:: Friday, April 23, 2004 ::
A death, and a visitation
I went to a visitation this morning. A 41-year-old woman died, leaving behind a loving husband and a 13- or 14-year-old daughter. The husband is a faculty member, and his wife once worked as a graphic designer in our publications office. She was a talented artist, a faithful Christian, and a wonderful person. In the brief time we worked together, we talked often about the faith, life in her native Taiwan, and the differences between the American version of Christianity and that practiced in her homeland. Her husband would sometimes stop by at lunchtime with a Tupperware bowl full of soybeans to share with us as he talked about the bean's health benefits and warned me about drinking too much coffee.
This morning I met their daughter for the first time, although I have thought about her off and on during her mother's illness -- and more often, especially, over the past couple of days. Their daughter is a beautiful girl, with long straight raven-black hair and dark, intelligent eyes behind round glasses. I spoke to her as we stood together, with other mourners, before a display of her mother's design work and many photographs of the family. I told her what a wonderfully talented designer and artist her mother was. I asked her if she was an artist, too. She smiled demurely and shook her head no. "That's okay," I said, then inwardly cursed myself for saying such a dumb thing.
What I wanted to tell her -- and what I told her father instead -- was that I know something about losing a mother at a young age. I wanted to tell her that I was 10 when my mother died, and that everything would turn out alright. But that is not something you should say to a 13- or 14-year-old girl you've just met, whose mother has just died. Especially when you know from experience that everything will not be alright. Not for a long time, anyway.
Sometimes we say too much. Sometimes we don't say enough. Oh, for the wisdom to say the right things at the right times. We're better off, probably, to be like Job's three friends, and simply show up, mourn, and say nothing. Showing up, showing you care, is the more important thing, I guess.
As I write this, the girl's mother's funeral will begin in about 30 minutes.
:: Andrew 10:43 + ::
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Guess this makes me less than perfect
The perfect size for a portable music player is one that holds 1,000 songs, according to the latest, greatest research. I purchased my Rio Nitrus two weeks ago and have yet to tire of the 350-plus playlist I've packed into it. But maybe next week on my trip I'll grow weary of the same old tunes and will return to swap out some tunes.
:: Andrew 11:53 + ::
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:: Thursday, April 22, 2004 ::
Hung me, Hung me/they oughta take a ladder and rung me...
I thought I could avoid all things associated with William Hung, but when I logged on to my eMusic account this morning, I'm confronted with this headline:eMusic Gets Hung -- William, That Is...
I confess: I clicked. And I read eMusic's take on American Idol's most lovable loser, and the pitch for his debut (and final?) album:Who says losers never win? After being booted just minutes into his American Idol audition, William Hung has become a cult hero. His web site has been getting more hits than Paula Abdul's, he's been invited to sing the national anthem at major sporting events and now he has just released his first record! Witness the shock and awe that is... HUNG!
Say it ain't so, eMusic! Do you really expect me to waste 15 of my monthly allotment of 40 song downloads on this stuff? I don't even like "I Believe I Can Fly" when it's done right. Ack. Please, hang Hung out to dry and give us more real music. I'm happy you've got Warren Zevon's Wind and all the Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros albums for my downloading pleasure. But do you really have to try to pawn this dreck off on us?
:: Andrew 09:23 + ::
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Like a mystic
"Madonna's interest in Kabbalah has guaranteed regular coverage," writes Douglas LeBlanc over at GetReligion. And then he goes on to give Madonna even more coverage. And then I go on and blog about what he's blogging about, adding another 50 or 60 readers (on a good day) to the cult of Madonna coverage. What's wrong with me? It's like I have no control or something. They've gotten to me, I think. Going into a ... trancelike ... state ... Hearing ... techno ... swirling music ... swirling ... colors ...
And I feel...like I just got home...And I feel...
*snap out of it!*
Whew. I'm better now.
Actually, the story is more about kaballah than Madonna.
:: Andrew 07:39 + ::
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More news than fit to print
A news junkie's nirvana. Thanks, Randall. I'm already hooked.
:: Andrew 07:30 + ::
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:: Wednesday, April 21, 2004 ::
Tainted love?
Interesting commentary in The Guardian by a former Anglican priest, who writes:
Why has the church been so prudishly anti-sexual, giving grudging tolerance only to the marriage bed? Part of the answer lies in the scriptural dualism that rips apart spirit and body, elevating the first to mystical heights and writing off the body as tainted and fallen, to be crushed if it oversteps the boundaries of religious authority.
And:Take the doctrine of original sin, a damning picture of the human race if ever there was one. Then you have the whole thrust of religious morality, which is prohibitive, negative and disparaging about sexual behaviour. Read the Old Testament moral code, with its repeated chorus, "Thou shalt not ... " Listen to Paul's sour comment, "If a woman will not veil herself, she should cut off her hair."
The gist of the message is clear. Jealousy, greed, pride and cruelty can go on the back burner. Desire, sexual craving and physical pleasure are the arch sins that will strike you down.
Link via Scottish Christian.
:: Andrew 07:24 + ::
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Autopsy of a meme
Link via blogdex. But I found the original "page 23, sentence 5" meme at -- where else? -- memepool.
Below is my little contribution to the cyber-clutter. But first, the instructions:1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
And now:at large Usually two words for an individual representing more than a singe district: congressman at large, councilman at large. (Source: ye olde AP Stylebook, 2003 edition.)
:: Andrew 15:04 + ::
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How he blogs
Oh, how he blogs.
:: Andrew 09:35 + ::
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Jesus loves you, this I know. This stolen music tells you so.
The Gospel Music Association reports that Christian teens are sharing Christian music with their heathen friends by stealing it via file sharing, then burning it onto CDs. “I’m surprised and disappointed that the behavior isn’t that ardently different between Christians and non-Christians,” said John Styll, president of the Gospel Music Association, the leading trade group for evangelical music. But not everybody thinks the pirating is a bad thing. After all, some church leaders say, isn’t getting the Gospel out more important than getting paid? How can it be wrong if it saves souls?
But as No Rock&Roll Fun points out in a brief commentary: Christian pirating is "slightly different" than the typical pirating, because "the non-Christians are sharing better music." Well, not necessarily. Besides, even Jesus instructed his disciples to steal on occasion.
:: Andrew 09:27 + ::
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Not the great democratizer we thought it was?
In "The web won't topple tyranny", Joshua Kurlantzick writes that the Internet is better at spreading our vacuous pop culture than in disseminating the ideals of democracy.[W]orld leaders, journalists, and political scientists who tout the Internet as a powerful force for political change are just as wrong as the dot-com enthusiasts who not so long ago believed the Web would completely transform business. While it's true that the Internet has proved itself able to disseminate pop culture in authoritarian nations--not only Laos, but China, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere--to date, its political impact has been decidedly limited. It has yet to topple--or even seriously undermine--its first tyrannical regime. In fact, in some repressive countries the spread of the Internet actually may be helping dictatorships remain in power.
From The New Republic Online, via Arts & Letters Daily.
:: Andrew 09:17 + ::
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what lived here once has gone
The kids who have Amy as a teacher are fortunate indeed.
:: Andrew 08:12 + ::
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:: Tuesday, April 20, 2004 ::
I'm a lemming
As I prepared to blog this morning, I noticed an intriguing appeal on the blogger page. They were asking me, a faithful blogger, to sign up for Google's new Gmail email service. So I took the plunge. Ads be damned, who can resist a gigabyte of space? Plus, I'm interesting in using Google to search through my stuff. I'll continue to use my Mailblocks account, too, because it's such a great spam-blocker. (And, really, it has all the space I need.) But just for grins, I thought I'd sign up to be a Gmail guinea pig.
The addy is: andrew DOT careaga AT gmail DOT com.
:: Andrew 07:49 + ::
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:: Monday, April 19, 2004 ::
Review: Jesus Sound Explosion
I hadn't heard about this book until I found the review by Kevin Hendricks. It's a story about the evangelical subculture of the 1970s. I wasn't a part of that subculture, but I was certainly influenced by some of the evangelical and "Jesus movement" stuff floating around the world of pop culture at that time. When I was in junior high, I was enthralled by the movie Jesus Christ Superstar, and I recall seeing a lot of "I found it" stickers on the bumpers of Ford Pintos and Mavericks in my hometown. But I had no moral moorings from which to slip in the '70s, so I can't relate to what Hendricks describes as "dramatic accounts of summer camp evangelists and demon rock record burnings," the story of "the pastor's kid who tries to be a good Christian, but also wants to rock out to Lynyrd Skynyrd." I rocked out to Lynyrd Skynyrd without concern for my soul. I also rocked out to the Doobie Brothers. ("Jesus Is Just Alright," remember?)
:: Andrew 07:54 + ::
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Calling all garage bands
Garage rock goes corporate! Dunkin'Donuts and Little Steven Van Zandt are sponsoring a star search for the next great garage band.
Makes me wish I had a garage band. (And yes, I'm pronouncing garage in the proper English punk style, GAR-idge, rhyming it with carriage, a la Joe Strummer in that Clash classic, "Garageland.") But all that's in my garage these days are two cars surrounded by sundry hazards -- lawn mower, tools hanging on the walls, two ladders, a bicycle that hasn't been ridden in years, wheelbarrow, stacks of household hazardous waste in the corner, etc.
:: Andrew 10:42 + ::
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Blogging about God, etc.
Michelle has been surveying the "Christian" blogging community about blogging habits and has come up with some interesting stats. Her research (now released from time to time on Michelle's Dialog blog) is stirring up a lot of dust and discussion among bloggers.
Some stats from her April 15 entry at Dialog are of special interest to me in terms of how Christians use their blogs as expressions of their faith:Do you intentionally include Christian topics in your blogging?
* 15 % (17/115) of respondents said no.
* 85% (98/115) of respondents said they do intentionally include Christian topics in their blogging, however, the large majority of them stated that it just comes through naturally, it is not something they think about. They intentionally include Christian topics because Christ is whom their life is centered around.
* Three respondents said sharing Christ intentionally is the purpose of their blog.
* Only one respondent said no, they do not include any Christian topics in their blogging as that is not the intent (a linguistics/teaching blog).
Do you try to intentionally "reach out" (minister) through your blog?
* 43% of respondents stated they did not.
* 28.5% stated that they do not try to intentionally minister through their blog, it just happens that what they write ministers to others.
* 28.5% said they intentionally reach out through their blog.
A spinoff from Michelle's work contiues in a Holy Huddle discussion at Darren Rowse's Living Room. But not everyone thinks this discussion is worthwhile. I agree that it can lead to too much navel-gazing. It often boils down to this: How imuch of our "outreach" truly beyond our limited circles of Christian blog buddies? And how much of it is truly authentic -- not forced outreach for outreach's sake but truly an attempt to learn from others, have conversations with others? With millions of people surfing the Net in search of spiritual content of some sort, we ought to be able to have something of value to add to the discussion.
Meanwhile, Tim Bednar has released a draft of his study on "spiritual" blogging, We Know More Than Our Pastors (PDF file).
:: Andrew 09:08 + ::
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Why we're sports fans
A gaggle of sports psychologists and sociologists, including my friend and UMR faculty member Christian End, make a living trying to figure out what makes sports fans tick.On a corner of his desk in the psychology department at the University of Missouri-Rolla, Christian End keeps a framed photograph of his niece and nephew, both decked out in Green Bay Packers garb.
The boy, barely a year old, wears a Brett Favre jersey. The girl, all of 3 months old, is dressed as the tiniest of Packers cheerleaders.
"I'm sure they didn't pick that stuff out themselves," End says, chuckling. "You think maybe they'll grow up to be Packers fans?"
End is sure they will, not only because uncles know this sort of thing, but because, armed with a doctorate in psychology, he has chosen the study of such motivational matters as his niche. His master's thesis looked at the way winning and losing affected NFL fans' Internet habits. His doctoral thesis addressed the way fans responded to threats to their "social identity."
Like many researchers, End can tell you with reasonable certainty that the bond between many of the most loyal fans and their favorite teams is forged during childhood, that they are socialized into following the Packers or the Cubs or the Canadiens in the same way that they are socialized into their family's religion, and that they are likely to carry those embedded habits all the way to the big sports bar in the sky.
Sociologists and psychologists also can tell you why some people follow sports with more passion than others; why most will jump off a bandwagon even more readily than they climbed on; why people who have never been west of the Mississippi will latch onto the Oakland Raiders rather than to a team that's two hours away; and why the promise of Florida and Arizona turned out to be a sports marketing mirage. Full story
:: Andrew 08:50 + ::
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Battling Ivy
Not long after we bought our house 13 years ago, my wife planted some ivy to grow along the brick chimney. It grew thick and lush as it scaled the brick. A few years ago, however, it began to spread its tentacles, clinging to the siding. We would occasionally trim it back to keep it looking nice and neat, but we also liked the overall look of the spreading leaves.
Friday evening, I pull into the driveway to find my wife toiling with piles of vine on the ground. She had ripped much of the lower branches from the side of the house.
"Look at this," she said, pointing to the guttering and soffiting at the juncture of roof and chimney on the south side of the brick. The ivy had wedged itself between the trim and soffiting, and had pushed the soffiting away from the rest of the house.
Crap, I thought. Home repair time. I hate home repair time.
"It's even worse on the other side," she said, and we walked, gazing skyward, to observe.
Yes, it was. The tentacles of ivy had thrust under the soffiting and pushed it almost completely away from the house.
So, Dyann and I spent the weekend yanking strands of ivy off the house, then scrubbing the nasty ivy suction stains from the wood siding and brick, and then straightening and replacing soffiting. We worked till dust Friday, then worked all morning Saturday.
At least I had a legitimate excuse for not getting any writing done. I did type up a few notes Saturday afternoon, however.
:: Andrew 08:46 + ::
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Simon Dawes, 
