Radiate: Tristan Mason’s blog

So why, you ask, am I a fugitive from justice? No, it’s not because five months after I switched to an Illinois driver’s license, my car still has Pennsylvania plates. It’s because GEMS, the girls’ ministry at our church, hosted an Old West themed father/daughter banquet tonight. They requested that the pastors get their pictures taken in appropriate duds (complete with taped-on felt mustaches) and make mean faces. We made a valiant effort, but mostly we ended up looking like we were trying not to laugh. At least I had an excuse not to shave (not that I need much of an excuse for that). In any case, my Photoshop project for the day was making old skool posters for them:

I just upgraded to Wordpress 2.0.1. For the vast majority of you, your lives will remain fundamentally unchanged by this extraordinarily important shift in the fabric of the universe. But for those of you who are using my RSS feed, you have probably found that you are receiving comments when you’re supposed to be receiving posts. It’s a bug. I’m working on fixing this, my apologies…

And by the way, happy Valentine’s Day! Sharon has class tonight, so we are officially celebrating tomorrow…

-T

Usually I ignore these surveys, but I thought this one was a relatively unique idea. So here it is. Props to Aaron ‘cause I stole it from him.

The basic idea – Google image search your answer and copy the first image (usually) into the survey.

1. Your first name: Tristan

It’s true. I googled my name, and the first thing that came up was—drum roll please—a horse’s butt. Fantastic.

2. Your middle name: Walton

Bearded militant. Hiking boots. Sweet automatic piece. Embroidered purse. One of these things is not like the other…

3. Your last name: Mason

I really hope this guy isn’t a relative.

4. Your age on your next birthday: 26

I think this would make a great 26^th birthday present. What about you? I’m sure my wife & my mom would just love that…

5. Where would you like to live: in a castle

That is, as long as it was well-insulated and got cable. But you have to admit, that place looks royal.

6. Where you actually live: DeKalb, IL

This is NOT a castle, and I don’t live in it. It’s actually one of the academic buildings at NIU.

7. Your favorite color: Blue. No, yellow—auuuuuuuugh! (thrown off bridge)

I was hoping a pic from the Holy Grail would pop up, but instead I got abstract art. Which is also cool.

8. A bad habit: Staying up too late

Yarn. As you can see, I stay up too late knitting. At wild parties. Actually I guess you could say I stay up late spinning yarns (blogging, for those who are feeling slow today).

9. A favorite food: Marinated grilled steak kabobs

Mmmm… no comment necessary.

10. Favorite animal: Komodo dragons

Komodo dragons – These guys rock. A komodo dragon can grow over 10 feet long and weigh up to 350 pounds, smell meat miles away with its tongue, consume up to 80% of its body weight in a single meal (my dream), run 13mph in short bursts even though its legs are only like a foot long, and best of all, it can kill massive animals like water buffalo with one bite because it infects its prey with 15 species of virulent bacteria that call its mouth home.

11. Religion: Christian (follower of Jesus)

As long as this tiger is following Jesus and not me, he can stay on my blog.

12. Dream job: Creative arts pastor

This is a postcard from Romania. Fred (our senior pastor) is going to to Romania this summer. I think this is God’s way of telling Fred I should go along for free.

-T

“Not the suffering, but the cause for which one suffers, makes the martyr.” -Augustine

Should Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten have published the cartoons of Muhammed, given that they knew the oral tradition of Islam considers any depictions of Allah or Muhammed to be blasphemy? Do followers of Islam have a right to protest? Are acts of violence against the blasphemers of Muhammed justified?

EDIT:

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I just read French President Jacques Chirac’s response to the cartoon crisis: “Anything that can hurt the convictions of another, particularly religious convictions, must be avoided. Freedom of expression must be exercised in a spirit of responsibility.”Mr. Chirac: Your comments offended a number of people who hold strong convictions concerning freedom of expression. Judging by your standard, you should have avoided any discussion of such a controversial and sensitive topic. If responsibility in expression primarily entails avoiding hurting people’s convictions (by which I assume you meant, “deeply offending people”), there would be pitifully few important subjects we would be free to discuss.

There ought to be a distinction made between the form and the content of expression, or between how we say and what we say. We should avoid speaking in an offensive manner, but we should not avoid a topic solely because it might offend someone. The “spirit of responsibility” in which we excercise our free expression should not entail avoiding certain topics, but rather: 1) to the best of our knowledge, not misleading people by what we express and 2) to the best of our ability, not alienating people by how we express.