When Happy and Horrified Are Neighbors
Tornado season is already kicking in furiously in the Southern states. The crazy temperature spikes in California remind me of the crazy polar vortex much of the country endured last winter. Temperature is nothing compared to having your home obliterated. Until we get the dreaded “Big One,” folks in Southern California will continue to bask, or sweat, while other citizens get walloped. Southern Cal’s turn will come though. How oddly life goes on while others suffer. It happens on a personal level as well. I’ll never forget how one night years ago Kim and I were enjoying our supper until…
Go Thai Life Insurance!
Thai Life Insurance (as in Thailand) has recently produced advertisements–each a full three minutes long–that advertise more about being a good human being than anything else. I’ve shown one in my church and will probably show the other two as well. In my entire life I have never–ever–seen or heard of any corporation so selflessly make such long commercials that have such a profoundly positive effect on a whole nation of people, and increasingly the rest of us around the world. My guess is that they must be making such a good impression that business is likely booming. Here are the…
More of God’s Fingerprints on the Big Bang
Using radio telescopes at the South Pole, astrophysicists have have captured evidence of expansion just a fraction of a second after the big bang 13.8 billion years ago. The theory is that the Universe burst from smaller than an atom to 100 trillion trillion times that–and did it faster than the speed of light. Oooh. They say that their findings open “a new window” on physics. They also somehow support the idea that “our known cosmos makes up just a fragment in a much larger, unknown frontier that extends far beyond the reaches of light” (LA Times [3/18/2014]). Of course…
Kim Jong Un Offers 33 to God
News has been going around that North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong Un, has ordered the execution of 33 Christians. Christians are the most persecuted demographic of North Korea, but this event stands out in how specific it is. They were helping South Korean missionary church planter Kim Jong Wook, who himself was arrested and imprisoned (though some reports say the North Koreans kidnapped him and set him up). These Christians reportedly started up to 500 churches! An astonishing feat–probably why Kim Jong Un got so ticked. On one hand I weep for these believers, and countless others, for what they…
The Knowledge Doubling Curve
Back in the 1980s Buckminster Fuller created the “Knowledge Doubling Curve.” Industry Tap writes, “Until 1900 human knowledge doubled approximately every century. By the end of World War II knowledge was doubling every 25 years. Today things are not as simple as different types of knowledge have different rates of growth. . . . But on average human knowledge is doubling every 13 months.” And that rate will increase exponentially. IBM theorizes it could someday become every 12 hours. Makes me tired just thinking about it. The Renaissance genius Sir Francis Bacon was thought to be the last person who…
