des

TV is a fine way of letting the brain fry, should you need that sort of thing, which I do. I think teaching is stressful, though I am thinking that working for the public schools is more stressful than teaching elsewhere. There is also more bs. Also my hours start EARLY! Of course, one thing about picking something up at my age is that I don't really care if mom thinks I do well and I only need to do it if I want to. I am hoping I won't be picking up too many bad habits, my teacher was very clear on this! She stated that her ideal student would be one who can read music (me) and who has no bad habits to break. But I can hardly just sit and let it stare at me. I am thinking I might get the alto one anyway. After all, she has worked with people who have had YEARS of bad habits to break. All I will have is a few weeks. :-) My biggest challenge at the moment is hitting middle C. Yikes this is hard. --des

Having a mission? I consider it teaching reading. Now that I know how to do that, and think I am very good at it. I feel stiffled that I have to do that within a public school setting (need to earn money). Ok, my question, I'm goign to ask the same one again-- anyone else feel they have a mission or vocation? --des

Fred, I think you misunderstand me on a few things. No, I don't *really* think I am "OLD" whatever that is. I am older than a HS student, but they seem like children-- well given I could have one. ;-) I am also older than many of the posters here (though this is a mature list-- thank goodness, get tired of the "how R U" stuff from the kiddies forum elsewhere. I work very hard, and find tv relaxing. I do read a lot, etc. but find at the end of a *very* long day and lots of prep work for the next that tv is just relaxing, etc. I was never watching this much but this job seems to take a lot out of me. (I think in some ways it is the system, not the kids.) Music would be nice. I'm not too musically minded though. Well we'll see. I can play many keys on the soprano recorder.-- though the lower notes are difficult. I got a simple Christmas music book today. (At least I will recognize should I play them right.) The teacher doesn't want me to develop bad habits that I will need to break later-- so I'll try not to take it too seriously. Yet. I won't buy an alto til I start the lessons. --des

Hi, I am one of the old ladies on this forum :-). Anyway, it doesn't matter if you are in your 20s, as I suppose that isn't really young either. I have taken on some new things here and there very seriously. Karate, saltwater fish tanks, dog activities (agility, etc). Anyway, I have been interested in playing the recorder. I got a very cheap recorder and a teach yourself book and funny thing, we had a recorder orchestra play at church today. (One of the members of the orchestra belongs to the church, and they practice there.) Anyway, I asked her about it. She said she would love to give me lessons (free) so I wouldn't end up picking up bad habits. She also says the alto recorder is easier and will loan me one. :-) I think it will be nice to do instead of so much tv. --des

Gosh, guys, I didn't pay that much attention to catch all those spelling errors. Of course, I teach spelling (and reading) by day. On weekends I transform into the mild mannered tv addict. :-) --des

Re: per the troll business, going to take this one seriously by a benefit of the doubt sort of thing. > the sun god zues figure that was said to be struck down by the wrath of god. This is alot to soak in and this is only a lot of history revealing it self which made me second guess my faith. Do the math, read the text for yourself, research it. then you too will be second guessing!! Well you can use any text or building in history and read what you will into it. I took a class in ancient astronomy at the Planetarium. Seems they had a long convulted explanation as to how if you viewed the planetarium in certain ways at the solstice you would come to view a certain building and the rays (or whatever) of the sunslight would exactly touch a certain part of the building.. etc etc. Thing is there was ZERO significance. It just so happened. It proves that you have to be very careful re: ancient thoughts and motives. I'm sure one can read into a lot of things. Do I agree with my worthy fellow poster on TCPC, James on most things? No. Not even on most all things. I do agree with him re: any kind of promulgation of anti-Catholic thinking. Not that I agree iwth them. But I think you are stretching the meaning of a lot of what you are reading and reading into and about. Now this is not to say that the ancient writings weren't aware of some of these things (perhaps all of them), and no doubt they would have added things in that would make the texts more significant. I have heard this son of God thing before, btw. I'm sure they were too. But I think it is more likely they added it to appeal more to the pagans of the day than the other way around. Christmas is celebrated on Dec. 25th near a pagan holiday. There is no reason to think that Jesus was born then. But takes advantage-- I would say brilliantly of this holiday, the light of the world and all that. --des

Boo hoo! It took me an hour and a half to get home from work in the snow last night! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well yes, but remember I moved away from all that on purpose. :-) And yes, our weather is STILL better than Chicago though. Though I miss things like architecture and pizza, not necessarily in that order. --des

Yes, hence the neat little quote re: HOW God plays dice. Yes, God plays very well. :-) God is also a beautiful dice player, huh? :-) These images in the mandelbrot set, Julia sets, and in real life are absolutely amazing!!! Yes, mystical too. Didn't see the Butterfly Effect, am wondering if it had anything to do wtih the Bradberry short story... They create a time machine, go back in time. Nothing is supposed to be changed, but some guy goes off the track and kills a butterfly that should not have died. When they come out from the time machine, there is a Hitler like dictator instead of a democratic, normal government. The story is called Sound of Thunder. Yes, guys thanks. I love this kind of stuff too!! BTW, I have heard weather science is the most quintesential example of chaos theory. One or two degree difference in temp. or some minor difference in clouds effects everything/ changes everythign. I think some butterflies have been flappign lately. Certainly is cold here in NM!! --des

Ok the big (and I have to say new) tv viewer here-- I saw something on the Star on PBS, and they said they may have come from Iran, were most likely Zoerastrians, and were astronomers (astrologers). They talked about the star being a astrological (and astronomical) even-- would make sense, why didn't anybody else talk about it or see it? Yes, since I have reentered Christianity (or since I don't consider Christian Science too much Christian-- entered it), I have really liked the whole symbolism of Christmas coming at the longest, darkest month of the year-- just then the light starts coming back (solstice) as the new Child is born into the world. I have Seasonal Affective Disorder, and this month is really LONG. --des

I'm not sure re: chaos theory and fractals. As I said, I wasn't paying 100% attention to it, as I commonly do lesson plans and watch tv at the same time. Multitasking you know. :-) The visual images were/are arresting (much better than on the 8 bit Amiga!!). Funny thing though, when I used to play with them on the computer I never realized why if you take any section and magnify it, it looked like the rest of the image. Guess I didn't really know what a fractal was before, so I did learn something. :-) I did really like the quote too. Someone must have sat up nights.... One of the neat things in the program (you should see it if you have a chance, and I might actually watch the whole thing-- it was also on during the annoying pledge drive...), was how they related the images to art. They interviewed some mathematicians, and they'd say things like "these images seemed to be familar-- I don't know how." Then they would superimpose the image on a famous sculpture or a Mandala, as well as the spiral shape of a galaxy (add in cloud patterns, ferns, etc etc.). There were many photos of mandelas shown, including those of some mental patient seen by Jung. Arthur C. Clark made the comment that these kinds of images are really deep into our being. Yes, I agree they do seem mystical. It's just wild you can take imagary nos. and come up with something that is form of much of nature and art. Note: I found this quote on the page. I think it nicely explains how randomness isn't really random. I think that was the point of the dice quote: "Of course, not all patterns in nature are regular. Billowy clouds, flickering flames, lightning bolts, the pattern of veins on a leaf, the architecture of the lung's passageways — these are examples of patterns without obvious regularity. But looks can be deceiving. Many irregular patterns are not simply random. They often display an underlying structure, a kind of regular irregularity that can be mathematically described. Such objects have been called fractals, a term coined by Benoit B. Mandelbrot of IBM's Watson research center meaning broken or fragmented." There are some beautiful natural images here. It's slow to load on dial up. http://www.scottcamazine.com/personal/DesignNature/ Yikes, I tried to google fractals+ chaos theory, and got a lot more than I can deal with. Nighty night. --des

Saw this thing (beautiful!) on fractals on NOVA. I used to do mandelbrot sets on my Amiga computer (circa 1985!?). Anyway, this was interesting. At the end, there was a comment on Einstein's comment re: God does not play dice with the universe. There was discussion on how there is a science (or mathematics of chance).I have been watching with one eye tonight, pretty busy, but then the guy (?) commented, it isn't IF God plays dice but HOW God plays dice! Far out, huh? --des

To answer your question. I will be out of town (by an hour) on Christmas, but will be going on Christmas Eve. I also got volunteered to help with the Christmas pagent. :-} --des

Fred, an excellent point. I think sometimes when we say that some Bible writer had a reason for writing something, we are basically saying that someone put words in Jesus' mouth. I would think that that all by itself would be hard to take, esp if you feel the Bible is the word of God (esp the inerrant word). I do not personally think that there is necessarily usually a sinister reason, but I think anytime you take it as not the words of Jesus, it wouldn't matter if we said they were put there sinisterly or not. And yes, I do think there is a tendency to ascribe more sinister reasons. I think we know how institutions work. Was some comment self-serving, or something else? I agree with your other comment too. I was just adding to it. If you don't have the institutional element nothing else happens. Also explains nicely how the ancient church NEEDED to justify itself in someway. IF the ancient church hadn't justified itself, we wouldn't be having these neat conversations! --des

I think UCC is strictly a US thing, but I understand there is sort of a British version of this. However, I can't recall what they call it. Can anybody help here. I found the united-church ca, but when I tried googling United Church Britain, I got Church of England. --des

I really can't get into anything that takes a literal hell seriously, even making it more "just" by having the possibility of salvation somehow always available. The idea that God would allow or be even tangentially related to a place that treats it's criminals worse than the worst governments on earth, worse than the Holocaust, or the most brutal murderers well I could never believe in that sort of God. Most civil governments (I'm thinking the US isn't fitting there right now so well) do not believe in torture, even if the torture were very short. I think that would make human society better than God's. ( I can understand bad things happening on earth-- somehow allowed-- because they are part of creation of the universe or Earth or biological processes. This doesn't quite work for hell, as it supposedly always existed. There is no positive payoff-- like creation of a mountain.) I can take the metaphorical hell seriously, but not the literal one. Metaphorically hell is the place outside The kingdom of God. Hell could also be any no. of conditions that are awful for the victims. Hurricane Katrina was like a hell, I suppose; also third stage cancer; etc. I really liked the Thermodynamics of Hell though. :-) I esp. liked this comment: "As for souls entering hell, lets look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to hell. Since, there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and all souls go to hell." :-) I think, in fact, that religions have used hell as a scare device to scare it's populace into not wandering. If you wander you are possibly going to hell. I think there are many people scared out of questioning their beliefs- why question it when there is so much to lose. I think Huckleberry Finn had the great line, when Tom tore up the letter to turn in Jim and said "all right then I'm goign to hell". --des

Sadly I can't. Or maybe I could, given how things go around in email. :-) There was a story awhile ago of a graduation address that was ascribed to a third rate (imo) journalist/commentator in the Chicago Tribune. It stuck around awhile, went around the earth a few times, and was finally connected to Kurt Vonnegut or something. It made more sense. So yeah, I wrote it. :-) I esp. like the thing about blame it on Clinton. --des

How many members of the Bush administration does it take to change a light bulb? Ten. 1. One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed. 2. One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs to be changed. 3. One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb. 4. One to tell the nations of the world that they are either for changing the light bulb or for eternal darkness. 5. One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton for the new light bulb. 6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor, standing on a stepladder under the banner 'Bulb Accomplished.' 7. One administration insider to resign and in detail reveal how Bush was literally 'in the dark' the whole time. 8. One to viciously smear No. 7. 9. One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush has had a strong light-bulb-changing policy all along. And finally, 10. One to confuse Americans about the difference between screwing a light bulb and screwing the entire country. posted by, --des

My understanding of the google search is that the search IS tied to your IP address, and someone else can find you that way. But the purpose is to make intelligent searches. I think that it is not correct that they are just stored without any relationship to you. They are stored with the IP address. The point of doing that is not be creepy (I still think that it is creepy), but to do intelligent searches in the future. The idea is that they know that my IP address has done these searches, say related to reading, so that I get reading related searches if I do something like search for a program called Words. Right now I would just get thousands of irrelevant URLs. I think that when you know a stalker that you become a little more paranoid as you see how a stalker (or someone working for the more paranoid elements of the Dept. of Homeland security could use it. But do I think that the average person actually has much to worry about-- no I don't. However, the story on tv (and my understanding) was not that they have personal info as such (phone, name, real address). In fact, I think most of the privacy concerns might be more "creepiness factor" concerns. Don't you think it is just a little creepy that the grocery store with a savings card records your purchases and then could conceivably (so far not-- mostly they want to sell me junk food that I never buy) individualize the kind of "deals" it offers you? I think it is creepy, but I think it is mostly harmless. I think the imaginations of what could possibly be done rachet up the creepiness factor but there is more to it than that. I don't think cookies have much to do with how google stores the info. The only exception would be that you normally have traces on your hd of your URLs to get you there faster the next time around. I don't think these have anything to do with more permanent traces that google lays down. It also doesn't really have anything to do with your hard drive-- just the IP no, and the trace I mentioned. BTW, concern about privacy is not entirely silly. My best friend ran from a stalker. He was able to find out all sorts of things about her from public info, easily available. She was just about killed by him. Such people will go to unbelievable trouble. Funny thing about this thread. I put just about the same thing on another forum. Differnet people with younger average age. In that forum the conversation is all about googols, googolplexes, math, etc. --des

I LOVE the circumcision. Too much!!! (it's a butter knife.) :-) --des

I did not mean to imply that whoever put the words in Jesus' mouth about "upon this rock I will build my church" had cynical ends. Or this was somehow foul play of some sort. I was only suggesting that they were perhaps trying to ground the church in something higher and more meaningful than a bunch of by laws. By attaching themselves to that line they end up attaching themselves to the rest of Jesus' message as well. So it would not be a bad thing. Well certainly any group will have some institutional element, I am not denying that. What I meant to say is that something ELSE goes on as well-- and that transcends institution!! --des

More trivia goodies: Google is also a calculator. You can type in an equation and it will solve it. Google is a misspelling of the math term googol. The term googol was invented by the mathematician Kasner's 9 year old nephew (who knows how *he* would spell it :-)-- but it was a misspelling. Just as well as googol.com was already taken). THere is nothing significant about the mathematics of googol, per se. It has been used to teach math though, as a handy reference for a very big no. A typical calculator gets you a little under googol. A googol is greater than the particles of the known universe. A googolplex is 1 with a googol of zeros after it. The Googleplex is where the googlers (employees of google) work. Googlers have a super delux dining hall that serves just about everything for free (one of the fringe benefits). They have an unlimited supply of M&Ms. --des

Haha! Life of Brian! Just way too funny. --des

I saw this thing on Jim Lehr News' Hour last night re: Google. 2 students from Stanford started it as kind of a project. It is worth $120 billion-- more than Ford, Disney, GM, Amazon, The Washington Post, the NY times, and the Wall St. Journal combined. It is now a noun and a verb. It can field 3000 searches per second. New features G-mail, Froogle, image management (this was awesome as I really use this last year). It is entering markets like internet mail. Every search you make in Google is stored by Google forever (or at least so far, forever). Makes privacy experts (and me) a little nervous. Google's corporate motto is "don't be evil". I think referring to Micro$oft and how it became the evil empire-- swallowing up little companies ( I think B.Gates is atoning right now.) Got to be the wierdest company motto ever. My own thought: I think it is one of the most common almost household new terms and very few people know what the term google really means. That is a 1 with a hundred zeros after it. This is google: 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000 !!!!! (Other mottos rejected by Google:* Google! Dance with the devil, but go home before it gets serious. * Google! We won't commit genocide in most circumstances. * Google! Don't eat no babies. * Google! We could do good, but we're like, whoa. * Google! Begone, demon! ) See the article if interested: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/cyberspace/...ogle_11-30.html --des

Very neat Alethia. One thing about this board that I really like is that unless some verse in the Bible was used in a particularly vivid sermon (and I don't remember one on this one), I won't necessarily think about it too much. This one really made me think though. If Jesus could turn water into wine, etc. why bother with such a really simple way of getting a better yield. Why NOT command the fishies to bite?? :-) I know I have said this, as a fishie fan I sort of like this whole idea. But he does this thing that is so rich with symbolism-- cast your nets on the other side. And all the stuff he says later of beign fishers of men, etc. Yep the new Covenant. --des

Funny thing, I'm finding that I'm agreeing with both of you. I tend, for instance, to see the phrase of Jesus saying "upon this rock I will build my church..." as a prob. not said by Jesus but stuck in later by folks with vested interest in showing that the church's authority comes from Jesus. (Perhaps I am making this sound more cynical than it is-- I'm more implying a reason that might be somewhat apart from Jesus saying it.) And I definitely agree with Fred, re: how we are going to see the scriptures rather differently. OTOH, being in a church with all the political and other not so holy things that go on in church's-- even one as non-hierarchical as UCC, well I don't see such political things as having much to do with the kingdom of God. But I do see that membership in such a community-- and there are such great things re: of a community of faith-- that I think being without a community that you are missing something. So talk about contradictions! Perhaps what I am saying is that the institutional structure of a church tends to waylay the spiritual purposes to some extent, and in some ways it is an important extent. But the coming together in a community of faith has some more basic thing to it that is not really institutional but communal and spiritual-- if such a thing happens. Am I making sense? :-) --des