Don't Bother Me With Hostage Situations, I've Got An Economy To Nationalize

It has become clear that when President Obama wants to take over an entire sector of the economy, that he has no problem talking down, maligning and castigating the sector he wants to take over. This--all easily mitigated and driven by that ever-ubiquitous Linus Blanket of rhetoric: the teleprompter. Even to the point of endangering the lives of people who don't hold a candle to the malignant corruption in Congress.

We're not even 100 days into the new administration and we're already being punked in a fashion commensurate with Jimmy Carter's 444-day waiting period on hostage negotiations. Americans are being held by Somali extremist pirates. Yet, Mr. Obama's only real response is that he is "studying" the situation. And by that I mean, possibly studying how to take over the shipping industry after this little "irritation" and "delay in tax-hikes" passes.

Time to ditch the teleprompter, Mr. President. Time to shake yourself of your press-clippings-related trance and say something--anything--about the fact that yet another "aberrant" sector of the only religious contingent you've given any respect to are ready to kill Americans. Your public refusal to do so says much.

Meanwhile, it turns out that the Captain of the seized ship gave himself over to save the rest of the crew. Maybe after "studying" the situation? Or perhaps doing what a leader was put in place to do.

I know one thing. The president has certainly wasted no time in "studying" how to disarm our airline pilots, giving terrorists--or as they are labeled now--overseas contingency agents--zero resistance against another September 11th.

Here's the memo, sir. We're the good guys. They're the bad guys. It's your job to act accordingly. Any refusal to say anything less and you are nearly guaranteed a single term.

-R

Well, the NCAA tourny is over, and I came in at a modest 5th place in the 90&9 bracket. But I have to tell you a secret about Bradely. He may have come in 10th in our bracket, but he fills out 1,897,000 other brackets so that every possible combination of wins/losses is covered. He's secretly rejoicing because somewhere out there, he has won!

And here's a note from the Apostolic Report about a fan who had a sign reading "John 3:16". It was promptly taken away by security. The Apostolic Report links to video footage of the incident.

In fairness, it is also being reported that large signs are not allowed at NCAA sporting events.

Moral Collapse? Maybe Not.

Michael Medved has a great piece at Salvo Magazine about the supposed moral decline in America. He cites current data which show that Americans actually may be behaving more morally than ever before.

The Guttmacher Institute, affiliated with Planned Parenthood, acknowledges that abortion rate rates peaked in 1981, just as our most outspokenly pro-life president, Ronald Reagan, entered the White House. In that year, doctors performed 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44. Twenty years later, after tireless efforts by pro-life activists and educators, that number had dropped steadily, year by year, all the way to 21.1, a reduction of nearly 30 percent.

In April 2008 the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report showing that between 1990 and 2004, the estimated abortion rate declined by a full 24 percent. In no single year did the rate even inch upward. Among the most vulnerable teenage mothers between the ages of fifteen and seventeen, the abortion rate fell a staggering 55 percent.

One thing that he points out that grabbed my attention is that the national divorce rate is lower now than at any point since 1970. I wonder if the divorce rate in the church is actually higher now than it has ever been? I haven't taken the liberty to look up those numbers, but it strikes me that divorce seems like an absolute epidemic in the church right now.

xBlog

Inspirational quote of the day (seen at a coffee shop): "I don't have a problem with caffeine. I have a problem without caffeine". So true...

April Sadness Follows March Madness

So yeah, I didn't do so well in my brackets this year.

I ranked 27 out of 33 at work. 13 out of 15 in the 90&9 brackets (Who said this would be fun?!?), and then the hated (& perennially overrated) North Carolina Tar Heels won it all last night. Life just isn't fair.

Still, to give honor where honor is due . . .

90&9's Top 10 in 2009

1. RJ Aycock (who can be found at Notes, & picked the Tar Heels to win it all)
2. Kenny Chessor
3. Shirley McDonald (of the 90&9 staff)
4. Jaime McDonald (remember that last name)
5. David Bunch (who can be found at Collideoscope)

6. Nita Curry (who picked Michigan State to win it all. I actually laughed at her about that.)
7. Bobby McDonald (Shirley's one and only)
8. Bradley McDonald (the rabid sports fan who hereafter will be entitled "Jaime's husband")
9. Marsupial Jones (who picked God's team--the Mizzou Tigers--to win it all)
10. Josh Lewis (of the 90&9 staff)

*SIGH* Even my 11 year-old ranked higher than me.

Stupid brackets.

xBlog

Sickness is no fun. My entire family has been sick over the last week and a half, and on Tuesday I went down for the count. And yes, it is true that men do not handle being sick as well as women do. I was very, very pathetic.

Apostolic Adoptions

Check out this great blog that deals with adoption issues.

The site is linked to New Beginnings Adoptions, the only fully accredited Apostolic adoption agency (that we know of). They have recently received accretidation for international adoptions. Such a wonderful asset for people of faith who need these services.

Becareful What You Pray For

Well, it's April 1 and I figured it was a good time to update everyone on my ongoing job hunt saga.

I have a job interview in DC on Friday (2nd interview actually). Excellent news, right? Definitely. So why am I so anxious? I've always told the Lord I'd go anywhere, and there are certainly worse places to end-up than Washington, DC. I think I'm just dreading the thought of having to pack-up my life again. I know if it is the right position that I will have peace about the situation and it will be a new phase of life.

Anyway, no matter how it pans out this is an excellent opportunity for me to take my first trip to DC and to get to see the cherry blossoms, which are in full bloom this weekend.

Oh, and I'd also like to say a big welcome back to David. I missed his triumphant return but am really looking forward to reading his microblogs over the next month. I think it's a fabulous idea!

Experimental Blog (aka "xblog")

I was looking at an old friend's Facebook page, and she had posted some pictures from high school - in class, hanging out, etc. We're talking early 90's here, and I just had this sudden wave of nostalgia. Does anyone remember feeling like "man I'm now in high school, it's now the 90's, society has now zenithed, and I'm at the top"? Is "zenithed" a word?

My Experiment With This Blog

The article I mentioned on the last post plus some interesting thoughts I had at a coffee shop today got me thinking about something.

Okay, so you have blogs. Like Collideoscope. Blogs that you read, perhaps hear about a cool link or hear about something going on in the author's life. That's on one end of the spectrum. Then you have Twitter, which is basically a "micro-blog", a one sentence update on what's going on in someone's life at the time (e.g. "I missed my bus"). From what I just gleaned from the quick video promo of Twitter, we're talking no more than 140 characters per post.

So what about something in between? Like a three sentence blog that says something like, "I was at a coffee shop today and saw these two older guys having great face-to-face conversation. But then there was this group of twenty-somethings sitting at a table and they all were at laptops with headphones on. Occasionally they would mutter something to each other. Isn't that an interesting generational gap?"

Basically something strikes you and you blog it, but not a real blog, and not a "tweet" either.

So I'm going to try it here starting Monday. 3-5 times a week, in addition to regular blogs, I'll have quick plugs like the one above. I want you to tell me if you think it's interesting, boring, dumb idea, whatever, and we'll see what happens.

Rockin' Robin Says Tweet Tweet

Steven Levy writes an interesting article for Wired magazine's February issue called The Burden of Twitter.

He talks about the responsibility he feels to keep up with his numerous blogs, twitter posts, Facebook status updates and the like while also feeling some sense of worry that he is sharing too much of his life with people he doesn't even know.

Says Steven:

Because of time constraints and just plain reticence, I worry that I'm snatching morsels from the information food bank without making any donations. Instead of healthy, reciprocal participation, I'm flirting with parasitic voyeurism.

So, driven by guilt, I try to pitch in. I post Facebook status reports, send iPhone snapshots to Flickr, link my Netflix queue with FriendFeed. But as my participation increases, I invariably suffer another psychic downside of social networking: remorse.

The more I upload the details of my existence, even in the form of random observations and casual location updates, the more I worry about giving away too much. It's one thing to share intimacies person-to-person. But with a community? Creepy.

The point he ultimately makes is one that, I think, deserves some discourse:

We hear a lot about privacy violations by Big Brother and Little Brother. But what if the fault lies not in our siblings but in ourselves?

Interesting paradox, don't you think?

Jonny Lang At It Again

I'll let it speak for itself, but my suspicions that Jonny was going to weather his conversion well are being borne out. I'm buying it. Tuesday. Sharp.

Too bad the whole record isn't him, despite the fact that there seem to be a few other choice tracks (Robert Randolph with the Clark Sisters, to name one). I just find Jon Bon Jovi's toss in a bit of a stretch, sort of like when Black Sabbath's Ronnie James Dio recorded God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen for a Christmas compilation in '08. Although, as vocalists, I like them both.

As for Jonny, as well as Michael Macdonald--straight pentecostal jamming . . .

Oh, and click on "Listen," if you want to hear the whole song, "I Believe," featuring Jonny Lang.

Short Attention Span

I was driving with my 16 year old niece this evening, running errands, and I noticed the way she channel surfs the radio. Like, there's no possible way she knows what's playing on a given station because she may stay on a station a nano-second before moving on. Once she hears one chord of something she recognizes, then she stops and listens. But if something is not engaging her immediately, then it's time to move on.

And not only does she not listen to something long enough to even know if she'll like it, but commercials are definitely out. And tonight four or five stations were playing severe weather warnings for our area and the incessant beeping would not have caught her attention if I hadn't said something.

Now once she finds something that qualifies as "a good song", then we have to turn it up to mind numbing levels and sing along.

So what does this say about getting messages (such as the Gospel) through to today's kids? I don't know, exactly, except that it appears to me that a spoken/sung message (as on the radio) has to really stand out from all the rest or be really familiar to get a notice.

Link of the Day

Here is a cool website that lets you create a word cloud out of text you provide.

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

March Madness: Week 1

After the first day of games on Thursday night I laughed. (Humbly, of course, but still--I laughed.) Bracket host (and 90&9 staffer) Bradley McDonald was ranked below his mother, his father, and his wife. (Rumors had it that his dog was too loyal to embarrass poor Bradley by signing up.)

Now the first two rounds of March Madness have been completed and I'm not laughing (even humbly) anymore.

We've got 15 people participating in 90&9's (almost) annual NCAA pool and--unexpected as it sounds--11 people are ahead of me. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad, but that group includes my wife (10th) and my 11-year-old son who has never done this before, but now thinks he's invincible. (Rumors have it that my dog is too loyal to embarrass me by signing up.)

The Standings (with the good sports placing beneath me not included to protect their jobs and/or academic standings):

1 Kenny Chessor
2 RJ Aycock
3 Shirley McDonald
4 David Bunch
5 Caleb Curry
6 Jaime McDonald
7 Bradley McDonald
7 Marsupial Jones
9 Bobby McDonald
10 Nita Curry
11 Kimberly Rigney
12 Kent Curry

You should've signed up. It's fun!

Here's To Monday

Here's wishing everyone a happy Monday and a great rest of the week.

A day in the mind of Dave: Here's what's going on in my head today.

• I'm making an effort to read the Bible through this year. I've selected The One Year Bible (New Living Translation). It's pretty cool because it has the daily readings all worked out. You get a little bit of OT, NT, Psalms and Proverbs each day. It's also been interesting reading this translation. Previous Bible read thru's have been King James.
• Michael Tait will now be the Newsboys' front man on tour. Peter Furler is out. Come to think of it, their voices are pitched similarly.
• I came across this worship artist by the name of Travis Taylor. As far as I know, he hasn't hit "the scene" which suits me just fine. He makes great worship music with a great retro sound, somewhat like Leeland with much more to say lyrically. We need to be singing his songs.
• A new biography on John Lennon is out. I noticed it in Ireland but couldn't afford to pony up the pounds (that's currency) on something that I may or may not actually read. It showed up at the local library so I borrowed. I'll let you know how it turns out.
• Baton Rouge got it's second, second hand book store while I was away in Ireland. This is huge, guys, this is huge. Besides the fact that the second hand book trade seems to be dying, Baton Rouge is not exactly a repository of used book dealers. As a second hand book junky, this makes me very happy indeed.
• Here's to prayer and fasting. It seems that there has been a lot of talk on the social networks about fasting, and I even joined a fasting group on Facebook. I think it is a good thing because it's like group support for fasters or something. I've also noticed a lot of Daniel's fasts and the like, which I think is good. Maybe some would argue that it's an easy way out, but I don't think so. I think it shows that we want to get close to God and that there are ways to do that in our way-too-fast-paced society.

Strange Fire: Ramblings on Rock Music and Worship

Can music that is not intended to create an atmosphere of worship still be worship?  Can music that is meant to entertain people still be offered as a sacrifice to God?  After reading the most recent musical musings of Ms. Ahrens, I feel compelled to do a little ruminating of my own.  A well-written, thought-provoking post deserves some kind of response from those it engages, even if it is not as well-written or thought-provoking.

 

If all of life is worship--a concept I deeply believe--then the truest sacrifice is bringing every aspect of oneself under the authority of God.  Entertainment is certainly one area of life that needs to be given to God.  What does this mean in a practical sense?  Does it mean that we should not enjoy or participate in art or entertainment?  Does it mean that all of the entertainment/art that we enjoy should be kid-friendly?  I think the examples given in the Bible demand a more nuanced answer.

 

But for some reason, when it comes to music, the overwhelming AP expectation is that it create an atmosphere of worship.  The expectation, sometimes becoming as strong as a demand, is that listeners feel uplifted or feel like praising.  The idea of a Christian producing music purely for entertainment, or even music that is not kid-friendly doesn't sit well with many APs.

 

Sometimes the proverbially tortured artist needs to express his emotions through his guitar.  Sometimes she needs to pour her heart out in song.  And such music may not always be uplifting.  Consider the bitter and hate-filled Psalm 137, the offensively violent celebration of Moses, or the explicit and sexual love song of Solomon.  Can such powerful emotions be musically expressed by Christians today?  Is there room in the Church to receive these expressions of worship, even if they do not create an atmosphere of praise?  If so, maybe musicians will feel more comfortable giving these feelings to God through their music.

 

josh r

U2 - No Line on the Horizon

U2's new and much awaited studio album dropped last week. As you know, I've been an observer of U2 for a long time, both because of their Irish connection and their God connection (this last one is debatable, but hey, at one time there was enough evidence surrounding them that some critics accused them of being a Christian band).

I have not purchased the record, but the band is streaming it at their website so I have listened to it in it's entirety.

I couldn't really collect my thoughts and state how I felt about the album until I read what Donald Miller had to say about it. I think he sums it up pretty well.

Among the challenges he feels the band faced in making this album:

Go ahead and speak your spiritual themes, but don’t get too Christian. It’s uncool. Really uncool. Not that you care but you do. Walk the line between expressing the powerful redemptive themes in your work and translating those themes to a western audience that puts those themes in the box of absurd anti-science and judgmental condemnation. Make people who know Jesus think you’re talking about Jesus but don’t talk about Jesus. And do this with a clean conscious. And mean what you sing.

Continue to appeal to a young generation you may not understand. These kids are into technology. They Twitter and blog and have the attention span of gnats. They think you’re old because their parents like you. but they’ve got the money, so throw them a bone. The twenty-somethings are all crazy about Radiohead.

A Return of the Irish Prodigal on St. Paddy's Day

There's nothing like sitting down with old friends and catching up over a nice cup of coffee. Or as it would be in Ireland, a wee cup of tea.

So, "grab a cup o' tea from yer man thar and listen because I've got some great craic for youse".

First let me say hello to everyone, and it is absolutely great to be back here at 90&9 blogging and engaging in the dialogue. The move to Northern Ireland was the experience of a lifetime, and we are so honored to have had the chance to serve the Kingdom in a foreign field

Ireland is as picturesque, as provincial, as divided, and as Irish as you've heard. There's a million little things I'd like to share over the coming weeks, but for now let me just hit on a couple of big things.

• God poured out His Spirit in a great way, and we were able to see many lives changed by the Gospel message. Besides the thriving work in Northern Ireland, God has just opened a huge door in Dublin (literally in the center of the city).
• Just because both cultures speak English does not guarantee good communication. The first time someone told me that the "craic" (spoken "crack") was good here I started looking around to see if anyone was stoned.
• Sixty degrees during the day and forty at night are my idea of the perfect summer.
• The Irish love Americans. For the most part that is. I guess every culture has the occasional numb skull.
• Place names like Dromore, Inniskillen, Sligo, Ballemena, and Scarva are cool.
• Never, repeat never, ask an Irishman for directions. More on this later...
• Pray for Ireland. Just since we've been home there has been an increase in violence with the threat of more. Regardless of how political this looks in the headlines, it is spiritual. Trust me. More on this later....

So we are now home in the US trying to re-integrate into our society again. Lots of the stereotypes that other nations place on Americans are there because....we deserve them! Yeah. In Ireland you have to go looking for McDonalds and Starbucks. They don't just come to you. So we've had to get our bodies used to 6,000 calories and a milkshake all over again, among a million other subtle differences that you never notice until they are not there.

A couple of things I've found interesting lately:

• My wife has blogged throughout the journey here.
• Here is a great article in the Belfast Telegraph about the slang used in Northern Ireland. Scroll down below the picture to the message board. This may be totally lost on anyone who hasn't been there, but I thought it was good craic.
• Last Sunday our High School class discussed the article Kent blogged regarding the collapse of Evangelical Christianity. My thoughts: it makes a lot of sense. People are more educated now and "because the church says so" won't do it. We've got to re-think a lot of things. And why would the church ever think "political"...see, I told you...
• Darius Rucker has a song called "It Won't Be Like This For Long" that I heard on the nice entertainment console provided for me by Continental whilst soaring thousands of feet over the Atlantic. I cried all the way through. What little girls do to their daddies' hearts....

Okay, I guess I'm rambling now, but I assure you that I have not kissed the Blarney Stone.

Oh, and thanks for the tea...it sure was brill.

March Madness Baby!

Won't you join 90&9's March Madness brackets for fun and glory? You have to create an ID, but it's not intrusive (except to remind you to sign up again next time the NCAAs occur).

If you sign up, at least give one of your real names (first or last) & state you're from so we can share the praise w/everyone.

Here's the info:

You are invited to join my online NCAA March Madness bracket group! To accept this invitation and join the group, click the link below (or cut and paste the link into your browser's address bar). You'll be asked to enter the group's password before you can join. The group password is included below.

http://90and9.mayhem.cbssports.com/e?referrer=MKTG_BM_INVITE

Our Group password is: flock

It Goes Something Like This . . .

It's been a few weeks since I've shared with you all the details of my ongoing job hunt. Basically I couldn't take any more of this ...


... so I packed up my suitcase and went to sunny (and slightly warmer) California for a week.

I got home last Thursday and prepared to start packing up my apartment to put everything in storage and move in with a friend when I had a small miracle take place. My landlord called and said he and his wife had discussed it and if it would help me out and make it so that I could stay they would lower my rent AND the company I've been working part-time for increased my hours to full-time until our project launches at the beginning of May!

So, while I'm still in desperate need of a permanent full-time job, and still may have to pack up and move in May, at least one major obstacle is no longer an issue. One small step for God, one giant leap for me!

The Collapse of Evangelical Christianity

We are on the verge--within 10 years--of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity...  Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants.  At least according to a gentleman by the name of Michael Spencer .  In an insightful and challenging (and prophetic?) article, he spells out why evangelical Christianity will fail, what to expect, and the opportunities that such a collapse will give rise to.

 

Why is evangelicalism doomed?  According to Spencer, it boils down to a confusion of identity and a loss of theological depth.  We have identified ourselves too closely with the culture war and political conservatism.  We teach our young people why they should be against gay marriage or abortion more than we teach them about Jesus.

 

We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.

 

At the same time we have forgotten to teach foundational biblical principles.

 

Our young people... do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community.

 

So what can we expect in the near future?  As the evangelical movement begins to dissolve, what survives will certainly change shape.  3 major points:

 

1. Expect evangelicalism to look more like the pragmatic, therapeutic, church-growth oriented megachurches that have defined success. Emphasis will shift from doctrine to relevance, motivation, and personal success – resulting in churches further compromised and weakened in their ability to pass on the faith.

 

2. Charismatic-Pentecostal Christianity will become the majority report in evangelicalism.

 

3. Expect a fragmented response to the culture war. Some Evangelicals will work to create their own countercultures...  Some will continue to see conservatism and Christianity through one lens... A significant number, however, may give up political engagement for a discipleship of deeper impact.

 

Is there any good in this?  Such a dynamic shift will provide many opportunities for a deeper Christianity.  While mega-church sentimentalists will cling to a shallow, numbers-oriented spirituality, others will choose to deepen their foundational understanding of the Gospel.  While some will try to adapt to the changing culture by emphasizing pragmatic, consumer-driven Christianity, others will follow the example of Pentecostalism and step into a more Spirit-led Christianity.

 

We can rejoice that in the ruins, new forms of Christian vitality and ministry will be born. I expect to see a vital and growing house church movement. This cannot help but be good for an evangelicalism that has made buildings, numbers, and paid staff its drugs for half a century.

 

We need new evangelicalism that learns from the past and listens more carefully to what God says about being His people in the midst of a powerful, idolatrous culture.

 

Change is always painful, but if we believe that God is in control then it is also a process filled with hope that He is changing us into something better.

 

josh r

Battle of the (Apostolic) Social Networking Sites

It is probably fair to say that most of us have accounts on at least one social networking site, if not on two or three. Much in the same way message boards were the craze a few years back, social media networks (SMN) such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter have become a common part of our daily (and even hourly) lives.

About five or six years ago Everyone's Connected (EC) became all the rage. It was not intended to be an Apostolic networking site but within a few years it truly seemed as if EC had been taken over by Apostolics. Somewhere around a year ago (sorry if I'm fuzzy on the exact timeline) EC was actually take over/bought out by some other company who completely changed the layout, etc. and the site was abandoned en mass in favor of Everyone's Apostolic (EA) - a site created specifically for social networking among Apostolics and run by Apostolics.

However, the recent announcement by EA that they would begin charging membership fees has created an uproar (and seriously people can someone explain to me why church people always have a problem paying for something that they view as "church" related? bandwidth is ridiculously expensive and the only options are to pay for it through membership fees or allowing advertising) that has people once again abandoning ship and other enterprising folks starting their own Apostolic networking sites.

The Apostolic Report states that several sites have been developed using the same software that runs Everyone's Apostolic, including "Unashamedly Conservative Apostolics" which only allows you to join if you are 1) a conservative apostolic, 2) invited, and 3) if your pastor is also a member. If you're looking for something a bit less authoritarian there is Apostolic Fellowship Hall, which provides such features as,

the ability of users to create Blogs, add posts to Groups as well as create their own groups, add photo albums, and videos to their home page. Advertise in the classified section, create pages, post to the wire (a twitter like feature), add and share bookmarks (similar to sites such as stumble upon, digg and reddit), And post questions which other users may then answer.

You can also try "My Apostolic Network" and "Apostolics Online".

Personally, I'm all for keeping my basic EA account (which I admit is rarely used) and using Facebook for everything else. After all, within a few months there will probably be some new hot technology that will make Facebook a ghost town and I'll have to learn a new technology.

The Robots Are Coming!

In a distinctly Asimovian turn of events, the Japanese robot, Saya, has added another job title to her resumé.  Although in the past she has served as a receptionist at Tokyo University, she is now using her skills to teach elementary school students in Japan.  Those skills include speaking multiple languages, assigning set tasks to the students, calling roll, and perhaps most frighteningly, getting angry when students misbehave. 

 

Other robots are currently being used as traffic wardens, and one is currently being constructed that will be a companion for those who suffer from Alzheimer's.  Saya's inventor caims that robots with the physical and mental skills of a two-year-old will be available within just a few years.  Not long after that Skynet will probably achieve self-awareness.

 

josh r

Healthiest Fast Food Restaurants

Some amazingly specific, healthy tips for eating at Taco Bell, McDonalds, and especially big winner Chick-Fil-A!

"To separate the commendable from the deplorable, we calculated the total number of calories per entrée. This gave us a snapshot of how each restaurant compared in average serving size—a key indicator of unhealthy portion distortion. Then we rewarded establishments with fruit and vegetable side-dish choices, as well as for providing whole-grain options. Finally, we penalized places for excessive amounts of trans fats and menus laden with gut-busting desserts. What we ended up with is the Eat This, Not That! Restaurant Report Card, which will show you how all of the nation’s largest eating establishments stack up nutritionally."

What I want to know is how White Castle ranked!

The Evolution of Charles Darwin

 

Who was Charles Darwin?  What were the events and situations that made his view so appealing? Why is he worshiped today as the father of evolution? What were Darwin's bluffs which are exposed by creationists today? What should Christians learn from the silence of Christians in Darwin's day?

 

Join John Martin and Gateway Christian Church of St. Louis, MO for an in-depth discussion of these questions.  John Martin has a background in zoology as well as a Master's Degree from Urshan Graduate School of Theology.  On the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth,  this promises to be a fascinating presentation!

 

Click here for John Martin's blog, Creation Moment.

 

Click here for driving directions to Gateway Christian Church.

 

josh r

Samson's Side of the Story

In honor of a new week and the 12 inches of snow outside my door we're going for something light and fluffy today (we'll go back to the depressing job search soon enough). Enjoy!



(find more Tim Hawkins on tangle.com - formerly godtube.com)

Recreation Of Sudden, Unexplained Cosmic Explosion . . .Um, Scheduled For Spring Or Something

See the diagram up there? This is an overhead, angular schematic of a seventeen-mile long supercollider, a ridiculously expensive, complex and overwrought system of tubes, tunnels and rare-earth magnets.

All to accomplish what? To re-create the big-bang.

I've touched on this before. Never once in all of the neo-Darwinist reporting of this collider's continued problems, is the sheer, penetrating irony ever pointed out; that a universe that supposedly "exploded," unaided and with no purpose emanating from a purposeful mind surely must have done so without a borderline comic, Rube-Goldberg contraption that looks like a prop-cull from Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory.

Granted, in recent days, particularly the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, we have seen even more hostility to the idea that Darwin's theories are nearly all incorrect. What we haven't seen yet, is equal, sneering guffaws from mainstream science for the goofy substitutions passed off as science, but in reality amount to a godless, theological claims without all that, you know, moral baggage attached to it, like the Cambrian Explosion (the explanation as to why fully-developed species are the only things one can find in the fossil record, with no intermediate precursors).

Of course my favorite of these theories comes from the late Dr. Francis Crick, a co-discoverer of DNA. First, note Crick's assessment of how life on Earth is certainly a scientific paradox:

"an honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going."

How does this supremely intelligent, rational, skeptical mind explain this? With a theory called Directed Panspermia:

proposing that these basic forms, or “life-seeds,” were deliberately spread in all directions by some advanced alien race in an effort to begin life wherever they may have landed.

Anything to to keep from looking into the face of God. Even if we have to build NASA-quality amusement parks to do it.

-R

The Planet is Doomed!!

Thanks to the crazy presidential election coverage and the crazy economy, Americans are watching more television than ever before.  For the average American, viewing time has gone up from 145 hours a month to 151 hours a month.  That works out to about 5 hours every day. 

 

 

Of course, lack of money is the driving motive, but the methods are dramatically increased for many.  People are watching more TV because people have more TV sets.  The average U.S. household now contains more TV sets than people.  This allows each person in the house to watch their own special shows.  Add to this the fact that more people are utilizing TiVo and other DVRs.  This allows them to watch time-shifted television instead of just relying on what is playing when they are ready to watch as in the olden days.  Add to this the fact that it is becoming more popular to watch television over the internet.  Add to this the fact that people are watching even more on their cell phones.  It's no wonder people are watching more television! 

 

I believe that TV, like any technology, is a tool that is morally neutral.  However, hearing such statistics makes a media fast sound both spiritually and mentally healthy (not to mention thwarting the evil schemes of aliens).   Imagine what we would have time for if we were not constantly distracted by music, social networking sites, sports, celebrity gossip, and all the other media junk we tend to feed ourselves.  How much time do you waste on mindless entertainment each month?  Just something to think about...

 

josh r

Rumination On Purpose

"Christianity has fought, still fights, and will continue to fight science to the desperate end over evolution, because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the Son of God. If Jesus was not the redeemer who died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing."

G. Richard Bozarth, ‘The Meaning of Evolution’, American Atheist, p. 30. 20 September 1979.

Aps You May Know . . . (Chaplaincy Division)

UGST graduate and fanatical Risk player Michael Krog sent this on the verge of becoming another Apostolic chaplain:


Hello all,

Attached are pictures of my promotion and "pinning on" ceremony of the Chaplain's Cross. Brother Gerald Truman, the first UPC-endorsed Chaplain in the US Military, is the one administering my Oath of Office. He pinned the cross on me and Jen pinned my new rank.

Jen and I are very excited about reporting to Ft. Campbell next week. Please join us in prayer for a smooth transition and for the Unit I will be incorporated into. Thank you everyone for your love, support and prayers during the past few years.

Praise the Lord for His goodness and direction!

God Bless,
CH (CPT) Michael Krog
+++++++

Congratulations on yet another Apostolic shining a light in an important career field!

Aps You May Know . . . (Creative Division)

UPCer Rick Brewer shared the disappointing news that he didn't win the Rascal Flatts CD cover contest:

Hey guys,

I wanted to write those who had not received word on whether or not I had won. I did not. However, I have to say I enjoyed seeing the support and help from everyone involved. The emails, blogs, posts and other forms of interaction I had with everyone made it an uplifting couple of weeks. I'm sorry I could not bring you all home a win, but there will be a next time! Thank you sincerely for all your time and effort!

Take care!
Rick
++++

Hey Rick - you made the Final Four! That's plenty to be proud of!

D-Day

Well, D-day has arrived and I am still not fully employed. So I'm sitting here trying to decide how to word the "Dear John" (or Ed, as the case may be) letter to my landlord telling him that I'm moving out at the end of March. Next comes the packing, finding a storage unit, changing the address on anything mail related, etc. Oh joy.

I've got to admit that I'm a bit disappointed. Somewhere deep inside I think I figured that God would swoop in at the last second and drop a job in my lap, or a check in my mail or something. Of course that could still happen and then all I'll have to do is find a new apartment.

On the upside, I've made it since last Thursday without having a complete breakdown.

I'm trying to decide if my struggle with all of this relates to my having issues with trusting the Lord or with my innate nature (aka being a control freak). Many years ago a friend accused me of not trusting the Lord over an issue and I adamantly denied it claiming that I totally trust the Lord. I know that he doesn't intend anything evil/bad/unprofitable/fill-in-the-blank-here for me; I just struggle with wanting to know what he does intend so that I can prepare for it and be at peace over what comes next whatever it may be. It's an argument that I've repeated at multiple times over the intervening years.

But everything that is going on in my life right now is forcing me to reexamine this question and ask "is it possible to really trust the Lord AND be a control freak?"

A New Week, A New Approach

OK, so it's not really a "new" approach it's more of a refocused approach.



Still no job, still no prospects for a job but somehow I just know that it only means that when God opens the right door it is going to be simply amazing. See, I can ice skate on those waves, just like Peter.

Russell Would Have Been In This Picture, But The White Railing Ruined It

My good friend Russell (who, once upon a time, was going to run for office with me on what was going to be a groundbreaking bi-racial ticket) took his grandmother, Isaac, to the Inauguration. Isaac also happens to be the founder of our local NAACP chapter, and is also a very sweet lady. Somehow, she scored an inaugural ticket that also landed her in the second-tier, loge section.

I didn't realize that I might actually be able to see Russell and his grandmother on the Giant, ten-trillion Gigapixel, multi-stitched patchwork photo that is making the rounds. I called him up to ask him where he was sitting, and within the hour, Russell was at my place of employment with a photo album in tow. Man did he have some cool stories.

Their proximity and placement killed the chance for the hi-res thing, but Russell did manage to get a nice series of pictures of Alicia Keys (who was sitting in front of him), right along with Samuel L. Jackson, Don King, and Dustin Hoffman. That would be a bit surreal in and of itself.

Click on the picture to see an unbelievable pixellated composite. And before you write off this thing as a panoramic oddity, start clicking on an area (say the President), and see just how close it brings you. Amazing. Just for kicks, try to see the faces of the people pictured farthest away. Still recognizable.

Oh, and if you have a dial-up modem, just forget it.

-R

Quote For The Day

Nobody saw more clearly than the great political thinker de Tocqueville that democracy stands in an irreconcilable conflict with socialism: "Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom," he said. "Democracy attaches all possible value to each man," he said in 1848, "while socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."

To allay these suspicions and to harness to its cart the strongest of all political motives—the craving for freedom — socialists began increasingly to make use of the promise of a "new freedom." Socialism was to bring "economic freedom," without which political freedom was "not worth having."

To make this argument sound plausible, the word "freedom" was subjected to a subtle change in meaning. The word had formerly meant freedom from coercion, from the arbitrary power of other men. Now it was made to mean freedom from necessity, release from the compulsion of the circumstances which inevitably limit the range of choice of all of us. Freedom in this sense is, of course, merely another name for power or wealth. The demand for the new freedom was thus only another name for the old demand for a redistribution of wealth.

-F.A. Hayek, The Road To Serfdom

Stories for Our Time

Author Michael Lewis (Liar's Poker) is also an insightful journalist with far reaching interests who's comfortable in the long form.

For me, he wrote the definitive (accessible) piece on how the financial bubble burst, and the multiple stupidities involved, by focusing on a man who saw it coming - and made millions betting on its arrival while everyone else continued to only proclaim sunny skies ahead. It's all in The End of Wall Street's Boom:

"There was only one thing that bothered Eisman, and it continued to trouble him as late as May 2007. “The thing we couldn’t figure out is: It’s so obvious. Why hasn’t everyone else figured out that the machine is done?”"

Eisman shorted everything and everyone because no one could explain how everyone was making money. (Shorting is betting the price will fall.) That's good advice in any area.

And In The World of Sports

What are the characteristics of a basketball player who rarely scores points, makes assists, or blocks shots, but almost always ensures your team wins. Lewis covers it as a whodunit in The No-Stats All-Star:

"In the statistically insignificant sample of professional athletes I’ve come to know a bit, two patterns have emerged. The first is, they tell you meaningful things only when you talk to them in places other than where they have been trained to answer questions. It’s pointless, for instance, to ask a basketball player about himself inside his locker room. For a start, he is naked; for another, he’s surrounded by the people he has learned to mistrust, his own teammates. The second pattern is the fact that seemingly trivial events in their childhoods have had huge influence on their careers. A cleanup hitter lives and dies by a swing he perfected when he was 7; a quarterback has a hitch in his throwing motion because he imitated his father. Here, in the Detroit Country Day School library, a few yards from the gym, Battier was back where he became a basketball player. And he was far less interested in what happened between him and Kobe Bryant four months ago than what happened when he was 12."

Both are great articles that tell you a lot about our world today.

A Month in the Life . . . Collideoscope Style

I've been pretty much MIA from Collideoscope for months and months now. As many of you know, I was finishing my Masters degree and I'm happy to report that as of December I now posses a M.S. in Global Affairs!

That's the bright side.

The down side is that I've spent the last two months looking for a job, and probably to no one's surprise, have had zero luck so far. It's not all bleak, I'm working part-time for a wonderful organization and getting some paid experience in the field (which is much needed and appreciated). Anyway, the bottom line is that I've spent way too much time sitting in Borders, drinking coffee and trying to find ways to fill my days.

After talking to Kent, I've decided to start blogging about this experience. Personally, I'm hoping that it helps me process my feelings, thoughts and faith as I try to figure out what the next phase of my life has in store. I warn you in advance, I have every intention of being brutally honest and open. I welcome your feedback and input.

So let me bring everyone up to date on exactly where things stand.

I'm 31, living in New York City, just completed a Masters degree and am semi-employed. I have exactly one week to find a job or I have to tell my landlord that I'm moving out at the end of March. If that happens I will be moving in with a friend for the month of April while continuing to look for a job. Long-term - no job - scenario . . . if May rolls around without employment I am packing up my life and moving back in with my parents in Los Angeles.

I have no idea where God wants me to go or what he wants me to do with the next phase of my life. See, unlike with some people, the Lord has never written anything on my living room wall (lucky Belshazzar), he's never had a visiting evangelist (or my pastor for that matter) prophecy over me and I've never received a letter in the mail which directed me where I should go. Consequently, it's just me, a lot of prayer and moving toward an open door until the Lord either closes it or takes me through it.

I'm just beginning to wonder what you do when you've run out of options and there isn't an open door?

American Idol Alert!

Yes, we've had Apostolics almost make and make the American Idol cut in the past, but now we're told an ex-Apostolic is still in the running.

Excerpted from an email:

"Michael Sarver is from Jasper, TX and is in the top 36 on American Idol. Michael was formerly raised UPC too. Vote for him on American Idol and pray that he returns to his roots and can be a witness to others. Anyway, more than being famous, I pray he gets back in church."

I'm told his mother still attends a UPC church in August and was on the show tonight.

Irony Alert: Sloganeering, Atheist Bus Breaks Down

I post this, thinking that the atheists themselves got a sort of retroactive chortle out of the entire picture:

GENOA, Italy, Feb. 16 (UPI) -- Atheists' first rolling advertisement in Italy got off to an ignominious start Monday when the bus touting their doubt in God, perhaps inexplicably, conked out.

No sooner had the bus -- carrying the message "The Good News Is There Are Millions of Atheists In Italy; The Excellent News Is They Believe In Freedom Of Expression" -- headed out onto the streets of Genoa than it developed a battery problem and had to head back to the depot for repairs, ANSA reported.

''By pure chance,'' a member of the Italian Union of Atheists, Agnostics and Rationalists told the Italian news agency, ''the vehicle left the depot bright and early but had to go straight back because of a 'curious' problem with the batteries."

My favorite phrase in that cross section above? "By pure chance." Tell me they had a straight face when they said that, because I for one think it was a cleverly devised way to surf the moment. And a well done one at that.

-R

Save Money Now!

In tough times, it's always wise to figure out money-saving ideas. Here's a comprehensive article on how to "Save $50 a Day (and Feel No Pain)."

Take your time & go through it. Every little bit helps.

Trending Southward: Is Another Holocaust Possible?

Granted, you normally have to be paying hyper vigilant attention to actually catch the frequency of this kind of reporting. But this one was a bit too stark to be missed. For anyone wondering whether or not I gave more than a fleeting thought to my title question, please understand, I did. And since it truly appears that America will be emulating the European model in nearly every way and to its demise, this should be disconcerting at the very least:

The Anti-Defamation League said Tuesday that a survey it commissioned found nearly a third of Europeans polled blame Jews for the global economic meltdown and that a greater number think Jews have too much power in the business world.

The organization, which says its aim is "to stop the defamation of Jewish people and secure justice and fair treatment to all," says the seven-nation survey confirms that anti-Semitism remains strong.

The poll included interviews with 3,500 people - 500 each in Austria, Britain, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Spain.

It says that in Spain, 74 percent of those asked say they feel it is "probably true" that Jews hold too much sway over the global financial markets. That is the highest percentage in the survey.

Add this in with Geert Wilders' being out-and-out banned from the UK (and subsequently arrested and deported) for merely being critical of Islam in cinema, and the picture is gloomier than I wish it was. If these numbers continue to climb and the metastasizes to the west, we might just see the final full court press to abandon Israel completely.

Of course, the Bible simply lays it out as a default mechanism.

Maybe it's just me. But do. You. Feel. It. Getting. Colder?

-R

Katy Perry's Pentecostal Past

So while Katy Perry's Grammy moment had her shouting through her "I Kissed a Girl" hit while simultaneously struggling to dance without noticeable rhythmn, the song was easily (sadly) one of the big hits of 2008.

Turns out, she grew up Pentecostal:

"Couric pointed out that growing up with her preacher parents meant that she often spoke in tongues, channeling messages from God — which Couric added is a Pentecostal practice. "It's exactly that," Perry, who will be performing at the show on Sunday, explained. "There was a movie called 'Jesus Camp,' and I watched it and I went, 'Oh my gosh! I didn't know they had behind-the-scenes footage of my childhood!' " "

Her album is hooky, so it's perfect pop. It's just sad to see her choosing pseudo-lesbianism to get noticed.

Someone somewhere needs to do a study on all the people who grew up Pentecostal & then had their pop star moments.

Kadma Party For Israel?

Looks like the preliminary predictions for the Israeli election were off--at least by a slim margin:

With voting stations officially closed, exit polls at 10 p.m. suggested that
Kadima would win the general elections on Tuesday.

However, due to the dramatic rise in support of the Likud and Israel Beiteinu, it seemed that Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu would have a better chance than Kadima head Tzipi Livni of forming the next coalition.

Not sure exactly how the parliamentary stuff works with them. Maybe the Prime Minister's job is contingent on a plurality of seats. We'll see. read the rest, here.

-R

Apostolic Rascal Flatts Cover . . ?

Graphic Designer (and sometime 90&9 Youth Congress reporter) Rick Brewer has a chance at being the winner of the Album Cover Design Contest being run by the Rascal Flats. Fans were asked to submit their creations and the group narrowed the nominees to four possibilities. The winner, as voted by you, gets to see their creation produced for millions.

This contest has already garnered attention from USA Today, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, & Street Insider.

Take a moment and vote for his cover (It's the top left design). You can vote every 24 hours, so help a fellow Pentecostal out!

Netanyahu Poised To Win Israeli Election

At least that's how it looks from some of the targeted polling and research by The Jerusalem Post. And since platforms regarding national security tend to ring a whole lot clearer over there than they do here, one can understand why:

"Jerusalem will not be divided and Gamla will not fall again," Likud chairman and prime ministerial candidate Binyamin Netanyahu said Sunday during a tour of the Golan Heights.

Accompanied by Likud members Moshe Ya'alon, Yossi Peled, Bennie Begin and Efi Eitam, Netanyahu arrived in the North to participate in Tu Bishvat tree planting.

"If Kadima wins," he said, "we will not have the Golan Heights and will only continue ceding territory. Peace is made with the strong, not the weak. Israel with the Golan Heights is a strong state and not a weak state which gives away its assets."

And even the dullest of military tacticians or even an array of guys that infuse Tzun Tzu rhetoric into their paintball tournaments know that self preservation and safety for one's people will not include a real estate deal that cedes the hills that overlook the valleys. And Tuesday, the world will find out whether the Israeli population assents to the primary crux of the election--that the Kadima party will try to advance the cause of peace by handing over the Golan heights. And the world will see whether or not Israel has learned the lessons of Gaza.

But Israel, for all their vain, backslidden fog, still seems to understand that they are surrounded--literally--by nations that want to eliminate them. Thus a less-euphonious-but-no-less-audible reverberation of the need for the strong man to guard the house.

-R

Wikipedia: Authored By A Core Group Of 500?

It never occurred to me that Wikipedia's giant, user-edited database may actually garner most of its updates from a benevolent cabal of Trivial Pursuit Goliaths. And that's what my favorite tech-blogger, Jeff Atwood, tries to iron out:

When you visit Wikipedia's entry on asphalt, you get some reasonably reliable information about asphalt. What you don't get, however, is any indication of who the author is. That's because the author is irrelevant. Wikipedia is a community effort, the result of tiny slices of effort contributed by millions of people around the world. The focus is on the value of the aggregated information, not who the individual authors are.

But who is that community? According to Jimmy Wales, most of the work on Wikipedia is done by a tightly knit Gang of 500:

The links in the quote go to the places Atwood references. But check out the lengths he goes to to check the veracity of this.

Only a programmer . . .

-R

Alas, Poor America, I Hardly Knew Ye

So the pressing question of the day is this: When more journalistic and intellectual energy is devoted to Jessica Simpson's weight gain controversy than a Congressional mortgage that spends more money than we ever borrowed between the revolutionary war and the Carter Administration, what exactly does it say about our country?

Instead of endless reporting on something that isn't a flaw, just a collateral effect of affluence, comfortable living, hormones and age indexes (something that may affect a career), perhaps our media should focus their energies on an emerging weakness that may have a profound effect on our nation. A president's pedestrian rhetorical ability invested with preposterous spiritual gravity.

Captain Cook's claims of incarnation were quickly dashed, when, as Mark Twain put it, "betrayed his earthly origin with a groan." His entire protracted imperialist blueprint was obliterated--right along with him--when the Hawaiians discovered he was but a mortal.

Worth noting, as the days become more and more occluded and tumultuous. What's it going to take for America to lose its Brangelina trance?

-R

Pentecostal in the White House

Did you know that President Obama is revamping the faith-based initiatives program and that the new White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships is being headed by a 26-year-old Pentecostal minister?

Some background on Joshua DuBois, who calls Nashville home.

And A Follow Up On The Heroic

Seems Captain Sullenberger demonstrated the kind of coolness that doesn't befit the panicked opportunists in the halls of Congress right now. I wonder how a "stimulus bill" might go down if Captain Sully were at the helm?

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Off the hook.

-R

The Truth Project

On the invitation of someone that attends a denominational church in my town, I have attended for the last two weeks what is in reality, the second and third installments of a modular series called The Truth Project.

This work, produced by Focus on the Family, is a DVD series, each lesson broken down into hour-long segments. The group at large is then broken down into smaller "discussion groups," where what is taught during the lesson can be given at least a small degree of traction in the mind before one leaves.

This program is stunning. And though I am one who demurs from any real criticism of apostolic organizational issues (as I'd have to get in a very long queue do do it anyway), I do feel that this kind of thing is something we rarely see. And since apostolics are entering the world of academia at unprecedented rates, it would be wise to fully comprehend the philosophical, anthropological, musical, and humanistic poisons that await--not the blatant things that assault one's faith at face value, but the subtle "pernicious lies" as Dr. Tackett calls them--that place us in handcuffs we aren't even aware are being applied.

The Cosmic Cube

The video features a one Dr. Del Tackett, who using an apologetics framework derived from CS Lewis' Mere Christianity. The first session I attended involved a central theme of the program, involving the "Cosmic Cube," or "The Box." This box contains every philosophy, moray, theory and prognostication man can possibly conjure to explain the universe. God, of course, lives outside the box, where his Transcendency is ignored, impugned, and explained away. Dr. Tackett-- supremely gifted teacher--illustrates how luminaries like Carl Sagan, Rousseau, Maslow and Hawking, along with a myriad of ancient philosophers--all try to explain a cold, limited accidental existence, while battling with the very voice of creation which proclaims God is who He is.

What Is Evil?

The third installment details the over saturation of Abraham Maslow's teaching particularly his "Hierarchy of Needs." By the time one has written about this goofy, pyramidic chart for tenth consecutive class, Maslow becomes the default standard, even if it is from narcoleptic coercion.

Dr. Tackett doesn't shy away from the world's foremost humanistic thinkers, but plunges headlong into what they've really established. And using Maslow's assertions that there is no "inherent evil" in man, coupled with his "self-actualization" capstone, Tackett exposes alarmingly inconsistent theories, incapable of marrying at the altar of logic. Footage from various adversarial events, interviews from notorious killers claiming "self actualization devoid of a God," and man-on -the-street comments intersperse throughout, giving cultural snapshots of these theories in play.

But his main point being, that even atheists admit to there existing what they call "evil." They just can't see it emanating from a fallen state. And to do so means they have to admit to a "broken" plan, with an "unbroken" one being preferential. Thus an arrow--pointing upward.

I know I ran long here. Click here to view the trailer (see the long version), or the picture to see the events surrounding this. A smart, and scriptural, look at rebuilding our arts and sciences.

UPDATE: Or . . . just watch this:

-R

Too Funny Not to Share

I've seen this in cartoons, but in real life..?

Pop Music Alert: Beyonce

Okay, I don't live for music & I'm always late to the party on new releases, but...

Beyonce's "If I Were a Boy" makes me ache. Of all her songs (that I've heard), it's the first genuine hit that only she could have sung. (Which is the 2nd level of Greatness.) To me, she's a secular Sandi Patti--amazing voice without a signature sound. (Which is the 1st level of Greatness.)

But, when you're lovely to look at and barely clothed on your album photos, you don't need a signature sound. But that doesn't mean you're doing much besides making money.

So, I've always felt she was overrated and soon-to-be-forgotten; but now . . . maybe not. (Can't say the rest of her new album impressed me, but we'll see what else she sings in the near future.)

The music video is tepid and almost completely disconnected from the song lyrics, so if you haven't heard it, listen closely but don't bother watching it. Then let me know what you think.

Every Parent's Dream

From this week's New Yorker.