Age of the Internet Celebrities

So I've notice that these days you don't even need to be famous anymore to be well-known. Maybe it's the other way around, actually; you don't need to be well-known to be famous. We owe it all to live streaming videos on the internet. Compound that with young professional working types who twiddle their thumbs in front of a computer for 8 hours a day, perhaps working for two. Now, any average joe can make it 'big' by having their videos circulate the email underground.

Who can forget the bear falling out of a tree, off the trampoline, then up in the air and plummeting toward the ground???

How about how MC Vikram brought Malayalee-ness to the masses? (featured on VH1)

I've been seeing this Juddson Laipply character's 'Evolution of Dance' video for the past few months. It's actually incredibly entertaining. However, I'd like to say that the best dancing i-celebrity I've ever seen was from a few years ago. Check out David Elsewhere in this absolutely AMAZING robot dance video . This video singlehandedly broke him into a lot of big dancing/commercial gigs later on, as well as into a lot of conversations starting with "whoa...did you check out the robot-dude in the orange shirt....?"

Must be the Danishes

Denmark named happiest place on Earth

followed by:
2) Switzerland
3) Austria
4) Iceland
5) The Bahamas

So I suppose cold and miserable really works for some people???

Ranked last are Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, and Burundi.

"We're looking much more at whether you are satisfied with your life in general," White [researcher] told Reuters. "Whether you are satisfied with your situation and environment."

So how exactly do you go about asking people in war ravaged famine stricken nations if they're happy or not???

Missing Leadership Camp *sigh*

This is the first time in 3 years I won't be attending our Diocesan MGOCSM Leadership camp. I've been to three now and it's time for some youngins to take over. I can't begin to describe how much I've gotten out of attending these camps. I can honestly say I wouldn't have been able to adjust to life in the Northeast so well had it not been for the connections I made at the Leadership Camps in Detroit, Tampa, and Philadelphia. Nor would I be able to *gasp* take positions of responsibility up in Philly/NJ so quickly. In fact, I count the build up and planning I put into the leadership camp our group hosted in Tampa as among the most fulfilling experiences of my life. Luckily the web page we made is still up (though the media doesn't seem to work). Good luck to the Dallas Leadership Camp committee and participants!!!

For those guys who wear the CCCP tshirts around campus

Real feelings on communism from those who lived it...

Check out the tshirt I'll be wearing today!
(yeah I paid a bit for it but I like it)

Ortho-rap!

Listen to this!

Last week I said I didn't quite understand, nor would I anticipate ever liking Christian rap. I don't think the rap purists would consider the above really" rap," but it's interesting nonetheless. I've listened to it once through, and I don't think I can specifically hate it.

I'll draw the distinction though.

It's not worship. It's not ministry. It's diversion. Diversion is important, but not the basis of Christian ministry. The Praise and Worshipping...charismatics say we need hip Christian music to bring people to Christ, but the Gospel speaks for itself without gimmicks. The objective of any Orthodox ministry would be to bring people to the proper worship of Christ as given to us.

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Good Intentions

"One of the many failings of our educational system is that it sends out into the world people who cannot tell rhetoric from reality. They have learned no systematic way to analyze ideas, derive their implications and test those implications against hard facts.

"Peace" movements are among those who take advantage of this widespread inability to see beyond rhetoric to realities. Few people even seem interested in the actual track record of so-called "peace" movements — that is, whether such movements actually produce peace or war.

Take the Middle East. People are calling for a cease-fire in the interests of peace. But there have been more cease-fires in the Middle East than anywhere else. If cease-fires actually promoted peace, the Middle East would be the most peaceful region on the face of the earth instead of the most violent."
-Thomas Sowell, "Pacifists and Peace"

2006 Family Conference in Review

I've had about a week to digest everything I saw at our family conference at the Hudson Valley Resort in upstate New York. I'll run through everything I thought point by point.

1) Mountains!!- Excepting Pasco County, Florida is a very flat state. For the first time in my life, I got to drive through mountains! Well if there are still trees all the way to the top I'm not sure if that makes them "hills," but I was definitely driving through something big and tall. Needless to say T-mobile was completely useless in that wilderness. Speaking of wilderness...they said I was from the boonies (Tampa), but Kerkhonson, NY is farther into the heart of the boonies than I've ever been.

2) Christian Rap- The first night of conference NDIA performed for the youth. While I'm fairly sure NDIA is made up of good, Christ-loving guys, I don't think I'll ever understand Christian rap. I can honestly enjoy Christian music. But rap isn't really "music" is it? Also, leave the preaching to the experts.

For example, here's a fairly direct quote:

"This song is about God your Father
your Father loves you
He loves you so much that He died on the Cross for you"

Umm...I'm no expert but if God the Father dies on the Cross, I'm pretty sure the universe implodes on itself.
This is not a "hairsplitting theological issue." As CS Lewis says, we can't avoid these theological issues because we don't make Christianity up as we go. If we were making these things up, then we certainly would have made them easier to understand. But since we've received the truth, we are obliged to be responsible with it.

3) Retiring my jokes- I MCed the first part of the talent night. Suffice to say, after dodging the boos, flying shoes, and tomatoes, it's time for me to retire my infamous "Church Canons" and "I got censored" jokes. And by "retire" I mean put them out of regular circulation (seriously though, ask me if you don't know already) :P

4) Great speaker 1- Fr. Tarazi is a great speaker for college and post-college youth. Perhaps he was a bit too above the heads of the high school kids, however. He is an unparalleled expert on the scriptural basis of our Faith. I recall two things he said, one deep, one funny.
a) On Praying for the Departed-
This is a paraphrase, I'm horribly ruining his actual statement.
We pray for the souls of the departed because we don't understand the soul as existing naturally apart from the body. Thus we anticipate that God will resurrect the dead in anticipation of the final Judgement. Therefore, we pray for the departed because they rest in Christ, not to particularly change their status, but because they are in Christ and we pray for all those living and dead who are in Christ.
b)Speaking to Fr. Tarazi in the lobby-
Steve- Oh it's great to meet you...I actually just moved here from Florida...
Fr. Tarazi- You're from Florida, that explains why you're the darkest one here
Steve- But....I'm...not...really....that..
Fr. Tarazi- *pinches my cheeks and walks away*
*seminarians and deacons snicker in the background*

5) Great Speaker II- Tenny Thomas is always a pleasure to hear (and a snazzy dresser). I missed a part of his talk but I did have this conversation with him late one night when the kids were hanging out:
Tenny- So, Steve, do YOU believe in so called "just war???"
Steve- Well I don't know if I believe in "just war"...but I can certainly believe a war is "justifiable"
So take that for what it's worth.

6) Now that I live in the Northeast, the novelty of seeing everyone at conferences is lost because basically I see the same people at the same functions anyway.

7) I had a good time. Here are my pictures. Enjoy!

so I'm back

family conference is over...let the intense thesis-writing season begin!

coming soon:
Steve's Big Month of Thesis Writing and Coffee Drinking in Tampa Lounge-o-Rama!

gone...

I'm at the Diocesan Family Conference until Saturday afternoon *poof*

Pirates!!! ARRRRRRRRRRR

Pirates of the Carribean:Dead Man's Chest...Pirates:Reloaded

I absolutely loved the first "Pirates of the Caribbean." It was perhaps the most complete, coherent, and original action adventure movie I've seen. Perhaps it was pure escape fiction, but it had everything I wanted in a summer fun movie. I have a soft spot for pirates, seeing as how I'm from Tampa, home of the the Gasparilla Piratefest (think G-rated Mardi Gras), and I've actually ridden the Pirates of the Carribean ride at Disneyworld, the inspiration for the movies.

However, "Dead Man's Chest," didn't really capture me quite as much as the first movie. The plot was meandering, incoherent, and ran a bit longer than I anticipated. Also, I'll just say it here, THIS IS PART TWO OF THREE. Thus, the movie was fairly climax-less. I'm looking forward to the third movie, with the hope that the ambiguities of the second are cleared up. If not, then we'll all remember how the movie bigwigs ruined the "Pirates..." franchise similar to how "The Matrix" was ruined by two lackluster sequels.

Why they need me here!

I've noticed it's incredibly hazy around Central and South New Jersey especially around the Summer. At first I thought maybe it was just me. Perhaps it was the same way in Florida and I didn't notice. But, sure enough, I looked online here (Google...the ultimate arbiter of all the 21st Century's Disputes) and there are lots of pleasant green-for-good air quality dots over Florida, and lots of menacing yellow and orange triangles and squares above New Jersey.

You'd think that'd be a bad thing? Well when you're doing your thesis on Tri-State air pollution...it's a GOLD MINE!!!

Joe Biden loves donuts

Check out Senator Biden...uhh...campaigning

"I've had a great relationship. In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian-Americans moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking"-Sen. Biden

I'm Indian-American. I'm pretty sure Joe Biden isn't a racist, and I'm not particularly offended. In fact he spoke at my brother's law school graduation. Though I am surprised by how long it took me to find this. Perhaps if a republican had made the same comment...

I think I was offended when Hillary said this though...

Senator Robert Byrd was in the Klan (just thought you should know)

It's called the free market

"Even though doomsayers predicted the hybrid's shelf life would be short and sweet, it's still chugging along and even gaining momentum, like the "little engine that could" from the children's storybook.
Sky-high oil prices and an increased awareness of the energy and global-warming crises are helping fuel the hybrid's gradually increasing visibility.
"It's part of the popular culture now. You are going to see more offerings," said Aaron Robinson, technical editor at Car and Driver magazine. "Car companies that do not offer hybrids will be seen as behind."
With gasoline now selling at higher than $3-a-gallon in much of the U.S., hybrids are certainly getting more attention than ever before in their short lifespan. (Those sold in the United States are all less than 10 years old.)"-Catherine Donaldson-Evans, FoxNews

Demand for oil increases in the international market. Supply doesn't change. Gasoline prices increase. That's economics. There's not much to do about oil prices unless we increase supply. Ahem, those caribou in ANWR aint so cute anymore, are they???

So as oil prices increase, so does demand for hybrid/electric vehicles. Rich hippies will pay for the first few generations of hybrid vehicles and in turn develop the industry and make such vehicles more available and affordable. Or at least that's the great hope. Behold the wonders of the free market!

Time to make fun of Italy and France!

What Conan says about the World Cup Finalists:

Italy
The newspapers are reporting a miracle. Apparently, a statue of Mary moved her hand and said, "I just worked harder than 80% of your workforce."

France
Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Gauguin, Manet: You're number one when it comes to great minds that died of syphillis.

INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!

It's July 4th, and I'm spending it studying for regressional analysis!

Here's a thought:
I'm glad we had an American Revolution and not a French Revolution.

The American Revolution, or as Thomas E. Woods would call it, the "War of American Independence" was a conservative revolution. By "conservative" I mean, it sprang from the British tradition of liberty, freedom, rule of law, and other Enlightenment ideals which were learned from the historical experiences of the English and Scots. The tyranny of non-representative government and unlawful taxation were in fact what also triggered the English Civil Wars of the 1600s. The heirs of the republican democratic impulse which was cooped into the British model of constitutional monarchy went on to become American colonists, who were born and bred on British ideals. In short, the American Revolution was not the overthrow of colonial society, or a revolution of classes or peoples, but instead, as Sowell has written, the revolution of processes. The colonials fought to establish a system based on the prevailing orthodoxy on liberty consistent with the rule of law as learned from the wisdom of history, and free to develop further, in order to expand the franchise, end slavery, and accomodate a territorially growing nation.

"This resistance to your arbitrary system of taxation might have been foreseen. It was obvious from the nature of things, and of mankind; and, above all, from the Whiggish spirit flourishing in that country. The spirit which now resists your taxation in America is the same which formerly opposed loans, benevolences, and ship-money in England; the same spirit which... by the Bill of Rights vindicated the English Constitution; the same spirit which established the great fundamental, essential maxim of your liberties, that no subject of England shall be taxed but by his own consent.
This glorious spirit of Whiggism animates three millions in America, who prefer poverty with liberty, to gilded chains and sordid affluence; and who will die in defense of their rights as men, as freemen."
- William Pitt the Elder

Contrast this with the French Revolution, also ostensibly based on Enlightenment ideals. However, this revolution was not so organically connected with well developed ideals of liberty as developed from within a tradition.

The French Revolution was the blueprint for all subsequent 'revolutions' since: The demagogues galvanize the masses in the name of seemingly self evident truths. The old order is destroyed. The new order devours itself. Even worse new tyrants come to power.
Check out Edmund Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France"
Basically, Burke could support an American Revolution, but reject the French not many years later based on the American revolution's continuity with tradition, and the French's seeming urge to destroy all traces of it.

"But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. "
-Edmund Burke