BlakeHuggins.com

1.) Two interesting and thought provoking conversations. Tony Jones takes issue the “Hauerwasian Mafia” and Eugene Cho questions Rob Bell’s white privilege. If you’ve got time read some of the comments on these threads as well. There’s some really good (and bad) dialogue going on.

2.) Speaking of Rob Bell, the dude is staying pretty busy. He’s got a new book coming out in October. Interesting…one month before the election. I bet I know where that is going. I do love the description:

“There is a church not too far from us that recently added a $25 million addition to their building. Our local newspaper ran a front-page story not too long ago about a study revealing that one in five people in our city lives in poverty. This is a book about those two numbers. It’s a book about faith and fear, wealth and war, poverty, power, safety, terror, Bibles, bombs, and homeland insecurity. It’s about empty empires and the truth that everybody’s a priest, it’s about oppression, occupation, and what happens when Christians support, animate and participate in the very things Jesus came to set people free from. It’s about what it means to be a part of the church of Jesus in a world where some people fly planes into buildings while others pick up groceries in Hummers.”

3.) A lot has been going around lately about tap water and bottled water and the problems with sanitation and whatnot. Forbes magazine has an interesting article on “The 10 Best Cities for Clean Drinking Water,” based on a 2006 study conducted by the University of Cincinnati. I was really surprised to see that Tulsa, OK (I’m an Okie) squeaked in at number 10.

4.) My wife is telling me all the time that I blog too much and spend too much time online. I probably do. If you’re like me you might find this ProBlogger piece, “On Being a Healthy Blogger” worth a read. Three words: Lack. Of. Sleep.

5.) And the depressing political stuff. We now know that not only did President Bush authorize the torturing of various detainees, but that secret, high-level meeting were held in the White House (with Cheney, Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, Tenet, and Ashcroft) in which specific techniques and individuals were discussed in detail. Seriously?! And the worst part is that the media is largely ignoring the story and characteristically avoiding telling the truth. Hmm. Maybe it’s because we’re more concerned with Barack Obama’s missing lapel pin (again!) or Hillary Clinton’s markswomanship (?). Because those are the important issues, right? Right?!

6.) Since Earth Day is next Tuesday, and since I’m preaching a sermon about it on Sunday, I can’t resist. I never, ever, thought I would see a commercial with Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson together. Yes, you read that right, it’s now a typo. I appreciate the gesture and I agree wholeheartedly, but it still seems so…weird.

7). Lastly, if you’re like me, you “grab” YouTube videos all the time because you never know when they’ll be taken down. But I bet you didn’t know that some videos can be viewed in high quality. That not only ups the viewing quality, but also the “grabbed quality.”