The problem with AI ... according to AI

Source.  

It's been nearly 13 years since Gmail offered automatic classification of e-mails (sorting them into "Primary," "Promotion," "Social," etc.). I appreciated the way this organized my in-box, and I soon began creating filters that would override Gmail's decisions when necessary. Even so, I wondered what Google was doing with the data it must have been collecting to do that sorting of my mail.

More recently, Gmail has been trying to finish my sentences, and has been offering summaries of my incoming mail and my e-mail conversations. It offers to help me write letters.

I posted the following query into Google's search engine:

"Examples of unwanted and uninvited use of AI in our everyday Internet-based tasks (e-mail, for example)." I'll let AI speak for itself (but I'll return at the end).

Note: Google provides the sources of the information and advice in this essay through links in the actual Google-constructed reply to my request.

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Platforms are moving from simple "tools" to "collaborators" without always being asked.

It’s a fascinating (and sometimes frustrating) time to be online. We are currently in the "opt-out" era of the internet, where AI features are often pushed live first, leaving users to figure out how to disable them later.

While some find these tools helpful, many users experience them as "feature creep"—unnecessary clutter that interrupts flow or compromises privacy.

1. Communication & Email

This is where most people encounter unwanted AI daily.Smart Compose & Predictive Text: Gmail and Outlook now suggest the end of your sentences. While it saves seconds, many feel it flattens their personal voice or makes emails sound robotic.

AI-Generated Summaries: Some email clients now place an AI-generated summary at the top of long threads. If the AI misses a nuance or gets a deadline wrong, it can lead to costly misunderstandings.

Priority Inboxes: Algorithms decide which emails are "Important." If the AI "hallucinates" that a bill or a personal note is "Promotions," you might miss it entirely. [This happens to me frequently.]

2. Search Engines & Information

The way we look for facts has fundamentally shifted in the last year, often removing the "human" element of the web. 

AI Overviews (SGE): Google and Bing now place an AI-generated answer at the very top of search results. This pushes actual websites (written by humans) further down the page and can sometimes present "hallucinations" as factual truth.

Chatbot Sidebars: Many browsers (like Edge with Copilot) now have persistent sidebars that analyze the page you are reading, even if you just wanted a clean reading experience.

3. Social Media & Content Creation

Social platforms are using AI to keep you scrolling longer and to fill gaps in original content.

AI-Generated Commenting: LinkedIn and other platforms now suggest "AI replies" to posts. This can lead to comment sections filled with shallow, automated praise rather than genuine networking.

Feed Manipulation: Algorithms have moved beyond "who you follow" to "what the AI thinks will keep you hooked," often surfacing AI-generated "slop" (synthetic images or low-quality AI articles) in your main feed.

Invisible Editing: Instagram and Facebook have integrated AI tools that can "expand" your photos or remove people from backgrounds automatically, sometimes blurring the line between reality and digital fabrication. 

4. Workplace & Productivity Tools

The "Software as a Service" (SaaS) world has integrated AI into almost every text box. 

The "Ask AI" Pop-up: In tools like Notion, Slack, or Google Docs, highlighting text often triggers a "Write with AI" button that can get in the way of manual editing.

Meeting Transcription Bots: You may join a Zoom call only to find an "AI Note-taker" bot joined too. This can feel like uninvited surveillance, especially if the host didn't ask for everyone's consent first.

Why this feels "unwanted"

The tension usually comes down to three things:

1. Cognitive Load: Having to constantly dismiss pop-ups or "X out" of AI suggestions is exhausting.
2. Privacy Concerns: Users often worry that their private drafts or emails are being used to "train" the next version of the AI.
3. Loss of Agency: When a tool suggests how you should finish a sentence, it subtly influences your thoughts and communication style.

Even more unwanted! Google's sources did not mention perhaps the most disastrous aspect of AI's invasion into our online lives: the electricity it takes to make those often-unwanted features possible.

I asked Google, "How much additional electricity (beyond what would be used simply by the Internet) is required to power AI?" Here is its full answer. In brief,

AI-optimized data centers require 3–5 times more power per square foot than traditional facilities, with a single AI server rack consuming 50–150 kilowatts compared to 10–15 kW for conventional computing. AI searches use roughly 10 times more electricity than standard, non-AI internet searches, driving a potential 10%–20% increase in total U.S. power demand by 2030.

I admit that I appreciate that AI is probably helping Google process the questions I ask it. Instead of guessing at the best key words and their best order, as I used to do, I can frame my queries in natural language. However, my occasional and voluntary use of AI in this direction is not the same as having it intrude when not invited.

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At the end of the original response to my query, Google asks, "Would you like me to show you how to disable some of these specific AI features in Gmail, Google Search, or LinkedIn?" I answered "yes," and it linked to these suggestions.

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In the context of ICE and other U.S. Homeland Security officers' abusive behavior, it's not surprising that audiences yearn for evidence that justice is on the way. A whole new AI-powered trope has arisen to meet this hunger: videos of officers making ludicrous and cruel arrests (it happens!) and then getting scolded by angry citizens, business owners, local police, and judges. Here's a YouTube channel specializing in such videos. The channel's front page makes it clear that every video is fictional, a similar note is on each video's individual page, and the videos themselves bear all the typical features of fakes, but the vast majority of the comments on many of these videos are cheering on those righteous resisters. Occasionally there's a plaintive "It's probably AI but I wish this were true."

Other AI-generated videos tell stories of miraculous landings of stricken airplanes, or detailed accounts of Ukrainian drone strikes, and no doubt far worse material ... and we're all paying for the power that's needed to compose these AI fakes, and the mental and spiritual pollution they spread, just when civil society needs true discernment more than ever. Among the names of the early Quaker movement were "Publishers of Truth" and "Children of the Light"; I guess we're still needed, if we're up to it!

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Was it inevitable? AI agents have their own social network?? Benj Edwards on Moltbook.

Micah Bales on the humility of God. "Be encouraged, brothers and sisters."

Sunita Viswanath: The "theology of showing up" is making Minneapolis a holy place.

Artemis II's lunar mission is delayed. Amy Shira Teitel's sad and blunt commentary on this rocket and its ultra-expensive path to irrelevance: her video and article.

A Guardian report on Dezer Development and Palestinian deportations: an infuriating glimpse into the world of wealthy presidential friends who earn big fees by transporting deportees and treating them as utter nobodies.

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One of my favorite versions of "Baby Scratch My Back" ... Jason Ricci with John Lisi, Sam Hotchkiss, Andy Kurz, and Adam Baumol.

Return to silence (partly a repost)

Yesterday I was startled by the sound of an airplane overhead.

Until just a couple of weeks ago, I wouldn't have been able to write that line. Planes were overhead constantly. The lack of planes and cars in our daily soundscape here, in this era of self-isolation, has allowed me to hear distant human conversations, nearby birds and insects -- and I can, for once, almost literally hear myself think.

For a retiree, this silence may be golden. But there's a vacuum in the silence, too. The cessation of many familiar sounds is linked with another reality that rings very hollow -- the interruption of work and commerce. The silence on the streets is linked with a record flood of unemployment claims, over 6.6 million in the last full week of March.

Sometimes this deeper silence buoys me up, and sometimes it weighs on me. I'm a terminal introvert, but I've found that even I have limits to my desire for isolation. Unexpected reunions by e-mail and social networks have given me great delight. The nice speakers that Judy gave me for Christmas are booming with classical music when others are nearby, and blues when I'm alone.

Silence during my morning centering hour, on the other hand, seems more precious than ever. As I pass out of the zone of words into the spacious territory of quiet, I've become aware of a hum, a vibration at the very edge of my perception. Maybe it's like the low hum of an amplifier. Maybe it's simply the carrier waves of my nervous system. I'm sure there's a natural explanation. But I'm interpreting it differently, using the analogy of cosmic microwave background -- the residual waves still lingering throughout space from the big bang that gave birth to the universe. When God desired Creation into existence, that original motion of love has never died away, and if I listen carefully enough, I catch a hint of its persistent presence.

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The current public health emergency interrupted the plans that Michael Eccles and I had made to be in Moscow for part of last month. Our very first appointment had been the twice-monthly Wednesday worship group of Moscow Friends. The following thoughts on silence originated in a presentation I made six years ago to that same group. I reposted it again three years later, but it has fresh meaning for me now.

Earlier versions of this post had my translation from Natasha Zhuravenkova's Russian version of Pierre Lacout's essay "God Is Silence" for the italicized quotations below. This time I've substituted John Kay's English translation from Lacout's original French.

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Fritz Eichenberg, Christ of the Breadlines

Pierre Lacout and silence

The "Thursday group," a circle of Friends who meet on two Thursdays a month [now they meet on Wednesdays], invited me to speak on Friends' understanding of silence, which I did this evening. I was so delighted by the invitation, since for me silence is like spiritual oxygen.

I started by telling about an incident that happened to me at the age of 19, when I was living in rural Pennsylvania and had to walk an hour every workday in the early morning, sometimes starting in darkness, to meet my ride the rest of the way to the Western Electric factory at King of Prussia. I spent the day on the assembly line. At the end of the day, I had the same four-mile walk in reverse, back home. One day, walking in silence as always, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the certainty that I was not an observer, separate from the landscape around me, but that I was the observed one, with the whole visible reality around me was doing the observing.

I fast-forwarded a few years to Ottawa Friends Meeting, within whose community I lived for three years, 1974-77, from the time I became a Christian until the moment I left Canada. I talked about my spiritual mentor, Deborah Haight, and the sense of centeredness I felt in her presence. Deborah was born into a Conservative Friends family in Norwich, Ontario. There were some in our Friends meeting who seemed to aim for an ideal of perfect silence in the meetingroom--street noises and even the sound of children could be a problem. But I had this feeling that Deborah held silence within her.

Discussion handout; read online

The rest of my comments this evening were based on Swiss Friend Pierre Lacout's booklet God Is Silence, which is available online in Russian, translated by Natasha Zhuravenkova. I organized my thoughts around some quotations from that booklet, which I had put in a handout along with discussion questions. I also drew from J. Brent Bill's Holy Silence and Anthony Bloom's conversations on prayer entitled "Let's Try Praying in Truth." (PDF, Russian.)

Lacout, after extolling the advantage of silence:

If nevertheless I speak, it is to communicate with souls whose silence is in unison with mine and who hear the Silence of God in the words I use. If I speak again it is to awaken to this silence souls ready to receive it.

And a bit further on, Regular practice is important. The Spirit blows where [the Spirit] will but ... only fills sails already spread.

Here I emphasized the inner discipline implicit in Lacout's words, and asked if this was any different from what Katherine Evans was talking about among early Friends when she said, "...we had thousands at our meetings, but none (of us) dare speak a word, but as they are eternally moved of the Lord...."

And when our Friend Jan Wood encourages us to "tell the stories of God's power among us," as we might experience it in worship, is this the same kind of talking that Pierre Lacout advocates among those who would otherwise prefer silence? As we discussed how to bring the gift of silence to those for whom deliberate silence is a wholly new idea, Friends mentioned how important it is to demystify it for newcomers to our worship, and not to let Quaker "culture" repel the tender visitor.

More from Lacout on the discipline of silence:

The life of silence is always a willed attention [as contrasted with spontaneous attentiveness to an external distraction]. ... The fully developed religious life becomes a mystic life. For some 'mystic' is synonymous with 'exceptional', involving visions, transports, levitations. ... This is putting the important thing into second place, pushing the central to the periphery. For Paul, a mystic is a person who knows the fullness of Christ, who lives by the inflowing of the Holy Spirit: 'It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me.' [Galatians 2:20; context.] And 'They are the [children] of God who are guided by [God's] Spirit.' [Romans 8:14; context.]

We spent some time on the question of whether devotional literature, as some have suggested, tends to be written by introverts for introverts, and to what extent Lacout's insights apply equally to those of other temperaments. (Several Friends laughingly took issue with my self-description as an introvert, but I assured them it was a valid label!)

Lacout asserts that

Contemplative silence is a way of seeing which needs no object. It can only be defined as direction. It is a looking towards, not a looking at. Ideas about God are good only if I move quickly on from them. 

But those conceptions, or representations, have a use:

As a starting point [for the practice of silence], we choose beforehand a theme whch can gather together, not disperse, our spiritual forces. This preparation can be infinitely varied according to individual personality, character, vocation and religious experience. 

Here I mentioned the role of pictures (Eichenberg, for example, or Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son) in my own life, as well as music, books, and so on. I wish we had spent longer on gathering ideas from the other participants this evening.

I mentioned that a lot of spiritual literature, including that written by and about Friends, reminds me of socialist realism -- it's so upbeat and aspirational that we can wonder whether we'll ever have such wonderfully angelic and serene inner lives. Lacout writes honestly about two main obstacles to growth in silence--firstly, distractions and dissipation, and, secondly, the inner demons of the subconscious.

But the one who does not stop on the way, but goes beyond meditation, ideas and the enjoyment they give, to silence itself; the one who seeks the deepest Center, the very heart of being; such a one cannot avoid meeting in [their] path the subconscious and its phantoms. 

Unfortunately, we barely had time to touch on this important aspect, and the related topic of inner healing, during this evening's session.

One of the topics of our lively discussion afterwards was this question: was there a difference between what we know as Christian prayer and the sort of objectless, contemplative silence that Lacout seems to describe? In the material I distributed, I mentioned Brent Bill's comparison of the Eucharist and Quaker worship, particularly his insight that "We become the liturgist, priest, penitent, and communicant." None of these roles are the end point of silence, but to me they are crucial movements on the path. I talked about the villages in my head (now there are four!) in trying to describe why, for me, intercession is one of the central "objects" of silent prayer. I may cherish the experience of absolute self-abandonment to the Holy Spirit, but first I have to stay rooted enough to keep my promises!

It's also vitally important to remember that Pierre Lacout's definition of a mystic implies that the practitioner of contemplative silence may be "objectless" but is far from empty. I remembered the biblically resonant comments of my Dagestani conversation partner last week -- "If God isn't there, something else will fill that space."

I'm so grateful to the Thursday group for giving me the chance to put these thoughts together and to hear their experiences. Including our own time of silent worship, three hours flew by too quickly.

Originally published on March 6, 2014.

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Related:

Silences.

Silent worship: "I wouldn't last five minutes."

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Weldon Nisly of Christian Peacemaker Teams writes on enemy love, and on not becoming what you hate. (PDF, go to page five.)

Roger E. Olson's blog specializes in theological posts that simply and calmly invite discussion on topics that are anything but simple. This is why I've linked to him several times in the past. This time he asks if a true Christian can be demon-possessed.

Micael Grenholm lists the five worst Christian responses to the coronavirus pandemic.

We also believe in healing and the value of fellowship. But if the Jesus movement could go on fine during its first 300 years without cathedrals or megachurches, we can handle a few weeks or months.

It's been a long time since I posted anything about Linux-based operating systems. Jack Wallen presents two helpful articles ... the five best Linux desktop distributions, and the rise of the Linux distribution-specific laptop. (Here's mine, still going strong.)

While we're in the world of computers, I'm going to try Wess Daniels' recommended research-oriented notetaking application, Roam Research.

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Megan and Rebecca Lovell, known together as Larkin Poe:

If you were a real Christian...

Recently Franklin Graham challenged Democratic presidential aspirant Pete Buttigieg on the latter's gay/Christian identity:

Mayor Buttigieg says he’s a gay Christian. As a Christian I believe the Bible which defines homosexuality as sin, something to be repentant of, not something to be flaunted, praised or politicized. The Bible says marriage is between a man & a woman — not two men, not two women.

Here, Graham is pointing out a contradiction (in his humble opinion) in Buttigieg's Christianity. At least within the text of this tweet, he's not denying the Democratic mayor's right to call himself a Christian.

On the other hand, what about Franklin Graham's Christianity? His comments on Buttigieg earned him a social-media backlash, much of which referred to Graham's enthusiastic support of the USA's Sinner-in-Chief and questioned whether Graham was a genuine follower of the Prince of Peace.

I actually defended Graham on Twitter, if you can call this a defense:

We've no right to declare whether @Franklin_Graham is a genuine Christian. Christians have a wide range of wisdom, faithfulness, maturity, trustworthiness, consistency. HOWEVER, Franklin has NO credibility as a public witness for the Gospel. He has sacrificed it on Trump's altar.

— Johan Maurer (@quaker_johan) April 26, 2019

This business of distinguishing between imperfect Christians and fake Christians reminded me of Roger E. Olson's blog post from a month ago: Is Everyone a Christian Who Claims to Be a Christian? Olson says that an attitude of total acceptance of anyone's Christian self-identification, without actual comparison with the essence of Christian faith, is anti-intellectual and a-historical. It's not mean or judgmental, for example, to expect that any authentic Christian acknowledges being a sinner and repenting.

I respect Olson's argument but have a few misgivings. My most important caution: consider the context of any situation in which one person is judging another's Christian credentials. In the best case, the question could come up in an honest face-to-face encounter, with the well-being of the would-be Christian as top priority. That's far from the reality we see all around us in political discourse. (Example.) When a politician announces that Pete Buttigieg or Franklin Graham or Barack Obama is a fake Christian, they're no doubt expecting approval from their audience, and perhaps some political benefit from that denunciation. And without a personal conversation based in love for the soul of that public figure, chances are the denunciation crosses the line of bearing false witness.

Martin Marty provided an example of taking context into account when he discussed the phenomenon of post-Watergate prison conversions, including that of the late Chuck Colson. He couldn't help but question the trend of jailhouse conversions, but said he would never question an individual case. He certainly respected Colson's sincerity.

In the preface to Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis (whom Olson mentions) insisted on a very straightforward definition of Christian, one that dates before the emergence of the New Testament:

Now if once we allow people to start spiritualising and refining, or as they might say "deepening," the sense of the word Christian, it too will speedily become a useless word. In the first place, Christians themselves will never be able to apply it to anyone. It is not for us to say who, in the deepest sense, is or is not close to the spirit of Christ. We do not see into [people's] hearts. We cannot judge, and are indeed forbidden to judge.

It would be wicked arrogance for us to say that [anyone] is, or is not, a Christian in this refined sense. And obviously a word which we can never apply is not going to be a very useful word. As for the unbelievers, they will no doubt cheerfully use the word in the refined sense. It will become in their mouths simply a term of praise. In calling anyone a Christian they will mean that they think him [or her] a good [person]. But that way of using the word will be no enrichment of the language, for we already have the word good. Meanwhile, the word Christian will have been spoiled for any really useful purpose it might have served.

We must therefore stick to the original, obvious meaning. The name Christians was first given at Antioch (Acts xi. 26) to "the disciples," to those who accepted the teaching of the apostles. There is no question of its being restricted to those who profited by that teaching as much as they should have. There is no question of its being extended to those who in some refined, spiritual, inward fashion were "far closer to the spirit of Christ" than the less satisfactory of the disciples. The point is not a theological, or moral one. It is only a question of using words so that we can all understand what is being said.

Those early disciples in Antioch "accept[ed] the teaching of the apostles" ... but we cannot be sure exactly what the disciples were taught. Jesus and Paul specified very few tests; a complete New Testament canon and formal creeds were centuries in the future. I agree that those early tests are supremely important, powerful, and (to me) persuasive, but they were limited in number and had no artificial precision: "The kingdom of God has drawn near. Repent and believe the good news." (Jesus.) "Not everyone who says 'Lord, Lord' will be in heaven, but only those who do God's will." (Jesus.)  "If you declare with your mouth 'Jesus is Lord' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (Paul.) Finally, you will be numbered among the sheep rather than the goats if you have ministered to him through your care for "the least of these." (Jesus.)

Ilya Grits vividly described the consequences of defining those we don't like as not belonging to the "people of God." The stakes are high. Exclusion can be a first link in a chain that leads to genocide.

Does it matter whether being publicly identified as Christian has positive or negative public consequences? In the USA, we grew accustomed to Christianity being the majority religion, earning its adherents approval or, at worst, indifference, even some mild hostility in limited circles. It's not dangerous, whereas there are places in the world where Christians are persecuted and those who convert to Christianity are killed. Those are not places where the Christian tag is adopted lightly, and there's probably little temptation to be a fake Christian. We Quakers now get mild approval in most places, and may easily forget that our first generation risked confiscations and prison and martyrdom for their Friendly discipleship. We don't often hear about "fake Quakers."

One final note on Olson's essay: I may be dubious about anyone's right to call someone else's Christianity into question, but I draw an implication from Olson that I agree with. If someone calls attention to their Christian identity, we have the right (humbly, knowing that we too have imperfections) to call attention to inconsistencies in their faith and practice -- especially when those inconsistencies are likely to confuse the public and endanger the reputation of our message. Once you make an issue of your faith in the public arena, you are fair game for debate. Only, let's conduct the debate with love and honesty.

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Will voters care about the Graham-Buttigieg exchange?

Steven Davison provides a contemporary case study in defining Christian boundaries among liberal Friends.

I'm late in acknowledging a death in the Russian film world: Georgy Danelia.  One of his films, Kin-Dza-Dza!, is one of my all-time favorites, a tribute to friendship and a unique grunge-steampunk science fiction landscape laced with wicked humor. (It's on YouTube, with captions. Part one. Part two.) Also check this list of five must-see Danelia films.

It's been a while since I spoke with my Linux operating system fan voice. Here's Jack Wallen's summary of the top five Linux distributions. These days I'm using Ubuntu, with the Mate desktop. It's been eleven years since I abandoned Microsoft Windows, and I've rarely looked back.

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Remembering John Lee Hooker....

Nagasaki shorts

Cross from the Urakami Cathedral, Nagasaki
(Collection of the Peace Resource Center)

It was 38 years ago today, at the end of Boston's annual Hiroshima-Nagasaki peace vigil, that Judy and I were married at Friends Meeting at Cambridge. I love celebrating our August 9 wedding anniversary, but I always pause to think about the full import of the date.

I've written about Hiroshima before, and probably will again. [Here.] Today, a few words about Nagasaki. Specifically, about how hard it is to look at this cross. It is from the Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Nagasaki, a building that was located about a third of a mile from ground zero on August 9, 1945. This bomb-scarred cross is part of the collection of Wilmington College's Peace Resource Center.

The Christian cross symbolizes the sacrifice of the nonviolent Lamb who was slain for all of us, and this particular cross tells me how costly our defiance of the Prince of Peace still is. We dare not sentimentalize or trivialize the cross of Christ!

It's been over thirty years since Helen Redding, director of the Peace Resource Center, first showed me the Center's Hiroshima/Nagasaki Memorial Collection, and told me the story of how Barbara Reynolds established the collection. At the time, it seemed cruelly ironic to me that the second atomic bomb attack was on the city that many considered the center of Japanese Christianity. I don't feel that way now. There's no reason that we Christians should be shielded from any hazard that the world's innocent children of whatever description might be forced to suffer.

Update, August 2019: Wilmington College returns the Nagasaki cross to the Urakami Cathedral. (Also see the Wilmington Yearly Meeting epistle.) Thanks to Dan Kasztelan for the links. Here (video) is the story from a Japanese viewpoint.

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A week and a half ago we moved from Eugene back to Portland, Oregon, but this past Sunday we returned to Eugene Friends Church to say a proper goodbye. We sang these words during worship:

And I will rise when He calls my name
No more sorrow, no more pain
I will rise on eagles' wings
Before my God fall on my knees
And rise
I will rise

(from "I Will Rise" by Chris Tomlin, Jesse Reeves, Louie Giglio, Matt Maher)

When I sing contemporary worship choruses, I am often tempted to substitute "we" and "us" for "I" and "me." But not with this song.

Back around the same time I met Helen Redding in Wilmington, Ohio, I had the good fortune of meeting Joe Kelly for the first time. You can read some of Joe's story in the description of the meeting he pastors in Traverse City, Michigan -- Friends of the Light. He once told me that his vision of a Quaker meeting was a community that would embody Jesus for people who had always thought they were not "good enough to be in a church."

In my olden days, The Canadian Friend subscription
records were on McBee cards for sorting by postal
code and expiration date. Source.

When I sing "I will rise on eagle's wings," I am thankful that I already know that I don't have to be Good Enough to sing those words. But I've been in the church world for over four decades -- much of that time as an employee of the church. (I started out as the business manager for The Canadian Friend at $100/month.) I love imagining these same words being sung bravely by someone who decided to trust Jesus just yesterday, or who is maybe right in the process of deciding, and whose life might not exactly have anything resembling a churchy gloss. I cherish the assurance that we will rise together. You and I and the children of Nagasaki.

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Melani McAlister writes about the homelessness that some evangelicals of color are experiencing in the Trump era. Sample:

The very term “evangelical” has become fraught for many people of color, who might never have been that comfortable with the label to begin with. For some time, a crucial reality of evangelical life has been its increasing racial diversity, buoyed by evangelicalism’s growing transnational ties. In the last few decades, U.S. believers have grown more likely to travel on short-term missions, participate in international conferences, or simply watch one of the multiracial and multinational teachers and preachers on Christian television and online. Over the last two years, however, the election of President Trump has created a profound generational, racial, political, and gender divide—one that has shaped U.S. evangelical life so thoroughly that the long-term impact will not likely be known for a generation.

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The factors that are causing global warming don't just add up, they might have a mutually reinforcing domino effect. Reading this article makes me ask again: what will be the Pearl Harbor-level alarm that will finally pierce our denial about climate change?

Today: Hiroshima/Nagasaki commemoration at Wilmington College.

Hiroshima: the anti-transfiguration.

The Quaker meetinghouse that speaks of quiet faith.

... And what we encounter in silence, says Mike Farley, lies beyond all distinctions.

Kent Thornburg on nutrition, chronic disease, and the 100-Year Effect.

Meet computer pioneer Grace Hopper (including a fascinating interview with David Letterman), thanks to Open Culture.

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For the best in rockabilly and blues, go to ... Moscow! Dennis Mazhukov introduces us to the Off Beat band.

Brown-bag update

• Umpqua Community College in Oregon: perhaps 10 people are dead in today's mass shooting; as many may be injured.
• Terrified residents of Kunduz, Afghanistan, are reportedly in hiding as Afghan and U.S. troops battle for control of the city.



Source.



Signe Wilkinson, Source.

• In Syria, an evolving alliance of government forces, fighters from Iran and Lebanon, and Russian air support, faces at least two distinct enemy groupings ... one of which is supported by the U.S. See chart at right for instant analysis.

As I try to make heads or tails out of this chaos, I'm at least comforted by the fact that Moscow Meeting's clerk has come back safely from his fact-finding visit to the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine and will be talking to us about this at our next meeting.

I suppose that the possible discovery of water on Mars ought to be at least a diversion, if not a comfort. But as my way of confessing a total lack of wisdom on any of these topics at the moment, let me provide a brief update on my new laptop -- the one I bought a couple of months ago from Dell with a factory installation of Linux instead of Windows.

I'm disappointed to report that it didn't take me long to break the operating system, or at least render it frustratingly clumsy. When I updated Ubuntu to the newest version, it booted up into a "kernel panic" -- the unresponsive computer's caps-lock light was blinking but no login screen appeared. Rebooting took me to a recovery screen that allowed choosing an earlier kernel, which then loaded fine. But this long and clunky two-step process, which other users were also reporting after updating Ubuntu, was intensely frustrating. I can't imagine how someone even less familiar than I am with debugging Linux installations was supposed to cope with this sort of complication. After having praised Dell and Ubuntu for a consumer-friendly Linux laptop, I was not pleased.

To be totally fair to Ubuntu, I really didn't need to update. The installed version was a LTS (long term support) version, for which five years of security and maintenance updates were guaranteed, and it was working fine. For me, it's just temperamentally difficult to know there's a newer version out there that I don't have!

After doing some research online, I decided that the crashes probably weren't caused by a fatal hardware flaw, so I didn't send back the Dell laptop. Instead, as I anticipated when I wrote the earlier "brown bag" post, I replaced the hard disk drive with a new Toshiba 256 GB solid state drive (SSD) for about $100. With the new drive installed and tested, I replaced the original operating system with Linux Mint 17.2 Cinnamon edition, using a bootable USB flash drive I had prepared in advance. (Search online for "creating a bootable USB drive" and just follow the most intelligible set of instructions you find.) I'd already backed up the relatively few new files I'd put on my new laptop.

After six weeks of strenuous use, the Dell laptop with Linux Mint is working fine. I use it as a portable laptop in my classes, and -- with an external monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers -- as an office computer. I'm not sure what will happen eventually when Linux Mint (which is based on Ubuntu) is updated -- will those kernel panics happen again or will things have been sorted out upstream by the programmers by then? In any case, in the meantime I'm enjoying three of the benefits that solid state drives claim: faster performance (including much faster boot times: 15 seconds to the login screen, about 15 more to full operation), a quieter laptop (less heat, so the fan is rarely on, and the SSD is completely silent), and longer battery life between recharges.

Now, thanks to a smoothly running laptop and good Internet access, I have to face the real world again.

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All Nadia Bolz-Weber could do was "cry for all my inconsistencies."

Why white churches are hard for black people.

Sean Palmer: Your pastor is not as edgy and provocative as your favorite blogger or writer, and that’s a good thing.

Quaker Vs. Goliath: A leading political periodical profiles Kate Gould of the Friends Committee on National Legislation.

Tom Engelhardt: It's safe to be paranoid in the U.S. (Latest link in my "perpetual war watch.")

If you were to isolate the single most striking, if little discussed, aspect of American foreign policy in the first 15 years of this century, it might be that Washington’s inability to apply its power successfully just about anywhere confirms that very power; in other words, failure is a marker of success. Let me explain.

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Hans Theessink and the Valentinos, performing a song I'll always associate with the immortal Junior Wells.

May shorts

City Hall, January and May

Visit my classroom. In addition to my college-level listening comprehension class this year, I've been teaching an exam-preparation class for the Unified State Examination in English. (A bit more about the exam here.)

In parallel with the exam's structure, our classes feature exercises in listening comprehension, reading comprehension, grammar, vocabulary, essay-writing, and letter-writing. While we were away in Samara and Buzuluk, I put together an online class session with two elements (listening comprehension and reading comprehension) for those who couldn't come to the make-up sessions I offered to substitute for the classes missed because of my absence. Here's the lesson--feel free to send me the answers to the questions so I can compare your English to that of my students!

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The sample lesson doesn't include the grammar and vocabulary exercises that my students so look forward to--so I'll include a couple of them for your pleasure. (Click on the thumbnail at left. Same source as the reading exercises in the lesson above--Afanasyeva et al., Practice Exam Papers for the Russian State Exam, 2010 Revised Edition.)

Every class also includes audio comprehension exercises based on music. I write lines from song lyrics on the board, with lots of missing words and phrases that the students attempt to fill in while listening to the songs. (Sorry, I don't remember who first gave me this idea, but we've enjoyed it a lot.) Of course the students put up with a fair amount of blues material, widely interpreted--from Robert Cray to Eva Cassidy to Layla Musselwhite--but also from other sources, such as The Kills, The Fray, Arbouretum, Sarah Masen, Rea Garvey, Oasis, Fountains of Wayne, Weird Al Yankovic, Aretha Franklin. Sometimes students suggest songs to use--one student suggested the Beatles' "Drive My Car." Yes, the Beatles are still acceptable, and not just "Yesterday," which I've heard far more often here than the rest of my life combined.

Got suggestions for us? We need songs in English, with the voice track distinct and not drowned out by the instruments, and content that's conducive to classroom discussions.

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When we got back from our trip beyond the Volga, the first time I logged back online, my operating system told me that the new version of Ubuntu Linux, 11.04, was ready to download. Even when everything is working perfectly, I always find upgrades irresistible, so I accepted the upgrade and waited eagerly to see how Ubuntu's controversial new Unity desktop would look.

Ever since Mike Slothower at River of Life Friends Church first convinced me to install Ubuntu instead of Windows, I've been somewhat nervously promoting Linux to anyone who starts complaining around me about Windows. When people told me that Linux is for geeks, I tried to point out gently that the subject wouldn't have even come up if they'd not been complaining about some irritating aspect of their present system. But, to be honest, I also remembered that as a new user three years ago, I had to do a certain amount of troubleshooting with audio and USB peripherals to make my new Linux installation happy. Fortunately, each succeeding version of Ubuntu has been less geeky and more intuitive than the previous.

The latest version of Ubuntu, 11.04, has that new Unity desktop that takes some getting used to. If you don't feel like getting used to something new, you still have the choice to log in with the "classical" GNOME desktop, which has windows and menus that still work more or less like a very streamlined version of MS Windows. Unity reminds me a bit more of Mac OS desktops. Instead of the traditional hierarchy of menus, and status-bar links to open windows and applications, the Unity desktop is radically simple, relying on a disappearing "Launcher" bar that includes the most important applications along with any applications that are running at the moment. It also includes folder-opening and application launcher icons. If you click on an application icon in that bar, it starts (if it isn't already operating) or it reveals all open windows related to that application. You can also cycle through open application and folder windows with a combination of keys. This is the only thing that caused me trouble at first. I kept searching for window links in a status bar that no longer has them--that space is now used for the main menu of whatever application is "in focus"--before learning to use the Launcher and the keystroke cycler. Now that I've made the transition, the whole thing seems a lot faster and more fun than traditional desktops.

desktop with Launcher bar	see all open windows at once	see an app's active windows

I think Ubuntu had already left the land of hobbyists for the general user long before this new version, but now I'm sure of it. However, if you want an even more user-friendly installation, I still recommend a refinement of Ubuntu known as Linux Mint. I use Ubuntu on my home box, and Linux Mint on my laptop, and have no problem hopping back and forth between the two.

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Friday PS: Blogger.com has been offline (or rather in read-only mode) for hours. I wonder when I'll be able to publish these profundities!

Friday evening, 21:54 Moscow time: Blogger says it's back. Let's see (poised to push "publish post")....

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Righteous links:

soul midwife: "Certain Women." "I have a church that I attend that is my public place of worship. I belong to that group and they belong to me. But my personal church is certain women and men--who I meet together in various upper rooms, cell phone calls, emails, living rooms, offices, retreat spaces and wait and listen to God."

"Praying to Saints."

Am I sometimes embarrassed by it, by the mawkishness, sentimentality, folk-religion verging on folk-magic, gaudy, tawdry, excessive messiness of it all? Yes, I am. The rational, reasonable side of my brain wants to tone it all down, and have a proper, seemly, correctly-based practice in accordance with the strictures of theology and with a biblical verse pinned on like a badge....

And that’s the part of my brain that hears an uncomfortable echo of “Could not this ointment have been sold at a great price, and the money given to the poor?” in the way I’m thinking and reacting to these sobbing, slobbering, running after signs and miracles people who sell their beads and make novenas and have sure-fire prayers that never fail, but contingent on being published (usually the one that begins “O most beauteous flower of Mount Carmel”) – all those people the latchet of whose sandals I am not fit to undo. I knew already about my inner Pharisee; here I have discovered my inner Sadducee.

Martin Kelley appointed editor of Friends Journal. Best wishes to Martin, who was the first person to send me encouragement at the very beginning of this blog, nearly seven years ago.

"The most important woman in Chicago journalism...."

"The Divided Memory of Victory," Sean Guillory.

"Fifty Years Later, Minow Reflects on 'Vast Wasteland' Speech."

Vintage photographs of Moscow, 1909. (Thanks to The Moscow Times.)

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Ana Popovic and her guitar--enjoy her extended solo...

Leaks

Settling in for winter

Luke 12:2-3 (New International Version) There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.

John 3:19-20 (NIV) This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.

Ephesians 5:8-12 (NIV) For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light  (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.

I've been following the WikiLeaks controversy with great interest and mixed feelings. I've worked for more than one organization where candid assessments needed to be given privately--and I remember my intense embarrassment when one of those candid assessments (from me, about someone seeking to be appointed to an international assignment) was made available to that person without my permission. I still think my assessment was correct, but would I have communicated so frankly, in written form, had I known that my words would be leaked?

Maybe not, but the truth is, I survived the embarrassment and so did the organization and the candidate.

As head of the organization, it was my job to set up safeguards for sensitive communication. Looking back, I think our safeguards were quite primitive, but the person who passed my assessment beyond our perimeter was entitled to have it. The distribution of the assessment was a lapse in judgment, an excess of zealous transparency, by someone who essentially shared the organization's values, and mine.

Lots of politicians, government officials, and commentators are condemning WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. But as security writer Bruce Schneier says (thanks, Lynn Gazis-Sax), the WikiLeaks flood

...has little to do with WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks is just a website. The real story is that "least trusted person" who decided to violate his security clearance and make these cables public. In the 1970s he would have mailed them to a newspaper. Today he uses WikiLeaks. Tomorrow he will have his choice of a dozen similar websites. If WikiLeaks didn't exist, he could have put them up on BitTorrent.

Schneier does mention a huge difference between the 1970's and now: digital files are far more portable. But the human factor, the "least trusted person," the righteous or misguided whistleblower, remains constant.

So: on the one hand, causes of stumbling are bound to arise. If three million people have access to a body of sensitive information, sooner or later some of that information leaks, just as water leaks, rivers flood, and neglected dikes collapse. But here's my theory: when a nation departs from the path of righteousness and becomes a nervous, defensive empire with serious control issues, the pressure on the weak spots becomes that much greater. On the grand scale, it doesn't matter that much whether the individuals involved are moral or immoral, righteous or deluded. Nor does it matter whether the leaked information is all equally embarrassing; some may indeed (as in the present case) show that some of our diplomats are actually quite perceptive and work energetically on behalf of our claimed values. There's simply no such thing as perfect control of information; and the cost of attempting to get perfect control would be ruinous. Meanwhile, the escalating details of global imperial rule ensure that greater and greater floods of information pile up behind those wobbly dikes.

And what about those many varieties of cyber-whistleblowers who stand ready to exploit the leaks and frustrate the imperial guardians? Almost ten years ago, Jon Katz wrote Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet out of Idaho. One scene from the introduction sticks in my mind: the author is on a television show and is confronted by a charge that he advocates ignoring the dangers of the Internet for young people. His sharp defense of the Internet's relative safety compared to many other hazards leads to a scandalous breakdown of tech crew discipline: the camera operators and control room personnel cheer and clap. Later, those staffers point out that on-air personalities and managers come and go, but the TV station is totally dependent on the techs. "Welcome to the geek kingdom."

Zoom even further back, and the huffing and puffing of government officials and commentators seems almost unreal. Those diplomats and politicians whose wisdom and foolishness and conniving calculations are revealed in the leaks--they are mammalian bipeds just like the rest of us. There is nothing sacred about their elaborate behavioral patterns, nor about the psychological constructs known as "nations." The nation-state system is simply one way of organizing ourselves around complex shared desires and obligations. In the perceived service of a safer and wealthier USA, our officials bob and weave, telling the truth one moment and twisting it the next; and they're no worse than those of other countries--probably better than many. So, dear imperial censors: relax! Do your best to construct an intelligent system of information sharing and security--and hope that the rest of us succeed in electing a less embarrassing government. And as long as we're imperfect--and, in particular, as long as we persist in following the wrong lords, leaks will continue to happen. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

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Pam Ferguson: "I know I need to engage my elected officials in a different way."

Steven Davison creates an online resource for information and conversations on Quakers and capitalism.

Exceptionalisms, continued: Is "the American Jewish belief in the endurance of anti-Semitism ... at the core of the problem"?

Two obituaries for Bella Akhmadulina: New York Times. The Independent.

Russians on the Internet, creating a "parallel world."

Dimo's Blues: Grammy nominations.

Timely advice: "Six Questions to Ask Charities Before Donating."

For Chicagoans everywhere: Hull House and its theatrical dimension.

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Guy Forsyth. "Your call is very important ... this call may take a while. Please have your credit card ready so we can access your file."

The Quaker baptism

Flat Stanley goes to Moscow

Our Flat Stanley comes comes from Tami Burton and her  students. Here (above) he is waiting at  Fryazevo station to  board the train to  Moscow.

On the train.

Temperature might be 100, but Stanley  doesn't sweat.

On the Moscow Metro.

It's a lot cooler underground.

Last week's post was on "the Quaker mass." By a remarkable coincidence, at the end of the very next meeting for worship of Moscow Friends, one member who was also ordained in another denomination celebrated  communion with us in observance of the fortieth day since his mother's death. I think this is the first time that I've seen a communion service, with wafers and wine, in an unprogrammed Friends meeting for worship.

A few days later, a newsletter item from a Friends outreach in another part of the world gave me more food for thought. It reported on Friends conducting baptism services for a number of families. One visitor from the USA wrote, "Many of us had only observed a few baptism services growing up in the Friends Church, so this was an interesting experience for us.."

The report contained a number of other interesting points--the excitement in the families' faces bearing testimony to the Holy Spirit in this step they were taking; the courage required to make such a public expression in their social context; and the fact that there is written paperwork involved with becoming baptized--paperwork that goes to the authorities and is an additional act of bold testimony. We're asked to pray for the yearly meeting; its ministry of public baptisms is described as "a very visible expression of lives devoted to Christ."

Fascinating! To risk oversimplifying, it's as if 375 years ago in Great Britain, Friends bore social risks by not being outwardly baptized upon making a Christian commitment; now these new believers are running a social risk by being baptized upon making that same kind of commitment.

I haven't asked whether water baptism is being presented to these new Friends as a theological imperative; I suspect not. What impresses me about this story is their deep desire to make a public commitment, and this practice is the outward form that is presented to them as a way of doing that.

Nearly two years ago I posted some thoughts on baptism here on my blog. I'm not going to repeat them now; at that point I was mainly dealing with the emotional importance of initiation and the need for Friends to have a conversation about how we (often inadequately) address that topic. This news item about the newly baptized Quakers adds a dimension I only vaguely touched on before--the public nature of the testimony.

Most of us who try to describe or shape normative Quaker faith and practice in the West operate in a context of social safety--a safely partly based on social class and partly based on our societies' trivializing and privatizing religion. When we traditional Quakers begin harrumphing about water baptism among Friends, we ought to pause humbly and think about that safety factor. What did we gain and lose by committing to the household of faith through the Quaker door? Did our faces shine with the confirming presence of the Holy Spirit?

I don't want to argue for the thrill of public piety, which is not a reliable long-term indicator of faithfulness. (The impermanence of emotional commitments is an old theme.) All the classic revivals in Christian history had a prophetic, ethical dimension. True, different people have different gifts, so not every new believer will be a prophet. And, true, sometimes simply declaring oneself to be a religious minority in a repressive culture is an act of prophetic courage. But Jesus is not a flag to wave enthusiastically over "our" religious camp as against "their" religious camp. When believers are on the move in a society (and, importantly, when that move is self-giving, not demanding privileges!), history tells us that important things happen--things relating to justice, equality, education, hope. I pray that those things are and will be happening where our new Friends were baptized.

In comparison to all that, the adoption of one or another way of celebrating Christian initiation may take its proper perspective. But that perspective is not insignificant. Early Friends' rejection of the religion industry and its hierarchies and ceremonies was not for the purpose of avoiding irritating the eternal seeker or weakening biblical authority; they experienced Christ coming to teach his people himself, and refused to set up yet another intermediate structure. All I ask is that we contemporary Friends do the same. At some point, all new Friends deserve to learn the full picture of our radical approach to Spirit-led worship and community--not as rigid quakerly folkways but as a costly heritage of discipleship. Then: if the Holy Spirit is in it, please splash away and I'll keep my doubts to myself. If not, please don't lead us back into shadows and forms.

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Whatever I might have said in this post a couple of weeks ago, most British Friends do identify as Christian, according to survey results published in Katharine Mellor's MPhil dissertation, Christian belief in the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers): A response to the claim that British Friends are post-Christian. The dissertation is available in PDF form here (registration may be required). The full work includes a number of nuances that should prevent playing fast and loose with the numbers, but in case you can't wait for the bottom line: Mellor finds that, of her 1,035 respondents, "...863 or 83.4% indicated that they believe in God. 751, or 72.6% of those who took part, indicated that they consider themselves to be Christian. 833, or 80.5% of those who took part, indicated that they would answer that they are Christian on an anonymous survey. Fewer than 5% of those who took part in the survey are clearly not Christian. This research suggests that the majority in the Religious Society of Friends in Britain still considers Quakers to be Christian."

One year after Natalia Estemirova's death, "we have still not learnt to live without her."

"A Russian Milestone: First Black Elected to Office." For Russian readers (and for photos), additional coverage.

"Freeing 'Pale Fire' from [Vladimir Nabokov's] Pale Fire."

Robert Duvall to Christianity Today: "You tell your readers there is no way that I wanted to make fun of the Pentecostal people!"

Palestinians and the one-state solution.

John Wimber describes (video, part of a series on his personal pilgrimage) what it was like to walk into a church the first time.

"A short newspaper article complicates reactions to teen's murder." And here's what drew me to this story.

"How to give your creaky old Windows computer a Ubuntu makeover."

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Jean-Rene Ella: "No Oil in Our Coffee"

Minty shorts

Back in March 2008, I added a second operating system to this Sony computer I'm using right now. Upon booting up, I could choose between Windows Vista and Ubuntu; most of the time, I used Ubuntu.

Last month, I somehow got Ubuntu's security policies so completely screwed up that I had to reinstall the operating system. Instead of downloading a whole new installation disk image, I used a disk that Jerry Baker had given me the last time we were in the USA--Linux Mint. I liked it so much that a few days ago I completely converted this computer over to Linux Mint.

This 100% fresh installation of the newest Linux Mint operating system turned out to have some unexpected advantages. For once, all my sound settings were chosen automatically--and correctly. Linux Mint also includes software and easy pathways to third-party drivers, so that (unlike with the original Ubuntu installation) I didn't have to hunt for the files needed to play DVDs, use a digital projector or second screen, and so on. Wireless Internet access, printer, and scanner were provided for without any intervention on my part. MTP support for my MP3 player was almost automatic--I had to activate a plugin included with Rhythmbox, the music player/manager included with Linux Mint. In short, the operating system looks good and does what it should with an absolute minimum of drama.

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For the last couple of days, we've been the subject of a TV crew from the local television station. Yesterday I was interviewed at the Institute, and today the camera visited my second-year class. At the time of their visit, we were working with a text from Lolly Winston's Good Grief, a novel I've enjoyed using for its great examples of conversational English dialogue. The excerpt we used this week was a particularly heavy scene, but the video recording took place while we were dealing with the language. By the time we began our discussion of the emotional drama underneath the language, the camera and microphone were gone.

In the novel, today's situation was this: the hero Sophie, a recent widow, has become a Big Sister to a troubled teenager, Crystal. In today's excerpt, Sophie finds out something disturbing about Crystal:
--> -->

The radiators in the house have only two settings—scorching or off—and the kitchen feels as hot as Death Valley today. Crystal chews and stares into space, absent-mindedly pushing up her sweater sleeve. The inside of her forearm is striped with red marks. At first I think she's drawn all over herself with a red pen. No. The marks are cuts. I stop chewing. She quickly tugs down her sleeve, clenching the cuff in her fist.

"Don't like pepperoni?" I swallow and lean toward her.

"I'm a vegetarian," she says disdainfully. "Probably I'm going to be a vet."

"A veggie vet?"

She nods. "I saw a nature show on a guy who saves horses? Sometimes he can't fix them and he has to, like, give them a shot so they die." She fans herself with her dirty paper plate.

"Why don't you take off your sweater?"

"No." She finishes her soda in two big gulps. I notice that the cuffs of her sleeves are caked with something reddish brown. Blood? Food or dirt, I hope.

"Crystal, will you show me your arm? It worries me."

"Okay." But she doesn't move.

I reach across the table and wrap a hand around her wrist. With my other hand, I push up her sleeve, then turn over her arm. The soft white underside is slashed with crisscrosses of cuts, raised like argyle. Her skin feels hot and jagged. Crystal sucks in her breath, blinks.

"What happened here?" I feel my pulse race but try not to seem alarmed. Some of the wounds are fresh, congealed blood at their edges.

Crystal jerks her arm away and yanks down her sleeve. Her shoulders curl into a hunch.

I move my plate aside and fight to maintain the same even calm I kept when Ethan's skin was as gray as oatmeal and he was too weak to climb the stairs. You don't want a sick person to see in your expression or hear in your voice how frightened you are for them.

Crystal bites her lower lip.

"Did you do that on purpose? Like the burns?"

She rolls her eyes. "Duh."

There's no end of fruitful questions for discussion: why did Crystal hurt herself? Did she want Sophie to find out? What would we do in Sophie's place? I've used this material now two years in a row, and with two different groups today. I was moved and very impressed with the depth of the insights our students expressed--in English!--but I will preserve the privacy of the classroom and not report the details here.

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Righteous links: A bit more on Linux Mint: one of its positive reviews, and a guide for those thinking of converting from MS Windows--including helpful information on additional programs you might want to replace familiar Windows programs. A sober editorial about Afghanistan. My doubts go beyond those in the editorial. The McChrystal/Obama proposals and price tags seem to assume building Western institutions in Afghanistan--Western-style army, Western-style police. Is this importation of an essentially Western model truly sustainable? What happens when the props, both political/coercive and financial, are pulled out? There's an interesting note about warlords paying their forces 3x as much as the army. It invites the question: by whose definition is one armed group the "national army" and another armed group NOT the army? In contrast to Crystal, Joel writes love on his arm. What is the state of Russia's heart? One of the most amazing and haunting images I have seen recently. If the Gospel is true, it is true in the midst of depression. Test it for yourself.

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A "Midnight Special" time capsule.

Creedence clearwater revival - the midnight special Загружено monamijp. - Смотри больше видео клипов в HD качестве!