filing your taxes for free

I finally filed my taxes! This is early for me. My record latest? Sometime in July I think… . It’s a result of two things: 1) I’m plain awful at money and numbers and get flustered easily. In part because my pride kicks in and I think I *should* be able to do this more easily–I’m not dumb! But I’ve learned to be happy with the places I’m smart and just give up on everything else. 🙂 2) I’ve never once owed money: I just make way too little. Almost always I wind up getting nearly everything back. They really don’t care if you file late if it’s already gonna hurt you, not them.  I’m not saying this is good, mind you, I’m just sayin.

Anyway, did you know you use TurboTax online for free? Seriously. There are plenty of discounts out there, but they don’t strongly advertise this one. If you make under 30,000 a year or are in the military, you can typically do this. (I obviously fall under the first). It’s called the Tax Freedom Project, and it’s been around since I started doing taxes with Turbo Tax in 2000.

The sad thing is that they typically have no links at all from their main site to this option.  It’s sorta hidden like that.  I feel bad for poorer people who aren’t as Internet-persistent as I am.  This year I still had to sit on Google for 5 minutes trying to find it because I couldn’t quite remember the name.

shane hipps "don’t call it community" | a theology of facebook part 2

Shane Hipps is a Mennonite pastor who I noticed wrote a book a couple years ago entitled The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture. I borrowed it and skimmed but never really read it, and now I’m realizing I’m gonna have to catch up, since Shane is starting to get some voice on these issues in the evangelical Christian leadership world.  I’d love to meet him and chat it up some time, since this is one my primary areas of interest.

Because so much of media ecology is simply unawareness, I had hoped another a fellow watcher of communications as culture would cultivate an imaginative view on ideas like “virtual community.” But here Shane makes it clear that he views online interaction as entertainment (“enjoy it, but don’t call it community, because it isn’t”).  This was somewhat disappointing to me (and not unusual, see my first post on this )

Scot McKnight posted a response at both Our of Ur and at Jesus Creed that asked Shane to consider the Jesus Creed community, a blog that does have a remarkable level a participation (both in volume and quality) compared to (most?) other blogs that often function as more soapbox than dialogue.

Over 40 commentors have contributed some amazing thoughts to this thread: Dan (4) points out that he doesn’t know Scot McKnight, and comes because the community is useful.  Makes sense to me.  I think utility is clearly a reason we both approach and stay in offline communities as well.  Eric (9) calls Jesus Creed a better community than any church he’s been part of in 20 years.  He cites questions and disagreement as key draws.  And these are clearly crucial in offline community as well!  Show me a community without conflict and I’ll show you “shallow.”  Chris E. notes that Scot’s experience is remarkably different than others because of his central role.  As a campus pastor at the center of a vibrant church for a number of years, I eventually realized myself that my experience was also remarkably different to those who knew only a few people in our church, or hung “near the edges.”  There really are positions and vantage points in communities that vary the experience.  Matt S. (14) sets up a thought experiment that makes me hopeful for deeper thinking on this, and Pat B (38) is wise to the net when (s?)he notes that blogs don’t have a natural format for extended conversation.

All this to say:  with not too much thought, we find a great deal of similarity between “virtual” community and “physical” community.

Next post (hopefully coming soon):  more on why I think Marshall McLuhan would argue with Shane Hipps four point analysis on virtual community.

neo-reformed

Jesus Creed has a good discussion yesterday and today on the increasingly harsh tone of a small group of younger Reformed voices Scot McKnight is referring to as the “neo-reformed.” Some of these have gotten to the point where they tend to accuse non-confessing Reformed evangelicals as being heretics. I’ve previously here expressed frustration about the same, although I’ve been rather less gracious than Scot. The discussion includes the question of why this has been attractive to a certain set of the younger generation, and how the inerrancy of scripture figures in.

Related, one commenter linked to a great article by theologian John Frame (Reformed Theological Seminary ) who surveys 21 theological controversies within the Reformed world in the last century, and the resulting repetitive denominational splits. He ends with an appeal for better tone and historical view, but titles his plea as “An Unrealistic Dream!” Sad.

governor blagojevich arrested! different news different photos

Woke up this morning to the news that our governor was arrested by the FBI and US Attorney on charges of trying to get paid for Obama’s vacant U.S. Senate seat.  That’s big news. Though some people have been saying for years that the government was corrupt (heck, Frm. Gov George Ryan is in jail), it’s such a repeated theme around here that it’s hard to know what to believe and what’s trumped up to get elected.  An arrest is way more definitive, I guess.

For fun, I ran to the big Chicago news sources to see what photos they would run of the governor.

Racist Incidents Give Some Obama Campaigners Pause – washingtonpost.com

Wow, unreal. Quotes include:

“I’ll never vote for a black person.”
and
“Hang that darky from a tree.”

Racist Incidents Give Some Obama Campaigners Pause – washingtonpost.com

I was staring at my computer screen reading this (ignoring bouncing ads on the side panel) and I actually started feeling like I wanted to cry. Not for Obama specifically, just because there are enough quarters of cities where things like this are still common wisdom.

Okay… I’ve already been studying, and I need to get back to it. This is a quick post. The stress is decently high. :-7 I’ve got to memorize the 18th-20th centuries of Christian thought. Final exam is in less than 24 hrs.

scot mcknight posts 3 & 4

Scot McKnight has posted up two more of my reviews on Don Evert’s short book series. If you’re familiar with them, feel free to agree or disagree there. 🙂

• Jesus Creed: Don Everts 3
• Jesus Creed: Don Everts 4

Thanks again to Scot for the opportunities and challenges he’s providing me.

what is the emerging church? – my workshop audio

2008 hit fast, and I got so caught up in politics blogging, that I never said more about Ignite 2007. While there, I taught a breakout workshop entitled “What is the Emerging Church?” If you missed it, you can download audio directly , or visit www.igniteconference.info to listen there.

The seminar was my first hack at short description of the post-evangelical theological and mission conversation I’ve been trying to follow for almost eight years – (before anyone was using the word “emerging/emergent church” – a term that’s only five years old!). My audience was members of GCM churches who have heard the term “emerging church,” and maybe have read an associated book, but find themselves wanting to know more or wonder what it might mean. (ps – yep, the photo isn’t me… didn’t get a photo of me talking. 🙂 It’s my friend Jon Dillow, who was teaching simultaneously down the hall at the conference center).

Meanwhile, a blogger I was previously unfamiliar with, C. Michael Patton, has a series of posts on the same topic (what is the emerging church?) that are getting attention – mostly because of a chart he drew that makes it look like is calling writers like Tony Jones a heretic. Reading him carefully though, I think he’s distinguishing between heterodox and heretic. In general, this chart is really interesting to spark discussion. And he has follow-up posts p2 (orthodoxy), p3 (definition), p4 (fundamentalism, evangelical), and p5 (emerging streams). Scot McKnight also noticed it.

My comments? For one, adjustments: I think Brian McClaren should be slid more outward, Erwin slid more center, and Tony Jones brought in a tad as well. And second, I still tend to view separation of “emerging” and “emergent” as somewhat artificial – in practice they’re still used interchangeably. At best, they’re confusing.

Maybe more later.

pew news IQ

(or, why I’m sad about democracy in America)

JR Woodward recently mentioned a study by Pew Research on current news awareness, so I headed over to take the quiz and compare my news knowledge to their formal study. My results:

Here’s Your Score: You correctly answered 12 of the 12 possible questions along with approximately 6% of the public. You did better than 94% of the general public.

Use the interactive tool below to find out more about how your score compares with other Americans who took the test in our national telephone survey:




I know you won’t believe me, but I’m not trying to say I’m great – I’m trying to say that it’s sad that people stay so uninformed. This quiz wasn’t hard – it included questions like who the president of Russia is, and what Latino candidate is running for president.

sigh.

web trends subway map

My roommate Luke passed this to me. Released this summer by a Japanese tech company. In the techy-nerd world, I fit best into information architecture category, so this is worth hours of silly-grin enjoyment.

what the world eats

Today in my Cultural Hermeneutics class, Professor Kevin Vanhoozer was introducing the idea of cultural “texts.” Not just novels or even the internet, but “texts” don’t even have to be in written language. For instance, a sculpture or event or song can communicate moods, ideas, worldview… you name it, they can be “read.”

Or, Dr. Vanhoozer pointed out, food.

Food as a cultural text?

Well, a text needs to be more discreet – have a beginning, middle, and end, for instance. Like a meal.

Can you read what a meal is telling you? Maybe. His case in point? A recent photo essay by TIME Magazine called What the World Eats. Amazing. Don’t forget to be embarrassed by the United States ones.