Russ Woodman

I’m wondering why it seems that Christians, brand name doesn’t seem to matter, have a way of injecting their religious faith in everything they do. I get it ten times a day more: In e-mails, in passing conversation, overheard at the checkout line, and so on. While I have no problem with folks having faith in whatever they want to have faith in, I’m not sure that projecting it at every opportunity is conducive to effective communication. It’s done quite casually, as well: A “god willing” here and a “glory be” there. And when it’s written, bible passages and references to a favored deity abound and proliferate.

I rarely, if ever, hear members of other religions making mention of their faith in general conversation. No references to Vishnu or Pan, Allah or Buddha, Thor, Aphrodite or Zeus. There’s no injection of other random insights into our personal natures either: No comments about sexual orientation or position, political leanings, thoughts on capital punishment or favorite mixed drinks we might have recently overindulged in. Probably because these things are personal and could easily be offensive to others within earshot.

So while I believe everyone should have the right to believe in whatever they want to believe in, it would be better in practice to keep random religious zeal. and images of the virgin Mary on toast, close to the vest, only to be exposed when the topic of conversation truly warrants it.

Don’t make pray to Joe Pesci and bring down his wrath. High gas prices would then be the least of our worries. Amen.

I popped open the mailbox today and stuffed in between a couple of circulars and the gas bill was an open letter from Gordon Winrod. I took a little time to brush up on the man, and then spent about five minutes reading his treatise. The general idea was evident right from the start, but I read the rest of it anyway. Now I wish I had my five minutes back.

Before I started reading, I figured I’d have some good fodder for a blog post about all the irrational, ugly, maniacal, hate-filled things he said. But the further in I got, the more I realized there would be no way to quote anything from the document. Not because I’m afraid of the things in it, or because I worry what others might think of the vitriol, but really because nothing in the paper is worthy of reprinting, in any context whatsoever.

The upshot is that Winrod is being accused of being anti-Semitic, and he claims he is not. Then he spends five very tightly packed pages explaining that when he says he’s not anti-Semitic, he really means he’s anti-Jew, and that Jews are not Semites, but they are all child molesters. Not just a few of them, ALL of them. So says the Talmud. [Insert examples from scripture and other sources ad nauseum here.]

I personally am a huge proponent of free speech, so I guess I can’t fault Winrod for using it. However, I’m pretty sure any putative omniscients can see through a bluster of semantics. I don’t wish to lower myself to his level and pass judgment, but I do hope his Lutheran beliefs include a hell for the truly evil full of fire and torture, and that sociopathic bigots like him get what they deserve.

Oh, it turns out there is one part of the paper worth mentioning. It’s at the bottom of the last page. It reads: “THE WINROD LETTER, published monthly. Subscription: $15.00 per year. 50 copies of this issue: $10.00 p.p. The Winrod Letter…” Either there’s a market for this sludge, or his gall simply knows no bounds. In either case, color me appalled.

I’m not sure why I was waxing nostalgic about our planet last night, but it occurs to me that there are some pretty cool things about life, the universe and our little rock, third out from a mediocre star. In some semblance of order, here are 10 things that move me:

10. Gazing down the length of a river tightly hemmed in by overhanging trees in full autumn colors

9. Observing the intricacies of the planet from the peak of a lonely mountain

8. Stopping to listen to the almost tangible hush while walking or skiing through a forest during a heavy snow

7. Swimming in a clear lake during a late summer rain shower

6. Inhaling the recognizable but indescribable scent in the air that announces an imminent thunderstorm

5. Noticing the day each year when all the winter-bare trees and fields are finally green again

4. Embracing the isolation of a vast expanse of terracotta desert

3. Watching the sun sink below the horizon, when the horizon is a foreign sea

2. Standing in a wide-open field of waist-high grass facing eyes closed into a warm southwesterly breeze

1. Looking straight up at the sky at 2:00am on a moonless night and seeing the soft white arc of our galaxy stretch across it

Thanks for taking the time to read. Please comment with your own observations as I’d love to turn this into an ongoing discussion, or at least a list I can refer to when I need a little inspiration.

Someone mentioned the Slingbox technology to me a while ago, but I never got around to checking it out. Recently, a couple of online retailers put the Slingbox Pro units on sale and I picked one up. I didn’t even bother checking out the Web site to see what the units could do, I just bought blind and waited impatiently for UPS to show up at my door with the technology.

My Slingbox came yesterday and I had it hooked up and running in a matter of fifteen minutes. So what does it do? It’s actually like a media trebuchet. You load up your DVD player, television tuner, satellite DVR or cable connection, pull back the handle…and let it fly. Where does it land? Well, anywhere you have a Slingbox client. That could be a MacOS or Windows desktop, Symbian device, Windows Mobile smartphone or PDA, or a select few PalmOS devices. This means you can watch all the stuff you have piling up on your video recording devices at home pretty much anywhere you go. Using a somewhat kludgy but effective interface, you can even control your video devices remotely so that you can select the shows you want to watch, change the channels on your TV, and so on.

Now for a little bad news. Some smartphone clients are not supported and others can be flaky. Unless your wireless coverage area is pretty good, the video performance is going to be choppy. PalmOS support is weak at best, and most people think the regular client interface is terrible. Sometimes you have to do a little tweaking to get things to work properly. Just make sure you check the compatibility list and realize that your mileage may vary.

There is no Linux support at all. But thanks to Google and some dedicated hacker types, I was able to find documentation and supporting libraries which will help you install the Windows Slingbox client under Linux using Wine. I personally can’t stand a network device that you can’t configure without a client, and this is one of those devices. Slingbox’s support department and technical documentation isn’t the best, either. However, if you’re even slightly computer savvy and have a half hour to kick around, you’ll easily be able to get the Slingbox up and running and be on your way to enjoying watching your TV and recorded shows anywhere you go.

The Slingbox site is a little obnoxious with all of its flash videos and such, but it does have enough good information to get you going. I’m a little bit of a Johnny-come-Lately to the technology, but I’m sure there are lots of others out there who haven’t partaken of it yet either. I’m not usually one to advocate proprietary technology, but it’s always nice to come across something that actually just works and isn’t a colossal pain in the ass to set up. So if this technology is something you need (and for anyone with a DVR, I would recommend it) save up a few thousand pennies and pick up a Slingbox. I think you’ll like what you see.