Preparing for a lifetime of crime?

When I hear the phrase “picking up change” I can’t help but think of the dance that bears that name.

When Laslo Mujzer of Florida hears the phrase he’ll forever think of the clink. Mr. Mujzer was arrested after lifting $0.42 from a mall fountain.

Police arrest man accused of taking 42 cents from mall fountain

According to the story, the “proceeds” from the fountain went to the local Habitat for Humanity chapter, so perhaps the overreaction was justified?

So now my “namesake”* will have a petty theft charge on his record for doing something that is a rite of passage for every child in America, treating the mall fountain as one’s personal ATM.

*Some people think my name is Laslo which is funny because I don’t look the least bit Hungarian

Ever since I can remember I’ve been a big fan of African wildlife. The love affair probably started with a book given to me at a very young age by my parents. The book was about the African Savannah and was chock full of pictures detailing the daily life and death struggle between predator and prey.

I perused through images of lions with bloodied muzzles feasting on zebra and antelope until the binding gave out.

Years later I’m still fascinated by big cats and their habits, for example check out this vid of lions taking down an elephant:

Recently however I came across something that might even top that. The star of this story is a leopard who decided that it’d be good exercise to take on a croc.

And he won…

Click on the link to see the sequence of pics from the confrontation. Also at the bottom of the story is a vid depicting a battle between a few lions, a herd of cape buffalo and a couple of crocs.

Yet another reminder that no matter what pipe dreams politicians (or Mr. Lennon) promise us, only God can (and will) bring about the renewal of all things, including His creation.

“I stab you in the face…” — Lewis the Unicorn

For the uninitiated, CIY is an acronym for Christ in Youth, our non-denomination’s (Restoration Movement) yearly summer youth conference. Starting this year the high school conference is now known as Move.

This year, our youth group went to the one held in Bolivar, Missouri on the campus of Southwest Baptist University.

This makes the second time I go to CIY, the first was in ‘05 at Lee College in Cleveland, Tennessee. Like last time, the conference featured some outstanding speakers and moving (no pun intended) worship sessions.

For what it is worth here are some thoughts from the last week:

• The morning speaker (Matt Reagan, youth pastor at Southeast Christian Church) took home top teaching honors and to think, we could have had him at GCC… guess it isn’t God’s Will. Any teacher that goes expositional without you realizing it is alright in my book. Then there’s the fact that he quoted Dr. Piper, twice.

• Insofar as the Bell family is concerned, all the speaking talent went to Rob and nary an ounce was left over for John (this in no way reflects on content) who bless his heart, drones circles around Ben Stein.

• When will CIY attendees learn that their just-for-CIY daring do (mohawk, shotgun, mullet et al) is not original, and will never be original because there are 1000s of Jimmy Jacks (thanks Michael) who already thought about being daring? Rock one of these and maybe you will be taken seriously,

• A talent show is about showcasing actual talent not playing a track (a Nickelback selection of all blasted things!) and singing over the lyrics.

• If you didn’t go it stinks because for the next few weeks you’ll feel left out when fellow students repeat phrases see the beginning of this post.

• Beginning to wonder if the conference should be renamed AIY (Apple in Youth).

• Don’t make ethnic jokes, some people (especially the “ethnic” ones) will not get it despite the inherently harmless humor therein. You tell me if the following is offensive, “Yeah us Mexicans learn to play soccer before we learn to walk.” You have a problem with that joke and guess what buddy? You have a problem with yourself.

• This conference did not seem to drip with emotionalism as the last one I attended did.

• I will pray that the decisions made are real and not responses solely to emotional manipulation.

• Kevin Greer is more than cool (for an “old” guy). Though “cool” is passe, I believe the current term is “crunk”.

• I was pleasantly surprised to see Knowing God by J.I. Packer on sale at the conference, then utterly floored that “The Cross Centered Life: Keeping the Gospel The Main Thing” by C.J. Mahaney was right next to it (I guess books by Reformed Theologians like to stick together at mostly Arminian gatherings?)

• The cafeteria food rocked compared with other cafeteria food, so long as you stayed away from the main course and waded in the safe waters of hamburgers and pizza.

• Driving a van full of high school girls was not the ordeal I expected it to be.

• It’s funny to go on a cavern tour where the tour guide spews out Uniformitarian concepts while the educational vid promotes creationism (When told that the cave formed as a result of the Flood, the guide replied with “I don’t know, I wasn’t there” but somehow she managed to be there however long ago the cave supposedly formed)

• Navy guys, indeed, make the best coffee

• It’s a small victory to know that I haven’t lost my touch at Egyptian Ratcrap played over an ice chest.

• V.C. is a universal language

• If our students were not tired of Acts before CIY, they’re probably now (though I hope not ‘cuz we’re finishing this thing out).

• The reality of God’s Grace was driven home in a vast variety of ways, that’s all I have to say about that…

• I wonder if reaching your target audience is worth purposefully fudging Biblical facts or if God kind of frowns on that…

• Sex-trafficking is a big, big problem and not limited to places like Cambodia.

• I wonder if referring to Stephen’s sermon in Acts 7 as a “punk rock song” is a lame attempt at reaching teenagers

• The Toy Box Gang rocks the house to be sure, but I wonder if Lewis the Unicorn was funny to us all only because of his black “accent”?

• MLK’s observation that church is the most segregated hour in America was proved correct once again judging by CIY attendees.

• There’s nothing like taking 4 books with you and not only not finishing a single one but only reading a total of half a page combined. I forgot that, yeah, there will be no time to do that because one of the main points of CIY is to actually spend time with your students outside of CIY functions. Silly me…

• Back Fat, I was glad to make your acquaintance at Lambert’s.

• CIY did not change anybody, it will never change anybody because it cannot change anybody. Only God has the capability to do that, I hope the lives that were changed realize and understand that, otherwise the professed change is no change at all.

• Not everywhere in the U.S. do Mexicans mow lawns or lay bricks.

• Bible Bowl is interesting…

• Never thought I’d stay in a worse dorm room than the one I shared with Erik back in Jester. To be sure though, my suitemates definitely more than made up for the deficiency, it’s all about community right?

• I missed Greg Frazee and Jayson French

• There is nothing like going to a youth conference and witnessing your first drug deal (not by one of the attendees).

• No matter where you go, when you go, there is always that one guy whose sole purpose is to draw attention to himself. I hope I have never been that guy (I probably have) or that I will ever be that guy

• Oklahoma roads are almost as bad as Mexican roads.

• Had access to a computer but chose to only check my email and Facebook once (this blog zero times), and I did not die. Amazing that we can actually survive without constantly being plugged in…

• CIY small group lessons are written on the assumption that every student in attendance is there willingly and not forced to be there by his/her parents.

• Last but certainly not least, being away from your wife and toddler definitely sucks.

Some things I forgot:

• On the way up to Missouri, we passed Checotah, Oklahoma. That tiny town’s most famous export is of course the talented Carrie Underwood (below)
  Is there anyone who can resist the temptation of driving past Checotah without letting go of the steering wheel and belting (in my case rather badly), “Jesus take the Wheel” at the top of their lungs? Surely not I…

• As any of the girls can testify (or at least the ones that were awake) my knowledge of modern country acts amounts to a faith hill of beans.

WARNING: LEVITY FORTHCOMING

It has been said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but I’m not sure the following NOOMA parody is flattering to Rob Bell, the progenitor of the NOOMA series.

Well I suppose it depends on who you ask: fans of SNL or haters of SNL.

If you have seen a NOOMA, you’ll appreciate the Rob Bellian-nuances the impersonator so aptly pulls off. Frank Caliendo would be proud, you know he’d do a killer Rob.

Here is the classic, classic intro,

Oil. What does that word mean? I mean, we know it’s a substance but what does the word mean?

You know, it makes me think: about hospitality. Now the word “hospitality” comes from the Latin word hospes.

And when you think about that word it all comes back to one thing: Oil.

It only gets better (or worse depending on your affinity for SNL) after that, check it out:

A traveler is far away from home
He sheds his coat and quietly sinks into the back row
The weight of their judgemental glances
Tells him that his chances are better out on the road

Jesus payed much too high a price
For us to pick and choose who should come
And we are the body of Christ. — From “If We are the Body” by Casting Crowns

According to this story, “Priest disguises himself as a tramp to teach his own churchgoers a lesson.”

A Methodist minister in the UK dressed up as a homeless person (he “bought some scruffy clothes at a charity shop, ripped the trousers, and put on a straggly wig and thick, broken glasses” and “splashed lager” all over himself”) and stepped into his church and perhaps to no one’s surprise (given the comments at the bottom of the piece), none of his congregants recognized him, judgmental and condescending people that Christians are, especially the lot that attends church services.

At the risk of sounding like noted Christian toxicologists, there is much work to be done within the Church as to how we perceive people who look and smell differently. Given our penchant for the theology of “our Sunday best”, this flock’s reaction might be replayed in many an American (most definitely Mexican) church service (perhaps this drove the Casting Crowns lyric).

The perhaps pathological focus on dress and outward appearance is surprising to me, especially when the average churchgoer (who might or might not be a genuine Christian, remember attendance, even perfect attendance does not a Christian make) is completely oblivious to any serious understanding of doctrine and thus its application.

Never mind the frequent mention in Scripture of the relative unimportance of the external in the face of the internal in relation to worship of our Lord. We must be careful not to mistake cultural norms and/or conventions for Biblical expectation of those who have been purchased with the blood of Christ.

A foray down that path has the great potential to arrive at the gates of legalism and will lead to disdain for others (fellow Christians or not) who do not share the same norms in regards to outward appearance and/or presentation. All fueled by this desire to seat personal preference in the seat that rightfully belongs to God’s revealed will.

According to the story the minister’s motivation was to,

remind the congregation about a passage in the Bible when Jesus’ disciples failing to recognise him because of the way he was dressed.

Is he talking about the events on road to Emmaus as recorded in Luke 24:13-35? If so, I was not aware that Jesus’ threads were the reason they didn’t recognize Him, rather

they were kept from recognizing him. (Luke 24:16)

I’m guessing by God Himself not by Jesus’ clothes.

Recently, a Dallas county commissioner Kenneth Mayfield (melanin expression: low) used the term “black hole” to describe a bureaucracy in the county, to which another commissioner, John Wiley Price (melanin expression: higher), objected and corrected his esteemed colleague by saying that the bureaucracy was a “white hole”.

The presiding judge, Thomas Jones (melanin expression: higher) demanded an apology from Mayfield for his “racially insensitive analogy”. You can read the story here, Dallas County officials spar over ‘black hole’ comment

Now, most people know what a black hole is. One may form when a large star explodes and provided there’s enough mass, voila ! (correct me as deemed necessary).

It’s an astronomical term with no racial undertones, it appears that Mr. Wiley and Mr. Jones are not guilty of PC policing but of ignorance. I’m not sure which is worse, I’ll leave that to the peanut gallery.

For my part, I’m Mexican and vertically-challenged so can I roll with Wiley and Jones’ outrage when I hear the astronomical term, brown dwarf?

Now that I think about it, brown dwarf is pretty offensive. I’m suing astronomy, the corpses of Galileo, Kepler, Brahe, Copernicus, and Gene Roddenberry. Why stop there? We’ll go after NASA, JPL, the European Space Agency, Jill Tarter (the hegemonic and oppressive xenophobe who coined the phrase) and George Lucas (maybe I can recover the money I’ve spent on his Star Wars brand through the years).

Where’s Jackie Chiles when you need him?

Today is get-away Thursday for a lot of people myself included, so before skipping out for the weekend, here is a quote from Francis Schaeffer’s 1968 classic “The God Who Is There”, a book I’m currently reading and thoroughly enjoying. He is talking about evangelism (and not the evolutionary kind):

We must remember that the person to whom we are talking, however far from the Christian faith he may be, is an image-bearer of God. He has great value, and our communication to him must be in genuine love. Love is not an easy thing; it is not just an emotional urge but an attempt to move over and sit in the other person’s place and see how his problems look to him.

Love is a genuine concern for the individual. As Jesus Christ reminds us, we are to love that individual “as ourselves.” This is the place to begin. Therefore, to be engaged in personal “witness” as a duty or because our Christian circle exerts a social pressure on us is to miss the whole point. The reason we do it is that the person before us is an image-bearer of God, and he is an individual who is unique in the world.

This kind of communication is not cheap. To understand and speak to sincere but utterly confused twentieth-century people is costly. It is tiring; it will open you to temptations and pressures. Genuine love, in the last analysis, means a willingness to be entirely exposed to the person to whom we are talking.

Good stuff, ya’ll have a safe and happy 4th. I cannot think of better words to depart with than the words of the inimitable Brett Myers,

Boom… Outta here!

The legendary Swamp Thing finds himself on the run after fomenting rebellion amongst algae colonies off the coast of Qingdao, China.

According to this story from the BBC, “Algae invade China Olympic venue”, Qingdao is to host the sailing events for the upcoming Summer Olympics in China.

To get the venue ready in time a massive number of people (10,000) have been put to work in the clean-up of the more than 5,000 sq. miles of scum.

This from the article,

Coastal areas and lakes in China see frequent algae blooms, often caused by the discharge of nitrogen-rich chemical pollutants, sewage and fertilisers in the water.

Somewhere Captain Planet and Sharon Stone are laughing, and toasting to the success of fellow crusader, Swamp Thing.

[Wanted Poster created with this generator]

Tell this guy something he doesn’t know…

Came across this Wall Street Journal piece in yesterday’s Houston Chronicle,

The Greenest Show on Earth: Democrats Gear Up for Denver

Democrats are jumping through biodegradable hoops to make, in the words of Denver mayor John Hickenlooper, their upcoming convention, “the greenest convention in the history of the planet.”

Of course, no decent greening article would be complete without the reminder that indulgences are alive and kicking. To atone for their sins against Mother Gaia the DNC hired a “greening director” (not Kermit) who then hired,

…an Official Carbon Adviser, who will measure the greenhouse-gas emissions of every placard, every plane trip, every appetizer prepared and every coffee cup tossed. The Democrats hope to pay penance for those emissions by investing in renewable energy projects.

Fantastic. Greenguilt-free politicking what can beat that? Nothing, except maybe this post.

Or perhaps this from the Wall Street Journal piece,

Watching the greening frenzy from afar, Fred L. Smith Jr., president of the libertarian Washington think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute, suggested the Democrats could really shrink their footprint by staging a virtual-reality convention: “Just have everyone stay at home with their laptops, sitting in their pajamas, interacting through their avatars.”

Democrats…

Back in November of last year a Pasadena (Texas) man, Joe Horn, gunned down 2 men who were burglarizing his neighbor’s house. Given the ethnicity (Hispanic) of the 2 (now dead) burglars, much controversy and protesting followed. In fact the outrage followed Mr. Horn to his home, where people protested his actions (and perhaps his right to live).

Mr. Horn is either viewed as a hero or as just another example of a bloodthirsty white man unloading his cruelty (and racism, let us not forget that one!) on defenseless and unassuming minorities. For better or for worse these camps divide along ‘racial’ lines.

Yesterday, Mr. Horn was cleared of any wrongdoing, here’s the story from the Houston Chronicle,

Joe Horn cleared by grand jury in Pasadena shootings

Predictably, those who have demonized Mr. Horn for the past 7 months were none too happy about this (at least there were no riots, remember the Rodney King verdict?) and the Chronicle would have been remiss if they didn’t give us a great quote from someone in this camp,

Frank Ortiz, a member of the local League of United Latin American Citizens chapter, said he hopes federal authorities investigate the case further.

“That’s amazing that they would no-bill him with so much evidence against him,” Ortiz said. “It’s amazing to me that anyone with a Hispanic surname cannot get justice. This was no more than a vigilante.”

No, Mr. Ortiz, I’ll tell you what is amazing: that your emotional and ill-considered choice of words actually proved true in retrospect.

This last Saturday, Boston Red Sox slugger Manny Ramirez, whose team was in town to face the ‘Stros, shoved the team’s traveling secretary for not providing him with sixteen game tickets on short notice.

How did the Red Sox discipline Manny? By doing nothing, in other words by not carrying out what is just and fair to the norms of common decency (though he did apologize).

At last check Ramirez is an “Hispanic surname” and Man-Ram didn’t get justice since he was let off the hook by the team. Somehow I don’t think this is what Frank Ortiz had in mind…