News & Comment - Summer 2006

Inked:  Thirty-six percent of Americans ages 18-29 have at least one tattoo.  A survey by the American Academy of Dermatology says that almost a quarter (24%) of US residents between 18 and 50 have a tattoo.  In 2003, that number was closer to 15%.  Nearly two-thirds of those who get tattoos do so before they turn 24.  The survey also showed that those with tattoos are more likely to drink, do drugs, have spent time in jail, or forego religion.  17% of those who have a tattoo have considered having it removed. (AP June 10, 2006)

Kent comments:

Rick Chromey, in "The World Is Flat and Fat" found in the Christian Standard for 7/16/2006 says:

Nothing is more temporary than a computerized world.

Most of my graduate notes are now lost. Why? I archived them in formats now unreadable (remember 5.25 floppy disks?). As technology moved to 3.5 disks then CD-R and now 300 gig hard drives, I failed to translate older information.

Kent comments:

Rick is a nice guy with whom to have email discussions.  But Rick, you need to know that 5.25 disks can easily be read, even today.  You can install a 5.25 floppy even in the most recent PCs - I have one in mine, just for old time's sake.  If you want to talk about lost graduate notes, try recovering them from pre-PC handwritten notes.  Now that's LOST!

from the Leadership "Out of Ur" blog for July 13, 2006:

This week Willow Creek announced the end of Axis [a so-called "Gen-X" ministry].

Gene Appel, lead pastor of Willow’s South Barrington campus, said that leaders have been asking God for months for a new vision for Axis, and they sense an emerging desire to be a "diverse church with an intergenerational vision." If Axis’s launch ten years ago signified the start of the next-generation-church-within-a-church phenomenon, what are we to make of Axis’s demise? Has Gen X ministry been a failure, or was Axis a victim of its own success—a transition ministry that has outlived its usefulness?

Kent comments:

For some reason, calling the location of a congregation's meeting-place a "campus" is very annoying.  Also, doesn't the phrase "diverse church with an intergenerational vision" sound a lot like the kind of corporate babble that comes from Dilbert's pointy-haired boss?

"It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station [of President] filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue."

-- Alexander Hamilton (Federalist No. 68, 14 March 1788)

Kent comments:

It's not religious, and it's not news, but I will comment nevertheless.  Poor Alexander Hamilton - wrong again.  But in his defense, how could he foresee the likes of Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, and Clinton?

From Bizzare News:  Send Your Mother-In-Law to Hell

Not sure what to get your cantankerous mother-in-law this year for Mother's Day? How about a bouquet of fresh flowers?  Nah, too nice. Send her to Hell instead. Beginning this weekend, the Bid-Up TV website and TV channel are accepting bids for the auction of a three-day trip to the town of Hell, Norway for one's mother-in-law. The winner will stay in Hell's only hotel, and she should sure bundle up because temperatures can reach -20C (-4 degrees Farenheit) this time of year. The trip is purposely only for one person because as a Bid-Up TV spokesman says, "with two of them they might have too much fun." This contest follows the popular auction last year to send one's mother-in-law into space. The spokesman said, "We do this every year as an alternative Mother's Day gift. We were very pleased with the amount of interest in last year's, after which a man sent his mother-in-law to Moscow space training camp and up in an aircraft to the edge of space."
 

Kent comments:

You probably won't believe this, but I have no comment on this item!

by Tobias Winright

On Sept. 11 Americans will remember the fifth anniversary of the nightmarish terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Probably unbeknownst to many, however, is that September 11 also marks, according to the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, the 100th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's first public act of civil disobedience. . .

To be sure, these examples are in line with Gandhi's first public protest back on September 11, 1906, in Johannesburg, South Africa, and it may be appropriate for us to remember this benchmark event, especially because much of what Gandhi was protesting has striking parallels in today's U.S. society.

Kent comments:

We are all gratified to know that the real significance of  the date 9-11 is connected to Gandhi.  You might not be aware of this, but Gandhi was interested in things like human feces.  So let us, by all means, turn our attention to him on September 11.  By all means . . .