Thursday, November 20, 2008
Church Marketing
Thanks to Dan for sending me this video.
vulgar homiletics and lowbrow theology
why vulgar homiletics? | about dave | contact dave
vulgar homiletics and lowbrow theology
why vulgar homiletics? | about dave | contact dave
Thanks to Dan for sending me this video.
A wonderful illustration of brinksmanship. Literally.
Thanks to Rev Ned for posting this.
A conversation at Tuesday morning Bible study about my electric car conversion plans:
“So how much experience do you have working on cars?”
“My skill at automobile mechanics is surpassed only by my knowledge of electricity.”
“Then I don’t see how this plan could possible fail!”
Just for motivation, here is Bill Nye the Science Guy’s rant on human transportation. It starts at about 4:25
After watching Who Killed the Electric Car?, listening to politicos argue about the problem of the war in Iraq, and hearing both Obama and McCain talk about “sending money to countries who don’t like us very much” and advocating for energy independence, I tuned in to Marketplace the other night and heard that in the middle of this economic crisis, oil companies posted another quarter of record profits.
So now it’s personal. I am tired of government collusion with auto industries and oil companies, the wasted infrastructure, the fact that 30,000 people die every year in auto accidents, and the bait-and-switch publicity for hydrogen fuel cells and hybrid cars which keep true energy independence always at some mysterious date in the future.
I declare war on oil.
My first weapon in this war is my bicycle. I can bike nearly everywhere I need to go in a given week. So far this week I have biked, walked, or run approximately 12 miles and driven 20. I found that I can run to my weekly breakfast Bible study, and if I don’t gorge myself on bacon and eggs I don’t even have to throw up on he the run home. Likewise I can walk to church most Sundays, and I can bike on most office days. Since I typically drive when I visit hospitals (and I will obviously drive for long trips), the 1:2 mileage ratio will be a difficult one to flip. But I’m going to try to get my commuter mileage to 50% alternative transportation by December.
When I tell people about commuting by bike, they generally have two objections. First, you’ll get hot and sweaty. Second, it’s dangerous. But I figure those 18-year-olds waking up in the desert know plenty about hot, sweaty, and dangerous. So I’m going to support our troops by cutting my dependence on oil. See, I’ve just realized we are at war, and it’s time American citizens like me get serious about it.
My next weapon in my war on oil is still in the R&D stage. Automakers are dragging their feet in producing electric vehicles since they don’t profit as much from the eternal maintenance schedule of internal combustion engines. So instead of waiting on them to produce a sub $30,000 car with reasonable specs, I’m seriously thinking of taking matters into my own hands. I don’t want to wait 3 to 10 years for electric vehicles to come within my price range. I’m thinking I could build my own for less. This may be a challenge, since I’m about as qualified to be a mechanic as I am an electrician. If I get well into the research and decide it’s a no-go, I could always look at driving something that looks like it came out of Star Wars.
We’ll see. I expect this will be a long war of attrition, but I’m hoping to recruit allies.
I’ve just realized how much the soundtrack to Alien and Aliens borrow their themes from the second movement of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. They lift whole motifs from it. I love it when popular culture mines “classical” culture for inspiration.
(edit 11-09-08) Of course, just about every sci-fi soundtrack set in space borrows from Holst’s The Planets. The 2nd Aliens movie certainly owes a lot of its themes to Holst. But now when I hear Alien I think Rite of Spring.
