» How I live on $7,000 per year Early Retirement Extreme: — a combination of simple living, anticonsumerism, DIY ethics, self-reliance, and applied capitalism

» How I live on $7,000 per year Early Retirement Extreme: — a combination of simple living, anticonsumerism, DIY ethics, self-reliance, and applied capitalism

I've thought about this at times.  "How to exit the rat race"

A Catholic Classmate Rethinks His Religion

"Nothing like life to teach you a little more."

A Catholic Classmate Rethinks His Religion - NYTimes.com

Another Bishop Robinson calls for overhaul of RC teachings

Another Bishop Robinson calls for overhaul of RC teachings:
The liberally oriented National Catholic Reporter tells us about retired Roman Catholic Bishop Geoffrey Robinson from Australia who advocates a complete overhaul of the RC church's teaching on sexuality.

At the Seventh National Symposium on Catholicism and Homosexuality, retired Australian Bishop Geoffrey Robinson called Friday for "a new study of everything to do with sexuality" -- a kind of study that he predicted "would have a profound influence on church teaching concerning all sexual relationships, both heterosexual and homosexual."
…
"If the starting point [as in current church teaching] is that every single sexual act must be both unitive and procreative, there is no possibility of approval of homosexual acts," Robinson said. 

He proceeded, however, to question that natural law argument, especially as laid out by recent popes, and to suggest that a more nuanced reading of divine commandments in scripture and of Jesus' teaching would lead to a different set of moral norms -- starting with a change in church teaching that every sexual act or thought that falls outside a loving conjugal act open to procreation is a mortal sin because it is a direct offense against God himself in his divine plan for human sexuality.
….
"The teaching fostered a belief in an incredibly angry God," he added, "for this God would condemn a person to an eternity in hell for a single unrepented moment of deliberate pleasure arising from sexual desire. I simply do not believe in such a God. Indeed, I positively reject such a God."

More on Bp Robinson's work on issues of sexuality

The start of more sane thinking in the RC context?

Advice from 12 Great Entrepeneurs

From a work colleague.  Thanks Jason!

An interesting article about the 12 greatest entrepreneurs of our time.  I like their advice,

Advice: Find very smart people and create small teams.
Advice: Make your customers No. 1.
Advice: Give the people (think users) what they want.
Advice: Spare no expense on innovation.
Advice: Purpose inspires people.
Advice: Rely on "first-level" managers.
Advice: Always challenge the old ways.
Advice: Embrace paranoia.
Advice: Sacrifice today, cash in tomorrow.
Advice: Take regular mini-retreats.
Advice: Say no to focus groups and market research.
Advice: Small gifts can equal big impacts.

Youth Turned Off by Religion and Politics, Turn Away From Church, Christian News

Youth Turned Off by Religion and Politics, Turn Away From Church, Christian News

To young adults, Campbell and Putnam write, "'religion' means 'Republican,' 'intolerant,' and 'homophobic.' Since those traits do not represent their views, they do not see themselves – or wish to be seen by their peers – as religious." 

If the Christian Post is reporting it, maybe it's going to start sinking in with the evangelical/fundamentalist branches of the church.  Not holding my breath.

Our Civilization’s Essence — The League of Ordinary Gentlemen

Our Civilization’s Essence — The League of Ordinary Gentlemen

Love the graphic.  As the author says, it's a picture of our civilization.

Mark Raymond: Victims of the city | Video on TED.com

Mark Raymond: Victims of the city | Video on TED.com

Loving the thoughts he provides about intention and considering social good.  Of course, how to pay for this, to create built-in incentives to improve quality of life is the challenge.

In divided Pakistan, not all are mourning Bhutto | Philadelphia Inquirer | 12/28/2007

In divided Pakistan, not all are mourning Bhutto Philadelphia Inquirer 12/28/2007. Tristan Mabry provides a bit of context to help understand the ethnic and linguistic conflict that is Pakistan.

If it ain't apparent, I rarely blog here. Most of the activity happens on my LJ and on FB.

I saw Brokeback Mountain this past weekend. I've been reading the discussion thread about it over at Ship of Fools and posted my take on the film there.

Christianity Today has a review of the film that I think is very good for the most part. I quibble with very few of the details and they give it a 3 out of 4 stars which speaks of their integrity, as the subject matter of the film can't be very comfortable for them.

I didn't know that Ray Ozzie had gone to work for Microsoft. Did they buy Groove? I've had my head in the sand. His latest blog entry about Really Simple Sharing takes me back to the halcyon days of X-Windows, Unix, SMTP, News and emerging, collaborative technologies. I hope he's having fun is M$-land.

I've had blogdex squirreled away on my IE Links bar for a long time now ... It's how I keep up with the blogosphere and the high-interest memes that are flying about. It's not the most reliable site in the world but it shows interesting stuff when it is up.

This is pretty rich coming from a leader who insists on maintaining the right to torture and holds people in detention centers where they have no rights. Does he not see what a hypocrit he comes off as? It's his administration which has ceded the moral high ground.

Sony feels the heat from the blogosphere here. Their arrogance in not understanding how their software trespassed surreptitiously on people's computer systems and even caused their customers' systems to be exposed to other virii is astonishing.

I should be blogging here more often as I read enough. I tend to write mostly on my live journal (<== see it? It's the top link over there on the left) though. I'll try to do better to post my observations about things here.

I find Malcontent, AmericaBlog, TowleRoad, AfterElton, Ex-Gay Watch, Queer Visions & Postive Liberty to be good, regular reads. I love BlogDex because it's a finger on the dynamic pulse of what's interesting in the moment throughout the blogosphere.

Jeffrey Overstreet excerpts from "Bono in Conversation", the new book of interviews with U2's front man by Michka Assayas.


of which, one bit is:

Assayas: [...]Christ has his rank among the world’s great thinkers. But Son of God, isn’t that farfetched?

Bono: No, it’s not farfetched to me. Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: he was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius. But actually Christ doesn’t allow you that. He doesn’t let you off that hook. Christ says, No. I’m not saying I’m a teacher, don’t call me teacher. I’m not saying I’m a prophet. I’m saying: “I’m the Messiah.” I’m saying: “I am God incarnate.” And people say: No, no, please, just be a prophet. A prophet we can take. You’re a bit eccentric. We’ve had John the Baptist eating locusts and wild honey, we can handle that. But don’t mention the “M” word! Because, you know, we’re gonna have to crucify you. And he goes: No, no, I know you’re expecting me to come back with an army and set you free from these creeps, but actually I am the Messiah. At this point, everyone starts staring at their shoes, and says: Oh, my God, he gonna keep saying this. So what you’re left with is either Christ was who He said He was—the Messiah—or a complete nutcase. I mean, we’re talking nutcase on the level of Charles Manson. This man was like some of the people we’ve been talking about earlier. This man was strapping himself to a bomb, and had King of the Jews” on his head, and was they were putting him up on the Cross, was going: OK, martyrdom, here we go. Bring on the pain! I can take it. I’m not joking here. The idea that the entire course of civilization for over half of the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase, for me that’s farfetched…

Jim Johnson cites an op-ed piece written by John Danforth, US Ambassador to the UN, entitled Onward, Moderate Christian Soldiers. This bit stuck out for me:

In recent years, conservative Christians have presented themselves as representing the one authentic Christian perspective on politics. With due respect for our conservative friends, equally devout Christians come to very different conclusions.
...
Like conservative Christians, we attend church, read the Bible and say our prayers.

But for us, the only absolute standard of behavior is the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves.

In the NYT, Lucian Truscott writes about the impending loss of the core of the young Army officer corp due to placing them in situations where they can't fulfill the honor code they were programmed to believe in: "you pledged that you would not lie, cheat or steal, and that you would not tolerate those who did."

Truscott, himself a West Point graduate -- Class of '69, recounts how it failed then: "the honor code broke down before our eyes as staff and faculty jobs at West Point began filling with officers returning from Vietnam. Some had covered their uniforms with bogus medals and made their careers with lies - inflating body counts, ignoring drug abuse, turning a blind eye to racial discrimination, and worst of all, telling everyone above them in the chain of command that we were winning a war they knew we were losing. The lies became embedded in the curriculum of the academy, and finally in its moral DNA."

And now, it's happening all over again: "The problem the Army created in Vietnam has never really been solved. If you keep faith with soldiers and tell them the truth even when it threatens their beliefs, you run the risk of losing them. But if you peddle cleverly manipulated talking points to people who trust you not to lie, you won't merely lose them, you'll break their hearts."

In a guest column in the NYT, Stacy Schiff opines:

"More than 60 percent of the American people don't trust the press. Why should they? They've been reading 'The Da Vinci Code' and marveling at its historical insights. I have nothing against a fine thriller, especially one that claims the highest of literary honors: it's a movie on the page. But 'The Da Vinci Code' is not a work of nonfiction. If one more person talks to me about Dan Brown's crackerjack research I'm shooting on sight.
The novel's success does point up something critical. We're happier to swallow a half-baked Renaissance religious conspiracy theory than to examine the historical fiction we're living (and dying for) today."

The Economist reviews 3 books about politics and oil.

Peter O'Dell trashes (again) the assertion that we're running out of gas because he says the argument ignores technology and economics (as it did 30 years ago).

Michael Klare puts oil geopolitics in perspective by showing that the current American support for not-nice regimes where most of the current proven reserves happen to be is a bipartisan development over the years.

Lastly, the Rocky Mountain Institute puts out a collection of articles on Winning the Oil Endgame; ideas for getting around the decreasing supply of fossil fuels and still keep our economies from plunging down the toilet.