Do you remember?
Posted on August 7th, 2008 by Jason
Someday I’ll be able to tell my grandchildren that I remember where I was when I learned that Brett Favre got traded to the New York Jets…
Eureka!
Season 3 premiere of Eureka happen in 0 days.
My Plurks- semperjase says Honeybun took Bailey to the Dr last night. She does have an ear infection. Got her on some drugs and she's already perked up.
- semperjase says woohoo! I broke the 60 karma ceiling.
- semperjase Blog Post: Do you remember? s3nt.com/irt
- semperjase Back from hanging out in the basement because of the tornado warnings. Wheeeee!
- semperjase Honeybun says Bailey has 103 fever. Thinks she has an ear infection. My poor little sunshine.
Not all tax collectors are bad.
Posted on August 5th, 2008 by Jason
I recently came across a discussion of this passage in gospel of Luke:
Luke 18:
10. “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
11. “The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: `God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
12. `I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’
13. “But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, `God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’
14. “I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Isn’t it funny how things jump out at you sometimes? Like this one got me wondering about this anonymous tax collector. Jesus had a tax collector in his audience when he taught this parable. Did you ever wonder if the tax collector in this passage was the same tax collector that became an apostle of Jesus, now most commonly known as St. Matthew?
Quote O’ the day
Posted on July 17th, 2008 by Jason
“God doesn’t promise tomorrow, he does promise eternity.”
-Tony Snow, 1955-2008
Liturgy for comprehension
Posted on July 9th, 2008 by Jason
Julie at Happy Catholic , Amy Welborn, and Jeff Miller have all taken issue with the USCCB for not pproving a section of the proposed translation of the Roman Missal.
I respect all of these bloggers but I disagree with them in this case. In fact, I find their criticisms of Bishop Trautman to be unfair and misrepresentative of his position, especially the “Dick and Jane” parody Jeff Miller employs. Bishop Trautman has stated he is not for using “street language” and advocates the translation having “an elevated tone”. That does not mean the translation should use archaic language and overly complicated structure.
Trautman’s criticism does have substance:
[Trautman]said that the text’s preference for mimicking the sentence structure of Latin, featuring long sentences with a large number of dependent clauses, impedes understanding in English. Trautman cited one prayer in the new Proper of Seasons presented as a single 12-line sentence with three separate clauses.
This is where I get to put my education as a technical writer to use. The good bishop is right. Any 12-line sentence should be rewritten because it will be ineffective. In the same article Auxiliary Bishop Richard Sklba of Milwaukee said, “If I have trouble understanding the text when I read it, I wonder how it’s going to be possible to pray with it in the context of worship.” The bishops are not claiming laity are stupid, they are claiming that the writing is confusing. The translation is just bad communication.
The translation violates rules of writing for comprehension. A couple of those rules are, do not use archaic language when it can be avoided and do not use longer sentences when shorter sentences will do. Long sentences with mulitple clauses should be broken up into smaller sentences to increase clarity. The presentation of a 12-line sentence with three separate clauses ignores this concept.
Overly complicated writing is a barrier to communication and by extension it is a barrier to worship in liturgy. It is not insulting to laity to ask for a faithful translation that is also understandable to the modern venacular. The entire purpose of having a venacular translation is to make the liturgy more approachable to the laity. I shouldn’t need to have a master’s degree to understand it.
Most useless emergency exit…ever
Posted on July 8th, 2008 by Jason
Actual emergency exit sign at Denver International Airport:
I can’t help but think of the worst case scenario. How long must 15 seconds be if a fire is spreading through the room? Even worse, what if a gunman is shooting people? (Eveyone else in this area would have already been disarmed.)
If you are looking for a way so that people will not be able to get to safety, I think this would have to be it.
Heart strings
Posted on July 8th, 2008 by Jason
My wife’s mother and grandmother visited us the last two week. Yesterday, my wife flew with them back to Las Cruces for a week to attend a wedding and baptism.
I was able to get a pass to help my wife get to the gate with Bailey. During the wait for the plane to load, I was letting Bailey run around the waiting area to burn some energy off the flight. She was doing her normal thing in charming everyone she saw. She eventually slowed down and I picked her up to wait for the boarding call.
Honeybun got to go first when the time came. I got a goodbye kiss from Bailey and passed her to Honeybun. Being the Daddy’s girl she is, she put her arms out to me wanting me to take her back and fussed for a second. Then Honeybun told her to say goodbye. Bailey realized I wasn’t going with them and with a disappointed look waived and said, “Bye!” It was crushing. I even got sympathetic looks from the other passengers around us.
I miss them already. The bright side is, I actually got 8 hrs of sleep last night.
Less than six degrees
Posted on June 14th, 2008 by Jason
Two days ago I was just about to walk out the door to leave for work when my wife told me that our neighbor called to tell us there was a police officer in front of our house with a gun.
I looked out our kitchen window to see the officer walking up my driveway pointing an assault rifle in front of him. I saw another one on the other side of the street. When he looked satisfied that no one was hiding in our carport, my wife opened the door. He told us they were looking for two fleeing felons and to call 911.
We found out later that police had made a traffic stop and an man and woman. When the officer got out of his car, the suspects took off. A chase ensued ending in a crash a few blocks from my house. The two suspects fled on foot but the woman was captured later (after the search on our street) two blocks away from us.
The man has still not been caught. The news reported his name as James Herrera.
This is where it gets weird. “Jimmy” has a brother named Jason (not me). Jason has a good friend named Kevin. Kevin works with me. Unsurprisingly, Kevin tells me that Jimmy seems to have a drug problem. I believe he used the word “loser”.
Drinking straws rated
Posted on June 11th, 2008 by Jason
Drinking straws are an important aspect of the fast-food beverage experience. Here is how I see them stack up.
5. Taco Bell - horrible straws. Too narrow. Who can drink through these things? Also I’ve found that I frequently have to get a replacement because of a split in the straw or a manufacturing defect at one end hampering the suction.
4. Subway - Acceptable diameter but their plastic wrapping can be annoying to remove (no one-handed pound on the counter to expose the top of the straw). The covering is also hard to crumple to throw away; again, not a one handed job.
3. Wendy’s - A good all-around straw. Not flashy, but serviceable. A little narrow for my taste but not nearly as bad as Taco Bell.
2. Arby’s - Good diameter for suction but see-through plastic can leave unsightly residue visible iin the straw.
And the best fast-food drinking straw is:
1. McDonald’s - The McDonald’s drinking straw is the gold-standard for all drinking straws. It is sturdy with enough width to get a good draw on any drink including a thick milkshake. The white and red color hides any residue in the straw and goes well with their cup designs. The McDonald’s straw streamlines the drinking experience. No other straw comes close.
Is it the economy stupid?
Posted on June 6th, 2008 by Jason
The price of oil hit $134/barrel today. Labor figures show 5.5% unemployment. The Democrats have decided to exploit this situation for their political advantage. They want to press Republican presidential nominee John McCain by bringing up legislation to extend unemployment benefits (how this benefits the 94.5% employed, I don’t know), give federal assistance to homeowners facing foreclosure, and promote and undefinded plan to address soaring gas prices.
Unemployment is still near historic lows. Most homeowners are not in foreclosure. Our economic woes are due to energy prices, not low unemployment or home foreclosure.
Democrats need to stop blocking energy development here at home. You can’t legislate low energy prices. You can take the restrictions off and let industry produce it though. Now is not the time to exploit bad news for political gain.
We are not in an economic crisis, we are in an energy crisis. It’s the energy stupid. Take off the chains of beauracracy and let us develop our own resources to reduce our dependency on foreign oil.
That is how we will solve the energy crisis.