What I'm thankful for this year

Since it's Thanksgiving (ok, a day late but my family is celebrating it a day later this year), here's my short list...

I'm thankful that I have so many long-time friends who stay in touch. (I think I am really fortunate in this regard compared to so many folks I know.)

I am thankful that I have a church home that has been so loving to me and such an encouragement and a challenge to.

I am thankful that I now live where I do in Northeast OKC, and that I have space to garden where I now live.

I am thankful for my many intelligent and thoughtful conservative and moderate friends. They keep me humble (well at least they try, I have a long ways to go in embracing humility) and remind me to never assumeyou have all the answers.

I am thankful that in these dark, dark, dark times, that there are so many good folks out there who are working for an end to war and other kinds of needless killing, and that there are folks out there who really do care for the poor and oppressed.

I am thankful for the many spiritual guides in my life, both in the past and present: for my many past church homes (in both the Churches of Christ, charismatic and Mennonite traditions), for those who have been a spiritual mentor to me and also to the many authors of spiritual books that have challenged me; I am particularly grateful to Quaker author Richard Foster who first challenged me with the idea of simplicity as a spiritual virtue, for zen buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh for teaching me that responding to the Buddha's teachings does not make me disloyal to Christ, Wendell Berry for showing me that gardening is a spiritual act of love for God, and to the ancient Jewish prophet Amos for showing me that one of the best ways to spend your life is in fighting for poor who are oppressed by the rich (and that God cares when folks are mistreated).

I am thankful to my readers. Knowing that my typings are read has been such a source of sanity over the last year or so (because things never seem so bad if you can talk about it and actually be heard)
- posted by JM @ 9:42 AM (0) comments

 
Why do Ukranians stand up against rigged elections while Americans take it sitting down?

MSNBC: European envoys arrive in Ukraine ---Envoys attempt to defuse election standoff as protests intensify

To me it is encouraging to see the Ukranian people stand up in opposition to rigged elections, but I'm puzzled why Americans are responding the same way? The evidence seems stronger and stronger each day that substantial election fraud happened in key swing states yet no one seems to care (except for Green party nominee David Cobb and Libertarian party nominee Michael Badnarik who have led the charge on demanding a recount in Ohio, and the tens of thousands of small donors who gave to the recount effort).

Most of all I don't understand why Kerry threw in the towel so quickly. I wonder if either he was bribed by someone in the administration to concede early or if he was threatened in some way. I can't help but wonder since all of the votes weren't even counted when he gave up.
- posted by JM @ 9:11 AM (0) comments

 
Supreme Court to hear Medical Marijuana case

AP/MSNBC: Supreme Court to weigh medical marijuana ---Case to determine whether states have right to adopt such laws

Here's one part of the story that was particularly interesting...

Even some states without medical marijuana laws have criticized the federal government’s position. Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi told the court they “support their neighbors’ prerogative in our federalist system to serve as laboratories for experimentation.”

I'm not too surprised to see these southern states stand up for states' rights, but I am suprised to see them be consistent about it in light of medical marijuana case. So many conservatives are so selective on whether they believe in federalism or not (I.e. gay marriage). I'm glad to see these AG's are consistent at least in this case.

(On a sidenote, the lawyer arguing for the plaintiff in this case spoke at OCU lately. I didn't get to attend unfortunately but the reports I heard on it were that he was very solid.
- posted by JM @ 9:03 AM (0) comments

 
Update on server situation Carter at Vagrantweb has posted an update on what has gone down at the Vagrant Cafe. It looks like there will be another outage soon but at least all of my old content is saved (as far as new content goes after the backup, I've been cross-posting everything at jmbzine.blogspot.com, but comments posted at JMBzine.com from the last couple of days likely won't be saved unfortunately)
- posted by JM @ 11:16 AM (0) comments

 
The last few days have been a bit frustrating at least as far online stuff goes because it seems that hackers have had a field day with many of my friends (and myself).

To begin with Vagrantweb was attacked with a rootkit attack that wreaked major havok on their server which hosts VagrantCafe (a long standing online community) and also lots of their clients' websites (including JMBzine and OKIMC.org

Then today I find out that another website has been taken out by the hackers HMMagazine.com (an indie rock mag put out by an old friend from Austin who now lives in Washington state)

All in all, I think these attacks are low and particularly evil because what these folks are doing is infringing on free speech rights. These websites are mostly either personal websites or small businesses owned by sole proprietors and partnerships. I know my friends at Vagrantweb have been hurt financialy by this (by both lost business and just the massive amounts of time spent over the last few days rebuilding all of their clients' websites via backups).

Well anyway until this mess is for sure over I'm going to be cross-posting all of my blog posts both here and at my alternate blogger.com-powered blog JMBzine.blogspot.com (regular readers are encouraged to bookmark that URL)
- posted by JM @ 10:54 AM (0) comments

 
Well it looks like my webhosting problems aren't solved after all, unfortunately (not my webhost's fault really, they got a major hacker attack which caused all kinds of havoc). So anyway my blogged life continues at this location. Well on to happier subjects, I first have to say a big congratulations to my friend K on the purchase of a new home. (I feel so old now, with so many of my friends being homeowners).
- posted by JM @ 8:41 PM (0) comments