It was pointed out to me that it should be important for churches to be having open, productive dialogue about the bible. But she made the important point that churches should be teaching and talking about the bible and various aspects of it. Here's the catch...in a fine irony, many of the fundmentalist protestants, like gospel man on your show, have become more dogmatic, less questioning, and more afraid of dialogue than the catholic church that they broke from 500 years ago. Thus, many churches will not be talking about, for example, various inconsistencies in different books of the bible. And they won't be able to take this opening. Anything that opens questions or dialogue is, to many of these people, attempting to unravel their faith by definition. It doesn't have to, but that is what they have grown to believe.

In my work at Michigan State, I have been part of the Multi-Ethnic Counseling Center Alliance (MECCA), a group of clinicians that is dedicated to finding better ways to provide "culturally competent and racially conscious services to the university community." My doctoral research, and my planned future research, has been oriented towards training more culturally-aware and tolerant clinicians who are better able to function for a broad group of people.

Recently, I have been looking at academic positions and thinking about how I interact with undergraduate university communities. This has been leading me to think about something completely different. Can I do more by continuing along this research path, or can I do more by helping to apply these lessons in undergraduate classrooms and designing research to help determine ways to train undergraduates who are more aware of themselves and who are better able to function as individuals in a more diverse society? I can certainly reach more people that way. If, in the broad sense, I am working towards helping to create a more tolerant society, wouldn't I be better off doing at least some work that is targeted toward undergraduate students and making them more aware of themselves and other cultures?

There's something poetic, here, but I'm not entirely sure what it is. A friend of mine was talking about how churches have gotten more aggressive with their fundraising efforts, even to the point that they are distributing how-to fundraising DVDs. With that in mind, this seems like the most obvious, and pitiful, end result. How does the marriage of church fundraising and Nigerian scammers grab you?

Okay, you reeled me in. Who is Michael Richards and why is his racist rant more important than anyone else's?

The real question: how come he gets national discussion (I assume) but the anti-affirmative action amendment that just passed in Michigan does not? We have 1.5 MILLION bona-fide racists in this state, according to the final results. That may be overstating it, because any number of those could be wishful thinkers, or people who are so pissed off at a 7%+ unemployment rate that they will believe anything. But, regardless, I don't hear a ton of complaints from the rest of the country. No discussion of how this undercuts the work that a whole generation of people did between 1960 and now. No discussion on what this sort of thing, and the heinous means used to get it on the ballot here, might mean for the rest of the country. No discussion about what this means for poor minority kids in Flint and Detroit whose environments don't give them the same means as poor or middle-class white kids from Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids.

Who is the guy and why is he so much more important than a whole state?

Ahh....Wal-Mart. One of the nice things about living in Michigan is that I don't have to give them too much of my money. I give them just enough to say I support that they are throwing some resources behind a $4 generic prescription drug program, but don't like most of the rest of their policies. (And if you don't know about it, ask for a flier at a Wal-Mart or Sam's pharmacy. It could be a good resource for low-SES individuals).

Anyway, I was at the Wal-Mart here last night. Living in Mississippi, one of the boatload of societal problems that I noticed was the tendency for shopping carts at all stores to be strewn throughout the parking lot. Basically, if it was not a cart collection point, that's where the cart went. They generally don't seem to have this problem in Michigan. At least, until I got to Wal-Mart last night and found carts strewn all about. It's nice to know that there are some constants in the world - sunrise, imbeciles telling me what to do or I'll go to hell, and the tendency of Wal-Mart to activate the basic primal instincts of sloppiness, irresponsibility, and laziness.

Here is an excerpt from a clinical/applied faculty position at the University of Macao. The relevant portion is highlighted. Apparently even academia has Engrish.

"Successful candidate will lead the Department that offers two areas of specialization: Clinical Psychology and Applied Psychology, with eight full time faculty staff and one distinguished part-time scholar. He or she will need to show an informed interest in both clinical psychology and applied psychology, although the successful candidate does not need to be an expert in both fields. An ability to communicate in Chinese (Putonghua or Cantonese), while not essential, will be an advantage. The successful candidate will assume the position in September 2007."

Ouch.

My home was apparently a criminal hideout before I moved into it. I know this because the East Lansing police just came to my home looking for the previous resident of my apartment. He has "a couple of warrants," according to the friendly officer. I suppose I could have asked what these warrants were for, given that this is probably public information. Unfortunately, I didn't think to bother. Apparently I don't look like him, because he believed me when he stated that I was not the man in question.

I hope nothing creepy went on here. And I don't feel high all the time, so nothing special was recently manufactured here. It does make me want to open his mail the next time I get some; I've gotten a couple of pieces that I put back in the mailbox. I wonder what a career criminal like Mr. North gets in the mail. Next time, they should put one of those tracking devices on him before he slips away.

AP Headline:

"Warrantless wiretaps unlikely to be OK'd"

"The Bush administration has a backup plan. In speeches over the next few weeks, the Justice Department will launch a new campaign for the legislation by casting the choice as one between supporting the program or dropping it altogether — and appearing soft on al-Qaida."

THIS is a backup plan? I will act like a 12 year old until I get my way? I hear a lot of complaints about the president these days, and I agree with many of them. Why don't I hear more concerns about how childlike he is? There is no middle ground. This was a great bargaining tactic -- in fifth grade.

I do have a hypothetical explanation, which really scares me. They use these "communication" and "compromise" tactics because they are simplistic enough for the majority of Americans to understand. The idea is that they either don't want to put the effort into thinking about more than two sides of an issue. Or that they can't understand it. Either way, there are problems.

It's so nice to live in a blue state. There's a paper that the next door person gets and I read the front page before dropping it at her door. Election news was on it. People will actually vote for a woman here, for one thing. People vote a little more based on their beliefs and not their pastor's (although not, I think that much more; and I know that's a gross overgeneralization). The paper also tells me that the "anti-affirmative action measure is losing." Even the Republican gubernatorial candidate came out against the affirmative action thing as racist. Haley Barbour, member of the Council of Conservative (asshat) citizens that he is, would love the evil thing.

Some interesting notes on candidates in Michigan:
-- Everyone in the state votes for trustees/regents at all state institutions. Strange. What would,
say, Alabama grads do to the Auburn trustees if they did the same thing there?
-- The whole state is voting on a legislative measure to allow the hunting of mourning doves. Do people
really hate mourning doves that much?
-- I'm voting for someone for state representative for a partial term....ending 1/1/2007. And it's the
same two people who are running for the next term.
-- There are still candidates who have information-free websites...or no websites at all. That's pretty
sad in this current technological climate.
-- I can claim one of the Senators who voted against the Iraq war.
-- At least one individual running for office has been endorsed by Sparty!



An incumbent judge was asked about what the most important state supreme court decision of the past two years was. Her answer had to do with a case that "recognized the public’s right to walk the beaches of the Great Lakes." Surely there has been something more important. I can think of at least one this year. And this woman was the chief justice of the state supreme court!

I hope that you are having fun with your respective politics. The scary part for me is how few people put any work into candidate selection. Mindless voting for any party should be discouraged, but is really encouraged in our society.

I hope some of my peeps are actually checking this from time to time. If you are, I will make sure I post more often.

Many of you may have seen those Mastercard commercials where the person just kind of waves his or her card in the general direction of the swipey machine to pay for his or her beverage/food/whatever. Look here if you think this is a good idea. Oh, the stupidity!! (hint: your information is not encrypted):

They are read way too easily.

Don't forget to watch the video.

http://www.thenuttybuddy.com/

Ha! Look on in envy, all you of the horrid sunny, 80 degree weather! We have now added snow to the cold, dank cave effect.









Honestly, I don't know how people settled in this state. The other day at work it was pointed out to me that one of two things must have happened:

1. People had arrived in the summer and were unable to leave once the weather changed.
2. Winter got so bad so quickly that they couldn't get out.

More pictures will come when it really snows.

How about the MANGROOMER Do-It-Yourself Electric Back Hair Shaver?

And what the hell is up with that sound effect?

This is amazing, but it seems to hold promise. Anybody got persistent bacterial infections? What? No public takers? I'm shocked. Anyway, this could be useful. Apparently honey is becoming an effective treatment for serious bacterial skin infections.

In other news, the first snow here is forecast for tomorrow. This is earlier than I remember. In fact, it's a lot darker and rainier than I remember. I mean, winter is dark up north, but the late summer and fall isn't supposed to be like that, too. The big cat used to have a habit of finding himself a "dark cave" or some analog to sleep in during the day. He doesn't do this anymore, and no wonder. This whole bloody state is a dark cave.

So, six weeks into internship and I have to start looking for work already. Academic positions sure do open up early. I just spent a half hour on the phone with Rich Topolski, the chair of the search committee at Augusta State University:

http://www.aug.edu/psychology/jobopenings.html

The job itself sounds like a real winner. They have a master's program full of people for me to help train. They have an onsite clinic attached to their program (which even Auburn didn't have). They also reportedly have ties to nearly everything psychology-related in the community, so I could get my licensure hours and they could hook soon-to-be-wifey up with a job. They are a smaller university with a very diverse student population. He said that a research program involving multicultural psychology would be politically nice for the department to have because it can be reflected as serving the community, which is an important part of the university's mission. Or something like that -- I don't know much about how institutional politics work so he was kind of hard to follow. And they rank their responsibilities as teaching first, research second. Very good for me. I think I can manage one publication every couple of years, which is the current guideline from the department chair. Although hopefully I will have more than that. He sounded happy when I mentioned diversity as an interest and that I wanted to involve students in my research.

The psychology department is in the science building:
http://www.aug.edu/public_information_and_publications/history/scrapbk8.html

They have a lot of new construction on campus, which apparently has been mostly paid for with lottery money. Hm.

So, people, what do you know about Augusta, GA? Anything?

I really need to start sharing with you people more.

Or, in this case, drug testing for "athletes." Seriously, folks, how many of you have considered using your meth stash to improve on your fishing skills?

I didn't even check to see what was under the sign. Almost as good as the "lice" sign once sighted at Wal-Mart.

This just in:

All boating in the US now illegal.

Although it's not all news, there are some interesting things that popped up on the interweb when I got home:

Donkey for your wedding?

Detroit Lions fans may soon be able to call for bodily harm for coaches. This is important legislation in Michigan.

Bacon for your cat?

Hi everyone. Been on my happy holiday journey with you-know-who. So I wasn't updating, or even near a computer, all weekend. We went to Grand Haven, Michigan, where we saw beautiful lake scenery and enjoyed a relaxing weekend. Wonderful.

Grand Haven, Michigan, has the world's largest musical fountain. It was very pretty, although we encountered it on religious music night, which kind of affected some of the luster.

It also has a strange habit of talking about itself in the first person. A guy recorded this once upon a time. The fountain tells everyone how old it is, how it puts on wonderful shows and continually thanks its creators. What the hell?

Special bonus: the "voice of the fountain" called the hostess of our bed and breakfast once, saying that he wanted a room and that "as the voice of the fountain, I stay in Grand Haven for free." What an ass. Of course she said no. What I don't understand is why the recording has to take place in Michigan...which it apparently did.

Pictures of pretty Grand Haven will be forthcoming. In the meantime, I leave you with these gems:

1. A new! snack for you to try



2. A picture of...something. What are they celebrating? Unsuccessful cosmetic surgery?