American Idol auditions

We love watching the American Idol auditions in my family! GREAT entertainment! After the auditions, I frankly lose interest. I love the human interest stories, the emotion, the delusion, the quirkiness, the emergence of talent. It is fascinating!

Here is an early handicap from the LA Times on who is likely to make the final 12. Sorry, you have to go to the article in order for the links to work.

So the auditions are behind us. We haven't seen everyone yet, but we've seen a lot of them. And on the basis of that half-information, we are prepared to make some predictions.

Tens of thousands were summoned by the "Idol" trumpets. We predict that when the dust settles and the curtain rises over the Idoldome in five weeks, it will be these 12 warriors of song onstage prepared to seize the mantle of history. (Actually we couldn't narrow it down to 12, so we threw in one extra.)

In no particular order. Listed by name, (audition city), age, hometown. Audition song. Interesting fact. Link to check them out (while they last).

1. Lil Rounds: (Kansas City) 23, Memphis TN. Sang "All I Do." Family made homeless by a tornado. Audition video here.

2. Adam Lambert (San Francisco) 26, Hollywood, CA. Sang “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Was in the cast of "Wicked"; looks like Ewan McGregor. Remnants of MySpace page here. Audition video here.

3. Rose Flack (Salt Lake City) 17, Rathdrum, ID. Sang Carole King's “I Feel the Earth Move." Recently orphaned, barefoot hippie girl. MySpace page here. Audition video here.

4. Jackie Tohn (New York) 27, Silver Lake, CA. Sang Jason Mraz's "I’m Yours." Rocker since childhood. Audition video here. Personal site here.

5. Scott MacIntyre: (Phoenix) 22, Scottsdale, AZ. Sang Billy Joel's "And So It Goes." Legally blind. Audition video here. Personal site here.

6. Joanna Pacitti. (Louisville) 23, Philadelphia, PA. Sang Pat Benatar's "We Belong." Had earlier recording career on A&M Records. Audition video here. MySpace page here.

7. Jorge Nunez. (San Juan) 20, Carolina, Puerto Rico. Sang "My Way” and "What a Wonderful World." Charmed the judges when he sang in Spanish. Audition video here.

8. Meghan Corkrey. (Salt Lake) 23, Sandy, UT. Sang “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man.” Heavily tattooed single mother. Audition video here.

9. Kai Kalama: (San Francisco) 26, San Clemente, CA. Sang "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes." Cares for ailing mother. Audition video here. MySpace page for former band here.

10. Leneshe Young: (Louisville) 18, Cincinnati, OH. Sang original song. Raised in homeless shelters. Audition video here.

11. Von Smith: (Kansas City) 22, Greenwood, MO. Sang "Over the Rainbow." Wore goofy hat; "attempts things most guys don't attempt to sing." Audition video here. MySpace page here.

12. Danny Gokey (Kansas City) 28. Milwaukee, WI. Sang "Heard It Through the Grapevine." Grieving recently deceased wife. Audition video here. MySpace page here.

13. Michael Castro (Kansas City) 20. Rockwall, TX. Sang "In Love With a Girl." Brother of Season 7 giant Jason Castro. Audition video here.

Redefining Middle Class

Haha! In our euphemistic and self-esteem dominated world, we don't want to hurt people's feelings by leaving them out of the middle class if they want to be in the middle class. So middle class is really an idea and a perception more than an objective category or description based on any set of facts.

Labor union members will also be thrilled to hear that though their numbers shrink year after year and they become increasingly irrelevant, going from 20% of workers in 1983 to 12% of workers in 2008, we now know from the president that the key to a strong middle class is strong labor unions!

Quoted in the LA Times on 30 January 9:17am PST "Obama launches task force on middle class:"

"When I talk about the middle class, I am talking about folks who are currently in the middle class, but also folks who are aspiring to be in the middle class," the president said. "You cannot have a strong middle class without a strong labor union."

Maybe he feels the labor unions are so important because he is a government worker, where a whopping 42% of employees are unionized, versus the private sector where only 7% belong to unions.

Beyond Campaign Rhetoric

Democrats who are now responsible for the safety of the US (and much of the world!) are finding new virtue in the Bush administration doctrines they have villified.

Charles Krauthammer takes a longer term, strategic perspective at the Iraq War and Bush presidency and finds that the incoming administration has greatly benefitted from its predecessor and is showing respect in practice, even if that respect was lacking in debate.

paraphrased by Obama as "we shouldn't be making judgments on the basis of incomplete information or campaign rhetoric" -- is a startlingly early sign of a newly respectful consideration of the Bush-Cheney legacy.

Not from any change of heart. But from simple reality. The beauty of democratic rotations of power is that when the opposition takes office, cheap criticism and calumny will no longer do. The Democrats now own Iraq. They own the war on al-Qaeda. And they own the panoply of anti-terror measures with which the Bush administration kept us safe these past seven years.

Which is why Obama is consciously creating a gulf between what he now dismissively calls "campaign rhetoric" and the policy choices he must make as president. Accordingly, Newsweek -- Obama acolyte and scourge of everything Bush/Cheney -- has on the eve of the Democratic restoration miraculously discovered the arguments for warrantless wiretaps, enhanced interrogation and detention without trial. Indeed, Newsweek's neck-snapping cover declares, "Why Obama May Soon Find Virtue in Cheney's Vision of Power."

Obama will be loath to throw away the tools that have kept the homeland safe. Just as he will be loath to jeopardize the remarkable turnaround in American fortunes in Iraq.

Obama opposed the war. But the war is all but over. What remains is an Iraq turned from aggressive, hostile power in the heart of the Middle East to an emerging democracy openly allied with the United States. No president would want to be responsible for undoing that success.

In Iraq, Bush rightly took criticism for all that went wrong -- the WMD fiasco, Abu Ghraib, the descent into bloody chaos in 2005-06. Then Bush goes to Baghdad to ratify the ultimate post-surge success of that troubled campaign -- the signing of a strategic partnership between the United States and Iraq -- and ends up dodging two size 10 shoes for his pains.

Absorbing that insult was Bush's final service on Iraq. Whatever venom the war generated is concentrated on Bush himself. By having personalized the responsibility for the awfulness of the war, Bush has done his successor a favor. Obama enters office with a strategic success on his hands -- while Bush leaves the scene taking a shoe for his country.

Catholic theology on justification changing

Charles Colson says in Christianity Today, that the Pope has signaled he believes in justification by faith, as Martin Luther advocated in launching the Reformation. In coming years, this should lead to teaching the doctrine throughout the Roman Catholic Church.

Pope Benedict on November 19 in what was otherwise a routine audience in St. Peter's square, gave a homily on justification and fully embraced the position that Evangelicals and Catholics Together had taken [in the 1997 document, "Gift of Salvation"]. He didn't identify it as such, but that's what he did.
Eleven years after that document was written, the Pope, the head of the church, concluded his homily by saying Luther was right, so long as you don't exclude charity, that is love, and the works that flow from love. Which of course none of us does.

Praise the Lord for this impact of the group "Evangelicals and Catholics Together." It was out of their dialogue that the teaching began spreading among Catholic leaders, including being adopted and passed on by the Pope, who was then an Augustinian Cardinal. Good things often happen when we join others in partnership.

1 billion and counting...

Internet users worldwide have crossed the 1 billion mark, with more in Asia than anywhere else. China has the largest number of users, and elsewhere I read they have the largest number of bloggers!

While the numbers are staggering, it is still a reminder to media-savvy urban dwellers like me and the three other internet users in my household, who take the web for granted and use it for most of our news and increasingly for shopping and entertainment, that 4 out of 5 people in the world still do their communicating the old-fashioned way, like face to face.

Global Internet usage reached over 1 billion unique visitors in the month of December, with 41.3 percent coming from the Asia-Pacific region, according to a report released Friday by comScore.
The study looked at Internet users over the age of 15, who accessed the net from their home or work computers in the month of December.
Europe grabbed the next largest slice, with 28 percent of the global Internet audience, followed by the U.S. with an 18.4 percent slice.
But Latin America, while holding a much smaller piece of 7.4 percent of the global Internet audience, is the one to watch, noted Jamie Gavin, a comScore senior analyst.

Health Care Reform

I am all for making the health care system more efficient. However, there is so much spin in the discussion that it is hard to understand what is being discussed. Now that makes me nervous. Using euphemisms usually means trying to make something unpleasant sound pleasant.

This, for instance, in USA Today, reporting on President Obama making health care reform one of his first early priorities:

"However, the survey also revealed wide divisions in public opinion, with roughly half (49 percent) saying they are not willing to pay more to expand access to health insurance and 47% saying they are."

What does "expand access to health insurance" mean? It sounds like a good idea. Shouldn't people without access to health insurance have access to it?

What I suspect that means is subsidizing health insurance, so that people with money pay for health insurance for people without money. Now that may be a good idea, but why can't we discuss providing health insurance for poor people, or something like that?

My guess is that more people would be in favor of "expanding access" than for paying for health insurance for others, and that the media want to promote the policy, so they come up with more appealing ways to describe it...

Gay Hyperbole

When you equate a vote against legalizing homosexual marrige with the Holocaust, you demonstrate moral blindness.

To use such hyperbole is morally evil, because it reduces real evil in the world (like the brutal extermination of millions of people) to the status of a political position.

What is with these people? And who listens to them?

I see hatred and bigotry demonstrated here, but it is by gay activists toward those who disagree with them. This report in the Orange County Register covers protesters at Rick Warren's church.

Another man was irate at some of the messages on the protesters' signs – specifically a sign held by Mona Gable of Mission Viejo that read "Purpose Driven Bigots" and carried a swastika on the reverse. Paul Huckabone of Mission Viejo was shaking with anger as wary Orange County Sheriff's deputies watched.
"I voted 'no' on Prop 8, but the fact that you all are out here with a swastika – that guy (Warren) has gone to Africa and cured so many people, and you're comparing him to Adolf Hitler," Huckabone shouted.
Gable and her wife, Linda Kish, continued to voice their own outrage, however.
"People outside Orange County don't realize how hateful some members of this church are," Gable said.

Travel Lust

There's hardly anything I love as much as traveling, but I will probably not see any new destinations in 2009.

If I did have the money and time, here are some of the spots I might like to visit...

LA Times Top 29 Destinations for 2009

Apple's Product Cycle

Apple is famously secretive about the development of new products. At this week's Macworld Expo, their Vice President commented on their cycle:

He noted that Apple marches to certain annual product cycles: the holiday season (Novemberish), the educational buying season (late summer), the iPod product cycle (October), the iLife development cycle (usually March), the iPhone cycle (June).

He said that January's Macworld doesn't fit any of their product cycles, so they will be dropping out of the event...

The less religious a person is...

...the more he looks for a political savior.

I certainly have hopes for governments and leaders, but they are mixed with scepticism.

I put my secure hope in God and his kingdom, and his power to transform peoples' lives. And in his promise of a future perfect kingdom, in heaven!

On earth I see myself more as an agent of his kingdom than as a subject of any human government, and that gives me confidence even when the world seems to be falling apart. I am part of changing the world for good, and it is not a political process, it is a character process.

I certainly hope President Obama and other world leaders can solve our problems and make the world a better place, but I am not counting on it nor am I dependent on it. This world is just a temporary residing place, and I am a foreigner here no matter what country I live in.

Charles Colson has some helpful reflections in this article to start off the New Year:

But if we look honestly at what started the credit crisis—moral failures and following false worldviews—we recognize that the solution demands more than any political savior can possibly deliver.

Macs still lead...

Though it is dwarfed by Microsoft in terms of market share, Mac is still way ahead in terms of friendliness, usability, coolness and fun!

I've used Macs since 1987, and they way surpass my experience on my Windows machines (yes, I also have them at home and office, ugh).

After nearly 25 years, the Macintosh and its offspring, such as the iPod and iPhone, are still leading in terms of setting the pace for innovation.

Start the year off right - with God

Want a happier, healthier life in 2009? Researchers say religious people enjoy those benefits and others, as stated in this NY Times article...

His professional interest arose from a desire to understand why religion evolved and why it seems to help so many people. Researchers around the world have repeatedly found that devoutly religious people tend to do better in school, live longer, have more satisfying marriages and be generally happier.

These results have been ascribed to the rules imposed on believers and to the social support they receive from fellow worshipers, but these external factors didn’t account for all the benefits. In the new paper, the Miami psychologists surveyed the literature to test the proposition that religion gives people internal strength.

“We simply asked if there was good evidence that people who are more religious have more self-control,” Dr. McCullough. “For a long time it wasn’t cool for social scientists to study religion, but some researchers were quietly chugging along for decades. When you add it all up, it turns out there are remarkably consistent findings that religiosity correlates with higher self-control.”