October 2007
18 posts
New Poll Suggests Stephen Colbert Should Be... →
It will be both sad and very exciting if Colbert makes progress on this.
Religion, and the Working Class
After taking a spin on the Belief-O-Matic, I decided to do more reading about Unitarian Universalists, and I found this article. There are a lot of great things here, but these two stood out:
Eminem’s song “Lose Yourself” asks: What if you had one shot? To a professional-class kid, imagining that you get only one shot is a way to add drama to your life. But in the working class, the fantasy is...
“… so they know that a guy who looks like Jesus and answers to Dave will be...”
– Rainy
dreams
Sometimes I dream my teeth fall out. It feels very real. I do not like this.
Belief-o-Matic →
Secular Humanism (100%), Unitarian Universalist (93%), Nontheist (73%) rank top three. Alas, I am but a product of my upbringing (Unitarian church).
He likes it
r: i read it
r: all of it
j: yeah, it goes pretty fast
r: i learned some things
r: had some laughs
r: A+++ would read again. Great Writer!!!
r: that's my ebay feedback for your site
Neil Gaiman on Rowling and Dumbledore →
He makes a good point. I hadn’t really stopped to think that she was merely sharing backstory. Then again, homosexuality is one of the more controversial topics and would get more press on that merit alone. Ah, I suppose I posted before I had really thought about it.
Edit: It might have been useful if I had quoted the pertinent section. Here:
Things the author knows about characters (or at...
Dumbledore Pride T-shirts →
Lose vs. loose
lose, lost, losing — verb: to suffer defeat; to come to be without
loose, looser, loosest — adjective: not fitting closely or tightly
loose — verb: to free from bonds; to let go a hold
Every time I lose my belt, I realize my pants are loose. He who misuses language is a loser. Let loose with the criticsm.
I just needed to get that off my chest.
Dumbledore is gay →
Does it feel like Rowling is just dropping little hints here and there about characters to continue the hype of a book that, next to the Bible, has the least need for a publicity tour? For someone who is done with Harry Potter, she seems not to be able to let go.
And Dumbledore being gay is a little bit Priest Scandal to me.
Two weeks until NaNoWriMo. Good luck to me.
Dear Facebook,
Curse you. I never intended to sign up for so many applications. It looks like the Internet threw up on my profile page.
Roberts Family plagued by Oral scandal →
It’s definitely juvenile, but I always titter when I hear about Oral Roberts University. Despite growing up nearby — my high school graduation took place at the university! — I don’t know much about the history of the school, but I have to laugh at the circumstances that led to a religious school being founded by a man named Oral (and who names their kid Oral?)
tune of the day
I’ve been pretty impressed with the selection of music from the Starbucks / iTunes song of the day. Good move on their part because if the song is worthwhile, I’ll get a coffee I typically would have forgone to get the free tune. Seven of the 12 songs released (at least in my time zone) means Starbucks has made $20 they wouldn’t have normally made from me.
“… we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say.”
– Ann Coulter (via HuffPost) She also calls Christianity the Fedex of Abrahamic religion.
The Future of Newspapers →
The dynamics of newspaper are definitely changing. I’m not sure if two iterations of the cell phone is the point of disappearance, but there is increasing evidence that print (newspaper) journalism (as we know it) is on its way out.