QotD for 31 May, 2008

Charitable feelings are of no use
without acts of charity.
Compassionate feelings are of no use
without acts of compassion.
Loving feelings are useless
unless they lead to acts of love.
The Priest and Levite may well have felt sorry
for the wounded man
as they steered a course past him,
and the Samaritan who stopped to help
may have been muttering
under his breath
at the inconvenience
the whole time.
How they felt
was immaterial to the wounded man.
--- the Rev. Br. Tobias S. Haller, BSG

[via In a Godward Direction]

QotD for 30 May, 2008

When I say that X seems to be true, I want that statement to be coherent with our observations of the reality that God wrought, not just with the reality I conjure in my head. --- D.C. Toedt

Ahhh yes, good ol' Reality Based^® Theology. Something the American Church could do with a lot more. For add'l such goodness, visit D.C.'s blog The Questioning Christian.

Classical Music LOLCatz

more cat pictures

Subtle (for a change) LOLCatz humor with that tinge of intellectual eliteness that only classical music can impart ;)

Remixed Political Poster Art

This and other great political remixes of retro poster art at the Old American Century.

Send Allie to Lambeth

Yes, you've all probably seen this on her blog, or at Grandmère Mimi's* , but in case you haven't...

Allie's Goin' to Lambeth

But our Allie has had a run of poor luck lately - car crash & a dead laptop on a student's budget. So if you can spare some cash to help her make this trip, it'd be a bona fide Good Thing®. And come on, wouldn't you rather see her go than quite a few bishops you could name ?

Send your contributions to:

Alicia Graham
c/o Grace-St. Paul's Episcopal Church
3715 E. State Street Ext
Mercerville, NJ 08619


*(if you're a fellow Episco-blogger and aren't reading Mimi's stuff, you should)

Mmmmm...Chocoooolate

My new, favorite food-related vice ? Dark chocolate covered, dried cranberries from Dilettante Chocolates of Kent, WA. And with all the antioxidants from both the dark chocolate and the cranberries, it's practically health food.

Yeah, that's it...health food.

Found 'em in the candy section of my local Wal-Mart, no less. (yeah, I know, I know...)

Stuff White People Like

In case you're not reading Dan's excellent blog Culture Choc (and you should), he pointed his readers to one of the funniest sites I've seen in ages:

Stuff White People Like

Here're a few examples. Don't have a mouthful of your favorite beverage, or you'll lose a keyboard ;)

#1 - Coffee. White people all need Starbucks, Second Cup or Coffee Bean. They are also fond of saying “you do NOT want to see me before I get my morning coffee.” White guys will also call it anything but coffee: “rocket fuel,” “java,” “joe,” “black gold,” and so forth. It’s pretty garbage all around. If you want to go for extra points - white people really love FAIR TRADE coffee, because paying the extra $2 means they are making a difference.

#2 - Religions that their parents don't belong to. White people will often say they are “spiritual” but not religious. Which usually means that they will believe any religion that doesn’t involve Jesus...Mostly they are into religion that fits really well into their homes or wardrobe and doesn’t require them to do very much.

#11 - Asian Girls. 95% of white males have at one point in their lives, experienced yellow fever...White men love asian women so much that they will go to extremes such as stating that Sandra Oh is sexy, teaching English in Asia, playing in a coed volleyball league, or attending institutions such as UBC or UCLA.

No Frozen Chosen

Best quote I've heard yet about the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire and the first openly gay man to hold such a position in TEC:

I admire Gene Robinson greatly. He exudes his faith, not with the arrogance of the Professional Bishops, but with the serenity and confidence of a child. No frozen-chosen upper class episcopalian would have been nearly as effective as the First Honest Gay Bishop as a sharecropper's son with the cadence of Kentucky in his voice. --- commenter "IT" over at Fr. Jake's

(and the fact that Fr. Jake's "resident atheist" can see this, while so-called faithful Christians still spew the most incredibly foul things about Bp. Robinson, should give any Episcopalian pause)

Hillary, You're Done. Really.

I got a nice, big Clue Stick here, and it's got author/blogger John Scalzi's name on it next to "Made by..." Go read It’s Over, Hillary. Let it Go, right now.

Extra points for good use of LOLCatz.

Clue Stick! Apply directly to the forehead!

An Elegant Linux

Got all excited a week ago, as my favorite Linux distro, Ubuntu, had finally released their latest long-term support version - 8.04 "Hardy Heron." My enthusiasm quickly flew south when I found the Live CD wouldn't even boot on my bog-standard Dell E520 desktop (a model that Dell itself sells with Ubuntu preinstalled). Further reading on the Ubuntu support forums revealed numerous complaints about not booting, poor performance, etc... Very disappointing.

So I turned to an Ubuntu derivative from a group of primarily European developers named Linux Mint that I'd previously experimented with on my laptop. The latest Linux Mint is based off of Ubuntu 7.10 and installs & runs like a charm. The Linux Mint team has also done an absolutely smashing job with the interface design / configuration, choice of std. applications, and audio/video codec support. Beautiful, elegant, and it. Just. Works.

High recommended.

(Oh, and yes - I know I haven't posted in a while. Life was just extra busy in April :)