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The BBC is reporting about the rehab for killers program in Rwanda Ceremonies have been held across Rwanda to mark the opening of rehabilitation centres for people who admit taking part in the 1994 genocide.
Thousands of prisoners are being released from jail to go to the re-education centres and then back to their communities.
Prime Minister Bernard Makuza told one ceremony that the controversial policy was just the latest stage in the post-genocide justice process.
But the BBC's correspondent in Kigali, Ishbel Matheson, says human rights groups are concerned the move could simply undermine the slow process of justice.
Serious overcrowding in Rwandan jails was one factor behind the initiative, she says.
Up to a million people were killed over the course of 100 days in a government-orchestrated campaign aimed at eradicating the country's Tutsi minority.
The prisoner-release plan is being targeted at people who have confessed to lesser crimes, although our correspondent says these include murders which would be seen as horrific by normal standards. I can't see how releasing people who committed genocide into the public after a three week rehab course can be a good move. It seems to be minimizing and even accepting the racial division and hatred behind the crimes. I know there is no easy answer but this seems to be the worst possible approach.
One Year Ago Today...
My friend Kelly Graham was laid off from Lakeview Church. He blogged about the experience today. I don't ever say much about that day...but maybe it's time I did. It was awful. I was angry and confused and broken hearted and I felt betrayed. I loved the church and the job and the Upper Room and the people I got to work with and minister to. Some people don't know this but Brooke and I were going to go that night and meet with our realtor and make an offer to buy a house...exciting. Instead I had to tell my wife that I lost my job. I remember the day well. A couple other people were laid off from Lakeview that week. It seems a lot longer than a year ago. Being let go at a church is a lot different than a lot of other jobs. I think one invests more of themselves in a church context and to be cut of from that, is really hard. Kelly and Brooke have gone on from that to a great ministry in the Dominican Republic. I hung out with Kelly and Brooke at Christmas and I miss them a lot. Kelly and I had the worst hotel experience ever last summer (can't give out any details, too horrible) and I miss having him around. Along with Mike Gingerich, Kelly is one of the few people I know who can pull out obscure sports references to little known NFL quarterbacks that no one has ever heard of. I miss working with him and having him around Saskatoon a lot. Our friends Todd and Korina Peters are in the Dominican Republic visiting them for a couple of weeks (or longer). I wish I was there. Labels: Lakeview Church, Saskatoon
Dennis replies
Dennis used my list and blogged about #4 on yesterday's list. His wife Wilda left a really funny reply in his comments box that made both Wendy and I laugh. Labels: Wendy Cooper
Ideas to Blog to...
I was talking to Dennis Camplin today and as he was talking to me about what to blog about, I had to run. I decided to post a list of topics Dennis can write about on his blog.
1) How Jordon's preaching changed my life (or that have had to been rebuked)
2) Funeral wreaths I have tied to Gloria Reimer's car.
3) Inappropriate comments that made Gloria angry.
4) Church porches I have tied to my car to and then torn down.
5) Several ways to avoid making food for myself when my wife is away.
6) Bloggers I have worked with.
7) Ways Johnny Maxwell has changed my life.
8) Coffee Shops I have loved
9) V.E.T. meetings I have enjoyed
10) Cars I have bought and sold before Wilda even knew I had them. Labels: Blogger, blogging
Thanks for stopping by...
Just spent some time glancing at the log files of The Hockey Pundits and I noticed that most of the other major sports media outlets in Canada are reading us. Some people from ESPN are wandering by sometimes too. Most suprisingly are the hits that are coming from the offices of the United States Senate and Congress. It looks like a couple of congressional offices like to keep up to date with Hockey Pundits which is kind of cool because they aren't surfing the web on my tax dollar.
Hockey Pundits has kept growing through readers word of mouth. We have been helped with our friendly takeover of PuckHog, long regarded as one of the best written hockey blogs on the net. When I suggested it to John and Jeb, I suggested we go to the end of the Stanley Cup finals and see what happens after that but I can't any reason why we won't do it for at least another season. Labels: hockey
Wendy and I spent last night curled up in front of the television watching a great documentary on the Hope Diamond. The Smithsonian has it now and has some great information about it. We also watched a disturbing documentary about the contruction of the Three Gorges Dam. It will raise water levels by 77 stories and will flood the river valley which hope to over a million people and thousands of ancient sites of archeological interest. They will also lose thousand year old temples and buildings.
Facts from the Chinese Embassy
Overview of the Project from China Online. Talks of the criticism and the rebuttals about the project. Labels: Wendy Cooper
Hold off on the Viking Funeral
Our van's transmission was read its last rights today. After some serious consultation we are going to get it fixed. I can't sell it in good concious with a bad transmission and it is worthless if I tell someone. Lloyd's dealerships have nothing in stock right now that I can afford so to the repair shop it is.
Mike Todd post this site in response to my post about AIDS in Native Canadians. It is the B.C. Aboriginal HIV/AIDS Society. Some resources there on how to help.
Agh!
Someone stole my Palm III. Left it in the car for second while running in someplace. Came back and it was gone... (sob)
Johnny Baker has been posting these amazing worship tricks since he started his blog. I really like this one for prayer.
Canada's Native Population Hard Hit by Drugs, HIV
according to new study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal"At least in this particular area, the aboriginal people who use injection drugs are experiencing HIV infection rates that we wouldn't normally see even in sub-Saharan Africa," said study co-author Dr. Martin T. Schechter of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. "So we have a developing world situation right here in North America."
In the January 7 issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, the researchers report that among indigenous men and women an increased risk of becoming infected with HIV was associated with frequent cocaine injections and frequent speedball injections--the latter being a combination of cocaine and heroin.
Native Canadian women who went through periods during which they injected an illicit drug more often then usual--referred to as "bingeing"--were at higher risk for HIV infection, while a similarly elevated risk was seen among native Canadian men who frequently used heroin.
Schechter and his colleagues concluded that the Vancouver-based native Canadian population is at particularly high risk for HIV infection, given that injection drug use is known to be higher in this group than among non-natives.
Dr. Dixon is a noted futurist and global change guru (according to the WSJ). He talks about the post 9/11 world, cloning, and privacy. You can find it here. Labels: interviews
is doing something about AIDS and was a welcome part of the State of the Union address. Rudy asks the question, "Let's now think of some next steps in mobilizing our own people to be a part of the AIDS fight." As much as $15 billion is, it is a drop in the barrel if the church ever wakes up about the problem. My own thought is micro projects like building home at God's Golden Acre or attacking some of the economic problems by contributing to some micro projects that make huge differences for some villages and communities. I would love to get a list of organizations and websites that we can help out with. If you have one, leave it in the comments box below. I will start a list on the site on places where we can give money or support...
Ryan Hale left a comment about Living Water. There website says The world's number one killer is unsafe water. This killer takes the lives of more than 25,000 people each day and is responsible for 80% of all sickness in the world. Today, in developing countries, more than 1 billion people lack access to clean drinking water (World Health Organization, 2000). Jason Evans left another comment reminding me about God's Golden Acre. GGA is a great group and having had personal concact with what they're doing I can really vouch for what they're about. Anyone that would like more info about them can feel free to contact me. We're organizing a home building project w/ GGA in about 18 months for whoever wants to tag along. I have heard Heather Reynold's speak (the head of GGA) and Jason just spent some time in South Africa with them. GGA provides housing and support for those infected and orphaned by HIV/AIDS.
Mike Todd sends us to the Hope Initiative by World Vision and the One Life Revolution. Both a great resources. Labels: economics
Paul Krugman said this today in the New York Times and is an interesting look at the Enron scandal It was a shocking event. With incredible speed, our perception of the world and of ourselves changed. It seemed that before we had lived in a kind of blind innocence, with no sense of the real dangers that lurked. Now we had experienced a rude awakening, which changed everything.
No, I'm not talking about Sept. 11; I'm talking about the Enron scandal.
One of the great clich�s of the last few months was that Sept. 11 changed everything. I never believed that. An event changes everything only if it changes the way you see yourself. And the terrorist attack couldn't do that, because we were victims rather than perpetrators. Sept. 11 told us a lot about Wahhabism, but not much about Americanism.
The Enron scandal, on the other hand, clearly was about us. It told us things about ourselves that we probably should have known, but had managed not to see. I predict that in the years ahead Enron, not Sept. 11, will come to be seen as the greater turning point in U.S. society. Krugman is not the first to suggest that Enron and WorldCom may have a longer impact on American values then 9/11 did. It will be interesting to see.
It is WAY too difficult flying from Saskatoon or western Canada these days to the United States. I don't remember it being that hard when Canadian Airlines was still around. That and why do we pay way more than the American's for our airpoirt security surcharge?
Correction: Let me rephrase that. It is way to hard to fly from Saskatoon anywhere in this country. My favorite is flying the Air Canada turboprops to Calgary and Edmonton. I feel like I have gone back in time. Labels: Saskatoon
The CTV NewsNet commentators jumped all over this quote, "The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world; it is God's gift to humanity." An interesting glimpse of how the American people view themselves. The CTV crew wasn't very complimentary to that part of his speech but as some commentators said, he wasn't talking to Canada. Fair enough.
Interesting Update: Some Canadian television talking heads are saying that W. said, "America is God's gift to humanity". I listened to that part of the talk and read the transcript and he did not say that. I don't agree with the statement but we don't need to misquote him to make it say something he didn't. The most interesting commentary I saw came from CNN when they said that the Democrats applauded some points to make their own political point. According to the talking heads, the Republicans do it when a Democrat is talking. It is a finer point of politics that I missed completely. Then again, maybe it is because they were clapping for an American audience and not a Canadian one (hey it made sense when Bush was talking) Labels: politics
The Acts of the Eyebrow FM Church
The Eyebrow Free Methodist Church is a small rural church that is by Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Like all people in western Canada they heard of our drought a little further north and how hard it was to get feed to take care of cattle. They got together a semi-load of round bales and gave it to the farmers in our church. A couple of the people from the church drove down and picked it up and delivered it to one of the farmers that wasn't sure if he had enough feed to last the winter. It was a huge relief to a couple of families and an answer to many prayers. I hope we never have to repay it (in other words I hope they are drought free for a long time) but if we do, we most definately will. A lot of people have been talking about the Canadians Food Grain bank when we get some rain again so hopefully that load of feed will be multiplied again and again around the world. Labels: Free Methodist
PrairieFusion's site is getting closer to being launched
Jeb and Leighton came over last night and Jeb had created some mockups for the site. This could become on of the best looking and sharpest designed sites on the web. Of course I am biased but Jeb has really outdone himself with the design. The new logo looks amazing and I think Leighton and I will provide some excellent content. It is an exciting project.
...the championship of the world
I read this of off Karen Neudorf's blog - catching 10 minutes of the Super Bowl and thinking how impossible it was to parody this. One of the announcers actually said "They've got to get serious. This is for the Championship of the World!" All those football teams from Brazil and Japan and Kenya must have really got their asses kicked on the way to this great world championship. and I had to laugh. Every person I talked to in the last couple of days who saw any of that game all commented on Madden's quote. If John Madden is reading this, "America does not equal the world". Just to help you clear that up.
It was brought up over spicy soup today that Bon Jovi had the best gig of them all. They get paid, flown to the Super Bowl, get to watch the entire game and then go and sing a couple of songs at the end when no one really cares what is going on. Sounds like a good job if you can get it.
Don't know if this was her intended reaction but all of us burst out laughing when Shania Twain came out in that outfit at the Super Bowl. I don't care what anyone says, I think she was lip synching part of it. That wouldn't be so bad if ABC and the NFL hadn't gone on and on about how she wasn't going to lip synch.
UPDATE: After some more thought, Shania wasn't any worse then any of the other half-time shows except for U2's. Thinking back, most have been laughable or just embarrassingly bad. Considering the past, she was okay. We'll blame Tagliabue for it and call it a day.
Remarks As Prepared For Delivery By Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Council on Foreign Relations, New York City, NY, Thursday, January 23, 2003.
I thought I would post this article as a reference for some of you. It provides a systematic overview of the US position and was an interesting read. The odd part of the speech is that it makes a more complete argument than George W. Bush ever has. USA Today is providing a less detailed overview of the European position here. It provides the facts but was poorly written. Like I care what the reporters taxi driver in Brussels thinks about geopolitics. Labels: Iraq, war
Windows 98 crashing on shutdown
Thanks for those of you who e-mail me ideas on how to fix it. There is actually a patch on Microsofts site. I installed it and everything is working again.
Jack Layton wins
Jack Layton is the new leader of Canada's New Democratic Party. If a political leader is elected and nobody in the country is watching, does he make a sound? Just wondering... For pure television enjoyment, I prefer the delegates voting over the one member, one vote system. Better television, more arm twisting, and a better convention. UPDATE: The more I think about it, CBC really did a poor job with their coverage. It looked like they didn't want to be there at all. I would love to see convention coverage brought out of the 1970's into the 21st century. Labels: politics
If you maintain them, you can have it for free. I have always wanted a lighthouse. Preferably one on a small island. I think it would be a great place to ride out a storm.
in the comments about how Christians are to look at organizations like Planned Parenthood. Roman soldiers were in the business of oppressing and killing on command. Zealots hated them. Zealots fomented war against them. Rome crushed the whole Jewish nation in three wars over ~90 years in large part because of the Zealots. The Temple was destroyed, Jerusalem was leveled and the whole Jewish people, because of Zealotry, were scattered.
Jesus told people to help carry the Roman soldier's equipment; twice as far as the soldier's expected.
Am watching the Super Bowl over at the Reimer's tomorrow. It will probably be the last time they ever have me over. It all boils down to Jerry buying a new uber-computer. I said that I would come by and set it up and get it working on the their ASDL line. A couple of years ago that meant tweaking network settings, swapping a couple of CD's, a couple of restarts, and finding the occasional driver online. Those OS's elevated the guru to near legendary status. My coffee would be constantly filled, food and treats would be brought to me. Folk songs would be written about my technical knowledge. Not anymore Fast forward to OSX and XP. Plug in the modem. Start the computer. Drop in the Office disk and you are ready to go. Total time. 30 seconds. I'll be lucky if I am not sued for the emotional damage caused by them thinking of me as being wise. How the geeks have fallen. Lousy Bill Gates.
NDP Leadership Convention today
I continue on my proud streak of watching ever major party leadership convention on television since 1983. Whatever you want to say about the NDP, they usually entertain with the almost right-wing Saskatchewan NDPers and then the openly communist branch of the party providing an entertaining foil. You never really know what is going to happen. That being said, this is a race that has failed to capture any of the public imagination. Here are the candidates for the leadership of the party.
LATER THOUGHTS: The NDP still don't understand television. What a horrible convention to watch. Someone stop the pain. CBC isn't making this any better. Labels: politics
Article in the National Post about the United States as a new superpower. A lightning-swift, hugely successful and almost casualty-free war in Afghanistan has left it in sole command of the world and fundamentally reshaped the architecture of international affairs.
Now, as it prepares for a possible war in Iraq, Washington is poised to lash out with all its political influence, economic weight and military might.
In the past, the United States used its "soft power" to influence and persuade through example and was accused of practising a "new imperialism."
Now, the thrust for globalization is accompanied by a massive U.S. military predominance that is unmatched in history. Its military circles the globe like no other ever has.
The U.S. defence budget is larger than the combined total of the next nine biggest defence spenders in the world. Washington alone is responsible for about 40% of the world's military spending and, before the current deployment of 150,000 troops along Iraq's borders, the United States had 247,000 servicemen and women posted overseas in 752 military installations in more than 130 countries. The article continues with this... Speaking to graduates at the West Point Military Academy last June, Mr. Bush vowed to preserve military superiority over any challenge and to act against emerging threats before they are fully formed.
"Wherever we carry it, the American flag will stand not only for our power, but for freedom," he said. "Our nation's cause has always been larger than our nation's defence. We fight, as we always fight, for a just peace -- a peace that favours human liberty.
"America has no empire to extend or utopia to establish," he continued. "We wish for others only what we wish for ourselves -- safety from violence, the rewards of liberty and the hope for a better life."
If an inequality of power, resources and influence distinguish an empire from an alliance, the new U.S. pursuit of permanent military supremacy along with the capacity to defeat any threat at any time anywhere in the world may well mark the beginning of an unabashed empire.
During the Cold War, some argued the United States presided over a "consensual empire" in which ideology and the struggle against communism obscured the extent of its influence and power.
Before Sept. 11, Washington exercised dominance through peaceful multilateral means in institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization.
Now, U.S. national interests and ambitions are far more blatant.
"The evidence is building up that in the decade following the end of the Cold War, the United States largely abandoned a reliance on diplomacy, economic aid, international law and multilateral institutions in carrying out its foreign policies and resorted much of the time to bluster, military force and financial manipulation," Chalmers Johnson writes in his book Blowback: The Cost and Consequences of American Empire.
"The United States is unquestionably an imperial power," says Thomas Homer-Dixon, director of the Centre for Study of Peace and Conflict at the University of Toronto. "What I'm concerned about is whether it's going to lead to some kind of arrogance ... a kind of assumption that the U.S. can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, because that will surely lead to major mistakes and lead to tragedy in the end."
Americans usually express righteous indignation over any suggestion they have imperial ambitions. To compare their republic's democratic idealism to Rome, with its conquering legions, subjugation of peoples and universalist claims to law and order ignites a simmering anger. Labels: economics, Emergent, Iraq, politics, war
Building Communities...
Some where in my library there is a Peter Drucker quote in which he says that business is the best answer to many of societal ills. He talks about businesses that take a passion in building their community and country. I know there are some foreign examples of that happening in The Organization of the Future but can anyone send me some good examples of corporate community investment (stadium naming rights don't count) in Canada or the United States? I am just curious.
It's so easy to be loud and male and defiant. Planned Parenthood and other organizations enforce that by their own loud rhetoric (and sometimes, frankly, they have to scream because the opposition doesn't let them have a voice). But there are more lives involved in this then we often know (or want to accept). There are the lives of the women, the girls -- the people struggling with life and death decisions and feeling isolated and alone at this very important moment in their lives. a quote from the i took the read pill weblog about her abortion.
Conversation with Stanley Hauerwas
Alan is blogging from the Allelon event in Boise, Idaho. Can't wait to see what is happening there. Kevin Rains and Mike Bishop are also there.
Random Friday questions about life and death.
I have been turning over some thoughts the last couple of days about abortion. These are just some early thoughts and I would love some feedback on them.
- Let's say that Canada never ammends the Bill of Rights and the United States never overturns Roe vs. Wade. How would change the current debate about abortion in the two countries knowing that they would always remain legal?
- We care passionately about the rights of the unborn but once they are born, we don't seem to care that much. We passionately care about tax cuts at election time but remain quiet about stories like this, the genocide in Rwanda, AIDS in Africa... Aren't the values that cause a person to care about issues like the rights of the unborn the one the same values that should drive us to care about all of them?
- Is our call for legislative fixes easier than tackle the problems personally?
- In a couple of private conversations with a really prominent and respected American church leader he brought up the point that the abortion debate is about politics rather than actually about making changes. He brought up how the rhetoric has changed since W. has come into office despite him not doing much about the decision. How much of the debate is partisan politics?
Like I said, just some thoughts and are willing to be changed if someone shows me I am wrong. If you are going to e-mail me your thoughts, let me know if they are okay to publish?
UPDATE #1 - A thought provoking reply
Banning the Internet at work makes no sense to me. If you have people that aren't doing their jobs at work, fire them. It doesn't make sense to make the entire site Internet free. I worked in a place with this attitude for a time. The idea that as soon as employees has access to the net they assumed that they were going to spend all day looking at porn and wasting time so they came up with this horrible network policy that banned even looking at anything non-work related, even after hours. One person actually asked, "If I am here on my own time and I want to check the sports scores, am I allowed?" The answer, "No".
A missing computer hard drive from ISM Canada that contained private government information could be part of an identify theft trend, according to an expert in information technology safety. "It's not just likely, but highly likely it's being used for fraudulent purposes," said Catherine Johnston, president of Advanced Card Technology Association of Canada, an Ontario-based information security advocacy group. The worst part of it is that they say it was in a secure (apparently not that secure) place and it wasn't encrypted. I.D. Theft is apparently one of the fastest growing crimes (I was tempted to call it an industry) in Canada.
A really good article on managing people through the lean times This week's unemployment figures -- up 18,000 to 381,000 new claims -- didn't climb as high as Wall Street guessed they would, but the numbers do emphasize that the nascent recovery remains, for the most part, a jobless one. Even those lucky enough to be employed are feeling the stress in additional work and general nervousness.
Managers are likely to be supervising teams that are smaller than they once were: The Labor Department reports that 1.7 million Americans have lost their jobs since the recession began in 2001. That means these managers have had the challenge of overseeing and motivating people who have seen comrades sent home with pink slips and who fear that they may be next.
During the past three weeks, I've talked to managers at 19 businesses, most of them in technology or media, that have laid off employees during the past two years. I wanted to learn what methods worked best when it came to keeping a staff focused and inspired post-layoff. A consensus emerged. So, from the trenches, here are what some savvy bosses are doing to maintain morale.
No surprise that American media organizations are gerontocracies. The most prestigious current affairs show, Sixty Minutes, has not refreshed its staff in decades. The average age of its five reporters is over 70. Piers Morgan was 28 when he took over the Daily Mirror; that would be inconceivable at any US newspaper.
All these criticisms beg the question: given that the US media market is the most lucrative in the world, why is the journalism not more vigorous? It depends whom you ask. The shrivelled intelligentsia bemoans the poverty of public-service broadcasting; liberals cite ownership by media conglomerates; conservatives blame consistent liberal bias, and suffocating political correctness; and hard-scrabble reporters the pernicious effects of ethics courses at modern journalism schools.
The underlying cause is prosaic. The United States sprawls across a continent, its population is more dispersed than that of the UK or France, and its media market is geographically fragmented.
Britain is one national market, in which a dozen national newspapers compete furiously for readers, talent and scoops. There's powerful pressure to hype up the story, which makes for more interesting copy, even if sometimes it prompts a rush to declare massacres and crises, and retract more discreetly once the facts are known. Excellent article on the impact of weblogs on the American press.
Wireless Update
A bunch of e-mail the last couple of days asking how the wireless network is doing. The answer is really well. The only bug is my Windows 98 notebook won't shut down now and I have no idea why. I am going to run System Mechanic on it and clean out the crap out of the registry and hard drive and see if that helps but feel free to post any advice. It hangs on the "Windows is Shutting Down Screen". We have the port in the worst possible location in our house and we get a good signal over the entire house. I will probably move the port upstairs in the summer if I am going to use it outside. The only thing I don't like is outside of the Saskatoon Travelodge and a couple spots on campus, I don't know of any wifi hotspots. If you know of any in Saskatoon, can you let me know? Labels: Saskatoon
A new weblog worth checking out. The design and the writing both look good.
Two days ago I posted and later deleted a strongly worded post about some posters parodying abortions over at blogs4God. I am not a regular reader over there but while I disagreed completely with the post, I was over the top in my condemnation of it. I never like to reduce ourselves parodying the other side and I think it does more damage than good. In hindsight I should have just it go but I didn't and caused a lot of people distress and pain. In short, I was very wrong and I hope you will accept my apologies.
In recent years Tupperware parties have also had to compete with the glamour of lingerie and wrinkle-smoothing Botox parties Have the English gone mad? Botox parties?
e-mails like this are posted to Internal Memos.com (via her ex-business partner Nick Denton). I love internal memos. Some are just interesting while some show me how lucky we are not to be working for those companies. My favorite was the internal memo from a law firm outlining why they were the worst rated law firm in the nation. Phrases like "I think the partners hate us" made me appreciate the fact that I don't work there.
So what now?
Christians spent yesterday fighting and protesting against Roe vs. Wade. Saying a bunch of nasty retoric on television and across the internet. What struck me is that the attack was at the Pro-Choice movement and that is what is wrong with so much of the Pro-Life message that was on television yesterday. They are fighting the two battles they probably won't win at an enourmous cost of people and resources. The battle that can be won is creating enviroments where mothers do feel that keeping the child is a viable choice and I can't see them winning it by ranting about Roe. vs. Wade for the next several years. How many Republican majorities are going to be needed to appoint judges to overturn the decision? How many years wasted? You can go on television and Crossfire and Counterspin until we are sick of it but what does that do because the target is the wrong one? The battle is won is creating crisis nurseries, places where people can go, more effective child welfare departments so a mother doesn't feel like she isn't totally alone and there is help. I find it so hypocritical that the same people who go on and on about the sanctity of life, say nothing when stories like this appear. Fighing for a better quality of life for those kids that have been abandoned and forgotten may be a good place to start. Again, there is so much more that could be done to make a difference in this world If we can give up our addiction to words and believe that we can show a different way through actions. I think we will be further along. Ever since the reformation, Christianity has relied heavily on labelling our opponents instead of entering into dialogue with them. The abortion debate is one of the last to keep doing it. By being reduced to name calling, we take our focus off what really matters. That is what really ticked me off about this post. Yes, the Planned Parenthood poster contest was moronic, no matter which side you are on but by responding to it, we take our focus off some things that can make a difference.
If we really believe in the sanctity of life, some good links to explore are God's Golden Acre, a place in South Africa that is caring for thousands of prphans and children infected with HIV/AIDS or your local crisis nursery and home for mothers who don't have anywhere else to go.
Here is Sally and Rachel's reactions to the post. Labels: politics
Doc Searls points out that this is the first political poster using a Creative Commons license. Nice poster too.
An exerpt from A is for Abductive...
Church: Too often, the equivilent of hospices--safe places for the dying--and presided over by private chaplains or "clan priests" overwhelmed by their own ennui, effete bureaucratic rituals, and entrophy.
Christian leaders need to ask several important questions about themselves and the organizations they lead. What overcomes entropy? What renews us? What re-energizes us? What drains us? What makes us feel like giving up?
Many dutiful leaders become unintentionally suicidal in terms of ministry. They slog away at the draining, depressing, defeating tasks day after day, postponing the renewing, reenergizing, reinvigorating activities as estravagant luxuries that they don't deserve or can't afford. The reverse is actually true: They can't afford to not to recharge. They act as if Sabbath and feasts and singing and celebration were the devil's idea rather than God's command.
Heh, heh, heh
I enjoyed my time at Lakeview except... for the couple days a year that CI Host's e-mail and webservers would calve and die. A steady stream of confused, dazed, and angry co-workers coming into my office telling me that their e-mail was down and then looking angrily at my e-mail program (I always used jordoncooper.com at Lakeview for e-mail, it was easier) and seeing that it was up. I don't think they ever believed me that there was nothing that I could do. Jeb is in my place today. Lakeview's mail is down and people are pestering him. It feels good.
Posting from the sofa
Wendy and I finally decided to splurge a bit and get a WiFi network for the house. We found a place with cards on for half of what they regularily are and Linksys has a nice mail in rebate so we decided to get it. It took around ten minutes to get both the desktop and the notebook setup and it works like a charm. The only problem was as soon as the notebook went online, Microsoft wanted me to download some updates which messed up my network settings. I am blaming Microsoft and not dlink for that one. Now my next task is to find some coffee shops in Saskatoon that have an open WiFi connection, any advice is appreciated. Labels: Saskatoon, Wendy Cooper
It's freezing here
 Unless you are from Moose Jaw or Siberia, you can't comprehend how cold it is here right now. The worse part is that there is no sign of a let up for a while. A decade or so ago we set a Canadian record for the most consecutive days for the temperature being below -30. That wasn't a lot of fun.
"... But you've done nothing."
Larry Lessig said this last year at O'Reilly's Open Source ConferenceNow, I've spent two years talking to you. To us. About this. And we've not done anything yet. A lot of energy building sites and blogs and Slashdot stories. [But] nothing yet to change that vision in Washington. Because we hate Washington, right? Who would waste his time in Washington?
But if you don't do something now, this freedom that you built, that you spend your life coding, this freedom will be taken away. Either by those who see you as a threat, who then invoke the system of law we call patents, or by those who take advantage of the extraordinary expansion of control that the law of copyright now gives them over innovation. Either of these two changes through law will produce a world where your freedom has been taken away. And, If You Can't Fight For Your Freedom . . . You Don't Deserve It.
But you've done nothing. It was a great talk and I wish I had been there. This part of his talk has always stuck with me and have gone beyond his context into a couple areas of my life. First of all I think for all of the ranting and writing we do online, we are accomplishing very little. Me talking about AIDS in Africa is doing very little if all I am going to do is talk about it. Sending some money to God's Golden Acre gives some resources to those who need it ( Jason Evans went a couple billion steps further and went over there). Complaining about the RIAA is pointless if I am going to support them by buying their cartel's CDs and give nothing to organizations like the EFF and the Creative Commons. Complaining about any aspect of modern Christianity seems kind of pointless if I am not going to risk and live out an alternative.
I am starting to agree with Lessig. Blogging falls into the "nothing" category. It is just empty words and is something that the church has done exceedingly well for 1600 years. I wonder if blogging is the personalized evolution of denominational meetings where they pass resolutions saying, "no sex before marriage" and my personal favorite, "everyone needs to become a Christian" and then nothing really changes. I am not saying having a blog is bad but there are some real things that we are called to do and much more can be done then offering up punditry every day online.
I realized the other day that the blogs I love the most are the ones that tell stories of living it out, not just criticizing those who don't. In other words, stories of "doing more" instead of more of "doing nothing". I am talking about myself here too. This year I will be stopping "doing nothing" and start "doing more".
BTW, Lessig wrote a great book called, The Future of Ideas that got me thinking a lot over the holidays. You may want to give it a read.
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