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Bradley Manning and scapegoats

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I'm deeply saddened by the double standards and scapegoating that is being participated in with regards to Bradley Manning's court hearing. My super short summary of the story: A couple of years ago a soldier, however short sighted or careless, released classified information out of a strong conviction that US citizens need to know what exactly we are paying for in our wars in the middle east (with the assumption that we would not stand for it). As soon as the story hits mainstream media (for me this is everything from MSNBC to FoxNews) a long campaign of doing everything one could do but actually engage with the info he leaked goes on for weeks/months. They talk about the damage the leaked information could do. They talked about how careless the method he chose for releasing the information was. They talked about how unAmerican Manning was. They talked about similar things in regards to WikiLeaks and its founder. With regards to WikiLeaks a massive campaign regarding the possi...
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Android app: hovernote

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Bottom line : hovernote is an app that has changed the way I used my android tablet, the Nexus 7, for the better. What does this app do? It is mostly a simple text editor that (and this is major) "floats" over any other android app that you have open. Why would that change the way that I use my tablet? Well, it solves one of the primary issues that I have with trying to use my Nexus 7 with a bluetooth keyboard as a laptop replacement. Tablets are typically a one-app-at-a-time experience. This is not much of a problem if you are only using it for consumption (music, videos, games, reading), but if you are trying to use it for content creation things get difficult. A good example of this is that I also use my Nexus 7 for reading ebooks. It's difficult to go back through a chapter I just read and take detailed notes when I constantly have to switch apps back and forth. If I only did this casually it may not be that big of a deal, but for in depth note taking it is difficult ...
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I'm offended and angry, because you are... offended and angry.

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It's easy to get really offended and angry at people who... get offended and angry at others -- i.e., I think 'you' treated others poorly in your facebook status, so I'm going to treat 'you' poorly in the comments. Perhaps there are places in life where something related to this is necessary (though you will never convince me of that regarding facebook), but... I believe very firmly that the only way to cultivate grace is through grace. I've simply never seen someone stop being angry and mean towards others by me getting angry and mean at them about it.
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One dimensional arguments...

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Regarding recent changes about taxes, social security, and higher costs for employers regarding health care -- just because something rises costs does not mean its wrong.  People made the same arguments when slavery was abolished (i.e., the government is destroying the economy), and to lesser extent in the 80's when immigration reforms happened (i.e., the economy would be hurt because companies would have to pay fair wages). Am I comparing the current stuff to those two situations? Not necessarily. I just want to see some more creative reasoning. 
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"God is (not) dead."

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I'm not sure how to say this without coming off as mean, or a know-it-all, but here it goes. I kindly request that my facebook friends who are sharing and posting the "God is not dead" meme/picture learn a bit more about what Nietzsche actually meant by that statement. What is being said in the three words this meme responds to ("God is dead") is insanely complex. Scholars have different opinions about what he actually meant. W hen that picture is posted as some sort of response to an 'atheistic world-view' it is responding to an argument is not really being made by the statement, "God is dead." Here is where the phrase first appeared, in the words of Neitzsche's 'madman': "God is dead. God remains dead. *And we have killed him*. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who wi...
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Responding to violence with violence.

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It's easy to get really offended and angry at people who... get offended and angry at others -- i.e., I think 'you' treated others poorly in your status, so I'm going to treat 'you' poorly in the comments. Perhaps there are places in life where something related to this is necessary (though you will never convince me of that regarding Facebook), but... I believe very firmly that the only way to cultivate grace is through grace. I've simply never seen someone stop being angry and mean towards others by me getting angry and mean towards them about it.
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Too soon...

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The manner in which the "too soon" argument is being used is getting tiresome to me -- not the argument in and of itself, but the double speak.  When something like yesterday happens, "too soon" gets launched at those that who talk about gun control, but when a terrorist attack happens (like Ambassador Stevens death) many of those same "too soon" individuals don't wait to voice their views about  what should have been done differently and what should happen in the future. When asked about if they are falling under the "too soon" problem, the response is, "it's never too soon to speak up about your values." They then turn around and start using the "too soon" argument against people who are "speaking up about their values" as soon as another shooting occurs. This obviously happens in both directions and is not isolated to either "side" (or any side). Let me be clear about what I'm saying here -- ...
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Simple answers sometimes do more harm than good.

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Somehow we tend to possess the impressive ability to create a boogieman that help us feel like we understand terrible, complex situations. This ranges from one side narrating the tale of the evil boogieman missionary that accepts all of the blame for the evils of imperial conquest in the last few centuries... to the story being told by another side today that so many of these bad things happen simply because of the boogieman tale of "God being kicked out of school."In both cases, these scenarios just tend to be convenient for the respective side that benefits from it, while the truth seems to always be more complex. So, just a couple of quick thoughts: Here are some interesting words about the phrase "God was expelled from the public schools in 1962." -- http://bit.ly/RvJ4AD If shootings happen simply because of a court ruling that happened in 1962, then why was there a shooting at a Christian school last April? http://yhoo.it/Hg5H4j I'm against over simplifying...
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Random thoughts about "getting it right" from a couple of months ago...

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Thoughts I've been experimenting with-- The importance of "orthodoxy" is not centered on the importance of getting it "right." One might say the importance of orthodoxy isn't so much that others get it, but that it's true about reality -- and that reality has an impact and 'works' for the good of God, and therefore humanity and the world, whether or not people have the right beliefs about it (i.e., no one has to believe in the notion of 'justification by faith' to be justified by their faith). That may very well sound like something fantastic (or something awful... depending on where you are coming from). I would like to take it a step further: The importance of "orthodoxy" isn't so much that I get it right, but that the reality (i.e., the "orthodoxy-of-God-in-the-world") works and is effective in the world apart from me. In this God is not static, but moves in beautiful and creative ways. What that does is free m...
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Smartphones I've owned since 2006

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Below is a breakdown by year, along with some details on each device. You can see a graphical representation at my " Smartphones I've owned " board on Pinterest. Note: some of the info below may be inaccurate -- I just produced most of it from memory. Also, the only phone that I still currently own is the last one on the list. 2006 Treo 600 Palm OS Screen: 2.5" touchscreen CPU: 144mhz RAM: 32mb Samsung i500 Palm OS Screen:  touchscreen CPU: 66mhz RAM: ? Samsung i700 Windows Mobile 2007 Blackberry Pearl 8100 2008 HTC Dash Windows Mobile Screen: 2.6" CPU: 233mhz (?) RAM: 64mb *running custom ROM (first phone I did this sort of thing with) 2009 HTC Tilt Windows Mobile Screen: 2.8" CPU: 400mhz RAM: 128mb *running custom ROM Blackberry Flip Screen:  CPU: 200mhz (?) RAM: 128mb HTC Mytouch 3G Android Screen: 3.2" CPU: 528mhz RAM: 192mb  *rooted, running custom ROM (up to 2.1) Motorola Cliq Android Screen: 3.1" CPU: 528mhz RAM: 256mb *rooted,...
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Innocence of Muslims?

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Over the last couple of weeks there have been protests in at least 20 countries sparked by the (very) amateur film trailer for, "The Innocence of Muslims" (amongst of things). As I have read updates about the spreading response to this film each morning over the last couple of weeks a deep sadness has developed within me. Initially I went through several levels of frustration with people that come from my part of the world, and those who do not, but I'm no longer trying to rationalize (for myself or anyone else) was has happened. Like I just said, after working through frustrations with both "sides" of this whole thing, I have simply (though there is nothing simple about it) become very sad. The lack of misunderstanding on both sides (misunderstanding of lack of corporate ownership of an individual's words in the west, and misunderstanding of why in the world people in the middle east are so frustrated ) is so deep that it's hard to even know where to s...
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Attempting to live in the Tension: LGBT

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The topic of homosexuality has been a difficult and complex topic for quite a while (if you think that it's simple, you may want to close this blog and move on). I thought that I could add to the discussion by including some material that I created while in school a couple of years ago. My purpose in posting this is to add to the long line of hard work by those in the church who are attempting to navigate this change in our modern culture. In this post I'm not necessarily posting my opinion (I will do that as some point, but not yet), but I hope that I am clearing communicating the attitude with which I approach this: one of patience and compassion (attempting this anyway) with people on both sides - my natural desire on many difficult issues is to bring peace and an understanding of the opposition. Please don't take this as the last word on the subject, or even that the arguments below do the relevant side justice. Earlier today, as I was reading my words below, I thought ...
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Words cut deep

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"You look like an idiot in that car!!!" Yeah, that's what some guy who was probably in his late teens shouted to me when I pulled out of a parking lot the other day. He was walking along the road with a bunch of his friends who all laughed when he said it. 'Stick and stones... blah blah blah.' -- that phrase is a bunch of crap. Words hurt. Now, to be quite frank, while I may sometimes think that I look like this while driving my little 1996 Miata... ...this one may very well be more accurate... ...anyway. Regardless of whether or not I look ridiculous doing anything, words like that have an effect. Of course, I know that I shouldn't take the guy seriously, and I know that he probably doesn't get how much words affect people, and doesn't yet get that there is a cost to making yourself feel good in front of your friends... but it still had an impact. I wanted to turn the car around and ask him what kind of car he drove... I wanted to turn the car aroun...
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