As we left Lewisville to head back to Michigan on the morning of the 27th, we met our college buddy Jayson Rawley for breakfast at Cracker Barrel. We hadn't seen him in five years (except briefly at his wedding in June 2004)...since Peyton, Amy, and he came to visit us when we were vacationing on Emerald Isle.

Here are a couple photos from 2006:

Here are some photos from the Emerald Isle visit (2001):

Here is a photo from Thanksgiving 1992:

Via the Huffington Post, from an interview of Joel Hunter by David Roberts on grist.org:

Q: Some people might say the reason there's such enthusiasm around social issues like gay marriage and abortion and pornography is that people in the evangelical church are primarily called on to condemn other people. Once you bring in issues like poverty and global warming -- and more broadly, compassion for the least among you -- obligations turn on them. There's a little guilt. Is that too cynical?

A: Not at all. Let's develop this conversation at a little deeper level. In Foreign Affairs, Walter Mead talked about the difference between fundamentalists and evangelicals. We make these differentiations in our own family of believers.

Fundamentalists are always mad. They don't play well with others, and they feel tainted by any view other than the one they have. That is a pretty narrow segment, but a pretty attention-getting segment of Christianity. In terms of stereotype, that's what most people focus on when they see conservative Christianity.

By the way, I don't say fundamentalists in the pejorative sense. I believe there is a legitimate reaction to what we would see as declining moral integrity in culture.

But another reason it has been so popular is that anger is the greatest and most immediate way, not only to invoke a response and build an audience, but to raise money. We'll both be cynical here for a minute: One of the things fundamentalist churches have learned, have practiced, and continue to practice, is the best way to grow in influence and fundraising is to make people mad. And the best way to do that is to create an enemy. So from that standpoint you're right.

But from another standpoint, a much larger portion of the church really does want to be more like Jesus. And that wasn't Jesus. Jesus didn't spend his time walking around yelling at people. His concern was for the vulnerable. As I often say, unless we start to care as much for the vulnerable outside the womb as we care for the vulnerable inside the womb, we won't have a picture of who Jesus was. There's a growing number of people who want to emphasize this. They're just not the people with a lot of money, or time to be self-righteous -- there are millions of us.

On Sunday the 24th we left Tybee Island to drive to Lewisville, NC. Finn had been developing a nasty cough for several days, and it really started getting worse...coughing uncontrollably for long periods of time. We ended up stopping in Mocksville to go to the emergency room on the 24th, and then going again in Winston-Salem the night of the 25th. All of this stress helped make it one of our worst Christmases ever (surpassing the year Lisa got chicken pox). By the time we headed back to Michigan on the 27th, Finn was doing much better. Despite his illness, we still had a great time seeing our friends and family. Here are some photos:

On Thursday we went to see Charlotte's Web (2006,G) (Screen It! review). It was cute, and I was glad it stayed true to the familiar story. The familiar voices were also a nice touch, and some (like Steve Buscemi and John Cleese) really fit the characters well. I give it 4 out of 5.

Via Slate's Today's Blogs column, Matthew Hill (a correspondent for the BBC) recently made the disturbing report that:

Healthy new-born babies may have been killed in Ukraine to feed a flourishing international trade in stem cells, evidence obtained by the BBC suggests.

Ukraine has become the self-styled stem cell capital of the world.

There is a trade in stem cells from aborted foetuses, amid unproven claims they can help fight many diseases.

But now there are claims that stem cells are also being harvested from live babies.

On the afternoon of Saturday Dec 23rd, we toured Fort Pulaski. From Wikipedia:

Fort Pulaski National Monument is located between Savannah and Tybee Island, Georgia. It preserves Fort Pulaski, notable as the place where, during the American Civil War, in 1862, the Union Army successfully tested a rifled cannon. The success of the test rendered brick fortifications obsolete. The fort was also used as a prisoner-of-war camp. The National Monument includes most of Cockspur Island (containing the fort) and all of adjacent McQueens Island.

One of the highlights was the canon demonstration. Also, there were a few guys playing baseball with old-timey gear. From the National Park Service's web site for Fort Pulaski:

Members of the 48th New York Volunteers occupying Fort Pulaski played baseball to pass the time. One of the first photographs taken of the game of baseball was captured at Fort Pulaski in 1863.

Here are some photos:

Via Slate's Today's Papers column, a recent article of the same title in the Washington Post by Candace Rondeaux reports on individuals who volunteer to serve as witnesses of prisoner executions:

It's been 70 years since executions in the United States were open to the public. But in Virginia, there is always someone watching, turning what is for most people a distinctly private moment into a very public end. One of more than a dozen death penalty states that require ordinary citizens to witness executions, Virginia has enlisted hundreds of volunteers for the task.

They come from every corner and every quarter: A Richmond school bus driver, a South Hill bookkeeper, a Prince William County police officer, an Ashburn computer specialist, a Lynchburg brass works fabricator. All have visited the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt.

We arrived at the Birdwell's place on Tybee Island the evening of the 22nd. The next morning we went out on the beach. It was comfortable in short sleeves, but of course the water was cold. Regardless, the boys stripped down to their skivvies and waded in. Here are some photos and videos: