Month: June 2008

We’re the media and we don’t care

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Wesley J. Smith at Secondhand Smoke points to another case of arrogance in the media:

The Orlando Sentinel continually describes Terri Schiavo’s medical condition as “brain dead.” This is clearly wrong. Brain dead is a popular term for death by neurological criteria and it means that the whole brain and every constituent part has ceased to function as a brain. Thus, there are no reflexes, the body can’t breathe without support, etc.

Terri Schiavo was clearly not brain dead. She breathed on her own. She swallowed her own saliva. She had sleep and wake cycles, she moved her body–none of which can be done by a brain dead body.

But the Orlando Sentinel doesn’t care. When Bobby Schindler complained that their description of his sister was factually inaccurate, they told him to go eat a fig.

This was the letter the Orlando Sentinel sent to Bobby Schindler in response:

Dear Mr. Schindler:

I reviewed your complaint with our state editor, Bob Shaw. We’ve considered the arguments you made in our phone conversation, but we’ve consistently used the term “brain-dead” in connection with the Terry Schiavo case, and we see it as a valid brief description. I appreciate your calling us about it and letting us know your point of view.

Best regards,

Dana Eagles
Orlando Sentinel

But this wasn’t a “point of view” issue, it was about what is fact and what the paper was reporting. That kind of response — “point of view” — is media speak for “you can write to us all you want but we don’t care what you think and it won’t change anything we do.” It was only after a letter from Florida Attorney General David Gibbs requesting a correction that the paper admitted its mistake and printed a correction:

Correction: Because of an editing error, an article about the resignation of Florida Supreme Court Justice Kenneth B. Bell misstated the medical condition of Terri Schiavo, a Pinellas County woman who died in 2005 after the removal of her feeding tube. Schiavo, whose case was considered by the court, was severely brain-damaged but was not brain-dead.

That correction covers the particular story it was attached to, but it doesn’t go anywhere near addressing what was expressed in the letter from the Sentinel to Schindler that “we’ve consistently used “brain-dead” in connection with the Terry Schiavo case.” That’s a weak correction.

The media likes to throw out opinion polls to show how much our country hates the current president. Those are low numbers. But do you know the media is even lower in the public’s opinion than the much-criticized president and even Congress?

The point is not that we should trust all public opinion polls. After all, public opinion is fickle and there are a lot of opinions floating around out there. Rather, the point is is that we need to be discerning and critical-thinking about what is being reported. Major news organizations can do good work, but not just because they are “major news organizations.” That is just lazy thinking, and not worth putting our trust in.

Hip hop artist Trip Lee interview: Searching the scriptures

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Hip hop artist Trip Lee explains how he uses the Bible to write his rhymes for his compositions:

HT: Don’t Waste Your Life

Unicorns are real?

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OK, maybe they’re not real, but then there was this, reported by the Associated Press:

ROME (AP) — A deer with a single horn in the center of its head – much like the fabled, mythical unicorn – has been spotted in a nature preserve in Italy, park officials said Wednesday.

“This is fantasy becoming reality,” Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, told The Associated Press. “The unicorn has always been a mythological animal.”

The 1-year-old Roe Deer – nicknamed “Unicorn” – was born in captivity in the research center’s park in the Tuscan town of Prato, near Florence, Tozzi said.

He is believed to have been born with a genetic flaw; his twin has two horns.

Calling it the first time he has seen such a case, Tozzi said such anomalies among deer may have inspired the myth of the unicorn.

The unicorn, a horse-like creature with magical healing powers, has appeared in legends and stories throughout history, from ancient and medieval texts to the adventures of Harry Potter.

New single by Remedy Drive

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One of the favorite bands in this house, Remedy Drive, has just recently released a new single from their upcoming album, which is coming out in August. It sounds awesome. Below is the iTunes link where you can download it. (Folks over 40, find a teenager and have them explain that to you).

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=281620167&s=143441

The best news: What can you learn from a lying, murdering, rapist?

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A lot about what it means to have a tender heart for God. Consider David in Psalm 51:

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. “Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem; then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.

What has led David to this lowly state of remorse? Turn back to 2 Samuel 11:2-5 to see where it started:

It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. . . . Then she returned to her house. And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”

And not only does David do this, he compounds his sin by bring Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, back from battle so he can sleep with his wife and thus cover up David’s sin. It doesn’t work and so David has Uriah killed in battle. It is only when the prophet Nathan confronts him that David repents.

And what is God’s response? “The Lord has taken away your sin; you shall not die.” (2 Kings 12:13). From here, John Piper picks up the story and why it matters that we should care why God answers in this way:

And, Piper goes on to show that David’s response to his sin is a good example for us to follow. Piper lays out four ways in his sermon, “A Broken and Contrite Heart God Will Not Despise.”

What to do with a pro-choice president?

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UPDATE: The headline has now been corrected to what I intended it say. Everyone needs an editor!

Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. — I Peter 2:17

How should Christians who honor the life of the unborn respond if pro-choice Barack Obama is elected president of the United States? John Piper gives eight ways to honor the president, as the verse above says we must:

1. Humbling Ourselves

We will honor you, Mr. President, by humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God (1 Peter 5:6) and acknowledging that we are ourselves sinners and in need of mercy and forgiveness from God. We are not infallible. We are open to new light on this and every issue. We are not the final judge in this matter. God is. We stand before the cross of Christ on level ground with you, not above you, utterly dependent on mercy and seeking to live by the will of Christ.

2. Acknowledging God’s Image

We will honor you by acknowledging that you are a man, created in the image of God, and distinct among all the beings in the world (as it says in James 3:9). You are not a mere animal. You have the glorious potential, like all humans, of being a child of God (if you aren’t already) and shining like the sun in the kingdom of God forever and ever. We honor you as an utterly unique, human being created in the image and likeness of the living God with untold potential.

3. Acknowledging God’s Institution

We will honor you by acknowledging that government is God’s institution. He wills that there be leaders like presidents and governors. You are in power by God’s appointment and we honor that. In Romans 13:4 the Bible even calls you, “God’s servant for our good.” It grieves us that you do not intend to enact laws to protect the good of the unborn the most innocent, weak, and helpless group of Americans. But we have seen from Somalia that bad government is better than no government. The absence of some laws to protect some people is better than the absence of all laws to protect anybody. We honor your stabilizing role in this sense as a blessing from God.

4. Honoring Laws Not Conflicting with Christ’s Lordship

We will honor you by submitting to the laws of the state and the nation wherever they do not conflict with our higher allegiance to Christ the King of kings and Lord of lords. We will submit to the laws that take away

  • our “right” to chose to go 75 miles an hour,
  • our “right” to choose to keep our lights off when our windshield wipers are on,
  • our “right” to choose to drive without a seat belt,
  • our “right” to choose to fish without a license,
  • our “right” to choose to make loud noises in the middle of the night,
  • our “right” to choose to keep our kids out of schooling,
  • our “right” to choose to send them to school without DPT shots,
  • our “right” to choose to use leaded gas,
  • our “right” to choose not to pay taxes,
  • our “right” to choose to smoke on the other side of the restaurant, etc.

We submit to the right of government to limit our right to choose in hundreds of areas, especially when the good of others is at stake. We understand that governments exist to limit the right to choose and we submit to that.

1 Peter 2:13 says that we are to submit not for your sake but for the Lord’s sake. Verse 16 says that we are free in respect to you but slaves of God. We will submit not because you have power, but because our King commands it for the honor of his institution of civil government. Yet our submission is an honor to you because under God and from God you bear the authority to enforce the laws of the land.

5. Not Withdrawing into Isolation

We will honor you by not withdrawing into little communes of disengaged isolation from American culture. But according to 1 Peter 2:15, we will honor you by trying to do as much good as we possibly can for the unborn, and for unwanted children, and for women in distress, so that we will not be thought insolent or inconsistent in asking from you what we are not willing to do ourselves. We do this because the Bible says, “It is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men” (1 Peter 2:15).

6. Opposing with Non-Violence

We will honor you by opposing your position as long as we can with non-violence instead of violence, with reasoning instead of rocks, with rational passion instead of screaming, with honorable speech instead of obscenities, with forthright clarity of language instead of dodging the tough realities and tough words, with evidence instead of authority, and with scientific portrayals of life instead of authoritarian blackouts (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:2). We will honor you by a relentless effort to put truth, and not mere emotion, before you in the White House.

7. Expecting Straightforward Answers

And we will honor you by expecting from you straightforward answers to straightforward questions. We would not expect this from a con-man or a chimp. We expect it from an honorable man.

For example, are you willing to explain why a baby’s right not to be killed is less important than a woman’s right not to be pregnant?

Or are you willing to explain why most cities have laws forbidding cruelty to animals, but you oppose laws forbidding cruelty to human fetuses? Are they not at least living animals?

Or are you willing to explain why government is unwilling to take away the so-called right to abortion on demand even though it harms the unborn child; yet government is increasingly willing to take away the right to smoke, precisely because it harms innocent non-smokers, killing 3,000 non-smokers a year from cancer and as many as 40,000 non-smokers a year from other diseases?

And if you say that everything hangs on whether the fetus is a human child, are you willing to go before national television in the oval office and defend your support for the “Freedom of Choice Act” by holding in your hand a 21 week old fetus and explaining why this little one does not have the fundamental, moral, and constitutional right to life? Are you willing to say to parents in this church who lost a child at that age and held him in their hands, this being in your hands is not and was not a child with any rights of its own under God or under law?

Perhaps you have good answers to each of these questions. We will honor you by expecting you to defend your position forthrightly in the public eye. You have immense power as President of the United States. To wield it against the protection of the unborn without giving a public accounting in view of moral and scientific reality would be dishonorable. We will honor you by expecting better.

8. Trusting the Sovereign, Loving Purpose of God

Finally we will honor you by trusting that the purpose of our sovereign and loving God to defend the fatherless and contend for the defenseless and to exalt the meek will triumph through your presidency. And to that end we will pray for you as Christ our King commands us.

Read the whole article from Piper here.

Hold the tomatoes

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Roma TomatoesThis is news that my daughter will applaud:

OAK BROOK, Ill. (AP) — McDonald’s said Monday it has stopped serving sliced tomatoes in its U.S. restaurants over concerns about salmonella food poisoning linked to some uncooked varieties.

This could be bad news for BLT lovers out there:

Restaurants, fast-food chains and supermarkets across Southern California removed fresh red Roma, plum and red round tomatoes from their shelves and took them off their menus this weekend as the U.S. government warned of a widening outbreak of salmonella.

The Food and Drug Administration said consumers should avoid raw red plum, red Roma or round red tomatoes, which have been tied to 145 infections reported since mid-April.

Consumers may continue to eat cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, tomatoes sold with the vine still attached and tomatoes grown at home, the FDA statement said.

Major supermarket chains including Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons have stopped selling the three kinds on the FDA list. Other types of tomatoes remained for sale, said Brian Dowling, a vice president of public affairs for Vons owner Safeway, based in Pleasanton, Calif. “It’s a precaution.”

When We Left Earth

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“Get ready for the ride of your life.”

OK, I’ve been waiting for this since I saw the trailer played in a movie theater before “Prince Caspian” in May. If space travel doesn’t give you you goosebumps, then I think you should check this out for sure. If it does already, then you don’t need me to tell you this looks like it’s going to be awesome.

Here is how the mini-series is described on the Discovery Channel site:

When We Left Earth is the story of mankind’s greatest adventure, leaving the earth and living in space. For the first time this series has digitally re-mastered the original film and audio recordings from NASA’s vault, including and all the key on-board footage filmed by the astronauts themselves. From John Glenn’s Mercury mission to orbit the earth, to Neil Armstrong’s first historic steps on the moon, to the unprecedented spacewalks required to repair the Hubble telescope, these epic stories are shown in stunning clarity and told by the astronauts and engineers who were there.

This week’s episode:

ORDINARY SUPERMAN
Premieres Sunday, June 8 at 9:00 p.m. E/P
NASA selects seven men to become the first astronauts. They’re all test pilots, prepared to risk their lives. No one has ever survived a vertical launch on top of a rocket, but it’s the only way they know to put an astronaut into earth orbit. The Mercury astronauts and engineers need to figure out how to launch a man into space on top of a converted intercontinental ballistic missile.

FRIENDS AND RIVALS
Premieres Sunday, June 8 at 10:00 p.m. E/P
For Project Gemini, a new generation of astronauts arrive at NASA — their mission, to test all the procedures required to land men on the moon and bring them safely back to earth. Each Gemini mission launches two men into space, leading to some of NASA’s greatest moments — Ed White’s spacewalk, the first orbital rendezvous of Gemini 6 and 7.

I know my friend Scott has been waiting for this, and I know he didn’t need anyone to tell him it was the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” playing in the background of the trailer, either.

She won’t be voting for Obama

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Barack ObamaWho? Gianna Jessen for one. Why? Daniel Allott explains:

Miss Jessen is an exquisite example of what antiabortion advocates call a “survivor.” Well into her third trimester of pregnancy, Gianna’s biological mother was injected with a saline solution intended to induce a chemical abortion at a Los Angeles County abortion center. Eighteen hours later, and precious minutes before the abortionist’s arrival, Gianna emerged. Premature and with severe injuries that resulted in cerebral palsy. But alive.

Had the abortionist been present at her birth, Gianna would have been killed, perhaps by suffocation. As it was, a startled nurse called an ambulance, and Gianna was rushed to a nearby hospital, where, weighing just two pounds, she was placed in an incubator, then, months later, in foster care.

Gianna survived then, and thrives now, because, as she told me recently with a laugh, “I guess I don’t die easy.” Which is what the abortionist might have thought as he signed his victim’s birth certificate. Gianna’s medical records state that she was “born during saline abortion.”

Allott goes on to explain that, as an Illinois state senator, Barack Obama twice opposed legislation that would have defined as “persons” babies who survive late-term abortions. According to Allott, “Mr. Obama said in a speech on the Illinois Senate floor that he could not accept that babies wholly emerged from their mother’s wombs are “persons,” and thus deserving of equal protection under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.”

By contrast, a federal version of the same legislation passed unanimously through the Senate and with the support of all but 15 members of the House. When President Bush signed the Born Alive Infants Protection Act into law in 2002, Gianna was present.

The link above is to the article. Read the whole thing and consider the man who wants to unite America and ask yourself, “United behind what?”

A look at the new iPhone

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\"iPhone\"OK, so this is not the new iPhone that is supposedly supposed to be released next week. Rather, this is a new iPhone at the Ridgedale Mall Apple Store in Minnetonka, Minn. It was still cool, and my son, Andrew, and I enjoyed killing some time at the store while the rest of our family shopped.

I think Apple stores are the adult equivalent of those playgrounds that are in the center of malls for parents to bring bored children during shopping trips.