Halloween: Yes or No?
One person argues that the Puritanical fear of the occult and the general evangelical hatred towards the Roman Catholic Church is what originally created the fear of Halloween. Perhaps, he argues, we have come to believe our own propaganda?
A Theology of the Land
tallskinnykiwi talks about and quotes Christian farmers who are doing what they can to bring justice and equality to what Paul called “the whole created order.”
1. This article from the New York times is especially helpful if you want to have a beginners look into the complexities of the Middle East and espeically Saudi Arabia. The article talks about how Muslim extremists are being rehabilited in a new program in Saudi Arabia. I have always been fascinated by the idea behind jihad, and the article brings a unique perspective from Muslims.
2. I am growing increasingly frustrated, as I wrote here, with the call to bail out the auto industry. Obama’s new chief of staff, Rahm Imanuel, is trying to play a bail-out of the auto industry as a chance to help upstart and “retool” to create more energy efficient cars. What do you guys think of this? I don’t think it will make a big difference. I think that if the auto industries had looked at the rising gas prices and tried something innovative and cost effective, there would have already been more results in this industry. Am I wrong?
3. Marty notes that American companies ignored our inreasingly changing world and kept producing SUV’s, while Japanese company took stock of the world and created more reliable cars.
4. MGM is teaming up with Youtube to put full length movies and TV shows online. While the initial stages don’t sound that exciting, this is a big development for the internet world.
5. This video about “what it means to be Christian” is well made and worth looking at:
6. Over at seeking alpha, there are demands being made if an auto bail-out is to occur. What do you think of their demands?
There is more talk of Amazon Kindle on the web (thanks to Jim West for pointing me to it). I think it is important for people to be up to date on issues of the e-paper revolution (see the BBC’s comments here). Microsoft is no longer in this race to try and compete with google books. Let me make a few predictions based on this latest information:
1) The richest person will be the one who combines the iPhone with the kindle and can do it at low cost.
2) Google and apple will team up to create an online library that can be accessed through their cellular device. There will be previews of books and the ability to buy books online.
3) There will be more decentralized books being written and desiminated via cellular devices than ever before. Writing will become more free-form in nature. Novels will be writen for niche audiences and complex artistic books will be much cheaper to make and print for visual enjoyment (i.e. comics)
4) Just as news has become individualized, books will also become individualized and the amount of books will increase because of the relative decrease in start-up costs.
2) Jesus manifesto is dealing with issues of dispensantionalism and eschatology. Sam argues on there that the dispensationalist view of the second coming holds a paradox: the first time Jesus comes to save the prostitute and the second time he comes to kill them. He struggles with how to make the two different missions of Jesus come together. He brings up the point that our end-times eschatology influences of practice of church (for the intellecutal: ecclesiology). Often a dispensationalist theology, he argues, makes us unconcerned with the present world. Do you agree?
3) Visit here for up to date news on decisions for Obama’s cabinet. I personally would like to see Colin Powell in his cabinet. What do others think about this? Some think John Kerry will be the next secretary of state? Really? What do you think?
4) The New York Times writes on the difficulties Obama will face after his inaguration. What is the main issue that you want to see Obama address in his first one hundred days?
5) FFF argues that education is a socialist regime. I argued in my letter that Obama should provide more reforms and more resources for schools, but do you think the federal government should just take a step back instead and let states deal with these issues?
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