Category Archives: Community

From family and friends to government and world politics, this is talk about the people around me and what they’re up to.

Subversive Activity

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Day 1: Teaching as a Subversive Activity

Our local library is running a reading contest this month: kids vs. adults. They’re doing it with the local elementary school, which is totally unfair—the teachers can force the kids to read! Apparently the adults were trounced heavily last year, so the points have been tweaked in our favor this time around. Adults get 2 points for every book read (including every early reader and board book read to a child). I read seven in a single day without even putting much effort into it.

Heh heh heh. ;)

Nicole won’t take part in my shenanigans; she thinks it isn’t fair to the kids. I say, if one adult reading voraciously is able to singlehandedly beat every under-18 reader in the school district? …well, then those kids earned the embarrassment that’s coming. (Of course, if they don’t care about reading, will they care about my beating them in a reading contest? No matter. At the very least I might be able to shame their parents and teachers.)

And that’s what it’s all about.

(Pictured above: me reading Neil Postman’s Teaching as a Subversive Activity. It’s good stuff.)

One of these [candidates] just doesn’t belong

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We Americans are a fickle people. We don’t just want a strong leader, we want a cheerful leader. Media establishments know this—just look at all of those smiling faces!

One of these things is not like the other…
…one of these things just doesn’t belong…

Hmm… it doesn’t seem like all of those candidates are happy. We don’t want a candidate who isn’t happy, do we? It’s a good thing that groups like CNN just report the facts, and don’t try to sway our votes on a subconscious level.

Election ’08: Ron Paul out-performing Giuliani

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While Giuliani is slightly (and I do mean slightly) ahead of Paul in the New Hampshire primaries, Paul trounced him in Iowa.

McCain and Romney? I choose to attribute their high numbers to the odd “you’re a bigger hypocrite than I am!” rivalry they’ve got going on. It just begs people to choose sides.

And that’s all the American people want, really. Two contrived “sides” so they can pick one and have the other be the enemy. Anything else would require thinking, and that cramps our style.

A Bittersweet Christmas

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Nicole and I just returned from a last-minute trip to Knoxville, TN. We learned on Saturday that one of Nicole’s best friends was in a fatal car accident the day before. Alexis had been driving out with her two young sons (ages 4 and 2) to Nashville to sing at her brother’s wedding when she lost control of her vehicle. The boys didn’t get any serious injuries, but Alexis died instantly.

Alexis and her husband Tim were there with us when I first met Nicole. I proposed to Nicole when I came down to Knoxville for their wedding. They were our closest friends during the first two years of our marriage (spent in Knoxville). Nicole and Lex even experienced their first pregnancies together; their eldest son was born only weeks after Katie. Needless to say, we’re grieving now and will be for a while yet. It’s not a grief without hope, but it’s rough to lose a friend so young. My heart goes out to Tim, their two boys, Alexis’ parents and the rest of their family.

In the midst of this tragedy Tim and Lex’s church has really stepped up to help. Tim has so many things to deal with right now, and it’s enough to break a man… but God’s grace is stronger, and he’s showing his grace in part through the men and women coming alongside Tim right now.

Still, this is a difficult journey to be on. So if I could ask one thing of you, my friends… would you please pray that God would draw close to the Cantrells and Shraders this Christmas?

Will Tomorrow’s History Books Say, “U.S.A. Fell to China”?

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  • Bear Stearns Loss Presages More Turmoil – New York Times [NY Times]
    “Morgan Stanley on Wednesday announced the sale of a $5 billion stake to China’s sovereign wealth fund, and both Citigroup and UBS made similar deals with Middle Eastern and Asian governments…”
  • The alliance between China’s communist government and Wall Street deepens [Roubini Global Economics Monitor]
    “The CIC’s big stake [in Wall Street] still worries me—in large part because the CIC also owns three of the four large Chinese stake banks, and is expected to own two others after the recapitalization. And there is no doubt that the state banks have been managed in part to achieve non-commercial goals. China’s banks have historically been used to implement China’s version of industrial policy—directing credit to favored sectors of the economy.”
  • Crazy For China [Forbes]
    “This is China’s century. The rest of the world is just living in it.”

America isn’t just bleeding money—Asia is busy holding buckets underneath to catch it all. You never know… this might be a good time to brush up on your Mandarin. :/

Love the Church, Hate Her Papers

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Wow. Codepoke came out early this morning with both guns blazing:

I realize there will be some argument against my definition of paper as the enemy, but I think it’s pretty close. The real enemy of the church is the flesh of each of her members. I attack paper because it’s our generation’s go-to defense for our flesh. Lurking behind every piece of paper you’ll find a sin waiting to happen. Whether it’s the church budget allowing greed, the bylaws enabling sloth, the calendar supporting procrastination, or the membership roll feeding pride; red tape is always the first defense of the bureaucrat and the cheapest ammunition to fire at messengers of the Spirit.

Here is my proposal.

Ignore all paper in the church.

Statement of Faith? Burn it. Bylaws? Owe all men nothing but love; against such there is no law. Denominational missives? Chaff. Membership rolls? Printed lies.

I already felt like God was moving me in this direction. It’s encouraging to see other Godly men moving the same way.

Marietta, PA Linkblog

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Ten years ago today, the term “weblog” was first coined. In honor of this anniversary, here’s a “true weblog” of a few links related to our family’s new hometown—Marietta, PA (not to be confused with Marietta, GA):

Our web host’s email servers caught the Russian flu…

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…I hear they got it from some tainted spam.

Still, it’d be a better idea to have a company blog where you update your clients about stuff like this, rather than removing your “Live Chat” button and turning off the 24/7 phone support lines. That would only be a good idea if you wanted to scare your clients.

(This also means that if you’ve gotten any errors sending email to us lately—us being any webseitler.com or sugarplumpaperie.com e-mail address—hopefully those problems will clear up before the weekend.)

Facebook Blocking Ron Paul Search (UPDATED)

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UPDATE (14:13 EST): The search is working now.

Go ahead and try to search Facebook for “Ron Paul”—here’s what I got:

Facebook is blocking Ron Paul search
(click to enlarge)

“Search is currently unavailable. Please try again at a later time or right now.” But as much as you try, you still get this message. So maybe search is down, except… if I do a Facebook search for “Paul,” I get this:

Facebook is blocking Ron Paul search, but not Paul
(click to enlarge)

So Facebook search is working just fine, but won’t give you results when you search for Ron Paul. Hmm… now why would that be happening?

And does this have anything to do with Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Facebook?