Category: Asides

short lit­tle sound­bytes

Because I Like Quoting Myself

Here is the thought that has been my eschat­a­log­i­cal anchor for at least five years: we will be just as sur­prised by the details of the Sec­ond Com­ing as were the Phar­isees by the details of the First.

Grownup School

Ama­zon has a fea­ture called Grownup School that I was total­ly unaware of. It’s an awe­some idea–ask experts what books they think are best in their field and let the rest of us in on the secret. Found via Freako­nom­ics blog.

Crooked Mile Band

Walk­ing across White Plaza today I noticed that heavy-met­al cov­er band Crooked Mile was per­form­ing. They were quite tal­ent­ed. And they were extreme­ly loud. And they had no audi­ence. That’s why we don’t do big musi­cal out­reach­es on campus–Stanford stu­dents just don’t stop and lis­ten.

Are Missionaries Good Or Bad?

Col­lege stu­dents often hear mis­sion­ar­ies slan­dered in their class­es as evil cul­tur­al impe­ri­al­ists who take advan­tage of native peo­ples around the world. Trag­i­cal­ly, they rarely take the time to inves­ti­gate the evi­dence.

Always Check The Camera First

My wife thought this video of a con­fer­ence call gone awry was bet­ter than today’s pre­vi­ous posts. I think it reminds us all of the #1 rea­son we don’t actu­al­ly want video­phones no mat­ter how much we say we do. My pas­tor thinks I’m crazy for post­ing it.

The Goblet of Fire

Paula and I went to see Har­ry Pot­ter and the Gob­let of Fire last night.

Loved it. Eas­i­ly the best of the series so far. In fact, I think it was bet­ter than the book upon which it was based (and I NEVER think that about a movie).

College Ministry Under Heat

If you haven’t been fol­low­ing the sto­ry, there’s been a brouha­ha at the Air Force Acad­e­my over Chris­t­ian cadets act­ing like Chris­tians (going to meet­ings, talk­ing to their friends, etc). The always excel­lent GetRe­li­gion has a good arti­cle on it.

Too Cool

After los­ing his bid for a third term as pres­i­dent, Ted­dy Roo­sevelt led an expe­di­tion to explore and map the 1,000 mile long Riv­er of Doubt. Three men died on the journey–one from the riv­er and two from the actions of oth­ers on the team–there’s a book about it. The preach­er in me can’t help point­ing out that when you jour­ney down the riv­er of doubt it’s not the doubt itself that is most like­ly to kill your spir­i­tu­al health–it’s how you respond to it.