Also: In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I give you this. Ketchup on eggs is actually pretty good.
According to Guinness, "The largest carol service in the world, organized by The City of Cambridge, took place on December 20, 2003 in the Civic Square in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada, when 1,175 carollers sang Christmas carols for 28 minutes."
To be counted, participants must sign their names on a form, which will be available at our lighting ceremony. We will have tables set up under the covered walkways and assistants roaming the crowd with sign-up forms. It is important that each participant sign the form for a correct count.
We would like to broaden this attempt to include the Greenville community. Please encourage guests from town to join us for the lighting ceremony and this special record-breaking event. The Greenville News is planning to run an announcement later this week.
We hope many of you will be able to participate in this special event
That's pretty cool, I guess. Something to put in the advertising: "Come to BJU, one of the few colleges in the Guiness Book of World Records for largest caroling service!"
Anyways, if you're in Greenville this December 3rd, come over to BJU and participate. You too can be a world record holder!
Or, why would anyone suffer through all those rules? I received an email today that detailed the some of the requirements for getting music approved for outreach ministries. Did you know that every vocal performance by an officially sanctioned BJU group is supposed to be memorized?
Why? I think to make sure that performances are well practiced for, but the e-mail doesn't say. It's a PR thing for BJU, I'll bet, to make sure that their voice program doesn't get a bad reputation.
However, reading this little rule got me thinking: Can you think of any other business that restricts their customers as much as a Christian university? Could any other company get away with telling their customers what movies they could see, what music they could listen to, what clothes they could wear, what businesses they could patronize, what churches they could attend, and, until quite recently, what races they could date?
I'm not complaining. I understand the reasoning behind most of the rules here. I just think it's interesting to see how different the rules look when you remember that students are customers, not subjects. They are free to come and go at will, and no one can force the student to stay against his will.
Of course, most, if not all, BJU customers come into the deal knowing what the restrictions in the contract are, and they still attend, even with the presence of several other high-quality universities in a fifty-mile radius. A high-quality education is not what draws customers to BJU; if that was the only factor, then the customer would go to one of the nearby institutions with fewer restrictions.
No, in strange sort of way, the famous restrictions are part of what draws the average customer in the first place. The primary attraction of BJU is that it is a high-quality Christian university. The customer is seeking a high-quality education in a morally-pure environment. There's no binge drinking, there's no multi-day frat parties, there's no peer pressure to enter into sexual relationships, there's not open use of drugs.
Instead, the customer can focus on education and on character-building. And I'm seriously starting to sound like BJU campaign literature.
The point is that this atmosphere, which is brought about by A) a student body mostly consisting of people interested in doing what's right and B) strict rules to control those who aren't, is the primary competitive advantage of the university.
So, why would a customer come to BJU if he was part of group B that didn't care about following the University's standard of morality? My theory is that there's another factor that affects his decision: Parental pressure. Parents are major influencers in the customer's college decision, because they have a unique ability to make the customer miserable or happy later on in life. The parent-child relationship is not severed lightly; the customer may decide that it's easier to put up with restrictive rules on his behavior for four years rather than risk permanent damage to his relationship with his parents.
Now, I'm by no means saying that anyone who complains about the rules at BJU is immoral and only there at the behest of their parents. There's a third category: Those who are interested in doing what's right, but who believe the university's restrictions are too strict, that the shock collar is on too tight. (I'm now removing my tongue from my cheek.) They stay because, although they're unhappy with certain rules, they're generally happy with the product they're getting--the clean atmosphere.
Now, what's BJU's motivation for maintaining rules that many students consider to be unnecessarily strict? First, the staff is trying to do what they believe is right according to the Bible. Economically speaking, they suffer a loss in satisfaction when their conscience is bothered by removing a rule that has a generally positive effect, but is a bit restrictive to the students.
Secondly, from a business standpoint, they need to protect their competitive advantage. If BJU lifts too many of its restrictions, then the atmosphere of moral purity is contaminated and they become no different from schools like Harvard that once called themselves Christian but are no longer. This is why BJU is extremely slow to change any of its rules, and why it took them years of outside pressure to finally repeal the interracial dating ban: If they change too quickly, then they risk contamination.
But notice that they did change the rule. When the administration is sufficiently convinced that a given rule is unnecessary or wrong, then they change the rule. They change slowly and cautiously, but they do change when they believe it's right.
Anyways, the marginal utility of spending the time to write a decent conclusion to this post is exceeded by the marginal utility of making a good grade on my test tomorrow. Good night.
Alter argues "that past translations either get the Hebrew wrong or mangle the Bible's syntax or lose the power of the work or even are so up-to-the-minute that they become too conversational to be accurate or interesting."
You certainly can't argue with the "up to the minute" thing, especially after seeing translations offered at our Christian Retail Outlets today. And I'm certainly willing to believe that the KJV might not be an entirely accurate translation (not because the authors weren't careful, but because the authors didn't have access to all the resources available today. For example, a couple of major manuscripts were only found after the KJV, and I'm certain that nearly four centuries of research into the ancient Hebrew and Greek has refined our knowledge of the languages a little.
So... as long as his translation is accurate, bravo.
But the reason I bring him up was a quote from reviewer Michael Dirda from the Washington Post.
Compare with I Kings 19:11-12:
I'm reasonably certain that the irony was unintentional.
Good, good. I like guns. I don't actually *own* one, and I've never fired anything heavier than a BB gun, but I like 'em. I intend to get a concealed weapons permit soon after I turn 21. That should give me plenty of time to research my options as weapons go.
It was also good to see the Assault Weapons Ban (aka the ban on scary rifles) go away.
And it's good to see people at the top of the government who take an "absolutist" position on the 2nd ammendment. I don't know a lot about Dr. Rice, but the more I've learned, the more I like about her positions.
The answer is Yes.
I think that this 1420 calorie cheesburger is part of a larger backlash against health food. Think about it. A lot of people are tired of everyone offering their unwanted--and oftentimes inaccurate--advice about what they should be eating. That's why you'll see this burger and Hungry Man dinners. (Key Quote: " The only male brand you need. 'I know what I like and I like a lot of it.' 'It's good to be full.'")
In fact, there's a *lot* of social pestering from TV and government sources. Don't smoke, don't drink, don't eat fatty foods, don't speed, don't open an umbrella indoors, etc. People, by nature, don't like to be told what to do every minute of every day. Just leave us alone already!
Seriously, the British have the most absurd government I've ever heard of. Of course, we've got a few of our own. For example, did you know that in Charleston, the fire department is legally allowed to blow up your house? Or that it's illegal to dance in public in Lancaster? Or that in my own hometown, Spartanburg, it's illegal to eat watermelons in the Magnolia Street cemetary?
Of course, the same source as the above, DumbLaws.com, informs me that the British government requires that you allow someone who knocks at the door to come in and use your bathroom and that companies are allowed to vote in London elections. Oh, and that, it's legal to shoot Scotsmen with a bow and arrow in York, except on Sundays.
Maybe the problem is just government in general....
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That's my dad driving my car in the Spartanburg Veterans' Day parade last week. (He was Joe Spigner's unofficial campaign manager, IIRC.) Cool, no?
BTW I have yet to get an answer from any of my "we need a law" anti-abortion friends on why a black market in abortion services and abortion drugs would be a good thing.All I hear is "if there was a law there would be no abortion". Sure. Well I suppose it is nice to have faith.
So what have the cultural conservatives learned from alcohol prohibition? From drug prohibition?
I'd say aproximately nothing.
I actully had a commenter on the subject say that abortion was different. OK. So what happens to policing and criminal justice when 300,000 miscarriages a year are each turned into a murder investigations? Aren't 30 or 40 thousand murder investigations enough?
What will reality look like (as opposed to utopia) if you get your wish?
I call this whole exercise Republican socialism.
So, to boil it down, since people will kill their babies anyway, why not let doctors lend a hand?
Look, I have no doubt that if Roe v. Wade is overturned and abortion is made illegal that there will be a black-market in abortion services. I have no doubt that, if we choose to prosecute abortions as murder, it will be expensive.
It doesn't matter.
Murder investigations are expensive; should we repeal the laws against murder? Rape investigations are expensive; should we make rape legal?
As far as the comparison with alcohol/drug prohibition goes: The way the libertarian philosophy of government works is that you are free to do whatever you want, to make any stupid decision, so long as you don't hurt anybody else. If you classify unborn babies as people, which I think you have to, then abortion, which harms the baby, should be illegal.
The common justifications for abortion are as follows:
1. The mother is in a situation where she cannot care for the baby, such as being too poor or too young.
Response: Give the baby up for adoption.
2. The mother is the victim of rape.
Response: So? How does that justify murder? Again, give the baby up for adoption if you don't want it.
3. The baby has a birth defect
Response: When you see a blind person or a crippled person on the street, do you shoot them to prevent them from living a life of misery? Why should you treat a baby any differently?
4. Giving birth to the baby will endanger the life of the mother
Response: This one I can understand. This, to me, can be justified the same way as killing someone in self-defense. Defense of oneself or another from death is the only acceptable justification for killing another human being that I can think of, and even then it's a terrible thought.
(Side note: This seems to be the logical basis for capital punishment as well. Capital punishment is a method of societal self-defense, preventing a known killer from ever committing his crime again. It's also a good justification for defensive war, and even pre-emptive war. If you know someone has the desire to kill you and is reaching for his gun, you don't need to wait until he fires a shot at you to defend yourself.)
Were there any other justifications for abortion that I missed?
#AFEEEE |
Your dominant hues are green and blue. You're smart and you know it, and want to use your power to help people and relate to others. Even though you tend to battle with yourself, you solve other people's conflicts well. Your saturation level is low - You stay out of stressful situations and advise others to do the same. You may not be the go-to person when something really needs done, but you know never to blow things out of proportion. Your outlook on life is bright. You see good things in situations where others may not be able to, and it frustrates you to see them get down on everything. |
Not bad.
(Via Uncle Sam's Cabin)
I wonder what happens if, due to heavy Turkey Traffic, the couple is delayed and cannot arrive on time. Should they stop somewhere on the way and get a hotel room? (The answer is "no.") The driver has to let the passenger out and call a cab for her? They have to pick up a hitchhiker to chaperone?
Of course, who's going to turn them in?
Red Flag: The Barna Group might be just a little biased.
Back to the story:
On the other hand, Common Sense and Wonder quotes a Washington Post piece by Charles Krauthammer that says:
Look at the choices:
• Education, 4 percent.
• Taxes, 5 percent.
• Health Care, 8 percent.
• Iraq, 15 percent.
• Terrorism, 19 percent.
• Economy and Jobs, 20 percent.
• Moral Values, 22 percent.
"Moral values" encompass abortion, gay marriage, Hollywood's influence, the general coarsening of the culture and, for some, the morality of preemptive war. The way to logically pit this class of issues against the others would be to pit it against other classes: "war issues" or "foreign policy issues" (Iraq plus terrorism) and "economic issues" (jobs, taxes, health care, etc).
If you pit group against group, the moral values class comes in dead last: war issues at 34 percent, economic issues variously described at 33 percent and moral values at 22 percent -- i.e., they are at least a third less salient than the others.
The Value Voters phenomenon is a myth.
In my Salesmanship class, that's called a feature. Here's the benefit:
I will be able to use Mozilla Thunderbird (on my PC) or SnapperMail (on my Clie) to access my G-Mail acount.
Now... the waiting until the new feature gets to me.
(Via Gizmodo)
...
Much of the misinterpretation of this election derives from a poorly worded question in the exit polls. When asked about the issue that most influenced their vote, voters were given the option of saying "moral values." But that phrase can mean anything - or nothing. Who doesn't vote on moral values? If you ask an inept question, you get a misleading result.
(Via InstaPundit)
Some of my fellow classmates seem to think that this hatred is caused by Bush's Christianity, on the basis of John 15:19-20 (which states "I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you....If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you"). However, I think this view is incomplete.
To be sure, one aspect of the Bush hatred is religious in nature. According to my teacher, Bush has publicly stated that he seeks guidance from God about policy issues. This no doubt annoys the athiest; to him, this is the equivalent of the President calling the Psychic Hotline for guidance. The athiest begins to question whether Bush is incompetent, at best, or mentally ill, at worst. He wonders why others don't see it this way, and it makes him angry.
Another source of hatred is the perceived loss of rights under Bush--some of which come from the President's religious views. Between the Patriot Act, the "ban" on embryonic stem cell research, and the Federal Marriage Ammendment, Bush sometimes comes off looking like a force against freedom here at home. Taking away peoples rights, or even just looking like you're taking away people's rights, makes the people angry.
The other thing to bear in mind is that after 9/11 there was a vast outpouring of emotional energy, and I think there's still a lot of unresolved emotions left over from that event. People have all this rage and anger bubbling just below the surface that they can't deal with, so they just put it on the guy in charge--Bush. Which is easy because they believe he's either incompetent or mentally ill and therefore probably screwing up the war at a great cost in money and in human lives.
That's my guess. Any other thoughts?
I will tell you why.
It's because of this:
Tell me, can you even look at a picture of Gore without thinking about the Florida election fiasco? Kerry doesn't want to tarnish his name the way Gore did.
Kerry did something commendable by not dragging the country through weeks of recounts and lawsuits. Good game, see you next election.
It took about an hour and a half to get through the line. Huge turnout. I like the touchscreen ballots. Very nice.
I don't plan to watch the post-election coverage tonight, as A) when you have only 8% of the precincts reporting, then you don't have any valuable information yet and B) I've got stats homework and a Doctrines test. Which is why this is such a terse post.
