i found this fascinating book called “american personal religious accounts 1600-1980″. it is filled with descriptions of spiritual/mystical experiences and personal religious, moral and political conversions. there is so much in this book:
malcolm x submits to allah, irma lindheim embraces zionism, mary baker eddy receives spiritual insight, andrew carnegie feels the call of philanthropism, and […]

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i know that this will not be new info for many of you (stop me if you’ve heard this one), but i’m going to share how i proposed to jana. i’ve done some really stupid things in life (voting for perot in ‘92 comes to mind), so i’ve got to focus on the few victories […]

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a couple of weeks ago, i watched the latest lord of the rings trailer for the first time. i swear that i actually got teary-eyed. it was an emotional moment for me.
can you say ‘geek?’::

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rose forwarded the following email message to me and i thought it was worth sharing with everybody. i don’t think that she will mind. it made me think deeply about the concept of non-violence. my comments follow. the original text was sent by ericc@autobytel.com and begins here:
with all of this talk of impending war, many […]

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jana is reading a condensed version of les miserables in french. she just read the part where jean valjean is on parole and is denied lodging at various inns and homes and is even chased out of a doghouse by the growling canine resident. valjean then tells himself, “i am not even a dog.”
i had […]

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i received a brilliant piece of satire in my inbox in the tradition of swift’s modest proposal. the author listed a number of reasons why he was happy that america had finally started the bombing of afghanistan. here are some excerpts:
“1. network unanimity in naming the war: it has been so confusing the past four […]

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i held a set of bagpipes for the first time today.
the word ‘held’ just doesn’t adequately capture the experience. i thought that grasping a plaid-clad bladder under my left armpit, balancing three long pipes on my shoulder and arm, and clenching the mouthpiece in my teeth and chanter in my fingers would be completely awkward. […]

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i’ve been lying awake for the past 45 minutes thinking. it seems very natural for me to transform my introspection into a mindonfire post… why is that the boundary between private and public thoughts are blurred for me? is it simply because ego + web = blog?
i have decided that i am an intense person. […]

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i saw the strangest thing yesterday on the way to work.
i counted at least 40 vultures (no exaageration) of the bald red head variety sitting on the fence that marked the northern boundary of university high school. a dozen were relaxing on the backstop of the baseball field. i rode my bike to the foot […]

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i hope you don’t mind while i think out loud as i try to make sense of what is going on in afghanistan right now. thank you, aaron and rose, for your responses to my previous post–you guys keep me honest.
considering that he is living in a world of practical politics, i think that […]

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