Mark's Notebook

All Articles - December 2004

Readers 'state' our Word of the Year

San Francisco Chronicle

Vlae Kershner, SF Gate news director

"Red state/blue state" is the Word of the Year.

The paired terms identify states that vote Republican (red) or Democrat, according to the colors used on television electoral maps. This year, their meanings were extended to differentiate states by cultural factors as well.

"Red state/blue state" got 41 percent of the vote among the more than 2,800 people who responded to our poll by yesterday.

"Wardrobe malfunction," finished second, followed by "blog," "insurgents" and "iPod."

This is the fourth year for the contest, in which readers nominate and vote on the choices. Prior winners were "9-11" in 2001, "nukular" in 2002 and "metrosexual" in 2003.

Red state/blue state -- This matched set from TV election-night maps became the shorthand way of expressing the country's deep political and cultural divisions.

Wardrobe malfunction -- This excuse, offered by Justin Timberlake for his and Janet Jackson's Super strip-tease act, became shorthand for a year of debate over what's fit for the airwaves, which led to the planned departure of Howard Stern for satellite radio.

Blog -- This word has been around for awhile, but what could be more 2004 than the term for a web journal. Just ask Dan Rather.

Insurgents -- Terrorists? Rebels? Loyalists? Nope, the media-certified word for the other side in Iraq is about the blandest term possible.

iPod -- Five years after Napster, the future of downloadable music finally became clear with the success of the Apple music player.

A few other words received multiple nominations, including "low-carb," "girlie-men," "BALCO," and, with several spellings, "duuuuude."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/gate/archive/2004/12/30/word30.DTL

Party in the LIttle Apple!

Associated Press

Kansas town wants to celebrate like its namesake

Associated Press

Manhattan, Kansas -- New York, eat your heart out.

So goes the message from this heartland town known as the Little Apple, where a New Year's event modeled after the one in Times Square is planned.

Organizers of the second annual Little Apple New Year's Eve Celebration and Ball Drop expect attendance to balloon this year.

Their "eat your heart out" slogan goes along with a marketing strategy focused on locals accustomed to celebrating the holiday wherever Kansas State University is playing in a bowl game. For the first time in 11 years, the Wildcats football team is absent from the New Year's Day bowl lineup.

Kate Watson, an organizer of the Little Apple celebration, said there has been a 70 percent increase in traffic this year at the event's Web site. She's hoping last year's crowd of 4,800 revelers will grow to 8,000.

A five-foot-diameter aluminum ball will be lowered at the New Year's Eve celebration from a 20-foot-tall marquee at a Manhattan bookstore.

It's reminiscent of the ball drop in the Big Apple, a Times Square tradition for nearly a century. But the crowd is expected to be just a tiny fraction of that in Times Square, where an estimated 750,000 people gathered last New Year's Eve.

Pope Offers Plea for Peace in Christmas Message

New York Times

By Ian Fisher

"I think of Africa, of the tragedy of Darfur in Sudan, of the Ivory Coast and of the Great Lakes region," which includes Congo and Rwanda, the pope, who is 84, told thousands of people on the chilly, rain-drenched cobblestones of St. Peter's Square. "With great apprehension I follow the situation in Iraq."

He also referred to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The issue is always important to the Vatican since the region is revered as the birthplace of Jesus.

In a square decorated by a huge Christmas tree and life-size Nativity scene, he called on help from Jesus for "an end to the spread of violence in its many forms."

"You, prince of true peace, help us to understand that the only way to build peace is to flee in horror from evil, and to pursue goodness with courage and perseverance," he said. "Men and women of good will, of every people on the earth, come with trust to the crib of the Savior."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/26/international/europe/26pope.html?th

The Meaning Of Christmas

So what is the practical meaning of Christmas? Anyone can say it is a celebration of the birth of Christ, but who actually gives gifts to him and not to family members on that day?

When I was a child, Christmas meant getting up very early to open gifts from the folks and then be rushed off reluctantly to an early church serivce. There was always a big dinner with lots of aunts and uncles in attendance. Food consisted of turkey with all the trimmings, jello salads, and pies.

As we grew older, we wanted to share in giving gifts as well as receiving them. This probably didn't happen until we were into high school or even out of school, because until we had jobs there wasn't much money to spend on others.

When we became adults, we made concerted efforts to take some of the load off our parents, and to find suitable gifts for them. We seldom had success on either front. The aunties were never willing to concede their jello-making monopoly. And my parents were often notoriously difficult to shop for (or even create things for).

When I was in high school I met Jesus and honoring his birth made more sense to me. But the hectic ready-making for Christmas morning turned all other priorities upside down, and it was always with bleary eyes that we went to church to do that honor, irrespective of any desire to do so. And often with irritation grown of frustrations or disappointments with shopping or crafting.

For many years Christmas was a difficult time for all of us. They became most difficult of all in 1998 when my mother went into the hospital on Christmas day, and passed away the next day. As much as we tried to pull together as a family, Christmas was always a strain after that. Now we are lucky to get all of my brothers and sisters together in the same room on any occasion, even Christmas. Perhaps we discovered that the glue that held our family together was not Jesus, but my mother.

Fortunately I was introduced to Mary's family in 1997, and that gave me a glimpse of a different kind of Christmas. Mary's nephews and nieces ranged in age from 6 to 11 (at that time), and it was a joy to buy, or preferably make, gifts for them.

Every year since 1999, Mary and I have had a "tradition" of making special craft projects for everyone in close family, about 18 people in all. One year it was cardboard boxes in the shape of stockings, covered with cloth, with goodies inside. Another time it was small wooden boxes, painted with different designs, filled with little treasures. Mary has taken to making sets of rubber-stamped all-occasion greeting cards, which everyone loves. Last year I made binders with covers laden with family photographs, tailored to each family member. (I'm not yet divulging this year's project because not all have been distributed yet!)

But where is Christ in all of this? Jesus loved the little children, but eventually they all grow up and become difficult adults, much harder to love. Jesus loved to give to others, but would he stay up late nights doing art projects while neglecting his relationship with his Father, as we do in order to meet our self-imposed deadlines? And of course the artists always wants to draw attention to himself and his effort; this is part of the artist personality. Did Jesus have this neurosis? God forbid!

I like to think that in my mother I saw something of what Jesus was like. She baked the turkey, she baked the pies, but she desired to see us eat them; she did not desire to brag about them. She reluctantly let us wash the dishes, her fine china and silver that she never quite felt comfortable trusting us with.

So this year, Mary and I missed going to church with the rest of the family because we were still working on craft projects at the last minute. We did not get home until 4:00 am, which meant that we were not up early enough to go to any church today (and which also means that after sleeping in, now at 2:00 am I'm not too tired to be typing up all this). So Jesus escaped us completely. I don't even recall saying grace when we ate last night.

We can say with certainty that we did not become caught up in the consumerism of the season, although without a doubt we did spend money. But honoring Jesus must mean more than rejecting the consumer mentality. It must mean more than just spending time with family. Anyone of any religion, or even no religion, can do those things as well or better than we did.

Reading some of the articles I've posted recently, one might be tempted to think that honoring Jesus means saying "Merry CHRISTmas" to everyone in earshot, and suing those who don't respond in kind. Or perhaps it means refusing to put up a "pagan" decorated tree. Perhaps it means eating turkey instead of chinese food. Perhaps it means shopping at Wal-Mart instead of at Target. Would complaining about how the country is going to hell in a bucket suffice? No, everyone does that, whether they are attempting to honor Jesus or not.

My stepson (and Mary's son) is serving with the U.S. Marines in Iraq. We chat with him on the computer almost every day. He has been telling us about near-misses and fallen friends. We have been praying for him every day. Perhaps the way we can most honor Jesus is to acknowledge the role he plays in our lives. He sustains us while our son is in a dangerous situation. He sustains our son as well. We can do nothing but pray. God has put us in this situation against our will. We can do nothing but look to him for comfort, safety, and encouragement. So now God has us right where he wants us. We have no choice but to honor him with lips and lives. We can do nothing for our son. But we can expect our God to do miracles.

"And we have such confidence through Christ toward God;  not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as being out of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God." - 2 Corinthians 3:4-5

When we have failed in every other way, we can look to God, the source of our lives, our sustainer, and our only comfort. No matter what else we might do on this Christmas day, if we do that, we honor Jesus in the way that he wants to be honored.

Jesus, thank you for continuing to take care of us, our son, and our families. Thank you for remembering our friends who are ill, relatives who have been in the hospital recently, and nieces whose mothers have died and left no one to take care of them. Help us to be your hands, mouth and eyes to those who need you as acutely as we do. Amen.

Physical Therapy

My surgeon approved six weeks of physical therapy at my request. Actually, I requested it because my chiropractor's office said they could provide it. The office has a PT and and MD on staff, in addition to the nutritionists and massage therapists.

The surgeon suggested both water therapy and the stationary bicycle. Water therapy consists of simply moving the injured leg around in a small pool of warm water, such as a hot tub. It need not be hot, just warm. Some rehabilitation clinics have pools designed just for this purpose. The intention is that being in the water reduces the weight one is placing on the injured leg, while at the same time the water provides some resistance to motion in the lateral dimensions where muscle strengthening is needed.

My chiropractor's office has an alternative to water therapy. It is simply a treadmill with an overhead harness. They strap me in the harness and they can lift anywhere up to my full body weight off the ground. Then intention here is to restore a normal gait while still reducing the weight I'm placing on the injured leg.

I was disappointed that they didn't start me on the treadmill right away. But the physical therapist really knows her stuff. They started me out with isometric exercises. These consisted of simple exercises like squeezing a pillow between my knees, lying down while pushing my foot into the floor, etc. These exercises started stretching and strengthening the muscles with very little initial impact. This first phase lasted about two weeks.

After two weeks, we started two kinds of stronger exercises. One used rubber cords as resistance, and I had to pull my leg in every direction against the cord. This provided an isolated exercise for each muscle in the leg. They have these cords set up in the office.

The second kind of exercise was a set of leg lifts in every possible dimension with a one-pound weight around the ankle. This was initially painful in one or two dimensions, particlarly abduction and adduction (lateral movement of the legs apart, together, and across each other). They instructed me what kind of weights to buy at a local sports store.

In this phase, it sped things up tremendously that Mary happened to have some of the rubber cords at home, so I was able to do these exercises at home as well as in the office. So after just a few days, I developed enough strength that I could walk a few steps without the walker or any other supports. When they saw this, they put me into the treadmill phase sooner than planned.

We started this whole series on November 29, right after Thanksgiving. They put me on the treadmill for the first time on December 16. With each new type of exercise I've been quite sore initially. But for the last three days or so I've been able to walk at will around the house without the walker. I'm using a cane for "moral support" but not often for physical support. (Using the cane causes more pain in my wrist than not using it causes in my hip.)

Maybe someday I'll find the time to scan the instructions for all these exercises and post them here.

We'll have new x-rays taken before the new year, and the first week of January we meet the surgeon again for another follow-up, hopefully the last.

Is it too optimistic to expect that I might be able to go to Mac World Expo in San Francisco in mid-January? Moscone Center is a huge building. At this point, I haven't even been to Costco or Wal-Mart yet. But you've gotta think big.

I want my faith back

Arkansas Times

Getting personal about the political hijacking of religion.

By Jennifer Barnett Reed

“These people draw near to me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. And in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrine rules made by men.”

— Matthew 15:8-9

With all the millions of children in our country who don’t have enough food, clothing, or love, how can right-wing Christians possibly still cling to the delusion that God thinks gay people are the biggest threat to Christian values? Times Jesus mentions the poor in the gospels: I lost count halfway through Matthew. Times he mentions homosexuality: Zero.

The hypocrisy hasn’t gone unnoticed outside our borders. The Rev. Randy Hyde, pastor of Pulaski Heights Baptist Church, spent three months in Europe earlier this year. He said Europeans are suspicious of Americans “because we talk so much about religious values but don’t live them.”

Someone who signed himself matthew0724 said, “As an evangelical Christian, I feel the most important job I have been given is to be a witness to non-believers. Much of this witnessing is simply trying to live a Christ-like life so others will see the character of Jesus through me. My ability to be any kind of a witness, active or passive, has been drastically harmed by the religious right — specifically the Bush administration. By acting as if they own the franchise on Christianity, and then acting as un-Christlike as possible, many more people are inclined to dismiss my beliefs out of hand.”

“Traditional Democratic values are Christian values,” Cole Wakefield said. “But somehow ‘help the poor’ doesn’t matter, war doesn’t matter, because there are gay people around.”

Howard Gordon, pastor of First Presbyterian Church, blames Democrats for selling out — abandoning their historic positions on social programs and economic justice to cater to centrist voters. That’s allowed Republicans to push religious differences to the fore of what distinguishes the two parties, he said.

“What issues are left then?” Gordon asked. “ ‘They’re complicated heathens, we’re simple Christians.’ ”

But we also have black-and-white beliefs, just like conservatives do: Greed is wrong. Poverty is unjust. Compassion is commanded. If it’s certainty people want, we can give it to them in spades.

But there is hope to be had in a post-election poll that found that 33 percent of voters cited “greed and materialism” as the country’s greatest moral problem. Another 31 percent said “poverty and economic justice.” Only 16 percent rated abortion the most urgent, and 12 percent chose same-sex marriage.

The poll also asked voters what was the most important “moral issue” that affected their vote. Almost twice as many said the war in Iraq as chose abortion and same-sex marriage combined.

When we take back our faith, we will discover that faith challenges the powers that be to do justice for the poor instead of preaching a ‘prosperity gospel’ and supporting politicians who further enrich the wealthy. We will remember that faith hates violence and tries to reduce it, and exerts a fundamental presumption against war instead of justifying it in God’s name.

http://www.arktimes.com/Articles/ArticleViewer.aspx?ArticleID=cd3a8b03-56d6-495b
-b40b-46330316a2fc

US Retailers Say Christmas Not Just for Christians

New York Times

Reuters

Not all Christians think it is such a bad thing for Christ to be evicted from Christmas, with many youngsters too focused on Santa and his goodies to think of Jesus.

Commentator and author John Boykin, a Christian, argued on National Public Radio that celebrating Jesus' birth was not as important as his life and teachings, suggesting Easter was the proper holiday for Christians and Christmas should become a gift-giving secular holiday.

Espousing the motto "Keep Christ from Christmas," Boykin said Jesus "was not born to be the patron saint of fourth-quarter earnings."

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-retail-christmas.html

Mark says:

• "US Christians Say Christmas Not Just for Retailers"
• "US Christmas-shoppers Say Retailers Not Just for Christians"
• "Retailers Say Christmas Not Just for US Christians"

Praise for a secular Santa who delivers the goods

The Australian

By Irshad Manji

When I was growing up in Canada, Ho-Ho-Ho was a No-No-No - not because my parents deemed it so, but because I did. My defiance sprang from the Mennonite kid who incurred my second-grade teacher's wrath by refusing to make Christmas ornaments with the rest of our class. The moment she condemned him to stand in the hall, I felt my own rumblings of resistance.

A week later, I challenged my family's decision to put up a Christmas tree. The twinkle and tingle of tinsel made my sisters positively giddy. They laughed and decorated. I frowned and demonstrated. "We're supposed to be Muslims!" I protested to my mother. "Santa is for everybody," she calmly assured me.

I'd like to believe it's maturity that turned me around. Truth is, though, it's strategy as much as maturity: as a Muslim, I can claim religious immunity to the routine demands of Christmas while taking advantage of the occasion's small pleasures. I don't feel culturally compelled to buy expensive gifts -- or even cheap ones -- for people who get on my nerves most of the year.

Yet I appreciate that many of my friends choose to. Indulging in the rituals of Christmas, however exhausting, infuriating and impoverishing by turns, makes serious souls unusually human again. I love watching folks get excited the way they don't on any other holiday.

Relaxed conversation in front of a crackling fire -- we'd never squeeze that combination out of each other were it not for Christmas Day, when every monument to profit-making has resolutely shut down.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11762488%255E7583,
00.html

French pretzel logic and pagan Christmas trees

Carolina Morning News

By Jennifer Royse

Recently France has passed legislation designed to create a sharp distinction between church and state. In a bold, well-planned move to prevent young Muslim women from wearing headscarves in school, the French government passed a law banning all conspicuous religious symbols in schools.

Just what exactly is a "conspicuous religious symbol"? To be fair, along with the aforementioned scarves, the ban does include the use of Jewish skullcaps and the wearing of obviously large crucifixes. So the law does manage to smack three of the world's major religions square in the face.

Lagny-Sur-Marne, near Paris, boasts a high school where students were apparently aware of the law banning conspicuous religious symbols. They complained that the school's Christmas tree was certainly a conspicuous Christian image and therefore should be removed. Officials momentarily stymied by the students' impeccable logic had the offensive pine (or fir) removed last week.

The Christmas tree is back, and apparently is not in violation of French law. Turns out that a Christmas tree isn't really a conspicuous symbol of Christianity. It's pagan, therefore appropriate for placement in French schools. Pascal Pagny, mayor of Lagny-Sur-Marne, told Radio Europe 1 that "The tree was a symbol of year-end festivities long before Christianity existed. It is completely secular and pagan."

http://www.lowcountrynow.com/stories/122204/LOCvecinos.shtml

Twas the night before Jesus came

Not a poem about Christmas

'Twas the night before Jesus came and all through the house
Not a creature was praying, not one in the house.
Their Bibles were lain on the shelf without care
In hopes that Jesus would not come there.

The children were dressing to crawl into bed,
Not once ever kneeling or bowing a head.
And Mom in her rocker with baby on her lap
Was watching the Late Show while I took a nap.

When out of the East there arose such a clatter,
I sprang to my feet to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash!

When what to my wondering eyes should appear
But angels proclaiming that Jesus was here.
With a light like the sun sending forth a bright ray
I knew in a moment this must be The Day!

The light of His face made me cover my head
It was Jesus! returning just like He had said.
And though I possessed worldly wisdom and wealth
I cried when I saw Him in spite of myself.

In the Book of Life which He held in His hand
Was written the name of every saved man.
He spoke not a word as He searched for my name;
When He said "It's not here" my head hung in shame.

The people whose names had been written with love
He gathered to take to His Father above.
With those who were ready He rose without a sound
While all the rest were left standing around.

I fell to my knees, but it was too late;
I had waited too long and this sealed my fate.
I stood and I cried as they rose out of sight;
Oh, if only I had been ready tonight.

In the words of this poem the meaning is clear;
The coming of Jesus is drawing near.
There's only one life and when comes the last call
We'll find that the Bible was true after all!

http://www.mymessiah.net/poem.htm

School Yuletide Observances Shift Into Neutral

KTLA Television Los Angeles

By Erika Hayasaki and Joel Rubin

In many parts of the country over the last month, conservative Christian groups have lashed out against what they say are practices that dilute Christmas from a profound religious celebration to a bland "holiday season."

But across Southern California, school officials say the combination of ever-more-diverse student populations and the threat of lawsuits by all sides leaves them little choice.

"We try to keep it pretty generic and just leave it at 'winter' and 'Santa Claus,' " Matassarin said. "We have Jehovah's Witnesses, who don't celebrate any of the holidays, we have Jewish students, students who celebrate Kwanzaa — the whole gamut."

This month, the Anti-Defamation League sent letters to school administrators throughout Southern California asking them to "be cautious in how they choose to employ religious symbols and teach about the holidays," and to include religious information in holiday activities only if it is "presented objectively as part of a secular program of education."

On the other side, Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, a conservative legal group based in Sacramento, objected that "teachers are sometimes unlawfully prohibited from acknowledging holidays such as Christmas."

The Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based Christian legal group, wrote more than 5,000 school districts nationwide to explain that the U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled that public schools must ban the singing of religious Christmas carols or prohibit the distribution of candy canes or Christmas cards.

http://ktla.trb.com/news/local/la-me-xmas22dec22,0,2602873.story?coll=ktla-news-
1

Skipping the holy season of Christmas

Get Religion

By Terry Mattingly

The Christmas wars seem extra, extra nasty this year -- or are being covered that way by the mainstream media. Perhaps this is all part of the values-based bitterness that followed 11/2. Are there really more angry Christians on the march these days or are there simply more upset reporters out there searching for angry Christians on the march, inspired by nightmare visions of dancing theocrats?

I can't right now take the time to post the URLs for even a 10th of the Christmas madness stories I have seen in the past few days. As always, this means we should happily turn to the tireless cybercrats at the Christianity Today weblog. Wear yourselves out, people. Click away.

http://getreligion.typepad.com/getreligion/2004/12/now_that_you_th.html

Confronting Caesar

Christianity Today Interview

Interview by Stan Guthrie

Sunday Adelajah, a Nigerian who came to the former Soviet bloc 18 years ago to study journalism, became a pastor instead. Now Adelajah leads a 26,000-member Pentecostal church called the Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations, in Kiev. In the wake of the presidential election controversy, Adelajah and the church have taken a stand in support of opposition candidate Victor Yuschenko, who was poisoned during the campaign.

How did you start your church?

The first four years, I couldn't get any Russians saved. But God directed me that if I really wanted to be effective, I must go to the down and out people, and I should not expect the "regular people" to come.

So I began to reach out to the alcoholic, because that was a national problem at that point. And we began to have some results. And I think the reason for that might be because the people who are alcoholic are already down and out, and they're already blind to any color.

But God helped me with the rehabilitation of these people. In the process, their relatives and parents would see that these people are becoming normal, and they don't smoke, they don't drink, they are tidy, and they wear clean clothes. They began to have their parents come and they now began to see me as their savior. And the parents, who never used to regard or have any respect for a black man, they began to rejoice and say, "Thank you for my son."

What is your role in the crisis as a leading pastor?

Putin has said, "You Ukrainians don't have authority, because this 'sect' and these 'cult groups' are mushrooming in your country." The candidate, the [current] prime minister, who has been supported by Putin, Viktor Yanukovych, said that one of the first things he's going to deal with if he becomes the president is these "cult" and "sectarian" groups. So this actually is a threat, not just to democracy, [but] to everything we've gained during all the years of independence.

The most important thing is that 80 percent of the nation is supporting Victor Yuschenko, who is an opposition candidate, and is a godly man. He shares God, and he respects all the churches, all the pastors. This is the time God has given to the [people of] Ukraine to have a free choice of where they want to go. The people want to go democratic.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/151/42.0.html

Ho! Ho! Is More Like Uh-Oh

Yahoo News, Los Angeles Times

By J.R. Moehringer, Times Staff Writer

The questions from children these days are tougher than ever. True, for as long as children have climbed onto Santa's lap, they have been tenacious interrogators. But now, with thousands of children pining for a father or mother serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, the questions are as heart-rending as they are unanswerable. Can you please bring Daddy home from the war in time for Christmas morning?

Sometimes children stare intently and ask for peace on Earth. What's a Santa to say?

"I had a little girl on my knee," Victor Nevada recalls, "and she said she wanted 'a happy home' for Christmas. I looked up at the mom, and mom had bruises on her face. Now, what can I do? I can't phone the cops. I can't tell the child, 'Don't worry — Santa will send some hit men over and they'll take care of the old man.' I called Mom over, and she sat on my right knee, and mom and daughter faced each other and we had a little visit. What I could do was give that mom and daughter three or four minutes of peace."

On the Internet, a booming Santa industry is taking shape. Alan Kerr, founder of EmailSanta.com, says his website has received millions of e-mails in its seven years of existence — 500,000 this season alone. Many e-mails, he says, contain requests even more wrenching than those made in malls, as children turn to Santa for help not only with parents in the military, but parents who are sick, parents who are addicted to drugs and alcohol, parents who are abusive. So Kerr has teamed with child psychologists and police to develop special software that identifies those "in dire circumstances," whom he then directs to the proper social agency.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=5&u=/latimests/20041223/ts_latimes
/hohoismorelikeuhoh

Don't get your knickers twisted, morality isn't just about sex

St.Petersburg Times Opinion

By Diane Roberts

When did sexual morality become equated with morality in total? What about the morality of tax cuts for the rich and extra burdens for the poor? The morality of insisting that children be born then refusing them health care and a decent education? Capital punishment? Colonialism? Torture? Lying about reasons to send young men and women to their deaths in war?

Morality isn't just about reproductive organs.

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/12/18/Opinion/Don_t_get_your_knicke.shtml

The politics of the Christmas story

The Boston Globe

By James Carroll

The single most important fact about the birth of Jesus, as recounted in the Gospels, is one that receives almost no emphasis in the American festival of Christmas. The child who was born in Bethlehem represented a drastic political challenge to the imperial power of Rome. The nativity story is told to make the point that Rome is the enemy of God, and in Jesus, Rome's day is over.

The Gospel of Luke puts a political cast on the story. The narrative begins with the decree of Caesar Augustus calling for a world census -- a creation of tax rolls that will tighten the empire's grip on its subject peoples. It was Caesar Augustus who turned the Roman republic into a dictatorship, a power-grab he reinforced by proclaiming himself divine. When the angel announces to shepherds that a "savior has been born," as scholars like Richard Horsley point out, those hearing the story would immediately understand that the blasphemous claim by Caesar Augustus to be "savior of the world" was being repudiated.

In modern times, the nativity story became spiritualized and sentimentalized, losing its political edge altogether. "Peace" replaced resistance as the main motif. The baby Jesus was universalized, removed from his decidedly Jewish context, and the narrative's explicit critiques of imperial dominance and of wealth were blunted.

This is how it came to be that Christmas in America has turned the nativity of Jesus on its head. No surprise there, for if the story were told today with Roman imperialism at its center, questions might arise about America's new self-understanding as an imperial power. A story of Jesus born into a land oppressed by a hated military occupation might prompt an examination of the American occupation of Iraq. A story of Jesus come decidedly to the poor might cast a pall over the festival of consumption.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/12/21/the_
politics_of_the_christmas_story/

A Festivus for the Rest of Us

• Celebrated: December 23rd

• Meal: Whatever you Want

• The Festivus Pole: Not a tree, a pole. No decorations. Tinsel is very distracting from the true meaning of the holiday. The pole is tall, silver, hollow, long, skinny, and heavy.

• The Airing Of Grievences: Over the dinner table, tell your family and friends all the ways they have disappointed you during the year.

• Feats Of Strength: The head of the family tests his strength against another friend or family member. The great honor is given out to a different person each year. Festivus is not over until the head of the family is pinned.

http://www.kwillis.com/festivus.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/fashion/19FEST.html?pagewanted=2

http://www.crazygrrl.com/cards/index.php

Judge allows religious theme

Washington Times

By Julia Duin

A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order this week that allows students in Plano, Texas, schools to hand out religious messages during classroom holiday parties, decorate in Christmas colors and use religious-themed holiday decorations.

A Dec. 6 letter to fourth-grade parents at Thomas Elementary from six teachers asks for Hershey's kisses, sugar cookies and white napkins and plates for a Winter Break party yesterday. It says parents were instructed to avoid red- and green-colored decorations, candy and icing on the cookies because of the colors' association with the holiday.

"Last year, parents were instructed to not bring any religious symbols to decorate the classroom with," attorney Kelly Shackelford said, "but they were asked to bring snowflakes, sleds and 'snowpeople.' They couldn't say 'snowmen.' People who sink to that level of [political correctness] I can't understand."

District officials said, "[The district] fosters acceptance of all cultures and welcomes the celebration of our diversity during the Winter Break parties."

A student attempting to pass out pencils with "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" had them confiscated. The student's mother went to the school to complain, and when she left upset, she was overheard saying, "Satan is sure in this building," which prompted the principal to call police. Officers confronted the mother on school property, he said.

"They asked her what sort of threat she had made and when she told them, they started laughing," he added.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041217-114549-6147r.htm

Nativity Scene Causes A Stir

The Lakeland Ledger

By Diane Lacey Allen

Commissioner Randy Wilkinson repeatedly attempted to put a Christmas display on government property. Those efforts have consistently failed to gain support from his fellow commissioners.

Wilkinson's most recent attempt came just hours before grandparents at the First Baptist Church of Bartow erected a manger scene in front of the county building without the commission's permission.

Ever since Mary and Joseph showed up, wearing blue eye shadow, on the county's grass, people have been taking sides.

Richard Krumm suggested in an e-mail that Commissioner Bob English, who said Thursday that the display didn't belong on the county's lawn, "grow a backbone before opining about the First Baptist-made Nativity scene. What a girly-man!"

Friday, county employees continued to spruce up the administration building with secular greens and lights.

The holy family, a plastic lamb and a snowman remained on the knoll across from the courthouse, their fate on hold until next week's public meeting.

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041218/NEWS/412180378/1134

Mark says: ROTFL!

It's a double dose of the Nativity

Boroughs Daily News

By Charles W. Bell

The Church of the Epiphany, the historic Episcopal parish on the upper East Side, will present its Nativity Pageant tomorrow, but with a production twist so unusual that even the Rev. Andrew Mullins is shaking his head.

The tradition at Epiphany is to cast the youngest baby in the starring Nativity role. The problem is that this year, the youngest babies are twins, David and Eva Kim, who were born about four months ago.

Both will appear in the pageant - at the same time. This will require a little rewrite of the script, something Mullins is considering.

There is nothing new about improvising the church's pageant. Some dogs are dusted lightly with talcum powder to serve as sheep. Other dogs have toy horns attached to their heads and, voilà, reindeer! There also is a camel - two church members dressed in a two-hump outfit.

As for the babies, he said he is still working out some of the problems.

One is what to do when the Angel Gabriel presents the Baby Jesus to Mary. Another is whether the three Magi should present two sets of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Mullins is not overly worried. "I know we'll have a pageant," he said. "Beyond that, I think we better leave a little room for a miracle."

http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/263035p-225222c.html

What is Christmas all about?

The Independent

London's Oxford Street is the scene of an annual Christmas shopping frenzy. Can spirituality have any place here? Surprisingly, Clare Dwyer Hogg and Andy Sewell find God is alive and well in the thronging heart of consumerism.

• I think Christmas has totally and utterly lost its way. Jesus' message was, "Feed the needy, don't be greedy." I don't really believe in giving presents, I think we should look after the needs of the world first, instead of buying someone a gift for £200, say, who doesn't need it. Let's think about the kids who are starving.

• Christmas for me is about magic, snow, happiness, peace and family. The commercialisation is part of it too, to be honest. I like to give and receive presents. It's part of the occasion.

• I'm not sure why Christmas is celebrated in Christianity, but anything to do with religion is good because all religions want to be peaceful. God is all-forgiving, merciful, all-compassionate. Christianity and Islam are different only because we believe Jesus was a prophet and they believe he was the Son of God. Politicians don't understand this.

• People are always thinking about what they're going to buy and what they're going to do, but that's not my idea of Christmas at all. For me, it's just about being a normal everyday Christian.

• Christmas is a marketing strategy to sell useless products. I'm allergic to it.

• Every day should be Christmas, if you want to surprise your friends, why not?

• Christmas is a time to be around your family. And to get presents as well, which is good.

• I always really, really look forward to Christmas because it's a great family occasion. We have four children, three of them are very young and they get really excited about it. I think consumerism can get out of hand, though, so we try to be pretty careful about that. In fact, sometimes we even keep presents back from the children - we have very indulgent relatives. We don't want the children to develop acquisitive personalities. Two or three nice presents is more than enough, I think.

• Christmas is a big, money-spinning idea. The flavour has gone.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=593107

Suspended: putting peace in Christmas

Cincinnati Enquirer

By Peter Bronson

Eric Bast was suspended from Oak Hills High School for five days, because he distributed personal letters to 3,000 students telling them about the original Christmas gift, the love of Christ.

Eric's mother, Denise Bast, did something totally unexpected - she actually complimented Principal David Vannasdall. "He's one of the nicest people I've ever seen give someone a five-day suspension," she said.

Eric said he volunteered to be suspended so his friends who helped him would not be punished.

A senior with a cross shaved into his hair, Eric has been on the honor roll since 7th grade, but says, "I would spend the rest of my life on suspension to get the outcome of even one person committing his life to Christ."

The letter, at www.lettertomyfriends.com, is well written. But it quotes a tough Bible verse, John 14:6, and mentions heaven and hell. Some people were offended.

"He's not afraid to stand up and tell people what he believes," said Scott Duber, Eric's youth music pastor at Impact, an evangelical church.

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041219/COL05/412190407/108
0/news01

Christians, atheists face off on town green

Middletown Press

By Randall Beach

MILFORD -- Hundreds of counter protesters who say they want to "keep Christ in Christmas," dwarfed a handful of atheists who gathered on the Green Sunday to protest a Nativity display.

The display is a wooden structure with a glass case showing a Nativity scene. At its base is a baby Jesus in a cradle. Next to the cradle is a sign: "This display is provided by the Hyatt family and not erected, maintained or sponsored by the city of Milford."

The counter-protesters sang Christmas carols and "God Bless America," then recited "The Pledge of Allegiance." Their signs ranged from "Keep Christ in Christmas" to "This is a Christian nation - majority rules."

The Rev. Jim Loomer, pastor of the Berean Christian Center, tried to make peace. "Would anybody care to hear what they have to say?" Loomer asked the crowd. The response was a chorus of "No!" and "Go home!" "They should let these guys speak," Loomer said. "It’s America. Free speech."

When Dennis Paul Himes, Connecticut state director of American Atheists tried to read a statement explaining his position, he was drowned out by the shouting opposition. Himes later said he was surprised by the size of the crowd. Six atheists and about 250 others showed up.

Counter-protesters wished the atheists "Merry Christmas" and sang "Jesus Loves You."

http://www.middletownpress.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=13589484&BRD=1645&PAG=461&de
pt_id=10856&rfi=6

Mark says: "Majority rules"? I thought that's exactly what "separation of church of state" was intended to prevent!

Away with the manger

Lawrence Journal-World

By Jim Baker

As Dec. 25 approaches, many Americans find themselves amidst the annual, frenzied season of marathon shopping, endless gift giving and compulsive overeating -- in other words, overindulgence in all things Christmas.

Except, it would seem, for one thing: Jesus Christ.

Which raises an important question: Is the inherent religious message of this holiday -- the birth of a savior, the Prince of Peace -- drowned out more than ever in the swirl of marketing hype, commercialization and supporting the fourth-quarter profits of big business?

"We need some time to be reminded of what we actually are celebrating: the birth of Jesus Christ, the gift of God to mankind. Many people forget that and get lost in the parties and the gift giving."

And the drumbeat of consumption seems to pick up the pace every year, agree some members of the clergy in Lawrence and other Christians. "There seems to be just a gargantuan need to spend money and buy gifts, and that agenda is set by Alan Greenspan (chairman of the Federal Reserve) and the Wal-Mart specials more than by a spiritual aspect," says the Rev. Marcus McFaul, senior pastor of First Baptist Church. "As a result, we max out the credit card, and when we open our credit-card statement we ask, ‘Now, why did we do this?'"

Bill Browning, a student at the Washburn University School of Law and a Lawrence resident, sees much the same trend. "I would say that our contact with the holiday, as Americans, is necessarily commercial. You're reminded by commercials on TV that it's Christmas and that we're supposed to buy things. They've been marketing Christmas in October since long before I was born," says Browning, 39.

McFaul urges Christians to let their religious convictions and deepest beliefs guide their choice of gifts to others, such as donating money in a person's name to a charity that works to provide for basic human needs. "That's a gift that's a little bit more meaningful than a Salad Shooter or another Jessica Simpson CD," he says.

http://www.ljworld.com/section/satliving/story/190755

Non-Christians in winter: Don't be rigid about greetings

Tallahassee Democrat

By June Wiaz

Christians may wonder what non-Christians do on Christmas Day. We go to the movies and eat Chinese food. Sometimes Indian. You wouldn't believe how crowded Asian restaurants and theaters are in South Florida and New York on Christmas.

When a TV reporter for a local station asked my 10-year-old at the Winter Festival parade downtown a couple of weeks ago what was at the top of her list for Santa, she really didn't know how to answer. The reporter asked her three times before giving up and going to the next kid. When I talked to her about it later, Lily said she didn't want to make the interviewer feel bad so she didn't mention that she doesn't celebrate Christmas. Pretty thoughtful, I think.

I will not pretend that this is an easy time of year for American Jews, Hindus, Muslims or Buddhists, especially children who are constantly reminded of how they don't fit in. Some grow to wear their difference as a badge of honor; others conform to the majority later in life. Here in the South it's especially challenging since, as the unthinking reporter showed, some people just don't even stop to consider that there could be a few fig leaves mixed in with the mistletoe. Truth be told, often there are not. But when there might be, what harm is there in issuing a hearty and more encompassing seasonal greeting?

http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/news/opinion/10433597.htm

Mark says: I don't know whether I'm more dismayed that a TV reporter might not be aware of disturbing a 10-year old, or endeartened that a 10-year old would be concerned about making a "grown up" feel bad.

Online Dangers Likely to Continue Growing in 2005

Washington Post

By Brian Krebs, Robert MacMillan and David McGuire

Internet users witnessed yet another wave of spam, worms, viruses and other online attacks in 2004, and experts predict the online world will grow even more dangerous in 2005.

One of the most severe dangers to Internet users in 2004 was "phishing," a kind of fraud in which thieves design Web sites that pretend to represent real companies like Citibank or PayPal. They send cleverly disguised e-mail messages often telling people that their accounts will be suspended unless they submit information such as their credit card and bank routing numbers by clicking on a link provided in the message. That information often winds up being used by international hacker networks, and many people's credit subsequently has been damaged or ruined.

Next year promises renewed attempts to fight spam. Much junk e-mail still contains pitches for impotence remedies, investment schemes and other too-good-to-be-true offers that range from the hilarious to the vulgar, but an increasing amount contains worms, viruses and fraud schemes.

In 2004, just 12 percent of all e-mail on the Internet was legitimate, according to Redwood, Calif.-based e-mail filtering company Postini. The company, which quarantines up to 133 million spam messages for its customers each day, predicted that that number would shrink to 8 percent in 2005.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4005-2004Dec16.html

'Happy Holidays' protesters overlooking the real problem

Republican-American

Do you have the slightest belief that that 80-hour-a-week automaton ringing up your DVD at the local mall actually cares whether you have a Merry Christmas, happy holiday, or Rockin' Ramadan? Next year, they'll be replacing him with a self-service machine, and you'll probably be able to plug in your tailor-made greeting. "For Episcopalians, press 1. For Zoroastrians, press 6."

But Christians are offended. They're getting the shaft, no matter what the soothsayers scrutinizing the presidential election results say. It's not just Macy's. It's Target, which has given the Salvation Army the boot, insisting that the groups' euphonious pleas make shoppers feel guilty and open the doors for any other bleating mendicant to plead his case on Target's sectarian steps.

The problem is not the de-Christianization of Christmas. It's the commercialization of it. The celebration of the most humble and sacred of events has been commodified and exploited to the execrable point that we are actually boycotting stores that don't commercialize our holiday enough.

Christian groups do themselves a disservice taking on canards that make them look like sanctimonious ninnies. With so much in the world at stake, castigating the mall clerks seems about as useful as debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

http://www.rep-am.com/story.php?id=14087

The Grinch who saved Christmas

Salon.com

The Grinch who saved Christmas

Battling the homosexuals, liberals and Jews, Bill O'Reilly and friends are making America safe for Christmas.

Christmas in Hell

The Pitch

By Nadia Pflaum

The Sheffield Family Life Center’s annual pageant is a heartwarming little tale starring machine guns and the Antichrist.

If it's crazy to stage a Christmas play about the apocalyptic end times, complete with plastic-machine-gun-toting soldiers, the arrival of the Antichrist, the second coming of Jesus and fiery scenes of H-E-double-hockey sticks, then Sheffield pastors Felicito Bagunu and Roger Horne don't want to be sane.

Each year, Sheffield spends around $60,000 to produce six performances of Tribulation Christmas, the congregation's largest outreach event of the year. On average, church officials say, 1,400 souls come forward to devote their lives to Christ after watching it.

Sheffield's drama revolves around the plight of a couple, Dave and Lisa, who are running from the Antichrist's soldiers near the end of the Tribulation. They hide out in the cave of another refugee, a survivalist type who doesn't believe in God. There, they reflect on their predicament, flashing back to a scene before the rapture in which Lisa's mom, her wheelchair-bound grandfather and their local pastor all begged Lisa and Dave to become believers before it was too late. Lisa sings a song: "I Wish We'd All Been Ready." Another flashback recalls how the Antichrist came to power, seducing the masses, ascending to the head of the United Nations and decreeing that everyone allow an electronic chip -- UPC code No. 666 -- to be implanted in their hands or foreheads and used to track individuals and their purchased goods. The Antichrist is assassinated at a press conference but comes back to life with Satan's help and declares himself God. Lisa and Dave are captured by soldiers, but Jesus intervenes and banishes Satan, the Antichrist and the cave-dwelling nonbeliever to the Lake of Fire.

The original Tribulation Christmas was written in 1974 by Mike Brown, an evangelist at a church in St. Joseph, Missouri. He and Sheffield's Horne were friends then. When Horne took over as Sheffield's youth pastor in 1980, he remembered Brown's old script. Horne reworked some parts, and his youth groups began performing it in the early '80s.

"I can't talk right now. I'm at church. I'm getting a bullet hole put on my head," Craig A. Hampton says into his cell phone as he waits for his turn onstage at rehearsal. His deep baritone makes his voice audible from every corner of the massive sanctuary as he lounges in one of the folding church seats, cherry-flavored blood flowing from a volcanic wound above his right eye.

"Has anyone seen Jesus?" calls a stagehand. "Yo, son of God."

Jimmy Shrader, in Carhartt overalls over a white undershirt, is wearing his crotch-vise of a harness and taking flight pointers from Rebmann. "If everything's not in the right place [when the lines start lifting], it's too late," Rebmann tells him, motioning around Shrader's pelvis.

Shrader rises off his feet, then about 3 feet in the air. "How does it feel?" a crew member asks. "OK," he replies weakly. He cups both hands around his mouth, hiding his words from the flight technicians, and mouths, "It hurts!"

"I'm going to be singing soprano," he says. "I've just gotta think positive."

http://www.pitch.com/issues/2004-12-16/news/feature.html

Bethlehem bound again

The Weekend Australian Opinion

By James Murray

Many Christian prayers address God as "Almighty", which many would think a misnomer. Despite concerted pleas to end wars, heal people or achieve worthy ambitions, it is the experience of many that there is nobody there.

The psalms of the Old Testament are full of astonishment at God's failure to act against the wicked and his habit of rewarding goodness with tribulation. And in the controversies about putting Christ back into Christmas, or being politically correct and keeping him out, the raw facts might act as a corrective.

When the baby Yeshua, which we have romanised into Jesus, was born, he was deposited in a feed bin for warmth and safety. It was a Third World facsimile and, if the child was God incarnate, which is dogmatic Christian belief, he was utterly helpless - not a bad image if human experience of God is anything to go on.

Of course, the celebration of Christmas is a retail bonanza, the credit card an entree to often profligate spending. Not that this is inappropriate, considering that December 25, which the church chose as Christ's birthday, was the pagan festival of the Saturnalia, when orgiastic shenanigans were the order of the day. It has done a full circle, as celebrating Christmas did not happen for the first four centuries, and the Puritans refused to observe it.

As for the wild spending of Christmas, the Bethlehem fact file could again prove a corrective, if only because frugality - but not meanness - is good economic policy.

The little family in Nazareth was of no significance in the scheme of things but as modern movements show only too well, there can be significant power in the determination of even just one person. That Jesus was such a character, later events clearly proved.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11719519%255E7583,
00.html

Puritans disdained holiday

The Exeter News-Letter

By Barbara Rimkunas

In the 1870s, Exeter native Elizabeth Dow Leonard wrote her memories of a childhood in Exeter. Born in 1806, she has a great deal to tell us about Exeter in the decades after the American Revolution. Of Christmas she had this comment:

"Christmas was ignored as savoring too much of Popery, and when I was a little girl, only one family celebrated it even by a better dinner than usual. Our schools were kept open, and we lost all the sweet and holy influences ... the blessed season will bring to our children. Thanksgiving and the 4th of July were our only legitimate holidays."

The founders of Exeter, it seems, were strict Puritans who believed, quite rightly, that the birth date of Jesus was unknown and the Christmas date of Dec. 25 was derived from pagan celebrations surrounding the winter solstice and the Roman god, Mithra. In England, the holiday had become a riotous drunken festival very secular in nature.

The Anglican Church still observed the holiday, having inherited it from the Catholic Church. Exeter’s Puritan founders, however, were highly suspicious of anything connected to the Catholic Church, and as there were few Anglicans and fewer Catholics in the town, the holiday produced the same level of discomfort one might experience today when an uncle tells racist jokes at Thanksgiving. A true Christian wouldn’t think of celebrating a debauched holiday like Christmas.

http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/exeter/12172004/news/54421.htm

Wish Jesus a Happy Birthday

St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church, decided to send Jesus a birthday card — online. "This is just a way to remember that this is all about Jesus' birthday."

The site, www.happybirthdayjesus.org, was launched yesterday with support from St. Martin parish and some local businesses. The church and the sponsors are covering the cost of the site, which they hope will reach people around the world.

Blinkered by the 'Christian' in Christmas?

Christian Science Monitor

By Rondi Adamson

I read this month that some Macy's stores are removing their traditional "Merry Christmas" signs and replacing them with supposedly more inclusive greetings such as "Happy Holidays." The goal is noble, if not the methods. The idea that there is something exclusive about saying "Merry Christmas," is, of course, nonsense. I am an atheist, and it doesn't make me feel excluded.

The reason we have a Dec. 25 holiday is because of Christmas. It is not because of Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or Eid (when the latter falls close to Christmas).

My Jewish sister-in-law finds it amusing that Hanukkah, a relatively small Jewish holiday, is better known to Christians than the more significant Passover and Yom Kippur, largely due to our quest for inclusivity.

We celebrate Christmas because modern North America has Christian foundations, regardless of the changing demographics. Denying history is condescending to non-Christians and assumes a fragility and a lack of understanding on their part.

You don't need to be a believer to enjoy it. But there is no reason believers shouldn't feel free to call it Christmas.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1217/p09s01-coop.html

Face it and shop like a man!

According to a Sears survey about men and shopping, 89 percent of men would rather watch their favorite sports team LOSE to their biggest rival than tackle holiday gift shopping.

So, it's no surprise that just one week before the holidays 77 percent of men finally get into the gift-giving groove and head out to shop.

71 percent of men indicate that the success of their favorite football team impacts the amount of time they spend on holiday shopping: the better their team is doing, the more they watch/attend the games and the less time they have to go shopping.

More than one-third of men (37 percent) would rather bake cookies than spend the afternoon holiday shopping in a crowded mall. Men in the West are most likely (42 percent) to choose baking cookies while men in the Northeast are least likely (27 percent) to favor baking cookies as an alternative.

As Playboy Magazine might say, "You call those men?"

89 percent of men agree that if they could fulfill all of their significant other's holiday wish list items at one store, then they would shop there.

When it comes to lingerie, this year men have no fear! Only 2 percent of men think the scariest thing about purchasing holiday gifts for their significant other is being caught by a friend in the ladies "intimates" section. Thirty-two percent of men surveyed think spending a large amount of money on a gift not on her wish list is scariest.

Almost half of men (49 percent) do not plan to spend more on their significant other's gifts this year than last.

According to men, some reasons for holiday shopping procrastination include:

• 72 percent don't know what to buy

• 59 percent don't want to go to several different stores for gifts

• 39 percent are watching football games during prime holiday shopping hours

• 18 percent are waiting for last-minute sales

And finally, when asked what would make for a more enjoyable holiday shopping experience, the survey shows:

• 50 percent of men would like a play-by-play of their significant other's ultimate holiday wish list

• 32 percent of men would like to shop while watching their favorite football team play

• 28 percent of men would like plasma screen TVs (tuned to sports shows) throughout the store

Mark says: I'm too busy making Christmas presents to have any time to shop.

Getting money back a constant headache

San Jose Mercury News Opinion

By Mike Langberg

Mail-in rebates are the Scrooge of today's holidays, forcing shoppers to slice up their fingers while scraping off proof-of-purchase labels and baffling us with deliberately arcane redemption forms.

Shame on Best Buy, Hewlett-Packard, Circuit City, Sony, Fry's Electronics, Symantec and all the other electronics retailers and manufacturers that hypocritically claim devotion to their customers, yet collaborate in a system that customers universally despise.

Nowhere is the problem worse than in retail sales of computers and computer peripherals, with ads that trumpet prices hundreds of dollars lower than what you actually pay in the store.

Mail-in rebate offers are a misguided attempt to get ahead of the game with artificially low prices, because manufacturers and retailers know many consumers will never bother to complete the rebate forms.

Let's do the math: If you mark down an inkjet printer from $199 to $149 and sell 100,000 units, you've missed $5 million in revenue. If you offer a $50 rebate on a $199 printer and ultimately send checks to half the buyers, you've only sacrificed $2.5 million.

This system gives the industry an ugly incentive to manage down the number of rebate requests it approves, by making the process of applying unnecessarily complicated and by using trivial technicalities to reject legitimate requests. No one keeps statistics on this, but I've heard too many horror stories not to believe there aren't abuses in this largely unregulated system.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/columnists/mike_langberg/104
38389.htm

Mark says: I hope I get my rebate checks on Mary's Christmas present! PC Connection has a nice setup where you get all the forms online. I got last year's rebate checks on a disk drive and a wireless router without incident. Although they did take a few weeks, in both cases the companies kept me informed via email.

What the heck?

What the heck is this? At first, I thought it was just a ruse to get you to click on an American Express ad. But it truly looks like a Sponge Bob ripoff.

Why I Return to the Pews

Christianity Today

John Koessler

The church has often left me bemused, bored, or mystified, but I can no more abandon it than I can myself.

Down through the years I have made a surprising discovery. Most of the Christians I know are disappointed with their churches, finding them either too traditional or too modern. Their sermons are too theological or not theological enough. The people are cliquish. In the end, the root problem is always the same. It's the people.

Yet Sunday after Sunday these believers return to their pews, expecting God to meet them there once again. Some might view such attendance as an act of futility or an exercise in wishful thinking. I believe it is a work of grace.

The author of The Message and veteran pastor Eugene Peterson has written that when we get serious about the Christian life, we usually find ourselves in a place and among people that we find incompatible. "That place and people," Peterson explains, "is often called a church. It's hard to get over the disappointment that God, having made an exception in my case, doesn't call nice people to repentance."

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/012/33.52.html

Buffalo moving from Santa Catalina to South Dakota prairie

Associated Press

After a life spent on a balmy Pacific island, 98 buffalo are being sent back to an authentic -- and frigid -- home on the range.

The buffalo began their journey Wednesday from Santa Catalina Island, off the coast of Southern California, to South Dakota, where they'll live on traditional rangelands of the Rosebud Lakota reservation.

The animals, some standing 5 feet at the shoulder and weighing several thousand pounds, are the descendants of an original herd of 14 brought from the prairie to appear in the 1920s silent movie, "The Vanishing American." Once the film was completed, the buffalo were simply left behind on the island.

"The idea was to get these buffalo that were taken from the plains some 80 years ago ... back to their homeland," said Maurice Lyons, chairman of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, which is paying the $75,000 cost to ship the animals.

"To the Native Americans back there, these animals are sacred," he said. "It was very moving. They'll be going home to their relatives."

After being lured into pens with hay, the buffalo were herded onto two, 18-wheel trucks and then taken by barge the 24 miles across the sea to Long Beach.

From there, it was on to the reservation more than a thousand miles inland, where the animals should arrive Thursday night.

In the past, the numbers of island buffalo were thinned by auctioning animals. But the conservancy's new management decided to try a different approach.

"This seemed like a solution where everybody would win," she said.

About 150 buffalo continue to inhabit the island, living off its sparse vegetation. A smaller herd also means less destruction of native plants.

The Lakota reservation already has buffalo, and the conservancy said there shouldn't be any problems with the newcomers acclimating, despite the fact that they'll be moving to a place with subzero winters.

As a test, the conservancy shipped some buffalo to the reservation last year.

"The minute they hit the ground, it was like their genetics kicked in and immediately they began growing a winter coat," Baer said.

The newcomers will have a lot more room to roam.

"They're going from 42,000 acres to 900,000," Baer said. "So they got a pretty good deal except for the snowy winters."

Thou shalt not miss church on vacation

Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Many tourists find a way to worship, no matter where in the world they might be

A recent poll by the Travel Industry Association of America reported that 28 percent of travelers in the United States went to a church, temple, mosque or other house of worship. Residents in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas ranked among the most faithful, with 37 percent attendance. New Englanders are the biggest Sunday morning sleep-ins: only about 21 percent go to church on vacation.

The faithful, it seems, are called to worship wherever they are. "We have never considered vacations an opportunity to vacate church," says Dale Smith, pastor of Colleyville Presbyterian Church. "So when we're on vacation, we're almost always looking for a church in which to worship."

That quest has taken Smith and his wife to a small evangelical church in Colorado -- guitar, no organ, "much like a college campus fellowship meeting" -- and historic Lutheran churches in Dresden, Germany. "The liturgy was familiar and comfortable to us Presbyterians," Smith says of the latter.

When looking for a place to worship, most travelers stick within their own denomination. Smith looks for a church that serves weekly Communion. If there's no noteworthy church, synagogue or mosque nearby, Ayers opts for a church that's close to the hotel or maybe one with a good organ.

Finding a place to worship is as simple as doing an Internet search on a a denomination and destination city. Type in "Catholic" and "San Diego," for example, and you'll get St. Joseph's Cathedral on Third Avenue. "Muslim" and "Providence" calls up the Muslim American Da'wah Center in Rhode Island.

On a trip to Yellowstone National Park this fall, Bob and Martha Gamblin of Arlington found themselves surprised by a worship service. On Sunday morning, they returned to their room at the Old Faithful Inn and heard hymns coming from the inn's balcony. It turned out to be a nondenominational church service led by a volunteer from A Christian Ministry in the National Parks. The ministry is a 50-year-old organization that holds services in 35 national parks, including in Alaska and the West Indies. The service ended -- a little early -- when Old Faithful erupted.

"It was such a beautiful setting, and it was wonderful to think we were there with other Christians, worshipping together," says Martha Gamblin.

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/living/10375101.htm?1c

Mark says:

When we were on vacation, I took a list of churches on my Palm.

We visited:

• Calvary Chapel Salt Lake City
• Vineyard Christian Fellowship, Gillette, Wyoming
• Calvary Chapel in Lakeview, Oregon

In the case of Vineyard, we found the church in the phone book but their street was not listed on any map. We prayed and just drove around until we found it. A miracle!

Double Duty

Associated Press

Twin sisters both deliver sets of twin boys on same day

ATLANTA -- Two twin sisters are seeing double -- or make that quadruple -- after delivering two sets of twin boys Tuesday.

Twenty-one-year-olds Ashlee Spinks of Indianapolis and Andrea Springer of Conyers, Ga., delivered their boys by scheduled Caesarean sections Tuesday about an hour apart at Northside Hospital.

The women, who are fraternal twins, were six months pregnant when they found out they were both going to have twin boys due on the same date -- Jan. 1, 2005.

Spinks came to Georgia several weeks ago to share the pregnancy with her sister, and Spinks' husband, Bert Means, flew into town Monday to join the birthing party.

They said twins run in the families of all four parents, and that they did not use fertility drugs to conceive the babies.

Dr. Larry Matsumoto, a physician who specializes in high-risk pregnancies, said the chances of twin sisters being pregnant with twin boys due on the same date are probably one in a million.

"It's a blessing," Springer said from her hospital bed. "It's hard enough for a lot of people to get pregnant, especially pregnant with twins."

Springer gave birth to identical twins weighing just over 4 pounds each. Spinks gave birth to fraternal twins weighing 5-pounds, 9-ounces and 7-pounds, 4-ounces.

The women's doctor, James Dopson, said all four boys -- and their mothers -- were expected to be fine.

My Fantastic Slide Show

Mary took over 2000 photos on our vacation in September. She picked 300 that were her favorites. Instead of just burning them to a CD, I used iDVD (for the first time) to make slide shows of the various locations we went to. That way, Matthew can view the photos on his DVD player while he is in Iraq.

Hopefully, my slide show isn't as boring as this one:

One Christian feeling hijacked by politics

Christian Science Monitor

By Gena Caponi Tabery

I live in a country that is increasingly eager to challenge its citizens' loyalty, among people of faith increasingly determined to dispute the faith of others. Some people who call themselves Christians - and some church leaders - are beginning to redefine Christianity in such a way as to exclude worshipers with whom they disagree. I fear a religion in which ideology is more important than theology.

If I question political decisions, am I un-American? If I don't agree with a fundamentalist, am I un-Christian?

There used to be two things that you didn't talk about for fear of causing offense: politics and religion. Today the two are so intertwined, you can't talk of one without the other. And when you do, them's fightin' words, pardner. Nowadays, so many people are looking for a fight.

I'm not. Neither am I afraid to pray in public. But I am afraid of my faith being hijacked to promote someone else's political agenda. I am afraid of my faith being used as a weapon in a crusade against anyone who dares to think or believe differently.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1213/p09s02-coop.html

High Tech Lets Old Recordings Speak Again

Discovery Channel

By Jennifer Viegas

July 23, 2004 — A high-tech system originally developed to track down elusive subatomic particles is now being used to digitize old records and cylinders previously thought to be unplayable, according to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The new system, created by Berkeley Lab scientists Vitaliy Fadeyev and Carl Haber, originally was used to determine particle path collisions in research on the Higgs boson, a theoretical particle believed to give objects mass. Now the technology plays and preserves records and tin and wax cylinders without even touching their grooves.

Fadeyev and Haber first tested it out on two LPs: "Goodnight Irene" by The Weavers and "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" by Marian Anderson. The albums, full of pops, skips, and scratches, played like new.

A powerful microscope called a SmartScope with a digital camera collects images of the groove patterns on records or cylinders, which rest on a table moved with precision motors. A computer program allows the microscope/camera combo to travel forward along the grooves until it reaches the end of the recording.

The captured image pattern transfers to a computer that translates the tiny, millimeter-sized lines into sound.

"For discs, the sound is stored in the side-to-side movement of the groove and the SmartScope had a good ability to image in the two-dimensional plane," Fadeyev said. "For cylinders, the sound is stored in the up-and-down undulations of the surface. So once we saw that the SmartScope worked reasonably well on disc, we looked for another instrument, which could measure surface heights."

The instrument they chose was a scanning probe that allows for capture of the three-dimensional patterns found on cylinders.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20040719/recording.html

Also:

http://www-cdf.lbl.gov/%7Eav/

WiFi Neighborhoods

San Jose Mercury News

By Sam Diaz

Going online from "hotspots" at the airport, Starbucks or McDonald's was a major breakthrough in Internet technology. Now, the next generation of wireless Web surfing is happening in "hot zones," which are popping up in unlikely places.

Like the Los Gatos Opera House.

Marie Tallman, vice president of marketing at the opera house, admits that she isn't much of a techie and never imagined being a key player behind free wireless Internet service in downtown Los Gatos. She just wanted high-speed Internet in the building's meeting rooms so she could market the facility as a place for business gatherings.

Teaming with the nearby Tollhouse Hotel and another Los Gatos business -- a wireless networking company called Firetide -- the Opera House and the hotel now offer free high-speed WiFi Internet access and the town has a two-block WiFi zone that's much larger than the WiFi hotspots found at Starbucks.

Hot zones like the one in Los Gatos are springing up around the country, paving the way for corporate campuses, multi-block residential neighborhoods and, in some cases, entire cities to be blanketed with wireless Internet connections. Those WiFi zones could someday replace the wired broadband networks that require miles of expensive and cumbersome underground cables to reach homes and businesses.

The basis for WiFi zones is a technology called wireless mesh networking, which relies on multiple access points to send and receive signals, allowing Internet connections to blanket a wider area than a hotspot covers.

Networking companies are moving toward delivering citywide WiFi. Next month, Mountain View-based MetroFi will start offering residential WiFi Internet service to every home in Santa Clara and is already building the framework to do the same in Cupertino later next year.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/10404965.htm

Mark says: My stepson Aaron is going to get married at the Los Gatos Opera House next fall. Cool. I can surf if the wedding gets boring. Ouch! Just kidding!

Merry Craze Mass

The Guardian UK

How China has embraced all the bright lights and overindulgence of a very merry Craze Mass

I once asked a market trader in Nanjing, a woman in her 60s wearing a red beret, "What is Christmas? What's it for?"

"That is the date for USA God! You see my hat, this is their Craze Mass hat, westerners like the colour red ... I did wonder if that was true after everybody said capitalists like black; but as you know, those rich capitalists are very colourful. Money and wealth bring colour to human lives ... come on, buy one, forget your age ... we have missed out on a lot."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1370492,00.html

Post your cue sheets on mixed-up.com

I've created a mechanism where you can post your own cue sheets on the mixed-up.com web site without having to send them to me first.

The are a couple of simple rules:

• The files must be PDF files.
• The files can be no larger than 80 Kbytes.

If you want to post such cue sheets, just send me an email and I will give you the URL and a password. It helps if I already know you. :-) (I've had problems in the past with pornographers spamming my guestbook and other public areas.)

If your cue sheets are Microsoft Word documents or other documents that need to be converted to PDF, then you'll have to send them to me first so I can convert them.

If your cue sheet is larger than 80 Kbytes, you'll have to send it to me first. Maybe we can work together to reduce the size of the file.

Annette Woodruff tested the site and posted some of her cue sheets. If you search for "Woodruff", you'll find a section at the top of the results page that says "Recent Uploads." Those are the cue sheets she posted herself. Thanks, Annette!

Christmastime Consumerism

Washington Post

By Michelle Singletary

Even though I try hard not to get caught up in the commercialism of the holidays, I don't want my friends, relatives and especially my children to be disappointed with their presents or lack thereof.

When the holidays come around, it's hard not to overdo it. It's hard to resist the urge to shop till you virtually drop.

Perhaps you need someone to tell you to get a grip. So let me give it to you straight.

Give the guys a break. No matter what the TV commercial says, every kiss does not begin with "Kay." You've got to know that love is not measured by whether he knows to get you a diamond tennis bracelet. Please, get a grip.

"On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me software to track my finances." I know this isn't an overly romantic gift, but let me tell you, not fighting about money can really lift your libido.

"On the second day of Christmas, my true love told me this: 'Honey, two-for-one deals don't save you money.' " You may be inclined to think your sweetheart is nuts to say such a thing. How is it that you don't save if you get two items for the price of one? But think about it. You never save when you spend. And you certainly never save when you buy two of something you need only one of -- or none at all.

"On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me four I Bonds and not a fondue set." Really, how much hot cheese do people eat? Inflation-adjusted savings bonds, or I Bonds, are currently paying 3.67 percent. I Bonds are low-risk, liquid-savings products. While you own them, they earn interest and protect you from inflation. You can buy I Bonds directly from the government, at most financial institutions or through payroll deduction. Go to www.savingsbonds.gov for more information.

"On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me f-i-v-e g-o-l-d-e-n r-u-l-e-s for simplifying the holidays." They are: The best present is your presence; it really is the thought that counts; it's the quality, not quantity, of the gifts; presents are forgotten, debt isn't; and finally, nobody sees a therapist as an adult because she didn't get a life-sized Barbie or Xbox as a child.

And if that gift list seems too lackluster, try this. Think about how each person on your list has touched your life during the year and let him or her know in writing.

Truly the best gift I ever received from my husband was a multi-page letter. At the top of each page, he listed various roles I played. For example, on one page he wrote the word "Sister." He then listed all the things I had done for my siblings that year and how each act reminded him of why he loved me.

I've long since forgotten many of the things my husband has given me over more than 20 holidays together, but I hold on to that letter.

Tell your children you won't get anything for them at Christmas that they saw on a television commercial. I tell you, this rule has been liberating for me. No more panic attacks about not getting the latest, hottest advertised toy. Effectively, this rule means you end up buying your children things they will play with for a long while or items that reflect what they actually like to do.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56885-2004Dec11.html

Acoustic Keyboard Eavesdropping

New York Times

By Stephen Mihm

It is now possible to eavesdrop on a typist's keystrokes and, by exploiting minute variations in the sounds made by different keys, distinguish and decipher what is being typed.

Credit for this discovery goes to Dmitri Asonov, a computer-security researcher for I.B.M. at the Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif., who (with Rakesh Agrawal) published his results this year. The principle is a simple one. Keyboards are a bit like drums: the keys rest atop a plastic plate; different areas of the plate yield different sounds when struck. The human ear can't tell the difference, but if the sounds are recorded and processed by a highly sophisticated computer program, the computer can, with a little bit of practice, learn to translate the sounds of keystrokes into the appropriate letters and symbols.

This means that firewalls and passwords will amount to nothing if someone manages to bug a room and record the cacophony of keystrokes. Asonov managed to pull off this feat with readily available recording equipment at a short distance. Even as far away as 50 feet, and with significant background noise, he was able to replicate his success using a parabolic microphone.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/magazine/12ACOUSTIC.html?th

What My Mother Taught Me

My mother taught me about TIME TRAVEL:
"If you don't straighten up, I'm going to knock you into the middle of next week!"

And more ...

http://www.skywriting.net/inspirational/humor/what_my_mother_taught_me.html

Christmas light displays

San Jose Mercury News

Here is a list of light displays in the San Jose area. There are maps to each location. They are in Campbell, Fremont, Gilroy, Los Gatos, Milpitas, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Redwood City, San Jose, San Martin, and Sunnyvale.

They include waterfalls, nativity scenes, victorian villages, cartoon characters, angels, trains. One in Fremont is collecting donations for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/living/home/10372949.htm

Why I Use A Credit Union Instead Of A Bank

I'm the trustee of my dad's estate. He had a checking account at a local bank. OK, well, one of the large California-based banks. So I went there today to deposit some of his checks and get money to pay his bills.

The first thing they say is, "Your name is on the account, you are a co-signer on the account." Cool! That means I can have access to the account, right? "Well, no, you have to take this form, fill it out, have it notarized, and bring it back. Then wait 40 days and you'll get access to the account." Whoa? My dad put my name on the account, but I have to go through all this and wait?

So he calls his supervisor. She puts him on hold. What kind of a bank is this where you put people on hold internally for several minutes, when they are waiting on customers?

OK, cancel all the notary stuff. "Just fill out this form, you can deposit your checks, and we'll cut you a check to pay your bills." Great! "Oh, and fill out this deposit slip." Deposit slip? It's been so long since I filled out one of these I don't even remember how. At my credit union, I just sign the checks and they deposit them for me. I've got 11 checks here. "Do you need a calculator?" No, I'll just make up a large number for the bottom line, and hope you don't actually put the numbers into one of those computer-thingies to double-check my math. Doh!

So my dad opened this account in the 1960's. "We can't find your dad's signature card." So I have to wait until tomorrow when they'll cut me a cashier's check and put it in the mail. My broken hip is still healing, and as long as I'm using the walker I don't really want to drive back to a downtown bank and park in the underground garage. At least they will put the check in the mail. They'll also call me when they find the signature card.

Finally, "You have to notify all these people and tell them not to write checks to your dad any more." Understood. But some of them are stock dividends, and all of them are money that belongs to the estate, not money that belongs to me. So as long as I have papers that certify I'm the trustee, I should be able to deposit my dad's checks into any account I own, even if they are made out to him. But especially if they are made out to "the estate of."

Oh, did I forget to mention that they abandoned me four or five times, each time for five to ten minutes? Looking for signature cards, making photocopies, asking an absent manager what to do next.

Tomorrow, I visit my credit union to see if they can offer customer service any better than this. Maybe I don't understand all the legal angles, but customer service I do understand. Finding someone in a bank who understands probate issues should not be that difficult.

Controlling computer with thoughts a reality

Houston Chronicle

WASHINGTON - Four people were able to control a computer using their thoughts and an electrode-studded "thinking cap", U.S. researchers say.

They reported Monday that their set-up could someday be adapted to help disabled people operate a motorized wheelchair or artificial limb.

While experiments have allowed a monkey to control a computer with its thoughts, electrodes were implanted into the animal's brain. This experiment, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, required no surgery and no implants.

"The results show that people can learn to use scalp-recorded electroencephalogram rhythms to control rapid and accurate movement of a cursor in two dimensions," Jonathan Wolpaw and Dennis McFarland of the New York State Department of Health and State University of New York in Albany wrote.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/tech/news/2935862

Mark says: Yawn. This is nothing new. They did not "control the computer" with their "thoughts." They just directed a cursor around the screen. Years ago, there were head-mounted devices that would track your eye movements to move the cursor around the screen. They worked by tracking subtle muscular movements in the head as you moved your eyes around. The only real drawback to these particular systems is that you looked like the uber-geek wearing the helmet.

Internet hoax hoodwinks McNealy

CNET News

By Stephen Shankland

SAN FRANCISCO--Sun Microsystems Chief Executive Scott McNealy showed a photo during a Wednesday speech to illustrate how rapidly technology improves--but instead illustrated another computing phenomenon: how easy it is to fall for an Internet hoax.

At a keynote address here at the Oracle OpenWorld show, McNealy displayed a picture supposedly from the magazine "Popular Mechanics" showing how people in 1954 envisioned the home computer. His point was to show how far computing has advanced beyond what was expected. Alas, in reality the photo he used is a doctored picture of a nuclear submarine control room mock-up, according to the myth-debunking site Snopes.com.

The black-and-white photo, which has circulated by e-mail and Web postings, shows a man in an Eisenhower-era suit standing before a long panel studded with dozens of gauges and a single steering wheel. A bulky monitor looms above, and a keyboard is placed in front.

According to Snopes, the original image is a U.S. Navy photograph taken of a Smithsonian exhibit. The modified version was submitted to an image modification contest.

http://news.com.com/Internet+hoax+hoodwinks+McNealy/2100-1012_3-5484053.html?tag
=nefd.pop

Gallup Poll wants my opinions of San Jose Hospital outpatient care

As I was posting the previous entry about the closing of San Jose Hospital, I received a phone call from the Gallup organization who wanted my opinions about a variety of issues regarding my recent outpatient visit there. That would be when I returned a couple weeks after surgery for follow-up x-rays.

They asked a lot of questions about comfort level, communication, room temperature, delays, protocol, and cleanliness, and they wanted to know my satisfaction level with each.

The last two questions, they wanted to know (1) what was my overall satisfaction level with the care, and (2) would I return to the hospital in the future.

!!!?!!!

After I stopped laughing, I informed the pollster that the hospital is closing today at 5:00 pm. She was genuinely surprised.

I did let her know that I would definitely go to Alexian Brothers Hospital (now known as "Regional Medical Center") for future care.

Sadness prevails as S.J. hospital closes today

San Jose Mercury News

By Barbara Feder Ostrov

San Jose Medical Center will close its doors for the last time today at 5 p.m.

All of the patients in the 324-bed hospital are gone now, recovered or transferred to other hospitals. The last patient, still recovering from surgery, was moved early Wednesday evening to Regional Medical Center of San Jose. The hospital will still take walk-in emergency patients today, and the emergency room will stay open as late as needed to treat the very last patient. But the number of patients coming to the ER has dwindled to a dozen or so a day since county officials began steering ambulances away from the hospital two weeks ago.

About 315 workers, including janitors, laundry workers, food servers and clerical staff members, will be laid off, less than earlier estimates of 400 to 500, said hospital spokeswoman Leslie Kelsay.

Nashville-based hospital owner HCA initially shocked San Jose when it abruptly announced in September that the financially troubled hospital would close in December, rather than in 2007 as previously planned. The loss of San Jose Medical Center's centrally located trauma center and emergency room, which provided critical medical care for the area's poor and elderly patients, stung the most.

Regional Medical Center, for years a sleepy community hospital also owned by HCA, is applying to the county for permission to open a trauma center to replace the one at San Jose Medical Center, a process that could take months. It also plans a 1- million-square-foot expansion that includes a new building, a rooftop helipad, more beds and new programs in cardiology and neurosurgery.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/the_vall
ey/10374845.htm

Gluten Quiz #2

Mary and I are intolerant to gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, oats, barley, and some other grains. This means that eating just a little food with gluten can make us sick. Our case is mild, but some people are gluten-intolerant to the point that ingesting even small amounts of gluten-containing grains can become life-threatening. This life-threatening condition is called Celiac's disease.

Gluten often sneaks into food under names like modified food starch and hydrolized vegetable protein. Unless further specified, these are usually other names for "wheat flour," since wheat is the most inexpensive source of these starches.

Here is a quiz. Can you tell which of the following food items are made from grains that contain gluten? This quiz is not so easy. It requires not only that you know the grains used in these food items, but it also requires that you know something about how packaged foods are made.

Cupertino schools sued over ban on founding father excerpts invoking religion

Oakland Tribune

A Cupertino public school teacher is suing his district and his principal, who banned him from using excerpts from the Declaration of Independence and other historical documents in his classroom because they contain references to God and Christianity.

Steven Williams, a fifth-grade teacher at Stevens Creek Elementary School in the Cupertino Union School District, filed the suit in U.S. District Court on Monday, arguing a First Amendment right to teach the history of our country and its founding fathers, which includes religious, and specifically Christian, references.

"I've never even tried to hint the kids need to believe this or this is the right religion to believe," Williams told the Oakland Tribune on Wednesday. "I'm just trying to teach history."

Williams' attorney said the principal's policy is a violation of the teacher's First Amendment rights and is blatant censorship of the writings of great men because they mention God or Christianity.

Speaking from his home Wednesday, a school holiday, Williams said the problems started last year after he responded to a student who asked why the Pledge of Allegiance includes the phrase under God.

Eventually a parent complained, and the principal started requesting his lesson plans and handouts.

The lawsuit does say Williams, who has been teaching eight years, is an orthodox Christian.

The state's fifth-grade social studies standards include learning about the religious, economic, social and cultural origins of the United States.

Williams said he thinks society has become hypersensitive to any reference of Christianity in the public arena, especially schools. He said he has taught students about Ramadan and Kwanzaa and been applauded for those lessons.

People are like, Oh good, that's diversity,' he said. As soon as Christianity is involved, it's separation of church and state.

http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,82~1865~2558339,00.html

If you read the Gospels, the Religious Right is most often wrong

Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star

By Rick Mercier

All this hype about the God talk swirling around in our culture prompted me to do a little research (a big departure from how I usually prepare for writing a column). I cracked open my Bible and started rereading the Gospels.

And you know what? I can't see what all this sanctimonious values rhetoric has to do with Jesus. I've compared what I read in Gospels with what I've been hearing from the Religious Right, and I've concluded that the holier-than-thous must have traded in their red-letter editions of the Good Book for red-state versions that omit most of Jesus' teachings.

Jesus was quite a troublemaker. In fact, I'm thinking the Bush administration would have a special place for Jesus were the swarthy Nazarene to take up his ministry today in the U.S. of A.--in a cell with other Middle Eastern men awaiting deportation.

"How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

Holy class warfare! No wonder Republicans have switched out the Jesus of the Gospels for a low-rent moralizer preoccupied with what other people are doing with their bodies.

Where in America is the Jesus who sides with the poor and the outcasts? Where in America is the Jesus who disdains those who wear their piousness on their sleeves? Where in America is the the Jesus with the prophetic voice, the radical who dares to tell the powerful what they don't want to hear?

Is he in the pews that fill every Sunday morning with the smug and complacent? Is he in a political party that fights for tax cuts for the rich while neglecting the needs of decent, hard-working Americans? Is he among the "God-and-country" demagogues who push an idolatrous nationalism and who see military service as the supreme form of sacrifice?

http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2004/112004/11282004/1577602

Evangelicals can still be saved

Houston Chronicle

Mainline Protestantism underwent a crisis in the early 20th century with the introduction of a liberal theology at odds with many points of traditional Christian belief. The disagreements erupted in what is known as the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy. Fundamentalists were evangelicals with an attitude. They opposed biblical criticism, all strains of liberal theology and the secularizing impulses of their age.

In the 1940s and 1950s, evangelicalism began to undergo a renewal. Prominent evangelical leaders such as Billy Graham rejected the negative fundamentalist mind-set. Evangelicals increasingly realized that they no longer stood in complete opposition to all strains of liberal theology or every idea articulated by secularists.

Evangelicalism became more at home in the world. It sent its sons and daughters to elite schools such as Harvard, Yale and Stanford. It rediscovered common areas of agreement with mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics.

In short, it became more and more diverse, less and less easy to characterize. Evangelicalism now covers a broad spectrum of religious belief and practice from the fundamentalist fringe to socially (though not theologically) liberal activists.

Democrats like to regard themselves as more cosmopolitan than Republicans. But they have been woefully unsophisticated in their analysis of evangelicals, whom they tend to paint in monochromatic hues.

In point of fact there always have been, and still are, evangelicals in the Democratic Party, including former President Jimmy Carter, who once caused distress in the media by announcing he was "born again."

At least 22 percent of self-identified evangelicals voted for John Kerry, a number buoyed by black evangelicals, who vote overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates.

However, this electoral setback is no reason for Democrats to walk away from a tough debate over values. People who love the Bible know that it has hard things to say about anyone who fails to take care of the poor and powerless.

Democrats believe that at their best they are a party that does precisely that — protects people who cannot protect themselves. It is certainly a starting point for a values conversation with evangelicals.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/2920482

A Christmas Tail

Associated Press

Salvation Army bell ringer back on four legs after cancer surgery

OLATHE, Kan. -- The Salvation Army's 20,000 shiny red kettles and trademark bell-ringers are easy to spot, but one helper stands out -- on four legs.

Providence, a 6-year-old German wire-haired pointer, is in her third season as a Salvation Army volunteer.

She's able to do all the things her colleagues do. Providence rings a bell with her mouth and has also learned to take donations and put them in the kettle.

"This is not a drooly-mouth dog," said her owner, Penny Shaffer.

For a while, however, it looked as though the dog's charity work would end.

In April, a tumor was discovered on the roof of her mouth. It was removed, but another one appeared 12 days later.

"They gave her zip chances," said Shaffer.

Surgery removed Providence's second tumor, three teeth and part of her upper jaw. Her jaw was reconstructed, and she had to be on a feeding tube for more than a month while she healed.

She went through 18 radiation treatments, and there's been no recurrence of cancer.

And last week, Providence returned to her bell-ringing post.

Martin Luther on Faith and Works

From "The Babylonian Captivity Of The Church:"

"For where there is the Word of the promising God, there must necessarily be the faith of the accepting man. It is plain, therefore, that the beginning of our salvation is a faith which clings to the Word of the promising God, who, without any effort on our part, in free and unmerited mercy takes the initiative and offers us the word of his promise. 'He sent forth his word, and thus healed them,', not: 'He accepted our work, and thus healed us.' First of all there is God's Word. After it follows faith; after faith, love; then love does every good work, for it does no wrong, indeed, it is the fulfilling of the law [Rom. 13:10]. In no other way can man come to God or deal with him than through faith. That is to say, that the author of salvation is not man, by any works of his own, but God, through his promise; and that all things depend on, and are upheld and preserved by, the word of his power [Heb. 1:3], through which he brought us forth, to be a kind of first fruits of his creatures [Jas. 1:18].

Nothing else is needed ... than a faith that relies confidently on this promise, believes Christ to be true in these words of his, and does not doubt that these infinite blessings have been bestowed upon it. Hard on this faith there follows, of itself, a most sweet stirring of the heart, whereby the spirit of man is enlarged and enriched (that is love, given by the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ), so that he is drawn to Christ, that gracious and bounteous testator, and made a thoroughly new and different man. Who would not shed tears of gladness, indeed, almost faint for joy in Christ, if he believed with unshaken faith that this inestimable promise of Christ belonged to him? How could he help loving so great a benefactor, who of his own accord offers, promises, and grants such great riches and this eternal inheritance to one who is unworthy and deserving of something far different?

For God does not deal, nor has he ever dealt, with man otherwise than through a word of promise. We in turn cannot deal with God otherwise than through faith in the Word of his promise. He does not desire works, nor has he need of them; rather we deal with men and with ourselves on the basis of works. But God has need of this: that we consider him faithful in his promises [Heb. 10:23], and patiently persist in this belief, and thus worship him with faith, hope, and love. It is in this way that he obtains his glory among us, since it is not of ourselves who run, but of him who shows mercy [Rom. 9:16], promises, and gives, that we have and hold all good things.

These two, promise and faith, must necessarily go together. For without the promise there is nothing to be believed; while without faith the promise is useless, since it is established and fulfilled through faith. [The promise] can be approached and observed only in faith. Without this faith, whatever else is brought by way of prayers, preparations, works, signs, or gestures are incitements to impiety rather than exercises of piety. It usually happens that those who are thus prepared imagine themselves legitimately entitled to approach the altar, when in reality they are less prepared than at any other time or by any other work, by reason of the unbelief which they bring with them. O worthless religion of this age of ours, the most godless and thankless of all ages!

The safest course [is to be] prepared not to do or contribute much yourself, but to believe and accept all that is promised you.

From Three Treatises, by Martin Luther

Mary's Page

Mary's Page has cool links about rubber stamping, gluten intolerance, Christian books, and having a son in the Marines.

www.mixed-up.com/mary

50 New cue sheets posted

Posted 50 new cue sheets by Annette Woodruff, Daisuke Doi, and Jim Chico.

Around The Christmas Tree, Two Step/5-Count, III+1, Woodruff
Christmas At Our House, Waltz, II+2, Woodruff
Christmas Cha, Cha Cha, IV+1, Woodruff
Christmas Island, Foxtrot, IV+1, Woodruff
Comme Un Garcon (Like A Boy), Cha Cha/Foxtrot, III+, Woodruff
Fingersnap, West Coast/Jive, V+1+1, Woodruff
Glory Of Love, West Coast/Jive, V, Woodruff
Going To France, West Coast/Foxtrot, V+2+1, Woodruff
I'll Be Home For Christmas, Slow Two Step, IV+U, Woodruff
Love Don't Live Here Any More, Two Step, II+2, Woodruff
Mele Kalikimaka, Cha Cha/Jive, IV+2+1, Woodruff
Petite Fleur, Foxtrot/Jive/Tango, IV+U, Woodruff
Rock Right, Jive, IV+1, Woodruff
Santa Baby, West Coast, V+U, Woodruff
Sergeant Preston, Mixed, IV+1, Woodruff
Shamey Shamey Shame, Jive, V+2+2, Woodruff
Stop The Cavalry, Two Step, II, Woodruff
That Darn Cat, Foxtrot/West Coast/Jive, V+2+1, Woodruff
Warm and Fuzzy, Foxtrot/Jive/Two Step, IV+1+1, Woodruff
Weihnachten, Two Step, III, Woodruff
Whistling Robin, Two Step, I, Woodruff
Wonderful Wonderful, Foxtrot, V+1, Woodruff

Are You Lonesome IV, Waltz, IV+1, Chico
He Drinks Tequila Two, Two Step, II+1, Chico

Amazing Grace, Waltz, IV, Doi
And I Love Her, Bolero, IV, Doi
Ave Maria, Waltz, IV+2, Doi
Can't Help Falling In Love, Bolero, III+2, Doi
El Choclo, Tango, V+2, Doi
Felicia, Tango, VI, Doi
Historia De Un Amor, Rumba, IV+2, Doi
Indian Love Call,, Foxtrot, III+2, Doi
Limelight, Waltz, V+2, Doi
Lover's Concerto, Cha Cha, VI, Doi
Moon River Bolero, Bolero, V+2, Doi
Moon River, Waltz, VI, Doi
More Rumba, Rumba, VI, Doi
My Prayer, Rumba, III+2, Doi
Over The Rainbow, Foxtrot, IV+2, Doi
So Far From The Beginning, Bolero, V+U, Doi
Some Enchanted Evening, Bolero, IV+2, Doi
Some Of These Days, Cha Cha, IV+2+1, Doi
Something Stupid Cha Cha, Cha Cha, V+2+2, Doi
Something Stupid Rumba, Rumba, V+2, Doi
Spanish Town, Cha Cha, III+2, Doi
Summer Serenade, Waltz, III+2, Doi
Sway, Cha Cha, IV, Doi
Swinging Safari, A, Jive, III+2, Doi
Tennessee Waltz, Waltz, VI, Doi
Tickled Pink, Quickstep, IV+2, Doi
Wonderful World, Slow Two Step, IV+2, Doi

You can always find the most recently posted dances here:
http://www.mixed-up.com/round/all-over/recent.html

The Simple Wheat-Tolerance Quiz

Here is a simple quiz that requires you to be aware of what is in the food you eat and the food you bake.

Mary and I are intolerant to gluten, a protein found in wheat and some other grains. Our case is mild, but some people are gluten-intolerant to the point that ingesting even small amounts of gluten-containing grains can become life-threatening. This life-threatening condition is called Celiac's disease.

Here is a simple quiz. Can you tell which of the following food items are made with wheat? Note: there are no trick questions here. It should be obvious whether each food is made with wheat or not.

Amy's Kitchen to head north

San Francisco Chronicle

California loses part of organic food firm to Medford, Ore.

David R. Baker

Amy's Kitchen, a Santa Rosa company famous for its frozen vegetarian foods, will build a manufacturing plant in Oregon, despite Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's efforts to keep all the firm's operations in California.

The company, which has been hunting for room to expand, will open a new plant in Medford while keeping its headquarters in Santa Rosa, one of the firm's founders said Tuesday.

Andy Berliner, who founded the company with his wife, Rachel, in 1987, said that while California has recently improved its business climate, Amy's will save about $1 million a year by expanding in Oregon instead of California.

"It surprised us ... how business-friendly other states are, how much they place job retention at the top of their priorities," he said. "There's an attempt to rekindle that spirit here in California, but I think it had been largely forgotten."

A Schwarzenegger spokesman said the governor is pleased that Amy's won't leave the state altogether. But he said the company's expansion northward shows that California's business environment still needs work.

"It's a mixed bag," said spokesman Vince Sollitto. "They're just not going to add any jobs here until we make more progress."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/12/01/BUG27A480V1.DTL

Amy's Kitchen: http://amyskitchen.com/

Mark says:

Mary and I really like Amy's gluten-free offerings. Their vegetarian enchiladas and gluten-free macaroni and cheese are among our favorites.

Boycott Christmas!

http://www.xmasresistance.org/

Also: the new movie "Christmas with the Kranks" is based on a very funny novel, "Skipping Christmas" by John Grisham. I hear the movie itself is not so good. Or as my brother might say, "Two stars ... my kind of movie!"

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Last updated Monday 3 August 2009