Rands In Repose: N.A.D.D.

OK, I've just learned I have a new disorder: NADD (Nerd Attention Deficiency Disorder. Details about this tragic-but-highly-entertaining condition can be found at Rands In Repose: N.A.D.D.
Compared to the poster, though, I have a relatively mild case. For example, at the moment I'm only:
1. Backing up my computer
2. Typing this blog post
3. Monitoring my work email
4. Monitoring whatever new stuff comes up on my Google Sidebar
5. Monitoring my personal email
6. Listening to Morning Edition on NPR

Wait... OK... maybe I do have a severe case. Oh, well... Let's hear it for drinking from the information firehose!

thingoid » Stumble your way around the web

I've found a new online time-waster (as if I needed another one): StumbleUpon. Rather than spend lots of time describing, I'll just point to an excellent description at thingoid:
thingoid » Stumble your way around the web

Thanks to StumbleUpon, I have created my own South Park character, found new ways to insult people in Latin... and found some useful reference sites. Let's hear it for serendipity!

Unseen. Unforgotten.

From the Birmingham (AL) News site, Unseen. Unforgotten:

In November 2004, [Alexander] Cohn went through an equipment closet at the newspaper in search of a lens and saw a cardboard box full of negatives marked, "Keep. Do Not Sell."

 

What had Cohn found?  5000 images documenting the Civil Rights Movement from 1950-1965, many of which had never been published.  The Birmingham News has put together a wonderful web site to showcase the photos: http://www.al.com/unseen/  If you ever needed evidence of a picture being worth a thousand words, you'll find that evidence here.

"The Framers and the Faithful" by Steven Waldman

"The Framers and the Faithful" is a lengthy essay by Steven Waldman, editor in chief of Beliefnet, published in the Washington Monthly. In it, Waldman argues that evangelical Christian leaders at the time of our nation's founding argued adamently in favor of separating church and state, in contrast to their spiritual descendents in the modern evangelical movement. Those early evangelicals were members of a minority movement persecuted by the established churches of their day. As such, they viewed a state-established church, along with any other government-supported religious activity, as a threat to their survival. They also saw state-sponsored religion as leading to the moral decay of both clergy and laity.

So, what has changed in the evangelical movement to cause such an about-face today? Waldman doesn't directly address that question. IMHO, the difference is simple: today's evangelicals have much more political power and social influence than their brethren of yesteryear, so any state-sponsored religious activity would likely be in line with their beliefs. What too many of us Christians forget, however, is that political winds change. Once government becomes excessively entangled with religion, it will be difficult to disentangle it when different political views predominate. In the long run, the separation of church and state is most important for protecting churches from excessive government influence rather than the other way around.

Need to update lots of blogs? Try Qumana

This is my first blog post written with Qumana, a free blog editor. According to the Qumana site (http://www.qumana.com), Qumana provides more sophisticated blog authoring tools than most blog sites. It also allows you to post the same content to multiple blogs. The software is available for Windows and Mac. I'll experiment with it over the next few weeks and (if I remember) post an update on how it works.

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Out of Context Quote of the Day

"It's good to see cannibalistic maniacs are taking culinary advice from Ozzy Osbourne."

To read the source of this wonderful sentence, check out the Chicago Tribune's review of The Hills Have Eyes: Metromix. Fast-Paised review: ‘The Hills Have Eyes'