God, Church & Stuff, Politics

John Piper On Women & Over-Investment in Politics

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Came across a very interesting video from John Piper, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist in Minneapolis and head of Desiring God, a nonprofit religious organization that advocates the “supremacy of God.” I’ve done some work for Desiring God and I always find them very interesting to deal with. Piper is intensely cerebral. Trying to edit and work with their copy is an immense challenge. I’m always trying to get them to use language normal people can understand.

And that’s all because Piper is smart. Very smart. Dude talks in heady concepts and lingo that’s hard to get your head around. I don’t always agree with all of it, but I often find it immensely challenging (his work on Don’t Waste Your Life is perhaps the most accessible and incredibly convicting [though I should note that I didn’t work on the DWYL web site!]).

I say all that because I have great respect for Piper and want to give some context of who he is before talking about this video.

So Piper made a conversational video explaining his heart and concerns about the 2008 presidential election. The nearly seven-minute video covers three basic topics:

  • Women
  • Race
  • Abortion
  • Over-investment in politics

Continue reading John Piper On Women & Over-Investment in Politics →

Writing

NaNoWriMo 2008: The Least

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NaNoWriMo ParticipantOh yeah, I started writing a novel today. Again. It’s called The Least (it’s a working title, I know, I’m not thrilled with it either). This is the third time I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month, the pressure-cooker event where you attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. In both previous attempts I won (i.e., finished).

So far I’m at 3,832 words, which puts me well ahead of schedule for the first day (woot, woot!). I find it really helps to start strong. It gives you a needed cushion for days when the words just don’t come. To save you the math, you have to write 1,667 words per day to stay on track.

And you can read along. I just set up a quick Blogspot blog where I’ll be posting the novel as I go. It will be full of typos, plot holes and it might completely suck, so reader be warned. It’s also a work of post-apocalyptic fiction, so abandon all hope ye who enter.

Hopefully it will be interesting and fun. I’d appreciate your comments and support, as long as they’re all positive (if you think my novel sucks, don’t tell me until December).

Technology

War of the Worlds on Twitter

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War of the WorldsYou may not have noticed yesterday, but aliens rose up and crushed mankind before succumbing to the common cold and dying off. One person described the mayhem like this:

“Smoking, smoldering hunks of buildings, cars, and people lay strewn about. The tripods have left the Warehouse District in ruins.”

If it sounds familiar, it should be. Some enterprising folks recreated the War of the Worlds radio drama on Twitter. Instead of fictional news accounts about aliens, people posted fictional Twitter updates about aliens. There were also fictional photos and even videos. Wired covered the story and perhaps as many as 10,000 happened upon the event.

And I’d wager many of them were confused.

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Blogging, Technology

Is Blogging Dead?

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Hard at WorkLast night I read a Wired magazine article about how Twitter, Facebook and Flickr have killed blogging. The article starts with this anti-blogging sentiment:

“Thinking about launching your own blog? Here’s some friendly advice: Don’t. And if you’ve already got one, pull the plug.”

I’ve been blogging since 1998 (coming up on my 10-year anniversary!), so this is an interesting discussion for me. I definitely agree that Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and all the other content-publishing tools out there have changed the face of blogging. My own blogging has changed drastically since I began using Twitter.

But I don’t see the blog going away.

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Movies

Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome is Beyond Bizarre

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Mad Max: Beyond ThunderdomeI’ve been thinking about writing a post-apocalyptic fiction novel for National Novel Writing Month, so a couple nights ago I sat down and watched Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. Now I chose that movie not because it’s the best example of a post-apocalyptic movie I could think of (there’d be many others, from Mad Max: Road Warrior which I would have picked if I hadn’t watched it a few months ago, to Children of Men to I Am Legend, which is more horror but does a nice job with the setting), but because I haven’t seen it in a while and it has a good mix of post-apocalyptic fun.

Plus: Jokes about pig poop.

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Society

Homelessness Is On the Rise

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This Sign Is My RoofLet’s talk about something less political. Sort of.

More middle-class professionals are becoming homeless:

  • “The Burbank Temporary Aid Center has experienced a 66% increase in requests for assistance in the last 18 months, Executive Director Barbara Howell said. About half of those seeking help are middle-class people experiencing homelessness for the first time.”
  • “Andy Bales, president of the Union Rescue Mission, said he’s also seeing professionals and other middle-class people coming into the mission who are experiencing homelessness for the first time, including former mission donors.”
  • “It’s America’s new shantytown,” Roberts said. “It’s happening everywhere—Seattle, San Diego and Denver. I think it’s a reflection of the economic times. The social safety net in our society is failing.”

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Politics

Historic Tax Rates in the U.S.: Socialist?

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There’s a lot of debate going around right now about tax policy. I thought it’d help to look at the actual tax rates compared to historic numbers. But let’s keep in mind that I took Math for Elementary Education in college (i.e., I’m no mathematician or economist).

The big question seems to be whether or not Barack Obama’s tax policy is socialist (or how socialist is it, depending on your perspective). So let’s take a look at those proposed income tax brackets and compare them to historic income brackets.

To simplify things, I’m only looking at income tax rates for the highest bracket:

  • Current income tax: 35% for those earning more than $357,700.
  • Obama’s proposed income tax: 39.6% for those earning more than $357,700.
  • McCain’s proposed income tax: remain at 35%
    (The current tax brackets are set to expire and revert to 2000 levels, so both Obama and McCain talk about their plans as cuts, which is a bit misleading. They’re both talking about extending the cuts, except that Obama wants to expire the cuts for the top two brackets; Source)

So the difference between McCain and Obama for the top bracket is 4.6% (for the second highest bracket the difference is 3%; for other brackets there’s no difference*). I have a hard time believing that 4.6% pushes us into socialist territory. The fact is both favor a progressive tax policy where the more money you make the greater percentage of taxes you pay.

Bottomline: The McCain and Obama tax proposals are relatively similar. Compared to a historic perspective, they’re very similar.

Continue reading Historic Tax Rates in the U.S.: Socialist? →

Politics

Why I’m Voting for Barack Obama

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Barack ObamaIn the 2008 presidential election I’m going to be voting for Barack Obama. That’s probably not a surprise to people who know me, but I feel the need to explain that position.

Caveats
I’ve been contemplating this post for some time. Should I even write it? As a person who makes a living writing for a faith-based market (for the most part), it’s some what dangerous to talk about politics. There’s a very real possibility that people won’t hire me because of my political views. It’s happened for much lesser reasons.

But I guess because of that rationale I feel compelled to give a defense for why I’m voting for Barack Obama. I’d rather someone understand my reasoning and still reject me than reject me based on an assumption from something random like a Twitter post.

I think this will be the first time I’ve ever publicly blogged about who I’m voting for. The above rationale is part of the reason, but I’ve also never cared that much about politics. Part of the reason why I’m doing it this year is because of how important the times are. That’s said every year (I said it last election), but this election is historic on several fronts.

Ground Rules
I’m not going to load this post up with links and sources. Perhaps I should, but writing this is going to be grueling enough. I don’t have time to track down all the links. My arguments have come from watching the debates, listening to the candidates, following the campaigns and reading fact check sites. That said, feel free to call me on facts that I get wrong.

I’d also like to remind people of the importance of disagreeing well. How we disagree perhaps says more about our character than what we agree on.
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Society

More Islamic Witch Hunts from Katherine Kersten

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Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten is at it again. In the spring she claimed the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA) charter school was violating separations of church and state by teaching Islam (the state disagreed, with two minor exceptions). Now she’s claiming that a new group launching three new charter schools, the Minnesota Education Trust (MET), has their own Islamic agenda. I can’t believe I’m having to write about this again.

Kersten may be raising valid points, but they’re lost in her rhetoric and lack of balance. She points out that one of MET’s first priorities is “to promote the message of Islam to Muslims and non-Muslims and promote understanding between them,” and then asks the question, “How can an organization dedicated to promoting religion be qualified to sponsor public schools?”

Great question. How can organizations with similar religious goals like Bethel University, North Central University, Concordia University and Friends of Ascension—all sponsors of charter schools in Minnesota—be qualified to sponsor public schools?

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Writing

NaNoWriMo 2008

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National Novel Writing Month 2008 ParticipantNext Saturday begins National Novel Writing Month and I think I’m going to partake again. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was editing my last novel in vague hopes of finishing in time for NaNoWriMo 2008. I wasn’t sure if I’d actually finish, but I think I’m getting close. At least close enough that I can hand it off to someone else and let them tell me if it’s any good or not. Which gets the thing off my desk for at least a couple weeks.

All of which begs the question: What on earth do I write about this year?

Part of me thinks I should stick to my strengths, which seem to be character-driven stories centered around tragedy (assuming you consider either of my novels good enough to be strengths). But another part of me thinks it’s time to try something new. Maybe some post-apocalyptic fiction? Maybe cheesy yet subversive Christian fiction (like a Christian version of Liar, Liar called Preacher, Preacher where the main character can’t stop himself from preaching at everyone, no matter how wildly inappropriate the situation is)? Maybe something else completely?

All day long I’ve been mulling the possibilities. The biggest danger is I only have one week to figure out what the heck I’m doing, and then 30 days to put down 50,000 words.

A work-at-home dad wrestles with faith, social justice & story.