how now brownpau
Looking up at the face of Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church, in the heart of Baltimore.
Steeple of MVPUMC, with some cool blurring added for artsy perspective effect.
An alley off Mt Vernon Square, dark, even in the light of a clear day.
The distant steeple of First and Franklin Presbyterian, seen looking West from Charlest St and Madison Ave.
Photos taken with an Aiptek Mini Pencam 1.3MP.
I wonder why this ArabicFarsi blog was at the top of the Blogdex link list yesterday? All the inbound links seem to be in ArabicFarsi too. What does it say? I’m terribly curious.
Update: Okay, there’s why: Iranian ladies blogging in Farsi! Isn’t that amazing?
I was in a rush this morning, so I sort of threw on my clothes without thinking: blue jeans, dark green t-shirt, white socks, navy blue jacket, and (ba-da-bum!) light brown walking sneakers. I feel so incredibly dorky right now.
Teddy Benigno tells us that, 30 years ago, Ninoy would probably have declared Martial Law too.
“Marcos saw a weak democracy as an excuse to plunder the country, rid it of his enemies, engage in massive human rights violations, perpetuate himself and his family in power. Ninoy saw a weak democracy as his stirring raison de’etre to engage in a life-long crusade to purge Philippine society of its many weaknesses and evils. Even if he would die in the process.”
And die he did, while his descendants and successors doomed themselves to repeating the mistakes of the past, even into the next century.
Gah! It looks like Philstar news page links are only good for a day from publication, so all of my links to Philippine Star articles and Teddy Benigno columns have expired. If you want to direct-link a certain Philstar story, you need to hunt for the link from the archive calendar.
Man, this Neuroprosthesis News person sure is tenacious. My referrals show repeated visits all afternoon, going through dozens of pages, most likely him (her?) hunting for fodder to flamebait me with. Shows how skilled message board trolls are at wasting energy and resources — theirs and that of others — which is their aim to begin with.
Of course, all of the aspersions cast on my faith and maturity are completely off-base, so I haven’t been effectively baited (having been a message board moderator gives one a rather thick skin), but one has to wonder if someone can really be that foolish, or if s/he does it with an ulterior motive to disrupt the community.
The secret is not to get all superior / reactive / power-trippy just because a troll is acting like an idiot. That’s exactly what they want — more excrement to wad up and throw back. As they always say online, “Don’t feed the trolls.”
Don’t waste time coming up with intelligent responses to troll bait; rather, let them write their flames and ad hominems, then completely waste their time by not even reading them, as I am doing now. ;D Yay for post editing.
I think I’ve found my church.
I went down to Lee Street Memorial Baptist Church down near Federal Hill this morning for 11am service. Very hymn-y worship, I noticed; almost every other section of the service was marked by the singing of three or four stanzas from the Baptist Hymnal. Pastor’s sermon, on the denial of self and taking up of crosses, was intense and powerful. Congregation was mostly aged, and there weren’t too many members, but they were wonderfully warm and friendly, many of them even hugging each other — and me — during welcome.
I was also pleasantly surprised to find that the pianist there is an old acquaintance, a skilled Filipino concert pianist from Peabody, whom ******* and I had met at a classical recital in Manila two years before. He has since become Christian, married, and is now a member at LSMBC. Small world!
So far this is the best fit for me, it’s not a far walk from Little Italy, and I feel the Spirit prompting me strongly on this one. I’ll continue to pray for guidance, and go again next week. Sorry, Valerie! I guess I’m destined to stay Baptist by association after all. ;)
(UPDATE: I had to leave this church because I found out that the pastor was a Freemason. Sorry.)
Anyone get a look at that harvest moon last night? Beautiful. Do try and get a look tonight if you haven’t already.
And speaking of the moon, Buzz Aldrin got off the hook for socking one to Bart Sibrel, an active conspiracy theorist producer who tries to get Apollo astronauts to swear on a Bible that they did actually go to the moon.
I found another Baptist church in the area, which I’m going to check out today: Lee Street Memorial Baptist, over in South Baltimore. They don’t seem to have a website, and I’m wondering why the heck they’re called “Lee Street Memorial” when they’re over four blocks from Lee Street, at Light and Warren.
Some mild hubbub going on over at MetaTalk about Neuroprosthesis News and the Neuroprosthesis News blogger’s penchant for rampant self-linking. This leads to to the discussion on the ethics of self-linking: when is it acceptable? On Metafilter, never on the front page.
It’s always funny when someone responds to being called out by lashing out with reactionary ad hominems, even playing the classic “free speech” card and claiming that his self-linking was an “experiment” which apparently gives him (her?) the right to transcend “DA RULEZ.” Someone seems rather unstable here.
Update: More info.