I’ll admit it… I am a news junkie. I’m not sure where my attraction to random facts and stories comes from but I suppose that part of it is that I just like to know what going on in other places besides the immediate area that I live in.
Technology and the Internet has gone a long way to feeding this addiction. I have, over the years collected a set of links to various blogs and publications that I read on a regular basis. This list is always being re-invented and re-ordered as my interests change and is always accessible to me on all my devices in a nice concise form using an application called Netvibes.
Part of the benefits of my digital wandering is that I sometimes run across fascinating concepts and ideas that can (or should) be adopted and applied to situations other than the situation where I first found them. Read the rest of this entry »
So What Shall We Say Then…. Shall We Keep On Sinning So That Grace May Increase? Romans 6:1
The Gospel is great news. Period. Regardless if you believe that — or not — the Gospel is probably the one set of facts in history that has had the most lasting and profound impact on humanity for over 2000 years. It has done more to shape how the human race sees the universe than any other truth ever has.
At the core of this good news (Gospel) is grace – a concept that has been applied to us by God so that we have the opportunity to have a relationship with God our creator even though we, in ourselves, Read the rest of this entry »
Apple issued this statement today about the pre-orders of the iPhone:
Yesterday Apple and its carrier partners took pre-orders for more than 600,000 of Apple’s new iPhone 4. It was the largest number of pre-orders Apple has ever taken in a single day and was far higher than we anticipated, resulting in many order and approval system malfunctions,” the company said.
Congratulations, I say, that someone is listening to the consumer enough so that they are building products with a huge amount of initial demand. I applaud Apple for creativity and good marketing, outstanding design and superior engineering. (Oh … and how many other CEOs can you name that get a standing ovation when they walk on stage? Steve Jobs is as much of an icon and loved as much as the iPhone is).
But, on the other hand…. Read the rest of this entry »
Remember (or take my word for it) the “nature walk” that you used to take in elementary school? It was supposed to help you connect and appreciate nature.
I supposed that they still do formal nature walks today but I’m not sure.
I ran into someone this week who is teaching a college level extension course on Global Warming. He related to me how he was having a problem getting the students to have and appreciate some connection to the earth. Things like global warming and rising ocean levels are important, he said, but from a student’s point of view, they are having a hard time bringing these concepts down to something that effects them every day — something that is “in their face” so to speak.
His reasoning (which I believe is sound) for pursuing this matter is his belief that if we first grow to appreciate nature and creation and don’t take it for granted, the act of caring for it will follow. The opposite is also true — we tend to ignore that which we don’t care about. The challenge that this teacher is having is how to get his students to be appreciative; especially in a world where they have lived most of their lives disconnected from the land and nature itself. Read the rest of this entry »
