Gone

Last night I found out that a good friend and an employee has committed suicide.  He was well liked by everyone who worked with him and had several friends at the Centre so it has been really, really hard on all of us today.  I found out last night and was the one to break the news to most of the staff and management today which has made this into one long emotional day.

Jack Layton is coming to town

The NDP's leader is coming to Saskatoon to speak about homelessness.  I haven't heard Jack Layton speak in person before and it may be an interesting talk, even if we rarely agree on policy.  He'll be here May 21st, details can be found at Upcoming.

Technorati Tags: Jack Layton,NDP

Lake Diefenbaker to get Candu 6 reactor?

Lake Diefenbaker has been suggested as the best site in Saskatchewan for a Candu 6 nuclear reactor. 

"Potentially, the Lake Diefenbaker region could be the site of a Candu 6 plant configured with two steam turbine generators instead of the standard 750-megawatt, single-steam turbine unit," the report said. "Plant output from this option would be split equally between Saskatchewan and Alberta."

We would also split any mutant fish with Alberta as well.

Technorati Tags: Candu 6,Lake Diefenbaker,nuclear power

sustainable kingdom, sustainable church

For those of you inside and around San Diego, you may find sustainable kingdom, sustainable church something worth checking out.

What does it mean to be the Church in North America in a postmodern, post-colonial and post-Christendom context? With decreased attendance, how do churches survive? Where do we find authentic community and spiritual formation? How does the Church respond to the growing list of local and global injustices and crisis? If you find yourself wondering about these things, the Ecclesia Collective invites you to join a small group of people in San Diego for a collaborative conversation (kind of like a “skill share”) on May 23 and 24 (little less than a month away) to discuss practices and principles that just might help us find a sustainable way of being the Church within the North American context.

Technorati Tags: San Diego,Ecclessia Collective

Evangelicalism's odd dance with pop culture

From Slate and their review of Daniel Radosh's new book, Rapture Ready!

At some point, Radosh asks the obvious question: Didn't Jesus chase the money changers out of the temple? In other words, isn't there something wrong with so thoroughly commercializing all aspects of faith? For this, the Christian pop-culture industry has a ready answer. Evangelizing and commercializing have much in common. In the "spiritual marketplace" (as it's called), Christianity is a brand that seeks to dominate. Like Coke, it wants to hold onto its followers and also win over new converts. As with advertisers, the most important audience is young people and teenagers, who are generally brand loyalists. Hence, Bibleman and Christian rock are the spiritual equivalent of New Coke. Christian trinkets—a WWJD bracelet, a "God is my DJ" T-shirt—function more like Coca-Cola T-shirts or those cute stuffed polar bears. They telegraph to the community that the wearer is a proud Christian and that this is a cool thing to be—which should, in theory, invite eager curiosity.

Straightforward, if somewhat crude, merchandizing so far. But there is also another level of questions, which the creators of Christian culture have a much harder time answering: What does commercializing do to the substance of belief, and what does an infusion of belief do to the product? When you make loving Christ sound just like loving your boyfriend, you can do damage to both your faith and your ballad. That's true when you create a sanitized version of bands like Nirvana or artists like Jay-Z, too: You shoehorn a message that's essentially about obeying authority into a genre that's rebellious and nihilistic, and the result can be ugly, fake, or just limp.

via

Technorati Tags: Daniel Radosh

Contextless Thoughts

• I just read The Macintosh Way by Guy Kawasaki.  It was sent to me anonymously a month or so ago and it is a great book.  Some excellent stories about Apple and early pioneers like Dave Winer are in there.  If you can find it at a used book store, it is worth reading.  Whoever it was who sent it to me, thanks!
• A friend phoned me yesterday about the cabin.  He asked if I had made any big plans yesterday and I said no, "I am up to my ears in paperwork."  He replied, "That's why you need a place to retreat to" and hung up the phone.  About 20 seconds later, I got an e-mail which said in full, "and that's why I am borrowing it from time to time as well."  Sounds good to me.
• Wendy's protein count is rising, so is her blood pressure, and blood sugar.  She is off work for another week and they are hoping some medication helps with the preeclampsia  Normally she would be okay with it but as she blogged, she is getting transferred to the 33rd Street Safeway which is only two blocks away from home and is one she has been tried to transfer to for about five years.  It also means a big savings in gas and that store keeps shorter hours (because it is smaller, it is quicker to close) which means that she will be home a lot earlier when she is working in the office.
• Len Sweet has a new podcast which may interest you.
• I can't figure out why Hillary Clinton stays in the race.  People say that she is running for 2012 but she is burning so many bridges in the Democratic Party that if Obama loses, she will take a lot of the blame for it.  I think she still thinks she can win.
• East side churches in Saskatoon want to send a 1000 people to the west side core neighborhoods and "clean it up".  It's a nice idea but it makes it sound like the west side residents can't or won't do the job itself which is totally false.  Riversdale and other neighborhoods are a lot more alive then people give them credit for and believe it or not, do clean up the neighborhood every year by themselves so I am not sure why having an army of SUVs and minivans descend on the area helps at all.
• I like Stephane Dion but his proposal to make me pay even more for gas is a little tough to swallow politically.  You know since I am paying $1.31 for a litre of it now.

P.J O'Rourke

Politics won't allow for the truth.

Selling Out

I finally took some time to read some of the e-mails to the site about Wendy and I buying a cabin.  Of course like the comments, the e-mail was mixed.

One thing that came out was a lot of ignorance of what we paid.  I didn't take out a mortgage or a loan, this isn't a villa, it is a beach shack.  My measurements may be off a bit but it is a total of 336 square feet which if you think about it is too small to house anything more than a small car.  While Saskatoon may have a booming resale market, the market for cabins at a Free Methodist camp and convention centre have remained pretty consistent from what I have heard.

I am kind of sensitive to the charge of selling out.  I didn't blog about this but three times over the last winter, I went out, paid cash for a iPod Touch.  Each time I took it back to the store before we got home.  The purchase didn't feel right considering the context I work in.  A lot of what I buy goes through that process and while the iPod Touch didn't pass the test, the cabin did.

At the same time work has been taking a bit of a toll on me mentally and physically.  I have been sporting some dark circles under my eyes, co-workers tell me I look tired lots, and I find the need to get away at times.  This is easier said than done. 

I haven't written anything about this before but the Centre is in the middle of trying to open a women's emergency shelter.  There are a lot of women and children who are on the streets or are in horrible housing situations.  First hand I have heard stories of negotiating of sex for shelter which breaks my heart.  A couple of weeks ago I talked to a women who had been sleeping outside for a couple of weeks.  She was mentally challenged, on welfare, and didn't know where to turn.  I was able to help her immediate needs for shelter but it made it painfully obvious that homelessness is complicated and once you find yourself homeless, the solution isn't going to come easy.  The idea is a home that would keep the girls and kids safe over night and provide help in getting them back of the streets in the morning. I am glad that we are doing something about it but it is one tight deadline after the other and more funding applications than I ever thought possible.  You know it is going to be a long form when it comes with an instruction manual on how to fill out the form.

This task isn't going to go away until fall.  The cabin allows me to get away alone or with Wendy and Mark and either shut it down and sleep or get some work done on my notebook.  Winston Churchill talked about the need for changing locations to avoiding burnout.  If he is right, I am set.  If not, I'll try a hat and cigar.  I would like to think that after this fall things will slow down but there still is an alternative seminary, an urban rest stop, and a bunch of ideas I have burning for the men's shelter that need some time and attention.

A place to explore those ideas some more as well as relax seems good to me.

The other reasons have nothing to do with me.  Wendy wants a place to retreat to and the idea of a place where Mark is free to roam is kind of exciting as well.  The other day when Mark and I were going to the park, I picked up three dirty needles.  While I don't mind talking the dog and kid to the park, knowing he was running down an alley where the bigger danger is garter snakes, is a nice thought as well.

Of course until that happens, I need to get some more funding applications filled out.

Mistakes in logo design

Yeah.

The world's first billion dollar home

It is actually costing $2 billion

Atop six stories of parking lots, Antilla's (photos) living quarters begin at a lobby with nine elevators, as well as several storage rooms and lounges. Down dual stairways with silver-covered railings is a large ballroom with 80% of its ceiling covered in crystal chandeliers. It features a retractable showcase for pieces of art, a mount of LCD monitors and embedded speakers, as well as stages for entertainment. The hall opens to an indoor/outdoor bar, green rooms, powder rooms and allows access to a nearby "entourage room" for security guards and assistants to relax.

Ambani plans to occasionally use the residence for corporate entertainment, and the family wants the look and feel of the home's interior to be distinctly Indian; 85% of the materials and labor will come from outside the U.S., most of it from India.

My army of security guards and assistants have been clamoring for an entourage room for some time now.  I really need to get cracking on that.  Feel free to let me know in the comments what you and your family does with your entourage. 

Technorati Tags: Antilla,Mukesh Ambani

Abandoned

Taken as we were leaving Arlington Beach on Saturday.

Contextless Links

• The longest drives on Google Maps :: Unalaska, AK, USA to Southern Newfoundland, Canada
• A bad night for Labour in the U.K. :: Gordon Brown today acknowledged a "bad night" for Labour after the party's national share of the vote plummeted to 24% - its lowest level since the 1960s – in his first electoral test as prime minister.
• Of course it is also bad when Gordon Brown when you are being compared to Mr. Bean.
• Minnesota has an annual mullet competition. 
• Wal-Mart has some global competition that is giving the big Dub some headaches
• How to really annoy junk mailers
• Dooce has a new book coming out
• It's apparently okay to call Putin a facist now :: It is no longer controversial to note that Putin "has led Russia into a harsh brand of authoritarianism with some fascist features," as French scholar Pierre Hassner said in a speech last fall. But it's worth recalling the methodical and patient way he crept toward dictatorship, because recent events raise fears that he is now creeping in the same way toward stifling the independence that Russia's neighboring states have enjoyed since the Soviet Union fractured in 1991.
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. got robbed last night by Kyle Busch