7 Quick Takes

Well, enough of this wimpity-whining. It's time for "7 Quick Takes", courtesy of the lovely and talented Jen Fulwiler.

- 1 -

Since my diagnosis of Ménière's disease earlier this week, I've been scrambling to figure out how to eat as normally as possible while maintaining a low sodium intake. Enter Healthy Dining Finder. Thanks to this nifty site, I now know a number of ways I can take the family out to eat, while not having to either (a) watch them enviously while I sip club soda, or (b) order "Caesar salad, dressing on the side" for every meal. Cracker Barrel here I come!

- 2 -

I have discovered the awesome Pray-As-You-Go podcast, evidently produced by a group of British Jesuits. I'm a big fan of choral music, so I love the way they interweave a scripture reading with a changing variety of meditative vocal pieces. They put it out a week or two at a pop, so you don't have to update your feed every day. I don't get to listen to it daily, but I get a lot out of it when I do.

- 3 -

Like a lot of folks in the blogosphere, I saw the "How To Suck At Your Religion" cartoon from The Oatmeal thanks to friends on Facebook. To be honest it kind of rolled off my back-- nothing really new here-- but evidently others (notably Joe Heschmeyer at Shameless Popery, and Marc Barnes, the "Bad Catholic") took umbrage and provided some responses that made me laugh and nod along.

In the end, atheist tirades against religion always make me shrug: If there's no God, who cares what fake-ass religion I subscribe to, right?

It really is hard for people to give up the idea of an objective moral standard, whatever they might say about societal norms and evolutionary psychology and what have you. I guess that's what the theologians call "common grace"-- doesn't matter what you believe, God is too merciful to let you fully experience the consequences of those beliefs. That's why you can count on good liberals to speak loudly against (some forms of) oppression. Speaking of which...

- 4 -

The local Unitarian Universalist congregation is hosting a talk by the Reverend Mark Kiyimba of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Uganda. If Uganda isn't on your radar, you should probably be aware that they've been trying on and off to legislate a death penalty (!) for homosexual activity. From the blurb for the talk:

Rev. Kiyimba has also been an outspoken critic of Uganda’s anti-LGBT legislation which would mandate harsh penalties such as life imprisonment or death just for being homosexual in Uganda. People could also be arrested and jailed for not turning in friends or family members known to be homosexual. Members of the LGBT community in Uganda, as well as their supporters, have been persecuted, beaten, and even killed and the violence appears to be increasing. Rev. Kiyimba himself has received threats and had to leave Uganda last year due to concerns for his safety, while concerns continue for the well-being of the students of his school and residents of his children’s home. In Uganda, he has been questioned on multiple occasions by police who accuse him of using the church and school to recruit homosexuals. While the anti-LGBT bill has moved on and off Uganda Parliament’s agenda without a vote on multiple occasions, it could still be debated and voted on by Parliament in the future.

You can read more about Rev. Kiyimba's efforts and school at the UUAU website linked above. I doubt that there's anyone from Huntsville reading this, but if you are, you can hear Rev. Kiyimba speak at the local UU church at 10:45 am this Sunday... And from what I know of mass schedules around the city, if you're Catholic you won't have to miss Sunday mass to do it.

- 5 -

I had wanted to include a hopeful blurb at this point about how the Catholic Church, at least, could be counted on to stand up for human rights in Uganda even when other nominally-Christian groups had lost their minds, but it appears instead that the local bishop has made common cause with the Protestant groups that support this horrible legislation.

I sure hope someone will comment with a better source, or tell me I'm misunderstanding this.

- 6 -

On a happier note, my lovely wife and I will be traveling to Birmingham next Thursday to see Bob Schneider in concert. Listen to a Bob Schneider album sometime if you haven't. He has this knack for giving an entire album a certain coherent "feel", while still letting each song be its own creation. He "spans genres effortlessly," to use a stock music-review phrase. And he writes "clever, thought-provoking lyrics," to use another. I can't wait to see the show, although I have a little trepidation about how it will sound given my degraded hearing...

- 7 -

Finally, for the geeks (after all, I am the Rocket City Recusant): Have you tried programming in Haskell? I'm playing with it, and it's blowing my mind. It helps that there's a hilarious, informative introductory book about the language freely available online. Someday maybe there will be other aspiring Haskellers among the discriminating readership of this my very odd blog, and if so perhaps we can compare notes.

Over and out!