Monthly Archives: March 2006

One Year Bible Blog: March 15th readings

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One Year Bible Blog: March 15th readings

I have to admit that the Numbers reading for today strikes me as, well, odd. In yesterday’s reading, God grants permission for Balaam to go talk to Balak. Today He’s planning ambushes. That just doesn’t make sense. And then there’s the whole “talking donkey” thing. I half expect to see Shrek pop up tomorrow. ;)

To me, this whole story derives it’s meaning not as factual events, but as allegory. While I think it’s certainly possible that Balaam’s donkey literally spoke, it’s completely unimportant to me. I know this will upset my more literal-minded compatriots, but I think treating the Bible, especially the first five books, as history does it a disservice. More important to me is the message behind the story. And the message I’m taking away from this story is the danger of false pride. For all Balaam’s alleged power, insight, and influence, he was saved from a danger he didn’t even see by the lowliest of servants. Taking him off his “high horse” (or talking donkey, as the case may be)

Balaam thought he knew exactly what God wanted and didn’t want. It took a beast of burden to show him the error of his ways.

Of course, it would be the height of irony for me to say all of that, and then not be open to the very real possibility that I may be guilty of the exactly same thing. After all, I’m posting here, saying what I think God meant here. And I may be completely off base. I just hope my eyes will be open to my own ‘donkeys’ pointing out  my errors.

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BlogWatcher performance problems

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Some of you may have noticed some rather severe performance problems with BlogWatcher over the past few days. Sorry about that.

I’ve put in some temporary measures that I think will help in the short term. A bit longer term, I’m looking into upgrading some of the software on the server, to see if that will help. And, of course, if the thing really catches on, such that my virtual host environment can’t handle the load any more, I may have to look at moving it to a new machine. But I couldn’t do that unless I were able to get revenue from it, some how. So that’s a long way down the road.

I have added one minor new feature, but I doubt that anyone reading this will be able to make much use of it. In most news readers (this one included) the various news sources need to be polled every once in a while to see if there are any new posts. In order to be “friendly” to those remote sites, it’s considered to be impolite to check more often than once or twice an hour. So that’s what I do, which means that it can be up to an hour before you see a new post show up in your list.

The new feature I’ve added is support for something called a “ping.” What that means is that, if your blog software supports it, you can have it send a special message to BlogWatcher whenever a post is updated. BW will then check almost immediately (within 5 minutes) instead of waiting for the next scheduled update. So anybody who uses BW to read your posts will see it much sooner.

So if your blog software supports pings, I’d appreciate it if you could add http://blogwatcher.thebaileys.name/ping.php to your list of ping servers. I’ve already configured the varous blogs that I host to perform this function.

If you have no idea what the above paragraphs are trying to say, then don’t worry about it. ;)

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The Carpetbagger Report » Blog Archive » Considering a federal ban on funeral protests

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The Carpetbagger Report » Blog Archive » Considering a federal ban on funeral protests

From the article:

If you’re not familiar with deranged pastor Fred Phelps and his unhinged Westboro Baptist Church, consider yourself lucky. Phelps has an odd hobby: bringing his far-right followers from state to state in order to protest at the funerals for troops killed in Iraq, literally celebrating their death with signs that read “Thank God for dead soldiers” and “Thank God for IEDs.” (Phelps and his followers believe soldiers’ casualties are God’s revenge on a country that is insufficiently hateful towards homosexuality.)

All I can say is, “wow.” I’m actually in awe that someone could be that ignorant of the message that they’re claiming to promote. Regardless of your personal feelings on the sinfulness, or lack thereof, of homosexuality, I don’t see how anybody can give even a cursory read of the Gospels and still support this sort of behavior.

Even if you grant his premise, does he really think that this is going to accomplish anything?

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One Year Bible Blog: March 14th readings

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One Year Bible Blog: March 14th readings

I think the thing that popped out the most for me about these readings is Luke 1:46. “And Mary said, ‘My sould magnifies the Lord,’” I know that Mike commented on the Vulgate showing this as “glorifies,” but I was attracted to “magnifies.” Now, I certainly don’t think that Mary (or anybody else) literally magnifies God, as in makes God larger. What I do think is that this speaks to the idea that we can focus attention onto what God is doing in the world. Just as a telescope uses a lens to zero in on a tiny section of the sky, in order to make it visible, so we can focus, or “magnify,” some aspect of God for the world.

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One Year Bible Blog: March 13th readings

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One Year Bible Blog: March 13th readings

Based on some of the comments I’m seeing in other OYB bloggers’ posts, I’m not alone in falling behind. Not that it justifies it, of course. But it’s good to know that I’m not the only one with failings. ;) I actually have been keeping up with the readings, but not with comments. I guess I’m taking this from an opportunity to learn and grow, and turning it into a chore.

Anyway, on to today’s reading. The one verse that really jumped out to me today was Psalm 56:8:

You have kept count of my tossings;
put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your record? (NRSV)

The image of God collecting all my sorrow and pain, rememering each one, better than I do myself, is comforting to me.

Continue reading →

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firedoglake: Action Steps for the Feingold

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firedoglake: Action Steps for the Feingold “Censure Bush” Proposal

Apparently, this weekend, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), announced that he was going to introduce a proposal to censure the President over the warrantless wiretapping. The article linked above is a call to contact your senators, to let them know you support this resolution.

If we take as a given that there won’t be an impeachment (and I’m not certain that would be a good idea anyway) this censure resolution sounds like an excellent idea to me. I think it’s very important that President Bush know that he’s not above the law.

Granted, given that I live in Texas, I have serious doubts about my senators taking me seriously, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to let people know that there are descenting voices out here. Even in Texas.

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A question of priorities

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I cam across these two stories today

GOP moves to kill deal about the Dubai Ports World deal, and

Republicans Kill Request for Spy Program Inquiry – Los Angeles Times

Where are our priorities? From everything that I’ve been able to gather, there is no greater security risk for the ports under DPW than there is under the current management company, which is also foreign owned. But because the dread word “Arab” is involved, everyone is making all the political hay they can out of it.

On the other hand, warrantless domestic spying sounds so innocuous. After all, they’re not likely to be spying on me, are they?

It’s a lot easier to make a case against the DPW deal in a sound bite that resonates with the average American. But we need to move away from sound-bite politics. While I’m ambivalent on my feelings about the DPW deal, I can’t see how anyone can, in good conscience, not support an investigation of the wiretapping. This “compromise” that’s been worked out doesn’t address the core issue at all. It only applies to future wiretaps. The laws may have already been broken need to be addressed. This goes to the heart of what I think makes the “American experiment” of such value. If the checks and balances put in place by the constitution aren’t working, then we are in serious trouble as a nation.

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Oops – I made a few typos

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It figures. The day I send out an email to everyone who has used BlogWatcher in the past, asking them to come check it out, I introduce some bugs into the code. Anyone who visited BlogWatcher between about 2PM and 8PM Central time probably saw some weird stuff going on.

The good thing is that it’s fixed now, and no data was actually lost. It was just “missing in action” for a while. So the only thing I lost is my reputation. :(

Please do come take a look, if you like the idea of being able to monitor posts on multiple different blogs and news sites all on one page.

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The Carpetbagger Report » Blog Archive » The radical gay penguin agenda must be stopped

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‘Gay’ penguins book frozen out in Missouri libraries

The Carpetbagger Report » Blog Archive » The radical gay penguin agenda must be stopped

OK. So, apparently, a book has been removed from the children’s section of a library because it tells the story of two male penguins who adopt an abandoned egg and raise the chick. This is apparently too close to encouraging homosexual behavior!

As I understand it, this is based on events that actually took place in the ’90s in a NYC zoo. So, therefore, they apparently felt justified in removing it from the children’s section, and moving it to the non-fiction section. Now, I haven’t read the book, but I’m guessing that it is very much a work of fiction. It just happens to have some basis in fact.

As much as I’m angered about this specific action, I’m actually wondering if this might not be a good sign. No, hear me out! ;) If the forces of homophobia are so desperate that they have to attack a simple children’s book, maybe they’re recognizing, on some level, that they’re fighting a losing battle, and they’re frantically looking for any place where they can try to hold back the flood. But the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun) will soon find himself in water over his head.

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Presbyterian Bloggers: Theological Question of the Week

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Presbyterian Bloggers: Theological Question of the Week

Which church would Jesus go to? Presbyterian? Catholic? Non-Denominational? Mormon? Or would Jesus join a church at all? What church would Jesus never step foot in?

I don’t think there’s any church (or any place else, for that matter) where he would “never step foot in.” Even when he was berating the religious leaders of his day, he still went into the synagogues. He would go wherever he could spread his message.
I’m assuming the first part actually means “which church would he join?” And I’m quite certain that the answer is “none of the above.” Jesus didn’t seem to have any regard for structures and organizations. Only the Kingdom of Heaven meant anything to him. I think he would have seen our various denominations and sects as irrelevant.

We may need those structures and organizations to give us a feeling of safetly and order, but I don’t think they would have mattered to Jesus. I don’t know that he would have been actively hostile to them, except they were getting in the way of God’s Kingdom. I just see him rolling his eyes in exasperation at the question.

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