Slightly skeery

In today's paper's opinion section I noticed that one of the cover articles was by a man who goes to our church. My curiosity was piqued and I started reading. Basically, the article was a summary of twenty-five years of action for and against the continued production of nuclear weapons; specifically, it was about the twenty-five year history of a local anti-bomb group called World Citizens for Peace.
I've always had kind of mixed feelings about nukes; on the one hand, they're a valuable asset when it comes to bluffing your way out of a war. On the other hand, they can wipe out civilization as we know it. Hmmmm...overall, I think I'm inclined against their use, but I'm not terribly educated in the matter.
In any case, I learned some, well, scary stuff from this article that I wasn't aware of before. For one thing, I didn't know that the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has moved the Doomsday Clock from seven minutes to midnight to five minutes to midnight. Creepy.
Granted, I'm assuming all those fine people on the Bulletin aren't endowed with clairvoyant powers, but between this and the few other instances I've heard about them and the Clock, I've gotten the impression that they're fairly reliable sources on the subject of nuclear science.
Some other food for thought could be found in a paragraph in the article:

Today, there are still more than 25,000 nuclear warheads in existence--12,000 of them are deployed and 3,500 are on hair-trigger alert, ready to be launched in a matter of minutes. Today's thermonuclear weapons (hydrogen bombs) make the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs seem puny. It takes only one to destroy a city. And 1 percent of the world's nuclear arsenals could destroy human civilization itself.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find the article online to give a link to it, but perhaps you could sniff around on the Tri-City Herald's website if you want; search for an article by Jim Stoffels in the July 29, 2007 paper.
In other words, today's paper. Har har....who'da thunk?
Thoughts, anyone?

Ladies and Genteelmen...

...at long last, I, James Powers, have successfully made a (short) movie, with the help of two of my brothers, my mom, the cat, and Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass band.
And so, without further ado, behold:



Yaaaaay!

Oh, and the song is called "Lollipops and Roses," if you were wondering.

Curse you, Apple!

So here I am, sitting at the computer, loading music onto what is now my iPod (yeaaah!!). Unfortunately, this is a very time-consuming process, and I feel like a time-squandering sloth. I mean, is it really worth it to blow forty-five minutes on preparing entertainment for myself? And no, that is not the same as going to a movie. When you go to a movie, you are devoting time to your own valuable (hopefully) recreation, but here I'm just...frittering.
This is frittering that will prove to be worth it, though. It sure better, or else Steve Jobs will soon find himself facing a ball of high-pitched, adolescent fury.
* * * *
Hrrmph. As long as I'm doing this, I'll write an actual post.
So, I spent about 6 days out of last week at Christ the Redeemer Leadership Camp over in Mt. Angel, Oregon. I've gone to this camp every year for four years now, and I've always had a love-hate relationship with it.
Love: Something about it--especially in the first two years--had some intangible good effect upon me. Also, it's full of people who take the faith seriously but aren't puritanical about it. We have daily Mass, spiritual counseling and all sorts of other good stuff like that.
Hate: I'm spending a week in largely unfamiliar circumstances; I'm out of my zone, homesick, etc. This is largely caused by the fact that I've never been the camping type; I prefer to admire nature from a distance. Also, this camp is big on competition, particularly sports. And sports are not my thang.
Anyhoo, this year was especially challenging for me. I was a team captain, and usually the captain is subordinate to a team counselor, who largely leads the team. That wasn't really the case this year, though. The counselors this year would "adopt" a team and help them out--but not directly lead them. Much of the actual leading was my responsibility. Gulp.
Remember what I said about lots of competition? Right. Well, for much of the camp, our team, "the Bravehearts," were in last place. Last place out of four teams, granted, but leave it to me to make a mountain out of a molehill. Also leave it to me to make horrific, accidental alliterations.
Anyhoo, that was giving me an ulcer for quite some time. But I learned some valuable lessons from that experience as captain.
First of all, it was very humbling. Being somewhere outside "my zone" showed me that I'm not necessarily the skilled, able-to-handle-anything type of person I sometimes perceive myself as. Oops.
And I got to see how well I can hold up outside the familiarity of home, without people like my parents to lean on.
Finally, I got practice on quieting my brain; a valuable skill. Whether through personality or acquired habit, I tend to analyze things, worry about the future, second-guess myself, etc. Somehow, I figured out that during this camp I'd have to get the gray matter to shut up; I was just to busy to be thinking all the time.
Overall, the camp was really a good experience. I mean, I was expecting it to be good, but I wasn't really expecting to be profoundly affected by it. At 17, I'm definitely on the old side of the age limit, and I went to the camp figuring that I'd give it one last spin before saying goodbye to it. No biggie, you know?
Obviously, I got more than I bargained for. A pleasant surprise.