“…oil is replacing gold as the investment opportunity of choice in troubled times.” That’s bad news, and at least part of the reason for high gas prices. Imagine if your car ran on gold. Ouch! I suppose the term “black gold” is more appropriate than ever.
An excellent article can be found here on the some of the problems with contemporary praise music. The article focuses on lyrical content, and makes some great points. I think this is half of the reason I’m not a fan of most contemporary praise music myself. The other half is that the musical style/genre isn’t very appealing to me, or in other words, I don’t connect with it. I’m not one who promotes hymns either though. While there may be many hymns in existence, as much or more so than contemporary songs, it seems that only a handful are ever used. Though I grew up with hymns in church, I don’t consider myself an expert because I haven’t paid much attention to most of them since I started thinking about these things. However it seems to Continue reading
So I did vote yesterday. After I checked in, they handed me a democratic ballot. I believe I overhead them joking about not even asking people which ballot anymore. It’s understandable I suppose, everyone wants to vote and give their opinion in “the big race”. (Up until a couple of days ago, I was under the understanding that you could only vote for the party that you’re registered as, but it turns out that our primaries are open, meaning you can choose which party’s primaries you vote in.) I voted for Ron Paul as I had planned to do. He was very much on the ballot as I thought, and in contrast to what the Obama campaigner had tried to tell me.
Interestingly, Huckabee and Romney were also on the ballot, though they have dropped out of Continue reading
While not surprising, I find this kind of annoying and frustrating. A person came by the apartment today trying to get me to support Obama in the primary. At first she asked, “Have you decided who you’re voting for?” I replied confidently, “Ron Paul.” She seemed stunned, and confused and started saying things like, “He’s not on the ballot,” and “He used to be running for the Republican nomination but dropped out.” I’m pretty certain that’s not the case, so I think she has her facts wrong there. It maybe true he can’t win now, but he is still on the ballot. She finally seemed to collect herself and said, “I understand wanting to support Ron Paul (yeah, I believe you), but we need to support change, and Obama supports change.” I was Continue reading
This morning just after five-thirty (about 5:37) I happened to be partially awake due to the fact that a fire truck (I believe) had just driven right by my apartment building. I was lying there with my back to the door when suddenly I had the sensation that someone was pressing in through the door or something. That didn’t make sense and then I wondered if something was shifting or falling from my desk, but it wasn’t. Then I felt like the wind or something was pressing against the outside of the apartment, but I realized wind couldn’t actually move the building, as was now happening. Fire flashed through my head, probably because I had just heard a fire truck close by, but that didn’t make much sense either. For a split second I wondered Continue reading
I’ve felt the need to try and get more involved in actually doing something to help people. It’s a bit tough because I haven’t had a lot of extra time or money while I’ve been in school. I did donate to the Brian Scroggins Memorial fund, which I suggest you consider (he died leaving his wife and three kids behind).
Some friends of mine found out about and decided to join this walk to fight homelessness, and I decided to join them. Here’s the scoop:
Homeward Bound is a 5k walk to fight homelessness and provide housing. A yearly event across the state of Indiana that raises money through donations from people like us. I’ve decided to participate this year and you can help out by making a donation, joining my team, or signing up to Continue reading
In follow up to my blog of a couple of days ago, I was indirectly reminded by my friend Pam that in the Christian belief system, it seems that God wishes to work through people, using them instead of just performing outright miracles in everyone’s lives.
That got me to thinking though, if God lets a lot of things happen, and leaves us to work on fixing things rather than just doing it all himself, he must think that it’s really important for us to do so. It must be as important, if not quite possibly more important, for us to help others as it is for them to receive help. Or put in other words, though we don’t realize it, perhaps we need to help others more than they need to be helped. Think about that for a minute. That’s quite a Continue reading
I’m concerned about the economy. The picture that seems to coming out isn’t a positive one. Here’s my attempt at capturing the situation as best as I can. Essentially, certain governmental policies and actions taken by the Federal Reserve in the past created a situation in which financial institutions had more incentive to make high risk loans. (The thinking is that a solution to a slowing economy is to make more capital/money available for investment/spending, by giving businesses/people easier access to credit.) The current problem came about because people were getting financing beyond what they were worthy of, in order to invest in real estate. This pushed up real estate prices, in turn encouraging more investing in a cyclical process. Continue reading