Anyway, the first beans are starting to grow on the vine, and the strawberries are flowering! The tomatoes are flowering too, but I feel like they’ve got a bit of growing up to do (once the weather gets a little hotter) before we’ll get anything good out of them. Here are the goods:

My first pole bean!

The basil is getting tall.

The strawberries are flowering.

The tomato is flowering too.

It’s obvious how much attention Steve Jobs has paid to the user experience. Everything about the iPad just works, and just works with a smoothness and ease that I’ve never seen before in a computer – even in a full OS-X Mac. Xeni Jardin had it right: the iPad scratches an itch you didn’t know you had. Or, as Kenneth Burke would put it when talking about form, it’s the perfect example of something that creates a need in its audience and then fulfills it.

This isn’t a laptop killer. I wasn’t expecting it to be, so it’s not like I’m disappointed about this, but it needs to be emphasized. I’m typing this entry on the iPad and, while I’m faster on this than I am on my iPhone, it still doesn’t compare to an actual hard keyboard. The keyboard dock I bought would obviously help a bit, but on the road I prefer portability over function.

I still don’t quite know how to hold it on my lap, at the table, etc. This, I suppose, will get better with time.

Major League Baseball has the best new media people of any of the major sports. the MLB AtBat app for the iPad is as pretty as it is useful. And full-screen video of the games (with my mlb.tv subscription) is absolutely gorgeous.

I haven’t tried the 3G yet. I’ve made a deal with myself here that I’m not going to buy the 3G coverage until I need it – and thus far, everywhere I’ve gone with the iPad has had Wi-Fi. But Wi-Fi on this thing really hums… It’s like everything about the iPad is designed to make the Internet experience ridiculously fast and smooth.

I don’t feel like I’m missing anything without Flash – except maybe watching Hulu on my iPad. The web is plenty functional without Flash, which is rather inefficient anyway. People can’t adopt HTML5 soon enough, in my opinion. But still – Hulu on the iPad would make my iPad user experience complete. Get on that, Steve Jobs and the Hulu people.

Hand-coding even rudimentary HTML on this thing is a pain in the ass. Hopefully, since its a software keyboard, future updates will include customizable keyboard layouts so that the brackets could be more accessible (or even entirely different input modes, like context-specific keyboards or something cool like that). Incidentally, when I try to hand-kludge the Unicode character for the brackets, the WordPress app crashes out. A lot of the third-party stuff on the iPad is still in kinda alpha mode, where developers are waiting to see what people are doing with their apps.

Overall, after 16 hours on this thing, here’s the verdict: What it was designed to do, it does incredibly well. This is the ultimate machine for someone who wants to surf the web, do some mailing, play with docs, or read on the go. It’s smooth, responsive, and incredibly fun to use. While I think there are a lot of possibilities for Apple or third-party developers to expand the functionality, at the moment, it’s still just really good at doing what it’s supposed to do. And that’s enough, for now…

Anyway, I took these pictures on Sunday, shortly after buying and planting some new seedlings… enjoy!

The whole garden... still a lot of planting yet to be done, but we're getting closer!

Pole beans... this is the first year I'm growing them.

Yet more peppers... now in addition to bells, I've got Anaheims, jalapeños, and sweet peppers.

I'm also trying melons this year... but I need them to climb up the fence instead of spreading out, because I need the real estate.

I know it’s a little early to plant things like tomatoes, peppers, and basil, but it’s been a pretty warm spring, and I’m betting against another frost. According to weather forecasts, that was a pretty good bet (knock on wood)… and I’ll have fresh veggies a couple of weeks earlier!

This year I added another bed – 48 square feet – which gives me a lot more room to play around in! So I’m going to be growing more of everything – as well as adding a few new plants to my repertoire. (I’m hoping I can find some young melon plants at one of my local nurseries…) Since last year’s herb garden was pretty much a weed-infested bust, I’ve added the herbs to the raised beds too… hopefully that’ll keep the weeds away.

Enjoy!

Both garden beds, in all their glory.

I'm growing herbs this year too. Basil, cilantro, rosemary, and parsley.

The strawberries (and some infant peppers in the background).

Tomatoes... this year, four Romas and a Big Boy. And maybe more, if I decide to plant some more.

Archbishop Óscar Romero – assassinated 30 years ago today – is one of them, despite the fact that the Roman Catholic Church (under Pope Benedict XVI) is stalling his ascension to full sainthood.

Romero was shot by a squad of men who had trained in the United States and were carrying rifles manufactured in the United States, while raising the Eucharistic cup to bless it during the Mass. His blood spilled over the altar as he fell – mixing the blood sacrificed by Christ for our liberation with his own, spilled for his people’s liberation.

He provides an example to us all – of how the radical love of Christ demands that we stand for the poor, for the oppressed, for the hungry and thirsty, of how a person animated by Christ’s sacrifice could make himself a “living sacrifice” for those Christ cared about.

He taught us – as the Liberation theologians did – that the notion that Jesus Christ doesn’t take sides in politics is a falsehood propagated by the greedy and powerful. Romero taught us that Jesus Christ does take sides.

Jesus Christ is on the side of the poor – the single mother working two jobs just to keep food on her kids’ table, the father desperately searching for work, the little girl who goes to school with nothing in her belly in this, the richest nation on earth.

Jesus Christ is on the side of the homeless veteran, who was “thanked” for his service to his country by being denied treatment for the PTSD his brave service gave him.

Jesus Christ is on the side of the cancer-stricken child who needs health care but whose parents can’t afford it.

Jesus Christ is on the side of the gay teenager who’s bullied and beaten up at school for nothing more than being who he is.

Jesus Christ is on the side of the undocumented immigrant woman who works 14-hour days cleaning houses or washing clothes or caring for someone else’s children, just so that she can give her own children a better life than the one they faced in the country of their birth.

Archbishop Romero taught us that sometimes standing with Jesus requires that we stand against the principalities and powers, nonviolently resisting them and prophetically calling them to repentance and justice – and being willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of Jesus Christ and those with whom Christ stands.

I pray that God give us the discernment, wisdom, peace, faith, and strength to stand with Jesus Christ and Archbishop Romero on this, the thirtieth anniversary of his assassination.

Crossposted at Matthew 25 Network.

8 May his days be few;
may another take his place of leadership. (NIV)

Okay, cute, right? They want someone else to be President. How amusing. Whatever.

Except that the Psalm doesn’t stop there. It goes on to say:

9 May his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow.

10 May his children be wandering beggars;
may they be driven from their ruined homes.

Aaaaaaaand now we’re getting into the territory where things turn decidedly un-Christian.

It’s pretty clear to me that this imprecatory psalm isn’t innocuous; at the very least, the person praying this psalm is praying for the death of the President. If one considers the link between violent language and violent deeds – a link we’ve talked about before – it becomes pretty clear that this could be seen as a clarion call to assassination.

Frank Schaeffer (son of Francis Schaeffer) makes this point succinctly in his interview with Rachel Maddow about this phenomenon:

“But now it turns out [in right-wing rhetoric] that he joins the ranks of the unjust kings of ancient Israel, unjust rulers to which all these Biblical allusions are directed, who should be slaughtered if not by God then by just men [. . .] Really, this is trawling for assassins, and this is serious business.”

I’d like to echo what Schaeffer said right there: This is serious business. Words do things; violent rhetoric breeds violent actions. When someone is praying for the President to be struck down by God, it’s only one step further for that person to decide that he or she is God’s instrument to carry out what he or she sees as God’s justice. This is scary stuff here – and it’s only being compounded (again, as Schaeffer points out) by the Manichaean, apocalyptic worldview many evangelical Christians are succumbing to.

But of course, we Christians know that many of the people who would pray this psalm don’t really want to see President Obama struck down – they just want him voted out of office in 2012. Fine. But that’s not what this psalm says, and if we’re nothing else in this world, we should be honest. Praying for God to strike down political leaders we disagree with is not Christian – and those who display bumper stickers, or T-shirts, or coffee mugs bearing a Bible reference that calls for Michelle Obama to be made a widow and Sasha and Malia to be “fatherless” and “wandering beggars” soil the name of Christ in this world. They give all Christians a bad name with their implication that such thinking is in any way in line with Christian morality or values.

In other words – all Christians should stand side-by-side against such thinking. There’s nothing “cute” or “amusing” about a bumper sticker or a T-shirt that calls for the President of the United States to be killed, whether that be by God’s hand or man’s. For the sake of the Gospel, for the sake of Christianity’s reputation in a skeptical world, we must stand against this phenomenon and be vocal about our stance. We must make it clear that such rhetoric is in no way Christian, and that those who would pray such a thing are not praying in the Holy Spirit.

The upshot of this is clear: If you’re a Christian, and someone you know has one of these bumper-stickers, you have a responsibility to say something to them – particularly if they’re part of your church. If responsible Christians don’t stand up against hateful and violent language among us, we shouldn’t be surprised when the world thinks we’re hateful and violent. We need to stand up to our fellow Christians and let them know that things like this bumper-sticker are not of Christ, and tell them in the name of Jesus that they need to stop using violent and hateful language.

And we need to pray for President Obama, whether or not we agree with his politics, as Paul says in 1 Timothy:

I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.

May we continue to hold up our President and all our leaders in prayer during these troubling times.

(Cross-posted at the Matthew 25 Network.)

Seriously.

You just can’t make this stuff up.

Among their conservative principles for Bible translation:

Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning

Their full free-market meaning? Yeah, Jesus was totally thinking about laissez-faire and the invisible hand of Adam Smith’s free market when He told the rich young ruler to sell all he had and give it to the poor. And the whole parable about the farmer casting his seed over the field? Clearly, Jesus is talking there about optimizing crop yields and exploiting laborers in order to maximize agricultural profits.

Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story

(For the record, here’s the story in question.)

Yeah, because we wouldn’t want sentiments like “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” to complicate our worldview. We wouldn’t want to contemplate whether or not we’re acting hypocritically before we condemn others.

Of course, given the spotty record of right-wing religious figures who demagogue about family values, maybe they are better off excising that passage…

And finally, the coup de grace…

10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word “Lord” rather than “Jehovah” or “Yahweh” or “Lord God.”

Why not go the whole way and replace “Lord” with an inarticulate guttural grunt, a thumbs-up, or a “guy nod”? God doesn’t want those boring liberal words mucking up His pristine Bible. Conservative God doesn’t use words, He uses action… so next time you’re in church and they ask you to read a passage aloud, instead of all that boring text with its “high word-to-substance ratio” you should just punch the guy next to you in the jaw. That’s what Conservative Action God wants.

(Cross-posted at the Matthew 25 Network.)

Go. Be inspired.

By the way, Ken Burns’s National Parks series is making me want to leave all my possessions behind and go live out my days in Yosemite.

I’ll be back to my usual erudite and brilliant self sometime in the next few days, hopefully.