Labels!

Hey, check out the new labels list. This is a really cool thing for me since i blog more about what i think than what i do, so i'm glad they can be categorized by topic and not just date. I had actually considered switching to typepad so i could get this feature - but Blogger saved me the trouble.

Veils and Religious freedom

My local Christian radio station has me riled up - again.

Yesterday morning they reported a story about a Muslim woman whose case was thrown out of court because she refused to remove her veil to testify. It was one of the veils that only shows the eyes, and the judge didn't think he could accurately judge whether she was telling the truth if he couldn't see her face.

They also mentioned another case where a woman wanted to have her driver's license photo taken with her veil on, and was refused. My morning co-hosts pointed out that this was a case of religious freedom versus our customary ways of preserving justice, but ultimately they seemed to think that maybe it was appropriate for these women to have been denied their requests.

I guess the thing that frustrated me most is that i've listened to these guys for a while, and as far as i can tell, if the tables were reversed, they'd be on the side of "religious freedom." If there was a Christian group who believed that Christians should wear veils, and they were having problems with the legal system, i really suspect that my co-hosts would have taken their side. But no, these are Muslims.

Of course i'm speculating. But here's another thing - if a Muslim woman has worn a veil in public for ten years of her life, and suddenly has to remove it to testify in court, don't you think she'll be so nervous and feel so awkward that the judge will have a hard time reading her facial expressions anyway? And i'm not sure, but is it allowable for a Muslim woman to unveil herself in a private setting with another woman? If so, could she give her testmiony to a female official and have it recorded?

It seems like there could also be a way for someone to officially register as a veil-wearing Muslim, and then if they're ever seen in public without their veil they could have their priveleges revoked. I just know that if i believed in wearing a veil, i wouldn't want the government to make me remove it.

I want to be nice to my co-hosts so i'll leave them anonymous, but here's a link to a news article about it: Myrtle Beach Online

too funny . . .

Diet Coke & Mentos evangelism

So on my trip recently to Indy the people i was travelling with were apparently obsessed with the trick where you put mentos in a 2-liter of diet coke and it fizzes out so fast that it shoots up like a fountain. We did it in the parking lots of several gas stations and our hotel. The funny thing i noticed is that a lot of times a few people will stand by to watch you do it. We never actually got to "witness" to anybody, but we were driving a church van and sometimes it would come out that we were youth pastors. It just seemed cool because usually you don't really interact with the people you run into at a convenience store - and just by shooting off a "diet coke bomb" we were able to at least talk to people a little bit.
P.S. nobody seemed to mind that we were doing it as long as we didn't get coke on anything and we picked up our trash afterward. Even the police at one place thought it was cool :)

Ok, so only a month of silence

I guess i'm finally back again. At the beginning of september i finally finished work on my capstone project for my master's, so life theoretically should have slowed down a bit as i am out of classes until the end of november. Ironically, even though i found time to blog during classes, once i was out it seemed to get prioritized out. I did manage to keep the house somewhat cleaner, though. But then this weekend on the way home from our denomination's youth worker's conference, i realized that i really do miss blogging. So maybe i'll be more regular now.
I'm still not really sure why i blog, though. The eg0-maniac who believes the world is hanging on her every word should be repressed. So should the ego-maniac who believes that if she keeps blogging, eventually the world will begin to hang on her every word. But i haven't found any serious fault yet with the part of me that just likes the thought of having interesting thoughts out on the web for people to see. Maybe something i say will start a thought process that will help someone else. And, perhaps most of all, i just like being part of the conversation on a bigger scale than just the people i see in person. So i guess that's a good enough reason to justify the time.
May God be with You.