Theme Updates [Justin]
I’m working on the theme for this site at the moment. Excuse any wonkiness you see.
Intiman’s Tony Award [Justin]
Intiman’s Tony Award, uploaded by justinbaeder.
We saw Richard III last week at the Intiman. It was awesome.
Bartlett Sher, artistic director, didn’t hesitate to pass around the Tony Award the theatre received recently. This is my hand holding it (obviously a phonecam picture).
I really wish I had an affiliate link for this…
Federal student loan rates go up this weekend, jumping from 4.75% to 6.75%. If you haven’t consolidated, you will need to do so before the close of business Friday the 30th of June, or else your rates will go up by 2%. That’s a lot of money if you have sizeable loans or are paying them off slowly.
If you have a lot of loans, this will save you a huge amount of money. I just consolidated with Graduate Loan Center. They have an online application, but since it’s last-minute, it’s best to call them instead: 1-866-Grad-Loan. I spoke with Dave, who was obviously exhausted from all the last-minute consolidations like mine, but was very helpful.
There are no fees for consolidation, and as far as I know all the companies have the same terms, since consolidation loans are highly regulated. I chose Graduate Loan Center because my mom used them to consolidate my brother’s loans, and they have never sent me deceptive junk mail, so they’re OK with me.
Two things you should know if you’re in medicine, education, or AmeriCorps:
- Perkins loans become ineligible for cancellation if you consolidate them - Amy and I can have our Perkins loans forgiven since we teach in eligible schools. More info from the Dept of Education
- Stafford loans can still be cancelled after consolidation. I didn’t know this, which is why we never consolidated. More info
Justin & Amy at SU Commencement Brunch, uploaded by justinbaeder.
I finally got around to downloading Picasa 2, which helped me remove the horrible red-eye from this photo. I’m much more attractive when I don’t look demon-possessed :).
Oh, and I am now a pro Flickr member.
The Real Dirt [Justin]
Today I cleaned out the car.
In one of the cupholders, we had some rocks and shells that we had collected on a beach a few years ago. The cupholder had several tiers, for holding different-sized cups, but we usually put Nalgene bottles in it, and the rocks were below that, in the bottom of the cupholder.
Over the years, we had apparently spilled enough food, beverages, and other material into the cupholder that a noticeable amount of soil had formed below the rocks and shells. Gross.
I am always hesitant to discuss homosexuality in the blogosphere because the comment threads frequently get ugly. However, I think I have reached the point where I can clarify some of my recent thoughts on the topic as it relates to the Christian faith.
It has become popular in emerging church circles to equivocate about this topic. Lacking an opinion on Christianity and homosexuality, or holding a liberal opinion, is almost a status symbol. While rightly recognizing the pain that Christians have caused to others, some “new kinds of Christians” have backed themselves into a corner hermeneutically, leaving the bible with little voice or significance for any behavioral matters. I think we can sustain a deeper level of engagement with both scripture and the present cultural debate. So here goes.
1. Sexual orientation is a social construct. On the grounds of this social construct, it is argued that homosexuality cannot be unacceptable to God, since some people are born with a homosexual orientation.
2. Scripture cannot possibly anticipate all future social constructs or articulations of the human situation - nor does it need to in order to be authoritative. The work of discerning the role of culture in scriptural authority is complex and difficult, but eminently necessary.
3. Western society will never again see homosexuality in pathological terms - nor does it need to. It is not helpful for Christians to discuss homosexuality in pathological terms; indeed, it has become offensive to do so.
4. It is possible to both fully support gay rights (as I do) and believe that homosexual activity (not orientation) is wrong for Christians (as I do). Civil rights and religion are not in the same domain.
5. Though debate still rages, scripture makes several unambiguous pronouncements against homosexual activity, which are difficult to dismiss on cultural grounds.
6. If social constructs are allowed to trump scripture as a source of authority, scripture’s ability to make any kind of moral pronouncement is eliminated.
7. In this discussion, it is important to remember that this is a very personal issue for many people, and that none of us has avoided all of the behaviors on Paul’s lists such as 1 Cor 6:9-11. In other words, we should be neither hypocrites nor jerks.
What do you think? Anonymous or cruel comments will be deleted. Consistently using a pseudonym is acceptable.
Since it’s summer and I have time to blog, I am realizing that some of my better posts deserve more attention than they got the first time around. Here’s one from last year.
I think most people will agree that Christians have, at various times throughout history and throughout our own lives, been jerks. Time to own up to that and apologize, for what it’s worth. Hopefully it will be worth something to someone.
Here’s what you can do:
1. Check out the photos
2. Download and print the Sorry We Christians Have Been Jerks PDF
3. Write your name or city (or whatever) on the sign and take a picture of yourself holding it
4. Upload your picture to Flickr and tag it with these tags: sorry sorryeverybody sorrychristians (three separate tags - this is essential for the meme to work)
5. Tell all your friends and get them to do the same thing (hint: just write your city on the sign and pass it around when you’re with a bunch of people, and take pictures of each of them holding the sign)
6. Most importantly, mean it, and contribute to a global, lived-out apology to the world for the way Christians have acted (or failed to act)
Code to copy this post to your blog:
To keep up with how this progresses, here is the RSS photo feed for this meme.
Advanced Comp: Worst Analogies Ever [Justin]
Dr. Long read this to us one day in Advanced Comp: The worst analogies ever written, collected from high school English teachers by the Washington Post. I’ve bolded a few that I distinctly recognize from that day in 2001.
He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
(Joseph Romm, Washington)She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.
(Rich Murphy, Fairfax Station)The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.
(Russell Beland, Springfield)McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag filled with vegetable soup.
(Paul Sabourin, Silver Spring)From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and “Jeopardy” comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30.
(Roy Ashley, Washington)Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.
(Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.
(Russell Beland, Springfield)Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung=20 by mistake.
(Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills)Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
(Unknown)He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.
(Jack Bross, Chevy Chase)The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
(Gary F. Hevel, Silver Spring)Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like “Second Tall Man.”
(Russell Beland, Springfield)Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
(Jennifer Hart, Arlington)The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.
(Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala.)They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.
(Paul Kocak, Syracuse, N.Y.)John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
(Russell Beland, Springfield)The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.
(Barbara Fetherolf, Alexandria)His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
(Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)
