What the Bible has to say about bloggers

A fool finds no pleasure in understanding
but delights in airing his own opinions.

Proverbs 18:2 (New International Version)

I, um, have no further opinion to air on that matter.

;o)

Technorati tags: Bible, Bloggers, Proverbs

Are Acer computers any good?

I'm considering buying a low-end Acer laptop. I want it mainly for writing and for websurfing, so I don't need a lot of bells and whistles. They have some pretty attractive prices, but from what I've been finding on the Internet, the company has very poor customer service, and their copmuters aren't the most robust.

Is that a fair assessment? Or are the whinings I've seen on the Internet the exception and not the rule? Does anybody have experience with their laptops? Should I run fast in the other direction, or buy one and expect good things?

ETA: We held off, and I ended up getting a Compaq Impresario even cheaper. Wish me luck.


Technorati tags: Acer laptops, Computers

Quote of the day - cutting the national brain

Amba at AmbivaBlog has eloquently expressed the dangers of political polarization.

The Democrats are an American rival, not a stalking horse for a sinister foreign enemy. The tug-of-war and sometimes cooperation/compromise between liberalism and conservatism makes the country stronger; cutting the national brain down the middle and turning the two halves against each other is suicide. It really makes me angry that the people who claim to defend America most passionately are doing so much to rip it apart.

Technorati tags: Polarization

Richard Dawkins is a religious fanatic

And in case you need convincing, he has now joined the ranks of those who condemn Harry Potter, without having read a word. He feels so strongly about the issue, he's stepping down from his position at Oxford to write a book about the pernicious and abusive nature of fantasy. Unless, of course, it's Pullman's Golden Compass, which he can't help loving because of its anti-religious slant.

To be fair to the professor, he says he's not sure about the pernicious influence of fantasy, but everything else he says in the article seems to indicate his mind is pretty well made up. He will, of course, "also set out to demolish the Judeo-Christian myth."

He was on a roll, and just couldn't stop at throwing rocks at fantasy:

Do not ever call a child a Muslim child or a Christian child – that is a form of child abuse because a young child is too young to know what its views are about the cosmos or morality.

It is evil to describe a child as a Muslim child or a Christian child. I think labelling children is child abuse and I think there is a very heavy issue, for example, about teaching about hell and torturing their minds with hell.

It's a form of child abuse, even worse than physical child abuse. I wouldn't want to teach a young child, a terrifyingly young child, about hell when he dies, as it's as bad as many forms of physical abuse.

(Note the emotive words: evil, abuse, torturing, terrifyingly. Makes me wonder how I survived my childhood. Also makes me wonder how he feels about teaching children about the danger of stepping in front of moving cars. That's pretty terrifying too. Is it abusive to make children fear the consequences? I can still remember pictures from those driver ed films.)

As far as I can tell, he fits the fill-in-the-blank template of a religious extremist. Anybody care to dispute it?

For what it's worth, I do think there is a profound difference between a convinced believer and a religious extremist.

Hat tip to Jeffrey Overstreet.


Technorati tags: Richard Dawkins, Religious extremism

Good Samaritan saves a woman's home

We need more good news in this world, right? Well, here it is. Tracy Orr sat crying at the back of a bank auction as her home was put up for sale. The stranger behind her bought it and is letting Orr buy it back.

Got any good news you want to share?


Technorati tags: Tracy Orr, Marilyn Mock, Good Samaritan

13 signs that you might be left wing

I stole this from the MySpace blog of a young man I know. It was meant as a joke, but it's almost too true to be funny. At least he is an equal-opportunity offender. Enjoy.

13 SIGNS THAT YOU MIGHT BE LEFT WING:

1. You believe that "having an open mind" means being pro-gay.
2. You believe the 9/11 attacks were entirely planned and staged by the Republican Party in order to justify an attack on Islam, and to get oil.
3. You think that eating meat is murder, but abortion is progress.
4. You think that 1 white person and 20 black people is diversity.
5. You think that all society's problems can be solved by throwing money at it, and at the same time, you believe that money is the cause of all society's problems.
6. You think that religion is the cause of all wars.
7. You believe that anyone who votes Republican (or Conservative) is a corrupt, close-minded, bigoted fascist.
8. You believe that the only real terrorists are American businessmen.
9. You believe that the official news story is bull crap, but the ramblings of a random anonymous blogger are absolute truth.
10. All your opinions come from Michael Moore, Bill Maher, and Al Franken.
11. You think breaking windows and flipping cars is a form of peaceful protest.
12. You believe that the Bible is hate literature.
13. Your mind is made up before you've heard the issue.


13 SIGNS THAT YOU MIGHT BE RIGHT WING:

1. You believe that if you know one gay person, you have an open mind.
2. You believe that the 9/11 attacks were planned and supported by the entire Muslim world, because they all hate the freedom of sweet, innocent, flawless America.
3. You think that abortion is murder, but war is freedom.
4. You think that 20 white people, and 1 person who may have had a distant non-white ancestor is diversity.
5. You think that all society's problems can be solved as long as there is another country that can be blamed and invaded.
6. You think that all of society's problems are caused by immigrants.
7. You believe that anyone who votes Democrat is a tree-hugging, freedom-hating, terrorist-loving, communist that hates Jesus.
8. You believe that Jesus would vote Republican.
9. You believe that all terrorists are Muslim.
10. You think that universal health care is a form of communism.
11. All your opinions come from Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and Ann Coulter.
12. You think that the 9/11 attacks and Iraq are related.
13. Your mind is made up before you've heard the issue.

SIGNS THAT YOU ARE AN IDIOT:
1. If anything on either one of these lists applies to you.


Technorati tags: Left wing, Right wing

Naomi Lakritz is my new hero

You may recall that I raised my eyebrows a wee bit at the reaction of the Luther College gunman's parents, who wanted to reassure the world that their son was a good kid. I grumped a bit about the uselessness of a word that can expand to include almost any behaviour.

Naomi Lakritz grumped at greater length and brought up some excellent criticism of the modern tendency to excuse all and avoid hurting the self-esteem of our precious progeny, starting with this:

If the 16-year-old boy in Regina who took 300 students hostage this week and pointed a gun at the school's pastor is a good kid, what does a bad kid look like?

The day after the incident ended with the principal wrestling the gun away from the boy, and his subsequent arrest, lawyer Brad Tilling passed on a message from his parents: "They would like people to know that he is a good kid and obviously there was some difficulty the other day."

A "good kid?" An armed hostage-taking is "some difficulty?"

Read the whole thing. She wrote it a month ago, but I suspect it was available only to subscribers before now.


Technorati tags: Naomi Lakritz, Self-esteem, Luther College

W - a movie review

Meh.

There are some good things to say about this movie and they center primarily around the performances. Josh Brolin worked very, very hard not only to nail George Bush, but to nail him at the different stages of his life and he did an incredibly good job of it. Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney never once made me think of Mr. Holland either. No warm fuzzies coming from him in this movie.

But these memorable performances are the only thing worth going to see in this movie. Only people who enjoy sneering at George Bush for its own sake will get much pleasure out of it, and even they will feel let down more than once, as the movie did try to go beyond caricature.

It didn't do a very good job though. For a George Bush-neutral like myself (I know, I'm a rare breed) it was a great let-down. The only "insights" into his character are furnished by scenes of private conversations that are pretty much by definition, fantasies of the screen writers.

Now, I'm a great fan of fantasy, but only when it is openly fantasy. There is an intellectual dishonesty about shaping a historical or contemporary figure according the whims of the shapers rather according to the rigours of actual evidence that troubles me immensely.

Unfortunately, such niceties have never troubled Oliver Stone.

The movie definitely doesn't hold up as a documentary (and it bothers me a lot to think that many movie-goers will see it as gospel truth when it is almost entirely fiction) and just as damning, it doesn't hold up all that well as a story. I got bored more than once, not able to discern a clear direction, other than the fact that George W. was constantly on the screen.

So, other than some fine acting, this movie was rather a disappointment. But not enough of a disappointment to get me really mad. It wasn't even good at being bad. Meh.
Technorati tags: Josh Brolin, Oliver Stone, W the movie

Further evidence of my insanity

I should be finished the major revisions on my novel, In a Dry and Weary Land, by the middle of this month, so what better use would I have for my time than starting on a new one? With a big bang.

NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, helped give me a little nudge three years ago, and a big boot in the butt two years ago. Without it, I doubt I ever would have become serious about writing. I also learned, the hard way, that I write much better with some planning and a good general idea of where I'm going. I've made friends going to the organized write-ins, which we decided to continue year-round.

For the uninitiated, NaNoWriMo started ten years ago. The challenge is to write a 50,000-word novel over the month of November. Prior research, plotting, outlining, all are allowed, but you can't start work on the actual writing until November 1st. If you do manage to crank out 50,000 words (they have a little upload program that will count your words), you win. All you win is bragging rights and perhaps a real sense of accomplishment. They have badges and widgets and participant profiles and forums and local events - a lot of pleasant kerfuffle. They also raise funds to sponsor libraries in the Third World. If you're interested in participating and/or donating, check out their website. A little good, clean insanity never hurt anybody.

I have never "won", but that doesn't matter. I have profited from my involvement, because I learned to write daily and to hold myself to it. Two years ago I was ecstatic to produce 36,000 words, about a third of what my novel would eventually become. This year I hope to get a good substantial start on the next one.

Wish me luck!


Technorati tags: NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month

No good deed goes unpunished

I got to experience it firsthand this spring. I stepped out into my tiny fenced-in back yard, which triggered a frantic rustling in the flower beds. And what to my wondering eye should appear...


This young crow had fallen from the nest in the tree overhanging my yard and couldn't get out. It appeared to be fully fledged to my non-expert eyes, but was unable to get aloft. When I watched it from the inside, I saw that it could get only about a foot into the air.

Being tender-hearted and a soft touch, I decided to care for the thing. (I'd googled caring for crows as pets and quickly decided that was not something I wanted to get involved in.) So I fed the darn thing: oatmeal, fruits and veggies, bits of cheese, some canned meat. Being really bad at imaginative names, I called it Buddy. Trust me, Edgar Allen Crow has been used a million times.


Buddy wasn't sure what to think of me. His experience told me I was beneficent, so he'd stay pretty calm when I was around.


Until his parents caught sight of me, and immediately raised a ruckus from the treetops to make your head hurt. "Run! Hide! Danger!" Confused, Buddy would comply and tuck himself under the leaves again. I gave up trying to make friends; the family interference was just too intense.

Buddy liked hanging out on my chair.


And as you can see, hanging out was not the only thing he did on my chair. And on the table. And all over the patio. Now imagine this going on for four or five days.

I didn't take pictures. It was too discouraging. I stopped using the back yard. The chairs were too dirty to sit in. And, tender-hearted or no, when I came out one morning to feed him (her?) and discovered he'd flown the coop, I was thrilled. For me, not for the bird.

Maybe I should have called him Nevermore.


Technorati tags: Crows