Politics

As recently featured on the Colbert Report, check out opensecrets.org

You can, for example, search by zip code to see who are the biggest campaign donors in your area.

These searches - 48640 and 48642 - tell me that the big wigs at Dow Chemical are Romney supporters.

This kind of thing doesn't usually bother me too much, but even I'm wondering if the smoking ban coming to Belmont, California, goes too far...off-balance in the tension between your right to make decisions for yourself and my right not to be harmed by your decisions.

From "Smoking ban looms for Belmont apartment dwellers" by Steve Rubenstein in the SF Chronicle:

Belmont apartment dwellers who like to light up in their homes have 14 months to kick the habit, work out a compromise with their nonsmoking neighbors or get out of town.

Under the city's new smoking ban, among the toughest in the nation, apartment residents whose secondhand smoke invades their neighbors' units will be subject to fines of as much as $1,000.

The measure, which the City Council enacted Tuesday on a 3-2 vote, bans smoking in multiunit dwellings as well as in parks, outdoor restaurants and other public places. The apartment provision takes effect around New Year's 2009, while lighting up elsewhere is banned as soon as the law officially takes effect in about a month.

Hardly a loophole exists for Belmont denizens hooked on the weed. For example, the new law allows an actor to smoke onstage during the performance of a play - but only if smoking is an "integral part of the story."

The city says the tenant smoking ban will be enforced only if neighbors complain. It's believed to be the first such law in the country.

A difficult question is how should a Christian engage her culture.  From opposite sides, Jim Wallis and James Dobson are two guys who are out there wielding power and influence to try to shape the course of political debate.  My distaste for Dobson is well documented.

Politics aside, for me personally it's a question I wonder about.  What's the best way for me to engage those around me...and the news about what Christianity means to most young people these days is also on my mind:

Majorities of young people in America describe modern-day Christianity as judgmental, hypocritical and anti-gay. What's more, many Christians don't even want to call themselves "Christian" because of the baggage that accompanies the label.

A new book based on research by the California-based research firm The Barna Group found that church attitudes about people in general and gays in particular are driving a negative image of the Christian faith among people ages 16-29.

When I listened to the following passage recently, it jumped out at me.  Paul's advice to the Thessalonians about engaging non-Christians is interesting and may be the same advice that we need today:

“11 Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, 12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.”

- 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

The Week magazine summarizes a section from GQ's interview with Colin Powell:

Colin Powell has come to believe that democracy is not for everyone, says Walter Isaacson in GQ. As secretary of state, it was part of Powell’s job to promote President Bush’s message of self-determination and representative government around the world. But in Middle Eastern capitals, he found that this idealistic vision didn’t have universal appeal. “When I dealt with the Arab world, the word ‘democracy’ frightened them,” Powell says. “A Saudi leader said to me, ‘Colin, please, give us a break. Do you really want to see Jeffersonian democracy in Saudi Arabia? Do you know what would happen? Fundamentalists would win, and there wouldn’t be any more elections.’” Powell heard the same thing in Egypt and in other Islamic nations. “They all were saying, ‘Take a look at our history and where we are. You can talk to us about reform, but don’t tell us to become Jeffersonian democracies tomorrow. It’s not possible.” In hindsight, Powell has come to doubt that America can remake the world in its own image. “We have a tendency to lecture and perhaps not think things through. We have to be careful what we wish for. Are we happy with the democracy that Hamas gave us? There are some places that are not ready for the kind of democracy we find so attractive to ourselves. They are not culturally ready for it and they are not historically ready for it.”

Back when we were the vanguard of the nascent Lipscomb grunge scene, I got the idea for a joke.  After the first song of a performance, a band is greeted by a tepid response.  Instead of asking for louder vocals or whatever, the band asks the sound man: "Can I get a little applause in the monitors?"  Actually, I think my rocking days were over by the time I got that inspiration, but maybe Matt put that line to use when I gave it to him.

Anyway, today's article titled "On Stump, Low-Key Thompson Stirs Few Sparks" by Adam Nagourney in the NY Times jogged my memory about that joke:

Twenty-four minutes after he began speaking in a small restaurant the other day, Fred D. Thompson brought his remarks to a close with a nod of his head and an expression of thanks to Iowans for allowing him to “give my thoughts about some things.”

Then he stood face to face with a silent audience.

“Can I have a round of applause?” Mr. Thompson said, drawing a rustle of clapping and some laughter.

“Well, I had to drag that out of you,” he said.