Done yesterday (20120509 We)

[mdlbear]

Finally posted my itinerary/tentative schedule for the next couple of months. And, as usual, didn't do all that much else. Well, there were some things accomplished. Including the phone interview with EDD, which I'd been worried about. It looks as though my pension won't affect my unimployment insurance, because Ricoh stopped paying into it in 2010.

I'm continuing to putter, and got a fair amount of book triage done in the office. Most were immediately snapped up by folks in the Wednesday crowd, which of course was the whole idea. The old turntable, too -- now that we've gotten rid of all our vinyl, we really don't need it. End of an era.

I called PODS and got a quote: about $3200 for a 16' pod. The move will be complicated by the fact that we want some of the stuff to go into N's garage; I'm thinking of PODS or some other container company for that. We'll see. Unfortunately moving.com doesn't seem to have any way to compare prices; I'll have to call them all separately. The salesdroid at PODS was rather pushy.

Link of the day, after a nod toward Richard Lugar's statement, is Rachel Held Evans | How to win a culture war and lose a generation. The money quote:

When asked by The Barna Group what words or phrases best describe Christianity, the top response among Americans ages 16-29 was “antihomosexual.” For a staggering 91 percent of non-Christians, this was the first word that came to their mind when asked about the Christian faith. The same was true for 80 percent of young churchgoers. (The next most common negative images? : “judgmental,” “hypocritical,” and “too involved in politics.”)

Now, I'm part of that 91%; as an atheist and a Democrat I don't see a major shift away from religion as a bad thing. But if you do -- if you're one of the many progressive Christians I know are reading this -- you might want to do something about it.

When I was in college, the churches were hotbeds of radicalism, solidly on the left. They fed the poor, opposed the war in Vietnam, ... Where in Hell are they now?

0509 We
  * up 7:30; W=197.2; d, n, t; hair, dishes, laundry; exercise
  * 10-12 EDD UI phone interview -- looks like my pension won't affect my
    unemployment insurance, because Ricoh stopped paying into it in 2010. 
  * worked with N on her new website
  * post itinerary
    @ mdlbear | Plans: travel and otherwise
  @ Rachel Held Evans | How to win a culture war and lose a generation 
    (via ysabetwordsmith - When people think of Christianity ...) 
    " When asked by The Barna Group what words or phrases best describe
      Christianity, the top response among Americans ages 16-29 was
      “antihomosexual.” For a staggering 91 percent of non-Christians, this was
      the first word that came to their mind when asked about the Christian
      faith. The same was true for 80 percent of young churchgoers. (The next
      most common negative images? : “judgmental,” “hypocritical,” and “too
      involved in politics.”)" -- yup.  That.
    (Personally, I don't think people leaving the church is a bad thing.  But
    that's just me.)
  * 15min:  book triage - top shelves in the back left-hand corner
  * 5pm Avoid Avoiding
  @ osewalrus: I surrender - Best Statement of Defeated Candidate/Departing
    Elder I have Seen So Far 
  * PODS: Call 888-847-3792 and provide your Quote #: 14740769 (East coast)

Comments

[tagryn]

I agree with you regarding the erosion of the safety net, especially for children, but see it as a separate issue from whether the unborn have civil rights or not. It is quite possible that we can't have both rights for the unborn and complete reproductive freedom for women, and that we as a society choose the latter over the former. OTOH I don't think that means that we can rationalize it by assuming that the unborn have no rights, just that we haven't been able to find a way that doesn't harm one or the other.