Bittersweet Beginnings and Endings

Yesterday marked the end of another season of football with the advent of Super Bowl XXXIX. In many ways it reminded me of last year, with the first quarter being dominated by both teams' defenses, both scoring in the second, being pretty uneventful during the third, and coming down to the wire in the final minutes of the fourth with the New England Patriots, for the third time in four years, winning the Super Bowl by a mere field goal. However, the differences between this year's show and that of last year were also striking, especially during the halftime show. If I had to describe the show this year it would have to be with the words: interesting, clean, and, in fact, rather dull. In contrast to last year's Justin Timberlake/Janet Jackson show put on by MTV, yesterday's Paul McCartney concert, produced by the same people who did the Olympic's opening and closing ceremonies, was quite tame. All of the tumult that arose from Janet's "Wardrobe Malfunction", as it is has been dubbed, resulted in a very safe, practically unaffending Super Bowl. There were a few commercials that got out of hand, but the halftime could not have been, in my opinion, any cleaner. Will the Patriots' "dynasty" continue? Who knows, but I hope that the new "cleaned-up" version of the Super Bowl show will.

"I Wanna Soak Up the Sun!" (Or Do I?)

Okay, now scientists have me completely confused. Last year the big news in sunbathing was: Do not do it, you may get skin cancer. The first thing I have heard about it this year: Do it, it may save you from skin cancer. My hypothesis: Most things, including the sun, are okay in moderation--just do not overdo it. Thus, while I will hopefully spend quite a bit of time outside this summer and not let a skin cancer scare rule my life, I am still not going to become a "sun worshipper" and waste hours just laying around hoping not to become so sunburned that I look like a ripe tomato.

Cancer: A Modern Disease?

Is there more cancer today than there was a hundred years ago, or does it just seem that way due to the fact that improvements in science have made better diagnosis possible? One does not read about people in history dying from cancerous diseases, yet they seem to have become more and more common in the news today. Does that mean that there were none back then? I do not think so, since deaths due to cancer may not have been diagnosed as such due to the lack of knowledge, but were written about under a different lable. Today, we are simply more aware of something that has been around for a long time because we now know what it is. It would be interesting to find out what our ancestors called the various cancers, and what they tried to do about them. Perhaps in studying the past, a cure may be found that can be used in the future.

Playing the Judge

He cannot be strict in judging, who does not wish others to be strict judges of himself. - Cicero

Very true.

Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment that you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, "Let me take the speck out of your eye," when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. - Jesus (Matthew 7:1-5)

Even more true.

Enough said.

At the Table of Hypocrisy

Why are Christians so rude? I have just been over at WorldMagBlog and read a post about servers in restaurants and Christians. As usual, it was not the post that was the most interesting, it was the conversation going on in the comments. It seems that I am not the only one who has noticed how rude Christians tend to be when they go out to eat. They order their food, pray over it, complain about it and the service, then leave an ungenerous tip. It would not make me as upset if they had not bothered to pray over the food, advertising that they were Christians, before all of their complaining, but when they do so, they are bad witnesses.

As Christians, we are always talking about kindness, generosity, and the like, but that talk does not necessarily translate into actions. There is talk about grace, forgiveness, and mercy, but that grace, forgiveness, and mercy are not always shown to those around them, such as the servers at a restaurant. Sometimes they are slow for a reason (i.e. other difficult customers, spills, etc.) and people need to have compassion on them. Sure, they are there to serve you, but couldn't you also serve them and make their job just a little easier by showing them kindness and a little generosity?

Why Do I Write?

A man named Jesse Stuart once said, "Write something to suit yourself and many people will like it; write something to suit everybody and scarcely anyone will care for it." This is something that has been plaguing me lately, and is one of the reasons that I have not written much on my blog recently. Why am I writing this blog? I began it as a way to express my thoughts about the world around me, even if nobody else wanted to listen. That was really the only goal that I had in mind, and I do not expect my tiny corner of the internet to amount to much other than as a medium for me to write what I think about pretty much anything. Thus, this blog has no real focus to it. The subjects of my posts cover a broad spectrum, ranging from politics and government to nature, and everything in between. Of course, my thoughts and opinions are still constantly changing and being formed, so the things I say are not always definitive statements and I am open to hearing other opinions and reasonings that are different from my own. I have yet to find a single person who has all of the answers to everything and who is right 100 percent of the time, and thus I am ready to admit my own failings. It is difficult for me to give in sometimes due simply to pride and selfishness, two of my many shortcomings, but I am constantly on a search for the truth. One of my biggest obstacles in writing on my blog is not a lack of thoughts, but the voice in the back of my head that tells me not to offend anyone, to only write what would interest others. But that fear of offending keeps anything from being written and thus, as Jesse Stuart so wisely instructed, I am going to try to ignore what others may think and write about, as was my original purpose, the things that interest me, even if they interest no one else. I hope that everything that I have just said makes sense.

Yeah, Intelligent.

Will humans ever be able to create a computerized form of intelligence to meet the level of human thinking? Will those same machines be able to reason at the same level that we do using similar cognitive processes? It sounds like something that only happens in science fiction, such as "I Robot", "2001:A Space Odyssey", or other similar stories in which robots and computers become basically "human", even to the point where they think themselves better than men. This is a scary thought since what separates us from all other forms of life is our ability to think. If something could out think us, we would become basically obsolete. We do not just have programmed responses and instincts to guide us, but also the ability to reason at a higher level that no other living thing has. Computers have the ablility to know facts, and even at times to figure out other facts from those facts, but they do not have the ability to really know things in the way that we do, things that can't be explained with words and are more than just head knowledge. They cannot believe things that seem to defy concrete facts and they cannot gain wisdom that surpasses mere understanding. Even though having robots around who could possibly out think most of us is a scary thought, I do not think that it is something that we will ever really have to worry about. The design behind how we think is something that seems pretty much impossible to match, even though, according to an article I read today, scientists are trying their best to come as close as they can to doing so.

A Sad Reminder

I came across an article about a memorial service at Auschwitz for the millions of people who were killed there and the brutal treatment that all of the prisoners went through. It is a sad reminder of what happens when a person's, or a nation's, beliefs become skewed to the point that human life does not matter anymore. Most of us tend to ignore the murders that go on everyday all over the world carried out by ruthless governments that are not held to a higher standard. It is heart-wrenching to look back at the terrible things that happened during World War II in the Nazi concentration camps, but we need to remember not only what happened then, but also the fact that the killing has not stopped.

Questions out of (and concerning) the Blue

Sometimes when my mind starts to wander, I think of crazy questions just out of the blue. Although I will probably never get most of them answered, it is still fun to ponder the "What if...?"s and the "Why...?"s. Here are a couple of my more resent queries:

When one walks outside during a cold winter day, they can see the cloud that their warm, moist breath makes as it hits the cold, dry air. This is a common phenomenon that most people have born witness to, but what happens when the opposite is true? What would happen if a blast of cold, dry air were to enter a warm, moist room, such as a bathroom after someone has taken a long, hot shower? Would the moisture in the warm air condense when it interacts with the cold air, forming a small cloud? Or would one only be able to feel the cold air without ever seeing anything?

Does everyone see the world in the same way? When I look at a cream-colored wall, am I seeing it in the same way as the person standing next to me staring at the exact same wall? Is the world a darker tint to some people than it is to others? Do some people literally see the world through rose-tinted lenses? Is my definition of blue as I see it the exact same as everyone else's? We know that some people are completely color-blind, while other people are only partially so, but are we all colorblind to some extent? I have been told that people with light-colored eyes are more sensitive to light, so does that mean that my "golden-colored" eyes (I never liked calling them light brown--it seems so plain and drab) see the world as being brighter than someone with dark brown, almost black, eyes?

For the Lexophiles

Beware: there are some real groaners! ; )

• A bicycle can't stand alone because it is two-tired.


• What's the definition of a will? (It's a dead giveaway).


• Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.


• A backward poet writes inverse.


• In democracy, it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your count that votes


• A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.


• With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.


• Show me a piano falling down a mineshaft and I'll show you A-flat minor.


• When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.


• The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.


• A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.


• You feel stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.


• Local Area Network in Australia: the LAN down under.


• He often broke into song because he couldn't find the key.


• Every calendar's days are numbered.


• A lot of money is tainted. 'Taint yours and 'taint mine.


• A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.


• He had a photographic memory which was never developed.


• A plateau is a high form of flattery.


• The short fortuneteller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.


• Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.


• When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.


• Those who jump off a Paris bridge are in Seine.


• When an actress saw her first strands of grey hair she thought she'd dye.


• Bakers trade bread secrets on a knead to know basis.


• Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.


• Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of defeat.

[You can't say I didn't warn you!]

Spinning Hurricane Cycles

While browsing through the news today, an article came to my attention concerning the link between global warming and an increase in hurricanes. There was a disagreement in the United Nations' science panel over whether or not global warming is causing more severe hurricanes now than there have been in the past. This disagreement went so far as to cause hurricane scientist Chris Landsea from the United States to withdraw from the panel.

During the 1970's, people started to speculate that the earth and its atmosphere are gradually increasing in temperature and causing the world's climate to change dramatically. This theory has been given the term "Global Warming" and has caused a lot of debate among scientists, politicians, and others over whether or not there is enough information to support it. The problem is that the weather fluctuates and goes through natural cycles, making it difficult to know whether a warm up within the past decade is merely a normal rise before another fall or if it is part of a much bigger change in the world's overall climate. It would be easier to answer that question if there were weather measurements taken throughout the whole of history, but measuring the weather is still a fairly recent development. There are ways to fill in some of the holes in the chart by looking at nature, but it is still not enough to come to a definite conclusion.

Even though the earth's climate is still a great mystery, what we do know as we study history is that hurricanes have tended to follow regular patterns of increases and declines. The following segment on the subject from the USA Today Weather Book seemed to answer some questions:

By the early 1990's, some people were saying that global warming was responsible for an increasing number of hurricanes. But at the same time these ideas were attracting attention, the number of Atlantic Basin hurricanes was in a 30-year decline. Most hurricane researchers and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) don't see any links between global warming and hurricanes.

The argument that global warming could increase the number and strength of hurricanes is based on the idea that the oceans would be warmer. It's true that warm water is an essential ingredient for hurricanes. Also, a hurricane's theoretical strength depends on the contrast in temperature between the warm ocean and the cold stratospheric air at the storm's top. The greater the contrast, the stronger a hurricane can grow. But global warming could change other ingredients, such as the speed and direction of upper-air winds, in ways that could work against hurricanes.

Those of us who study these storms don't buy" warming as the cause of an increase, Gray says. "All we can say now is we can't say much" about how global warming would affect hurricanes. Adds Goldenberg: "The type of slow, gradual, small changes that would be expected from global warming are very different from the kinds of changes we're seeing."

Another article with the same Dr. Gray had more to say about the natural fluctuations that hurricanes seem to follow:

According to hurricane expert Dr. William Gray at Colorado State University, we should see an increase in storm activity over the next 20 years. The storms are expected to cause 5 to 10 times the amount of damage on the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts than previously experienced, due to the massive increase in population and development along these coastlines.

The hurricane activity of the next 20 years should resemble the period that began in the late 1920s and lasted through the 1940s. The increase is due to higher salinity content in the Atlantic Ocean, which alters its currents and increases average ocean temperatures, fueling more storms. Gray emphasizes that this is a cyclical trend and has nothing to do with global warming (CNN, April 22, 2000).

I honestly do not know whether or not global warming is an actual danger and something that we need to spend our time and energy worrying about. Whether it is or not, we should still try our best to take good care of the world that God created and do what we can to not destroy it. However, taking care of that world should not consume us to the point that we begin to fear, and thus worship, nature instead of the One who created it.

What Have I Done?!?!

Well, as you can probably tell if you have ever visited my blog before, things look a lot different. I was playing around with the template this afternoon and this new look is what I came up with. It will probably keep on changing and evolving into how I really want it, so do not be too worried if you absolutely detest it. I still, and always will, welcome comments about my blog's appearance and content, and any suggestions you may have of how to make it better. Thank you!

-Becky

When Forecasting Goes Bad

Raleigh, North Carolina was incapcitated by an unpredicted inch of snow this past week. People were stranded on the roads, at schools, and in other buildings because the salt trucks did not get out on the roads before they iced over. People then proceeded to put the blame for all of the havoc that ensued on the meteorologists, none of which had predicted the snowfall. People have come to rely on meteorologists almost too much instead of being prepared for whatever nature throws at them. Meteorology is still a science with a lot of unanswered questions, especially in the area of winter storms, but people expect the forcast to be correct every single time, and do not give any slack when the actual weather does not match up with the forecast. Just a hundred years ago, there was no weatherman on television to tell people what to expect. We have become spoiled without realizing it, and are unforgiving, even though the scientists try to do the best they can with what knowledge that they have. Was it anyone's fault that people were stranded all over Raleigh? I do not know, but we should not be so quick to place all of the blame on the weather forecasters and their still developing science.

A Game for Bibliophiles

There is now a gamefor those who love to read books, collect books, and browse bookstores looking for books. The game is called "Booktastic!",the main goal of which is...to buy books. It probably does not beat the pure enjoyment and relaxation of spending hours in a bookstore looking through all of the shelves at the many books, but it may be worth looking into as a way to curb the appetite for bookbuying when one is low on the funds and the time(which I usually am).

It Is Now Official

George W. Bush is now our official president for the next four years (unless something happens during that time to cause it to be otherwise). He was sworn in this morning in the freezing cold, but beautiful, city of Washington D.C. I only was able to see the inauguration from the time of his speech on, but it made me happy to be living in the country that I am. There were demonstrators there with a large, conspicuous sign condemning the war, but it made me glad, not because of what they were saying, but because they had the ability to say it. The entire inaugral presentation was able speak in many different ways and it was a wonderful, meaningful manner in which to begin another presidential term.

Unfortunately, nobody seemed to think that the presentation could speak for itself. I do not understand why the media seems to think that it needs to "analyze" what just took place. There is no need to report the news on a situation that everyone watching has just seen first hand. It would be one thing if they were on a show where they were supposed to be discussing their opinions of the situation, but they aren't, and it is assumed that they are going to be reporting just the hard facts. The public should be able to draw their own conclusions from what they see and hear without also being fed what to think. It seems to be common practice now that, whenever anything big like the State of the Union Address, an inauguration, or such is being shown on national television, nobody can just show it, they have to editorialize it as well.

Oh, well. The news media may never change, but we have a lot of changes to look forward to in the future of our country. This presidential inauguration will not be the last, and it is facinating to think about all of the future men, and probably women, who will take part in that ceremony, then go on to lead our country, for good or for bad.

The Joys of Elephants

Elephant handlers over in Thailand have taught their elephants to use a toilet whenever they have to do their "business," and even flush it when they are done! I wish that we could teach our bird to at least head back to his cage instead of just going to the bathroom wherever he happens to be at the moment. Of course, it would be more difficult considering the fact that he cannot fly. Maybe we should just trade him in for an elephant.

What Can I Say?

Ray Bradbury's book "Fahrenheit 451" has a lot to say on the subject of censorship. In it, America has turned into a place where political correctness is the only acceptable route, and everyone is mindlessly entertained almost 24 hours non-stop. Reading books is against the law since the things in them might make people uncomfortable or disrupt the happy, mindless society. Instead of being revered for the knowledge that they contain, the books along with the buildings in which they are found, and sometimes even the people found hiding them, are ruthlessly burned to ashes.

Nevertheless, is censorship truly wrong? There is one side that says that having the ability to say whatever one pleases in any form, as long as they are not physically hurting another human being, is an innate right that everyone should have. However, there are also many who lean to the side of filtering "bad" content out of things before they make it into the public square, where it can end up damaging people, their lives, and society as a whole. This point of view is quite compelling, but is it really the answer?

The problem with censorship is that there are no clear cut black-and-white rules that everyone can agree to go by. While keeping people from having to suffer the filth of pornography, the injury of bad language, and the misleading of lies, there is no way to keep the truth and other good and pure things from also suffering under the editing knife. Without an absolute, unchanging standard to go by, censorship is left up to the whims of whoever is in power at the time. This has been seen throughout history when governments are given the power to filter everything that their people see and hear, allowing only the things that help fulfill their agenda to go through, even if it means repressing the truth and, at times, permitting blatant lies. In this way, censorship can do people just as much, if not more, harm than good. There is also the problem with the censorship that has come with the title of "Political Correctness." One of people's worst fears today is offending others by what they say. Only neutral titles can be used to refer to people, and to say that anything that anyone does is inherently wrong is labeled "hate speech" and can end up having a person carted off to jail for being honest. Censorship always comes with the risk of suppressing the truth.

It is important for all points of view to be heard and carefully weighed. This does not mean that everything that everyone says should be accepted as truth, but without hearing what others, even those with home we disagree, have to say, our own point of view will not be allowed to develop. Our understanding of the world around us will remain as that of a child.

However, does this mean that we should just leave our culture alone as it travels down a slippery road to the depths of immorality? Do we have to accept everything that we come across and allow ourselves and our children to be exposed to filth? No, we should not stand idly by while our society deteriorates, but it is not the government's job, especially in today's world of moral relativity, to say what ideas should be allowed or not allowed. It is the people's job to take a stand for what is right and true. If we do that, then, hopefully, we will never have to face a world so severely censored as the one that Ray Bradbury wrote about.

How Will We Make Great Minds Comes Alive?

Why is it that many of the greatest men in history, especially the ones who make great advances in science, are many times school drop-outs? Is it due to the fact that most public schools try to fit every student into the same mold by requiring them to learn the same things at basically the same rate? It is difficult to blame schools for that, since the effort and time that it would take for one teacher to teach each of thirty or so students individually would be almost unthinkable, but is there a better way?

Einstein was one of the greatest minds to live in the twentieth century. He made many discoveries concerning mathematics and physics, and introduced many worthwhile theories to the field. However, he was not the product of a well-run school system, but was instead a school drop-out. Reuter's has an article on him that explains that:

He [Einstein] did so badly at school his teachers told his parents to take him out because he was "too stupid to learn" and it would be a waste of resources to invest time and energy in his education. The school suggested that his parents get him an easy, manual labor job as soon as they could.

This news shocks most of us, since we have always heard of him described as being a great genius, and yet he was basically thrown out of school for being "too stupid to learn." Without being able to focus on a student as an individual with individual strengths and weaknesses, there may be many geniuses out there who are held back because they are not allowed to explore the areas that interest them and in which they are most gifted.

Thomas Edison was another of the great men in history and, when it comes to scientific achievements, there are few like him who have changed our lives as much as he has. As the Arizona Daily Wildcat reports:

Thomas Alva Edison made only one purely scientific discovery: the "Edison effect." It involves the flow of electricity across a vacuum. He patented the effect, but could think of no use for it and went on to other things. The Edison effect, however, turned out to be the basis of the whole electronics industry - radio, television and all.

Edison basically changed the way in which a large amount of the people all over the world live. We can now flip a switch to flood a room with light, turn on the television to be entertained or informed, listen to music, and even blog on the internet because of him. However, he was also as a boy taken out of public schools after only three months because he was not being taught in the way that suited him best. His teacher thought that he was stupid and that his brain was messed up and also became fed up with his incessant questions. Edison was removed from school and taught at home by his mother before going on to change the world with his inventions.

Is there a way to fix the public schools so that children can be trained and taught in such a way that they can reach their full potential? I personally do not believe that monetary funding is the problem. Some of the worst funded schools produce better results than those with large supplies of money. So then, what is the problem and how can it be corrected?

Pathetically Apathetic

Christians have too much apathy and do not care enough about the world around them. They sit in their warm, comfy churches on Sunday, sing nice songs, and talk about how they should live, and yet do not do much to impact the world with the love that they receive from God. People talk about helping others and about being saved, and yet seem to do nothing to put those words into practice and share that good news with others. They are afraid that, by doing so, they will have to interact with people they do not like and have to leave their comfort zones. We do not seem to see the urgent need to tell others about Jesus and how he came down to earth to become one of us, die for us, and reunite us with God, our Creator.

If you lived in a town located right beneath a volcano and had special insider knowledge that that volcano was going to erupt sometime within the next week, destroying the entire town and its population, what would you do? Would you concentrate only on getting yourself out of harms way, and yet tell nobody else of the impending danger? Would you get together a group of friends who also have the special information about the volcano's coming eruption and talk with them about what is going to happen, and how glad you are that you will not be harmed like the other ignorant members of the town who are going to die from a lack of knowledge? Or would you spread to the rest of the townspeople the news that you have about a wonderful transport out of town that will take anyone who wants to escape the volcano to a lovely tropical paradise? Then, once you told those people and they did not believe you and called you a moron for suggesting any such thing about their beautiful mountain, would you stop trying to convince them? Could you really live knowing that you, in a way, were responsible for their deaths? Or would you do all in your power to get them to go with you to safety, even give up the comforts that you currently enjoy to go out and help them where they are? Would you only tell the nice, well-to-do, well-groomed, rich people, or would you also take the time to visit the slums and spread the good news of the transport out of danger to paradise with the people who are dirty and less than desirable? How much do you really care about other people?

A Plea for Your Assistance

I am planning on writing my own template for my blog in the near future and would like to know what you would like to see me put in it. I would gladly welcome your suggestions for colors, graphics, content in the blog (not the content of the posts, but in the sidebar etc.), and anything else you can think of. Not every suggestion will be able to be used, of course, but I gladly welcome any comments that you may give and will consider using them to make my blog better. Thanx much!