Month: December 2006

Faultline USA has posted an idea whose time is now. 🙂

Nominate a Blogger for a Halo

The “Blogger’s Halo Award” WILL go to the blogger who has not only created a vital up-to-the minute blog with a sizable readership and dedication to excellence, but this blogger would have gone way beyond the call of duty by demonstrating a selfless commitment to help other bloggers solve their blogging problems.

As I commented on the post linked aboive, “For me, THE standout has been Diane, of Diane’s Stuff, Dead Guy on the Sidebar and just recently (Saturday, in fact Oops! Friday. :-)) The Trouble With Angels. Basil (Basil’s Blog) of the famed Basil’s Haloscan/Blogger Hack and other helpful goodies for bloggers on various platforms and Harvey of Bad Example have also been standout examples of those who have been exceptionally helpful to many folks.”

So, click on over to Faultline USA and submit your fav blogger “angel” for a halo.

And so it was done.

Well, two bloggers I enjoy a lot, Diane and Mel, have decided to overcome their recent blogging slowdown by joining forces in a new blog, The Trouble With Angels. I’ll not take Diane’s Stuff or I’m Just a Girl off my blogroll (cos they’re not disappearing, just not… gonna be all that active), but do pop over to The Trouble With Angels and drop Diane and Mel a line.

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Traveling to visit family and back over the Christmas weekend, we saw some solid evidence of the enstupiation of America. Exhibit #1: a billboard–a HUGE billboard with a correspondingly HUGE picture of the advertised product, a 72-oz steak. The evidence that Americans are becoming enstupiated almost beyone salvation? The disclaimer: “Steak not shown actual size.”

This is a continuation of yesterday’s partial posting of Chip Stam’s Worship Quote of the Week for this week. Visit Chip’s site for more Xmas*-related offerings.

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PHILIPPIANS 2:1-8 (NIV)
If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

HOLD FAST TO THE HUMILITY OF GOD (Augustine)
All that springs from the humility of this sublime moment [the birthday of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ] is grasped by the faith of Christians, while far from the comprehension of the godless; since God “has hidden these things from the wise and the prudent, and revealed them to the little ones” (Luke 10:21).

So let the humble hold fast to the humility of God, so that this wonderful support may, like a beast of burden, lighten the burden of their weakness, and they may arrive at the heights of God. As for the wise and prudent, they aim at the loftiness of God without believing in his humble lowliness; and so, by overstepping his humility and reaching his loftiness, they have remained, empty and weightless, inflated and elated, dangling, as it were, at a windy middle level between heaven and earth.

They are indeed wise and prudent, but in the affairs of this world, not of the one by whom the world was made. Because if they were possessed of the true wisdom, which is from God and is God, they world understand that it was possible for flesh to be taken on by God without his being changed into flesh; they would understand that he took to himself what he was not, while remaining what he was; and that he came to us in a man without ever departing from the Father; and that he continued to be what he is, while appearing to us as what we are; and that his divine power was confined in the body of an infant without being withdrawn from the whole mass of the universe.

—Augustine of Hippo (354-430), from a Christmas sermon preached in the year 396, as found in PROCLAIMING THE CHRISTMAS GOSPEL: ANCIENT SERMONS AND HYMNS FOR CONTEMPORARY INSPIRATION. Edited by John D. Witvliet and David Vroege. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004, page 30. ISBN 0-8010-6405-8

“O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.”

“Where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.”

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I’ll have something to say about humility, “meekness,” and blunt speech in days to come, so hold on, readers, cos we may be in for a very bumpy ride… 🙂

Trackposted to The Pink Flamingo, Perri Nelson’s Website, The Amboy Times, Dumb Ox News, and The HILL Chronicles, Pet’s Garden Blog, Rightwing Guy, 123 Beta, Woman Honor Thyself, Adam’s Blog, stikNstein… has no mercy, The Uncooperative Blogger ®, The World According to Carl, and Conservative Cat, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

* Continue reading “Still Celebrating Christmas at twc”

I suppose I could have titled this “Resolutions” but some of the 13 that follow are more properly labeled “revolutionary” :-).

During the coming year, I’d like to accomplish a few simple things:

1. See the top of my desk at the end of every day. (Right now, I can see a few small portions of it… *heh*)

2. Get a handle on my blog reading. I’m way behind and falling “behinder” as time progresses. RSS feeds help, but aren’t the complete answer. A speed-reading refresher? Maybe…

3. Become as competent with Linux as I have been for years with DOS. (Old dogs, new tricks and all that. Still, I do enjoy what I’ve picked up while building Linux-based routers/firewalls and such. Just want to develop a mastery, for fun.)

4. Take more time off from blogging for fun stuff like woodworking and songwriting– activities that have languished for a couple of years.

5. Consider shaving my beard. No, not a goal of actually shaving it, just of considering shaving it. 😉

6. In the same vein, consider whether I’d like to cut another clothing size or two. Right now, I can wear clothes from tha back of my closet that I’ve not been able to wear for years til now. If I drop another coupla sizes, I’ll have to buy new, and that might impact the funkiness of my wardrobe.

7. Get off the dime and rewire twc central: completely structured; ethernet, coax, telco, etc. It’s all drawn out, materials (save one 110 punchdown block) here, so what am I waiting for? Oh, right. Someone to kick my tail up into the attic to start snaking wiring… *sigh*

8. Build myself a “sonic canon” for use when the neighborhood barbarians cut loose again… OK, just slightly kidding. The linked canon won’t do for my purposes at all. I need something operating at 150 decibels, all right, but in the 8 Hz range… *heh*

9. Discover the root cause of contemporary faux liberalism… and stamp it out.

10. Take Diogenes’ lamp in hand and go forth searching for an honest politician. That should keep me wandering until my legs give out or Social Security fails (OK, so I won’t have to worry about my legs giving out).

11. Get some sleep.

12. Get more sleep.

13. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Tacked up at the Thursday Thirteen Hub and

Trackposted to Is It Just Me?, The Random Yak, The HILL Chronicles, High Desert Wanderer, and Conservative Cat, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

I have seen some rather bigotted commentary coming from the Left in the last couple of days concerning the upcoming execution of that barbarous, tyrannical murderer, Saddam Hussein, but the comments that most clearly indicate the Left’s slide into hypocrisy is the cry that capital punishment is barbarian.

Well, of course it is, but why is the Left suddenly turning on barbarians? Where are the much-vaunted multi-cultural values the Left so loudly espouses when it suits it? It is the highest of multi-cultural respect to treat a barbarian such as Saddam according to his own values, as nearly as we can.

Continue reading “In the spirit of multiculturalism…”

Continuing to celebrate Christmas here at twc with the Third Day of Christmas leading up to Twelfth Night (January 5th) and Epiphany (January 6th). Meanwhile, THIS is an open trackbacks post. Link to THIS post and track back. 🙂

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Now, on to the feature for today: segment one of this week’s Worship Quote of the Week from Chip Stam, “The Incarnation as the Humiliation of God.”

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JOHN 1:10-14 (NIV)
He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

THE HUMILITATION OF GOD (C. S. Lewis)

The Second Person in God, the Son, became human Himself: was born into the world as an actual man—a real man of a particular height, with hair of a particular color, speaking a particular language, weighing so many stone. The Eternal Being, who knows everything and who created the whole universe, became not only a man but (before that) a baby, and before that a fetus inside a Woman’s body. If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug or a crab.—C. S. Lewis, MERE CHRISTIANITY. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., p. 155.

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Part 2 of “WQOTW – The Incarnation as the Humiliation of God” tomorrow, as we continue to celebrate Christmas here at third world county.

We always choose at least one “simple fare” (completely non-taxing, mostly “fluffy” :-)) movie to watch as a family during the holidays–often more. This year, one we chose was Eragon, for several reasons (one of which was an elementary school librarian in the family and all that implies for the family reading list–good implications, I assure you :-)).

I have a much more prolix review I was considering posting, but this one catches most of its points succinctly, so I’ll just refer you there.

Not a definite miss. No solid hits. Not a yawner. Not a winner. Pretty pictures. A little more at the linked post.

Some folks “do” the “boxing day” thingie December 26. Not at twc central, though. The tree, lights, etc. will stay up until around New Years here–actually, more like through Epiphany (January 6). Things’ll be a bit laid back and lazy here this week, including the posting schedule. So, hand in your “assignments” to keep my reading schedule nice n full, ‘K? 🙂 Open trackbacks to THIS post. Just link to this post and track back.

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All-new, thanks to The Conservative Cat.

Yeh, I really cannot boil this post down to a title.

Lovely Daughter surprised me with not one but two Dean Koontz books as Christmas presents (making very good use of her discount at Borders, where she has a very part time job on top of her full time work). Now, if you understood the esteem in which I hold Koontz for his craftsmanship, then you’d know what utter pleasure her gifts have already brought me, not only for the reading of them but for the consideration she put into their selection.

(Be it known that my delight in Jackie Chan’s craftsmanship in a completely different line of artistic expression was noted and acted upon by Son & Heir. :-))

So, two purposes for this post, at least: thanks, kiddos, for the thoughtfulness of your gifts. And all y’all out there, if you have not tasted of Dean Koontz’s wordsmithery, latch onto some of his best, soon. This year, Lovely Daughter satisfied my desire to read more about Odd Thomas with Forever Odd and Brother Odd. Both are replete with not only the masterful characterization, plotting, descriptive narrative and dialog that are typical of Koontz’s work, but also his characteristic nuanced throwaway lines that enhance all the above. Just pick up your own copy(ies) starting with Odd Thomas and see what I mean. Oh, almost any book by Koontz would be a good read (I particularly like

Odd Thomas

Forever Odd: A Novel

Brother Odd (Odd Thomas Novels)

Trackposted to Pirate’s Cove, Perri Nelson’s Website, The Bullwinkle Blog, The HILL Chronicles, Wake Up America, Don Surber, Adam’s Blog, and Pursuing Holiness, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.