Creative Commons

We host our photos online using flickr. We put them up under a creative commons license that says you can use our photos non-commercially. I'm no professional. If someone wants to use some of our work, I don't have a problem with it.

This has come up before when the Schmap Orlando Guide wanted to use one of our photos.

Well, while we were on our cruise, I got a message from someone else saying that they had used one of our photos in a video. This time it was more of a kind gesture to let us know that they had used it, which is not required under the license, and not them requesting permission.

The photo they used was one of Jeramie and Joye in front of their house just after they had bought it. You can see it at the 5:15 mark.



Disclaimer: The election is over. Please don't comment on anything political. I just thought it was cool that my photo was used.

Don and Barry

You all probably know that Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz, To Catch a Dragon, etc., gave the benediction at the Democratic National Convention. Well, he recently posted on his blog the email correspondence between him and Sen. Obama and Mrs. Obama.

That guy is amazingly clever. I laughed out loud when I he wrote to Michelle Obama and of his pre-prayer activity said "I am just going to listen to my headphones beforehand, like Michael Phelps."

Is that guy funny, or what?

Evangelical Politics: Three Generations

Yesterday, I found a podcast that I thought was very interesting. It is a facilitated discussion between Chuck Colson, Greg Boyd, and Shane Claiborne about the crossroads of politics and Christianity. Colson is the founder of Prison Fellowship and author of God & Government. Boyd is founder and senior pastor of Woodland Hills Church, a megachurch in Minnesota, and author of The Myth of a Christian Nation. Claiborne is founder of The Simple Way and co-author of Jesus for President and author of The Irresistible Revolution.

Here's a description of the podcast:

A passionate discussion is unfolding in public and in private among Evangelical leaders and communities. Should Christians be involved in politics and if so, how? What has gone wrong, and what has been learned from the Moral Majority up until now. In this live public conversation, Krista probes these ideas with three formative Evangelicals.

You can find more information about it here, including downloads of the podcast, the entire unedited interview, and a video of the interview.

Why one man chooses Barack over Hillary

A friend of mine tagged this well put together video about why one person chooses Obama over Clinton. It's twenty minutes long, but well worth the watch.

A More Perfect Union

Both Traci and Justin have already written about this, but I thought I'd write about it here, too.

Presidential candidate, Barack Obama, gave a brilliant speech on Tuesday in Philadelphia. If you haven't heard or read it, I highly suggest you check it out. It is about forty minutes long. So, it may be easier to download the mp3 of the audio and listen to it on your iPod. I was able to right click on the mp3 link and select "Download linked file" in Safari.

For me, it was long. I don't have a great attention span. At some point I was kind of bored with his delivery, which, oddly, for me is was a good thing. Often he is so impressive with his delivery that he could be saying heretical things and people would applaud.

With this talk, it seemed to be more about content. There were flashes of his eloquence, but overall it was as if he was more interested in getting the message out, than igniting passion within the listeners with a fiery delivery.

If you haven't heard it, take the time to listen to it.

Is the opportunity for peace fading in northern Uganda?

The Government of Uganda is threatening military action against the Lord’s Resistance Army if no progress is made with the peace talks by Thursday.

In the 1960s, a young woman on the streets of New York was stabbed to death over a period of 30 minutes while as many as 38 witnesses did nothing, despite her pleas for help. Psychologists explain it as the "bystander effect". In the face of an emergency, a person is less likely to intervene when others are present. It's our nature to assume the next person will act, thus relinquishing responsibility.

There's an interesting article on Rueters that claims that this is what is happening in northern Uganda, resulting in the stalling of the Juba peace process. With so many countires involved, everyone seems to be waiting for someone else to step in and help. The author, Adrian Bradbury, founder of the GuluWalk says, "This is not a call for Western diplomats to overtake the process, but to proactively support it at this vulnerable moment."

Edmund Burke once said that the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. Will the world stand by as this chance for peace in a nation that has not known peace in over twenty years is lost?

Unrest in Kenya

You may or amy not have heard about the recent unrest in Kenya due to the very close presidential election results. Well, a friend of a friend has put together a site where people can report firsthand knowledge of events that take place.

It's a citizens tool where anyone can submit an incident report via SMS, email or the website. Here's a short BBC interview of the project. -Erik Hersman

Change the Constitution?

I don't think I know enough about all the candidates to weigh in with my pick for the presidency. I will say that I like the way Ron Paul talks, but I don't think he will ever get elected because he doesn't play by the political rules.

I just read an interesting post that I thought I would share. It comes from Greg Boyd's blog. Greg Boyd is the author of Myth of a Christian Nation. To give you an idea of what the book is about, the subtitle is "How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church". It's one of the books I've half read. It may be the next one I pick up after I finish Change the World.

Boyd weighs in on Huckabee's comments that we need to amend the constitution to bring it into conformity with "God's standards." It's a good read. Don't just read the first half, get pissed because he bashes the evangelical candidate, and quit reading. The end is probably the part most worth reading.

Thoughts?

Props to Dan. I saw this on his blog first.

Your Tax Dollars Hard at Work?

Yesterday, this was announced: "A US federal grand jury has charged baseball record breaker Barry Bonds with perjury and obstruction of justice over an inquiry into steroids use."

In my ignorance, I am annoyed by this1. Can someone please explain to me why my tax dollars are being wasted on an investigation into whether or not some athlete "cheated"?

I do not support lying to a jury while under oath, or even while not under oath. I think people that are found to be lying while giving sworn testimony should be charged with "perjury and obstruction of justice". The problem I have is this, I don't understand why Barry Bonds was even under oath, giving testimony on whether or not he "knowingly" used steroids.

Someone please help me see how this is a good use of my tax dollars.

1. back This is not a statement of my position on the "Did Barry Bonds cheat?" issue. I'm not even sure that I have an official position on that. If I did, it might look like indifference.

Living on less than $1 a day

Extreme poverty is often defined as living on less than $1 a day. A report published in 1990 estimated 1.25 billion fell into that category. People often use the phrase "over a billion people live in extreme poverty".

Well, according to a recent report from The World Bank, the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day fell to 18.4 percent in 2004, leaving an estimated 985 million people living in extreme poverty. 985,000,000 is a lot of people, but it's less than a billion. So, hooray for that. You can read more about it here.

On another note, Sen. Burr has signed on to the "Feinstein-Hagel" Dear Colleague letter. Thanks to all the North Carolinians that contacted Senators Burr and Dole. If you live in another state, there is still time to contact your Senators. You can see a list of who all has signed on here.

Shalom.

Another Chance for Action Follow-up

So, it turns out that Congress does not allow mass emailing1. So, the good folks at the ONE campaign printed out all the letters and hand delivered them to the Senators. There were 57,345 letters in all. The waste of paper kind of makes me cringe, but it's Capitol Hill. Bureaucracy and waste is what a lot of people have come to expect.

Some good news is that Sen. Dole has signed on to the Feinstein-Hagel Dear Colleague letter. Thus far, 28 Senators have signed on. The ONE campaign is trying to get 60 to sign on by Friday.

If you haven't contacted your Senators yet, there's still time. Go here to find out what you need to do.

1. I don't really know what that means. That's just what the ONE blog said.

Another Chance for Action

I got this email today from ONE.org. They are working to get 60 senators in the next 6 days to support $39.8 billion for the international affairs budget -- $3.9 billion over last year's international affairs budget -- the biggest increase in recent history. The email is below.

They have made it extremely easy for you to write you Senators. You just have to visit this page, and fill out a form, and viola, you're done.

-----------------------------------------------
We're close. For months you've been pushing Congress to fund the fight against poverty in 2008. And now we are days away from securing $39.8 billion - $3.9 billion over last year's international affairs budget - the largest increase in recent history.

Six senators, Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Chuck Hagel (R-NE), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Gordon Smith (R-OR), Christopher Dodd (D-CT), and Norm Coleman (R-MN), are taking the lead by writing a letter encouraging their colleagues in the Senate to support this critical funding.

Please take a minute to ask your senator to sign on to this letter.

The international affairs budget contains almost all the funding America devotes to poverty focused development assistance - the money that so directly translates into lives saved and countries transformed. It's not a band-aid for extreme poverty, it's smart aid that attacks it at its roots. By contributing our share to this type of funding, in partnership with other nations, we can put 77 million children in school and save 16,000 lives a day by combating AIDS, TB, and Malaria.

You scored an important victory in March when you convinced the Senate to agree to put $39.8 into the budget. Now they need to translate the budget into real dollars. The Senate Appropriations Committee leadership does just that. They write the check.

Write your senators urging them to allocate $39.8 billion at this critical time.

A year ago ONE members mobilized around a very similar letter and 52 Senators signed on in support. This year we're hoping to get 60 Senators to co-sign the Feinstein-Hagel-Durbin-Smith-Dodd-Coleman letter supporting the largest increase in recent history.

We have 6 Senators now, 54 to go. You can track our progress, as it happens, on the ONE Blog.

Thank you for your voice, Josh Peck, ONE.org
-----------------------------------------------

hax0r

I saw this on another blog. It may only be interesting to computer geeks, but it's somewhat humorous.

"Dear Colleague" Follow-up Follow-up Follow-up

Just to keep you posted, this was on the one blog on Wednesday...

The Senate just passed the 2007 continuing resolution - 81 to 15!

You can send your Senators a thank you email by going here.

And, today someone posted this...

The 2007 continuing resolution was signed into law by President Bush last night.

If you are wondering what this is all about, you should read the article in the first link.

Thanks to everyone who participated.

This is where I am coming from...

First off, I apologize for the length of this post. Personally, I am not a fan of the long post. So, I understand if you do not read this, but as the author I encourage you to do so.

I had a great conversation with my wife last night. We got on the subject of politics and AIDS. This is something that I have been doing a lot looking into recently. HIV/AIDS is a huge problem. Most of us do not really see it in our daily lives. So, it's not a pressing issue. I mean, I don't have HIV, and no one I know has HIV, at least I do not think I know anyone with HIV. So, it is kind of remote from me.

We were talking about my recent blog posts, the ones about calling your representatives. She was saying that she does not look at politics as something that she is a part of. Something along the lines of, "I know that I have a voice and I vote for these people and they represent me and my voice, but beyond that I don't feel like a part of the system." That is definitely a paraphrase, and it may be more of what I heard and less of what she actually said. Sorry honey if I misrepresent you.

Anyway, I go off on this harangue about how politicians are to represent their constituent's interests, but if they do not know what it is that their constituency is concerned about then, they are just going on what they think.

So, what difference can one person make? I'm sure they can make some sort of difference. I mean, I call my Senator and tell them I want them to vote for something and they may just say "Okay, crazy." But, if say fifty people call and say the same thing, maybe they start to listen. Or, if fifty people call and all say the same thing, but also say they are calling on behalf of the ONE campaign, maybe they really listen. The ONE campaign at last count has 2,430,750 people signed on including several celebrities. (not that being a celebrity makes you any more special, it just gives you a little more influence because you are on TV more often than the average human) So, maybe you call and say you are calling on behalf of 2.4 million people and someone at least thinks about what you say.

While talking to her, it sort of hit me that maybe I really do care about all this. Initially, I started looking into it because I had heard a few things about how "HIV/AIDS is the leprosy of our age" or that "HIV/AIDS is the single, most important issue on the planet". Those are pretty big statements. All I really knew about AIDS is what I learned in health class. So, I started listening to people talk, and started reading things. The more I heard, the bigger the problem got.

A few years ago South East Asia was hit by a terrible tsunami. Roughly two hundred eighty-three thousand people died. The world gasped. Then, the world responded. Well, imagine if one of those tsunamis happened every month. That would suck.

NOTE: If you do not like the word suck, you can sub in your favorite word or phrase for when something is not good, e.g. stink, be bad, be like getting kicked in the face by a horse with cleats on, etc.

So, daily tsunamis are not all that realistic, but that's about the number of people that die from HIV/AIDS every month. That's about 300,000 people every month. Or, about one person every 8-10 seconds.

At some point, it becomes overwhelming. You may start to think, I can't do anything about this. You may even get to the point where you ask yourself if you really believe God is bigger than HIV. It may seem heretical to say, but if you take a look into the enormity of the problem you begin to wonder if this thing can be beaten.

The answer has to be a resounding yes. We have to go from "I can't do anything about this", to "I can't do nothing about this."
Please excuse the double negative.

We are the people that can do something about this.
Better yet, We are the people that can change the world.
Better yet, We are the people that are going to change the world.

Do I really believe that? If so, how does that effect the way I live my life?

"Dear Colleague" Follow-up

I saw this on the ONE.org blog...

By the "Dear Colleague" letters sign-on deadlines last week, nearly half the Senate and over a fifth of the House had signed.

Thanks to all who called their representatives.

You may have noticed recent addition of the ONE banner to my blog. To be honest I ripped it from the Mars Hill site. Then, I found today that you can get it, or one of a few other banners from here.

In case you are wondering, I did watch American Idol tonight.

Peace.

Call Capitol Hill

This morning I recieved this email from a ONE.org representative asking me to please call my Senators and House Representative today to help ONE fight for a billion dollars in Funding to combat AIDS, TB, and Malaria.

I just made my calls and it took about 10 minutes. If you've never called your elected officials before, this can seem kind of scary, but don't be shy. The person who answers your call may ask you for your address so they can verify you are a constituent in their region, and then they may ask about the nature of your call. They may just say Senator Dole's office, or something like that. Then, all you do is read the script below. You can read it word for word if you want and that makes it easier for you.

I was admittedly a little nervous when I made the first call. I kind of struggled through the script. Then, I realized I was just on the phone with some random person, maybe someone like Sam Ed. It made it a lot easier on the subsequent calls. The fact that something so easy can help fight poverty arond the world is pretty awesome.

So, make your calls today, and let me know how they go.

1-800-786-2663

Here's the info and the script from the email:

Please call (TODAY) January 09, and fight for life-saving AIDS Funding!


Right now $1 billion in funding to fight poverty has been eliminated from the United States budget. Congress is set to pass a year long Budget Continuing Resolution which will keep government funding at 2006 levels through 2007. This means that almost a billion dollars to fund the fight against AIDS and extreme poverty could be lost. Please call your Senators and congressperson now to ask that they support funding that fight against Global AIDS. Urge your leaders to fully fund the fight against global AIDS and extreme poverty.

Call 1-800-786-2663 today and ask your two senators and congressman to support fully funding the fight against global AIDS and extreme poverty.

It is not too late, if we work together as ONE we can make a difference. Currently, there is a bipartisan and bicameral effort to support life saving funding. Senators Richard Durbin and Sam Brownback and Representatives Barbara Lee and Christopher Shays are circulating “Dear Colleague” letters to protect additional funding allocated to fight global AIDS, TB, and Malaria in 2007. Urge your congressional leaders to sign onto this “Dear Colleague” letter today!

Make the difference and call your members of congress today: call 1-800-786-2663 today to be connected to your senators and Representative. Remember to tell them:

*I am a constituent of YOUR TOWN in YOUR STATE.

* You're calling with the ONE campaign- an effort started by Americans to unite as ONE voice to fight extreme poverty and global HIV/AIDS.

* You're calling to ask your Members of Congress to sign on to the Senate’s Durbin-Brownback and House’s Lee-Shays “Dear Colleague” letter to protect $1 billion in life-saving funding to fight extreme poverty, AIDS, TB, and Malaria.

Thank you for joining ONE in taking action to fight global AIDS and extreme poverty. Your voice will make a difference!

Other information you can share:
* Please also tell them it is imperative that this funding be additional to other poverty fighting assistance.

* Make sure to emphasize the urgency of this issue. Those living in extreme poverty can not wait a year for assistance, they need the help now.

* Without this additional funding as many as 350,000 people with HIV/AIDS will not receive life-sustaining treatment. Nearly 1 million anti-malarial bednets will not be distributed, and 120,000 people will not receive treatment for tuberculosis.

Kimberly Smith
ONE Regional Field Organizer
kim@one.org
502-475-5564

Business as Usual?

Congress puts ethics at the top of its agenda

Now, given public perception of politicians, that seems like a contradiction. I am interested to see how the new Congress, which take office today, pans out. The Democrats will have a slight majority. We will have our first ever female Speaker of the House. And, now, they are talking about limiting the buying power of lobbyists.

Will Congress be able to change their image? Or, with this be business as usual?

The headlines say it all.

Saddam Hussein to be hanged before dawn today -Malaysia Star, Malaysia

Saddam Brings Koran To Hanging... -Playfuls.com, Romania

Saddam hangs. -The Age, Australia

Saddam 'calm' as he met his death -Courier Mail, Australia'

Saddam's hometown not to send representatives for burial. -Xinhua, China

Saddam`s Fate -PakTribune.com, Pakistan


It's the last one that makes me think. You would be hard pressed to find anyone that doesn't think Saddam Hussein did some horrible things in his life. I'm not talking about people just here in the good ole US of A. I tried to read articles only from international sources on the subject. I assumed most American sources would have some sort of bend toward the war in Iraq, either for or against it. I kind of wanted to see what the rest of the world thought about it. </tanget>

So, the guy obviously did some bad things, some of which have been deemed Crimes Against Humanity. I wonder what he thinks about his life. I wonder if he is repentant of any of his actions? One article has this quote, "He recited a Muslim profession of faith, 'There is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet', [while] policemen escorted him to the scaffold." Does he still think he has a shot with Allah?

I am not trying to trivialize the Islamic faith. I am admittedly ignorant to its intricacies. Most of my knowledge on the subject comes from a conversation I had with a classmate in college. He was a practicing Muslim, so I took what he said as truth about the religion. His explanation of the religion, which was probably an over-simplification, was that you were to follow the law laid out in the Koran and if you do enough of the right stuff, Allah will bless you and you will be allowed to enter Paradise.

This led to some questions.
Me: So, you never know for sure if you are going to Paradise?
Him: Well... not exactly.
Me: So, how do you know if you are going?
Him: At some point you just know.
Me: How do you know?
Him: You just feel it.

So, I wonder if Saddam was 'feeling' it?

Father, thank you for sending Your son here to show us how to live. Thank you for sending him to pay the price we could not pay on our own. Thank you for Your grace. Thank you for not leaving us to wonder if we have done enough. I pray that we would all remember the price you paid on our behalf. I pray that our gratitude would be apparent in our words and deeds.