“America deserves the Osteens.”
From his article The Osteen Predicament
Aug 26
Quotable: Adam Clarke on Nehemiah 13:22
“Shame on those who, with this evidence before them, brand this good man with the epithet of workmonger! a man who, in inward holiness, outward usefulness, and genuine love to God and man, was worth ten score of such self-called believers.”
Aug 20
Quotable: Peter Drucker
“Whenever anything is being accomplished, it is being done, I have learned, by a monomaniac with a mission.” ~
via http://techpinions.com/microsoft-is-the-very-antithesis-of-strategy/32303
Aug 17
Review: Would It Kill You To Smile?
I didn’t even make it through the first two chapters.
The characters and their relationships to the narrator are hard to keep track of, and the book might just have the most unlikeable protagonist since Drumline. I paid a quarter for the book, and sadly, I overpaid.
May 15
Quotable: James Baldwin
“The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.”
from “The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy” in Esquire (May 1961); republished in Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son (1961)
Via wikiquote
May 09
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Commerce
I have written before about how I am generally opposed to the idea of buying locally for the sake of keeping money in a particular town, state, or country. I think it goes against the idea of a free market, where one purchases goods or services based on the best price, selection, customer service, etc., and purchasing based on guilt/local loyalty alone discourages those businesses from trying to improve their products or services in order to compete.
However, there are groups that exist primarily to promote this ‘buy locally’ idea; few towns or cities do not have a chamber of commerce and/or other economic development organization.
A friend of mine, let’s call him Bret, provides a certain service. A couple of years ago he was asked to provide that service for a large event in and for his hometown. As the event was run by volunteers and funded only by the vendors at the event, he gave them a pretty good break on the price. The next year they hired him again, and he gave them the same price break.
But the third year was a little different. The local group decided to try to save some money, and shopped around until they found an out-of-towner (let’s call him Shawn) cheaper than my friend, so they hired him.
Soon Shawn realized he didn’t know what kind of equipment he needed for the event, so he called the locals back. They didn’t have any idea what he needed, so they directed him to someone they knew did–Bret.
I’m all for saving money (see my thesis statement above). But if your organization exists to funnel business to your town, and you take your business outside of town, then you are really refuting the reason you even exist.
If it seems odd to you for a be-loyal-buy-local group to direct an out-of-towner to ask for help from the in-towner he undercut to replace him, then you, Bret, and I have something in common.
May 07
ultima Thule
“The term ultima Thule in medieval geographies denotes any distant place located beyond the ‘borders of the known world’.”
Link to the Wikipedia article.
May 05
Do you want to watch the Superb Owl?
In case you really didn’t know, Microsoft Word is programmed by nerds and not jocks:
And yes, I would like to watch a superb owl.
