Video I'm Not Sure I Want To Watch

With the reemergence of atheism as a legitimate presence in the United States, you might think a debate about God would be a good thing. Ray Comfort has challenged the two creators of The Blasphemy Challenge to a debate that will be televised by ABC. Who is Ray? Perhaps you know better his BFF Kirk Cameron. Yes, that Kirk Cameron. Ray and Kirk have their own evangelistic organization that's all over TBN. Part of the deal is that Ray and Kirk won't mention their faith to prove that God exists, but only scientific evidence. This is dumb. Sorry to burst your closed-to-the-world Christian bubble but you can't scientifically prove that God exists. That might tick some of you off, but neither can you scientifically prove that God doesn't exist. Now you can definitely use systems of logic to demonstrate that the odds lean towards the existence of a Creator, but there are many better qualified and experienced Christian apologists who have already debated atheists artfully than this Aussie and former friend of Boner will be able too [long sentence there, but I like it].

So get ready to witness some embarrassing prime-time coverage of our faith. You know I'll watch.

Keep The Faith

We're still watching American Idol. I think it's almost like a school assignment: something I need to see all the way through. If we didn't have DVR, I'd never watch this crap. I say "this crap" because I still think this is a pretty rough line-up. You have Melinda, who has the pipes, but should be auditioning for a Broadway show. Jordin has another phenomenal voice, but she's hit and miss. Everyone else is lucky to be there. So why do I put myself through this torture? For little gems like tonight:

Bon Jovi songs.

So I go into the evening excited because I'm a huge Bon Jovi fan. I know, I lose a little street-cred for liking a ballad singing, big-hair band who know release country music but I can live with myself.  They rock. Everyone knows it.

True Story: when I was visiting my sister's family a few months ago, we were driving around in their car. Her kids wanted some tunes and she popped in Bon Jovi's Greatest Hits. I asked her if they liked his music and she stated that they loved it. I was skeptical until I heard the twins' four-year old voices belting out in unison, "Whoa, we're haf-way there! Whoa, livin' on 'ta prayer!" Classic.

Anyway, while I thought I would be excited about Bon Jovi night, I forgot that I'd have to endure the contestants singing his songs. Quick recap for you:

1. Phil musters his inner Emilio Estevez to sing "Young Guns." It was bad karaoke.
2. Jordin sings "Livin' On A Prayer." Still love her, but not lovin' her "Livin"
3. That-one-chick-who'll-be-gone-tomorrow sang, "This Ain't A Love Song." She sang a decent Celine Dion version of it.
4. Blake did a funky version of "You Give Love A Bad Name." Incredibly entertaining. Still nowhere near Jon Bon.
5. That-one-dude-who'll-be-gone-tomorrow sang "Wanted Dead or Alive." My choice: dead.
6. Melinda sang "Have A Nice Day." Anyone picking something from the "new album" is obviously oblivious.

So, again, another forty minutes of my life [thanks for shaving twenty minutes, DVR] that I cannot get back.

We can only hope that a performance by the man on tomorrow night's show will redeem this evening's display of torture.

But Jon Bon better bring Richie Sambora with him tomorrow. Not doing so would be more tragic than Sanjaya.

Color Change

Some people were saying they couldn't read all the content so I changed the colors of the layout. Let me know if you're still struggling. I'm such the people pleaser.

Back Online

Rough weekend around here as I came down with another sinus infection. Imagine someone hitting your forehead with a hammer and you get a good idea of what it feels like. Additionally, while I was still wallowing yesterday, Kaelyn started feeling warm. She posted fevers of 103 and 104.5. And we were a little worried as we just switched her doctors and our new insurance didn't kick in until today. But the new pediatrician was awesome and said to give her drugs and liquids. The little trooper is feeling much better today.

Also, this past month was also great learning experience in the lesson of bandwidth. The good news is that lots of people are downloading our Echo Church podcast. The bad news is that I left the files so big that we used up all of our bandwidth this weekend. That meant the church website, this blog, the family website, and our Echo Church all shut down. It resets in May, so we're finally back up. I did some website maintenance [thanks, Brian Coates] and we shouldn't have this problem again. I learn something new everyday.

You know while the blog was down I thought of a hundred things to post about. And now, I think I've forgotten them all.

Is This My City?

Pat Forde, columnist for ESPN, takes a shot at breaking down the idiosyncrasies of Cincinnati. If you're a local, give it a read through and let us know what you think.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Depends who you ask.

That's a pic of David Beckham, international soccer star [who was awesome when he played for Manchester United], sporting a Cincinnati Reds hat. Apparently a tabloid paper in London thinks this is a faux pas, possibly offending LA Galaxy fans.

Someone should tell them that there are no LA Galaxy fans.

Low blow, but Becks has it right; he knows the Reds rock.

Why . . .

. . . do I find myself constantly watching this commerical?

Summer Movie Mania

Last week's copy of Entertainment Weekly was the summer movie preview. Kelly and I have decided that we're going to have to put Kaelyn in day-care to see all the movies coming out this summer. Many of them are sequels, but how can you go wrong with

• Pirates of The Caribbean 3
• Shrek 3
• Spiderman 3
• Oceans 13 [realizing the suck-fest that was Oceans 12, I anticipate a better showing]
• Die Hard 4
• Bourne Identity 3 [or whatever they call it]
• Harry Potter 5 [never read the books, but watched all the movies]
• Fantastic Four 2 [if that makes sense]
• Evan Almighty [follow-up to Bruce Almighty with Steve Carrell]
• Transformers
• The Simpsons Movie

That's more than 24 hours of footage there. And that doesn't even include any non-franchise movies that could be good.

My question is, with all the crappy movies they've been releasing lately, why do they have to cram all of these good flicks into one summer?

Speaking Up

FYI, I haven't had hardly any comments since switching over to the Wordpress format. I think I accidentally had something regulated that stated you had to be registered through Wordpress to comment. I switched that off. So maybe I'm just not saying anything interesting enough to comment on, which is fine, but far be it from me to suppress the populace.

Blacklisted

Welcome to Cincinnati: land of paranoia. A few local politicians looking to make some waves [and I'm sure that it's an election year has nothing to do with it] have come up with the idea of publishing a "likely killers" list. They created a database of criminals who committed a violent crime during the past year in addition to having a prior offense involving guns or drugs. This search yielded over 1500 names. The goal of the list, one of its developers stated, is that these people move out of town. "Let all the knuckleheads move to Covington," he offers.

Yeah, that would solve everything. Most criminals would get confused on how to get back to Ohio. Bridges can be confusing like that.

Now the great debate is whether or not to publish the list. The reality is that the same information is available to any citizen who searches public archives. The motivation of these politicians is to make it easy by compiling it, oh and giving it a catch title. Nothing draws in the reader like "READ THIS LIST BECAUSE SOMEONE ON IT WILL TRY TO KILL YOU."

Look, I'm all for fighting the crime, but not to the extent that we use the Bill of Rights as toilet paper. Sure, there are criminals that are beyond rehabilitation, but we can never be certain who will or won't commit crime again. That might frighten some, but that's a cornerstone of our republic. I'm not sure if sacrificing our liberties is a good exchange for safety. I sympathize with one of the politicians who proposed this, as her husband was murdered last year by someone who would've been on this list. But you can't say that a list like this made public would've prevented this murder.

I know quite a few people who would be in favor of such a list being published; it would make them feel safer. But is this really the solution that we need?

Could it be that now, more than ever, our city needs Jesus?

On My iPod

I'm secure in my manhood and not afraid to admit that I have an eclectic taste in music. With the advent of iTunes, I'm afforded the opportunity to mix and match my tastes. A few weeks ago I downloaded a song that I can't seem to get out of my head. It's by a guy named Mika and the song is Grace Kelly. It sounds just like a Queen song, intentionally, since he even references Freddie Mercury in the bridge. Yeah, it's a cotton candy song, but it's a good kind of retro. And I'm really torn by Avril Lavigne's new song Girlfriend. It's sorta catchy in a Toni Basil kinda way. Entertainment Weekly's review of Avril's album stated listening "will make your SAT score drop retroactively." Her lifeless Saturday Night Live performance [why do you think they keep on showing the back-up singers?] has kept me away from embracing it.

I still think Metallica's awesome. Have to add that in there for the street cred.

Justice

Not only is Mason County the birthplace of my mother, but it is now my favorite local municipality. For those of you not in the Cincinnati, you might not be aware of the Marcus Fiesel incident. Marcus was a special needs child whose foster parents left him tied up in a closet while they attended a family reunion. When they returned, the boy was dead. In an effort to cover it up, they burned the little boy's body and threw the remains in the Ohio River. The key testimony that helped convict the foster parents was that of a woman who was a live-in girlfriend. Amy Baker received full immunity for her testimony, despite the fact she was probably as equally involved as the foster parents.

But while the immunity covered Baker in the state of Ohio, it meant nothing in Kentucky, where Baker helped to dump the child's remains. Enter Maysville police who have brought up Baker on charges of tampering with physical evidence that could bring five years in prison.

Normally I don't gloat in punishment, but this is deserved. I really question whether the Clermont County prosecutor needed Baker's testimony to seal convictions. They seemed convinced that Baker was not involved, but to the general public, this seems incredibly unlikely. Many in the community were outraged that she received no punishment. This might not be much, but it is something.

The Clermont County prosecutor is ticked because he's losing face on this deal. He should settle down and realize that anyone involved in the killing of this child should have to pay for it.

They don't take too kindly to that kind of thing on the other side of the river.

Bad News

I really believe that 9/11 changed the way we viewed 24 hour news stations. Most people would agree that networks like CNN started making waves during the first Gulf War when they displayed live images of US planes bombing Iraq. While that event gave these news channels legitimacy, September 11, 2001 marked the emergence of opinion driven news, with Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC pushing the major networks to another level. In the midst of the Virginia  Tech travesty, we've seen some disturbing actions by these media outlets. Trying to one up each other in coverage, sensationalism has reigned supreme and we need to question if our quest for knowledge needs to be checked.

First, CNN chooses to air cell phone video of a VTech student hours after the shooting. This was before the news networks were even sure of the scope of the situation. What if that video wasn't authentic? What if it was filmed by an accomplice of the shooter? The desire for ratings ruled the day, and not wanting to be scooped, they released an amateur video that really didn't help anybody but themselves.

Then, in the aftermath of the shooting, many media outlets wanted to sensationalize the scope of the tragedy. Quite a few television news broadcasts and newspapers labeled this "the worst mass murder in US history." This is not true. Even if you discount 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing, there are others. In 1991 an arsonist in New York set a blaze that claimed 87 lives. It wasn't even the deadliest school killing. In 1927 over 40 people were killed when a disgrunted school board member blew up a school with dynamite. Whatever reason these news outlets chose for making this statement, it is incredibly irresponsible and nonfactual.

Finally, we see yesterday's decision by NBC news to air the photographs and video that the murderer had mailed to them between killings. This could be the biggest decision any news outlet has had to make regarding release of information and they failed miserably. The killer, in death, received exactly what he was looking for: notoriety. And perhaps, to those who feel depressed and/or disenfranchised, he will be viewed as a martyr. The wise decision would've been not to share the information. Was the situation improved knowing that the assassin was disturbed?

Unfortunately, unless the FCC were to step in, there is no one to keep them in check. It should be a reminder to all of us that, even though we're blessed to live in a country with an independent media, we shouldn't digest everything they try to feed us. We shouldn't shy away from demanding integrity in the way they chose to present the news.

And we ought to be careful how desperate we are to want the news. I'll admit that while I question the motives of the media of sharing the info, I didn't turn away when it aired. Many of us will rubberneck at the most insignificant news because we love a wreck.

There is such a thing as too much information.

You Gots'ta Go!

I can't believe I didn't post anything about this until now. If you're in the Cincinnati area, you need to make it to the 20th Century Theater in Oakley tonight for a benefit concert for Amy's Hope, a non-profit group helping children in Romania. Tye VonAllmen, worship leader at Echo, and his wife Andrea front the band Artists and Authors and they will be performing along with a couple other bands. Doors open at 7:00; show starts at 8:00. They even got some pub in today's Enquirer, where there was a shout-out to "tiny Echo Church." "Tiny" is the next level behind megachurch.

We're getting a babysitter. We'd love to see you there!

What Now?

Honestly, it was Sanjaya's world and we were all privileged to live in it. The sun will come out tomorrow.

My Second Life

Kelly and I have been together so long [10+ years now] that I view her life as my life. It's unfortunate that I don't always appreciate everything that she has given up to be my helpmate. Kelly is incredibly talented and probably could've achieved a lot more without me. That being said, I'm grateful that she chose me to drag her down. What got me thinking about this was that, over on her blog, Kelly detailed the last twelve years of her life. They happen to be intertwined with mine. It's pretty humbling.

I am a blessed man.

Perspective

"I'm really mad about it." “I felt like my left arm had been amputated.”

 "It's been a challenging day."

Continued outrage about the Virginia Tech massacre? Nope. That's a sampling disappointment of 8 million Blackberry users who lost service for a few hours yesterday.

It's interesting that in the midst of wall-to-wall coverage about the VTech tragedy that some Crackberry addicts losing email service was a top story today. Was it really that bad? Not compared to what other people are going through.

Sometimes we should take a deep breath and realize some personal emergencies aren't as serious as we think.

Thoughts On Tragedy

I didn't have much to say about the Virginia Tech shooting yesterday. There wasn't much information out about it then and I'm not sure I had much to say. As news has poured out today about the shooter, his motivation, and his advanced planning [he, at least, purchased the firearm[s] a month in advance] many hard questions have presented themselves. I feel somewhat obligated to make a few statements about what happened. Despite this being the worst campus tragedy in American history, surpassing an incident forty years ago when Charles Whitman killed 15 people from a tower at the University of Texas, I'm not sure that the magnitude of this massacre has really sunken in on the American public. Even though there's been considerable coverage on the 24 hour news channels, I believe the coverage would have been larger in a pre-9/11 world.

Now the natural media progression will lead them towards people to blame for this tragedy, beyond the shooter himself. The easiest target will be the gun industry. Even though he didn't use an assault rifle, there are those who believe that guns caused this incident. Some want to make Virginia Tech officials accountable for not shutting down the campus after the first shooting. And I already read a letter to the editor in today's paper blaming it on our society not taking mental health issues seriously. I'm confident that during the next few weeks we'll see many people offered as the scapegoat for the shooting.

Why the desire to place blame? I find it to be a reflex in order to explain away the tragedy. It isn't enough to observe the senseless nature of the act; there has to have been something that could've been prevented it from happening. We want to continue thinking that we humans have control over our world. But we're deceiving ourselves here. After every similar tragedy there is utter disbelief that "something like this could happen in a place like this." We perceive our personal environment as being safer than others. The reality is that there is not much safety to be found in a chaotic world such as ours.

No matter how hard you try to prevent this kind of evil, it is unavoidable. You can add security cameras and metal detectors, you can ban all sorts of firearms, you can do preventative psychological testing, but this kind of thing will happen again. If someone is willing to give their life to take life, you can't stop it. Friends, we live in a fallen world. The effects of sin yield evil actions like this massacre. No matter where you live or how cautious you are, you will never be fully exempt; this world is not a safe place to be. And our personal sin makes us just as culpable.

I make this observation, not to frighten, but to make us think about how we view our lives. How important is safety to you? If we hold safety to a higher level than we hold our worship of the living God, then we have issues. We're not promised safety in this life. Trying to create a Utopian existence is futile. We need to come to grips with the way the world functions and accept the dangers of a sinful world.

And we shouldn't have to live our lives in fear. We need to find a way to live in the world despite the sinfulness that consumes it. We Christians ought to have a different perspective on all of this. We believe there is a hope for this world, for something more after this life. We believe in the power of the gospel to transform the sinfulness that surrounds us. We might not be guaranteed safety, but it shouldn't keep us from unleashing the good news of Jesus on this world.

Our prayers need to be with the friends and families of those who lost loved ones yesterday. And we shouldn't ignore the opportunity to reflect on our own mortality.

Reflecting

 Still getting used to the new Wordpress set-up, but I'm liking it. Thanks to my technical adviser Brian Coates for helping me get some issues ironed out. And a shout-out to Tim Reed who suggested going to Wordpress years ago. I'll keep on adding features throughout the next few weeks, but be sure to let me know if you're noticing any glitches. It's been a pain to get the old blog transfered over here to the new one. There was a plug-in that allowed me to import the old posts, but it would only do it a few hundred at a time. In order to complete the process I had to delete some of the old blog so I could bring the rest over. So for the past couple of days I had to glance at everything I've ever blogged. It was actually rather enlightening.

I'm glad I started blogging. Sure, there are some negatives associated with it: every now and then I write something that bothers people and I have to clear it up; it makes my life and my views rather transparent, so there's no hiding where I stand on issues; and, despite what you think about the interwebs, this stuff is out there permanently- people will always be able to go back and see these posts. But those inconveniences are easily overshadowed by the opportunity to reflect on what I was feeling at these times in my life.

And I'm extremely grateful I started during this transitional stage of my life. I was blogging during our trip to Israel, during our decision to plant Echo, and during the birth of Kaelyn [well, not actually during the birth, but you know what I mean]. Some events that I thought were of huge importance at the time now seem trivial. It gives me some good perspective on life.

I'm not sure how long the medium of blogging will exist, but I'll keep at it as long as I can.

New Digs

I finally made the switch over tonight. It took a little bit of work, but I was able to import all of my old posts from Blogger. It required that I delete a ton of my posts, but they'll all be archived here. It'll probably take me a few weeks to fully customize the site, but it'll be a site to behold . . . or something like that. So thanks, in advance, for your patience. I'll get back in the saddle this week and resume regular posting.

Embrace change.