Here are some things I've hoped for in the past few years:
...the Cubs would win a world series
...my car would magically be fixed
...I'd get a $5,000 raise

You get the idea. None of those things have yet to come to fruition - the Cubs haven't won a series since 1908, my car has only once or twice magically fixed itself, and the same part mysteriously broke again soonthereafter, and my raises up to this point would not paint a graph of a $5,000 raise in one fell swoop.

But I hope for them nonetheless. Is that the same hope that Jesus is serving up like the lunchlady with the ladel full of walking tacos?

After all, it is said that this hope cannot fail us. And let me tell you, I'm fully prepared to live a long, healthy life and never see the Cubs win the world series.

In the apostle Paul's letter to the church in Rome, he says "...we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."

I think it helps to put hope in its correct place. Hope is not something that God is providing. Hope is a natural byproduct of the glory of God. This is why when the Cubs lose every year, hope has failed me. Hope in and of itself can be based on something real or it can be based on something imaginary. The Cubs haven't won in almost a century, and between their injury-riddled roster and their less-than-stellar coaching for the past couple years, they haven't provided anything that results in hope. Still, I hope. You can make a similar pattern for the raise and for my car.

What God is providing is His Glory. That's something real, something that is present and accessible (although there's probably a need for someone to break down what that actually means). I have hope because I understand God's nature and character. I understand what God wants for this world and the people who live here. I have hope that there is something better avaiable and that God's Kingdom is here.

So that leads us to (what else?) more questions...

Is the hope provided by the glory of God the same hope that results from suffering?

How does suffering produce hope? Does suffering produce hope and perseverance produce hope? Or is it only the process of persevering through suffering and creating character that produces hope?

And what's happened when something I've hoped for, maybe even something that agrees with scripture, doesn't come to be?

I'll share some brief thoughts on those next. What questions do you have about hope?

Labels: Favorites, Jesus

If I'm going to keep this blog rolling, I'm going to have to supplement the big series with small posts in between. I call these "spaghetti posts," where I throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see if anything sticks. And away we go...


My buddy Nick is traveling cross country for work and blogging about all of the mundane beauty of a cross-country trip for work, especially for a city boy. Check it out.

The first five episodes of The State are available on iTunes now. It's not an ideal way to view them - although I think they finally increased the resolution. If nothing else, this may signal that the show is heading to DVD at some point. Awwwww yeaaaaah.


Yesterday's Calvin & Hobbes reprint - childlike humor or scathing review of most of today's web sites, magazines and media?



This week's Newsweek covers around the world. You can't make this stuff up:


That's enough for now.

Labels: Other

Let's reclaim a buzzword: Hope.

My faith has hope on the tip of its tongue at any given moment. The Bible, especially the letters, are peppered with this word hope. What is hope? And what is it that we're hoping for?

Abraham & Naomi
Two people from the Hebrew Scriptures give us an insightful window into the meaning of hope by the way they entered the process of hope. Abraham, the patriarch of Israel, and Naomi, the mother of Ruth. Both were relying on God for something similar. Abraham was told he'd be the father of an entire nation, but he and his wife were getting up in their years and were past the point where childbirth was possible. Naomi lost her husband and her two sons, and therefore her daughters-in-law lost their husbands. She assumed that she'd live the rest of her life alone.

But, as I've learned time and again, nothing is impossible for God.

In Romans 4:18-21, it says that against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations.

"Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead, since he was about a hundred years old, and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised."

And God did indeed live up to His Word.

Naomi's story is pretty complicated. After her husband and two sons died, she prepared herself for her daughters-in-law to return to their original homes and find peace in the arms of new husbands. She thought she was beyond the years where she could find a husband, and resigned herself to a lifetime of loneliness. But her daughters decided to stay with her. Naomi responded:

"Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons- would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the LORD's hand has gone out against me!"

Naomi gave up hope. She soon changes her name to Mara, which means 'bitter'. This story is far too complex to jump into here but suffice it to say that because of their status as daughters-in-law and because she would be in dire straits without a husband, the outlook is bleak.

But God has other plans. There is a man named Boaz who was a close relative of Naomi. Boaz married Ruth, one of Naomi's daughters, and qualified as a 'kinsman redeemer', which, according to the Torah, meant among other things that he had a duty to look after the needy and helpless members of a family. Ruth and Boaz saw Naomi into old age and a son was born who continued the line of heritage that would give birth to David, and therefore, Jesus.

Hopeless or Hopefull
Abraham and Naomi found themselves in situations where hope didn't seem like the logical place to live from. They responded to God's grace in their lives in opposite ways. Both were ultimately taken care of by God, which raises interesting questions about this word, hope.

Is hope something we feel like an emotion? Or is it just something that is and that we can grab onto or not?

If we let go of hope, how does it affect us in the long-run? What about the short-run?

Does our hoping or not hoping change anything about who God is and what He's doing?

Can hope fail us? What does it mean for hope to fail or succeed? What does hope mean and what good is it to me? In the words of The Shawshank Redemption, is hope a good thing or a dangerous thing?

I've found several definitions of hope. Hope is the expectation of good. Hope gives joy and pleasure, even if pain and anxiety show up in the process. Hope is a process. It's confidence in a future event, and not for a moment, but for all of the moments.

An interesting note to end the first entry in this series: Jesus never uses the word hope in his teachings. Instead, he says things like don't be anxious about the future, and that after his resurrection there will be renewed spiritual power available, enabling his disciples to do even greater works in the world than even he did. And he says that we can look forward to sharing in his own eternal glory.

Which, of course, points us to even more questions.

Next: suffering, perseverance, character & hope

Labels: Favorites, Jesus

I've got a (hopefully) solid post on hope in the pipelines for later this evening or tomorrow morning. First, some plugs.

-Music-

Some of the release dates I had written down turned out to be wrong, and there's not much I'm interested in until October now. Instead, it's been a good week for scouring the internet for loose singles. Tracks by Sugababes, Sunset Rubdown, Scanners, the Whigs, Scanners, Grizzly Bear, the Rapture and a bunch of DFA remixes will make the October playlist if iTunes cooperates.



-TV-

I've got three shows I'm addicted to - The Office, Scrubs & Lost. This week The Office returned and Lost is coming up in a couple weeks. This season I find that there's a whole lot of shows that I want to watch, but I just don't have the time. So, if there's anything worth checking out, let me know. I watched Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and I really enjoyed it. I hope episode two is a little less self-aware and has a more coherent story, but I can see myself getting hooked. I also just received disc one of season one of The Wire in the mail, so I'll be checking that out and reporting back.

-Software-

Finally, I don't normally do this, but I was surprised by how many Mac users were hitting my site. I wanted to give you a quick list of software I find indispensable (or mostly so). Most of these are Mac-only and can be found at Version Tracker unless otherwise noted. I think almost all of these are free as well.

VLC - The king of the movie playing software for the Mac. I believe there's a Windows version as well.

Deerpark (Firefox) - For my money, you can't beat Firefox. Extensions, search engines, themes, and it's open source so there's pretty much an extension to do anything. I've got add-ons that make tabbed browsing night and day better than Safari, one-click del.icio.us tags, programs to block specific ads of my choosing, a lightweight RSS reader, a download status bar and much much more. Deerpark is specifically designed for Macintosh computers, and I've found it to be a bit faster and smoother than normal Firefox builds for the Mac. Click the link to get it.

Zulupad - a wiki-style textpad. Usually I'm happy with Microsoft Word (or AbiWord / OpenOffice if you want a perfectly-good and free version of Word) and TextEdit, but for writing sermons, meaty blogs, grants for work and other fun stuff, I think the linking features on Zulupad are fantastic. This is available for Windows too.

Adium - A customizable chat program that's simply way cooler than all of the other ones I've seen. Supports AIM, G-talk, Yahoo and everything else you can think of.

Appzapper - "The uninstall program Mac forgot to include."

Growl - I don't know how to describe Growl, but it makes using my computer even easier.

Macjanitor - because it's just a more efficient way to do all of the little things I forget to do, like repair permissions.

Monolingual - There's over a gig of languages that Mac installs on your computer. Since I only know english, I don't really see a need for them. Just make sure you don't delete english.

Service Scrubber - Under the Apple menu there's a section called "Services". It contains seemingly tons of tasks that I never use, so I just ignore it. The thing is, it's a pretty useful feature, and Service Scrubber can take care of the excess making it far easier to use.

Some people swear by Quicksilver, but I haven't spent the time to understand the program yet.

There's also a program called Midnight Inbox by Midnight Beep that's in a beta phase right now. It's not free like some of these other programs, but it's the best Getting Things Done (GTD) program I've ever seen. I don't use Kinkless Getting Things Done (kGTD) so I don't know how it compares, but so far so good.

And if you're not using a Mac, make the switch. You'll never regret it.

Labels: music

I promised some people that I'd post pictures from the wedding. I'll keep the commentaries brief (there were so many great stories and moments, I won't attempt to capture them all here). Just an amazing, beautiful and sacred day.

We were married in a beautiful chapel surrounded by our friends and family. Our friend and mentor Keenan performed the ceremony. I was really nervous right up until the first bridesmaid walked down the aisle, at which point I started crying. I didn't really stop crying until the doors swung open and there stood my bride. She looked beautiful and literally took my breath away. At the sound of the audible exhale, my groomsmen immediately left their positions to watch my reactions as she walked up the aisle.

Worship was particularly sweet that day. The presence of God filled the room - and everyone felt it. One of my favorite parts of our wedding was that we didn't go through the motions - we injected meaning into every piece of the day - from communion to worship to vows to rings and more. Our friends Sus & Ellen performed the music, which was stunning, and we got wax all over the Evanston Vineyard's communion gear. We didn't mean to use the pastor's stuff, and we apologize for the wax fiasco. Thanks for not bringing it up.

I'm told I had a goofy smile on my face the entire day. What can I say, I was (and am) happy.
Verity's attendants - her sisters Patience and Faith, Esther, Meg, Bethany and Ryann. Now would be a good time to point out that my wife is the most beautiful woman in the entire world.
My attendants - (top) Josh, Joe and Gerhardt; (bottom) Justin, Hana & Mike. It's an undescribable experience having all of your closest friends in one room being there for you, celebrating, encouraging and sharing the beginning of your new life. I wonder if these six people, all of whom have unique paths into my life, will ever be in the same room at the same time again.
Our wedding party - we are so blessed to have so many amazing friends.
Her parents and my parents. On August 4 they were in that order but now...
The first dance. We danced to Stevie Wonder's "As". My wife is so cool.
Verity and her father tore it up on the dance floor.
The last dance of the evening. I remember feeling equal parts harmony, elation and exhaustion.

Thank you to everyone who celebrated with us. To those who weren't there, it sounds fake, but you were in our hearts that day.

We honeymooned on the central coast of Oregon, where we were jumping distance from a beach in our secluded cabin on a cliff that overlooked the ocean upon which the sun set each night. We saw a whale 15 feet from our boat, we went hiking to a waterfall and we ate enough shellfish to last a lifetime.

A few more notes before I go to bed. My buddy Nick blessed us with his exceptional DJ skills - as well as serving as an unknown coordinator and an emcee - and we played nothing but good music. And we even snuck the solo Thom-Yorke-on-a-piano version of Radiohead's "Fog" into the mix during dinnertime. Both Verity and I had two best men and two maids of honor. They and our fathers toasted us and I've rarely been so touched. Thanks for everything you all did that day. All of our friends and family humbly served us in so many different ways from February through August, and especially the week and day of the wedding. Thanks for being so gracious and loving. I wore a tux, met Verity at the altar, said I do, worshiped God, communioned with my wife and my Lord (and my friend), I exchanged heartfelt vows, we walked down an aisle, cut a cake, danced and saw old friends from around the country, and at the end of the evening I didn't have to drop off my date at her place ever again.

So that was my wedding in 700 words or less. Be blessed... be loved...

Labels: Favorites, Other

I love the internet. Earlier today I made a passive, ridiculous reference to Rick Moranis. I forget that people search for this stuff and it drives traffic to my site without any intention of that happening. Now, for someone to show up because I posted about TV on the Radio makes a lot of sense to me - they're hot right now and the blogosphere is generating a lot of that buzz. However, there have been at least three unique entries from people doing technorati searches for Rick Moranis. You know, cause his turn as the dad in Honey I Shrunk the Kids is one of the three or four cult-defining moments in acting history.

So, just to put a few more obscure or random words on the blog in hopes that passers-by will catch some Jesus-love, here's a list of other things we're bringing back like Justin Timberlake:

Milkmen
Far Side cartoons
Fender benders
Susan B Anthony coins
Bobby Fischer
Stove pipe top hats
Ted Knight
Logic
Trivial Pursuit Genus Editions
Teddy Ruxpin
Popples
And, just to drive up traffic, the Microsoft Zune and the Apple iPod. (Does the Zune seem like something we'll be hearing about on VH1's I Love the 00's while the iPod is still a viable brand? Zune Zune Zune!)

Anyway, welcome Dark Helmet & Louis Tully fans. Hope you find something worth reading here.

*In doing research for this post, I discovered that Michael O'Keefe, who played Danny Noonan in Caddyshack has had a film and television career that's actually not wretched. Plus, he was married to Bonnie Raitt for nine years and is an ordained Zen priest (albeit a divorced one). And he wrote the lyrics to a song that won Bonnie Raitt a grammy. Go Noonan!

**And by research, I mean that I looked up who played the judge in Caddyshack and clicked on Danny Noonan for fun.

Labels: Other

September & October are hosts to the most potentially good music of the year. I want to lay out the next couple months in case there's some music here you may have overlooked otherwise. There's a ton getting released this week, so I'm going to do a three-parter instead of a two-parter. Last week saw releases from one of my guilty pleasure artists, Beyonce, a mellow and beautiful group called Grizzly Bear and another Rage Against the Machine meets Soundgarden and pops then fizzles outing from Audioslave. This week features not three, but sixteen noteable releases.

Out this week (Sept. 12)

Black Keys - Magic Potion - The Black Keys are one of my favorite bands. Their game is blues of the dirty and raw calibur. On Magic Potion, they take a quieter approach and somehow manage to sound more fierce and ready to wail than ever. Magic Potion doesn't have the fluency of an album like their other efforts, and its missing the transcendent moments that highlights each of their four other efforts but it will make your head bob and your waist wiggle.

Basement Jaxx - Crazy Itch Radio - I keep waiting for Basement Jaxx to finish the trifecta of Remedy and Rooty, but I think it's time to give up and enjoy their albums on their own terms. Crazy Itch Radio is mostly derivative of their other work, and I don't think it works on the casual level as well as those two albums. If nothing else, it's much better than Kish Kash, and it features vintage Basement Jaxx sure to please fans.

DJ Shadow - The Outsider - Two albums ago, DJ Shadow created one of the most important and influential albums of the 90s, and an album I'd squarely put in my top five of all time. As his follow up was also excellent, I've been anticipating this album for years. With inflated expectations comes the chance for an album to fall flat on its proverbial face and The Outsider is an incoherent mess. Josh Davis is doing his own thing now, making the music he likes instead of trying to live up to others expectations. In all seriousness, good for him. The first half is pretty much just good versions of hyphy and krunk music. I hate hyphy and krunk music. There are bright spots - he brings the funk for a couple tracks and the completely inappropriate "Backstage Girl" has a seriously dope beat. The rest kind of sounds like DJ Shadow made an album and let a bunch of crappy producers remix it. Some of the second half is interesting - he channels Radiohead and Coldplay and other sounds, but it's all over the place and mostly forgettable. Just skip it, there's far too much else out there worth hearing this year.

Magnolia Electric Company - Fading Trails - I don't know much about Magnolia Electric Company or its founder Jason Molina, but the tracks I've heard so far have hints of blues and Sunday afternoon pleasantries to spare.

Mars Volta - Amputechture - This is getting the typical love it or hate it reviews common for Mars Volta. Since Mars Volta features members of At the Drive-In, a band who opened my eyes to how boring music was becoming because of how fresh they were, I will always give them a chance. The only track I've heard was, on the surface, stale and generic. If I get the chance I'll go further, but only if its free and easy to hear. So MySpace here I come...

John Mayer - Continuum - As in "Your Body is a Wonderland" John Mayer. This is John getting his blues on, and it's really good. If you loved 'Try' and didn't like 'Inside Wants Out', or if you loved 'Inside Wants Out' and didn't like 'Try', or if you like good music, give it a chance. The man who now looks like Edward Scissorhands has made one of the year's strongest mainstream releases. Beautiful, melodic, surprising music that sounds like he's doing covers. He's not. There's a reason everyone from ?uestlove to Timbaland wants to work with him.

The Rapture - Pieces of the People We Love - The Rapture never really amounted to much for me. Some catchy hooks, some energetic anthems, but not a lot of staying power, but that may all change. This album features the same ear for hooks and the same energy, but it adds all around better song writing. If you like one song, you'll like them all. I recommend "Whoo! Alright! Yeah Uh Huh" as a starting point. I'll be featuring it on my October playlist.

Justin Timberlake - FutureSex / LoveSounds - I loved the first Timberlake album but I was bored after a few tracks on this one. "My Love" should be a huge hit and I won't get tired of hearing it ad naseum. Everything else is tired. And I've decided that if you use the word 'sex' in the first three tracks and feature it in your title, it's actual becoming something besides sexy Whatever that is. Trying too hard to begin with.

(On a brighter note, the first single, the one in which Justin brings the sexy back, has provided serious comedic fodder in the office this week. We've been discussing what we will be bringing back, with the stipulation that you can only bring something back that never left. So you can bring Rick Moranis back, but not John F. Kennedy. Today I'm bringing cursive back.)

TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain - I'll be waxing poetic about this album at the end of the year, since it will surely be in my top 10, if not top 5. It's the same unique brand of music only TV on the Radio and their vocalist Tunde Adebimpe can make, but its' tighter, fuller and more melodic than the first. I can't properly describe it, and 30 second samples won't do it justice. If you have ten bucks to spare, it's worth every penny. It's a band that not everyone will click with immediately, but give it some serious listening. You won't be disappointed.

Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid of You And I Will Beat Your... - Okay, the title may offend some of the readers of this blog, although if you saw the band, you would get how tongue-in-cheek this was. Anyway, I haven't been able to hear this yet, but it's getting across-the-board raving reviews and I've heard three tracks off of it, all of which were completely different and all of which I loved. So this is high on my list to hear. Download a couple tracks here.

Also released this week: Mainstream candy by Barenaked Ladies, Everclear attempting a comeback, Mouse on Mars & The Album Leaf doing what they do, and albums from Xiu Xiu & Junior Boys that are getting good reviews. I'm not into any of those bands, but in case you are, there's new music for you to fall in love with.

Next: Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Beck, Decemberists, The Who and more

Labels: music

So this is the new site. It's simple, I think it's easier to read, and I'm still sprucing it up a bit. It's close enough to finished that I feel okay about settling in. Please comment and let me know what you think.

It would be great if you could change your links, bookmarks and rss feeds to reflect the new site, especially if you have a link on your blog to my blog.

The title will stay the same - the Word on the street. The address is infinitley more clever and easier to remember than the old site (the main reason I moved over).

The address is word-processor.blogspot.com

That would theoretically make the new feed http://word-processor.blogspot.com/atom.xml although the subscribe function doesn't appear to be working. If your news reader searches for feeds, it will come up properly.

Welcome to my new digs! Be blessed... be loved...

Update: So I've got a header image that I'm pleased with, but it's apparently not playing well with Internet Explorer. Everything seems to be fine in Firefox and Safari, and it doesn't look too distracting in IE. I'll keep trying to fix it, but I'm staying put for now. I like my new home.

Labels: Other

In the next three months dozens of potentially great albums are hitting the stores. To help you sort it out, I’m going to post two pieces. Today’s is a look at what’s been in my head since the last music post I did, and the next will be a brief preview of more than 30 albums that have the potential to be great this fall.

Part One

I put together a playlist of what I've been listening to lately. If you have iTunes and you click on this link, it will ask you to open iTunes. From there, it will take you to the music store and directly to my playlist where you can listen to 30 second samples. With the exception of “Destination Vertical”, I simply chose one song that I thought reflected the album. I almost exclusively listen to full albums, so if you like one track, I highly recommend grabbing the full album.

I attempted to make this a coherent mix, which was next to impossible given the source material. Also, four of these songs are not yet available on iTunes. I’ll update the playlist as they become available. Beck is out on October 3, TV on the Radio and the new Black Keys album are out this week, and the Lily Allen album is available in the U.K. currently, but is inexplicably not coming to the States until late January 2007. If you like your pop music with a hint of irony and a whole lot of sass, Lily is a fine alternative to Paris, Christina and Jessica and worth seeking out if you have the means.

Here's the mix as it was originally outlined. For whatever reason, iTunes is displaying the list alphabetically according to the author.

1 - Cracker - "Something You Ain't Got" from Greenland (2006)
2 - Feist - "Mushaboo" from Let It Die (2005)
3 - Regina Spektor - "On the Radio" from Begin to Hope (2006)
4 - Beck - "Nausea" from The Information (2006)
5 - Camille - "Ta Doleur" from Le Fil (2006)
6 - Masha Qrella - "Destination Vertical" (2005) I haven't heard the album this comes from, but the song is one of my favorite finds so far this year.

7 - The Arcade Fire - "Neighborhood 1 (Tunnels)" from Funeral (2004) I first heard this last year, but as music does from time to time, this album has really clicked for me in the past two months. As many of my friends were turned off by the hype of the Arcade Fire when the album first came out, I'm putting here to implore you to give this album some real dedicated listening.

8 - The Black Keys - "Have Mercy on Me" from the Chulahoma EP (2006) Still the best music I've heard this year. If this 6-song set of Junior Kimbrough covers ends up being my favorite release of 2006, I won't be disappointed.

9 - The Black Keys - "Strange Desire" from Magic Potion (2006)
10 - Constantines - "Young Offenders" from The Constantines (2001) I've been digging both this album and their album Shine a Light from 2003. I think the latter is a better album, but "Young Offenders" is one of the coolest songs I've heard in years. They do more with one note than most bands do with far too many, and even make "Can I get a witness?" not cheesy. I hope to dive into their third album (released last year) sometime soon.

11 - The Roots - "Don't Feel Right" from Game Theory (2006)
12 - Ghostface Killah - "Kilo" from Fishscale (2006) Two hip hop albums that blow me away.

13 - TV on the Radio - "Hours" from Return to Cookie Mountain (2006) Their albums are worth the dedication it may take for this to get under your skin. TV on the Radio is at times more impressive than good, but once it clicks, this and Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes is right up there with anything else released in the last five years.

14 - Thom Yorke - "Harrowdown Hill" from The Eraser (2006) This album took awhile to grow on me, but it has and I'm convinced that Thom needs Radiohead and Radiohead needs Thom. I don't think that's profound or anything, but this was a nice diversion and now I'm ready for next year's Radiohead disc.

15 - Aimee Mann - "Red Vines" from Bachelor #2 (2000) My favorite album I've heard for the first time this year that wasn't released this year. Stunning music.

16 - The Ark - "This Piece of Poetry is Meant to Do Harm" from State of the Ark(2006)
17 - Lily Allen - "Everything's Just Wonderful" from Alright Still (2006)
18 - Basement Jaxx - "Lights Go Down" from Crazy Itch Radio (2006)
19 - Pearl Jam - "Army Reserve" from Pearl Jam (2006) I have an abandoned post started somewhere that went on for pages about how Vitalogy is probably the most important album in the soundtrack of my life, and how this album rivals even that masterpiece. Anyway, this will be in my top 5 for the year and I won't be alone.

And just for the record, if I were to put together a top ten list for the year that ended today it would include, in no particular order:

The Black Keys - Chulahoma EP
The Roots - Game Theory
Ghostface Killah - Fishscale
Pearl Jam - Pearl Jam
TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
Regina Spektor - Begin to Hope
Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
Thom Yorke - The Eraser
The Sounds - Dying to Say This to You
Various Artists - Tropicalia: A Brazilian Revolution in Sound

Labels: music

We're back from our honeymoon and I'm looking forward to posting a couple pictures of the wedding day and the honeymoon for all to enjoy. To my pleasant surprise, I had a number of people come up to me to ask when I was going to start blogging again. Apparently they were giving me grace with the wedding to plan, but now it's time to get back on the horse. I don't have all the time in the world, but let me at least share something that's been on my heart this week.

Last week we went to lunch one day, and CNN or MSNBC or one of the news channels was playing on the television that was stationed just over my shoulder at the establishment we paid to clog our arteries. I was keeping tabs on what was considered news that day, so I say the following literally (with the exception of commercials). They spent 40 minutes on the anniversary of Katrina and 20 minutes on JonBenet Ramsey's not-actual killer.

I think it's important that we think about where we've come as a country since Katrina, and it is good to be aware of what's still happening in the aftermath of Katrina. What got me was this statistic rolling on the bottom of the screen:

2,600 U.S. soliders dead since war in Iraq began.

I feel like that is worthy of some talking-and-video time, and not just a quick one liner on the bottom of the screen. Made me wonder what else they were not reporting.

Last week the Census Bureau released their report on income and poverty. There was a rise in the median household income for the first time in six years. However, as some analysts have pointed out, wages seem to be decreasing relative to inflation, suggesting that the median income is only rising because more household members are working, many at minimum wage or close-to-minimum wage jobs.

The number of Americans living in poverty was mostly unchanged at 12.6 percent, but 6 percent earned less than half the poverty-line cutoff of $20,000. An analyst working with the New York Times said that this was the highest such percentage ever recorded.

The number of people without health insurance and the number of uninsured children rose slightly.

And the College Board reported the largest decline in SAT scores in 31 years.

That is relevant news that people should know about and news channels should be reporting. Anyway, now you know. And knowing is at least the beginning of the battle.

Good to be back. The next posts will be about music and love (not necessarily in that order), just wanted to get that off my chest first.

Labels: Jesus