Some good tips here. I think I may try the marinade he suggests for steak.

Keeping the house clean can be such a hassle, but Real Simple suggests it can be done on just 19 minutes per day.

I like the idea that be keeping one item in a room clean (e.g. the kitchen sink or the covers on the bed), you are inspired to keep the rest of the room clean. I think I’ll try it.

Have you ever rolled your eyes when someone gives you his e-mail address and it ends in “aol.com?” I sure have.

This story from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution claims that some go so far as to completely disregard all e-mail from certain domains. It’s a little silly, but I can understand the thinking. Someone who’s still paying $25/month for AOL dial-up can’t be on the cutting edge of the Internet and technology in general.

Why do people still have these stickers on their cars? Hasn’t it become abundantly clear that the war in Iraq had done nothing to keep gas prices reasonable? Are the owners of these cars hoping against hope that gas prices will suddenly plummet to 50 cents per gallon so they can shout, “Aha! We knew it all along!”

Get real.

Did you think once you were done with college, you’d never have to take notes again?

Think again.

Thomas Nelson Publishers’ president and COO Michael Hyatt presents his case for why and how you should take notes in your current job. He even throws in a plug for Moleskine notebooks, my favorite kind. My large, ruled journal never leaves my side.

I was just perusing the this year’s Webby Awards nominees and discovered Yahoo!’s Television Without Pity under the Best Copy/Writing category. I’ve only spent a few minutes on the site, but the writers certainly have a way with words and are proficient at cutting to the hearts of the issues.

Registration required, or log in with (courtesy of bugmenot.com):

nomail@juno.com
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Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts totally misses the mark with his column about Christians’ influence on society. He completely warps the term fundamentalist to mean something other than its original (adhering to the fundamentals of the Christian faith) or currently accepted definition (conservative Christian), which are both devoid of any political connotation. He then blames the fundamentalists for a whole host of activities.

He writes:

The movement — well-organized, well-funded and with true believer zeal — has made itself the primary ideological engine of the Republican Party, climbing to power from school boards to state legislatures to Congress to the White House.

And along the way, books were burned and banned. Religion masquerading as science elbowed its way into classrooms. Legislation requiring recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance became law. Pharmacists, citing religious objections, refused to fill prescriptions for birth control pills. A lawmaker suggested unmarried pregnant women be prohibited from teaching in schools.

Alarmist? Yes.

Exaggeration? Double yes.

But the real horror of Pitts’ viewpoint is his own hypocrisy:

The only way that works is if we inculcate respect for difference and, more to the point, respect for the laws and customs that protect difference. The Schiavo case offered an up-close and unpretty look at the sort of respect fundamentalists have for difference — in this case, difference of opinion.

Do you see it? He suggests we should tolerate and respect differences of opinion, unless the difference of opinion is held by Christians.

Paul Graham’s essay on how to write is jam-packed with solid advice on how to get started, communicate effectively, avoid writer’s block, establish controls and end effectively. It’s a must-read for any aspiring writer, including me.

And yet, despite their contrasting lives, the deaths of these two came just days apart, under remarkably similar circumstances. Both were fed through a tube. Both lost the ability to communicate. But death’s final toll rang differently for each.

The pope died a natural death, surrounded by his closest friends and confidants. Schiavo died of starvation and lack of water, surrounded by controversy between her husband and parents.

It’s impossible to know, but I suspect that had the pope’s mother or father decided it was time to remove his feeding tube, the public outcry would have prevented such an action. In Schiavo’s case, though, the public outcry wasn’t loud enough to prevent her starvation.

Why?

I submit that it hinges on how Americans (and maybe most of the world) measure the value of human life. When value hinges on a person’s utility to society, the battle is lost, and the Terri Schiavos of the world will never be saved. Once value is measured by utility, the language of rights (esp. the right to die) enters the picture. It was said that Schiavo had a right(!) to die, and far be it from us to trample her rights.

If it was the pope whose feeding tube was being threatened with removal, his usefulness to the world (all the great things he had done as pope) may have prevented such an action.

How are we to view these two characters? Was the pope genuinely more valuable because he held greater utility?

Not at all.

As Christians, we know that a person’s value stems not his utility, but from the fact that he was created in the image of God. That very act of creation infuses humanity with a value no act of man should remove.

As creations of God, we have inherent value that is not ours to own. The decision to die is not a right, nor is it ours to make.