Colbert gives it to Zimbardo

Stephen Colbert had Dr. Philip Zimbardo on his show last night. He's the professor behind the famed Stanford experiment that had student essentially reenact the guard/prisoner dynamic of concentration camps and showed that even "good" people could quickly let power and privilege overtake them and do horrible things. He's selling his new book that apparently tries to cast Lucifer, or the devil, in a better light. Unfortunately, Zimbardo wasn't aware that Colbert was a Sunday School teacher.

Blogger doesn't like the embed, so here's the link.

Makes for an interesting debate on what evil is, and makes an even better case for going to Sunday School!

On Huckabee's Visit

The following is the text from an email sent by Senior Pastor, Dr. Charles Gattis of Trinity UMC.

We have received some calls of concern that we are endorsing a particular presidential candidate. That is not the case.
You may have heard on the news that Mike Huckabee is speaking at Trinity tomorrow morning. I wanted you to know that this does not indicate that Trinity is supporting him or any other presidential candidate. Mr. Huckabee is coming at the invitation of a Republican Men's group, which has been meeting for a monthly breakfast at Trinity for many years. Many of that group are long time members of our church and they, like other members, use the church facilities for organizations in which they participate.
As a policy, Trinity does not support any political candidates state, federal, or local. If you have any questions, please give me a call and I'll be happy to talk with you about it.
Sincerely,
Charles Gattis
Trinity United Methodist Church

busy

so it's been a while since i've last posted. things have been kind of hectic around here with a lot of changes and all. not that i would have done an end of the year list anyway, but Christmas and the new year have come and gone so fast, it feels like it should be march already. I keep thinking I should be filling out a bracket by now.

so what's been keeping me busy? our new sunday morning change and the mission event associated with it. with less than two months to plan the event and mobilize at least half of our 1000+ worship attenders, getting the structure built has been a real challenge. I am SO grateful for the many "trail bosses" and others who have taken leadership and specific tasks on. if it wasn't for them, I'd be paralyzed with stress right about now (according to Laura, that's a lot of stress for me). It looks as though things are coming together, I placed the order for 600 box lunches today and finished entering the volunteer sign ups which are pretty close to that number. I''m hoping even more will decide to be in mission in some form that day, but hope they don't expect to be fed. Again, though, the work that everyone has done in getting the projects set up has been tremendous. With close to 30 projects and at least a dozen additional sites, we're going to have a huge presence in the community. Trinity really does love the Tennessee Valley.

The other thing that has taken up a bit of my time is trying to become first time homeowners. Laura and I have decided that we've had enough of apartment life and are now in the final stages of closing on a house. It's a really neat home in south huntsville. Freshly redone on the inside, but some minor-major work to be done on the outside. We're waiting to here how the seller will react to the home inspection.

One bit of funny that come out of our inspection today was opening the air return and seeing a pile of what looked like nuts, shells, twigs, and leaves. Telltale signs of a squirrel home. This concerned us more so than any of the other potential problems that we had considering it evoked bad memories for us both of parents being driven to the edge of insanity by the pesky rodents. Fortunately our agent was more observant than us or our inspector and when she saw it, she said, "You know, y'all, that almost looks like potpourri." Well, of course it was. The former homeowner decided to put it in there no telling how long ago to freshen the house. No, squirrel. Needless to say, we were relieved and any of the other problems seemed trivial after that.

Well, my break is just about over and I've got to get back to it. Maybe I'll get to post again when it really is March.

Last Minute Christmas Ideas

For those of you who are like me and have only just started Christmas shopping, consider this:

Why not avoid the long lines and crowded malls this year and stop by UMCOR’s New Gift Catalog? Give a gift that changes the world without having to wait.

UMCOR’s Gift Catalog is filled with alternative gift suggestions that reflect the many programs and projects that UMCOR supports around the world. Consider a gift of education for girls in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or provide medicine for children in Georgia suffering with epilepsy. A ribbon cannot be tied around this type of gift, but it does tie around someone’s heart.

Each dollar amount in the catalog represents what your gifts could buy and determines the approximate cost of each item for that region. 100 percent of donations will go to the designated program.

You can find UMCOR's Gift Catalog here.

About the only way I can handle the 12 Days of Christmas

Tip to my good friend Mark Harvard (http://dctape.livejournal.com/) who shared this on his blog this morning.

Merry Christmas - in Africa!

Final Countdown cello and orchestra

Found this off the Mental Floss Blogs, via Neatorama, via I-am-Bored. Great way to start off the morning.

Blast from the Past

About a year ago I started a rant about how NBC gave a perfect example of how not to do a promotion. Laura and I were some of the dozens who watched the ill-fated "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (I'd link to it but all of the pages are dead on the NBC site. Granted, it wasn't the greatest show, but it did have its moments.

the episode that got me all worked up was a Christmas episode that feature a beautiful brass rendition of "Oh Holy Night" by artists part of Tipitina's Foundation. As the site states:

The mission of the Tipitina’s Foundation is to restore Louisiana’s irreplaceable music community and preserve the state’s unique musical cultures.

These artists were a part of one of the minor plot-lines, which obviously was to promote the foundation and keep the rebuilding efforts in mind. After the powerful performance that ended the show and certainly left me wanting more, viewers were told to go to the NBC's site to download a free copy of the song and learn more about Tipitina's Foundation.

Proving that it had already written off the show and had (and has) no intention of really caring about its fans, it took a week before an actual link was posted on the web to Tipitina's, and another before the promised "free download" was offered.

Again sadly, the show site is dead and the video is offline, but you can still go to the Tipitina's Foundation site and get the mp3 here.

Hopefully the enclosure link will work too, and you can listen to the audio in your newsreader too.

Milestone

With my last post, I surpassed the number of posts from previous two years combined.

Yes, I know, 28 posts in a year really isn't that prolific, but comparatively, it's huge for me. I'm not sure if setting a goal for next year would be a helpful, or even a needed thing, but I'm sure the number will increase for next year.

Oh, I'm still trying to find the right layout for the blog's template. If you're using a reader, you won't notice. But I have added a few new things like my blog roll and shared items. When I can really get a few hours, I hope to work out a few more tweaks.

No wonder

I've wondered why it's so hard for me to post regularly. Now, thanks to The Blog Readability Test, I now know why - I've set my standards too high.

Sorry if I've alienated any potential readers. I'll try to dumb it down from now on.

...I have no idea why the site ranked my blog this way, but trust me, it really wasn't intentional, nor do I put much stock in it. I'll take any theories as to why.