Words of Wisdom…from Tupac

Simple, profane, and profound:

 

Best Banner Ad Ever

Check it out.
Don’t understand why?  Well then give it a click…or a hundred.

 

In Memory of Michael Jackson

Below is a link to a website that has a lot of covers of Michael Jackson’s songs. Included are covers by John Mayer, Fall Out Boy, Amy Winehouse, Charlotte Church, James Morrison, David Cook, and others.

http://www.hypeful.com/2009/06/25/king-of-pop-michael-jackson-dead-at-50/

Now I must begin the arduous task of searching for covers of Billy Mays’ infomercials.

 

Links of the Week

Apparently cats like to get high, too.
Still don’t know if you’re in the friend zone? Check out this chart.
Diddy is left utterly perplexed.
16-year-old toddler defies aging.
See how this kid was able to top LeBron.
Watch this World of Warcraft freakout.

 

A Long Distance Running Q&A

Chris McDougall is an avid long distance runner who recently wrote a book called “Born to Run.” In the book McDougall meets and learns from the reclusive Tarahumara Indians of Mexico’s deadly Copper Canyons, who because of their uncommon techniques are able to run hundreds of miles at a time. If you’re at all interested in running, you should definitely check out this book; I know I will at some point this summer.

Anyway, McDougall recently did a very interesting and insightful interview with TIME about the in’s and out’s of ultra distance running. I’ve attached the interview below:

What misconceptions do people have about running?
Anyone can do running. Running should be easy. It should be fun. It should include everyone. It shouldn’t be a punishment for eating cheesecake, which is what we’ve turned it into. There’s this kind of war on running — people keep telling you you’ll get hurt, get injured, that you need orthotics, that you need go to a special running store before you try it. There’s this totally misconceived notion that it’s hard to do, and it’s not.

What is the correct way to run?
Prior to the creation of the modern running shoe, people were taught how to run either by a running coach or by simple feedback from their feet. If something hurt, you would start running differently. You’d never, ever land on your heel on a thinly cushioned shoe, because it hurt. Your heel’s not designed to absorb impact. Running should feel weightless. It should feel like you’re floating in space. It’s basically a series of controlled jumps. Then we started trying to trump nature and come up with something we could sell, and what we’ve created are these monstrosities that allow people to forget about form and running technique and just clump along in whatever kind of sloppy fashion they want.

You spent a lot of time with the Tarahumara, a society of master runners who live in obscurity in Mexico. I’d never heard of them before. How do they manage to still stay so secluded, and what did you do to get them to trust you?
They stay secluded by remaining down in the depths of this vast network of canyons. One reason they haven’t blazed across the competitive circuit is because our kind of running is really stupid and foreign to them. We bust out as fast as we can from gun to tape, and the Tarahumara don’t do that. Humans are built for endurance, not speed. We’re awful sprinters, compared to every other animal. We try to run our races as if they were speed races, but they are not. They’re endurance races. Even a marathon, the way it’s run now, it’s not an endurance contest. But the Tarahumara do two things that are different: they run as a group. Secondly, they alternate between bursts of effort and recovery. That’s what’s brilliant about their running — it’s this really smart, strategic combination of fast and slow.

Running a marathon seems like a big deal, but ultra-runners run hundreds of miles over mountains. How do they do it?
I never saw an ultra-marathon until I was in one. I ran 50 miles with the Tarahumara. My stomach was clenching up like a fist before the race. I received the best advice for running I ever heard: “You’re not going to win, so just relax. If it feels like work, you’re running too hard.” I just wish people would run two miles as if they were running 100 miles, because one thing that you will always see in ultra-races that you will never see in normal marathons are smiles. People are relaxed and enjoying the moment.

What did running those 50 miles feel like?
Most of the miles were a total blast. You start before dawn, so it’s dark outside, and you’re all huddled for warmth at the start. As you’re running, the sun comes up. It’s just brilliant. Every moment, every mile brought a vivid sensation. When you allow yourself to ease into the run, as if you’re easing into a hot bath, the sensations come to you gradually. You feel your body warming up. You feel yourself hitting a stride. Nothing ever feels forced. It feels soothing and fun. The only crunch time was the last 10 miles or so — they were a little hard. I thought there was going to be more water, but they ran out. One man, Barefoot Ted, was drinking his urine at one point.

About drinking your own urine — you talk in the book about people who hallucinate while running or become disoriented and exhausted. You say running is really easy, but obviously ultra-running is an extreme sport. It’s very hard, and people go through a lot. Why do you think people push themselves that hard?
A really smart scientist, Dr. Dennis Bramble at the University of Utah, said to me, “Recreation has its reasons.” It’s an instinct we have inside of us. We push ourselves that far because we’re hard-wired to want to remind ourselves that we can do it.

What exactly is the Running Man theory?
The theory is that humans evolved as running-pack animals, that they only way we got food was by running our prey to death. The human brain exploded in size about 2 million years ago, expanding from a peanut to the melon we have now. That could’ve only happened if humans were eating animal carcasses. But the first weapon only appeared 200,000 years ago, so for 1,800,000 years we were somehow acquiring dead animals without having a weapon to kill them. So the theory is that we ran animals to death.

What do you say to people who say, “Oh, I don’t like running.”
I say, Go for a run. Or let’s play some Ultimate Frisbee. Almost every sport involves running. You will not find a 4-year-old on this planet who does not like to run. Why? Because they haven’t been told it’s a workout.

Why are runners not as famous as other athletes?
There’s no money in it. To get on a bike and look like Lance Armstrong, you’re going to drop $8,000 or more. If you’re an ultra-runner, you buy one pair of shoes. Tony Krupicka, one of the greatest young ultra-runners, has worn the same pair of crappy, cross-country flats for the past six years. It’s actually one of the big debates in ultra-racing right now: some of the top competitors want there to be prize money, but the second money gets into it, the sport is ruined. Right now, there’s a certain sense of amateurism and purity to the sport. I was crewing for ultra-runner Jen Shelton during one race, and she was gunning to win, but she ate a jalapeño pizza and pitcher of beer five hours before the start, so at mile 40, she blew up and was retching on the course. When she lifted her head up, she realized that two of the guys she had been competing with were standing there waiting for her. She was 40 miles out in the woods alone, and they wanted to make sure she was O.K. They took her to an aid station, and once she was cared for, they took off [for] the finish line. You get a sense of real camaraderie out there because ultimately it’s about everyone pulling together.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1902027,00.html

 

Religious Insight

So, many people have asked me to explain my religious beliefs and how I came upon these beliefs…well it’s a long story and I’ve never really had the motivation to rationally and logically write out my reasoning. However, I just stumbled upon someone else’s blog in which the blogger was explaining why he lost his religion. While there are a few disparities, this is about as close as you can come to my own reasoning without literally taking the words out of my mouth. If you don’t agree with any of the points, feel free to leave a comment; I’m always up for a good discussion!

Anyway, the original post can be found here, but I’ve attached most of it below:

I was planning to write up a detailed story about my Christian life and the recent rejection of my faith. But my goal is not to build a case to prove I believed in God or to demonstrate how good of a Christian I was. I did truly believe in God for most of my life and worshiped and prayed to him daily. I believed he was at work in my life at all times and using me to touch other people’s lives.

So you might be wondering what changed.

The change was a culmination of things that I could no longer ignore. Faith is belief in the unseen and unprovable, but still requires a foundation for that faith. With the countless religions of the world, I began to question why the god of the Bible is more believable than all other gods worshiped on earth. With the mountain of evidence staring me in the face, my faith began to die.

Last fall, I finally moved past guilt and admitted to myself that I no longer believe in Jesus or the god of the Bible. Surprisingly it was a relief. Not because I wanted to run wild and sin freely, but because I no longer felt the weight a Christian carries. The weight of guilt, unworthiness and fear of god’s judgement. I continue to spend my days striving to be a good husband, father and son. I help others in need around me as often as I can. The big difference is I do these things today because it brings me joy, not because I believe it brings an imaginary god joy.

For those wondering, here is a condensed “Top 20 List” of the things that led to my rejection of Christianity.

1. God is wrathful, jealous, hateful, and kills nations of people like it is a bodily function. He is certainly not just or “holy” in nature.
2. The act of throwing people into infinite torture and punishment for not believing a Jewish guy from 2,000 years ago was God’s son, or unknowingly worshiping the wrong god, is extremely cruel and sadistic.
3. The statements, “God works in mysterious ways,” or “It will all make sense in heaven,” are little more than irrational cop outs. This God allows horrible atrocities to be committed against innocent men, women and children every day.
4. Bloody animal and human sacrifices are illogical demands by a divine god as payment for petty wrong doings. These actions are no different than the rituals of archaic pagan religions. Not to mention the bizarre ritual of symbolically drinking human blood and eating human flesh.
5. If God loves us and wants us to know and believe in him, why be so completely invisible? What is the purpose of being so illusive to those who believe and worship him?
6. God never manifests himself or performs miracles as he regularly did for the Israelites in Old Testament stories.
7. Prayers are never answered. Certainly not in the way Jesus described. Prayer has absolutely no affect on the world around us.
8. Jesus did not fulfill major Old Testament prophesies or even fulfill his own promises and predictions.
9. The authors of much of the Bible are unknown. And of these unknown authors, the men who wrote the gospels likely never even met Jesus considering they were written 40-70 years after his death. A far cry from reliable testimony.
10. The Bible is repeatedly contradictory with itself, reality, and the laws of morality. Couldn’t God inspire a less poorly written book?
11. The Bible is open to interpretation. Everyone interprets it in the way that suits them best or serves their purposes.
12. Throughout history, Christians have justified horrific actions by the Bible and its teaching.
13. The Bible promotes hate and persecution against women, homosexuals and those who worship other gods or no god at all.
14. According to the Bible, nearly 70% percent of the people in the world will burn in hell because they don’t believe Jesus was the son of God.
15. The only reason I was a Christian was because I was indoctrinated into the religion as a child as a result of the culture and region of the world in which I was born.
16. Christianity has no more rational or factual foundation than any other religion on earth that I openly reject.
17. The Christian church is disjointed and can’t even agree with one another.
18. Christians are not at all ethically or morally different from non-Christians.
19. Today, powerful church leaders steal, lie and molest young children. The church repeatedly attempts to cover up these atrocities, only to reluctantly apologize as a last resort.
20. It is absolutely irrational to continue to believe archaic teaching with the amount of knowledge we’ve gained through science and technology. The Bible reads like a book of primitive folklore, not divinely inspired insight into our true reason for existence.

http://thebeattitude.com/2009/05/28/losing-my-religion-why-i-walked-away-from-christianity/

 

Highlights from the Week that Was (5-24-09)

Being that I’m now out of college for the summer, I have a lot more free time to surf the internet.  Because of this I’ve decided to start compiling a list of some of the top content I have found over the past week from some of my favorite websites.  I will try to do this weekly.  Anyway, here is the first edition:

FMyLife.com:  Today, I brought some cupcakes to my class for my birthday, like all the cool kids do. When it came time to sing happy birthday, the entire class said “happy birthday to” then forgot my name. Except my teacher. She said Steve. My name’s Jeff. FML

MyLifeIsAverage.com:  Today, I had to choose between a strawberry flavored Dum Dum and a mystery flavored Dum Dum. I decided to be adventurous and choose the mystery flavor; it was strawberry flavored. MLIA

Digg:  Check out the reviews of this t-shirt on Amazon.com.

YouTube: 

CollegeHumor:  Video of the most arrogant Call of Duty: World at War kill ever.

Fail Blog:

Awkward Family Photos:

MyLifeIsAverage.com:  Today, I had to choose between a strawberry flavored Dum Dum and a mystery flavored Dum Dum. I decided to be adventurous and choose the mystery flavor; it was strawberry flavored. MLIA

 

A Quick Religious History Lesson

Courtesy of: http://www.mattbors.com

 

Photos of the Week

Desperate times call for desperate measures…

Customs are a bitch.

Enough said.

And you thought Chinese water torture was bad…

Hey, if it works for mice…

Police profiling at its best.

“Yeah, I’ll take a beer.”

 

On the Topic of Homosexuality

While browsing through websites looking for something interesting to read, I stumbled upon a man’s recount of attending a workshop about “homosexual activism in the public schools.”  It took place in a church, but it was sponsored by the Illinois Family Institute, a conservative group that seeks to “uphold marriage & family, life & liberty in the Land of Lincoln.”  I personally am not gay so I’m not typically that passionate about or caught up in gay rights or gay agenda, however this man’s experience was really very intriguing.

The workshop was basically a seminar on how to justify being anti-gay, why it is not OK to be gay, how being homophobic is not being prejudiced, and how to fight the gay agenda.  I’ve been witness to many confounding trains of thought having grown up and even worked in a Baptist Church community,  but this was more appalling than anything I have personally experienced.  All of the reasoning and logic these people used was completely false and their intentions were blatantly cruel, yet people were actually listening.  It constantly amazes me how people can become so deluded to the most illogical of groupthink while in such an atmosphere, especially a church.  I can’t help but wonder sometimes if this is how people felt around the Civil Rights Era.  Anyway, below is the article, I hope you can take the time to read it.

Last night, I attended a workshop about “homosexual activism in the public schools.” The meeting took place at a church and it was sponsored by the Illinois Family Institute, a conservative group. About 80 people were packed into a tiny room.

My observations:

• I overheard one man sitting near me talking to a friend of his before the event started. He quoted the Edmund Burke line, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” He was referring to homosexual activists versus Christians.Funny. I was thinking the same line, but in a completely different way…
• The speaker spoke about the myth that Christians “hate” homosexuals. We don’t hate homosexuals, she said, adding: “We’re not like Fred Phelps!”So at least we have that in common. We all think Phelps is one crazy mofo.They may not hate homosexuals, but they do hate homosexuality. (And apparently, they hate the word “gay.” Because it was barely uttered all evening. “Homosexual” must sound more evil and un-Christian.)
• I learned it’s ok to say being gay is wrong. We can’t worry about hurting people’s feelings. If we did, that would make it impossible for us to say plagiarism and promiscuity are wrong because that would hurt the feelings of plagiarists and promiscuous people. Therefore, it’s ok to attack homosexuality.I’ll admit that’s the first time I’ve heard homosexuality compared to plagiarism.
• The speaker told the crowd that speaking out against homosexuality was not hate speech. Her argument for this? “Homosexual supporters speak out against polygamy and pedophiles all the time. Is that considered hate speech? No. So neither is our anti-gay speech.”Not for the first time that evening, she compared gay people to pedophiles.
• The speaker mentioned a local high school in which students “had to read” Tony Kushner’s play “Angels in America.” She asked if everyone picked up the handout listing excerpts from the book (after warning us that it would be graphic).This was how she began a part of her talk against those homosexual activist English teachers. There was no mention of the facts that excerpts do not a book make. (You want to play the excerpt game? You want to take things out of context? Because the Bible is great fodder for that.) There was no mention that the book was for an Advanced Placement class for seniors, or that parents had to approve the book first before their children could read it (or opt for an alternative book instead, which would be ok), or that only a handful of students (and their parents) decided to take the alternative option. Most were fine with the book.
• There were several jabs at homosexual teachers and superintendents and administrators (they named names) who were trying to push that awful, hideous belief that it was ok to be gay. (Can you believe their gall?!)
• There was a lot of talk about the upcoming Day of Silence, during which gay students and straight allies choose not to speak for the day to bring attention to the silencing experienced by GLBT students. IFI wants parents to remove their children from the classroom for the day if students are taking part in this.The speaker’s arguments? Let me quote from her handout (PDF):
  

  Parents should call their children’s middle schools and high schools to ask whether the administration and/or teachers will be permitting students to remain silent during class on the Day of Silence. If students will be permitted to remain silent, parents can express their opposition most effectively by calling their children out of school on the Day of Silence and sending letters of explanation to their administrators, their children’s teachers, and all school board members. One reason this is effective is that most school districts lose money for each student absence.

  School administrators err when they allow the classroom to be disrupted and politicized by granting students permission to remain silent throughout an entire day. The DOS requires that teachers either create activities around the silence of some or many, or exempt silent students from any activity that involves speaking. Furthermore, DOS participants have a captive audience, many of whom disagree with and are made uncomfortable by the politicization of their classroom.

  I teach high school students. Some of them are silent every day. I don’t see Christian parents complaining about that. Also, the DOS doesn’t “require” anything. It’s sponsors don’t run my classroom and I’m not required to “do” anything. Personally, I think it’s irresponsible of teachers to be silent on that day because we still have a job to do (just like pharmacists shouldn’t be able to not sell people birth control or morning-after pills because of their own beliefs), but it’s fine if students want to be silent for one day — it won’t throw me off as a teacher. I can still do my job.

  I’m amazed these parents are willing to remove their kids from a day of instruction because other students are choosing to remain silent for a day. Are you kidding me?

• The Day of Silence thing reminded me of a similar incident happening earlier this year. In fact, when you put these incidents together, the IFI sounds downright hypocritical.Earlier this year, I had students remaining silent because of the Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity. It was fine by me and I taught my lessons as planned. But how come I wasn’t hearing anything about that day?Would the speakers be in favor of pro-choice parents removing their students from the classroom?They never mentioned that.So I asked them about it.The conversation went something like this:
  

  Me: Isn’t the pro-life silence day the exact same idea as the Day of Silence?

  Them: Umm… yes. And we do not support the pro-life silence day.

  Me: Well, that’s good to hear. But I don’t remember getting any press releases from your organization asking parents to remove their children from school because some students were also going to remain silent for political reasons and personal beliefs.

  Them: Umm… yeah… we should really have sent one out about that.

  I’m not keeping my fingers crossed that they’ll mention it next year. A quick search on IFI’s website lists several results dealing with the Day of Silence. I can’t find a single result having to do with the Day of Solidarity.

• When the speaker discussed how many schools were putting on the pro-homosexual play “The Laramie Project,” she tried to cite a dubious 20/20 segment in which it was asserted that Matthew Shepard was not killed in a hate crime, but rather that he was the victim of a drug-induced rage. That segment has been debunked, but we didn’t hear that side of the story.And really, going after Matthew Shepard and the play written about him? That was low.
• During any mention of the word “transgender,” there was something of an eye roll from the speaker and people in the audience. It was obvious the speaker didn’t think transgendered people actually existed. “A man is not a woman,” she said, adding that her mother had cancer and had to get her uterus removed, but that didn’t make her any less of a woman.I failed to see any connection.The speaker said she knew one student who “claimed” to be transgendered. He said he was a woman trapped in a man’s body. I knew that boy well, she said. “He was troubled.”
• The speaker mentioned the homosexual agenda. Not just as a general idea, though. She mentioned an actual, specific agenda written by Harvard-trained psychologists Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen. I’d never heard of them… am I the only one that doesn’t know who to take my orders from?
• My favorite line of the night, referring to how Christians need to fight back against the gays:
  

  “There’s a great reluctance of churches in getting involved in the political arena.”

  They didn’t really say that, did they?! Yes. Yes they did.

• It was pointed out that being anti-gay does not constitute prejudice. We are not pre-judging, they said. We are coming to our conclusions after careful consideration! Therefore, it is not technically prejudice.I guess they won the battle of semantics… so make sure you don’t call homophobic people prejudiced. They’re not prejudiced. They’re “Christians who love everybody.” Got it?
• One bright side to all this: I found out we liberals are winning the Culture Wars! (Congratulations, you sodomites!)

The first 20 minutes of the talk, I wondered how much of my own rhetoric I’d be willing to say to their faces. I concluded I would probably tone it down a bit… try to engage them more. Maybe speak their language.

As the evening progressed, I became less eager to please them or to even talk to them. I wanted to point out all the flaws in their thinking, all the parts where they weren’t telling the whole story, all the times they were flat out lying to the audience.

I really wanted to know what the speaker would have said if there were openly gay people in the audience. The speaker made a point to say that there was a Facebook group against her formed by students at the school at which she used to work. A transgendered student wrote to the group that she was actually a nice lady.

As the student did this, the speaker didn’t even acknowledge the student’s sexual identity — couldn’t even fathom that there was a real issue there. I didn’t see that “nice lady” side of her, and the more she speak, the more I felt the desire to stoop to her level. It’s not a side of me I want to see come out.

Afterwards, I walked out of the church and away from that group of people. And good riddance.

I should point out one additional part to this story.

When I mentioned the other day that I was attending this event, I got an email from an acquaintance. She asked if I was going to this particular church (she gave me a name) for the event. That was the one I was going to. It turns out that’s her regular church. She wouldn’t be able to make it that night, but she wanted to let me know that the church did a lot of great things to support the local community and the people there were really nice and caring.

I really believe her. I believe that they mean well and they have the best of intentions.

But, as I told my friend, it’s hard for me to focus on that side when at the same time they are propagating these ridiculous notions. It’s also hard to believe I’m the only person there who felt that way.

I didn’t really say much at the event. I basically listened to them and observed other people. But I wonder if I was the only person there last night who held a contrary view to what was being said.

Where were the Christians who believe that it’s ok to be gay — that God loves gay people and straight people equally? Why weren’t they there to ask questions and challenge what was being said?

Is what I saw typical of what others have seen?

http://friendlyatheist.com/2009/03/05/things-i-found-out-at-the-anti-gay-workshop/