The Faithful Skeptic

I’m a big fan of Google - usually.  I really like gmail, and I’ve publicly proclaimed my love and affection for Google Reader several times on this blog.  But I logged in today and Google Reader has lost all of my subscriptions.  I’ve subscribed to around 100 different feeds (blogs, etc.) and I had a lot of unread items that I was saving for later.  Now it is all gone.  It will be a royal pain to recreate my subscription list, if I even can.

This is the trouble with trusting Google (or any other web application provider).  This is incredibly disappointing.  Maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll fix it.  For those of you that don’t use feed readers, imagine that you have 1 million channels on your tv.  As you surf, you occasionally add a channel here or there to your favorites.  You’re not intimately familiar with your list of favorites - some you watch every day, some just a couple of times a month.  But out of that million channels, you have a 100 that you thought enough of at one point to mark them.  Then one day you turn your tv on and they’re all gone from your list.  Very frustrating.  But then Google Reader is free, and I suppose I’m getting what I paid for.

Update: Subscriptions are back!  (huge sigh of relief…)  If you’re a Reader user, use this opportunity to export your subscription list. 

Note to self - backup subscription list more often.

Blogging has been sparce.  No good reason, particularly, other than I’ve been distracted.  By what, you ask?  Kids, work, the stomach flu, and pleasantly, sunshine.  More to come soon.  Hopefully.

According to a story (subscription req’d) in this morning New York Times a lot of school districts that had started programs to give students laptops are abandoning them.  There were a lot of reasons, but it seemed like the primary ones were that the schools were not able to quantitatively demonstrate any improvement academic achievement, laptops were a distraction in the classroom and at school generally, students did things they should not have been doing with them (porn, hacking, etc.), and the programs were expensive to maintain.

I guess my response is “Duh!”  Of course you couldn’t just throw a bunch of technology into schools and expect performance to miraculously improve.  Several of the schools interviewed fessed up to not training their teachers on how to actually use the laptops effectively.  To be effective, you’d need to use the laptops in a way where they add value to the process.  One of the complaints was that students used them to cheat on tests.  So how about stop using tests (that mainly measure the ability to regurgitate information) and have the students use the laptops to create an original work product that shows their mastery of the information?

I’m a project manager on a major software implementation for my organization.  One of the first things you learn in managing technology projects is that their are three parts to the project - people, process and technology.  The technology is the easy part.  Figuring out how to integrate the technology into your processes and getting your people to accept and adapt to those processes is the hard part.  It looks like the schools in the article focused only on the technology.  Big surprise it didn’t work.

The real problem is that now educators are going to come away from these experiences with the misinformed belief that technology can’t help them improve student performance.  The lesson should be that you actually have to think about how you’re going to use technology and be prepared to do things differently.

The Bishop just announced who is being appointed to our church.  I don’t know him, but I’m excited.  I’ll be sad to see our interim pastor leave, but she’s been a great stabilizing presence.  It should be interesting…

Some people have recommended that if students had been armed at Virginia Tech, maybe the massacre would have been stopped sooner.  Aside from the idiocy of appearing to blame the victims, I think there are some other factors to consider.

We know that college students drink too much, use drugs, are prone to mental illness, and frequently consider suicide.  Given that risk profile, maybe the best option for campus security isn’t arming them to the teeth?

In all seriousness, this is a tough call.  I’ve worked with a number of police officers, and one of the things I’ve learned is that even with the advanced training that officers receive, the fact that they carry guns everyday, and that they go into the profession understanding that they’ll probably be faced with difficult, if not life threatening, situations, it can be hard for them to respond effectively in chaotic situations.  I can’t imagine the stress that would be put on ordinary citizens who might be expected in the middle of a massacre to accurately assess the situation, draw their weapon, and shoot and kill the right person. 

One of the things I’ve heard is that police officers in gun fights often miss their targets despite their frequent practice shooting.  It is difficult to anticipate the stress that those sorts of situations will have on people.  Another factor to consider - how will police officers responding to the situation know who the good guys are?

All in all, a bad idea in my book.   I don’t think there is a guaranteed way to stop someone who is intent on killing other people and not concerned about their own life.  The better question is why does our society seem to be so good at creating these sorts of people?  But that’s an uncomfortable question.  It is a lot easier to argue about guns.

When I was in school (which wasn’t very long ago), if we had lock down plans, I didn’t know about them.  We certainly didn’t practice lock down drills.  Life is different now.

There are times when I wonder why in the world I helped bring new life into the world.  Times like this remind me of how utterly incapable I am of actually protecting my children.  What guarantees can I offer them?

But then I remember that 99% of my interactions with my neighbors, friends, family and coworkers are great.  I’m amazed by the capacity of people to love and care for each other. 

It is a sunny April day in Oregon.  This afternoon it will be in the 60s.  It’s hard to be very down on sunny spring days in Oregon.

We have an interim pastor right now and apparently we’re going have someone new appointed in July.  I approached the last change with a lot of anticipation.  As a Gen X’er, I kind of enjoy change, even if it is only change for the sake of change.  But our church experienced such turmoil and pain as a result of that change that I’m kind of nervous about this one.  I’m also afraid that our annual conference is watching us closely.  We’ve had trouble paying apportionments and we are a small church.  I’m afraid that if we run into any difficulties they’ll use it as an excuse to take away our full-time pastor.  We want to pay our apportionments and we want to grow.  It just seems like every time we start to make some progress we get hit with something.  I hope they’ll give us some time.  I think we have a lot of promise.

Why Lord?

Lord, have mercy

Why is there evil like this in the world?

Lord, have mercy

Why would you take these kids?

Lord, have mercy

Why can’t you stop it?

Lord, have mercy

Why can’t we stop it?

Lord, have mercy

Why didn’t he ask for help?

Lord, have mercy

Why didn’t you listen to their screams?

Lord, have mercy

Why don’t we?

Lord, have mercy

Why doesn’t the world stop turning?

Lord, have mercy

Why do we look for answers when we barely know the questions?

Lord, have mercy

Over the weekend some protesters dumped red dye in the Willamette River to protest the human cost of the war in the Iraq.  They had a large sign that said something like, “No Blood for Oil!”  Now I used to be a card-carrying socialist (I never actually had a card, but that’s beside the point) so I think I had some street cred as a totally whacked-out liberal.  But can I just say that the blood for oil argument seems really silly to me?

If the war in Iraq were really just about oil, why are we bothering to try to setup a democracy?  Not that I think that particular process is going very well, but it would be hard to argue that the Bushies aren’t trying.  If all we wanted was oil, we’d setup some sham dictator and get him to sign contracts to sell us oil at ridiculously low prices.

Also, if we really just wanted oil, there are countries with more it than Iraq.  Like Saudi Arabia.  Now obviously I understand that conspiracy theorists will say that Iraq was the only option because we could make a “good” argument for invading them.  No one would believe we needed to invade Saudi Arabia. 

But seriously, what would the motivation be if we really only cared about oil?  The oil and gas industry is making record profits.  From what I’ve read, there are a couple of reasons for the increase in oil prices.  One is clearly the OPEC cartel.  But another, and probably more important reason, is the growing demand for oil in India and China.  They are industrializing like crazy and need oil to fuel their economic growth.  If we really wanted to reduce the short term price of oil, we’d nuke China and India back to the stone age.  Except of course we’d lose a huge part of our manufacturing capacity, information technology expertise, and market for our products.

I also don’t honestly believe that Bush is that petty or stupid.  I think that Bush and the people around him believed that a democratic Iraq could be a cornerstone to a new middle east.  I do believe that they used the war on terror as an excuse, but their motivation was not evil.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be working out too well for them.  I believe they made some critical errors in planning and execution, but I can’t believe this is all about oil.  If it is, they’re way dumber than I thought.

There was an interesting article in our local paper over the weekend.  John Schwiebert, a retired UM pastor, and his wife Pat are in the middle of a dispute with the IRS.  They have withheld all or part of their income tax from the federal government since 1977 in a protest against US military policy.  They’ve been able to do that by earning below the minimum required to pay federal income tax.  They don’t oppose paying taxes generally, and in fact have paid what they believe to be their income tax obligation to a local county government.  Now however, Rev. Schwiebert’s pension is enough that they are required to pay taxes.  The IRS is asking the General Board of Pension and Health Benefits to pay an income tax levy against his pension.

The Schwiebert’s have asked the Board to deny the IRS’ request, but also don’t want the church to get into trouble.  They consider themselves conscientious objectors and thus object to paying federal income tax that would fund activities contrary to their religious beliefs.  I admire their devotion to their cause, but part of me wonders too…  What if conservatives could decide that they didn’t want any of their tax dollars going to anything but abstinence only education?  What if libertarians decided they didn’t pay any taxes at all?

It also puts the church in an interesting position as well.  What are the church’s legal obligations?  Can the church support laws that are contrary to its beliefs?  But at the same time, if it doesn’t follow the laws, it will lose some degree of effectiveness.  What’s the balance?

I think part of being in a democracy is accepting that the government is going to do some stuff that we personally disagree with.  But again, there’s a line.  But what happens when the government does something evil (like start of policy of genocide)?  There has to be some middle ground between on participating in the parts of government we like and agreeing to everything the government does without any critical thought.