george w recently said that america was in the throes of a third awakening. perhaps he sees himself in the shoes of jonathan edwards; "sinners in the hands of an angry god" has some real zingers for all those evil doers he's after. this throws an interesting dissonance onto one of the dominant zeitgeists of the evangelical church as i was growing up. that being the idea that christians are an oppressed minority in north america that has to fight back against the everpresent threat of the left wing news media and increasingly liberal governmental policies and the onslaught of sexuality and depravity in modern entertainment. last year michael horowitz dubbed christians the jews of the 21st century referring mostly to the plight of christians in certain "developing" nations, but his ideas play well into the oppression idea above and have been expanded to include the scapegoating of the christian right for bringing george bush to power and supporting him in the war that increased the threat of terror (according to recent widely publicized leaked CIA reports and common freaking sense).
i hate to admit it, but i think george w is at least partially right. reg bibby was telling us almost 10 years ago that the majority of north americans believe in god. a majority even regularly attend church if you push back the definition of regularly to at least once a month. well then what are we getting so worked up about? who is it that is trying to pollute our minds with hollywood smut? who is buying the jessica simpson cds and going to the latest summer blockbuster and looking at internet porn? who elected bush? i'll tell you who: the majority of americans (ok, maybe not in the case of the 2004 US election, or the 2000 one for that matter). I know i know, separate majorities based on separate inclusion/exclusion criteria are not necessarily synonomous, but they do necessarily overlap and it is my opinion that they overlap substantially. so who are christians afraid of? who is oppressing them? themselves? i suppose that is part of the message of paul in romans. i would like to bring this back around to the proliferation of christian products but this is going a little long so perhaps i will let you complete the circle as you see fit.
the president of pakistan pervez musharraf was on the daily show tonight. Yes, the leader of a world nuclear power made an appearance on an american variety show. president musharraf seemed to be a well spoken and rational man. perhaps he realized that if he wanted to get a message of diplomacy to the people he should forgo the heavily beurocratized channels of international relations and get in where he could fly under the radar of the typical censors and spinners - on the comedy network! crazy! (crazy like a fox? - thanks aaron for keeping that phrase cool)
kylie and i went back to the cheamlake wetlands yesterday. we have not visited recently b/c niko is not allowed there (even though he couldn't catch a rabbit he could probably kill a lot of little baby ducks). it is one of our favourite parks near chilliwack, but nobody we know who is from this area ever goes there. so for some unknown reason we often have this beautiful wetland wildlife reserve all to ourselves and yesterday was no exception. we enjoyed a great picnic by the water and niko had to burn off all his energy pulling me around on the longboard in the evening.
these first 3 pics are kind of a panorama but i am too lazy to stitch them together.
a familiar bulky beacon of bear bamboozlement beckoned. lethbridge pride!
there were birds everywhere: geese, ducks, starlings, chickadees, herons, yellow bellied this and thats... also frogs and rabbits and sundry other denizens of the damp.
later that night we saw an owl hunting over a field. we stopped the car to watch it and it perched on a road sign to observe us for a while. it then took off and returned to the field, but as we got going again it chased us down the road and did a few looping dives over the car before disappearing over the horticultural horizon.
lastly, if you like thailand and you are interested in military coups, you should check out our friend heidi's blog for some jarringly casual firsthand pictures of political upheaval.
