Tuesday, September 30, 2008

ONN: Obama Runs Constructive Criticism Ad Against McCain


Obama Runs Constructive Criticism Ad Against McCain

posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 11:24 AM 1 comments

Mayor in SC town 'just curious' if Obama is antichrist

According to the Charlotte [NC] Observer
Fort Mill Mayor Danny Funderburk says he was “just curious” when he forwarded a chain e-mail suggesting Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama is the biblical antichrist. “I was just curious if there was any validity to it,” Funderburk said in a telephone interview. “I was trying to get documentation if there was any scripture to back it up.”
This could be the definition of the phrase "uphill battle".

posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 10:57 AM 0 comments

Monday, September 29, 2008

What it takes to vote

In Massachusetts, when I went to vote I showed up, verbally gave them my name and address, they found it on a list, and they gave me a ballot.

In my new state of South Carolina, I applied to vote when I got my new drivers license. In the mail I received a "State of S.C. Voter Registration Notification" (registration card) with my name, address, and what appears to be a registration number. When I vote, I have to show this card, and either a valid photo identification or a "current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document - excluding your voter registration card".

Luckily, for me this is not an onerous restriction to voting. I'm thinking that it may not be as easy for everyone in the state.

posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 12:37 PM 0 comments

Friday, September 26, 2008

How to keep students motivated

Pittsburg Public Schools has a new way to keep students from despairing that they'll never be able to catch up in their classes: don't let teachers give scores of less than 50%. That way, they'll always be able to average up to a passing grade.

Strangely, there are those who object to this practice.

Judy Leonardi, a Stanton Heights resident and retired district home economics teacher, said she objected to the notion that a student could "walk in the door, breathe the air and get 50 percent for that."

posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 10:51 AM 0 comments

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Hammond: liberal v conservative religious

Unitarian Universalist Minister Rev. Fred L Hammond discusses what the terms liberal and conservative mean in religious terms.
...I believe it is safe to say that ... liberal religions read the Hebrew and Christian texts as the story of a people of faith who are journeying together learning who they are in relation to their world and to their God. These are humans who are applying what they know and sometimes they succeed and sometimes they fail. When taking the story as a whole; for Jews it is the whole of the Torah; for Christians it is the whole of the Hebrew Scriptures and Christian Scriptures; they discover that there is an evolution in how God operates in the world which is with increasing generosity of mercy, with justice, and with loving kindness for all of creation. So this becomes the lense through which these texts are read by liberal religious people. ...

A conservative lense reads these texts as not just as a story of a people but as the word of God. Therefore there is power in the text itself. Revelation is closed. There is no new revelation of the divine that could be revealed that is not already revealed in the sacred texts. The Book of Revelation closes with a statement that anyone adds or substracts to this will receive the afflictions included in the book. Many conservative religious read this as referring to the whole of the Bible and not just the text known as the Book of Revelation. It is a fairly strict command. But it exemplifies how conservative religious view their faith in a theological context. ...

posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 9:53 AM 0 comments

Friday, September 12, 2008

A short thought on reacting to Sarah Palin

According to Wikipedia,
The Vice President of the United States is the first person in the presidential line of succession, becoming the new President of the United States upon the death, resignation, or removal of the president, serving out the balance of that presidential term no matter how much or little time remains in it. ... As designated by the Constitution of the United States, the vice president also serves as the President of the Senate, and may break tie votes in that chamber. He or she may be assigned additional duties by the president but, as the Constitution assigns no executive powers to the vice president, in performing such duties he or she acts only as an agent of the president.
If liberals and progressives want to do more than preach to the choir, we need to address Sarah Palin's qualifications, or lack thereof, to perform that role. The more we can dispassionately argue that, by virtue of lack of experience and/or knowledge, she's simply not qualified to take over the presidency, the better.

posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 3:27 PM 1 comments

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The Culture Beat: Thank God for evolution. Huh?

A blog called The Culture Beat reproduces an article from The Johnson City (Tenn.) Press about a couple who "travel[s] the country full-time, preaching and teaching a surprising message: Rather than threaten or undermine faith, evolution can sustain, inform and even motivate religious belief."
Language is another bridge linking science and religion, according to Dowd. When we understand how language developed, he said, “All concepts of God and religion make complete sense.”

All societies grow up with what he calls “night language … the language of dreams and metaphors that humans have used through their history to explain the world.

"These stories speak deep subjective truth," he said. "The story of the fall in the Garden of Eden – that’s profoundly true in night language. Then science comes along … and puts down night language, speaks only in 'day language,' which is literal and fact-based. Myths are pushed aside. Of course the religionists react against that." But the two "languages" not only exist together. They help interpret each other.

"Science and religion cannot be only reconciled – that’s lame," Dowd said. "There’s mutual enhancing. The scientific enterprise can’t avoid the question of meaning, or it goes off into destruction. The Nazis showed us that. Religion is enriched by being grounded in the world of day language and concepts."

posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 2:26 PM 1 comments

According to the Onion, sometimes sports is about more than just sports


Pre-Game Coin Toss Makes Jacksonville Jaguars Realize Randomness Of Life

posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 11:34 AM 0 comments

Friday, September 05, 2008

Kilkenny: About Sarah Palin: an e-mail from Wasilla

Thanks for my friend Jim Pratt for sending me this link to an article about Sarah Palin written by someone in Alaska who knows her personally.

Definitely worth a read.

posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 7:18 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Fasttrack Fundraising

If you're looking for a fundraising program for your church or other non-profit organization, you might check out FastTrack Fundraising. They offer a bunch of different programs.

posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 1:30 PM 2 comments

Google's new browser

I guess it was only a matter of time, but Google is releasing their own brower called Google Chrome.

posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 10:04 AM 0 comments

Muder: Not my father's religion

In a terrific article in UUWorld Magazine, Doug Muder discusses why he believes that Unitarian Universalism has a class problem.
...Like our race problem, the class problem seems paradoxical to many UUs: We try to stand for all people, but when we look around, we’re usually standing with people like ourselves. We promote equality, but perversely, the less privileged would rather join conservative churches, churches that seem to us to serve the interests of the rich and to tell everyone else that it’s their own damn fault their lives are such a struggle.

One reason this paradox is hard to talk about, I think, is that a lot of us believe an explanation that we don’t want to say out loud: Working-class people are stupid. The powers-that-be have duped them into pining for Heaven instead of changing Earth.

It’s a tempting explanation because it absolves us. When the working class doesn’t listen to us, we don’t have to ask if we’re being stupid—if we’re really talking only about our lives, not theirs. ...

posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 9:32 AM 0 comments

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