The Blog with No Name

“I used to feel so alone in the city. All those gazillions of people and then me, on the outside. Because how do you meet a new person? I was very stumped by this for many years. And then I realized, you just say, ‘Hi.’ They may ignore you. Or you may marry them. And that possibility is worth that one word.” — Augusten Burroughs, Running with Scissors, quoted on a Starbucks cup.

An interesting article from the NY Times about a pastor of a megachurch drawing the line between faith and politics. Personally, I found the reporter’s efforts to describe the pastor’s theology to be humorous because they seemed to hint the reporter is completely ignorant on matters of theology and doctrine. Anyway, here’s the gist:

Before the last presidential election, he preached six sermons called “The Cross and the Sword” in which he said the church should steer clear of politics, give up moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a “Christian nation” and stop glorifying American military campaigns.

“When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses,” Mr. Boyd preached. “When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross.”

I can’t speak for other Christians, as I feel I have little exposure to the political thoughts of conservative Christians since finding a conservative Christian in Seattle is like finding cheap beer at a ballgame, but I know I struggle with the general idea this pastor is teaching his congregation. There is a very real danger when faith and politics are intermingled too much. As Rev. Boyd put it, it is the danger of losing the cross and becoming the world. The specter of this coming to pass disturbs me deeply. However, this world is full of dangers, and the temptation to flee to one extreme or another to avoid the dangers can result in even more danger. As with many things, it seems the safest route is the one down the middle.

I find it impossible to believe a sincere, consistent Christian would not allow his faith to inform his politics. It seems to me, a sincere Christian faith will affect all aspects of one’s life, and to segregate the faith into it’s own little box is dishonest and foolish. So, there should be some degree of intermingling between faith in politics. Now the question remains is what should this intermingling look like. I believe it’s safe to say it’s dangerous territory when politics start to hold sway over the faith. Only a one way road, going from faith to politics, should be open between the two arenas.

I guess the real question that I think needs to be answered is how is faith-informed politics lived out in the real world. This is a question I’ve been pondering for a long time now. I’ve written down some of my thoughts, but I haven’t gotten anything substantial written. So far I’ve come up with two (unoriginal) distinctions that should guide my political thinking. The first is the goal should not be to win political battles but to win disciples for Christ. Ultimately, this is probably the highest calling a Christian has in the world and should be in the forefront of my mind (usually it is not). Second, political solutions are very different from — I’m cringing as I say this — heart solutions. It seems to me political solutions are too often used as a replacement for virtue and the inappropriate application of Christian morals. Let me give a quick example to illustrate what I mean by the first. I believe taxes and welfare to a great degree to supplant the moral virtue of charity. There’s no charity to be found in an individual who lets all of his feeding of the poor be done through the forcible taking of money which is then anonymously dolled out by a governmental bureaucracy. I believe no Christian escapes this responsibility via Big Brother’s “charity.” Tax sponsored welfare may do a lot of good in the country, but it is a poor, impersonal, and even less efficent replacement for personal charity. So, I would argue this political solution to poverty (taxes and welfare) is not the Christian response to poverty. Obviously, to just ignore those in poverty is even less Christian.

I find this to be a difficult subject. I struggle with a lot of the concepts, many which are frustratingly vague. I would also describe this as a Big Idea for me. Once I get this subject sufficiently fleshed out, it will be a framework around which I will make many important decisions in my effort to both live out my faith and be a good citizen.

I believe this article (via an IM by Greg) offers a good explanation for the weaknesses of SPU’s, my old college, student body. I was fairly involved in my time at SPU with many extra-curricular activities, and I think it’s safe to say I stirred up more than my fair share of trouble while there. So, I think I have a fairly well-informed opinion of the SPU student body. Generally, I think SPU students share three negative characteristics: unduly passive, overly sensitive, and highly intolerant of “bad behavior.” I think all three of these characteristics could be the result of the coddling parenting the article describes. Here are a few noteworthy snippets from the article.
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Apparently, I suck at sucking. Last night I was part of a bachelor party bowling fest. By the last game, my lane decided to do a little bit of golf bowling, meaning we tried to get the lowest score possible while using bumpers. Here’s how it came out:

When I’m trying to knock down as many pins as possible, I consider myself lucky to crack 100. Here, I was trying to knock down as few pins as possible, and I got a 93! Notice I even got 2 spares. By the way, the “U” stands for “Ultradeath” my nom de jeu.

I didn’t even find out about this until many hours later. Typical religious-extremist Muslim activity: target and kill unarmed civilians. The synopsis:

A woman was dead and five others were hospitalized this afternoon after a shooting at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle building in downtown Seattle by a man who declared he was “angry with Israel.”

Seattle police later arrested the alleged gunman, who reportedly had walked into the building between Lenora and Virginia streets on Third Avenue in Belltown and started shooting. One victim died at the scene, according to police.

All five of the wounded are women, said Pamela Steele, a spokeswoman for Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. The women, ranging in age from 20 and through their 40s, were brought in between 4:30 and 5 p.m. Three victims are in the operating room now and are in critical condition, Steele said. All three were shot in the abdomen.

It doesn’t mention until almost halfway through the story that the man claimed to be “a Muslim American” who was “angry at Israel.” These people are our enemies living in our own country, and we need to name them as such.

Here’s a quick round up of blogger reaction over at Instapundit. I have the same sentiments as them, including this one: “Me? I’m going to buy a gun. I’m serious.” Something like this would have stopped the dirtbag, keeping the body count to one — the bad guy.

Slate has a fun article on the collapse of the baseball card industry. (via Volokh) I thought this paragraph was insightful:

It’s easy to blame card companies and “the hard-core collector” for spoiling our fun. But I’ll admit that even before the proliferation of pricey insert cards, I was buying plastic, UV-ray-protectant cases for my collection. Our parents, who lost a small fortune when their parents threw out all those Mantles and Koufaxes, made sure we didn’t put our Griffeys and Ripkens in our bicycle spokes or try washing them in the bathtub. Not only did that ensure our overproduced cards would never become valuable, it turned us into little investors. It was only rational, then, for the card companies to start treating us like little investors. The next wave of expensive, hologram-studded cards didn’t ruin collecting for us—we were already getting too old for the game. It ruined baseball cards for the next generation of kids, who shunned Upper Deck and bought cheap Pokémon and Magic cards instead.

Makes sense to me: everybody learned from history, determined what was valuable, and then hoarded the valued cards, resulting in a surplus of high value items, and thus decimating the market value. The author’s recommendation of how to increase the value of baseball cards again is a good idea.

I used to collect baseball cards with my brothers and neighborhood buddies. I never was top dog in the local market (I think that was my older brother with his uncanny ability to score high value rookie cards like Dave Justice, Ken Griffey, Jr., etc), but I still had a pretty good collection. I still have all my best cards sitting quietly in a baseball card folder in my closet. Ahh, those were the days . . .

A longish legal analysis of the gay marriage ruling by the Washington State Supreme Court, which ruled against gay marriage yesterday. The short of the analysis is this: gays may not have a legal right to marriage, but the legislature better pick up the ball when it comes to partner benefits in civil unions or a better case might judicially force the issue. I haven’t read the opinion myself, but this analysis strikes me as well reasoned.

Personally, I’m still undecided on the whole issue. I’ve been struggling to come up with a reasonable position that is consistent with all my ideals. I have an extremely long post written on the issue, but it is far from complete and I’m not confident with it yet. I’m not sure it will ever see the light of the Internets.

Eugene Volokh has an article giving a good run down on Constitutional limits on picketing. Here’s the short of it:

It turns out that the government (a) can ban loud picketing outside funerals, and (b) can probably ban all picketing immediately outside the funeral, but (c) must allow picketing or marching relatively near to funerals. How near is impossible to tell, but picketers can’t be required to stay 300 feet or more away; they probably have to be allowed to march past the funeral, and perhaps even to picket, say, 100 or 200 feet away.

I’m not sure if the statute the ACLU and Westboro Baptist Church are challenging would survive Consitutional scrutiny as I have not read it. It’s probably a safe bet that if the law is content-neutral (I’m assuming it is unless the legislature likes to enact laws that are obviously going to be struck down), then it will survive. Anyway, we’ll have have to wait and see.

It arrived!

Here it is next to a 15″ Powerbook:

Sorry for the cruddy quality of the pics. I blame my camera phone and low light.

A little over a year ago, I wrote about my decision to quit law school. I’m glad to say I don’t regret my decision to quit law school — yet. This is a relief to me because prior to quitting I feared that I would deeply regret it if I quit. Now, my fear is that 5 years from now I may be at a point where I’m frustrated with my career or life and then start regretting not finishing law school. There’s nothing I can do about this now, but it’s not pleasant to think about.

Currently, I am very happy with my decision to move on to something else. Law school is like a vague nightmare for me. I have only a few good memories from my 9 months in Salem. And the few good memories are so overshadowed by the bad memories that they don’t seem worth the trouble. If I had my druthers, I think I’d just permanently blot that whole 9 months of my life out of my memory.

Many people have said that it was probably a good thing I went anyway. It’s easy to agree with them, but I often wonder if this really is true. Sure, I may have learned a few things, matured some as a person, and did something challenging. But those benefits are so intangible and vague, unlike the debt I owe and the regrets I shoulder. I am of the opinion that maturity and character building does not necessarily have to come at a high cost, and paying a high cost for these virtues should be minimized. Discovering my “path in life” would fall into this same category. Sure it’s great to find out that lawyering probably isn’t in my future, but it would have been awfully nice not to throw a lot of money down the tubes along with a good chunk of time to discover that.

At any rate, I thoroughly enjoy where I am at now. I love being in Seattle with most of my friends. I enjoy my job, and it pays my bills — and then some! Who knows what my life would have been like had I stayed in school, but I really don’t think I’d be as happy as I am now. Especially considering Salem is cooking in 100 degree heat these days!

Truth is stranger than fiction sometimes. The Wesboro Baptist Church, known for their “God hates fags” picket signs, and the ACLU, known for frequently championing “far left” causes in court, have joined forces to battle a law that limits picketing around funerals. The law itself seems pretty sensible to me, though I’d rather not have such a law in place:

The law bans picketing and protests “in front of or about” any location where a funeral is held, from an hour before it begins until an hour after it ends. Offenders can face fines and jail time.

A number of other state laws and a federal law, signed in May by President Bush, bar such protests within a certain distance of a cemetery or funeral.

Weird, huh?

The Wall Street Journal has a nice article on the booming text messaging industry. I often struggle to describe my job to people who aren’t terribly hip to the whole text messaging thing. This article gives a taste of what is involved and what the market is like. Basically, I am one of the key enablers for all of this for T-Mobile. All of these campaigns pass through my hands before they go live for T-Mobile users. Here’s a taste of the type of growth we’re seeing:

In the U.K., revenue from phone and text-messaging services for TV programs came to about $457 million in 2005, compared with almost zero in 2000, according to an industry-funded regulatory body that tracks premium telecom services in that country. The U.S. market may be poised for similar growth. Americans sent 9.8 billion text messages in December 2005, up from 4.8 billion a year earlier, according to CTIA, the Wireless Association.

TV voting campaigns are just beginning to take off in popularity here in the States, and probably will become much more popular over the next year or two. However, the bulk of the money is to be made in selling content (ringtones, wallpapers, games, themes, etc.) for cellphones. It’s pretty interesting and exciting to have a front row seat watching this new market expand.

Let’s talk about Superman for a brief bit. Perhaps you were aware a new documentary about him has hit the theaters. I have not seen it yet, but my thoughts have turned to some things Super as I consider this decidedly un-American American hero.

First, let’s consider his clothing. We know the flesh of The Man of Steel will not give way to bullets, missiles, radiation, death rays, or paper cuts. But how do his clothes survive the rigors of superhero combat? My buddy Dan has found the answer. Apparently Superman is super strong and super brilliant.

Second, let’s consider this whole Clark Kent thing. I am of the opinion that Superman is being ridiculously dumb, which goes against the super brilliant comment I just made. Imagine this: you’re Superman (change genders if need be), so you can fly. You can fly very very very fast. Why on earth would you ever take an elevator? Why on earth would you ever sit in traffic? This alone would cause me to crush my dweeb glasses and throw away my reporter’s notepad in a Kryptonian second. Also, why of all professions did he pick a reporter? A reporter! I guess that would be the perfect disguise for a true hero to use. Nobody would think somebody as morally pure, selfless, and righteous as Superman would use the mask of a slimy journo (present company excepted). However, I could think of many better professions, more lucrative and sexier professions, for the Son of Krypton. The first that comes to mind is the spokesman for Hanes. His line would be, “I like Hanes so much I wear them on the outside of my pants!” This endorsement alone would net him probably about $500 million.

So, in conclusion, I have come to believe that Superman is one of those people who have phenomenal books smarts but no streets smarts. Sure, Superman can invent a fabric that is as tough as he is, but has no idea how to make a bajillion dollars with his abilities.

It’s getting closer!

I paid off my stinky truck today!

So far, my experience with loans is they’re really cool at first (free money!) but then they really suck (expensive money!). Maybe others have felt the same way?