This was my response to my friend Gustave’s letter about high gas prices:

Goose,
my dear and wonderful friend. Let me start by saying I am quite naive to the large ramifications you’ve talked about here. I completely agree with you on everything you shared here.
Just so we get some clarifications on all this here is the basic jist of what happened:
I wrote off-handedly once about enjoying the fact that High gas prices has created a much greater interest and demand for fuel efficient cars, more people out biking to work, and …

A statistic I’ve heard thrown around, and I’ve hesitated to mention, regarding abortion was that the number of abortions had risen under Republican presidents and gone down under Democratic presidents.
I finally remembered it and thought to look it up, and found the oh so reliable FactCheck.org had put together a clear answer for me:
A number of politicians and organizations have been circulating an interesting and surprising idea: that abortions have gone up under George W. Bush’s watch.  The claim is repeated by supporters of abortion rights as evidence that Bush’s anti-abortion policies have backfired, …

Wanted to point you to an essay I wrote for MinusCar.blogspot.com, a site dedicated to the idea of reducing our car use and trying alternative forms of transportation.
From
The MinusCar Project

In an age of massive consumerism, bigger is better, the person with the most toys wins mentality, some folks are starting to see that the Emperor is not wearing any clothes. For some they caught a glimpse of the recent movie concerning global warming, others it was their empty pocket book at the pump, others still have been riding their …

So I got bored and decided it was time to start publishing books. I found some great resources for self-publishing and I think with blogs and the vastness of the internet, we can probably see some success without trying to connect with a major publisher.
The book project I’ve been gathering interested folks together for recently has been concerning Social Justice. Then just for fun I thought I’d try to do another one collecting challenging sermon-like essays that might not be what you hear most Sunday mornings.
It’s all starting at …

I little while back I made a tiny off-hand reference to liking high gas prices, the comment was mentioned by my pastor, I then mentioned it to Mel, who then mentioned it to Gustave, and this was his response:
Dear Ariah,
I was talking to Melissa and she mentioned something offhand to me. She said you think high gas prices are good in that they will help change patterns of American consumption. I am not sure what your whole position is. It was something about a conversation with …

Joel directed me to this series of articles regarding the Lebanon-Israel Conflict:
David Gushee’s Original article The first article to be postedA Lebanese Perspective on the Conflict and a disappointed response to David GusheeAn Open Letter to Martin Accad in response to his articleFurther Reflections by Martin Accad
Here is a paragraph from the last one I found extremely intriguing (but not specifically about the conflict in any way):
“And who is my neighbor?” an expert of the law asks in fury, annoyed with Jesus’ message and behavior that frustrates every notion of …

In a recent discussion about abortion, the issue came up of knowing what groups of women are having abortions and the role that plays in how we talk about it and how we address it.
I found this chart that breaks down Abortions by age and race (when I said sort of, it’s because it’s split into white and “black/other”–But there is also a chart dividing Hispanic and non-Hispanic).
There is also this long article that does a good job articulating statistics concerning Teenagers and abortion and pregnancy, but it’s also ten …

I read this little tip about making a copy of your passport that I thought I’d share with you all since I have a few friends that will be doing some serious traveling in the not too distant future.
From
Cool Tool: Passport proxy

Make a good color copy of your passport, including the covers. Align the inside sheet of your passport data with the outside passport cover sheet. Glue together. Laminate. Score and fold. You now have a fairly official looking travel document.
I have found that for most purposes — changing …