Speaking of that Saturday Religion section, about a year or so ago the paper stopped running religious letters to the editor in the regular “Letters to the Editor” section of the paper. Instead they were segregated and put in the once-weekly Religion section. I was miffed when they did that. What they’re saying is that religion has nothing to say to contemporary issues. Well fear no more, the entire section is gone. As I think back over the past couple of editions of the paper I realize that is has been gone for a little while.I’m not going to yell “Censorship!” Nor am I going to gripe about freedom of speech. What irks me the most is what has bothered me from the beginning: the notion that religion has no place in the public square. The Founding Fathers wouldn’t have liked that idea at all.

This week I heard a cover version of Tears for Fears’ ‘Mad World’ by Gary Jules. Caught it on KCRW’s ‘Morning Becomes Ecclectic.’ The song has crept in and camped out in my mind. What a fantastic cover! Now I’m probably going to have to buy this cat’s CD (which is self released.)With what is happening to radio stations and the music industry in general, guys like Jules and a friend’s band ‘Golden Ticket’ who deserve a shot at some air time can’t get it. If you don’t fit the demographic and have national appeal, you don’t get played. I’m glad that there are programs like ‘Morning Becomes Ecclectic’ to give this artists at least a shot. The down side of MBE is that it is very ecclectic. Sometimes you have to sit through a really bad song or two before you find something you like. Like the time they played someone doing Bach on a banjo. But that is how this stuff works. If you want prepackaged trollip that some number-crunching music exec has figured will fit your demographic, then stick with the ClearChannel stations. If you want to find something fresh and different, wade out into the deep water and take the good and the bad.

Welp, I did it. This morning at 0900 (that’d be 9 AM for you civilian types) I did my final outprocessing from the US Air Force. Starting tomorrow I am on what we call “terminal leave.” In other words, the leave I had coming before I formally retire. I have 69 days saved up plus 9 days for househunting. We get 20 days of house/jobhunting but I took 11 days in May. It isn’t leave, it is just time off. Starting Saturday, my razor gets some time off. I’ve wanted to grow a beard since before I came in the Air Force but I was only 17 and the best I could manage was a fuzzy lip.

A friend at church gave me a copy of J. Gresham Machen’s paper “Christanity and Culture”. What a fantastic monograph! It is littered with so many great things I’d like to quote. I’ll have to start marking the pages and quoting and commenting. Great read. BTW, the link is to Reformation Ink, a fantastic website with tons of great reading. Pop over and take a look.

Wow. I’m cleaning out my desk at work. This whole “retiring from the Air Force” thing is a reality all of the sudden!

I have arrived. I just noticed that Russ included a link to me over at his blog. I find that particularly cool because, having never heard of a blog before, I stumbled upon his blog while searching for something about or by Jonathan Edwards. Russ has a paper posted on his site and since the name “mybrainhurts” grabbed my attention I checked it out. Next thing I know, I hit blogger.com, establish an account and turn my website into a blog. Now I’m hooked.

Ho! What’s this? Then next version of Mac OS X (10.2) will include handwriting recognition. Now why would you need handwriting recognition on a non-pen based system? The website says its for graphics professionals but I wonder. Could it be that there is a tablet in the future of the Macintosh line up? Now that would be cool!

I happened to walk past a TV in a waiting room today and caught the end of an Apple commercial. All I saw was the Apple logo and “www.apple.com/switch” and then a woman saying what her job was. Immediately I knew what it was all about. Apple is starting to lure Windows useres. I love this. I went to Apple’s website and watched all the commercials.

This is a brave step by Apple. Microsoft does not like to lose market share and we have seen in the courts how they are not afraid to play dirty.

From a New York Times story:

“Our relationship with Microsoft is really pretty good,” Mr. Jobs said. “What’s a few market-share points between friends? It wouldn’t matter to them, and we would be eternally grateful.”

So the assult on market share begins. I’m thrilled!

Must have been a slow weekend. I just skimmed all of my favorite blogs and there hasn’t been much activity on them. I know it was a big sports weekend. I know this only because I heard it on the radio. I am so sports dis-inclined it isn’t even funny. Is that were everyone was? Glued to the TV trying to switch between sporting events?

My formal retirement ceremony from the Air Force was today. I’m not “retired” yet, that won’t happen until September 1, 2002 but the ceremony was today. My Pastor came out to the base and did the invocation and a dear friend from church sang the national anthem. I thought I might get all choaked up or fell very strange but it seemed like a very natural thing.