In the winter and spring of 1967, a half-century ago, my father Ellis O. Jones of blessed memory, then 39 years old, served as a United States Foreign Service Officer in Taiz, Yemen. Taiz is in the southern part of that country, on the road from the port of Mocha to the present capital of Sana’a. When Dad went to… Read more →
University students: beware the people who lend you money!
Bloomberg News published an article today putting the lie to Navient’s claim to helping manage student debt. In a court filing, the company (which used to be part of the Sallie Mae US federal student lending agency) said it was a conflict of interest to help students. Their primary role is collecting on loans. Dear students: Companies and governments who… Read more →
Mondo Bizarro … FBI Director uses Pastor Niebuhr’s name for a twitter name
An investigative reporter at Gizmodo has found the FBI director’s twitter account. He’s using the pseudonym Reinhold Niebuhr. Pastor Niebuhr was a twentieth-century theologian and ethicist. Among his many books is The Irony of American History, analyzing how USA exceptionalism is a tremendous temptation to arrogance and contains the seeds of its own destruction. That title pretty much sums up… Read more →
To the Mountain and Back — A sermon for First Parish in Newbury
Sermon Text: Matthew 17:1-9 The Transfiguration of Jesus Grace to you, and peace, from God our creator and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen Mountaintop experiences. We’ve all had them. I invite you to think about your personal mountaintop experiences. They could be anything. Maybe yours was something huge and visible and shared like a wedding or a graduation. Or maybe… Read more →
Loopholes? Or justice and kindness? A sermon for First Parish of Newbury
Texts Micah 6:1-4, 6-8 1Hear what the Lord says: Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. 2Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for the Lord has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel. 3“O my people, what have I done… Read more →
Tales from the Tech Support Crypt
This post is dedicated to everybody who’s ever worked in tech support. When a packet hits a pocket. http://thedailywtf.com/articles/Some_More_Tech_Support http://thedailywtf.com/articles/Support-Should-Never-Be-Necessary http://thedailywtf.com/articles/radio-wtf-presents-quantity-of-service http://thedailywtf.com/articles/Its-the-Only-Way-to-be-Sure http://thedailywtf.com/articles/Could-You-Explain-Programming-Please http://www.techtales.com/techroom.php Got any more? Please put them in the comments. Read more →
Searching for the kingdom of heaven: A sermon for First Parish of Newbury
Text Matthew 4:12-23 12Now when Jesus heard that John the Baptist had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee; 13and leaving Nazareth he went and dwelt in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: 15“The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, toward the sea,… Read more →
The Holy Spark of Recognition: A sermon for First Parish of Newbury
Text: John 1:29-42 29The next day [John the Baptist] saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, for he was before me.’ 31I myself did not know him; but for this I… Read more →
Test data for FULLTEXT searching
MySQL’s FULLTEXT search feature works best when it’s used on a large corpus of text. That is, for best results you need many rows. When the text corpus is too small, full text searching often returns strange results: the indexing process tries to work out common words. If the amount of text being indexed is too small, some words that… Read more →
Conversations to open up the future in God’s realm – A sermon for First Parish of Newbiry
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you in the name of God, our creator, redeemer, and sustaining spirit. Amen. For the people of First Parish in Newbury. Conversations. Let’s have a conversation about conversations. Texts: Isaiah 7:10-16 Matthew 1:18-25 When I imagine God’s realm of peace, mercy, and justice, I imagine it’s buzzing with conversations. Maybe it’s like a café… Read more →