Jonathan's blog

Via Andrew Sullivan:

and via Phil Wilson:

Personally, I think this is great (video via Mark Elrod)...Harding U. students shaking their booties on stage with Robert Randolph & The Family Band, in violation of the school's ban on dancing. It's ridiculous to have concerts like this (funk/soul) on campus but then expect no one to dance. Reminds me of when James Lashlee and I danced on stage with Sonic Youth at the Cannery in Nashville in 1990. Lipscomb new nothing about it. It was our first mosh pit experience too. Also David Yow, lead singer for the opening band The Jesus Lizard, dropped trow on stage as was his custom.

From an article of the same title in USA Today by Emily Bazar:

At least a half-dozen states are considering broadening the death penalty, countering a national trend toward scaling back its use. Lawmakers have proposed legislation that would increase the range of crimes eligible for execution. In Texas and Tennessee, for example, legislators want to include certain child molesters who did not murder their victims. "The hope is that these monsters will see that Texas is serious about protecting children," says Rich Parsons, spokesman for Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. Dewhurst, a Republican, is working with state senators to draft legislation that would make repeat offenders subject to capital punishment in some cases. "If they understand they could face the ultimate punishment," they might "think twice," Parsons says.

Lawmakers or courts have temporarily halted all executions in 11 states in the past year, most of them over concerns that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment, says Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center, which he says takes no position on the death penalty but has been critical of how it is applied.

In my opinion, this is BAD news.

The other day I was creating the W2 forms for the folks employed by our church last year. One lady worked several weeks filling in as church secretary. I noticed that her wages for the year were exactly $666. I thought that was kinda funny.

A couple weeks ago I spent a week in Terneuzen, the Netherlands for work. There's not too much to Terneuzen. The weekends before and after were spent in more interesting cities in Belgium. I flew out of MBS on a Friday afternoon, connected in Detroit, then in Amsterdam, and then to a "City Hopper" from Amsterdam to Brussels, Belgium. It had been about seven years since I took an international flight. The entertainment has improved dramatically. There were audio/video-on-demand systems in every seat. I listed to some of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" and then watched three films: The Last Kiss, All the King's Men, and There's Something About Mary. More about those later. Europe had recently born the brunt of a major storm with very strong winds, so the landings in Amsterdam and Brussels were a bit rough. When you fly to Europe on Friday, you arrive Saturday morning. I took a bus about 30 miles from the Brussels airport to Antwerp for 8 euros. I was expecting it to drop me off at my hotel, but instead it dropped in the city center. I walked around a little bit and then took a taxi (maybe a mile) to the hotel for about 11 euros. I stayed at the Crowne Plaza. I know you're supposed to stay awake to adjust, but I was too tired and took a brief map. Then I took a bus back to the city center and walked around a bit before having pizza just off groen plaats (green square) and taking the bus back to my hotel. When I go to exotic locations like this, it's not for the food. As another example, after my senior year in high school I spent a couple weeks in France, England, Switzerland, and Italy with friends and teachers from school. Dinner was arranged for us every night, and we generally weren't too sure we would like it...so we ate lunch in Pizza Huts all over Europe to make sure we got at least one substantial meal each day. When I was in the city center on Saturday, I made a mental note of the time of the first mass on Sunday morning at the cathedral, planning to return the next morning for that. I overslept. I took a bus to the city center, hoping there would be other times of mass. There were. I had breakfast in McDonald's (for lame justification, see previous paragraph) and then attended the noon mass at the cathedral. It was in Dutch, so I didn't follow too much of it, though it was trivial to recognize Galatians 3:28 as it was read. It seemed to some kind of youth-themed service. Several kids were "baptized", several more made readings, and a big bunch of kids even sang a song. The Cathedral of Our Lady is a masterpiece of Gothic architecture. It's construction began in 1352 and was completed in 1520. It was destroyed by fire in 1533, was devastated by iconoclasts in the 16th century, was deconsecrated by anti-clerical revolutionaries in 1794, but gradually came back to life after the defeat of Napoleon. To attend worship in such a place on Sunday morning was something special.

Rudy, a colleague who lives near Antwerp met me on Sunday afternoon and gave me a walking tour of the city center. The art of Rubens is a major element of Antwerp.

Rudy dropped me off at the hotel after dinner and then picked me up early Monday morning to drive to Terneuzen.