God's blessings are not a zero sum game
March 2, 2014 5:00 PM | Posted in:

bless·ing [bles-ing] noun
1. the act or words of a person who blesses.
2. a special favor, mercy, or benefit: the blessings of liberty.
3. a favor or gift bestowed by God, thereby bringing happiness.
A friend recently shared this article on Facebook. The author is decrying what he feels is an inappropriate and non-Scriptural use by Christians of the word "blessing" in reference to good things of a material nature that we sometimes enjoy. He says we should stop using that word with respect to financial and material somethings and instead just say we're "grateful." He admits that he's dealing in semantics, but feels that in this case, the semantics are meaningful and shouldn't be ignored.

I disagree with his premise.

You can be grateful, but it's just a nebulous emotion unless you're grateful to someone. (Aside: This is why I'm always confused by atheists who observe Thanksgiving.) And why be grateful unless that someone has given you something special? And, gee, that sounds to me an awful lot like a blessing.

God's blessings come in many forms, and who are we to limit them to an arbitrary standard, however well-meaning?

Material blessings are Scriptural. Many references to them are found in the Old Testament (take a look at Deuteronomy 28:1-14...but be careful; in this rather significant passage, God actually ties His blessings to faithfulness!) and the God of the New Testament is the God of the Old Testament. His character doesn't change.

So, if a person living on a subsistence income is unexpectedly given a significant donation, would that person be justified in claiming a blessing from God? If your answer is "yes," then what is the threshold where such a gift is no longer considered a blessing, but is instead something for which that person is to simply feel gratitude?

I don't know why some are blessed with wealth and many more aren't. I don't understand why some saints have lives full of physical pain and challenge, and others appear to live lives free of stress and full of ease. I'm pretty sure both situations are not as black-and-white as we think; the former doesn't guarantee misery or the latter, joy. We'd do well to remember that God's economy is different than ours, given that He has a view of infinity and ours is rather less.

What I do believe is that God's blessings aren't a zero sum game. The wealthy aren't blessed by God at the expense of the poor. I find nothing in the Bible to support that view.

Now, I want to be very clear about something. I abhor the "name it and claim it" approach to theology. The so-called "prosperity gospel" is a distortion of Biblical principles and its proponents have been responsible for great harm to the body of Christ. But the acceptance, recognition, and even celebration of material blessings does not automatically put one in that camp.

These are questions worth discussing but at the end of the day, the real question - and the one area where I do agree with the author of the article - is not what have we been given but what did we do with it?
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Concealed Carry at the Mall? Not in Midland, Texas.
February 26, 2014 6:01 PM | Posted in: , ,

One of our local TV stations posted a link on Facebook to its report on the decision by Midland Park Mall to prohibit the carrying of concealed handguns on its property. It's unclear whether these are new signs, but the mall's policy and the station's spotlight on the signs are drawing the reactions you'd expect from a conservative West Texas community like ours.
 
Against my better judgment, I skimmed through the comments left on Facebook, and amid the usual misconceptions ("that's the mall's rule and you can't be charged with anything but trespassing if you violate it") and overreactions ("I thought this was America") - and despite the almost unanimous condemnation of the mall's stance, there was one subtle-but-common thread: nobody suggested ignoring it.
 
I realize it's risky, if not downright stupid, to draw any sociological conclusions from a Facebook comment thread, but that observation obliquely affirms one of the basic arguments in favor of granting the right to bear concealed weapons - or, perhaps more to the point, against the idea that prohibiting concealed carry makes things safer. It's a trite saying that when firearms are banned, only criminals will have them, but the Facebook conversation seems to confirm that those who support concealed carry are also generally a law-abiding group, and are apparently not willing to break the law even if they deem it to be unfair or illogical. 
 
And in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I think I can safely assume that this same philosophy is not held by the criminal element in our society. Otherwise, they would not be, you know, criminals.
 
In the interest of full disclosure, I have a concealed handgun permit. And while I fully comply with lawful prohibitions posted by businesses - and would never boycott a business simply for implementing that prohibition - I absolutely don't buy into the argument that they're making things any safer. Midland Park Mall may or may not lose any business over their stance on this issue, but its management has lost credibility with a chunk of its customer base.
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One Square Mile: Texas [Midland] - Online Preview Screening
February 20, 2014 6:45 AM | Posted in: , ,

About a year ago I posted an announcement regarding an upcoming series on public television called One Square Mile: Texas. One of the planned episodes was to feature Midland. Those plans have come to fruition and the Midland-centric segment will air on February 27 at 7:30 p.m. on our local PBS station.

stonegate.jpgHowever, you don't have to wait to see it, as an online pre-screening is now available. The producers also tell me that the episode will be available online at pbs.org and on the www.OSMTX.com website.

I strongly recommend this episode to all Midlanders, as it offers a different perspective on life in our city than we're accustomed to seeing in the national media. It's actually a series of personal stories, told by individuals and without any outside commentary or narrative. In other words, Midland (or, at least, this one square mile of Midland) speaks for itself. If you live here, you'll recognize all of the locations and perhaps some of the individuals featured on the program.

The production values are very good, and the filmmakers have managed to document various aspects of life without giving a feeling of intrusion.

I don't believe this episode is intended to be a comprehensive overview of what it's like to live in Midland. In the filmmakers words, "the purpose of the series is to explore what life actually is like for the people living and working in these square miles and to shed light on what it actually means to be Texan in contemporary American culture."

As I stated in my original post, there are many aspects of our city that aren't represented in the square mile chosen for scrutiny. You won't see any of the extremes in wealth or poverty that are to be found in other sections of Midland; there's no direct focus on the oil and gas operations that keep us alive and the only commercial activity that's present is retail. What you do get to see is a glimpse into the lives and perspectives of a few of the people who live here; you can judge for yourself whether the creators achieved their stated purpose. For me, it was a pleasant way to spend a half hour.

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Political endorsements by newspapers do serve a purpose
February 17, 2014 8:02 PM | Posted in: ,

Today's editorial in our local newspaper notifies readers that the publication will no longer issue endorsements for political candidates, ending what I assume is a decades-long practice that still exists at many - if not most - print media. [The practice of political endorsements by newspapers goes back more than 150 years, according to this fascinating analysis.]
 
On its Facebook page, the Midland Reporter Telegram solicits opinions as to whether it's appropriate for the media to endorse candidates for office. The responses weren't numerous, but they were unanimous in condemning the practice.
 
I don't care one way or the other. Whether it arises from a multi-person board or a single editor, a newspaper or magazine endorsement carries no more weight with me than that of any other reasonably informed individual. In fact, an explicit endorsement is much preferred from the more insidious implicit endorsements that often permeate a publication through biased reporting and slanted coverage of the candidates and campaigns. Figure out a way to end that and I'll support your Nobel prize nomination.
 
In fact, the on-the-record endorsements have often served as validation for my own positions, although perhaps in a different way than the publication intended. For example, it's almost guaranteed that when the New York Times endorses a candidate for office, that person's opponent will get my support. (The last Republican presidential candidate endorsed by the Times was Dwight Eisenhower, in 1952. It's hard to believe, but I was too young to vote.) In the unlikely event that that newspaper ever adopts a bias-free reporting philosophy (and hires a staff that can put it in place), my entire political strategy will be cast adrift*.
 
*Just kidding. I have no political strategy.
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Newly Framed Artwork
February 14, 2014 5:05 PM | Posted in:

We had three pieces of "artwork" framed recently. You'll see why I've qualified the subject matter in just a minute.

Two of the pieces had been laying around the house for a couple of years, awaiting the time we worked an infinitely-expanding to-do list down to where they resided. They are both legitimate artwork, paintings by an internationally known painter and author named Charles Sovek. Charles was one of my earliest website clients, and he graciously presented me with a few of his paintings over the years. He died in 2007 but I've continued to work with his widow on a gratis basis as she handles the artwork now belonging to his estate.

The first piece is a small still life painting - I think it's an acrylic, and I know it's a bell pepper - which became measurably more impressive once it was framed. The photo below doesn't really do it justice.

Still life painting

The second painting is an oil entitled Eagles Nest, Zion, from Sovek's Red Rock Country collection. This photo is another example of just how difficult it is for an amateur like me to photograph a beautifully-framed painting.

Landscape painting

The third piece is my sentimental favorite, capturing a concept that I'd been kicking around in my mind for more than a year. Take a look at it, and then I'll give you the back story.

Framed Mac G4 Motherboard

This is the motherboard from the Apple Power Mac G4 that I bought in 2001 and used daily for almost ten years. The circuit board truly is an industrial work of art (and even has the little battery - the pinkish blob in the upper left corner - that kept the clock going while the computer was powered off). I was enamored with the idea of showcasing a piece of high-tech equipment, where function trumps style in every aspect, in an ornate pseudo-baroque setting.

I love the way it turned out, and the framers apparently were thrilled with the challenge of bringing the concept to reality. One was a computer geek who once built computers; he said he debated about whether to leave the locking pins on the RAM slots open or closed (he settled on "closed"). He insisted on taking photos before letting me take the piece home.

Debbie has picked out spots for the paintings. The oil painting is hanging in our entry; the still life is going to Horseshoe Bay. But I haven't yet decided where to display the motherboard. I suppose our home office is the logical location, but I already have a cool watercolor map of the Caribbean hanging there. Hard decisions like this are what's known as "first world problems."
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A [non-traditional] ballroom dance playlist
February 8, 2014 1:41 PM | Posted in: ,

Once each year, the Ballroom Dance Society departs from its usual practice of having live music and uses a prerecorded playlist for a dance. This is done primarily as a fundraiser, saving the cost of a band, but it also gives us a chance to expose members and guests to music that they might not otherwise associate with ballroom dancing.

I suspect that many people, when they think of ballroom dancing, conjure up visions of boring people sleepwalking through boring music, but nothing could be further from the truth. To make the point, here's the playlist that we'll be using for next Friday's dance. If you take the time to browse it, you'll see some traditional music that might conform to a stereotype (that doesn't mean it's not fun to dance to), but there's also a good representation of genres and artists that you might never think to put on the ballroom floor, like, for example, Delbert McClinton, Journey, Willie Nelson, and Santana.

Save the Last Dance for Me Michael Bublé Cha Cha
Some Kind of Wonderful Little Milton w/ Delbert McClinton Swing
Brown Eyed Girl Jimmy Buffett Rumba
Love Done Gone Billy Currington Fox Trot
Tennessee Waltz New 101 Strings Orchestra Waltz
You Are the Sunshine of My Life Stevie Wonder Rumba
I've Got The World On A String Michael Bublé Fox Trot
Blue Tango Jack Hansen And His Orchestra Tango
Fine Cindy Morgan Swing
Moon River Andy Williams Waltz
Sway The Pussycat Dolls Rumba
Fall Apart The Mavericks Samba
I've Got You Under My Skin Rod Stewart Fox Trot
Come Dance With Me Michael Bublé Cha Cha
Fallin' Connie Francis Swing
Little Rock Hayes Carll Swing
The Last Waltz Engelbert Humperdinck Waltz
Oh, Pretty Woman Roy Orbison Cha Cha
Kokomo The Beach Boys Rumba
Old Time Rock and Roll Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band Swing
Papa Loves Mambo Perry Como Mambo
Beautiful Day for Goodbye George Strait Waltz
Big Bad Handsome Man Imelda May Cha Cha/Tango
Dance In the Moonlight The Mavericks Samba
Mustang Sally Wilson Pickett West Coast Swing
La Cumparsita (Tango) Alfred Hause's Tango Orchestra Tango
Neon Moon Brooks & Dunn Rumba
The Best Is Yet To Come Michael Bublé Fox Trot
Waltz Across Texas Willie Nelson Waltz
To Be Loved Michael Bublé Night Club 2 Step
I Just Want to Dance With You George Strait Cha Cha
Smooth Santana Rumba
What The World Needs Now Is Love Jackie De Shannon Waltz
Fly Me to the Moon Frank Sinatra Fox Trot
Jalousie (Tango) Alfred Hause's Tango Orchestra Tango
Moondance Michael Bublé Fox Trot
Girl from Ipanema Big-T and the Bada-Bings Rumba
Nelly Bly Rick Shea West Coast Swing
The End of the World Skeeter Davis Night Club 2 Step
Something Stupid Michael Bublé & Reese Witherspoon Cha Cha
Could I Have This Dance Anne Murray Waltz
Mack the Knife Bobby Darin Fox Trot
Spanish Eyes Al Martino Rumba
Open Arms Journey Waltz
All for You Imelda May Swing

All of these songs are available via the iTunes Store if you want to sample any of them.
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Best Dance Memories - An inauspicious beginning
January 30, 2014 9:47 PM | Posted in:

This blog serves several purposes, one of which is to make other blog writers feel better about their competence in comparison. Another important purpose is more personal: it's a medium for documenting things that I don't want to forget, even if I'm likely to forget that I documented them here. And that's why I'm doing this short series on "Best Dance Memories." If you find anything in them interesting at all, then that's a plus, but I recognize that these posts are the equivalent of old home movies and so you should feel free to fast forward through them.

Best Dance Memory #1 - Our First Dance

The exact date of our first public dance is not recorded anywhere, although the year is rumored to be 2006. The actual date has mercifully been stricken from the Historical Records (if not from our hysterical memories). I know that we'd gotten a fair number of lessons under our belts, but were exceedingly trepidatious about our first outing into the real world of dance, and with good reason, as it turns out. 

The dance was at Midland's Petroleum Club, during the golden years of the Ballroom Dance Society when the turnout was north of 100 people and dances were hoity-toity affairs well-stocked with tuxedoed doctors and CEOs and sparkly ladies, all riding the trendy waves of Dancing With The Stars (which itself was feeding on the residual vibes of Shall We Dance). Remember how we all wanted to ride mechanical bulls and live in Houston and have big hair like Debra Winger after seeing Urban Cowboy? Neither do I, but the phenomenon would have been similar, if it had existed.

We were intimidated from the get-go (likely being the only people there who used that phrase), not knowing anyone well enough to do more than flutter a wave in their general direction. We finally worked up the courage to get on the dance floor - I don't recall the type of dance - and literally froze, as if our brains were completely mystified by the concepts of feet and rhythm - and we backed off the floor and retreated to our table. I'm not sure we ever ventured onto the floor again that night...I've managed to block most everything else out of my memory.

Looking back, it's amazing that we kept going. But we learned a lasting lesson. We can now empathize with people who are just beginning to learn to dance, and we're more quick to encourage them than we might otherwise have been.
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MasterCard? More like MasterFail.
January 27, 2014 8:45 PM | Posted in: ,

I defy you to find a more infuriatingly incompetent credit card website than the one Citi provides for those unfortunate souls who have a MasterCard issued by Sears. And by "unfortunate souls," I mean me, of course.

Here's what I get when I try to log in to our online account:

Screenshot of horribly uninformative error screen

You'd have to work pretty hard to come up with an error page that's less useful than this one. It doesn't explain the error. It doesn't suggest a solution. It doesn't provide a means to contact the company to get help. If I didn't know better, I'd think the federal government was involved with the design of this website, but that would be an insult to the federal government.

One might logically assume that getting this message after attempting to logon MIGHT mean that perhaps a new password is needed (yes, it's an assumption borne of desperation, but alternatives are limited). Guess what you get when you try to change your password?

Screenshot of horribly uninformative error screen

Oscar Wilde said that consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative, but if you substitute "pathetically incapable" for "unimaginative," the sentiment still works just fine.

If I can ever figure out how to get past this screen, I'm going to close the account and switch to Visa. At least they have better TV ads.

UPDATE (same night, one hour later): I took to Twitter to vent my frustration, and once again was gratified by the power of social media to get the attention of even large companies.
And while their suggestion wasn't all that helpful, I did appreciate their quick response (they followed with another tweet asking me to message my phone number to them if I continued to have a problem so we could work through it). But it did cause me to try a third browser - Firefox; I have already tried Google Chrome and Safari - and I was able to connect to the account and take care of business. So, perhaps I'll grant a reprieve...at least until I see how the site behaves in the future.
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LogMeIn KicksMeOut
January 21, 2014 7:05 PM | Posted in: ,

A month or so ago, having grown frustrated with lengthy tech support phone conversations with various family members, we installed the free version of the LogMeIn desktop sharing app on all of our various computers. It's cut those "my window has disappeared and I can't find it" calls to a bare minimum, making everyone much happier. And then this, today:
It seems that the outfit has grown tired of offering its services to freeloaders like me, and now my only option is the "Pro" version that starts at $99/year (or $49 for the first year if you already have an account). Even though the application has been helpful when we needed it, our actual usage doesn't justify paying that much for the service. So, adios LogMeIn.

Unsurprisingly, there are several free alternatives for this sort of application, so I don't expect to miss LogMeIn. It's simply annoying to have to make the switch, and to invest the time to find the best of those alternatives.

Of course, this is anecdotal evidence of just how spoiled I've become. I quickly take for granted those companies who, for whatever reasons, offer free services or products, and then feel slighted (if not downright abused) when they decide to discontinue those things. Well, not as slighted as some people:
As much as I've tried, I can't quite work up the same sense of entitlement as Mr. Cyberaxe*. Logically, I should just be grateful for the time we had together, and recognize that all free things must come to an end. I assume that LogMeIn was hoping that its free offering would be a gateway drug to entice us to graduate to Even Better Stuff, stuff that we'd pay for, and when that didn't happen, the company decided it wasn't worth whatever trouble it was going to to maintain the service. It's a logical business decision.

I sort of doubt that many people will switch to the paid service; I doubt that I'm alone in deciding to seek out another free product to do the same job. But we all need to recognize that whatever we find, we shouldn't count on it in perpetuity.

*Given the specificity of the hashtag rant, I wonder if Mr. Cyperaxe was using LogMeIn's free service to generate revenue for himself, perhaps via his own desktop support business. It's never a good idea to build your business model on the assumption of freebies from a disinterested third party.
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Wendy Davis redefines single motherhood...and gets caught
January 20, 2014 8:48 PM | Posted in: ,

I don't write about political matters very often, primarily because it's just not that much fun. But sometimes a story comes along that demands the widest possible platform. [Note: That last sentence has nothing whatsoever to do with Gov. Christie or his alleged TrafficConeJamNeenerNeenerMayorGate. Unless you think it does.]

The revelation that the Democrats' über-liberal Texas gubernatorial golden girl candidate, Wendy Davis, might have fudged just the teensiest bit on her biography is one of those compelling story lines that needs wider distribution, because I doubt you're going to see much about it in the national media. And if you think this is just a Texas issue, you're probably missing the bigger picture. Like it or not, Texas politics have a way of morphing into national politics.

Anyway, the Dallas Morning News reports that Davis "blurred key facts" about her travails as a single mom who pulled herself up by her bootstraps and graduated from Harvard Law School through sheer determination and grit. It's a great story, at least until the facts sort of mess it up.

Here are the key parts of the DMN report:
Davis was 21, not 19, when she was divorced. She lived only a few months in the family mobile home while separated from her husband before moving into an apartment with her daughter.

A single mother working two jobs, she met Jeff Davis, a lawyer 13 years older than her, married him and had a second daughter. He paid for her last two years at Texas Christian University and her time at Harvard Law School, and kept their two daughters while she was in Boston. When they divorced in 2005, he was granted parental custody, and the girls stayed with him. Wendy Davis was directed to pay child support.
In other words, the true single parent was actually her ex-husband, an apparently very beneficent man who cashed in his 401K and took out a loan to pay for Wendy's Harvard education. In case you're wondering, an academic year at Harvard Law School is pricey...to the tune of $79K (today; granted, it was a bit cheaper in 1993 when Wendy's ex-husband's investment paid off...for her, anyway). Oh, and tuition nowadays at TCU is a cool $36,500 per semester, so multiply that times four and add and stir.

I freely admit that I don't like what Wendy Davis stands for. Her aggressively pro-abortion agenda is odious to me, and I can think of few things worse than to have her as our next governor. That alone is sufficient reason for me to speak out against her agenda. But as we get to know more about the "real" Wendy, it should become even more obvious that voters haven't up to this point gotten a true picture of the glamorized "crusader." 
  
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