This is probably the best thorough explaination of Terri Schiavo’s situation. I know in the previous blog entry I refused to comment on it saying all that had been said had already been said. However I’m going to reverse my thinking, and comment on it.
Terri’s parents are Catholic. Being the good Catholics that they are, they would disapprove of any extiction of life, as all life is precious in the eyes of this sect. Abortion, the death penalty, even birth control (since it prevents conception) are all off limits to this sect.
Do you really want your government or church deciding your fate? You yourself must control your own destiny. If there is one thing the Schiavo’s case has taught us, it is how important living wills are. Your life is really only between you and your God. I suspect that God finds all life precious, but didn’t have any trouble striking down the disobiedient. In VERY grey areas like vegetative states, I’m not so sure it is clear cut Biblically as everyone would like for it to be.
Terri died 15 years ago. Her shell is still alive, but there is no real cognitive thought. If indeed it was her wish to die if she ever was in a vegetative state, then so be it. Legally her husband makes that decision. Ultimately the fight should be about whoever should be her guardian, not about the feeding tube.
In any case the Terri Schiavo case has become a ugly public fight that should have been a quiet family decision. The state and national government should never have become involved. This is not in the spirit of democracy. I would not want to be put in the shoes of Schiavo’s family (on either side), and I hope I never have to make those very difficult decisions in life. Get a living will, folks.
The Ritual Itself Rather Than Belief
Terri got a drop of communion wine recently. I’m not going to bother arguing about this case. Everything that needs to be said, has already been said.
However the news that a priest would administer communion on a person who has no concept of reality did make me come to a conclusion. The conclusion is Catholics are more concerned about the ritual itself rather than personal belief. Administering communion on Terri is like administering communion on an infant. The Bible is specific on belief, especially on communion. “This do in rememberance of Me,” something that a person in a vegetative state is unable to do. Religion is empty and ritualistic without true belief. Does simply going to church and singing, bowing your head in prayer, and eating bread and wine make someone a Christian? NO! First and formost it takes personal belief. Something that I’m sure Terri once had, but no longer has. Sure it makes her parents and supporters feel better that she had communion. But was she really worshipping? No! She has no concept of that. Doing something for the sake of the ritual, without belief is wrong and not what God wants.
Another course of action where the ritual itself is more important than belief is infant baptism. Those who practice this are showing this somewhat as a promise of the parents/guardians to raise their child in a Christian environment. Seemingly the baptism ritual is more important than belief. For Catholics this belief will come to the child later in life (hopefully).
Many times we get caught up in the ritual itself rather than worship. Its time to ask ourself do we truly believe or are we just going through empty rituals?
Search Engines and Content Providers
Lately we’ve been seeing search engines themselves purchase services that will provide content for their searches. Google’s purchase of Blogger in 2003 parallels Yahoo!’s purchase of Geocities in 1999. Some comparisons:
Yahoo! is known more of hierarchical listing of websites. This being the case alot of broken links are/were listed in their hierarchical listings, plus it can be very difficult to get listed. I can remember in 1997 when I was successfully able to get my church’s website listed in Yahoo’s hierarchical listings. For a while, it remained one of the few (if only) church websites in Mt. Juliet listed in the Yahoo hierarchical structure. Yahoo! has since changed it’s default search results to being more of a search engine, instead of the hierchical structure.
Geocities is known as being the service provider for the first website many of us ever used. That being the case, many Geocities websites have been left abandoned when their owners decided to get their own domain (free of Geocities’ obnoxious banner ads and long URLs).
Yahoo’s acquisition of Geocities in 1999 brought more ads and shorter URLs to Geocities homepages. Yahoo wasn’t necessarily interested in content. It was only interested in finding an already popular service and gaining new Yahoo! members.
Blogger started in 1999 as a blog service provider. Blogger’s focus was content, something Geocities never had. There are a great many GOOD blogs out there which are still hosted on Blogger’s free services. Rarely do you find GOOD homepages (that are exceptionally designed) on Geocities.
Google began in 1996 as strictly a search engine. It’s code of conduct is “Don’t Be Evil.” Hence you will not find any obnoxious banner ads on Google, only subtle text ads on search results.
Google too, focused on content. It’s search results were based on how many people were linking to a particular site. More popular linked sites eventually got listed at the top of Google’s search results. Also its news site listings were based on content of other news providers, and not Google itself. This is much different from Yahoo!’s take on news in that Yahoo has a whole section based on news gathered from the AP. Yahoo! doesn’t write the news itself. Only hosts news stories and photos. Google does no hosting. It only provides links to other news sites. Google has always focused on search listings and content, rather than hosting services.
Both Yahoo! and Geocities are dying. Yahoo! not so much as Geocities. Google and Blogger are thriving. Why? Content. Yahoo’s mistake was trying to do everything at once. Take a look at Yahoo!’s portal page and Google’s page. Yahoo! is trying much too hard to be everything to everyone. Mail, Messenger, News Portal. It’s page represents confusion. Too many services. Too much trouble on the eyes. Google has a much cleaner interface. Everything is right there at your fingertips. Google never wanted to be a portal, and hopefully it never will. Search engines could learn alot from Google. Already MSN’s new interface mimics Google. Altavista, too, has become less of a portal and more of a Google clone.
I’m a bit surprised that Yahoo hasn’t put in the ability for Geocities to do blogs. It’s something that Geocities’ rival Tripod has done. I equate Geocities with cheapness, and I suspect the rest of the netizens do too. Yahoo! recently aquired Flickr, a photo sharing site popular among bloggers. This shows that Yahoo! is still interested in Blogs.
What could Yahoo! do to Geocities that would make it cool again? As stated above, let users be able to blog on it. Cgi abilities would be cool too (as you can do it on Tripod). Less obnoxious ads. Ability to do FTP again (for free members). But I suspect Yahoo! isn’t necessarily interested in improving things at Geocities. Why spend the time improving things on a dying service?
Meanwhile Blogger improved with Google’s purchase. Free users could upload images to their website. Commenting on posts became available.
Everything2
I’m getting into Everything2. It’s sorta a freeform Wikipedia, without the requirement for a neutral point of view. E2’s articles are more or less random blog postings on a particular topic. I haven’t written up any specific articles (nodes) yet. I’m still learning the site specifics.
There are some perplexing things about E2 which I haven’t figured out yet. Such as why some writeups have just a handful of out of date articles. Such as Church of Christ. There seems to be a handful of old articles on the CoC, but no new articles. Are new articles being supressed? Is there a limit on the number of articles you can write on a particular subject? I guess I’ll have to start writing to figure that out.
There doesn’t seem to be much structure on E2. Any user can write an article title and link it to anything, although there is potential for possible deletion. E2 has been notoriously slow in the past, but it’s been relatively reasonable (we’re not talking Google fast, but reasonable) lately.
A good thing about E2 is that you can write semi-anonymously, without fear of retribution from readers. Something I can’t do here, unfortunately.
Anyways maybe I should read this E2 article to get a perspective on things.
Skyline Rankings
The Morning Shows
Each day we drive to work and we listen to our radios. Some of us choose to listen to our IPods, while others like me bounce around from morning show to morning show. Some thoughts on the morning shows.
- Rick and Bubba – Star97. I am convinced that if Rick was suddenly incompacitated, Bubba would be unable to continue to do the show long term. Bubba is not trained as a radio DJ and it shows. He seems completely lost when Rick isn’t there.
Unfortunately someone should tell Rick and Bubba that they’re just not funny, but unfortunately they probably won’t believe you. They’re too busy laughing at themselves and reading praise letters (with not very much substance) from their fans.
I remember Rick and Bubba’s debut on 103 KDF a few years back. I was hoping for them to be true DJ’s, playing music in between funny bits. Unfortunately I got no music, and even worse, no funny bits.
Show some integrity and don’t do lame commericals acting as though it’s really part of your show. I frequently hear Rick and Bubba doing a commerical for Foot Effects. Not once do they say they’ve actually tried Foot Effect’s products. Actually all we hear is how their “feet feel better already.” Sell outs. - Woody and Jim – 107.5 The River. From the radio station that you can’t listen to for more than 20 minutes without hearing the same song again….brings you DJ’s that seemlingly have no clue as to how Nashville works. Truly outsiders…from Buffalo, no less.
Gender Wars is unexciting and shows how stupid Nashville radio listeners are. - Coyote McCloud – Oldies 96.3. Coyote has come a long way since his Zoo Crew years (Y107). Matured would be the word. Coyote does some good stuff, especially bringing some good music trivia along. Most of his listeners have heard it all, and he doesn’t try to impress them. He doesn’t have to.
Many listen to it for the traffic reports every 10 minutes (which is easy to do when most of the songs on your playlist are around 2 minutes long). - The Big Show – 105.9 the Rock. – Somewhere in North Carolina John Boy and Billy broadcast their radio show. Their show can be good at times, and they do play a good song occassionally. Their show is what Rick and Bubba are trying to immitate (and failing miserably at). I’ve laughed at Ike Turner’s commentary. However I can do without Robert D. Raiford’s “Grumpy Old Man” commentaries. And from what John Boy and Billy’s reaction (complete silence at times), I think the rest of the crew could do without it too. Obviously Raiford has some friends in the production crew.
- Bob and Tom 102.9 The Buzz – This show is just to raunchy to listen to. What a bunch of pervs.
Only two of the above shows are produced in Nashville. The rest are in syndication, which shows how fickle radio can become. Give us homegrown DJs reading relavent stories and commentary on our fair town. After all, we are Music City USA. Don’t we deserve a good homegrown morning show?
Until the End of the World
I saw U2’s performance of “Until the End of the World” in their Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame induction. It dawned on me (as it has for many others), that this song is an allegory of Judas’ betrayal of Jesus. The song is told from a first person viewpoint of Judas.
Some examples.
Song Lyrics:
Haven’t seen you in quite a while
I was down the hold just passing time
Last time we met was a low-lit room
We were as close together as a bride and groom
We ate the food, we drank the wine
Everybody having a good time
Except you
You were talking about the end of the world
20 When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the Twelve. 21 And while they were eating, he said, �I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me.�
…
25 Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, �Surely not I, Rabbi?�
Jesus answered, �Yes, it is you.�
26 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, �Take and eat; this is my body.�
27 Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, �Drink from it, all of you.
Matthew 26:20-27 NIV
Song Lyrics:
I took the money
I spiked your drink
You miss too much these days if you stop to think
14 Then one of the Twelve�the one called Judas Iscariot�went to the chief priests
15 and asked, �What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?� So they counted out for him thirty silver coins.
16 From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over.
Matthew 26:14-16 NIV
Song Lyrics:
You lead me on with those innocent eyes
You know I love the element of surprise
In the garden I was playing the tart
I kissed your lips and broke your heart
You
You were acting like it was the end of the world
Love…
47 While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people.
48 Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: �The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.�
49 Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, �Greetings, Rabbi!� and kissed him.
Matthew 26:47-49 NIV
Song Lyrics
Waves of regret and waves of joy
I reached out for the one I tried to destroy
3 When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders.
4 �I have sinned,� he said, �for I have betrayed innocent blood.�
�What is that to us?� they replied. �That’s your responsibility.�
5 So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.
Matthew 27:3-5 NIV
Forrest Gump: 2 Contrasting Lives
Forrest Gump is a tale of two lives. In one aspect we see the main character as mentally challenged man who has brushes of greatness with famous people. In many ways we see the timeline of the 60s and 70s through the experiences of Gump. Segregation, the war in Vietnam, Watergate…they’re all there.
What stands out is Forrest’s honestly and loyality. When Lieutenant Dan criticizes religous people Forrest contends that he himself is heaven bound. God seemed to be on Gump’s side when a storm wrecked the shrimping business, yet left Forrest’s shrimp boat unscathed.
On the other hand we see Forrest’s love, Jenny, who grew up in an abusive household, and went on to have abusive relationships. She is shown contemplating suicide and eventually gets what we the audience perceve as A.I.D.S.
Two lives are shown. Jenny had all the abilities to do what is right, yet choose not to, and eventually paid for it. Forrest wasn’t given the mental ability as the rest of us, yet he did with what he had and was able to succeed in life. Success isn’t dependent on what we have, only what we do with it.
Hurra Torpedo: Total Eclipse of the Heart
This is good.
I’ve always been a fan of ecleptic music. This one is no exception. Playing a Bonnie Tyler song using kitchen appliances as percussion ranks up there with unique music styles. Try this at home.
Wikipedia
I’ve been experimenting around with Wikipedia alot. It’s self described as “the free-content encyclopedia that anyone can edit.” I find this fascinating. Many times I visited webpages with outdated or incomplete information. I’ve wished I could edit it to make it more complete. With Wiki you can do just that. I’ve found myself editing alot of wiki articles, mostly Christian university articles because there is an absence of them, and because they are easy to find information on.
What is interesting about wiki is that spammers haven’t necessarily found it yet. I’ve heard about wiki spam, but there isn’t much to be found on wiki. Legit users are so effective in trying to edit pages to keep wiki spam to a minimum.