New Covenant

From an introvert's point of view

From Introverted Church (thanks to Brian at A Small Faith) comes a link to an Introvert's Lexicon.

Being an introvert, I found the lexicon to be hilarious! Some of my favorites include:

Alone, adj.

• Extrovert's definition:  Lonely
• Introvert's definition:  Enjoying some peace and quiet.

Bored, adj.

• Extrovert's definition:  Not frantically busy.
• Introvert's definition:  Stuck making small talk, and unable to escape politely.

Home, n.

• Extrovert's definition:  A place to invite everybody you know.
• Introvert's definition:  A place to hide from everybody you know.

Shell, n.

• Extrovert's definition:  Something you find on the beach.
• Introvert's definition:  What people relentlessly nag you to come out of. Why do you have to leave it, if you're happy there? 

To go out, v. 

• Extrovert's definition: Requires at least two people, and the more the better. Constant chatter, loud music, sports, crowds, and food consumption are all fun components of going out.
• Introvert's definition: Can be done alone or with others. Enjoyable if there's some point to it; e.g., in order to see a band, a movie, a play, or perhaps to have a stimulating discussion with one or two close friends.

Amen! How many times have you introverts (out there) been dragged out of your shell and forced to go out, only to be bored crazy, and ending up wishing you were home... alone?

Facebook, your kids, and their future

If your kids are at the MySpace or Facebook age, or if they're getting close to that age, then I recommend reading Vicki Courtney's  Logged On and Tuned Out: A Non-Techie's Guide to Parenting a Tech-Savvy Generation. While today's kids may be way more tech-savvy than the typical adult, they are not always so street-savvy. Courtney points out many instances in which unsavory material, typically posted in jest, has come back to haunt kids once they enter the mainstream, post-college world (ref. the Facebook group, "30 Reasons Girls should call it a night"). Once the material, usually in the form of photos or video, has found its way onto the web, it never leaves.

On her blog, Courtney recently posted, Is that a picture of your daughter playing beer pong on Facebook?. She states,

If you have a child in 7th-12th grade, it's time to twirl your big toe in the uncharted waters of Facebook and MySpace... More often than not, I see parents take an interest in the social networking sites only when something has gone wrong and they are forced to log on and address the matter... I can't even begin to count the number of "emergency inquiries" that have come into my office from parents who have caught wind of some scandal their child is involved in and need a step-by-step tutorial on how to access their child's profile. This served as a motivating factor when writing my book, "Logged On and Tuned Out...". Allow me to share a few more sobering, yet motivating factors that led me to write the book:

* pictures of girls in various states of undress (including church girls)

* pictures of underaged minors from my children's high school consuming alcohol (including church kids)

* pictures of grown adults hosting parties where underage minors were drinking

* countless cyber-bullying accounts and a few that were so serious, the victims transferred to another school

...

* a middle school girl who posted nude pictures of herself on her MySpace page and then claimed "someone" sent out a link to the pictures to her entire friend list. Unfortunately, my son was on her friend list. Fortunately, he didn't click through and notified me of the link.

Indeed, unwanted material can show up on the Facebook page of even the most wholesome kid. I've only been on Facebook since early this year, and I've already run across instances of vulgar material showing up in places it shouldn't (i.e., on certain "friends" pages).

To make matters worse, we have posts like this one, at Lifehacker, which state,

Just because your Uncle Joe joined Facebook and you added him as a friend doesn't mean you can't upload photos from the keg party. Facebook just added finer privacy controls to the network which let you expand access to your info to friends of your friends, and exclude friends on a name by name basis from particular bits of information.

Take a look at the comments, on the Lifehacker post, to get an idea of what some people think about the whole privacy issue. For example,

Kids feel compelled (or are compelled) to friend their parents. Parents who don't know will think they can see everything on the page while the kids can selectively allow content to their "real friends" vs their parents.

An argument for net monitoring software?

Science Saturday: filming the birth of a black hole

From ScienceDaily, World's First Movie Of Black Hole Birth,

The date of March 19, 2008 marked the brightest ever cosmic explosion observed from the Earth. The outburst known as GRB 080319B was probably the death of a massive star leading to the creation of a black hole. For the first time the birth of a black hole has been filmed. Cameras of the "Pi of the Sky" project recorded this remarkable event with a 4-minute sequence of 10-second-long images. In almost 20 seconds the object became so bright that it could be visible with the naked eye. Then it began fading and in 4 minutes it became 100 times fainter.

From the "Pi of the sky" website,

2008.03.19 "Pi of the Sky" telescope detected the brightest ever optical outburst from a distant universe. The explosion happened 7.5 billion light years from the Earth, halfway across the visible Universe. (emphasis added)

Wow! Picking up an optical outburst from another universe (distant or not).

Also, note that the optical outburst occurred in a universe measured to be "7.5 billion light years from the Earth." That means that the light, which made the image below, began its journey 7.5 billion years ago. Yet, if the universe is only 6,000 to 10,000 years old, as Young Earth Creationists claim, then we're left with a paradox. Did this event really happen? Is it simply the result of light patterns that God placed "in transit" 6 to 10 thousand years ago? If so, then why would He intentionally provide evidence for an event that never really happened?

- image courtesy of the Pi of the sky website (if the animation is not active, visit the website for the dynamic version).

Global warming skeptic? You're "almost like... those who believe the world is flat." - Al Gore

From 60 Minutes,

Confronted by Stahl with the fact some prominent people, including the nation’s vice president, are not convinced that global warming is man-made, Gore responds: "You're talking about Dick Cheney. I think that those people are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view, they’re almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat,” says Gore. "That demeans them a little bit, but it's not that far off," he tells Stahl.

No, no, no, Al! It wasn't a movie lot in Arizona. Everyone knows it was a lot in Nevada! And the world isn't flat - it's slightly curved.

Click the image to watch the nonsense for yourself.

America Alone (v. 2)

Mark Steyn's book, America Alone, isn't a call for more war, more bombing, or more killing, but for more will. Herein follows a series of posts either highlight Steyn quotes, or listing current events which, indeed, indicate that America is alone in her fight against Islamic terror.

Re: State-of-the-Art Primitive - and the gulf between cultures...

USA Coddles KSA

For those who follow the state of religious freedom, or more properly the extreme lack thereof, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and all the barbaric insanity that can and does flow from the extreme practice of Islam as it is practiced in "the Kingdom" the latest report of such lunacy from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) should come as no surprise. It seems recently a 40 year old Saudi woman who is the mother of three and a financial consultant was in Riyadh on business when she committed the heinous offense of...having coffee with an unrelated male colleague in a Starbucks.

For that, she was arrested and detained by a member of the Saudi religious police, otherwise known as the "Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice." The woman was eventually released, but not after being interrogated in a prison, strip searched and forced to sign a "confession" that she had committed the crime of "seclusion with an unrelated man."

Michelle Obama: the gift that keeps on giving (v. 4)

From Crunchy Con, several interesting links to what could be driving Michelle Obama's confusion about America. Consider this one from Asia Times,

Barack Obama, I argued, evinces a preternatural sangfroid, for he is in America but not of it, a Third World anthropologist profiling Americans. But his wife's anger at America will out, for it is a profound rage amplified by guilt.

Mrs Obama averred that she could not recall the contents of the thesis she composed in 1985, but that cannot be quite true, for it is a poignant cry from the heart. It explains her controversial outburst during the campaign to the effect that she felt proud of her country for the first time in her adult life in 2008, after "feeling so alone" in her "frustration" and "disappointment" at America.

America, you're being had if you listen to what Michelle Obama dishes out.

Could that be why she's been out of spotlight, as of late?

The Long War (v. 4)

AQI Facilitation Networks Still Active in Syria

In its latest effort to target al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) financial and logistical networks operating out of Syria, the Treasury Department designated today four members of a key terrorist facilitation network. Such facilitation networks have long operated out of Syria and have been the target of periodic designations. As recently as December 2007, Undersecretary of the Treasury Stuart Levey called on Syria to “take action to deny safe haven to those supporting violence from within its borders.” Today’s designation suggests Syria still has far to go in this regard.

...

While Syria has reportedly taken some measures to curb the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq, recently disclosed documents seized from insurgents in Iraq revealed that while fewer foreign fighters have been entering Iraq Syria remained the preferred route.

Car Bomb Rocks Southern Thai Hotel

On Saturday night, a 20 kg bomb hidden in the back of a car was detonated in front of the CS Pattani Hotel in Pattani, southern Thailand. Two were killed, three are in critical condition and 15 others sustained moderate injuries. It was the boldest attack by Muslim insurgents in southern Thailand in recent months. Some 3,000 have been killed since the insurgency got underway in January 2004. Violence peaked in June 2007, and has gone down, owing to stepped up counter-insurgent operations; but the average rate of killing today is still above the 4-year average. This is not the first car bomb in southern Thailand, but the first in over a year.

Islamabad bombing targets foreigners

The Taliban and al Qaeda continue their terror campaign in the nuclear-armed state of Pakistan. The latest bombing occurred at an Italian restaurant in the capital city of Islamabad. At least one civilian was killed and 15 wounded in an attack that appears to have targeted foreigners in the city.

...

The bombing occurred in the courtyard of the Luna Caprese restaurant, known to be frequented by foreigners. Pakistani police ruled out a suicide bomb attack and believe the bomb was planted and detonated remotely.

Abstract Wall & Sky

Detail of the Fog Signal Building, at the Piedras Blancas Light Station, near San Simeon, CA.

Blue, deep blue, cloudless sky, on a mild winter's day on California's Central Coast. The environment, typically bound under fog, clouds, or wind, betraying itself. Calm, before the storm.

Enjoy the moment.

It will not last.

- image © 2008 A. R. Lopez

What if we win? (v. 11)

US gets quicker on the draw

The US didn’t take very long in finding two al-Qaeda in Iraq leaders who killed five American soldiers in a blast five weeks ago. Both died in an attack on their vehicle in Mosul Wednesday, after a guided missile attack. It demonstrates that US and Iraqi intelligence has improved in the last area where AQI still exercises any cohesiveness...

Breaking: Americans nab high-value Osama lieutenant

The US captured an al-Qaeda terrorist who played an instrumental role in helping Osama bin Laden escape from Afghanistan after 9/11. Mohammed Rahim now sits in a Guantanamo Bay cell after his capture, arriving there this week, although the CIA won’t say when or where they caught him...

Important Taliban commander for northwestern Afghanistan arrested

Afghan officials have announced the capture of Maulvi Dastagir following a raid by Afghan intelligence operatives in the western province of Herat, the Pajhwok Afghan News center reported on Sunday. Dastagir, a key Taliban field operative in neighboring Badghis province, was seized in the Kamarkalagh district just north of Herat’s provincial capital. Dastagir spoke regularly with regional media outlets and was the Taliban’s unofficial spokesman for their northwestern faction.

"Mindless-Process" Design: on being students without a teacher (v. 2)

Natural Process Evolution (aka Neo-Darwinism, Naturalism, etc.) rests on the Blind Watchmaker argument in which mindless processes, via the natural realm, are responsible for the diversity of life on planet earth (indeed, responsible for the very cosmos we exist in).

We are told that we, as humans, have evolved to the point where we have minds that think, that reason, that design, and that engineer. Yet, if this is the case, how is it that we now seem to take our mind-driven cues, as shown below, from the alleged products of a completely mindless process? Common sense, from our evolved minds, should tell us that if we see a well designed and engineered product, then it is reasonable to conclude that it, in fact, came from a mind.

Therefore, I'd like to present a series of examples that we find in nature, of so-called MD (i.e., Mindless-process Design) and how, in doing so, we acknowledge the inescapable conclusion that there is design / engineering in what we behold:

First, we have an example of the seemingly ubiquitous bar code. From Wikipedia,

"The first patent for a bar code type product (US Patent #2,612,994) was issued to inventors Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver on October 7, 1952. Its implementation was made possible through the work of Raymond Alexander and Frank Stietz, two engineers with Sylvania (who were also granted a patent), as a result of their work on a system to identify railroad cars. It was not until 1966 that barcodes were put to commercial use and they were not commercially successful until the 1980s."

Note that the first patent for a bar code type product was issued to inventors, and that its implementation was made possible by two engineers. Yeah. Got that? Inventors... engineers? Persons. Persons with... minds.

From Dr. Fuz Rana at Today's New Reason to Believe, DNA Barcodes Used to Inventory Plant Biodiversity,

Barcodes have revolutionized the retail business. Now cashiers simply scan the items while computer technology does the rest. It has increased the speed and accuracy of the checkout process and provides the added benefit of giving the store managers a real-time inventory.

Scientists have come to realize that DNA can be used as a barcode to perform some of the same functions as barcodes printed onto food packaging. Biologists have been able to identify, catalog, and monitor animal species using relatively short, standardized segments of DNA within the genome that are unique to the species, or subspecies in some cases. And now new work extends the utility of DNA barcoding to plants.

...

One of the challenges of DNA barcoding centers on identifying a region within the genome that can distinguish a wide range of taxa. Researchers have recently discovered that the matK gene found in plastid DNA fulfills this requirement. This gene displays the so-called barcoding gap by simultaneously varying little within a species, but varying significantly between species...

...

The use of DNA as barcodes underscores the informational content of this biomolecule. DNA barcoding makes it clear that biochemical information is truly information.

Dr. Rana also discussed this topic, recently, on the weekly Creation Update program sponsored by Reasons to Believe.

On the Wimpification of Culture (v. 1)

In writing about the phenomenon of the culturally feminized man, perhaps I have been amiss in my use of certain words. Not that I've changed my opinion, mind you, but I think I underestimated the manner in which my use of the word "feminized", for example, would be taken. It seemed (and it still does) pretty clear to me, as it must to authors such as Mark Steyn and Nancy Pearcey, how the word should be taken. Yet, I think the negative aspects of this use of "feminization" is perhaps too easily linked up with the mere trait of being feminine (a wonderful trait, I might add, provided that one is female).

So... what word to use? Girlie-man? Nah. Too Terminator-esque. I had thought that "infantile" would be a valid substitute - but that wouldn't be fair to all the infants in the world (given that they are not yet in a position to defend themselves). So, I'm pretty much left with the word - wimpification - to utilize in describing what I see as negative cultural influences within our society.

That said, first up in this series of posts highlighting evidence of our wimpified culture, is a tidbit from Mere Comments, titled Is Easter Too Scary for Preschoolers?.

The pastors at this church in Raleigh, North Carolina, were perplexed when they saw the Holy Week Sunday school lessons for preschoolers from "First Look," the publisher of the one to five year-old Sunday school class materials. There wasn't a mention of the resurrection of Jesus. Naturally, the pastors inquired about the oversight. It turns out it was no oversight.

...

"Easter is a special time in churches," the letter from the publisher says. "It's a time of celebration and thankfulness. But because of the graphic nature of the Easter story and the crucifixion specifically, we need to be careful as we choose what we tell preschoolers about Easter."

...

The curriculum marketers must know how bad this sounds, so they reassure the church they believe that the Gospel is for all people. Leaving out the cross and the resurrection is actually to help children come to Christ. They write, "We're using these formative preschool years to build a foundation for that eventual decision by focusing on God's love and telling preschoolers that 'Jesus wants to be my friend forever.'"

Not only do they think that the Easter Resurrection Day story is too graphic for preschoolers to handle, they also think we should be teaching those same preschoolers some anti-Biblical notion that Jesus wants to be my friend forever. One has to wonder if their curriculum has some benign "Jesus", smiling, and clad in a sweater, asking the children, "Won't you let me be your friend? Please? It would mean so much to me? Oh, please, let me be your friend?"

Consider, though, is the "Jesus wants to be my friend forever" message, to four year-olds, any different from the "Jesus wants to have a personal relationship with you" sermon, pitched to adults? For a wimpified culture, I fear that the answer is, no.

U2: A Celebration

A post at the Evangelical Outpost, last week, reminded me of a U2 video from way back in 1982. In, A Celebration, we see U2 when it had raw energy... when it was good.

Barack, Wright, Frankie, Balko, Joe, & others

While folks such as Radley Balko and Frankie (not a junior) Schaeffer whiningly criticize the criticism levied against Rev. Wright's racist rants as hypocritical, given some vague association with Pat Robertson rants, folk, such as Joe Carter, lower the boom:

It would be difficult to dispute that Barack Obama has a problem. But despite what is being claimed by many bloggers and journalists, the Senator's biggest problem isn't his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Sen. Obama's association with the rogue pastor is forgivable; his association with apostasy, however, is inexcusable.

...

Imagine if I were to spend 20 years attending the Aryan Church of the White Christ. Unlike the nice people in the pews, I myself am not a racist--but I didn't disassociate myself with them either. I looked the other way and feigned ignorance of what my church teaches even when presented with evidence that I would have to be a fool to have ignored. Would I be a person of integrity, much less one who is qualified to be the President of the United States?

And Allahpundit's remarks are worth of the quote of the day,

“[R]ace is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now,” saith the prophet, politely eliding the fact that he was only too happy to ignore it for 20 years when it was being belched at him from the pulpit in its most wretched form and then for another 13 months as a candidate until ABC dropped it on his plate and rubbed his face in it.

State fiscal crisis? Cut the administration costs

From HumanEvents, California's Affluent Schools Ooze Corruption

...last May a grand jury in conservative Orange County indicted the superintendent and assistant superintendent of the Capistrano Unified School District (CUSD) on several felony counts of misuse of taxpayer funds.

...

The Capistrano debacle started with discontent among parents over the skyrocketing cost of a planned district headquarters building.  A local newspaper estimated the price tag at $52 million, double the original official estimate.  Anger over this spending fiasco triggered a parent-supported recall campaign against school board members who backed the bureaucrats’ Taj Mahal. That, in turn caused district superintendent James Fleming, the highest paid superintendent in the county, to launch a vendetta against the parent-organizers of the recall.

...

The Capistrano scandal is no anomaly. The San Mateo Unified High School District, located in a high-priced suburb just south of San Francisco, has been the focus of several recent grand jury investigations.  One grand jury report found that the district faced a $164-million debt because costs for its construction projects far exceeded its construction budget.  The grand jury also discovered sweetheart employment deals, including a consulting contract to the retired assistant of the district’s then-superintendent.  The contract did not call for any specific accomplishments and allowed for large overtime payments without any documentation that work was ever performed.

Abstract Lily

Calla lily, after the rain. Shot with a 25mm extender on a 50mm 1.4 Canon lens.

Shades of black, and shades of white, moving, turning, shifting.

- image © 2008 A. R. Lopez

America Alone (v. 1)

Mark Steyn's book, America Alone, isn't a call for more war, more bombing, or more killing, but for more will. Herein follows a series of posts either highlight Steyn quotes, or listing current events which, indeed, indicate that America is alone in her fight against Islamic terror.

Re: falling birthrates in Europe, from Steyn -

Unless it corrects course within the next five to ten years, Europe by the end of this century will be a continent after the neutron bomb: the grand buildings will still be standing but the people who built them will be gone. By the next century, German will be spoken only at Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels and Goering's Monday night poker game in Hell.

On men, and feminization

Over at Intellectuelle, Bonnie has posted the following:

Which kind of man would you prefer...ladies? Which kind of man would be worthier of emulation, you men of upright character?

The one who might be considered "feminized," who is actually kind, considerate, honest, open, appreciative, and generous, or the kind of man who is "arrogant, ruthless, bullying, overly-aggressive," and other things...like Eliot Spitzer?

Now, if Bonnie's reference to "feminized" has to do with my posts on culturally feminized men, then her characterization of the un-feminized man is completely off base.

Bonnie, you've done nothing more than stack the deck, defining "feminized" as having noble qualities, and then comparing such qualities with their opposite, ignoble traits (and, in the process, implying that those are the "masculinized" qualities). While you don't specifically state that those men who are arrogant, ruthless, bullying, and overly-aggressive are "masculinized" men, you contrast it with those men who, if considered to be "feminized", are actually kind, considerate, honest, open, appreciative, and generous.

In my opinion, the masculinized man is the one who is kind, considerate, honest, open, appreciative, generous... and upright, courageous, spiritual, strong, loving, and honorable. Such noble attributes and strong character traits, as expressed within the male gender, are the true measure of a gentleman and... a man. Note: this is not to say that a woman is incapable of possessing any of these traits (such a notion would be absurd).

By contrast, the culturally feminized man is one who has shirked away from courage, who dwells, excessively, on notions of sensitivity, empathy, and understanding - distinctly feminine qualities. Consider this excerpt from The Feminization of the Church, Biola Magazine Spring 2006,

Another turn-off for men is touchy-feely sermons. Pearcey said the modern church stresses emotions and inner spiritual experiences while neglecting the intellectual side of the faith.

“The more traditionally masculine side of Christianity enjoys crossing swords with hostile secular worldviews. So, as long as Christianity appeals to the emotional, therapeutic, interpersonal, relational areas, it’s not going to appeal to men as much as to women,” Pearcey said.

Churches should engage men’s intellects to help them see the relevance of Christianity to the “real” world of politics, industry and business, Pearcey said.

“We have to recover the notion that Christianity is true on all levels, not just for your emotional life or repairing relationships, as important as those things are,” she said.

Or, from a secular point of view, Mark Steyn's comments on girlie-men,

But in an odd way this distinction does encapsulate the choice in November. If we revert to Arnie’s terms, Bush is a terminator: he terminated Saddam and he terminated the Taleban, and if he’s re-elected there’ll likely be a couple more before he’s through. John F. Kerry, on the other hand, is a girlie man. I don’t mean because his extraordinarily luxurious lifestyle is funded by the gazillions his missus inherited from her first husband, nor because of that limp-wristed ceremonial first pitch he threw out at the Red Sox-Yankees game in Boston on Sunday. No, I think Kerry is a girlie man because of his two-decade aversion to the projection of American military power, and his total lack of interest in formulating any alternative approach. On Monday night at the convention, Bill Clinton remarked that ‘strength and wisdom are not opposing values’ — i.e., Kerry can be just as macho as Bush, but his butchness will be informed by his tremendous Swiss-finishing-school braininess. But the reality is that Kerry shows few signs of either strength or wisdom. His foreign policy is passive and reactive, and notable for its finger-in-the-windiness. He says George Bush ‘didn’t do Iraq right’, but he never says what he’d have done differently. Those snotty intellectuals who say that Bush is ‘uncurious’ ought to display a little more curiosity about Kerry’s enervated approach to these issues.

It's certainly not politically correct to mention the notion of girlie-men, much less that of the culturally feminized man.

But, in my opinion, that doesn't take away from its reality.

Overheard at church

From a budding Worship Team leader (albeit still about 17 years old),

I'm going to sing a solo, before we start worship, just to - you know - set the mood for worship...

Set the mood? Is that what singing worship songs is about?

Reality Feline

A local cat, at a living history museum, in Santa Fe Springs, CA.

With fine tuned hearing, a keen sense of smell, and claws within its quiet paws, the cat is designed for stealthy predation. Such exquisitely engineered handiwork. The fingerprint of God.

- image © 2008 A. R. Lopez

Ignorantly Educated Buffoonery at CSUF

From the Daily Titan, a supposedly university level publication from the campus of California State University, Fullerton, comes an op-ed on the recent homeschool ruling in California. Take the time to read the ignorance contained in *Ignorant Education*. An excerpt, "In general, those who homeschool their children are Christians with a narrow view of the world. They shun crazy theories like evolution and seek to protect their kids from the evils of the world - especially gays."

One suspects that the writers (the "Editorial Board") must consider their view of the world to be - wide. Not wide enough, however, to allow for those with "narrow" views. My, such hypocritical intolerance, within the halls of academia.