Trying to follow

Well folks, across the country, Election day is just around the corner. I’m amazed that Tennessee is as progressive as they seem to be in their effort to give everyone a chance to vote. Early Voting has been available for anyone and everyone to go to a number of locations throughout the city and cast their ballot for the two weeks leading up to election day, including Saturdays. Considering how un-democratic our Presidential elections have been, with one day, a work day, not an official holiday, most polls closing after business hours, on top of all the terrible fraud and deception you hear about across the country.
So, my hat goes off to Tennessee who I think our doing an excellent job of making this a truely democratic election.

I don’t want to write too much here, I’m hoping to encourage some discussion in the comments about the election and who folks are planning on voting for and why. I’ll give some material to start us off…

1. I’m torn between voting for Ford and Lugo. Ford is your standard politician and I honestly think he won’t bring about much change from the status quo. Yet, the possiblity that he might have a chance of getting elected and actually set a precedent or new standard for African Americans in the Senate from southern states seems worthwhile.
   Chris Lugo, seems like the ideal candidate for me. I know him, he’s down to earth. He has an agenda of fighting for peace, promoting many great causes, and challenging the status quo of politicians. I have to believe in the world I want it to become and so I’m definitly leaning towards voting for Lugo. Some will say I’m throwing my vote away, but I believe you have to start somewhere.

2. I’m disgusted that the Marriage Amendment thing even made it on the ballot. I’ll say it loud and clear, all you Christians who have been promoting and advocating for this amendment, you sadden me. I’m really ashamed to be affiliated with you. I don’t understand what you see as Christian about pushing your moral agenda on other people. The government can never be the means by which we promote or relugate our religious beliefs. You talk about Freedom in this country and yet you advocate it only for those who think and believe like you. That’s not freedom at all. Vote NO on 1.

Any thoughts on my thoughts?

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I haven’t had time to sit and type as much this week, but I have been putting a lot of short podcast up at the new A Few Minutes with Ariah (the podcast). I figured I should take a minute to pitch it to you so you know some of what inticing sound bits are available:

A short Economic Lesson in Opportunity Cost - You might have learned about it in High School, but let me explain how it should impact your life. Be warned though, it forces you into some pretty troubling conclusions.

First in line at a Buffett for 6 Billion - Close your eyes and imagine with me for a moment… And may it challenge you in how you live today.

No Poor, No Wars? Applying Scripture would be hard! - Some people reference Jesus saying “The Poor will always be among you” as an excuse to not do anything about poverty, I say it’s a blessing from the Lord to help us idiots follow Christ better.

Don’t base your convictions on Probable outcomes - It’s the basic idea of not letting the Ends justify the Means, and yet we as Christians seem to do it all the time. And we call ourselves a people of faith!

The War supporters have their age-old Question to ask the pacifist, now us pacifist have one for you.

For all you email subscribers, the audio for each of the podcast I describe above are embedded right into the blog so you should be able to play the clips right at http://blog.iamnotashamed.net or you can visit the podcast listing at Evoca, or Odeo, or iTunes

I’ve made a few changes to Trying to Follow, as you can see. The new layout seems to be working well. Hopefully you like it (tell me if you don’t). I also haven’t been posting as much, my way of recognizing that you probably don’t have all the time in the world to read my writings.

I also fixed up my feed/subscription set up and consolidated things. To my shock I found that about 83 people are subscribed to my blog. That means by email, feed readers, etc. about 80 people check up on what I’m writing and posting each day. That doesn’t include the countless others that stumble across my site on a search for images on “tagging” (by far my most popular search referral). The numbers are quite overwhelming.

As far as podcasting goes, I’ve also made a change. In the constant struggle to find time and a consistent co-host for any sort of regularly scheduled broadcasting. Instead, I’ve started to do my own short little daily podcast, which I usually do by phone (sorry about the sound quality):

I’ll still post a seperate podcast for Trying to Follow when I have longer more in depth audio with co-host and other folks. But for now, if you want to hear some daily thoughts with me, just subscribe to the one above. No more then ten minutes a day normally.

I also found from the little design survey (view results) that people search this site in all sorts of different ways. So, I’m trying to clean up my categories and tags to make browsing easier for you.

That’s about it for the update here. I haven’t had as much time to punch on the keys, but I have been doing the podcasting a bit, so here is the latest:

The 6th Erase Racism Carnival has begun over at Taking Place.

I happened to have two articles featured in this month’s carnival.

Sweet!

A 6 minute proclamation of who Jesus is. I heard Joe White give this sermon at a Wheaton Chapel service once. He did it while hauling a giant log to the stage and making a cross out of it.