presentsense

URGENT - Political message

We interrupt our political hiatus for a very important message:

As many of you already are frighteningly aware, our country is experiencing an unprecedented period of uncertainty and turmoil. The nations morals have been compromised on every front. Our patriotism and national pride is at an all time low. Prayer has left our schools. Women are aborting babies at an alarming rate, and many aren't even retarded or anything like that. Teen pregnancy is at record levels. The cost of oil is nearly unaffordable for the average Joe (plumbers and otherwise). Senior citizens have seen their pensions dissolve and their retirement savings literally wiped out by corporate greed and financial speculation. Roads and bridges are crumbling. Men are marrying other men. Women are marrying other women. Kittens are being slaughtered. Drugs are rampant in our schools and day care centers.

But, the good news is that we can do something about it. We have a tremendous privelege to be able to vote for president, and there is one candidate who can and will set everything right that has gone so horribly wrong up to now. Sarah Palin. She is a viruous woman of unparalleled resources and intellect. She not only believes in God, but she walks the walk. She is Esther. For such a time as this and all that. And so, with this post, I want to once and for all endorse Sarah Palin for President and recommend that all my readers take an unconventional, but critical step on November 4th.

Please write in Sarah Palin as your candidate for President. That's right, I am advocating a write-in campaign. Please do it, and pass this on to ten of your friends by email. With God on our side, we can turn this election in a direction that no one dreamed, and take our country back for the ultimate Patriot - God.

Eli

Please pray for Hayden today

Our 8 year old son, Hayden, is flying to Indiana today - by himself. If you pray, please say a little prayer for him. He's excited, but then he's never changed planes in ATL. Actually, he's never even been on an airplane before in his life, and he gets to do it all by himself, and did I mention a layover in ATL? Yeah, anyway, please pray, and if you don't pray, send a good vibe. He'll be fine, I am sure, but even I (seasoned traveler lol) get a little ruffled going through Atlanta.

Lord, please be with Hayden today in a way that he can feel, and please protect him in a way that I can't.

Time lapse with a twist

I love time lapse photography, but most of it is from a fixed vantage point. This example is pseudo-fixed, in that the camera is in fact mounted, but to a moving car, and it is driven from LA to New York in four minutes. The music is pretty cool too. Enjoy. Two weeks of mindless crap and art posts to go!

The beauty of Autumn

If you like autumn pictures...

Clickee dis linkee

Grandfather Mountain (90 minutes from my house) even gets a picture on this page. Incidentally, for you locals, I read recently that Grandfather Mountain was just sold to the State of North Carolina, and it will become a state park. Previously, it was a private concern (and expensive to visit for a family of seven, unless you tell them you are a AAA member, which the girl at the gate insisted that we do, whether we were or not. I think she felt sorry to tell us it would cost us more than 50 clams to drive to the top of the mountain and swing across a bridge)

If you like to admire beautiful photography, I recommend the Big Picture blog on Boston.com (that's where this link is from).

Dragging ourselves to church

Yesterday, Steph and I literally dragged ourselves to church. We had every excuse imaginable not to go. Weekends have become something to recover from by going back to work. Saturday morning I stepped on a stick which ignored the sole of my shoe and punctured the arch of my foot. (OUCH). Sunday morning, Steph woke up with stomach cramps/vomiting. Still, limping and doubled over, we rustled up five kids and headed uptown.

Saturday, I had been reading Psalm 37, and I sent it to a friend who was going through a rough time. Well, guess what Jonathan's sermon text was? He also asked the body to read Psalm 37 every day this week. I don't think that's such a bad idea. I'd like you to join us. I'll make it easy.

Click here for Psalm 37 in The Message
Click here for Psalm 37 in the NIV
Click here for Psalm 37 in the King James
Click here to have it read to you. (sorry, you'll have to dig a litte. I recommend having Max McLean read the NIV to you with soothing synth-pad music in the background

This is why we are where we are

If you are more than just curious about what exactly is behind the global economic crisis, I cannot recommend this show highly enough:

http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355

The Giant Pool of Money is entertaining and informative, and IN NO WAY has any political slant to it. It's quite refreshing actually to hear events reported on without a slant one way or the other.

And before you all bash me for linking you to public radio, listen to the show for yourself. The glorification of baby murder and sodomy is not alluded to in any way in this 59 minute episode.

Amazing tilt-shift time lapse videos [Photography] — I Heart Chaos

Link: Amazing tilt-shift time lapse videos [Photography] — I Heart Chaos.

OK, this stuff is really cool. I am trying to figure out how this is done.

a creative day...

Took half day off to work on a song with Steph. Got it mostly tracked. It's missing something, but I haven't figured out what yet. I am trying to be as minimalist as I can, but it always seems like the tracks end up having basically the same 5 instruments, and way too much noise stacked on top of itself. Nature of the beast I suppose. Steph's voice sounds really good, and Garage Band hasn't ceased to amaze me. Did you know it has a rudimentary auto-tune built in, as well as some weird audio-track quantizer? Yeah, well the auto-tune doesn't sound half bad, when locked into the right key, and told to work at about 30-40% of perfect. As for the quantizer, I can guess how it's doing it, but I accidentally applied it to a track, and wasn't very happy. Pitch is fixable, but rhythm takes some serious cutting and pasting.

I can't imagine what it must have been like back when the only editing options were literally a razor blade and tape. I am glad technology has caught up to my lack of patience.  Now I can "see her words" and line them up to the beat. Brilliant.

If anyone knows of a good crash course on mixing (home recording for dummies or something), let me know. I know how the program works and what everything does, but when it comes to style, I tend to stack one thing on top of another until I get a wall of noise.

You are a Christian who cares about abortion

If you are not, you may ignore this post. If you are, please hear me out. I believe very strongly about this.

With this post, I temporarily suspend my moratorium on politics (some say it never took anyway) on this blog. This is important.

I have had more than a few conversations with my Christian brothers and sisters (even my parents) on this topic. I know that for most Christians, the issue of abortion is A-1 - top of the list - it's going to swing our upcoming election.

Yesterday, Steve Knight and I visited with Don Miller (Blue Like Jazz) in a hotel conference room in Matthews, NC. Don is campaigning for Barack Obama. The audience were (for the most part) church-going folks - committed Christians - who all agree on one point. The abortion issue is the single issue that keeps them and their brothers and sisters in Christ on the fence with regards to the upcoming election.

The Republican campaign has done very litte to reinforce the view that to vote for a Democrat is to kill babies. They haven't had to. After many conversations with my churched friends, even broaching this subject seems foreign. It's not open for discussion. Well, look - in my opinion, it damned-well better be open for discussion. I am not going to allow conventional wisdom to end the conversation. Please read the following facts about abortion. I'll wait here until you get back.

OK, welcome back. Now, here's what I want to say about this topic. As I have prayed about this and mulled the platforms of the two candidates in my mind, I have come to accept the fact that the republican "strategy" against abortion is a one-pronged attack - to criminalize abortion. This is a pie-in-the-sky dream. John Roberts, the Supreme Court's most conservative member, has said himself that the chances of overturning Roe v. Wade are slim, and that other cases have already cemented it into "the law of the land". If he, being the most conservative justice, thinks this, and he got onto the court by the slimmest of margins, what are the odds that any president will be able to tip the court further in the favor of the anti-abortion camp? So then, if we could concede the fact that the law is set and not going anywhere, then the Republicans must have a strategy for reducing abortion rates in spite of the law, right? Nope. As was the case of the Pharisees in Jesus' day, "They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them." (Matthew 23:4).

Democrats, on the other hand, while also conceding the law as it stands, are at least doing something to reduce abortion rates. Through the 95/10 initiative, social programs (including health care, tax credits, insurance reform) and -shudder- sex education - INCLUDING ABSTINENCE, Democrats are putting their money where their mouths are. These aren't your father's baby-killers.

I am pro-life. I oppose killing in any form, be it the innocent unborn, the unfortunate war-dead, and even those guilty of the most heinous crimes against humanity. I am not going to let one party or the other stop the conversation, and I am not going to let my church, my pastor, or my party make up my mind for me on this issue. I urge you to find out everything you can from both sides on this subject between now and the election. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you into "all truth," as Jesus promised He would. Your vote is a precious thing. Don't let any party take it for granted.

What are we selling?

Yes, I watched the VP debate last night, and yes, I expected the worst out of Palin. She did pretty OK, but it dawned on me later just how she did OK. It wasn't about the substance of her words. Anyone with half a brain can tell she's reciting talking points and knows very little about the answers she was giving. That isn't to say she can't - or won't - learn on the job. We all do that. Very few people (almost no one) "interviewing" for the job of POTUS or Vice-POTUS has ever been one before either - we expect them to be able to learn on the job.

But it begs the question, "Why would the Republican machine pick her, when she's so obviously inexperienced?" The easy answer, and the one most have already offered, is that Palin is a dyed-in-the-wool Left-Behind-Series, CCM listening Christian. No on disputes this. Facebook has a "Sarah Palin Prayer Covering" group, for heaven's sake. So lets agree to that one up front.

The second reason is that she's a middle-aged mom. That's a direct demographic bullseye that McCain couldn't really match.

The third reason for their choice is more obvious while at the same time totally off limits from mainstream conversation. She's sexy. Way sexier than John McCain. She's flirting with the camera. Winking at the camera. Mugging for the camera. Flipping her hair. Flirting with Biden, and ..ahem.. flirting with America.

Let me ask you this...Why did she do so poorly with Katie Couric, but so much better last night? Sure, she had more time to prepare, but I think it might also be because she couldn't flirt with Couric. Last night was a different story, because she was talking to the camera, and she could imagine that camera was anyone she wanted it to be.

Is anyone else seeing this?