Apple Inc Should Go Green

My current desktop PC, a Dell Dimension 3000, is 6.5 years old and showing signs that it wants to retire. Instead of waiting until the last minute, I began searching for its replacement. Although I was never a Mac fan, many friends and co-workers have the iPad 2 and brief views of its functionality got me to reconsider my long-standing negative opinion of Apple products.

Four months later, I still have not decided to get a Windows 7 laptop or an iPad 2. Whenever I got close to picking one over the other, of course, some obscure point popped up and I was back on the fence. Now there's a third option since the local USA TV station is running a Kindle Fire Give Away contest. I entered every day.

As of today, the latest worry point involves, you guessed it, Apple products. My neighbor worked with Macs his whole publishing career and he claims the iPad can't attach to a printer so there is no way to get the documents "out of the icloud." (I don't know about you but I want my stuff with me, not floating in either Microsoft's, Apple's, or even Google's air space.) Next, my friend told me to wait to buy the iPad 2 because Apple is about to release the iPad 3 and she is expecting the iPad 2 prices to go down a lot.

This last point is what stuck in my craw. Apple products can't be upgraded. When there's a new version, one has to throw the old one away. Didn't Apple get the Save the Planet recycling memo? For all the annoying things that Microsoft products do and don't do, and I could write encyclopedias on my own personal experiences, you can upgrade to the next version.

So, my suggestion to Apple is "Go Green." Save the planet so you can still take a bite of an apple. --- Signed: the purchasing public!

Series - Losing Our Moral Compass (Lululemon Killer Looks for Mercy)

When I heard the pleas for mercy this morning on the TV from the family of Brittany Norwood, the woman convicted of murdering her co-worker at the Bethesda Lululemon clothing store last year, I told myself I had to blog about it.

Yes, I am an Elder in the Presbyterian Church but mercy and forgiveness do not mean the purpertrator gets to slide on the consequences of his or her actions. What Brittany did to Jayna Murray was not only brutal but vicious and wild.

Dear parents of Brittany, your daughter stabbed her 332 times. Hello? Are you just as nuts as she is?

Brittany Norwood (Credit: CBS/WJZ)

I also have a psychology degree and I support the conclusion that Brittany “is beyond rehabilitation.”[1] She needs to be put away forever so she can’t “lose it” again and mutilate someone else. When someone does something so heinous, he or she puts themselves “outside” of society and does not have the right to benefit from the safety of the society he or she just violated!

May Jayna rest in peace.

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  [1] http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57367154-504083/sentencing-looms-in-lululemon-store-murder-killer-brittany-norwoods-family-begs-for-mercy/

Series - Losing Our Moral Compass (Abandoned Baby Girl Dies)

Last week was not a good week for me. It did not compare to the tragedy reported on TV and in newspapers about an infant girl left on a doorstep in Northeast Washington in freezing temperatures whose short life was over even before it started. The reports varied on the infant’s age, some saying newborn, others saying a week, and a few saying a month old.

It takes a lot to make me cry. And this was the straw that broke the infamous camel’s back. My family life was always a challenge, and there were and are still times when I feel I wasn’t wanted. Yet, I can’t say they ever abandoned me or tried to give me away.

Maybe the mother thought someone would open the door quickly and find the child. If so, she thought wrong. Maybe someone else interfered and hoped to find a better home. It strikes me as odd that the baby was left at someone’s home instead of a hospital or police station.  This may be one time we can’t walk in someone else’s shoes.

My heart aches for the panic felt by the man who found her and whose father tried to revive her. They are still heroes in my book for trying.

The only comfort I take from this is that the child is with God. May He bless her and keep her in His loving embrace.

Getting Over Our Wrongs

Devotional writer Randy Kilgore asks “How should we handle moments of faith-failure,…?”¹ This question hits home with me because I can’t count the number of times that I am not even out of bed in the morning when sinful thoughts pop into my head. As an Elder in the Presbyterian Church, I know I dishonor God by these thoughts and actions. Likewise I am trained to believe God forgives my confessed sins and remembers them no more (Isaiah 43:35). But…

“But” is a three-letter word that carries more punch than its sparse number of letters. If I am trained to believe this then why can’t I forget my forgiven wrongs and move on? Kilgore supplies the much needed answer by simply saying “Satan not only delights in the moment of our failure but also in the spiritual inactivity that sometimes snares us in our remorse.”¹ He warns us not to get stuck. I still need to take personal responsibility for the “consequences” of my sins. But, I don’t have to let Satan “multiply the damage by retreating into silence and obscurity as ambassadors of Christ.”¹

Kilgore sends us to two Bible verses for comfort and support: Proverbs 24:16² and
1 John 1:9. ²

Proverbs 24:16

^{16 l}For a righteous man may fall seven times

And rise again,

^mBut the wicked shall fall by calamity.

1 John 1:9

⁹ If we ^qconfess our sins, He is ^rfaithful and just to forgive us our sins and to ^scleanse us from all unrighteousness.

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¹ Our Daily Bread. April 21, 2011. (Vol. 55, No. 12; Vol. 56, Nos. 1&2). RBC Ministries. USA. [http://odb.org/2011/04/21/moving-past-sinful-failure/]

² http://biblia.com/bible/nkjv

How To Exceed in Life

• First, believe in God and that He has good things planned for you.
• Second, lose your negative attitude.
• Third, look at all trials and tribulations as learning experiences – for you to grow and to share with others.
• Fourth, share what you have with others, no matter how little it is.
• Fifth, admit your mistakes, make amends, and move on.
• Sixth, ask for forgiveness from God and humankind.
• Seventh, don’t automatically assume the other person meant harm to you.
• Eighth, forgive those who hurt you. This helps you, not them.
• Ninth, politely stand up for what you believe but don’t look for trouble.
• Tenth, don’t give up.