"This is hard for a lot of people to hear, but in my family, in my neighborhood, and in my community this is what part of what parenting meant. If you weren't feeling the edge of the sword on your ass, then you were responding to the possibility of it. One thing I learned, while touring for my book, was that a lot of people consider this to be child abuse. It really was news to me and ultimately unthinkable. Almost everyone I'd ever known had come up the same way. My book editor would joke, while reading, the manuscript about his grandmother coming up from the South and making him go search for a switch. In Harlem."
(Via Ta-Nehisi Coates.)
Truth be known, I'm trying to avoid it as much as possible. But push come to shove, I'm going to shove. Better me than the police who will not temper their assault nor will give or repeat verbal warnings prior.
]]>"Microsoft has more to contend with than computers running other operating systems. People have begun to use such gadgets as the iPhone as tiny mobile computers.
But Ballmer scorns the idea that smart phones could unseat PCs as the technology of choice for on-the-go consumers.
'Let's face it, the Internet was designed for the PC. The Internet is not designed for the iPhone,' Ballmer said. 'That's why they've got 75,000 applications — they're all trying to make the Internet look decent on the iPhone.'"
(Via Google News.)
Now that's so stupid, I'm embarrassed for him.
Technorati Tags:
iphone, microsoft, apple
This is my answer:
"To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.""The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false."
--St. Thomas Aquinas
Faith is substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)
"I believe in Coincidence like I believe in God. I know both exist but have never seen either."--The Unit
Simply put faith is like love or the appreciation of art or one's morality. It is part of who you are and is not the product reason, rather the reverse. (Nor does the object of these human experiences change their essential nature. From a materialist reductive standpoint, a father's love for his son is completely in his head, just a collection of neuro-chemical reactions and bio-elecricity regardless of the reality of his son.) Faith is a human experience that is ineffable though we, like romantic love, spend many words describing it's reality. Religion is faith in practice and like anything else human, subject to our strengths, weaknesses, and limitations. And that is the plain truth.
So for me, Truth is accepting what Is as clearly as I can see it and refraining from letting my desires, wants, and biases cloud that vision. So the truth is I believe in God because I have experienced God. I have a modest spiritual capacity. I deploy religion to practice my spirituality and employ my faith because I am driven to do so. I do not subscribe to fideism, nor does my Church by the way. I believe that experience lies at the ground of all we hold True. The rest is mental exercise and commentary.
I am a Catholic because I found a spiritual home at St. Raymond of Penafort Church in Mt. Airy, Philadelphia. Otherwise, I would be done with organized religion as my wife and I were tired of lots of sizzle and no steak. Spirit: that's all that's Real to me. Otherwise you might was well worship Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or Russell's Teapot for that matter.
Catholicism is enough for me because I know God intimately through it. I don't worry about ancient traditions, doctrines or dogma too much. (Maybe that makes me a bad Catholic in the Magesterium's eyes, but I'm not in this for them now am I?) A caveman and I start a campfire pretty much the same way and appreciate its reality despite vastly different understanding of its nature. So I'm less worried about the Trinitarian Godhead as monotheism, for example, and more worried about how my religion makes me a better persons and deepens my spirituality, i.e. knowledge of God.
Jesus, my Lord and Master, taught:
And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks finds; and the one who knocks, the door will be opened...If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the holy Spirit to those who ask him? (Luke 11:9-10,13)
Amen.
Technorati Tags:
bible, catholic, religion
"Apple could grab more market share if it lowered prices, but O’Donnell wasn't holding his breath. ‘The talk on the street is a $799 notebook,’ he said, referring to persistent rumors that Apple will introduce a lower-priced MacBook this year. ‘But I don’t think they care about prices. They’re all about making profit.’"
(Via MacWorld.)
]]>I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.
--Albert Einstein
"The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists -- the Taliban and Hamas this morning -- in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize," wrote DNC Communications Director Brad Woodhouse. "Republicans cheered when America failed to land the Olympics and now they are criticizing the President of the United States for receiving the Nobel Peace prize -- an award he did not seek but that is nonetheless an honor in which every American can take great pride -- unless of course you are the Republican Party. The 2009 version of the Republican Party has no boundaries, has no shame and has proved that they will put politics above patriotism at every turn. It's no wonder only 20 percent of Americans admit to being Republicans anymore - it's an embarrassing label to claim."
"Citing a Harvard University study released this month that said 44,000 Americans die each year because they have no health insurance, Grayson called on Democrats and Republicans 'to do our jobs for the sake of those dying people and their families.''I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven't voted sooner to end this holocaust in America,' he said."
(Via CNN.)
Payback it is a ...
Technorati Tags:
healthcare reform, politics
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
(Via Politico.com.)
McCaughey gets her rear end handed to her. This is what happens when someone demands an actual answer to a question.
Technorati Tags:
healthcare reform
"I am aware of all the socio-economic forces at work they make black communities more subject to violence. I'm in all for trying to ameliorate those forces. In the meantime, I'm all for doing whatever it takes to protect the rest of us--particularly young black kids--from hooliganism. "
(Via Ta-Nehisi Coates.)
That's pretty much the black position. Both-and vs. either-or. But I don't think there is a limit to compassion, it's a sense of justice. These cats need to be punished for doing something wrong and unnecessary.
]]>"But the USB-IF didn’t quite see things that way. ‘In the view of the USB-IF, Palm’s allegation (if true) does not establish that Apple is using its Vendor ID (VID) contrary to the USB-IF’s policies,’ the group said. ‘Therefore, under present USB-IF policies, the USB-IF does not consider the alleged use, without more, to be ‘improper.’’Ugly news for Palm, and it only gets worse–because the USB-IF goes on to suggest that Palm itself is violating its Membership Agreement by using Apple’s vendor ID number to disguise the Pre as an Apple device."
(Via Digital Daily.)
Dumb.
]]>"There's a lot at work here: 1.) Race-baiters have, for the past few decades, repeatedly outfoxed anti-racists. Beck and Cornyn know how to walk up to the line. Carter is from a generation of liberals who never understood why people didn't agree them about Willie Horton. Thus Carter doesn't insinuate, he doesn't calibrate, he just speaks, political effects be damned. 2.) The dominant school of journalism holds that it's safer to talk about the effect of talking about race on Obama, rather than actually talking about its effects, period. That's true for most things though--reporters are generally more interested in gamesmanship, than issues. 3.) A lot of reporters take Beck and Cornyn's race-baiting is taken as a given. I'll be shocked if anyone asks Cornyn about this. I don't think they much care."
(Via Ta-Nehisi Coats.)
Technorati Tags: obama, race, race-baiting, glenn beck
]]>Faith and reason are interdependent. One of the great secrets of the universe is that reason leans on faith every but as faith leans on reason. Rightly did St. Augustine say, "I believe that I may understand." It's not that people who lack Christian faith cannot know anything. But anyone who knows anything must first put faith in principles that are tacit, unproven, and unprovable. We have good reasons to believe such things. But we don't have proof. We believe that we may understand.