Postcards From Myself

There has been a lot of talk on the web and even the national news over the last couple of days about how Tom Cruise is nuts and how the Church of Scientology is whacked out. This all stems from a video that leaked out of an awards ceremony and has been posted on the net. Yes, maybe Tom is a little overboard on this and yes, maybe the Scientology isn’t for everyone. But how is what he is stating that much different that the evangelicals of many religions? Christians and Islamics both have radical wings that to the rest of us seem way over the top.

No, I am not defending Scientology - sorry, but I don’t agree with them - and no, I am not attacking Christians or Islamics or any other religion. What I am saying is that here is a guy who is fervent about what he believes in. For that I congratulate him. He may be wrong, but at least he believes in something enough to speak up for it and act upon it. As long as what he is doing and saying isn’t harming others, then let him alone. He feels that his religion compels him to act and help others. Sounds like a call that many religions have and that few people in those religions follow.

What I think most people are upset about is that he is excited and fervent about an idea that they don’t believe. If he had the same energy and push for a Christian religion you would call him a missionary. If he was attacked or even killed for this belief, you would call him a martyr. But, since his is a viewpoint that the majority don’t hold, we just seem his as a nut case with too much visibility.

Sounds like we need learn a bit more about acceptance. Or at the very least, tolerance.

It is Friday, I have a 3 day weekend ahead, and I am feeling lighthearted. (No, not light headed! Well, maybe a little.) Anyway, because of this I thought I should just give you some jokes. The first one is from my son, the second I heard somewhere on TV I think, and the third one is something people keep telling me because I find myself the owner of two BMWs for the moment.

So, without further delay, my attempts at humor…

Joke #1

Q: Why do squirrels live up in the trees?

A: They are trying to get away from the nuts on the ground. (Groan . . .)

Joke #2

Q: Why do chicken coups have 2 doors?
A: Because if they had 4 doors they would be chicken sedans! (Get it? Maybe you have to be a car guy…)

Joke #3

Q: What is the difference between a porcupine and a BMW?

A: The porcupine has the pricks on the outside. (Hey, mine are old “classic” BMWs!)

So there you have it. Hey, I never said they were good jokes. But if you know better ones, please let us hear them. And, Happy Friday!!

There is a new service for bloggers on the scene that you may or may not have heard of. It is named RssHugger, and it is probably best to let them explain it in their own words…

RssHugger is a unique website that aims to bring bloggers and readers together. rssHugger aims to provide blog owners with a unique easy-to-use way to promote their blogs by sending them traffic, building backlinks for search engine optimization, as well as attracting new rss subscribers if the content is interesting to the reader. rssHugger aims to help visitors be able to easily find blogs that write about subjects they are interested in. These subjects include: internet marketing, making money online, charity, sports, gambling, and many more. If the visitors find a blog that they had not previously heard about, they can easily add it to their RSS readers or bookmark it.

This looks like it is going to be a very interesting service for many reasons, not the least of which is that it seems to be generating a lot of buzz in the online communities right now. Another thing that really intrigues me about RssHugger is that the verifications for membership are done by hand. Yes, by a real person. With any luck that may eliminate a lot of the “get rich quick” blogs that seem to be clogging things up recently. Sorry, but I really don’t care about how somebody wants to get rich and how to help. If I was interested in that I would watch the infomercials that come on TV at 3am.

Anyway, I am going to give the service a try and report back here in the future. In the meantime, if you have any opinions or experience with RssHugger, please leave a comment and let me know. Thanks!

I really, really want one of these! At MacWorld a couple of days ago Steve Jobs introduced the newest Apple notebook - the MacBook Air. The MacBook Air is the world’s thinnest notebook and is small enough to fit inside an interoffice mailing envelope (hopefully a padded one). It will be available in February with base price of $1,799.

The MacBook Air Features:

• 13.3-inch LED-backlit widescreen display with 1280×800 pixel resolution
• Full-size and backlit keyboard
• Built-in iSight video camera for video conferencing
• 1.6 GHz or 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4MB L2 cache
• 800 MHz front-side bus
• 2GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
• 80GB hard disk drive with Sudden Motion Sensor
• built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
• 1 USB 2.0 port
• multi-touch TrackPad with support for advanced multi-touch gestures including tap, scroll, pinch, rotate and swipe
• (OPTIONAL) MacBook Air SuperDrive (external drive via USB).
• Micro-DVI port (includes Micro-DVI to VGA and Micro-DVI to DVI Adapters)
• 45 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.
• 1 headphone port

Macbook Air has a slightly wedge-shaped profile. It weighs about 3 pounds, and sports a thickness of 0.16-0.76 inches. It’s 12.8 inches wide and 8.95 inches deep.

This is one seriously cool machine. It is exactly what I want for carrying around with me to places like Panera Bread, Starbucks, the library and such where I can grab that wireless signal and work away to my hearts content. Or better yet, not get the wireless and actually concentrate on writing and not surfing the web.

For a bit of a review and some cool video, check out AppleInsider’s First Look.

Would you rather be tolerated or accepted?  Interestingly enough this question came up twice in the past few days.  Both discussions were basically about our current religious and political climate.  While there are many who constantly talk about what a tolerant society we have, I argue that although they may be the case, what we should be striving for is to become a more accepting society.

If you tolerate something or someone, you are basically just putting up with thing or person. They may be on the brink of what you “can take”, but you allow them to exist because it is either not critical to get rid of them, inconvenient to do so, or something such as a law is constraining you. You don’t like whatever it is you tolerate, but you just let it be.

On the other hand, if you accept something you not only are putting up with it, but there is a degree of understanding and permission.  It I accept a you as an individual, not only am I tolerating you  but I am going beyond that. I am showing an acceptance of who you are and at least some sort of agreement to help you with whatever it is you trying to be. When I accept a that a good friend is gay or lesbian, I am not just tolerating that person, but I am making an active statement to understand them.

So, as we look at the presidential campaign and as we here the voices of tolerance, ask yourself, shouldn’t we be going beyond tolerance? Shouldn’t we be going beyond putting up with our friends and neighbors? Instead, I think we should accept those friends and neigbors. We should accept the gay and lesbian community. We should accept the people of different faiths and those of no faith at all.

And therefor I ask you once again, would you rather be tolerated or accepted?