"The Colbert Nation is at it again. This time the comedian has asked viewers of his show to write in his name on an online vote to name the new room of the international space station. Unfortunately, the official rules of the NASA ballot say that the space agency is not bound to comply with voting results. If they welsh on this one, we should boycott space ..."
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/main/slices/culture/16253-the-colbert-universe
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Go here for the full article on Yahoo.
And go here to vote in the Space Station "New Room" contest.
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Yesterday, Seth "tower" Hurd (a radio host of Shine.fm in Chicago, one of the largest Christian radio stations in the country) posted an article to RELEVANT magazine called "The Christian Music Conspiracy". I highly recommend you check it out, as it asks us to branch out in music taste and do our part to help end the somewhat bad rap that contemporary Christian music often receives.
While I really liked the article overall, I also enjoyed reading much of the follow-up commentary by readers. I have to agree with some of the commentators that it's often easier for me to connect spiritually to the themes and the artistic direction of so-called "secular" music than to the campiness and old-school-ness of some overplayed mid-1990s Christian music that proliferates the radios and contemporary Christian church services alike. So, while I enjoy actually participating in large worship gatherings that revolve around new Christian rock-Gospel of the Hillsong and Casting Crowns variety, if I am simply listening to or watching a band, I will just as often see God in the music when it's a secular group than when it's a Christian group.
One such example is the punk-rock band Linkin Park. The band has found its niche in the secular realm, though much of its style and themes may have been influenced by the band's members' Judeo-Christian backgrounds. (See Christianity Today for a greater analysis.)
But just listening to the lyrics and absorbing the band's art direction makes it easy to understand how powerful a song, regardless the genre or industry, can be on one's heart.
Watch Linkin Park's "What I've Done" Video here for more proof.
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My verse of the day from Sojourners:
Hear this, you rulers of the house of Jacob
and chiefs of the house of Israel,
who abhor justice and pervert all equity,
who build Zion with blood
and Jerusalem with wrong!
Its rulers give judgment for a bribe,
its priests teach for a price,
its prophets give oracles for money;
yet they lean upon the Lord and say,
"Surely the Lord is with us!
No harm shall come upon us."
- Micah 3:9-11
*We cannot insist that the Lord is with us and acting on behalf when we are not committed to His justice, His mercy, His grace, His equity, and His peace. Not our definition of it, not our sham of a version of any of it, but His.
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So I've been reading the education-related sections in Dick Morris's Outrage book, and let me tell you, he's got me outraged..at him!In the chapter titled "How Teachers Unions Block Education Reform", Morris correctly infers that teachers unions block reform and keep change from coming to ineffective and outdated practices, and he also, in my opinion, correctly identifies charter schools as the route to successful schooling practices. He also nicely observes that probably the biggest benefit of No Child Left Behind is that it finally gives the blue-collar and lower middle-class parents of failing school districts the opportunity to have a say-so in their children's educations, without being forced to suffer the life-long consequences of ineffective teachers and inadequate learning.
However, I started throwing air-punches at Morris when he mentioned these ideas for parents to advocate on their students' behalves after scoffing at and failing to address the American Federation of Teachers (AFT)'s very real concern that the standardized testing mandated by NCLB "fails to take account of differences among schools" and "doesn't do enough to recognize the special problems of urban schools." Does Morris seriously think that the parent of an urban child stuck in a failing school -- a parent already disassociated from her child's education because she herself 1)is a junior-high drop-out, 2) works two jobs to try to make ends meet, and 3) has several other children to worry about at home -- is going to really understand her options for finding her child a better school, have the time and resources to go about getting that child into another school, be able to provide safe transportation to a more distant school site, and, if necessary, fight for a new charter school or reformed local school board?? Does he really think that will happen? Clearly Morris doesn't know an urban school from a suburban one, or stay-at-home mom from a struggling single parent.
Morris also made me want to throw up when, on page 191, he tries to convince us readers that the common teacher complaint of having to "teach to the [NCLB standardized] tests" is no complaint at all and is actually a good thing.
"The idea that "teaching to the test" is wrong is especially absurd when the exam measures basic reading and math abilities. We're not talking about flights of logic or philosophy classes. If teachers teach to reading and math tests for elementary and junior high students, so much the better!"Ummm, barf. Clearly Morris has not talked to college admissions officers about how, since the advents of NCLB reform in the early 2000s, admissions essay quality has plummeted and creativity has significantly disappeared from applicants' writing pieces. Then, you might ask, don't the students at least show a mastery of basic writing skills? Here, too, the basic reading instruction of elementary and junior high -- tailored to the tests, of course -- is incomplete and lacking, just as I've found that in the two high schools in which I work -- schools that, mind you, receive high "passing" marks by NCLB standards -- many of the students don't understand basic functions of middle school grammar and often have difficulty expressing their thoughts on paper, even in the most basic, typical, overused, and restrictively uncreative 5-paragraph essay.
Dick Morris, I know you have lots of high-end experience in political consulting and analysis, but please, before you go ranting and raving about how you think public schools should and do work, go do your homework.
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