It's Been Fun (Not Really)
After much consideration, I've decided that blogging is taking way too much of my time. I could be doing far more constructive things with my time than sitting here on a soapbox every few hours and uttering some incoherent statement on something that most of the world doesn't care about. Does that sound bitter? Well, it is. When I started blogging, I never hoped to become like InstaPundit or Andrew Sullivan, but I admit that I was hoping to at least get enough traffic to support Google AdWords on here. Instead, I've just wasted hours for nothing… absolutely nothing.
Farewell. It's been fun (not really). Hopefully the rest of you will wake up and see that you could be doing far more useful things too — like organizing your socks or picking lint off your sofa.
Update (2005.01.02 01:15 CST): Since this post will remain forever in the asisaid archive, I would note to anyone wondering to take a very close look at the date of the post if it doesn't make sense.
Shaw Nature Reserve
I've never been inside the Shaw Nature Reserve at Gray Summit before. With classes out for Spring break and no pressing deadlines on jobs for work, I took the day off and went there with my mother today. Obviously there isn't a lot of flowers blooming yet, but beautiful clumps of daffodils dotted the hills with all of their golden majesty. Spring beauty, a wild flower native to Missouri, was also sprouting up. All of this was set against one of the clearest, bluest skies in a long time. The sky is always noticeably clearer somewhere between Gray Summit and Sullivan, as you get out of the smog of the St. Louis region, but today was exceptionally beautiful. It was a nice day, and with my cell phone left back in St. Peters, no one could reach me. How delightful.
Apparently, a large area of bluebells should be in bloom by next week along a hiking trail down to the Meramec River and they apparently have lots of water lillies in the wet lands area to see during the summer, so it made sense to upgrade from a one day pass to a seasons pass. Hopefully I can schedule some time to see more of the spring flowers as they start to bloom. I gave my camera its first good workout of the year today, and Spring has barely sprung.
In other news, a head supervisor at Charter called this morning. I had been given his number yesterday and left a message for him prior to canceling Charter Digital Cable last night. When I informed him of the cancelation he asked if I would consider giving them one more chance to correct the problem. I said they could come tomorrow if they had a spot open, and he informed me they would clear a spot and even offered to give me a more specific time period rather than the standard four to five hour window that utility companies like so much.
I'm dubious that they can fix it, but when a company offers to bend over backwards in the attempt to fix something, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
Defense of the Academic Study
I've been promising my defense of the Academic or Critical Study of Religion for some time now. The good news is that I wrote the post I had been planning on this. The bad news is that I realized that I really needed (or at least wanted) to write more on the subject. Before I knew it, my one piece turned into the second part of a series and I am now working on part one. I may need to write several more parts too. There is just so much to say, and like the model defense of another subject which I reference at the beginning of part one, this looks destined to grow into a long “ink wasting” project (well, byte wasting in my case).
The question is whether I should write all of the parts before posting any of it or if I should go ahead and post what I already have done. Ah, decisions, decisions!
Update on Discontentment
Charter has another hour to come up with a reasonable solution for me. I'm irritated enough that I might call up SBC and see if they will work out a deal for me (they resell Dish, and I already have a Cingular phone, so I might be able to get everything through them). Then I could yank the Charter telephone service and internet as well. As a whole, Charter has been very good to me in the past, but selling a DVR that will not work right until May without warning me is not only dishonest, but also idiotic, since I don't see anyone agreeing to keep it. Also sending two completely useless subcontractors to install the system was very annoying.
Just to be clear, Charter offered me an amazing deal, so keeping the DISH does not benefit me financially. As I noted in the comments, I'd get all of the public service channels, a bunch of extended basic channels that only show up in DISH's top package, the digital HDTV broadcasts and all of the movie channels I don't need for the same price as the DISH America's Top 120 package. This is a really good deal, if it worked right, and makes Charter almost $40 cheaper per month than DISH if I actually wanted all of those features enough to buy them (I don't want them that bad, but I'll take them if I can get them for “free”). In May, like I said, Charter will begin “Simultrans” (“All Digital”) which will move digital cable customers to a 100% digital signal like the satellite customers have. Moreover, unlike satellite, cablecos will be offering CableCards, which means in a year or two, you will be able to buy a TiVo on your own and it will be able to tune digital cable — that's a lot nicer than been locked into the provider's set-top box.
Despite all of this, DISH Network has been very good at customer service over the past year and a half. They've also been fairly reasonable in price and their 100 hour DVR works very nicely — it may not have as nice of interface as the GNU/Linux-based Moxi box offered by Charter, but having 100 hours of storage is a treat. I've recorded hours of political events from C-SPAN, thanks to the huge capacity of the DVR. What I think I will do is try to talk DISH into giving me one of their new dual tuner DVR's (i.e. where you can record something while tuning in something else) and call it quits with Charter for now.
Sure, I won't get the local weather on the Weather Channel, I won't have the public service stations I wanted, I won't have all the movie channels I don't need, and won't have some other channels… but given that it is extremely unusual for me to watch an hour of TV on an average day (I average about a half hour or less unless their is something newsworthy enough to warrant watching CNN), it just isn't worth the hassle. The new Charter All Digital service will again make cable TV superior to satellites in so many ways, but keeping a sub-par system for month and a half interim isn't worth it.
The Winter of Our Discontent
It may be spring now, but you sure couldn't tell it using the new Moxi DVR box that Charter Communications installed today in the process of bringing me into their digital cable fold. It was not snowing outside, but it the Moxi was producing plenty of the white stuff on the TV. After dealing futilely with the installer/subcontractor (why do dish and cable companies always use idiotic subcontractors?), I called support, complained about the installer and proceeded in noting that the cable with or without the Moxi was snowy. They re-dispatched the installer, who called and said he could not make it back today but suggested we circumvent the Moxi box, which I promptly noted would not fix the problem (and for that matter, why pay for a DVR and then circumvent it — that's silly). The installer also noted that everything would have to be digital in time for the HDTV switchover in a year or two — so I'd only have to wait until then for everything to look fine. Yes, that sounds like a good solution!
So, I called Charter again and after finally reaching the point where I started to become a raving lunatic and threatened to throw their equipment out on the porch, they agreed to escalate the issue and get a real tech out today rather than making me wait around again. The tech came and said that they needed a line tech to come and boost the main cable box's amplifier. The line techs came later this evening and did just that, which fixes pure analog signals, but everything still looks horrible through the Moxi. As it turns out, these techs admitted that there is a known hardware problem, apparently with all Moxi boxes, that causes snow on all channels below 99 (i.e. almost everything interesting). There are two possible solutions: they will replace the boxes in the future and/or they will be going all digital on or before May 15, moving all of the channels to places above 99.
I have one final card to play, because I'm not inclined to keep a sub-par system for two months when Dish looks just fine: the one line tech gave me the name of one of the higher ups at Charter, who will, at the least discontinue the service for me. I'm hoping they might be willing to just waive the monthly fee until the problem is fixed in May, but I'm guessing that won't happen and if they won't do that, I shall just renew Dish for another month and forget about going to cable.
At any rate, I'm irritated that Charter did not disclose this problem prior to ordering the service (complete with a 1 year contract — although I have signed nothing and am suppose to have 30-days to opt out). Apparently, the sales people are suppose to disclose the issue, but did not. Lying will get you into someplace, but when it is so blatant, it doesn't last. Who in their right mind would keep a box that corrupts and deforms TV more than anything else? Dish may just prove to be the Richmond to Charter's Richard III.
Should I Apply to Become a Fool?
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
You scored as Verbal/Linguistic. You have highly developed auditory skills, enjoy reading and writing and telling stories, and are good at getting your point across. You learn best by saying and hearing words. People like you include poets, authors, speakers, attorneys, politicians, lecturers and teachers.
The Rogers Indicator of Multiple Intelligences created with QuizFarm.com |
Found via Christopher.
On Congregationalism and Presbyterianism
Ok, so over the last few days I've shown my criticisms of non-denominational churches and episcopal churches (defense of congregationalism, church polity overview). Now, in the interest of fairness, I shall deal with the problems of the remaining two which I am generally the most in favor of: congregationalism and presbyterianism.
Congregationalism
Congregationalism has a key advantage: by placing the power within the body of the church there is the least amount of likelihood that there will be undue elevation of the clergy at the expense of the priesthood of all believers. The independence of the churches, as I've attested to many times, also helps individual churches escape a denomination that has lost its way. The problem is that this leaves a bit of a mess too.
The loose knit nature of this system has allowed for the formation of the Unitarian-Universalists, the United Pentecostal Church and other pseudo-Christian groups. Since the denomination cannot force its member churches to follow its creed, the only hope when local churches become heretical is to part ways with them. If the denomination could have seized the churches from the rogue ministers, the Unitarian church could have been cut off before it ever fully formed, for example.
Moreover, the very system that insures that the individual members of the congregation aren't unduly lowered below the clergy also makes it hard for the clergy to serve as even the spiritual leaders of the congregation. For example, I have a dear friend who is a pastor. He has been ousted from multiple congregations for little or no reason; he's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet but for some reason people don't appreciate him. Besides arbitrary removals, this system of polity also makes church discipline very hard. One of the most spectacular theologians in the history of these United States found this out when he was ousted from his own congregation; Jonathan Edwards was asked to leave the church he pastored since he insisted on a personal conversion experience on the part of members (as opposed to being full church members simply because the family had been there for generations). Kevin noted the problems for clergy in congregational churches in the post that set in motion my present set of posts on the subject.
Finally, the congregational system, particularly in its most independent strains, leads to frequent schisms over lesser issues. The tendency to lean toward pure democracy (i.e. mob rule) seems to have a tendency to cause congregational churches to split quite frequently, forming many little churches that will someday split again.
Presbyterianism
Presbyterianism avoids a lot of these problems. Technically, the minister should be responsible to the presbytery, not the congregation. While that still means the clergy must answer to a body composed partially of lay members, it avoids the nasty situation wherein the pastor is essentially suppose to “lead” his or her bosses. Presbyterianism, however may in the view of some, elevate the clergy too high. By making the clergy part of the ruling body, the local minister may acquire a higher level of authority than the same would acquire under an episcopal system. This is what lead to the quote of John Milton I cited a few days ago, “the episcopal arts bud again.” Milton had been a staunch supporter of presbyterianism until it actually happened in Puritan England and he saw it didn't do what he expected; instead of a few bishops, he saw the entire clergy becoming bishop-like. As a whole though, I don't think this happens.
Moreover, because the churches aren't free to leave at will, yet decisions must filter through republican governmental bodies rather than individuals, it seems harder for these churches to move to hetrodoxy. The PCUSA, from what I've gathered, has tried to do a lot of the things that the UCC (congregational) Episcopal Church (obviously episcopal) and UMC (episcopal) are busying themselves doing, but it has been much more difficult to get a consensus to do so (I don't claim to be an expert on the PCUSA, so I could be wrong, but that's the impression I have received from several key decisions over the past few years). This again reminds me of our own federal governmental theory — the government may eventually ignore the constitution on an issue, but it takes a lot of work to do so on a large scale. Conversely, having tons of hierarchal committees can also create a bureaucratic mess that doesn't fix things that it should.
In other words, I see major flaws in each of the systems. It may be that churches in different situations will have the best results with different types of systems. For example, a network of churches established by missionaries and filled with brand new Christians would probably be best run by an episcopal-like system. Of course, any system run by fallen humans will have its problems, it is just a matter of trying to find the system that seems to rein in human tendencies to the best extent possible.
He is RISEN
Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went early, while it was still dark, to the tomb, and saw the stone taken away from the tomb. Therefore she ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have laid him!”
Therefore Peter and the other disciple went out, and they went toward the tomb. They both ran together. The other disciple outran Peter, and came to the tomb first. Stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths lying, yet he didn’t enter in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and entered into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying, and the cloth that had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself. So then the other disciple who came first to the tomb also entered in, and he saw and believed. For as yet they didn’t know the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. So the disciples went away again to their own homes.
But Mary was standing outside at the tomb weeping. So, as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb, and she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head, and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. They told her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”
She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have laid him.”
When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, and didn’t know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?”
She, supposing him to be the gardener, said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned and said to him, “Rhabbouni!” which is to say, “Teacher!” Jesus said to her, “Don’t touch me, for I haven’t yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brothers, and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”Were You There?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh!
Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Oh!
Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Were you there when they pierced him in the side?
Were you there when they pierced him in the side?
Oh!
Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they pierced him in the side?
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Oh!
Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
A Good Friday Meditation
A gave a meditation on “word four” of the seven last words of Christ tonight at church; they asked different lay people from around church to give 3-4 minute meditations on each of the words (really phrases) of Christ while on the cross. This was interesting, it was my first experience at the pulpit (I've given prayers a few times and I did a testimony long ago, from the lectern, but never “pulpit material”). I was somewhat nervous before, went into autopilot during the actual four minutes up there and felt completely drained afterwards — I can't recall four minutes being more draining. I'm use to public speaking, but this was different. I have to say I rather liked it, it felt good to give a little meditation on the wondrous love of God.
At any rate, for anyone interested, you can find the meditation on SCF; it's essentially based on the quotes I posted here this morning.
