.11.2005
God Is Dead
I of course, would never deny you.
At least not in my former life when you walked with me
Side by side
Like best friends laughing along a beach,
A shoulder to cry on,
Someone to eat with,
And join in your passionate mission with all the zeal of youth.
That was until you changed,
Said goodbye,
Said you had somewhere to go
And said that I, yes I, would leave you.
But no, not me.
Now I see,
It was me who killed you.
Not the religious types, or the political types
Or anyone else for that matter
But me.
I killed you like I killed ladybirds as a child
Trapping them in jam jars
Trying to make them a home with a childish fistful of mud,
A few blades a grass,
Some daisies and a buttercup.
I killed you with the fancies of my philosophy
Trying to make a home for you in my mind
Containing you in my thoughts
Until you suffocated and died.
Like a dead flower crushed between the pages
Of my weighty sacred text
All that remains of you
Is a fragile skeleton,
A dried-out shadow of a former life,
The fragments of you crumbling in my hand..
I never noticed when you flapped your wings
Like a rare and beautiful butterfly
Trying to escape through the grimy windows of a deserted cathedral,
Driving yourself into a frenzy
Until I caught you,
Stretched open your wings and pinned them down
Inside a plastic box and put you on display.
Your still, faded, dead little body,
Merely hinting at a life you once knew.
So now, this is my God.
Dead.
Yet waiting, waiting for the resurrection,
When you will appear and eat with me again
As though you were as real as I am
And then disappearing through walls
As though you were a phantom.
Surprising me as you crawl over my skin like a ladybird
Then fly away as soon as I notice you and think I have you in my hand.
Dancing with fresh luscious flowers,
Sprending subtle fragances in the warm summer breeze,
Darting through the air like butterflies with brilliant flashes of vibrant colour.
Too broad for me to get a hold of,
Too far away for me to touch,
Yet surrounding me, containing me in the expanse of creation,
Embracing me with touches of human kindness
Breathing on me in the gentle wind,
Astounding me with beauty at every turn.
Never again would you submit to my religion,
Never again would you live in my jam jar mind,
Never again would you allow me to show you off,
For that God is dead,
Dead, gone and buried.
"I will believe in the Redeemer when the Christian looks a little more redeemed"-- Nietzshe
3.09.2005
W.J.W.D.
Editor's Note: The following is an edited excerpt from Jim Wallis' new book, God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It.
Excerpt: Much of the religious right's agenda is in direct contradiction to Christ's own teachings – and most devout Christians know it.
The hardest saying of Jesus and perhaps the most controversial in our post–Sept. 11 world must be: “Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.” Let’s be honest: How many churches in the United States have heard sermons preached from either of these Jesus texts in the years since America was viciously attacked on that world-changing September morning in 2001? Shouldn’t we at least have a debate about what the words of Jesus mean in the new world of terrorist threats and pre-emptive wars?
Christ commands us to not only see the splinter in our adversary’s eye but also the beams in our own, which often obstruct our own vision. To name the face of evil in the brutality of terrorist attacks is good theology, but to say they are evil and we are good is bad theology that can lead to dangerous foreign policy. Christ instructs us to love our enemies, which does not mean a submission to their hostile agendas or domination, but does mean treating them as human beings also created in the image of God and respecting their human rights as adversaries and even as prisoners. The words of Jesus are either authoritative for Christians, or they are not. And they are not set aside by the very real threats of terrorism. The threat of terrorism does not overturn Christian ethics.
3.07.2005
All Hail To The Kings
who are :
- the son's of a former alcoholic pentecostal evangelist
- the opening band for U2 during their upcoming fall tour
- one of the best hard rockin bands to come around in some time (#1 on the U.K. rock charts )
the answer . . . Kings Of Leon.
I was fortunate to be able to experience these vigorous young lads from Tennessee last night at the Beaumont Club. Though the lead singers voice gave out after 4 songs and had to end the show just an hour into it, they more than made up for a lack of quantity with their skull splitting, chest cavity breaking rock-n-roll. These guys are good, real good. I can’t imagine a night of them and U2; the sweet chariot can take me home after that.
"The Kings of Leon are my new f * * * ing favorite band" - Noel Gallagher, drunk guy in Oasis.
3.03.2005
Lent and 'Pop' Theology
At that moment I recognized my willingness to not only fill my body with a substance of nutritional detriment, but to actually pay Mr. Coca-Cola for the self-destructive opportunity. It felt in every way like a matter of dignity. I was repulsed by the bottle in my hand. If I was making a donation of $1.39 to Mr. Coca-Cola in exchange for his plastic-packaged froth, he was smarter than I. I felt that change was not only possible, it was inevitable.
The decision to give up something for Lent had been made for me. It happened before guilt or duty had even stated their nagging case. The motivational force was other, and stronger. The forces of my inner universe placed the value of dignity squarely above the value of fizz. I would abstain from big-name soda (i.e., Coke and Pepsi products), and I knew that after Lent there would be little reason to revert to the carbonated ways of old.
What emerged from my experience was the realization of Lent as a liturgical antidote to consumer stress and excess.
I do not imply here that people who drink Mountain Dew or Dr. Pepper are bereft of moral fortitude. We are all indictable on multiple counts of less-than-noble consumption, and likewise all worthy of boundless grace regardless of our shopping habits.
About Me
- Name: doug
- Location: KC:MO:USA:EARTH
father. son. brother. husband. friend. boss. subordinate. teacher. student. wise. foolish. empathic. self-absorbed. protester. supporter. idealist. realist. unconscious. alive.
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