Are Muslims Proving His Point?

Dutch member of Parliament Geert Wilders arrived today in London despite fears that his arrival would lead to interfaith violence. Here is the story in the Daily Mail. Wilders says that the lifting of a ban on his travel to the UK is a victory for free speech.

He has become a polarizing figure because of comments like: ‘I have a problem with the Islamic ideology, the Islamic culture, because I feel that the more Islam we get in our societies, the less freedom we get.’
Additionally he has criticized the Koran for inciting violence…some Muslims have responded with death threats against him.

I’m not sure yet what I think of Wilders. Is his rhetoric divisive or hateful? Is he wrong or inaccurate in what he says? Or is there merit to what he says?

It seems the me that the guy could use some greater tact, but I think he truly believes that he’s sounding a clarion call to the West against a takeover by Islam. The things he is saying are very politically incorrect, but if he’s right, many will wish they had listened to him. Frankly the protesters in London aren’t helping the case against him — they appear to help make his point.

What do you think?

Zero Tolerance Fails Again

I’ve posted before on my opinion of so called “Zero Tolerance” policies at schools. My take on them is that they’re stupid (see previous post). The policy is deeply flawed, and fails students and schools by robbing school administrators of their decision-making ability.

Just today I saw two articles on this subject. One was about an Eagle Scout in upstate New York who was suspended for 20 days because he had a knife in his car (see story). A student with a history of good citizenship and responsibility, suspended for a 2-inch pocket knife that he kept locked in his car–come on!
Here’s the second story, a victory for opponents of zero tolerance policies. A Delaware first grader who was going to spend 45 days in an alternative school had the sentence revoked after a meeting of the school board. His crime? Bringing a combination spoon/fork camping tool to school. The school board voted to drop the punishment from 45 days alternative school to a 3-5 day suspension for kindergarten and first graders. It’s still not everything I’d want, but at least they’re beginning to see the flawed thinking in zero tolerance policies.

The biggest problem with zero tolerance policies is that they leave no room for common sense or judgment. The policies indicate that if a certain object (i.e. a weapon or something that might be a weapon) or action (i.e., something interpreted as sexual harassment) is found or occurs, the penalty is set. The policy puts in place a pre-determined formula that leaves school administrators and teachers little if any latitude for decision-making. Circumstances, intentions, or history (and good sense) are all excluded from the process.

Zero Tolerance is not a good policy. It works some of the time, but sometimes causes problems where there would not otherwise be any.

What do you think?

User Reviews Worthless?

Today Yahoo Tech blogger Christopher Null writes about Why User Reviews are Worthless. While I’m not usually one of his readers, this was something that caught my eye.

Null says that when it comes to internet user reviews, the conventional wisdom that says more people give negative reviews than positive. According to him, many products receive high (sometimes perhaps artificially high) reviews. This can make it more difficult to choose the stand-out products from the crowd of wannabes.

I’ve bought a number of products online and I’ve seen some of both extremes. I’ve seen “firewall five” star reviews for products that should have been rated lower, but I’ve also seen some things (services, businesses, restaurants, apartments, etc) get some unfairly bad reviews from some folks who either had bad experiences or were simply haters.

So how do we tell the difference? Are user reviews worthwhile? My advice — before you make your big purchase online do all your research.

Brett Favre Commercial

So this commercial has been on tv for a few weeks now, but I cracked up the first time I saw it. I’ve been a fan of Brett Favre for a long time, and followed the saga last year with his break from the Packers and signing with the Jets. This year it seemed a little like more of the same, so I really didn’t have anything to say about his move to the Vikings. To be honest, it’s been kind of hard to watch. I hope he can have a strong finish to his career and keep intact the legacy that he’s earned after several years as one of the best quarterbacks in pro football.

The laughed really hard when I first saw the commercial because I’m glad that Favre isn’t taking himself too seriously–that’s one of the things I’ve loved about him. This is an extended version of the Sears commercial Favre did that first aired last month.
Enjoy.

Dan Brown’s take on Tattooing

Alan Cross has a post I saw earlier today that really fascinated me. Tattoos are probably more popular than ever today. I personally have never gotten into tattooing, but know many people who have them. I have had a number of discussions over the last several years with young people about tattoos, and it’s just never been appealing to me.

Although, I probably wouldn’t agree with him on many other topics, I was really interested to see what Dan Brown (of Da Vinci Code fame) had to say about Tattooing and control. He suggests that, throughout history tattoos have been about control, and now they are about people displaying control over their own bodies. As Christians we believe our bodies belong to God. How does that affect our thoughts on tattoos?

Read Alan’s post here

Unwanted Wedding Gifts (revisited)

One of the more popular posts I’ve done over the last several years was a post about unwanted wedding gifts. I wrote that post when I had been married for only six weeks. Now, having been married for 3 years and have experienced a few more weddings I think it might be time to revisit the issue of wedding gifts (wanted or otherwise). So here’s the revised and expanded post.

Since the time when we were first settling into married life and a new apartment, we have managed to use or get rid of many of the wedding presents that we received. A few were re-gifted (as some of ours clearly were), and we’ve found use for many of the others.

So here are my thoughts on wedding presents both receiving and giving.

On Receiving
One of the difficulties in dealing with gifts that you don’t really want is trying to be gracious. The fact is that we are given gifts (whether we want them or not), and my wife and I made sure to write thank-you notes to those people who thought enough of us to give us gifts.

Some people clearly take pleasure in continuing the tradition of re-gifting odd, ugly, or unique gifts. My wife and I have now experienced both sides of this. What you need to understand is that it’s a part of the process—you almost certainly will get some gifts that will make you scratch your heads. For these gifts, just accept them in good fun and enjoy it.

For these odd gifts, there are several possible uses. I think of a certain gift my wife and I thought to be hideous that we re-gifted to someone who loves it. I’ve seen people make garden decorations of all kinds of unwanted gifts. I’ve also seen some of the stranger gifts become part of white elephant Christmas traditions. I once worked for an organization whose annual Christmas party involved “good” gifts and “gag” gifts. The gag gifts were things that some of the people had received several years before at their wedding and made a perinnial appearance at the Christmas party. That’s a neat tradition and a way of laughing together at some very strange presents. I’m still interested in hearing stories of creative uses of your unwanted Wedding presents.

On Giving
Over the last three years that my wife and I have been married, we’ve received many invitations to weddings. Having been newlyweds, we also began to have an understanding of what things are important to newlywed couples, and what things are not.

While I frankly don’t remember at this point who gave us which gifts, I do remember the gifts – some fondly, some not so fondly. I remember we were given gift certificates to a local store in my home town. I also remember searching through the little store trying to find something we actually wanted…
and then something we could easily unload on someone else…
and then something that we didn’t hate that could help us use up our gift certificates.

I don’t think we ever did use all the certificates, but it was nice to be remembered by some friends and family members.

Since that time, we have tended to shy away from getting gift cards for wedding presents. It’s not a practice I recommend. If you want to give money, just give money – the couple will surely find something to put it toward.

Re-gifting, as I’ve said, can be a good option. This may depend greatly upon the quality of the gift, and on the quality of the relationship you have with the couple. Just give it some thought before you drop something you didn’t like into a box (and if you do this, please make sure it doesn’t still have the note from when it was given to you—that happened to us—it showed poor taste).

My recommendation is to look at the gift registry. We recently had some good friends who got married in another state. Because we value them so much, we wanted to get them something that they wanted and would appreciate. So we went to their list and found some things they had requested. In this case it was towels (this is something most newlywed couples can use) – we got a complete set of the towels that they wanted, and because they live in another state (and we were flying to the wedding), we had them shipped (a number of stores offer this option).

If you’re strapped for cash, as many young people are (both single and married), consider another option a friend of mine used to take. This couple would prepare a basket of wash cloths, hand towels, or other small essentials and neatly arrange them as a gift basket. This strikes me as a great idea for cheap gifting (just think through some things that they might want or need).

One final tip on giving…include a receipt (many stores do gift receipts if you don’t want them to see the original receipt) so that they can exchange the gift if they have plenty (as often happens) or don’t like your gift (they probably won’t tell you).

So I hope this has been a more comprehensive thought on wedding gifts, and that some of you are able to find it useful. I’m no expert on etiquette, but the bottom line in etiquette (paraphrasing from the Emily Post people—who are experts) is that you want to make sure that everyone is respected and made to feel comfortable. So if you don’t know what do say or do when receiving a gift, just try to show respect for people, and do your best to help them feel comfortable around you.

Best of luck to you, let me know how your stories work out!

Flags of Our Fathers – a book review

The book has been out for several years now and on my shelf for the past two (I could say the same for too many of the books sitting on my shelf that are as yet unread), but I was finally ready to read it. Frankly, I had little idea of what it was about – except that it had to do with WW2.

For those of you who, like me, have not seen the movie Flags of our Fathers, and may be unfamiliar with the book – here’s what you need to know. First off, it’s a non-fiction account of the Battle of Iwo Jima and, more specifically, six men who fought in that battle and have been immortalized in Joe Rosenthal’s famous photograph of the flagraising on Mt Suribachi. The author James Bradley is the son of one of the flagraisers, Navy Corpsman John Bradley.

The narrative of the story gives a great account of the Battle of Iwo Jima as well as the background of the lives of the six flagraisers at Mt Suribachi. The second half of the book is dedicated to following the lives of the three flagraisers who survived the bloodiest battle of World War II as they served the purposes of the war effort and struggled to rebuild their lives after the war and after the photograph.

The author focuses especially on his father and how John Bradley and the others never managed to fully escape the notoriety and memories that came from their role in that brief 1/400th of a second captured forever on film (and later in stone, bronze, and forever in our national consciousness).

As far as histories go, this book does a fantastic job of detailing, from both a larger military perspective, and a very personal perspective, the battle of Iwo Jima. After reading this book, my respect for the men who served there has increased beyond what I could have imagined. Bradley and Powers also do a great job at putting the battle in it’s military and historical context. Had the US Marines not taken Iwo Jima and its airstrips, US Air Corps bombers could never have dropped the bombs that brought the war to a swift conclusion. The authors even explain official estimates from that time that projected hundreds of thousands of American, British, and Australian lives that would have been lost had the allies attempted a land invasion of the Japanese mainland.

As a personal story, readers will be touched by the extreme tragedy of Iwo Jima and the memories that its veterans lived (and still live) with for the rest of their lives. One begins to understand why men like John Bradley often refused to re-open that chapter of their life by talking about that battle (despite the fame, decorations, and notoriety that it brought him).

If you like history, particularly military or WW2 history, you will enjoy this book. If history is not your thing, or you have trouble reading about war, you might take a pass on this one.
Being both a history buff and an aficionado of all things military, I give this book four of five stars.

Back by popular? demand

hello readers! (hi mom)

As you can tell, I haven’t blogged in a while. I had some changes in the schedule, but now I’m back from hiatus and and ready to blog again!

Since I’ve been away, I’ve been reading — I’ll have to get some book reviews up in coming weeks, I also spent some more time attending Chaplain school at Maxwell AFB in Montgomery, Alabama. As the fall comes on, we’ve got job interviews going on, we’re looking ahead to the holidays, and working hard on some upcoming events at NRHBC, including our Fall Festival and Upward Basketball.

Also, since my blog has been around for a while, I have a feeling we might be re-visiting a few old topics. More to come soon…

An Incredibly Humbling Experience

Rarely do I post on Sunday, but something happened today that I have to share.

Today our church did our annual patriotic salute service (many churches in America do similar services, ours was probably not that different). Several friends had asked me if I was going to be wearing my Air Force uniform, and convinced me that I should. So I showed up to church this morning wearing my Air Force Service Dress.

It was a good morning, I accepted several compliments from friends and church members on my uniform and my service. It always humbles me when people thank me for my service. Being a young chaplain and a reservist, I often feel like I haven’t done much yet. Still, I remember that when I wear that Air Force uniform, I represent not only myself, but many many other brave Airmen who have served and continue to serve our country. I accept thanks on behalf of them.

After the church services were over, and we had heard personal testimony from Lt Col Brian Birdwell, USA (Ret.), we were planning to go to lunch a few folks from the singles class I teach. It turned out that none of the folks we had invited were able to come to lunch with us, so Kelly and I made a new plan and went off to lunch.

While sitting at the restaurant, having just ordered, an older couple came by our table. They had finished their meal and this retired Lt Colonel and his wife stopped by to thank us and to let us know that our bill had been paid.

I didn’t know what to say, but I managed to say, “thank you.”

A few moments later the waiter came by (himself an air force vet, we learned) and told us that our bill had been paid, and (mistakenly) pointed out another couple. Incidentally we learned from this second couple that they had offered to buy our meal moments after the first couple (who had been sitting at the next table) had paid for us.

All this floored me. I couldn’t believe how generous these folks were, and to us. Again, I recognize that I have the privilege and responsibility whenever I wear that Air Force uniform of representing others who serve in far worse conditions that I do, and with greater valor than I may ever be called upon to show. Words cannot fully express the sense of humility that I feel at receiving the undeserved honor and favor of a few patriotic men and women.

When we gave thanks to God, I must admit that I thanked Him with a fresh conviction and a sense of thanksgiving which I have rarely had before. Times like these remind me of the undeserved favor that God shows each of us, and also of the sacrifices of the men and women who serve our country.

To those who serve, I salute you. I thank each of you for your service, great or small as it may be. I pray today that God would place His hand of protection upon those in harm’s way, that He would heal and comfort those who are hurting, and that He would bring those serving away from their families safely home. In the midst of all this I ask that God would make His presence manifest around those who serve, that they might recognize it and turn to Him.

Once Again, I must say “Thank You.”

NAMB unveils new church care plan for chaplains

This week at the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Louisville, the North American Mission Board is revealing a new plan that seeks to minister to Church Staff members who are serving as military chaplains and their congregations. The plan involves some new resources for the Pastors and congregations to prepare for when Reserve or Guard chaplains deploy.

As a reserve chaplain and a member of a church staff, this seems like a really neat idea. Here’sthe story and here is the page with the new resources. I expect these can be some very helpful resources for churches and pastors as they deal with the difficulties that come from long absences, increased stress, and readjustment at the end of a deployment.