Katie’s Beer

From Randy Thomas’ website…

Orlando, FL- February 21, 2006

One of four billboard signs sponsored by an international network of former homosexuals was recently defaced in St. Louis. The ad, located at I-44 at Kingshighway, is part of a larger billboard campaign featuring pictures of former homosexuals with the words “I Questioned Homosexuality. Change is Possible. Discover How.” Exodus International sponsored the ads in anticipation of Focus on the Family’s Love Won Out conference — a public seminar about homosexuality to be held at the First Evangelical Free Church on February 25.

The one-day conference will focus on the hope and help available for those struggling with unwanted homosexuality through the personal testimonies of those who have left homosexuality themselves. Exodus International will take part in the conference and offer long-term guidance and support to those wanting to leave homosexuality through their local member ministries in the St. Louis and surrounding areas. Local gay activists have already announced plans to protest the conference. Read on…

Good comments from Randy’s site:

“I guess they never heard of tolerance. They need some sensitivity training so they can interact with people of a different lifestyle than theirs.”

“I can understand that they might feel threatened by someone who does not fit in with the norm but violence is never the answer.”

“Don’t they know that God is love? Hate is not a family value.”

Tags: Religion, social issues by admin
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Tags: Music by TK
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Dr. Veith, over at Cranach blog (focusing on the study of vocation and the Christian) reported in his post Tennessee Traveler,

“I’m on the road again. Really early in the morning, I caught a plane and now I’m in Tennessee. The Lily Foundation has funded a bunch of programs in Christian and church-related colleges on “Vocation,” which is quite welcome, though the understanding of that concept is not consistent, I’ve noticed. Still, I’m doing what I can to clear up the matter.”

Spurred on by an interesting discussion at Get Religion, Dawn Eden writes again, on the topic of the vocation of journalism and how Christian journalists can assure free speech rights for themselves and influence the field, I started to think about why I am wary of Christian professional societies as having any benefits beyond Christian fellowship.

I would tend to go the opposite route and recommend that any professional work diligently within their field’s recognized professional society to influence it through their actions. That same individual should also be strengthening their faith daily and weekly through God’s Word, solid preaching of both the Law and the Gospel and receiving strength and forgiveness through the sacraments. Exceling as a Christian in one’s vocation does not necessarily mean wearing one’s religion on one’s sleeve.

I’m trying to correctly remember C.S. Lewis’ quote about the world needing good literature, not more Christian writers (bad paraphase, someone help out here)? Wouldn’t the same apply to any vocation?

I’m thinking that a study of Luther’s teaching on vocation would be very helpful to anyone hoping to influence their profession and would ultimately go farther in obtaining free speech rights than joining a Christian professional society. Just my thoughts…

Update for 2-24-06

Something occurred to me this morning as I read the comments of the Get Religion thread. How is what happened to Dawn Eden ultimately a bad thing? One commenter said Dawn Eden was “beat up”, but God’s Word tells us that we will be persecuted for our faith on this earth. God promises in His Word that He will work all things for good and He delivered. The Opinional Journal featured her NYDN review, she’s getting great publicity for her upcoming book (which will proclaim the good news while entertaining readers) and she is gaining many readers for herself (and her new employer). She may have been temporarily beat up, but she stood strong in God’s Word and now look at her! She may be attacked for her faith again, but I don’t doubt she will continue to cling to the cross of Jesus Christ as proclaimed in God’s Word for her help and salvation. She did that all without a Christian journalists’ society, but not without a good pastor and church.

Take being said, I am not against professional societies for Christians of particular professions. It is strengthening to gather with other like-minded professionals from time to time. I just don’t think those societies should think that God needs them to do His work on earth.

Lucas Cranach was a good friend of Martin Luther’s, who became a great artist. He was also a businessman who ran a pharmacy and the printing shop that published Luther’s translation of the Bible. He was also something of a politician, who served on the Wittenberg town council and for awhile was mayor of the city. As a layman who lived out his faith in his various callings, Cranach embodies the Reformation doctrine of vocation. In the spirit of Lucas Cranach, this blog will discuss issues of Christianity and culture with a Lutheran twist.

Tags: Vocation by TK
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Southside singer ready for spotlight; Taylor Hicks aims for big break on ‘Idol’

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

MARY COLURSO

News staff writer

Taylor Hicks knows precisely what he’s going to buy if he makes the big bucks on “American Idol.”

A sleek Ferrari? An Armani wardrobe? A mansion in Greystone?

Nope.

“A couch,” Hicks says. “The most expensive couch in the whole world.”

This Birmingham musician says he hasn’t exactly been living the luxe life on his earnings from years of playing in area bars and restaurants.

“I’ve been lying on a couch that I had in college,” says Hicks, 29. “And it’s not even a couch, just bundles of cotton. My friend’s dog rolled in a cow carcass and sat on it.”

But the shabby upholstery in Hicks’ Southside apartment seems likely to improve in the near future, along with a shiny upgrade in his public profile.

Last week, Hicks was chosen for the top 24 on “Idol,” a nationally televised singing contest on the Fox network. His soul stylings - although unusual for a reality series that aims to create pop stars - earned Hicks a spot among 12 men and 12 women competing for the “Idol” title on its fifth season.

The winner receives a recording contract from RCA and, typically, the devotion of millions of viewers.

“I’m really excited to be at this point, because I know it’s going to help my career,” Hicks says. “This could be my big break. A rate increase is on the way.”

Read the rest of the article at the Birmingham News.

Tags: American Idol 5 by TK
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Taylor Hicks
from WBHM, Birmingham, Alabama

He’s gonna win. I can just feel it. (No, it’s not a Constantine thing, either.) When he performed Leave On tonight, I had the urge to just close my eyes and listen. Then I rewound the DVR and watched him sing it again. Wanna hear more Taylor Hicks? I do, so I ordered his latest CD, Under the Radar. Yes, he’s a hometown star already, but now he’s becoming a national star. My one regret is that I probably won’t ever get the chance to see him in a small smoky venue like the one’s he’s already been playing.

The CD will most likely sell out soon, but if it does you can just download these three songs courtesy of WBHM.

Soul Thing is a really good song! In a downloadable WBHM interview, he discusses the song and his music. You can buy a photograph of Taylor Hicks taken by Michael Sheehan, professional photographer. And maybe, you can still book Taylor Hicks for a concert at The Music Garden. Here’s his playlist:

Ray Charles
Georgia on My Mind
Hit the Road Jack
You Don’t Know Me
What I Say

The Temptations
Ain’t Too Proud to Beg
My Girl

Miles Davis
All Kind of Blue

Marvin Gaye
Mercy, Mercy Me
What’s Going On

Van Morrison
Brown Eyed Girl
Moondance
Tupelo Honey
Naked in the Jungle
Crazy Love

The Meters
Mardi Gras Mambo
Fire on the Bayou
Sissy Strut
Hey Pocky Way

Curtis Mayfield
People Get Ready

Dolly Patron
9 to 5

The Commodores
Brickhouse
Easy Like Sunday Morning

Elton John
Daniel Song
Border Song
Honkey Cat
Leave On

Billy Joel
Piano Man
New York State of Mind

Jim Croce
Operator
Alabama Rain

Otis Redding
Love Man
Sitting on the Dock of the Bay

Sly and the Family Stone
Higher

Billy Preston
Will it Go Round in Circles

Taylor Hicks Band
Hell of a Day
My Friend
The Fall
In Your Time
West Texas Sky
Soul Thing
Son of a Carpenter

Tags: American Idol 5, Music by TK
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In her review of Annabelle Gurwitch’s new book for the New York Daily News , Fired, Dawn Eden shares some incredible details of her last days at the New York Post:

“…maybe my own pink-slip experiences have made me overly skeptical of dismissals that are tightly plotted and teem with deadly zingers. Even the firings of mine that came suddenly were, in retrospect, the result of long-simmering differences that finally bubbled to the surface.

Consider my exit from the New York Post. On the day I got the ax as a copy editor, Col Allan, the editor in chief, called me into his office and told me that he was “very concerned” about my blog, where I discuss my beliefs as a Christian conservative. He then lowered the boom (those “fired” synonyms just keep coming). But the first intimation that something was up had come days earlier.

It was then that I got in trouble with my boss, and a Post reporter, by making changes in an article about in-vitro fertilization. I was merely trying to add factual balance. (When three embryos are implanted and two “take,” the third one–it seemed worth mentioning–”dies.”) The newspaper, however, thought that the changes reflected “rabid anti-abortion views,” as a Post gossip column would later put it. When my boss refused to fire me over the incident, the unsatisfied reporter found my blog, printed out certain passages and took them to the top brass.

The word then came down from on high: “When you give an interview, if you talk about being Christian, don’t mention that you work for the New York Post.” I agreed. But I had agreed to the same thing four months before, after I gave an interview to a media-gossip Web site and my comments had stirred concern at the paper. When Mr. Allan finally fired me, then, it wasn’t entirely clear whether the reason was my blog, my beliefs or my editing. But for days I’d had the feeling that something bad was going to happen.”

I haven’t highlighted any particular phrase in her account, but certainly some of it shocked me. Of course, I’m not an intrepid journalist but just a wife, mother and employee who likes to write. In my world, I can’t imagine being fired for my views unless they were just so extreme from the main or I was just downright beligerent that working with me was impossible. Sounds like Ms. Eden has found a good home at the New York Daily News. Has the day finally come where a reporter can have opinions and beliefs and still be given a fair chance as a mainstream journalist? I would think that the Get Religion thinktank run by Dr. Terry Mattingly, whose goal it is to make sure the reporters report stories with religious components accurately, is a good example of this positive trend.

Dawn Eden’s blog can be found at www.dawneden.com. Ms. Eden does a good job of reviewing Ms. Gurwitch’s book, Fired. Isn’t she the girl from that movie show? Yep, it was the show, Dinner and a Movie. Hilarious!

Tags: Blog-keeping, Vocation, Religion, social issues by admin
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Wow! No other words are necessary, really. She’s got years of singing practice and a desire to win over the American public. She appears to be poised to dominate this year’s competition. When she sings, I stop whatever I am doing. Her performance was absolutely stunning. No other woman came close to her performance. I think the judges had a hard time toning down their comments, so as not to discourage the rest of the pack. The rest seemed to pick difficult or songs not suitable to their voices. I can’t wait for the men’s competition tonight! I wonder what Glen says…

Tags: American Idol 5 by TK
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Phillipe Candeloro
According to Wikipedia, the source of all internet knowledge, Phillipe Candeloro is alive and well. He is married, has two daughters and works as a journalist in France. He is remembered by many (OK, just women) as a wonderful and very manly figure skater. According to Wikipedia, he was bothered by figure skating’s feminine nature and purposely designed programs to show masculinity:

As a competitive skater, Candeloro was easily recognized by his energetic style and unique choreography. He usually portrayed specific characters on the ice, and constructed his long programmes’ music, costumes and choreogaphy around each concept. His most well known long programmes include “Conan”, “The Godfather” (1994 Olympics), “Lucky Luke” (1996) and “Napoleon” (1997). In 1998, Candeloro portrayed D’Artagnan from The Three Musketeers. His brilliantly choreographed programme included a mock swordfight with intricate footwork that covered the entire length of the rink.

No one has asked me, but it is my impression from the mens’ figure skating competition at the 2006 Olympics that masculine skating still wins out. I bolster my contention with the fact that Yevgeny Plushenko of Russia won the gold medal. There were other skaters that were far more artistic, many of whom could jump as well as Plushenko, but it seemed to me that the judges and the crowd prefers men who skate…like men.

Russian Yevgeny Plushenko, gold medal winner at the 2006 Torino Olympic games

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Today is Presidents’ Day. In our house that means that all students (our kids) and teachers (my husband) are sleeping in and I have to go to work. My family’s business votes on 10 holidays to observe each year and the consensus is always for the summer holidays and very long weekends. I don’t mind getting up when everyone is sleeping because these days mean that I have the house to myself as my loved ones blissfully slumber the morning away. To take advantage of this morning I tried to make soft-boiled eggs. I’m 45 years old and I don’t know how to soft boil an egg. Sure, I probably had a cookbook somewhere telling me how to properly soft-boil eggs, but I wouldn’t admit such defeat (there’s a life theme in this sentence). Besides, how hard could it be?

After three tries and four eggs, I ended up with one egg that was pretty close and one perfectly soft-boiled egg. After enjoying the eggs, I decided to check out my favorite cooking site, Cooking for Engineers. I couldn’t find a recipe for soft-boiled eggs - I’m looking for some kind of chart with times and yolk consistencies - but I found a delicious looking recipe for Orzo Risotto with Buttery Shrimp.

A further search for a chart led me to the University of Exeter School of Physics and The Science of Boiling an Egg by Charles D.H. Williams:

A Formula for Soft-Boiling Eggs

The Derivation

To obtain a simple formula the problem must be idealised somewhat, so the egg will be treated as a spherical homogeneous object of mass M and initial temperature T_egg. If the egg is placed straight into a pan of boiling water at T_water, it will be ready when the temperature at the boundary of the yolk has risen to T_yolk~63°C. With these assumptions, the cooking time t can be deduced by solving a heat diffusion equation.

The Result

The full derivation (PDF, 19kB), which can be viewed with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader, is quite complicated but the final result is relatively simple:

resource.

where ρ is density, c the specific heat capacity, and K thermal conductivity of ‘egg’. According to this formula, a medium egg (M~57 g) straight from the fridge (T_egg=4°C) takes four and a half minutes to cook, but the same egg would take three and a half minutes if it had been stored at room temperature (T_egg=21°C). If all the eggs are stored in the fridge, then a small (size 6, 47 g) egg will require four minutes to cook, and a large egg (size 2, 67 g) will take five minutes.

Tags: Food, Cooking by TK
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Probably inspired, in part, by the true athlete’s mindset (Snowboarding is fun…I was just having some fun) of cute little Lindsey Jacobellis, Scottius Maximus has penned an Open Letter To Jacques Rogge

Dear Mr. Rogge:

I am writing tonight to express my appreciation for the quality of this year’s Winter Olympics. While I don’t necessarily agree that everything in these games is a “sport”, I do agree that most of it is competition at its finest.

Take last night’s Snowboard Cross. This new “sport” can only add to the “prestige” of the Olympics. Why this was not thought worthy of our attention before now is a tragedy. I mean, didn’t anyone realize the entertainment potential of watching snowboarders barrelling down slopes and over jumps and waves with three others at the same time? Even a NASCAR fan can appreciate its carnage potential.

But use this knowledge to your advantage. Really push the envelope here. I have some new “competitions” that I am SURE will send your TV ratings through the roof. I have listed some here with a brief description. Read on…

1) “Blindfold Freestyle Skiing”- Mt. Dew addicted “athlete-dudes” put on a blindfold and hit the slopes, doing aerial jumps through flaming hoops and over churning windmills.

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