Archives for June, 2006

New home for Urban Onramps

Rudy Carrasco, one of the first emerging church bloggers, along with me, Andrew Jones, and Karen Ward has a new home at Wordpress.com.  I like his template and of course, Rudy can write with the best of them.  I am not sure why he chose WordPress.com but in addition to people like Robert Scoble, Wendy has been really happy with them and they seem to be rolling out new features on a weekly basis.

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06/30/2006 | blogging | No Comments

Verdun and the Somme

I have been watching and rewatching Julian Thompson’s The Battle of Verdun and The Battle of the Somme on the History Channel.  My history of WWI is a little weak outside of Vimy Ridge and the Battle of Jutland so I sat down to watch.  Mark is always curious about war documentries so he watched along with me.  The most shocking thing about those documentries are the casualties number.  Juilian Thompson commanded the Third Commando Brigade in the Falklands War and he flat out said, you had to keep casualty numbers down to keep the support of the folks at hom.  These are the casualties for the Battle of the Somme (146,431 dead Allied troops and 623,907 total casualties, about the same again for the Germans) and these are the numbers for the Battle of Verdun (378,000; of whom 120,000 dead - again, about the same for the Germans)  Toss in Gallipoli (252,000 for the Allies and about the same for the Ottomons), Passchendaele (448,000 Allied deaths and about 260,000 German deaths) and already mind boggling numbers get even bigger.  If you have a chance to watch either documentry, both are well worth your time (as are the reading of some of these links).

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06/30/2006 | Uncategorized | No Comments

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06/29/2006 | Contextless Links, sports | No Comments

Traded for some rolls of sock tape

When I was in high school, there was a career day and one of the options was becoming a pro-athelete.  Now who doesn’t want to be a pro-athelete when they are 17 so of course I went to the seminar that was done by my football coach, Algebra teacher, and former CFL defensive back.
 
Anyways, he told his story about being drafted in the first round, going to his tryout, getting cut and then told that the coach thought he was someone else and that he made the team (a real self-esteem booster), playing a couple of years, the smell of Ivor Wynne Stadium, and then getting traded to the Calgary Stampeders for a box of sock tape.  At that moment the room of teenage atheletes were completely quiet as he voice broke and he described the obvious decision to retire.
 
Of course this has nothing to do with the NBA draft that was just held but I wonder which will be the first player of this draft to be considered worth a bunch of sock tape.
 
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06/29/2006 | sports | No Comments

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06/28/2006 | Contextless Links, sports, technology | No Comments

Worst GM Ever

I have this feeling that 20 years from now, Mark and I will be debating whether or not Isaiah Thomas was the worst general manager of a major league sports team ever.  To deal with his doubts, I will tell him to read this article by the AP’s Jim Kitke.

A few guys who owned teams in the Continental Basketball Association bet on Thomas’ acumen once, making him the commissioner, and all that remains of that investment turns up in sports memorabilia auctions on eBay. Owners of NBA teams in Toronto and Indiana did, too, and the only souvenirs Thomas left behind were forwarding addresses.

When he landed in New York, it seemed impossible anyone could run the franchise worse than Scott Layden had. But credit Thomas with exceeding expectations at least once in his managerial career.

When the Toronto Raptors can get you to take Jalen Rose, you know you have a problem.  Your suggestion for worst GM of all time?

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06/28/2006 | sports | 7 Comments

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  • Ever wonder what that black area in some baseball stadiums (like the Rogers Centre and Yankee Stadium) is for?  It is the Batter’s Eye.
  • Mark finishes kindergarten
  • Anglican church to split? :: The spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion raised the prospect of division yesterday, with those opposed to homosexual clergy and the blessing of gay unions forming “associated” or “constituent” churches.  “There is no way in which the Anglican Communion can remain unchanged by what is happening at the moment,” said Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. “Neither the liberal nor the conservative can simply appeal to a historic identity that doesn’t correspond with where we now are.”  Archbishop Williams’ comments came in an address to all bishops, clergy and followers in the 77-million-strong Anglican Communion, where the debate continues to rage over the ordination of gay clergy and church blessings for same-sex couples.
  • Wendy crushed Hutch’s self esteem
  • Marketing to Christians a human rights issue?
  • Slate exposes the fault lines in the religious left :: If a viable religious left is going to emerge to balance the religious right, as the Democrats desperately hope it will, two men will be critical to the effort: Michael Lerner, the garrulous rabbi and editor of the interfaith magazine Tikkun, and Rev. Jim Wallis, the barrel-chested evangelical editor of Sojourners magazine and head of the anti-poverty group Call to Renewal. Despite their many shared goals, the two offer disparate visions of what the religious left must do to succeed politically—so different, in fact, that they may be incompatible.
  • Has Senator Rick Santorum ever read the Bible? :: The biblical case against abortion is inferential. The Bible doesn’t speak directly to the topic. It lays out some principles - sacredness of life, humanity of the unborn - that lead to the conclusion that abortion is not permitted. It’s the same with stem cells, child tax credits, faith-based social services, etc.  Immigration is different. The Bible is explicit. In the Torah, Moses commanded, “Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt.”  The Bible is unabashedly pro-immigrant. The argument is simple: You were immigrants in Egypt, and you didn’t like being mistreated, so now that you have your own country, you should treat immigrants compassionately. It’s basically the Golden Rule: Treat people the way you used to want to be treated when you were in Egypt.

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06/28/2006 | Contextless Links, politics, sports | 3 Comments

A young Hacksaw Jim Duggin in the making

This is for Mark, who was looking at my blog and observed, “There isn’t enough pictures of me on your blog.”

Mark doing a pretty good Hacksaw Jim Duggin's impersonation.

There you go.  This comes from a bunch of photos I took for Wendy leading up to Mother’s Day.

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06/27/2006 | photography | 2 Comments

Is Wal-Mart Good for America (or Canada?)

An ongoing e-mail conversation between Jason Furman and Barbara Ehrenreich in Slate.
 
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06/27/2006 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Piling on

USA Today’s Ian O’Conner takes on the New York Knicks owner, James Dolan.

In Dolan’s world, image isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. Charles Dolan, reclusive Cablevision czar, wrote a letter to The New York Times to defend an heir who had come under siege from columnists, fans and cyber-rebels. Dolan wrote of how his boy was busy “offering the nation’s best-selling cable, phone and Internet services,” or three different ways to watch or listen as Stephon Marbury blows a three-on-one fast break.

The father’s letter did the son no favors, not when the son is desperate to shed his image (that word again) as a hopeless silver-spooned prince. James Dolan is trying to connect with the less fortunate masses as lead singer of the blues band, JD and the Straight Shot. People hear him sing and tell him to give up his day job, but the advice has nothing to do with his voice.

The website selltheknicks.com is trying to arrange an anti-Dolan march on the NBA Draft. It won’t work. If nothing else, Dolan is as stubborn as the season is long.

He claimed Monday that Brown only intended to coach one season in New York, not five, so he’s making Larry Legend go to David Stern to get the $40 million owed him. Not only won’t Dolan sell the team or fire the executive who shaped it - Thomas - Dolan will double Isiah’s responsibilities and sink more money into a franchise weighed down by absurd contracts, sexual-harassment allegations and a championship drought that might someday make the Red Sox proud.

Truth is, it only seems like yesterday when Fenway’s current guests, the Mets, could lay claim to the worst owner in town. Then Fred Wilpon hired Omar Minaya, who hired Willie Randolph, and - voila - the Mets are looking World Series sound.

Dolan has to get that kind of lucky. He’s got to get as lucky as George Steinbrenner did when he hired the thrice-fired Joe Torre against his better judgment.

What is it with New York City that makes owners of professional sports teams so stupid?

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06/27/2006 | sports | No Comments

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06/27/2006 | Contextless Links, sports | 1 Comment

To Own a Dragon

As I mentioned here, I am reading To Own a Dragon by Don Miller.  It is a book of his reflections on growing up without a father.  Some of our experiences are the same, others are different.  To blog about them here is something that I have put some thought into as I don’t want to antagonize the Cooper part of the family.  What I will say is that I shared Miller’s feeling of being absolutely worthless after my dad left.  For years I blamed myself for him leaving.  On top of my dad leaving, my grandfather died a couple of years later and his second wife and the only grandmother I knew, contested his will and severed the relationship there.  My mom was an only child and so in three years we had lost all connections with every bit of family I had.  It was lonely growing up and like Miller, I felt like I was burden on life.
 
For me, the church was both a place of rejection and support.  In the 80’s, the evangelical church wasn’t sure what to do with people who were divorced other than condemn them but there are always those that can’t tow the party line and who constantly fed back to me that I was here for something great.  I don’t know if it was them making stuff up or if it was something they saw in me but it was enough of a voice to challenge that inner voice that told me that I had no worth.  It was a voice that came from a lot of different people and even when I was a dark and angry teen, it was still there.
 
That voice rang the loudest in Rev. Leroy Nicholls, a former pastor of mine.  Rev. Nicholls was from Barbados, pronounces Psalms as “Sams” and his dad walked out on him.  I remember talking to him about it and thinking that despite the pain, his life was normal.  He lived in a bi-level house down the street, had two sons, married, and was into sports.  I remember one Sunday night during the World Series when his favorite team was playing.  During the sermon, his son came in and put a piece of paper discreetly on the pulpit.  We later found out it was the score.  I watched some great sports games with others in their basement.  He was also one of the first theologian/pastors I met and largely influenced me into being a pastor.  He also was the first to question my political belief that all Christians voted Conservative by having a NDP lawn sign on his lawn.
 
I wish I could say that it was a great relationship with God that brought me through.  It wasn’t.  I was so angry at God but my mom kept dragging me along to church.  Even on the fringes of those communities, I was exposed to some wonderful Christians who really cared, even if I kept pushing them away.  While individuals came and went, the church was there.  As I left high school and went off to Bible College, that need for whatever it was that dad’s give you kind of disappeared.  Around 8 years ago I tried to patch things up with my dad but by that time whatever bond that fathers and sons are supposed to have wasn’t there.  After the Flames, CFL, and weather, we didn’t have anything to talk about.  It all fell apart a couple of years after that and we haven’t talked since.  To be honest, I can’t see us talking ever again, there just isn’t anything to say.
 
Don Miller mentions a lot of time the idea of understanding fatherhood and the love of God once you have your own child.  I don’t know about that.  I know that I understand somethings better now that Mark is born but that the same time, my dad obviously never got it.  The other day I was thinking about this and Mark kept interrupting me to play Frisbee with him and Maggi.  I’ll take that over an answer any day.
 
I’ll post some more on the book later on.
 
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06/26/2006 | politics | 1 Comment

My libary

Alan Creech started to post photos of his libary.  Last night while fighting with Kodak Easyshare, I needed some new pictures to see if it was working.  My shots are not that artistic but you kind find them all over here at flickr.

06/26/2006 | photography | 1 Comment

Elwin Hermanson won’t run again

Former leader of the Saskatchewan Party, Elwin Hermanson won’t run again.  I am just posting this today because several friends of ours know Hermanson personally and all of them talk about his honesty, work ethic, and integrity.  Politics is a little poorer when people like this decide not to run again.
“I had to decide whether I would forfeit an opportunity to sit on the government side for the first time in my political career, versus a nagging within my spirit that it was time for a change,” he said.
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06/26/2006 | Uncategorized | No Comments

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06/24/2006 | Contextless Links | No Comments

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