It’s not enough for bloggers to blog anymore. My trend radar says today’s bloggers must also vlog. So, in efforts to be more like the cool kids, I’ve decided to start vlogging. As seems customary, I’ve decided to introduce my vlogging with this introductory blog post.

I know. I know. Please don’t flog me. I realize you don’t have time to sit through three minute videos. You prefer written words so it only takes you fifteen minutes to figure out if I have anything interesting to say.

In deference to your time, I’m trying something different. I call it ‘Conceptual Vlogging’. It’s a new medium for those who prefer quick, fast, short-winded, succinct, to the point, summarized yet all encompassing, with a hint of the symbolic.

I call my first piece A Day in the Life with Duplos. (I fully expect it to go viral. Not to brag or anything.)

And here is the Duplo sculpture that inspired it all:

Great news for the sitting president! The unemployment rate is about to go down again. My husband, who’s been out of work for quite some time, is about to exhaust his unemployment benefits. (Oh, by the way, I’m not a huge fan of government handouts, but in this case I’m considering those unemployment checks pre-payment for the Social Security benefits I will never see.)

This is great news for the prez, and all those politicians out there who are desperate to show evidence of a recovering job market. So when you hear that the unemployment rate has dropped another tenth of a per cent, by all means, give credit where credit is due. Thank every discouraged unemployed and/or underemployed worker near you who has so generously agreed to take one for team America.

COSTELLO: I want to talk about the unemployment rate in America.

ABBOTT: Good Subject. Terrible Times. It’s 9%.

COSTELLO: That many people are out of work?

ABBOTT: No, that’s 16%.

COSTELLO: You just said 9%.

ABBOTT: 9% Unemployed.

COSTELLO: Right 9% out of work.

ABBOTT: No, that’s 16%.

COSTELLO: Okay, so it’s 16% unemployed.

ABBOTT: No, that’s 9%…

COSTELLO: WAIT A MINUTE. Is it 9% or 16%?

ABBOTT: 9% are unemployed. 16% are out of work.

COSTELLO: IF you are out of work you are unemployed.

ABBOTT: No, you can’t count the ”Out of Work” as the unemployed. You have to look for work to be unemployed.

COSTELLO: BUT THEY ARE OUT OF WORK!!!

ABBOTT: No, you miss my point.

COSTELLO: What point?

ABBOTT: Someone who doesn’t look for work, can’t be counted with those who look for work. It wouldn’t be fair.

COSTELLO: To who?

ABBOTT: The unemployed.

COSTELLO: But they are ALL out of work.

ABBOTT: No, the unemployed are actively looking for work… Those who are out of work stopped looking. They gave up. And, if you give up, you are no longer in the ranks of the unemployed.

COSTELLO: So if you’re off the unemployment rolls, that would count as less unemployment?

ABBOTT: Unemployment would go down. Absolutely!

COSTELLO: The unemployment just goes down because you don’t look for work?

ABBOTT: Absolutely it goes down. That’s how you get to 9%. Otherwise, it would be 16%. You don’t want to read about 16% unemployment do ya?

COSTELLO: That would be frightening.

ABBOTT: Absolutely.

COSTELLO: Wait, I got a question for you. That means they’re two ways to bring down the unemployment number?

ABBOTT: Two ways is correct.

COSTELLO: Unemployment can go down if someone gets a job?

ABBOTT: Correct.

COSTELLO: And unemployment can also go down if you stop looking for a job?

ABBOTT: Bingo.

COSTELLO: So there are two ways to bring unemployment down, and the easier of the two is to just stop looking for work.

ABBOTT: Now you’re thinking like an economist.

COSTELLO: I don’t even know what the hell I just said!

p.s., If you’d like a more accurate depiction of the unemployment rate, go here (look at the U-6 number). Good news: we live in a free country where such labor statistics are available to the public. Bad news: we live in a country where, seemingly, the majority is either unable or unwilling to face the true numbers, but would rather sit comfortably on their bidet’s while politicians spew double-speak and half truths (otherwise known as lies).

p.s.s If I sound bitter, it’s because I am.

p.s.s.s This is not intended to endorse any party or candidate.

p.s.s.s.s. Click here if you don’t know what a bidet is.

Guess who’s back…

Elevator Music

When my interest in something is piqued I tend to obsess about it. For instance, I found GT’s Kombucha with chia seeds, tried it, didn’t like it at first, but grew to love it over the course of three days, and now I feel a bit odd without my daily sweet and sour seedy mix.

Lately I’ve become obsessed with finding something, anything, interesting on the internet. When I find that which is interesting, I obsess over it for a bit and end up formulating a short story around it. So far, this habit has led to three short story ideas. My study of kundalini energy led to a scifi story set on a virtual diamond mining platform. (If you scare easily DON’T research kundalini energy. I’m serious. It gave me nightmares. And I threw away my yoga book because of it.)

My study of mind-controlling reptilian aliens (google “Reptilians”) inspired another speculative fiction story whose details I won’t divulge because I haven’t written it yet.

My study of the Toronto Blessing planted another story seed which I will be watering soon.

Rick Warren

What’s any of this have to do with Rick Warren? Shew. It’s almost too much to explain in one post and you will have to connect some of the dots yourself. Nevertheless, let me try to summarize.

Who in the room went through 40 Days of Purpose (inspired by Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life”) at their church? Raise your hands. Me!

Although I wouldn’t call it life-changing, I enjoyed the book and I enjoyed my church’s sermon series based on it. Never in my reading or my listening did my discernment bells start ringing. I suppose I never had any real reason to question Rick Warren. He’s a good guy, right? Leading people to Christ. Surely I can trust him?

I do recall a couple books before my Christian days that were life changing. (Not so positively, I now realize.) Before becoming a Christian, my views of God were peppered with New Age-y conceptions. Luckily I never got too deep into it, but I did read enough books that my view of God became warped. Two of the books I blame the most are Barbara Brennen’s “Hands of Light” and Betty Eadie’s “Embraced by the Light”. (By the way, no thank you Oprah. I could go on a day long rant about your flimsy yet dangerous spirituality. I vomit it out of my mouth a thousand times over and then some.) The deception in those two books has lingered with me for years, I’m still unraveling it. Hence I am very much interested in stories of former New Agers who are now believers in the Christ of the Bible. (Emphasis on Bible.)

Warren B. Smith: Former New Ager

One of those fellows is Warren B. Smith. I’ve happened upon his story many times during my search for internet oddities. I haven’t read his books (yet), but I have read his testimony, and I very much admire what he’s doing. As a former New Ager, he’s now devoted to pointing out ways New Age thought is infiltrating the church. He and others like him have helped me weed out some of the subtle yet damaging pantheistic beliefs that still run amok in my head a decade (and then some) after my Christian baptism.

Interestingly, Warren Smith has a book titled “Deceived on Purpose” which goes a little something like this:

Christian author Warren Smith’s book Deceived on Purpose warns about the serious New Age implications of Pastor Rick Warren’s book The Purpose Driven Life. Smith takes the reader into the inner workings of today’s evangelical world as he explores the questionable interconnections of several of its top leaders. As Rick Warren goes worldwide with his purpose-driven Global Peace Plan, Smith presents an in-depth examination of this mega-church pastor’s spiritual agenda. He explains how Rick Warren’s Peace Plan could eventually merge with the New Age Peace Plan that is being similarly presented by key New Age leaders.

The Battle of the Warren’s

Like I said, you’ll have to connect some dots on your own. Let’s just say I now have the battle of the Warren’s playing out in my head. The main question being, “Can I trust Rick Warren?”

Rick Warren’s Daniel Plan

Adding fuel to the fight is Rick Warren’s Daniel Plan.

“The Bible says that God wants you to be as healthy physically as you are spiritually,” said Warren in a video announcing the event. “The plan will help you feel better, look better, have more energy, get in shape, and use your body the way God wants you to.”

Renowned physicians Dr. Daniel Amen, bestselling author and psychiatrist, Dr. Mark Hyman, a metabolism expert, and Dr. Mehmet Oz, a cardiac surgeon and host of The Dr. Oz Show, will join Warren at the church’s main campus in Lake Forest, Calif., to kick off the initiative.

Great! The church needs to get in shape. I love the idea and I’ve been thinking it myself for years. So what’s the problem? Well, let me ask you. Do you have a problem with this?

1. Dr. Oz advises people to try Reiki.
2. Dr. Amen recommends people try Kirtan Kriya which is a form of meditation taught in Kundalini Yoga.
3. Dr. Hyman also endorses yoga.

Looks like Rick Warren expected some push back because he addresses it on his site.

Thanks so much for contacting us with your concerns about the Daniel Plan. We’re very aware of the fact that there are uncertainties about our association with Doctors who may not share our own strong theological convictions about the nature of salvation and about the truthfulness of Scripture. Let us reassure you of some very important details…

I’m not against a whole foods diet. I’m not against alternative approaches to medicine. I’m not against exercising and taking supplements. Further, I have no doubts that Drs. Oz, Amen, and Hyman are motivated out of love for other people. I also have no doubts that some or much of the things they recommend could be helpful to others.

I’m still bothered.

(This is coming from a hippie who sucks on chia seeds.)

Why does Rick Warren’s Daniel Plan bother me? Why does it bother me that he chose non-Christians to create his health plan when he could have chosen discerning Christians? Truth is, it doesn’t just bother me. It grieves me.

And so the battle goes on in my brain, and will for quite some time, I’m sure.

Can I trust Rick Warren?

I’d love to hear your opinions.

If you enjoy writing science fiction (like me) you may have found yourself stuck many evenings trying to make up character names that sound different, but not dumb. Last night I happened upon Behind the Name and it’s already helped me break through a bad case of writer’s block. I want to keep the site on hand, so what better way to remind myself than posting it on my own blog.

I was looking for variations on the name “Joseph”, so I did a quick search of the site.

Here’s the really cool part:

VARIANT: Josef (German)

DIMINUTIVES: Jo, Joe, Joey, Jojo (English), Jo, Sepp, Seppel (German)

FEMININE FORMS: Jody, Jodi, Jodie, Josepha (English), Josée, Josèphe (French), Josepha (German)

OTHER LANGUAGES: Yousef, Youssef, Yusef, Yusuf (Arabic), Hovsep (Armenian), Joseba, Josepe (Basque), Ioseph, Ioses (Biblical Greek), Yosef (Biblical Hebrew), Ioseph (Biblical Latin), Yosif (Bulgarian), Josep (Catalan), Josip, Joško, Joso, Jozo (Croatian), Josef (Czech), Jozef, Jef, Joep, Joop, Joos, Joost, Jos, Sjef, Zef (Dutch), Jozefo, Joĉjo (Esperanto), Joosep (Estonian), Jooseppi, Juuso (Finnish), Xosé (Galician), Iosif (Greek), Yosef (Hebrew), Josephus (History), József, Jóska, Józsi (Hungarian), Seosamh (Irish), Giuseppe, Beppe, Peppe, Peppi, Peppino, Pino (Italian), Iosephus (Late Roman), Jāzeps (Latvian), Juozapas, Juozas (Lithuanian), Josif (Macedonian), Hohepa (Maori), Józef (Polish), José, Zé, Zezé (Portuguese), Iosif (Romanian), Iosif, Osip (Russian), Josef (Scandinavian), Seòsaidh (Scottish), Josif (Serbian), Jozef (Slovak), Josip, Jožef, Jože (Slovene), José, Pepe, Pepito (Spanish), Yusuf (Turkish), Yosyp (Ukrainian), Yussel (Yiddish)

I felt like I’d struck gold!

I won’t bother to explain myself any further. Some of you will understand my excitement. Others won’t. Those of you who don’t…well…let’s just call me a geek and leave it at that.

I want more Christian music like this:

(Hint: Listen all the way to the end, the modified chorus is a gift…)

(p.s. Don’t ask me what cowbell passion is.)

Grace

by Phil Wickham

The sky is grey and the light is far
The sea is a rage within my heart
I turn my sight to the crashing waves
I cry in the night just to be saved

I need eyes to be my guide
I need a voice that’s louder than mine
I need hope I need You
Cause I can’t do this alone

Grace I call Your name
Oh won’t Your smile fall over me
I’m cracked and dry on hands and knees
Oh sweet grace rain down on me I need You grace

I pray for dawn a new day to live
I pray for mercy only Jesus gives
Though darkness falls and a million cry
I believe over all there’s a greater light shining for us

Come down and save me

The words below are not mine. They belong to a friend, Jennifer Kauffman. I want to share them here so I always know where to go to find them.

Believing ‘in’ God (only acknowledging that he exists):

• I have no expectation that he is faithful or that he is concerned about me.
• I have no expectation that he will do something powerful in my life.
• I have no expectation that he will save me from certain insanity. I am powerless and hopeless.
• I have no expectation that he has any power.
• I have no expectation that he will use me to further his kingdom.

‘Believing’ God (expecting things from God):

• I experience peace that God is in control, that he is trustworthy and that I’ll be delivered by God’s hand.
• I experience the joy and excitement of contemplating what incredible things God can do in my life, and how he can use me.
• I experience the peace that comes through surrendering myself to him by trusting him even when what I see is chaos.
• I experience God’s power through answered prayers (answered the way HE answers them, not the way I hope he answers them).
• I experience the privilege of being used to expose people around me to God’s truth, light and hope.

I confess I’ve fallen into the first category a lot this past year. I’ve had category two moments as well, just not nearly as often.

Believing God is a choice. Easy enough. And yet, it’s complicated.

Why is it complicated?

Well, it’s actually simple. (Heh. Confused yet?)

This world hurts us. When it does, we tend to blame God, which makes it harder for us to trust Him the next time around. Most of us aren’t masochists. We don’t like to feel pain. So, we cower from that which we perceive causes us pain. We cower from God.

The reasoning goes like this: “Maybe if I just go about my business down here, He’ll ignore me. Then I won’t feel pain.”

Uhh… Problem. If I shut myself off from God, I shut myself off from His joy as well. It may seem like a fine trade at first, but over the long haul, it’s a cr@ppy bargain. (That little nugget of wisdom comes from my friend, Experience.)

Lastly, some encouragement.

As you read the following scripture, imagine dropping all your baggage (duffel bags, suitcases, laundry bags, et al) and walking away from it. Ahhh. That feels better…

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3 12-14 NIV)

My fascination with the mini chia seed continues.

The experiment took a seemingly dark turn last week when, the day after feeding my son “banana chia seed pudding” (soaked chia seeds mixed with mashed banana), he started throwing up. As a mother, I instantly feared I’d created some kind of chia blockage in his intestines. After all, he’d asked for a second helping of my banana/chia concoction. (You heard that right.) As the vomit was spewing from his mouth I thought, “Oh dear, he ate so many chia seeds yesterday that they gelled up in his intestines and now no food will go through!”

Alternately, I thought perhaps he’d swallowed a small lithium battery, since I’d just read of a similar incident on FoxNews. Since there were no small silver shiny things among the undigested carrots and celery spattered across the porch (which is where he threw up), I went back to blaming the chia seeds. To compound matters, the next day he developed a blazing red rash on his cheeks. “Oh no! He’s allergic to them!” I thought, deriding myself for going all hippie on my son.

Turns out he just had a stomach bug, and the red cheeks were caused by stomach acid that lingered on his cheeks for too long. That’s what happens when you sleep in it, I guess. (Before you think I’m a bad parent, he threw up, we wiped his face, then he took a nap. I guess baby wipes aren’t strong enough to neutralize acid.)

My bout with the stomach bug the day before Thanksgiving confirmed I had not poisoned my son, so I’ve decided it’s safe to resume the chia seed experiment.

Here’s the latest development:

This, ladies and gentlemen, is Kombucha tea mixed with chia seeds. If you’ve been to Whole Foods, perhaps you’ve happened upon it.

What is Kombucha tea, you ask?

I asked the same thing after I’d bought it. (The cashier was a good saleslady.)

Now, I don’t want to sway your opinion or anything, but after researching what Kombucha tea actually is, I decided it’s kind of gross. What’s gross about it is, nobody really knows what it is or where it came from. (So, we eat it, of course. Why not?)

Here’s what I found out from Wikipedia:

Kombucha is an effervescent tea-based beverage that is often drunk for its anecdotal health benefits or medicinal purposes. Kombucha is available commercially and can be made at home by fermenting tea using a visible, solid mass of yeast and bacteria which forms the kombucha culture, often referred to as the “mushroom” or the “mother”.

YUMMMMM!!

It gets better (or worse depending on how you want to look at it). Here’s the Kombucha “mushroom” in it’s solid state:

Here’s a few more interesting bits…

The origins of Kombucha have become lost in the mists of time. It is thought to have originated in the Far East, probably China, and has been consumed there for at least two thousand years. The first recorded use of kombucha comes from China in 221 BC during the Tsin Dynasty. It was known as “The Tea of Immortality”.

The Kombucha culture looks like a beige or white rubbery pancake. It’s often called a ‘scoby’ which stands for ‘ symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeasts. The culture is placed in sweetened black or green tea and turns a bowl full of sweet tea into a bowl full of vitamins, minerals, enzymes and health-giving organic acids.

Hungry yet? Er. I’m not.

But I paid two dollars for the bottle, so I felt obligated to try it. Besides, it has chia seeds in it.

I should note, I’m not a fan of things soured or fermented. I will eat yogurt and cheese but that’s about it. Anything pickled…no thanks. Frankly, I’m not a huge fan of mushrooms. I just feel weird eating anything that could grow on a person’s sweaty feet.

Not surprisingly, I’m not a huge fan of Kombucha tea. I took mere sips, and even at that, I felt the drink might burn holes in my stomach. Proponents of the “health giving” nature of this fermented tea will likely say that any initial adverse reaction to it is result of its “detoxifying” effects. I hear that argument a lot in health food circles. This might be true in some cases, but not all. (Sometimes, it turns out we are allergic to soybeans, and that’s why we can’t make tofu a daily staple. Oh darn! :p)

I will not be buying Kombucha tea again. (Despite the fact that my son liked it and asked for seconds.) I will begin experimenting chia seed drink options, because, oddly, I liked the texture of the chia seeds paired with the fizziness of the Kombucha. As I type this I have some seeds soaking in San Pellegrino. I plan to add some lime to it, and maybe a little juice. I bet my son will like it.

10. Computer languages don’t contain adverbs so you are free to use them as much or as little as you like.

9. Computer languages don’t contain arbitrary grammar rules. “i” always comes before “e” unless enclosed within a conditional IF/THEN statement.

8. ONE line of code has ONE and only ONE interpretation.

7. Computers don’t call you stupid to your face, they just make you feel stupid. (Wait. That belongs on another list.)

6. Computers don’t care if you are wordy or terse.

5. Computers don’t care how many times a week you blog.

4. Computers only care about one thing: Does the code work?

3. If the code works, humans think you’re cool. (As long as the code works fast enough.)

2. The more confusing and cryptic, the more money you make.

1. You don’t have to wait to be published for a computer to read your writing.