The Family Of God In Lincoln County, Nevada

Don’t get me wrong. I love Las Vegas. The sheer surrealism of living here amazes me every day. But sometimes it is just too much. Saturday things had been frenzied in a good way with our booth at the Pure Aloha Festival and Convention preparation going on at the same time. Then there was a barrage of the kind of incoming criticism that just goes with the turf of my curious (double entendre) vocation. But God provides. Saturday afternoon, Linda and I headed out for Pioche. But not so fast there kid. We took the I-15, little knowing it had been narrowed to a single lane for road construction. Trapped. It took forever before we could escape the jam. When we did, we had escaped onto the Las Vegas Strip. Arrrrgh! It was a tortuous odyssey wending our way to the I-95. But eventually we made it. We were sprung!<br /><br />Then it was a lovely drive through the autumn afternoon up the 93, through my beloved Pahranagat Valley, through the Joshua Tree forest, along the pastures, to Pioche, once the wildest town in the Wild Wild West.<br /><br />Dinner at the Silver Café. Then up the hill to Christ Church where Nick had unlocked the lower level and turned on the heat for us to spend the night in the bedroom they keep ready for itinerant preachers and roving prophets. The dog Fichu was beside himself. The steeply sloping back yard of Christ Church is his favorite place on God’s green earth. He did miss the cats that used to live across the street but they had moved on. There we spent a quiet evening, me reading A. N. Wilson’s eloquent biography of the Puritan heretic Milton.<br /><br />Morning brought biscuits and sausage gravy at the Silver Café. A rangy young working man was making sweeping generalizations about the evils of socialism while an older working man was responding with a nuanced analysis of the pros and cons of the President’s Jobs Bill. <br /><br />Back to Church for an early morning vestry meeting. They handled their business expeditiously and informally. As the Treasurer put it “We don’t know Robert.” His rules of order did not impede the good Christian folk of Pioche from getting on with the mission.<br /><br />They had a challenge. The church musician Louie was missing. That is not unusual. He sometimes goes on walk about. To accommodate his wandering ways, they are buying one of those nifty machines that play hymns to support congregational singing, but it isn’t here yet. So they called Norma to drive a few hours down from Ely to provide the musical accompaniment on a xylophone. It was excellent. The gathered assembly of about 20 people sang right along.<br /><br />The road from the 93 down to Pioche is an adopted highway, adopted by Christ Church, as a sign conspicuously announces. Civic responsibility, the Church engaged with society, the Christ light shining in a mountain village. After seeing the sign, Linda and I scanned the roadside for litter intending to stop and pick up any scrap we might find. But Deacon Kathy Hiatt and the laity of Christ Church had beaten us to it. The road was pristine. <br /><br />At the vestry meeting we learned that this little congregation recently gave money to Episcopal Relief and Development to help the tornado victims in Joplin, Missouri. They support a missionary family in Chile. A thank you poster on their wall marks a donation they had made to UNICEF. They voluntarily give money above and beyond their diocesan assessment to support Ministry Development throughout our diocese.<br /><br />Christ Church was founded by the first missionary bishop of Nevada, Ozzie Whittaker, who celebrated the first Pioche Holy Eucharist in a saloon, using the bar for an altar. This congregation was nourished for many years by Deaconess-in-Charge Jenny Hesmark whose biography is now being written by Karen Wilkes of St. Christopher’s, Boulder City. Christ Church was the star of Bishop Wes Frensdorff’s Total Ministry innovations in the 70s. Then they were shaped in the faith by the devoted ministry of their priest, the Rev. Jean Orr. Jean was called to priesthood by this congregation in 1975 – that’s right several years before women’s ordination was allowed in the Episcopal Church. Jean served until she was past 90. It was my privilege just last week at St. Catherine’s, Reno to confirm Jean’s grand-niece, Sophia Bedel.<br /><br />When things get rough, it’s good to find the family of God to take one in and boost one’s hope.

The Family Of God In Lincoln County, Nevada

Don’t get me wrong. I love Las Vegas. The sheer surrealism of living here amazes me every day. But sometimes it is just too much. Saturday t...

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Screencasting with Screenr is so easy

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />Today I thought I would experiment with Screenr as a screencasting tool to illustrate some aspects that I want to highlight in a talk I am presenting tomorrow. I normally use Jing, and I will write about Jing at some stage as well.<br /><br />Well first of all I went along to the Screenr website and joined. <br /><br /><div align="left"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVW6MdlAn004V8BhI-2GVpFcwY-u5ZA20O2vfe9MeAF5RJfVcfUBLUTtW3mOOYuMLXlKWctiGK2Dy0JFUTKnK43GkQ3rXRF8nPFcVIwdhgQo1-zNBWu3GXTMq0iZ2q60zCGowtal3LSr0/s1600-h/image%25255B4%25255D.png"><img align="left" alt="image" border="0" height="357" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheEVM6PrCFtmxAXAHnoqUMWe0p4gBVzm-Guk-INmryqbLWJuqPqvUGpaHn5X7F7nyMKJcpjxOtZihWo4AK0FGQnoxtSYdu2bh_1lsk3KL9s4MRV68mbYeaBnq3BwQwg3DOcxzjub_YQn0/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-width: 0px; display: inline; float: left; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="391" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />There was a video giving instructions right there and so I watched it.  In fact click on the picture below and you will be taken to the instruction video<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.screenr.com/"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilvumABBd5OBtQlAR04isbEH5RlGtDOziU8rAbNLuZUG765aNyz0jdAHQGNDjX15B-DpNE5s7IuJxDFQc7h3FeR5xb_V6YNySvGDAjGa7PvVmmSgCiy8pb1Jlz617OJdL9rbYakolmYKY/s400/screenr2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />See how easy it looks. For my talk tomorrow I was to show things as though I am on the Internet because it takes forever to actually click on a link. So after recording my snippet using Screenr I looked at it and it was fine. I then published it and downloaded it as an MP4 movie as I actually want to embed it in my PowerPoint as a movie. I worked! Success!<br /><br />Don’t believe me? Well, it embeds on a blog as well. Here I am showing Storybird without actually going on to the Internet. <br /><br /><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,115,0" height="256" width="420"><param name="movie" value="http://cdn.screenr.com/public/1.5/flash/screenr.swf" /><param name="flashvars" value="i=332216&h=t&svr=http://www.screenr.com/&vEmbed=<iframe src="http://www.screenr.com/embed/KrOs" width="420" height="256" frameborder="0"></iframe>" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="wmode" value="opaque" /><embed wmode="opaque" src="http://cdn.screenr.com/public/1.5/flash/screenr.swf" flashvars="i=332216&h=t&svr=http://www.screenr.com/&vEmbed=<iframe src="http://www.screenr.com/embed/KrOs" width="420" height="256" frameborder="0"></iframe>" allowFullScreen="true" width="420" height="256" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed></object><a href="http://www.screenr.com/">http://www.screenr.com/</a> </div>

Screencasting Screenr Web tools Screencasting with Screenr is so easy

Today I thought I would experiment with Screenr as a screencasting tool to illustrate some aspects that I want to highlight in a talk I am p...

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GEOPOLITICS Argentina

<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: blue;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Argentina</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span></span></b></div><div style="color: blue; font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: blue; font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>NOT EVERYTHING IS SOY</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">The minute Soy prices fall, “economic experts” warn of a looming crisis in Argentina. Even if Soy prices fall, Soy may be the most prominent commodity but clearly not the sole one Argentina exports. (See <a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com/2011/07/share-of-cake.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com/2011/07/share-of-cake.html</a> ). It seems that these so called experts humbly reiterate what they are told to say by commodity lobbyists. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Speculators and the stock exchange may alter commodity prices but this does not change the fact that CHINA and as well as the rest of the World still needs to be fed, thus export of food commodity will continue.   </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="266" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/X8PLCSmCkmo?feature=player_embedded" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" width="320"></iframe></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>LATAM CHINA AND EUROPE</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKfRjpHP-7xwJZN6KstRPqeLeHp8IQEDy9CiBUzgCThxxt11ib2F7WQ8PKkvbNlj8oUY39IXwSjrSddb5eliOCTraYb8ULYsjpQ_NVjAdRrreU2S4wJRt9UVS2YIEVJ0df3lRNlvHwvhwN/s1600/chinacommoditybackandforth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="147" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKfRjpHP-7xwJZN6KstRPqeLeHp8IQEDy9CiBUzgCThxxt11ib2F7WQ8PKkvbNlj8oUY39IXwSjrSddb5eliOCTraYb8ULYsjpQ_NVjAdRrreU2S4wJRt9UVS2YIEVJ0df3lRNlvHwvhwN/s200/chinacommoditybackandforth.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">When reading “corporate” US and EUROPEAN media one cannot avoid detecting a certain jealousy regarding LATAM (LATIN AMERICAS_ economic growth and increased economic ties between LATAM and ASIA, especially CHINA. Could it be that the EUROPEANS lacked foresight regarding CHINA and ASIA and now try to recover lost terrain? EUROPEAN – US entities such as the Paris Club, IMF and the World Bank don’t miss a chance to paint a bleak picture on LATAM and its economy in order to shake the fragile markets, where in reality the economic outlook is everything but bleak in these parts of the world.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>TURKEY EYES AT LATAM </b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>   </b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">In recent past TURKEY has become a major player on the world stage, both geopolitical as well as Geo- strategically and to some extent economically. TURKEYS far sight on current geopolitical developments are showcased once more as it wittily focuses on advantages it could gain from developing economic ties and defense agreements with BRAZIL. Both countries pledged to increase cooperation’s in the construction industry as well as natural resource extraction and last but not least the defense industry.  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Amidst the current global shake up, TURKEY and BRAZIL are among countries that continue growing and thus could even push the G-20 group to revise its economic policies. TURKEY and BRAZIL’S economic capacities could be utilized to expand relations and find options to ease the effects of the current worldwide economic situation.  </span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">That TURKEY is flexing its muscle in the MIDDLE EAST is a fact and thus it comes as no surprise that the rift with its neighbor Iran is growing. As mentioned previously in my blog (http://news-these-days.blogspot.com/2011/08/saudia-arabia-usa-turkey-versus-iran.html ), the new alignments between TURKEY, SAUDI ARABIA and the USA versus IRAN, SYRIA, RUSSIA and CHINA will cause for tens times in the region.  </span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">See also:</span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.crethiplethi.com/a-different-path-assessing-turkeys-foreign-policy-in-latin-america/islamic-countries/turkey/2011/">http://www.crethiplethi.com/a-different-path-assessing-turkeys-foreign-policy-in-latin-america/islamic-countries/turkey/2011/</a></span></div>

GEOPOLITICS Argentina

Argentina NOT EVERYTHING IS SOY The minute Soy prices fall, “economic experts” warn of a looming crisis in Argentina. Even if Soy prices fal...

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