The Burmese

I'm sure many of you have seen this video, or maybe not, but I think it's pretty important.

I too am sick of this sort of "What's Your Cause This Week," but this is pretty significant. At World Relief where Beth works, there are many Burmese coming in at the moment because of this struggle. For a while they were not able to come to America because they were fighting this evil government. And because they were fighting this government they were considered terrorists. Once it was realized that the government was committing crimes against humanity, the particular groups were granted refugee status.

The group that is coming over now is primarily Christians. Please be in prayer for the groups coming over as well as the groups that are still in Burma!

God's Warriors

Last night and the night before (this post was started last week), Beth and I watched two parts of a three part series entitled "God's Warriors." The series dealt with Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, and looks at the impact that each religion has had in the past, and the impact they want to have in the future. I was very impressed by this mostly unbiased series reported brilliantly by Christiane Amanpour. Although some presuppositions going into the documentary seemed subjective, she did not make any value judgements or try to show which views are right or wrong. She was not trying to show any truth or falsity in the religions. She simply showed the different views inside the respective religions.

And not to go off on a tangents, but I believe that's how must documentaries should be. Just show people. If you go into a documentary production with a certain idea or bias, where instead of just showing what IS, you are more quick to select examples and ideas and etc. that will be shifted towards your own preconceived ideas (i.e., confirmation bias). Movies and films like that, supporting ones own causes and agendas are fine, but don't call it a documentary.

Anyways, this series, "God Warriors," however, was a documentary in a lot of ways.

Before I go any further, I must also say, that I pretty much abhor cable news, CNN, Fox News, and the other underlings. I'll watch it from time to time, but things have gotten pretty ridiculous. And "ridiculous" is being nice. No news channel is unbiased (suprise suprise!), and most of the program features either: a.) the ravings and rants of the right or left; b.)after a disaster occurs, they must immediately place the blame so it won't happen again (a ridiculous and rather racist notion that only belittles and profiles particular people); c.)Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, - I mean seriously, you know more about these few blathering blondes than you know your own relatives; d.)how close we are all to dying of the bird flu, or mad cow disease, or anthrax, or etc.; or e.) predictions on who's going to win an election that's OVER A YEAR AWAY.

So, needless to say, I did not expect something of this caliber on ANY cable news channel. Instead of saying any of the religions were wrong or right, she simply stated, "Okay, here is what *IS*; all religions claim they are right, claim exclusivity, and have the same goals of reaching all of mankind. Can we reconcile anything? What can we do to more peacefully coexist?"

I thought that was pretty cool.

More thoughts to come, but for now you can check out CNN's site on it: www.cnn.com/godswarriors

License Plate of the Day

"MRBIBLE"

Geni

I know, I know. There are already too many networking social websites (Xanga, Myspace, ad nausem). But this one is really cool:

www.geni.com

It's basically a social networking site, but it's main feature is a family tree. You can put in your family and ancestors and so on, and it's pretty neat. Let's just say now I'm actually figuring out how I'm related to the people I see at the family reunion every year. I highly recommend checking out this site. It provides more than just social networking, but also family networking--and that's pretty neat. It's a really good idea for a site.

As well, Beth's step-brother-in-law is a designer, so that's pretty cool too!

Check it out!

This Married Life

Beth and I have been married a month today. It hardly feels like it though. Maybe it's the multiple weddings we've attended, maybe it's the weeklong honeymoon where we were away from Georgia, but it doesn't feel like it's been that long.

The days have just flown by.

Right now other than working we're spending time cleaning the house, putting things where they belong, getting the necessary services (internet, hopefully within this week; trash service, etc.), and so on. We haven't heard from a lot of people, or gotten in contact with many, but we would like to get back into the swing of hanging out, and hopefully having a get-together pretty soon!






And if you're like me and really bad at budgeting, check out this AMAZING (but unfortunately not free) online budgeting site: www.mvelopes.com. It's pretty incredible.

Clinton Vs. Obama

After the past couple weeks or so, it's obvious Clinton is just doing laps around Obama.

Obama, the poor guy, just doesn't know what he's doing. And I don't know if it's a ploy by Hillary to Just look more mature than the Illinois Senator, but it apparently isn't hard at all.

In the CNN Youtube debate, when the Democratic candidates were asked if they would get together with dictators (Kim Jong, Fidel, etc.) within the first year, Obama said of course. He also said it was a "disgrace" that it wasn't happening now. (I think it's rather amusing that he'd be so eager to speak with these people while backing out of a Fox News debate) Clinton came back to say she wouldn't be so quick to meet, she said it would be completely based on the context of the situation and whether her meeting might be used as propaganda for the countries involved.

Similarly, when asked about using nuclear weapons, Obama said that he would never use them, and then amended the statement, saying he would never use them when civilians were involved. Hillary Clinton chastized Obama, saying that past presidents and powers have used nuclear threats to maintain peace, and it would be unwise to just come out and say that you would never use them.

Now, as I said, I'm not sure if these responses are just to make Hillary look more mature than the Obama the lightweight, but it's working.

Guess What??

Guess who's going to be drumming with Bright Eyes on a six week tour beginning in September?

That's right. My step-brother Clay Leverett.