The big news in Christian popular culture today is that Anne Rice, the bestselling vampire author who announced her conversion to Christianity a couple years back, has unconverted.

The 68-year-old author wrote Wednesday on her Facebook page that she refuses to be "anti-gay ... anti-feminist," and "anti-artificial birth control."

She adds that "In the name of ... Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen."

Oh, dang. I thought I have posted more recently then this.

Well, I'm in San Antonio! Coulter is here with us as well, so we are having fun.

I just wanted to talk a little (or show... maybe) about what I learned at camp and such. It may all be irrelevant and scrambled, but I mainly wanted to put a few verses down.

Exodus 34: 5
"The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD."
God comes to meet us, or rather, He is already there and His life proclaims glory to Him.

1 John 3:6
"No one who abides in Him keeps on sinning"
pretty heavy stuff

John 12:20
"Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit."
Talking about both Jesus and us. He died so we could have life. And we die so He can live through us.
He is the only good in us. And, unless we die, we'll always be who we've always been.

John 12:35
"Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you."
Be faithful to what God has already given to us and spoken to us!

2 Thessalonians 3:5
"May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ."

It isn't much, and I still know nothing, but it was just something I wanted to share- rather then try to stumble through what I know.

Flickr For Blogs & Social Media Stuff

I know that some of you are coming to OpenCa.mp to see me speak — but if you are a blogger or into social media, I highly recommend you come see Scott Kublin talk (see Scott’s session here). Just trust me on this one.

Speaking of blogging, driving traffic, and all that sort of stuff, I point you to this article on ReadWriteWeb called “Analysis: What are the Web’s Top Sources of Referral Traffic?” There is a nice mention of StuckInCustoms.com there and about how much traffic we get from Flickr alone.

FlipBoard is cool!

This is the coolest way to follow Twitter (@TreyRatcliff) and Facebook! It’s called FlipBoard for the iPad, and I have been using it quite a bit. It’s great! Basically, it is a clever way to see what is happening in Twitter in a magazine format. Whenever anyone posts a link, FlipBoard gives you a nice preview of the whole story.

I have created many Twitter Lists of good people to follow for various categories — artists, scientists, funny people, the Stuck In Customs community, and more!

Here are some photos of one of my lists called “Trey Ratcliff Curated Art” so you can see what it looks like.  There are all kinds of great sources on there like Abduzeedo, who is giving away an eBook, btw.  It very smartly builds a dynamic page based on what people put on the list!

Daily Photo – River to the Maelstrom

To honor ReadWriteWeb and its founder, the great Richard MacManus, I decided to post a new photo from his homeland of New Zealand today.

On the way to Milford Sound, there are a variety of little rivers that twist and turn into the mountains. I didn’t have nearly enough time, but I did a small amount of hiking to find some good compositions. I WILL have enough time, when I go back later in November or so of this year. Maybe I’ll spend a month or so this time, so I can really get out and do some serious hiking.

Even though I like to leave a little mystery in my photos (like that unusual maelstrom around the bend), I don’t like to have these mysteries in real life. I had to hike that direction to see what was there! And what was there? Hmm… maybe we’ll save that for a future shot!

To journey for the sake of saving our own lives is little by little to cease to live in any sense that really matters, even to ourselves, because it is only by journeying for the world’s sake – even when the world bores and sickens and scares you half to death – that little by little we start to come alive.

– The Sacred Journey, by Frederick Beuchner

Before Rainbow Dull I had a short lived blog on which I posted only a handful of times. This was about ten years ago, when blogging was just getting going. A couple of old college friends had emailed me links and invitations to their own blogs, so I read several entries and decided it might be something I could do – maybe a way to take all my daydreams and turn them into actual words.

I’d been obsessed with an Annie Lennox song in college, so I lifted a line from it and The Cultures of My Head was born. I showed it to my husband and he seemed to think it was cool. He can be a little vague in his encouragement though, and I didn’t realize he never cottoned on to my illusion. About six months later, I shared the site with a good friend, who was a huge Annie fan and when I told her about the title, she pointed out that the line actually said “contents” and not “cultures.” We had a good laugh about it though I was rather embarrassed, but in my defense, I was thinking about the people kind of culture, and not the science experiment kind.

I only remember a couple of entries from that initial blogging attempt. The first is about some long lost friends from junior high and was inspired by a viewing of Stand By Me. It’s pretty passionate, but it lacks structure and assumes too often that the reader already knows what’s in my head.

The other post I remember well was the late night letter kind. It was written to the picture in my head of a little girl that I never got to meet, the miscarried product of my second pregnancy. I began writing it a year and a couple of months after the miscarriage, but I didn’t finish until ten more months had passed and ended up posting it on the two year anniversary of that loss. The post was a way of finally saying goodbye and letting go so I could move on and take care of the four year old boy we already had as well as the baby girl I’d gotten pregnant with a month after that miscarriage.

Two years later, we moved to Tennessee. Our kids, Sam and Laney, were seven and three by then. We’d sold our house in Maryland, paid off all our debt and moved in with my in-laws because we didn’thave jobs yet, and my husband John was thinking of returning to school for a master’s degree. It was there in my in-laws’ basement that I decided it was time to get serious about my writing.

So I returned to blogging and came up with the name Rainbow Dull. I remembered that old doll, Rainbow Brite, I’d had when I was a kid and how her very essence was cheerfulness. I’d also been taking an antidepressant (for the first time) for about five months and was beginning to feel positive enough about my melancholic personality to try and make a joke about it. But like all good jokes, there was some truth behind this one. You see I wasn’t just popping happy pills, I’d also been to see a therapist (my second one) and together we had identified a few depressed episodes before this latest one. We talked about what depression meant for me – there are actually different kinds – and how I wanted to begin fighting it. Somewhere inside I knew that this tendency to analyze and get lost in the details was not simply how I “got stuck,” but could also be my way out. Once I got the analysis out of my head and all the details onto paper, I could examine it better – maybe even find joy and color, life on the underside of those clouds.

I was also quite ready, after twenty-nine years of crying on the inside, to tell the world that being a Christian did NOT mean peaches-n-cream, roses and sunshine, all the time! My childhood in the preacher family fishbowl had taught me to paint on smiles and stuff away sadness. The hellfire evangelical tradition I’d been brought up in made me feel responsible for the salvation of the entire world. And if one member of that world saw me with any sort of doubt or less than one hundred percent perfection, he or she wouldn’t want what I had and would remain lost and damned. It had always been up to us to convince everyone that having Jesus makes you happy. It was a lie much, much older than me, but I had learned the truth the hard way and was more than ready to share my discovery.

When I first began to write, I hoped to come up with a collection of stories about growing up in a nomadic preacher’s home: how our family got through the tough times, how we moved nearly every two years, how we all dealt with bitterness toward the church without ever losing our faith. I hoped it could be, in some way, the church girl’s version of Traveling Mercies, with a lot less cursing. But when I actually sat down to type I ended up writing whatever was on my mind at the time; I didn’t have a real plan or outline of which stories I should be trying to tell.

I wrote when my son was at school and my daughter was napping, or after they’d gone to bed at night and my husband was job hunting. And one day I looked at our Narnia movie themed calendar and saw that the month of May had a picture of the White Witch: baring her teeth, sword and cold, pale arms. I’d been dreading the month anyhow because I knew the nineteenth would come and I would be forced to remember what I thought was the worst day of my life, but when I saw the picture I knew I had to write about it. So I found another picture, one I’d kept of myself, from Mother’s Day the year before. I posted them both and explained how it felt like the witch in the first picture had come for the girl in the second, how it felt like she was coming once again and the best way I knew to fight her off was to tell the story myself.

So I made myself remember what had started the bleak episode I was coming out of, another miscarriage. I forced myself into the sad memories, and I couldn’t help but compare this one with the first. My experiences had been exact opposites. The first miscarriage seemed so completely in my head that I sometimes wondered if it happened at all. The second one was so physical that I still had photographic evidence. So the theme I decided to explore was senses. My plan was to devote five posts, the week leading up to the nineteenth, to each of the five senses.

I never made it to smell and taste, as the grief work turned out to be too big a plate for just one meal, but the essays I wrote exploring the other three senses have long been some of my favorite posts, and I occasionally try to come up with ideas for the final two. If I ever came up with any, I wonder if I could pull them all together someday, either in a book solely about grief, or maybe as a chapter in the memoir I still daydream about.

Writing time is scarce these days with three kids, (we got pregnant again the month after I wrote those memorial essays) ages 11, 7, and 3. But I know I’m still supposed to do it, and I’ve come to see over the years how writing helps me puzzle out the pieces of my life until they make a picture I can see. In some ways writing is my new form of therapy, although I would not say it has completely replaced it – I’m wary of claiming any kind of cure as there are many days when a listening ear is still the best medicine.

Lately I’ve been questioning the justification of my blog, thinking perhaps it’s time to shut her down in favor of a more long term, less instant gratification type of project. I’m not sure what I will do yet, and I’m not really asking for an answer here. Rather I simply wanted to share what I have learned over the past few months of thinking about my writing and my life: certain themes have emerged. Kind of like when you pick what you thought was a unique name for your kid, then suddenly you meet twelve people with the same exact name. Is it simply that our awareness is heightened by our own experience, or is God actually lining these things up toward some greater purpose?

Depression, loss and grief are the subjects I keep returning to again and again in my writing. There are days I want to run from those topics, as any sane person probably would. I worry that people are tired of hearing such morose ponderings. But then I hear of yet another woman dealing with the loss of a child, or I find myself in the middle of another conversation about loneliness and depression. Even when I concentrate all my efforts to write something a little more palatable and sweet, I inevitably end up with dark and savory.

I hesitate to label myself or cast some grand mission on my life, but I cannot deny that life’s questions pulled me into a search for answers, and wrestling with them has become a near daily task. Blogging helps me mark the miles, for now. When I look back at the flags I’ve planted, I see a lot of the same color and can’t help but wonder if all of our Sacred Journeys are being shaded just so? Some green and lively, others muted and grey. Each playing the light off another, accenting hues in a band that spans the horizon, ‘til all is beautiful and bright.

Hulu is offering the documentary, "For All Mankind," a film about the 24 men who have gone to the moon in their own words and images.

And for something completely different, this movie is a Japanese staged King Lear. I wonder when I'll have time for these.

Novelist Andrew Klavan, about whose work you may have read from time to time in this space, reports at City Journal that his French publisher has backed out of a deal to publish a translation of his novel Empire of Lies.

The book's French cancellation is, I realize, a rather small cultural event. Yet it gives specific color to the recent revelations on the Daily Caller website that left-wing journalists conspired to suppress scandals that might harm Barack Obama and to the brouhaha over Breitbart's online release of a video that resulted in a government worker's momentarily losing her job. In both stories, one thing leaps out at me: everywhere, the Left favors fewer voices and less information, and conservatives favor more. Everywhere, the Left seeks to disappear its opposition, whereas the Right is willing to meet them head-on.

U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh dismissed Ward's lawsuit against Eastern Michigan University. She was removed from the school's counseling program last year because she refused to counsel homosexual clients.

Rabbit Room favorite Melanie Penn wrote these kind, necessary words on her blog recently and let us re-post them here. Melanie’s album Wake Up Love (produced by Ben Shive) is available in the store, and we’re certain you’ll love it. –The Proprietor

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I’ve been thinking about words. I’ve heard that the two questions below are good ones to ask before saying anything. In life-in-general, I agree. If I were to ask these two questions before speaking I’d probably spare myself a lot of conflict and a lot of gossipy nothingness that I tend to regret.

But what about as an artist? What about the artist’s life-in-general? Some would argue that art isn’t necessary (they’re wrong) and some would argue that art can be unkind (it can be). A dear friend recently stumbled upon something written about him on the internet. It was hurtful and scathing and a little bit true. It was a result of a lot of mistakes. It was a laundry list of complaints written in the name of “art.”

Talking with him about it made me wonder about songs and the lyrics to songs. What makes a lyric art? And what makes a lyric little more than a venting of personal frustrations and feelings? I can’t help but think that every word–no matter the setting–should be justified and weighed to see if it will do damage. I can’t help but think that artists have a unique call to be careful with words. Is each one necessary? Is each one kind?

"Floyd R. Turbo" at Threedonia blog reviews West Oversea, in flattering terms.

World's Anthony Bradley describes his motive for teaching a class of boys the fundamentals of the faith.

A ninth-grade history teacher and I decided to create a "Men's Bible Study" for our students because we noticed that the feminization of church was churning out a generation of "nice guys" who were not capable of leading, had no sense of why God created them to be men—other than have a family and a nice job—and were oddly passive. The ninth-grade boys would walk the halls with heads bowed and shoulders slouched as if they were carrying 80-pound weights in each hand as their bodies were carried along by an airport terminal moving sidewalk.

David Mamet, "America's most famous and successful playwright," has rejected the political liberalism of his past, perhaps in an effort to avoid unpleasant New York cocktail parties. In the current Commentary magazine, Terry Teachout describes the playwright's conversion as revealed in print.

Earlier today I stumbled across this article, which got me thinking about if/why/how I have been loving my city. I'll be honest, when I first moved to Dallas, I hated it... mostly because it wasn't Houston. But now that I'm going on two years in the Big D, I can honestly say I've grown rather fond of it... all the way down to the inconsiderate drivers, ridiculously hard to navigate highways and big hair (and trust me, just cause it ain't the 80s doesn't mean there isn't some big hair here). One of the most important lessons I've learned since being here is to find contentment and joy in all circumstances and seasons of life. Though I still mourn the loss of good Tex-Mex and being in close proximity to family/friends, I have found that the Lord is faithful to provide in all areas (literally and figuratively). I've grown to really appreciate His plans for my life, and I've learned that regardless of where I am, I am called to love my neighbors, my city, my church and my God. After all, Psalm 24:1 says that "the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein"!

So without further ado, here are some of the things I love most about Dallas:

1. My church. I know I probably drone on and on about it a lot, but I really do love my church. I can't wait to join a multi-gen homegroup in the fall so I can plug in with some non-DBU Village goers!

2. Cafe Brazil. My restaurant of choice simply because it's a DFW staple. It's a little trendy/eccentric, but I'm in college... isn't that what it's all about?!

3. The people. I've met some great people since moving here, and I know that if it wasn't for the Big D, our paths might never have crossed.

4. My school/job. Sometimes loving these two has to be a conscious choice, but they have provided me with some great opportunities and I have learned a TON of stuff since being here.

5. More seasons! I know I'm still not fully experiencing all four seasons, but since being in Dallas I've seen acres of red/orange/yellow trees in the fall, my first snow (like legit, "snow up to my knees" snow!) in the winter, tons of blooming flowers and green trees in the springtime (DBU basically puts 85% of our total revenue into our landscaping department), and of course the typical Texas summers...

6. Two words: STATE FAIR. I know gluttony is a sin, but there is something so right about fried PB&J.

7. Location, location, location. It has all the comforts of the big city, suburbs, country and ghetto all within a 30-45 minute drive!


And since seven is the number of completion, I'll leave it at that! At the end of the day, Dallas is a lot easier to love than I originally thought it would be. In fact, I'd completely understand if you wanted to move here after reading my super convincing list ;)

In 1957, the year I was born, Ed Sullivan had Elvis on his show for the third time, showed him only from the waist up, and said: “This is a real decent, fine boy. We’ve never had a pleasanter experience on our show with a big name than we’ve had with you. You’re thoroughly all right.”

Published in 1957:
The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss.
On the Road by Jack Kerouac.
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak.
On the Beach by Nevil Shute.
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.
If Death Ever Slept by Rex Stout.
Through Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliot

Movies released in 1957:
Loving You with Elvis Presley.
Jailhouse Rock with Elvis Presley.
The Bridge on the River Kwai with Alec Guinness, which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

On the actual day of my birth an earthquake shook Mexico City and Acapulco. But I doubt if my mom noticed it way out in West Texas.

Also born on July 28th (not 1957): Beatrix Potter, Gerard Manley Hopkins

Last year I wrote a list of lists and a bit of a meditation on the number 52. 52 is an interesting number with lots of associations. It’s a good number for lists, and I used it this year a few times to confine and order my thoughts in certain areas:

52 Ways to Celebrate Independence Day
52 Things That Fascinate Me
Summer Reading: 52 Picks for the Hols

I have several other lists of 52 in the works. I think I’ll stick with 52 (and 12) for lists; it just feels right.

53 is more solitary. It’s prime. In fact, it’s an Eisenstein prime. Whatever that means. And 53 is a self number. 53 is obviously not a number for links and lists and affiliations and organization. 53 is independent and somewhat isolated. It’s unique.

For this year, I’ll enjoy being 53, somewhat solitary, odd, and eccentric. Perhaps I’ll even be reclusive at times, as much as one can be reclusive in a family of ten people. I enjoy alone and different and distinctive and slightly idiosyncratic. 53 is the number of countries in Africa, so I’ll continue to work on my African reading project. But 53 isn’t the number for much else. It stands alone.

But at the same time, I still get to be 52. I still get to make lists and connections and relationships. Life, like numbers, has a rhythm. Pull back and enjoy your individual times of 53-ness, and then be 52 or 12 or whatever age the Lord has given you to be and fill the year with people and books and written words and encouragement and the messiness and joy of relationships.

That’s how I plan to celebrate this next year of becoming what God has for me.

And I might memorize Isaiah 53, a very 53-ish passage of scripture:

Molly Ann goes in for her 15-month well check today. She turns 16 months on Friday. So we’re a little late, but that’s OK.

My main question is what does she weigh? She’s a solid little girl who loves her food, so I’m guessing over 30 lbs, but by how much? Beau is taking her this afternoon - I’m sad not to go, but I can’t take the time off of work.

In other Molly news:

1. She’s super cute. I mean, come on, look at that picture.

2. She’s super sweet. She loves to cuddle and be held. Sometimes that’s tough when we’re trying to do stuff, but generally we like it. She shares pretty well with Jesse so far. She headbutts the cat. When I leave for work, she blows kisses without using her hand. When I ask for a kiss she’ll lean her forehead in to receive a kiss from me.

3. She’s easy going. It must be the younger sibling thing. Although there are times when she gets aggravated by her brother, for the most part she goes along and gets along.

4. She walks with purpose. She doesn’t so much walk, really, as stomp. Each step is very deliberately placed and it’s not a stability thing. She plenty competent at the walking.

5. She eats pretty much anything we put in front of her. So far. That said, when she’s done eating there is no doubt about it - we get a firm wave off and often food goes flying off of her tray, too.

6. She’s trying to talk. If I listen closely, I can hear that her gibberish is starting to break up into segments, like words, but still undecipherable as actual words.

There’s so much more I could say about my Molly Ann. I love her to pieces and I’m grateful that God blessed us with her.

Jesse watched the Spider-Man DVD a few times yesterday. When I called in the afternoon to check in with Beau, I talked to Jesse and he was very excited about it. My own opinion of this particular DVD is that it’s not quite appropriate for a pre-schooler (it was probably made for Cartoon Network and is dated 2008). We’ll keep it for another day or two, until the latest DVD arrives in the mail.

I sent back the as yet unwatched The Young Victoria (I’ll re-rent it from Redbox later) in order to get one of the Super Friends DVDs that I mentioned yesterday. Once that arrives, I’ll send back Spidey for a much older cartoon version (there’s a series from 1967) that I’m hoping will be better suited for younger kids.

In any case, the boy is happy and there were no nightmares and that’s what matters.

Topaz with Photoshop CS5

I am still using Topaz Adjust quite a bit to do some final sharpening on my images. Topaz Adjust 4 does work on Photoshop CS5 now, but it still feels a little slow. Actually, I find Topaz Adjust 3 is faster. What is your experience with it?

They tell me (when I complained) that the algorithm is exactly the same. This is probably true, but it does launch a new UI in a new window. The process of launching that new window seems to take a while longer than before. I’m on a Mac… maybe it’s just a Mac problem… but wondering if I am alone with this!

If you want to see other images from Topaz, see my Topaz Adjust Review here on the site… I try to pop new images in there from time to time.

Daily Photo – Horses on an Evening Meadow

Every night before sunset, the horses would be let out of the corral for a bit of “personal” time.  They spent almost no time at all on the Internet, and, instead, just meandered around this grassy meadow at the ranch.

The grass looks nice eh?  And there was no lawn-mowing necessary.  All you need is a bunch of beautiful and hungry horses, and your lawn can look just like this.  Don’t worry about your neighbors.  You don’t like them that much, anyway, do you?  No, of course not, all your real friends (like me) are on the Internet.

This evening turned out really well.  After spending some time taking photos, I went into the lodge to have a wonderful dinner before going into the great room.  There, one of my friends named Annie sang some opera while we enjoy apres-dinner espressos.  It was really great.  It’s the second time I have heard her sing, and it was just as good the second time around.  Should I put her last name here?  I don’t know… let me ask her first to see if she is too shy!

My wife's grandmother has long been a model for me. Actually, this lady had many qualities to admire, but there is one in particular that was a stand-out: the woman never complained. She liked everything.

Take her to any restaurant, serve her anything, and she'd like it. Take her to a play, a concert or a church service and she'd like it all. But more than just liking it, she really enjoyed it, whatever it was. She liked anything and everything. She was happy with whatever she had or experienced. It was amazing.

I remember taking her to the Praisefest sponsored by area churches held here annually in our community to benefit the local Food Pantry. There has always been a great deal of variety: loud songs and quiet songs; rock and southern gospel; pianos, drums and everything in between. She liked it all. I loved watching her smile and genuinely enjoy every person and every song.

Ever since I realized this about her, I've watched to see how she responds to things. I still to this day don't know what she ever disliked. (I'm sure there had to be something but I could never figure out what it was.) Every chance I got, about anything and everything I'd ask, "How was it, Grandma?," not because I didn't know the answer, but because I loved hearing it. "Good," she'd say every time with genuine smile. "I really liked it."

There are plenty of complainers in the world, but not enough of us are like her. She seemed to me to be a happier person because she liked everything. I don't know if she had to work at it, but it seemed to come naturally to her. I want to be like that. I want to be the sort of person that likes everything and everybody. The world doesn't need any more grumps. (I hope I'm like her when I'm an old man. I want to be the happy old man everyone likes to be around, not the grumpy kind. And you all know exactly what I'm talking about.)

I think the key in finding good in everything is being content with whatever you are given. "But godliness with contentment is great gain" (I Timothy 6:6).

"Be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.'" (Hebrews 13:5) When we trust God we are better able to appreciate everything as a gift from him.

The dear lady I'm talking about went home to be with Jesus yesterday. I will miss her a lot.

The Bible says, "Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe" (Philippians 2:14-15).

Evelyn shone brightly. May we all follow her example.

Top Five "As Seen on TV" Products I Want
1. Topsy Turvy (tomato plant)
2. Snuggie (duh)
3. The Perfect Brownie (seriously... how awesome is that?!)
4. ShamWOW (I still want to see one in action)
5. Kettle Popcorn Maker


I don't know if it's the genius of the commercials (well, when I say "genius" I mean totally ridiculous and hilarious) or the way these products keep you strangely intrigued; whatever it is, I LOVE infomercials/made for TV products! I can't say I've actually ever owned a made for TV product... but one day I will! I think it's so cool. The fact that different people get slightly annoyed at little inconveniences in life and then do something about it by making a product to remedy something very specific is awesome. Love it.

When referring to the blog, "Writing, Clear and Simple," do not cite rmjacobsen.squarespace.com, but writingclearandsimple.com instead. When referring to the blog's author, use "Roy Jacobsen the Magnificent" when quoting and "Roy Jacobsen the Beneficent" for all other references.

This is remarkable. At about the 15 minute mark, author Eric Metaxas talks about how focused the Nazis were on race. Their corrupt view of purity and polluted ideas about the Jews became woven into almost every German, Christian and non. Bonhoeffer among a few others argued against the Nazis racism in part because he had seen racial division in the United States.

Photobucket works for me tonight, so I can share some photos from Nordic Fest in Decorah, Iowa.

Here's an eager crowd learning all about Vikings from the Skjaldborg guys.


Here's the Vikings extracting much-needed sustenance from pork chops, the national cuisine of Iowa.


And here's my friend, under my own awning, showing off the mail shirt he's making.


The big thing that kept occupying my mind all weekend (and my friend got pretty sick of hearing about it too) was the fact that when I attended Luther College, which is also in Decorah, it was forty blankety-blank years ago. Forty years.

When I consider that fact, I'm not surprised by how much has changed. I'm amazed anything remains the same. The fact that some of the same buildings yet stand in Decorah, and that a few of them even serve the functions they did back in my time, seems somehow against nature. When I think that forty years have passed, I imagine that the very hills should have been brought low, and the river should have o'erflowed its banks and found a fresh course. Everybody should have flying cars, and we should all be taking our sustenance in tablet form.

Well, that last part did sort of come true. I do not lack for pills in my diet in this strange old world.

Listen to this song and meditate on the person of Jesus. May He create within us thankful hearts!

Listen, all you unborn children

And those yet to be born again:

A seed from the God of heaven

Was planted here on the world of men

He grew up only to be broken

He grew up only to be buried

"Hold on," I heard the prophets say

"Hold on, that's not the end..."



'Cause when the cross went up, and the curtain came down

A hush fell across the stage

When the stone was rolled back

All the angels came round

And the Earth stood up on his to feet to say,



"Crown Him love, crown Him alive and well

Crown Him God of our salvation

Crown Him lovely, crown Him Beautiful

He is God and we adore Him

We adore Him"



'Cause when the cross went up, and the curtain came down

A hush fell across the stage

When the stone was rolled back

All the angels came round



And the Earth stood up on his feet

Creation began to speak:

"Here comes Jesus, in a purple robe;

Here comes Jesus, like a lovely rose!

Here comes Jesus back from the dead,

Here comes Jesus holding out His hand."

sorry for lack of posting. i'd blame being out of town at camp all last week, but then i wouldn't be able to explain why i never posted before that!

here are some fun facts about me that i'm trying to pass as blog content:

-i realized in the last few weeks that i don't think i have missed HNW student camp since the early 90s when my family joined. that's almost 20 years of summer camp with the same church. yowza. it's been a fun ride!

-people (including myself) don't realize how many bajillion freckles are on my arms because they (my arms, not "people") are so hairy.

-because of said hairy arms, a guy in my freshman english class at cy creek called me "wolfenstein."

-my brother (who is 3 years my elder) and i graduated college on the exact same day. this is not a dig... he slowed down because he started a family. oh, and i graduated early because i'm a super genius. ha

-also, my brother predominantly pronounces my name "jurmee" rather than "jair-uh-mee." (this kind of is a dig but i'm not upset with him or asking/expecting him to change or anything!)

-i know how to say "party" in sign language.

-spaghetti "sandwiches" are probably one of my top 4 or 5 favorite foods.

-i accidentally partook of a carbonated beverage a few weeks ago for the first time in years. (i hate breaking streaks... and i hate carbonation)

John Nolte on Oliver Stone: "As long as your politics are in order, no 'Jewish domination of the media' comments can hurt you."

Ed Morrissey of Hot Air describes more of the coverage of the JournoList revelation, talking about the few reporters who stood up for honesty on occasion:

James Surowiecki offered a longer exposition on the same theme after Journolisters started debating whether the media should report on Fort Hood terrorist Nidal Hasan's ties to radical Islamist terrorists. When Luke Mitchell of Harper's argued that reporting on the ties would lead to something "alarmingly dangerous, such as the idea that there is a large conspiracy of Islamists at work in the United States," Surowiecki reminded Mitchell and others of the entire purpose of journalism, emphasis mine:

"I find it bizarre that anyone would argue that an accurate description of what happened is somehow pointless," Surowiecki said. "That is, that it's not useful to offer up an accurate picture of Hasan's actions because nothing obvious follows from it. We want, as much as possible, to have a clear picture of what's actually going on in the world. Describing Hasan as a violent Islamist terrorist is much closer to the truth than describing him as a disturbed individual."

One has to wonder why a journalist from Harper's — and other publications — would need that reminder, especially about terrorism.