Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Everybody Lost in the Cartoon War



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Back in '93 I was one of the Sunday school teachers in a class called "Church Across the Street."  This was a terrific curriculum for Sixth Graders.  We would study a religion or denomination for a week or two, then we would attend a service.  It was extremely educational for the students and the teachers.  I began attending the Episcopal Church as a direct result of my involvement in this class.

When we studied Islam, we visited the local Mosque.  It was Awesome.  I didn't like that the girls had to use a separate entrance, and cover their heads.  Females also prayed in a separate room.  Aside from the gender issues, my experience was totally positive.  The reverence for God was palpable.  Multiculturalism is not just a PC term in a US mosque.  There were men of every color worshiping fervently together.  I was floored by the experience. 

We had an adolescent boy show us the customs for ritual cleansing and explain their symbolic and practical purposes.  This young man had a very strong sense of identity and belonging.  His life had value and meaning.  I don't have anything against Islam. 

What continues to irritate me is ignorance.  Fundamentalism of all kinds is ignorance.  There is no inerrant scripture. Even if there were, we each would have the choice if we wanted you use it to direct our choices.  I follow the premise of a Presbyterian minister that was quoted to me:  "I take the Bible seriously, not literally."

Nobody wins when we give in to hate, fear and ignorance, and the result of the Mohammed cartoon brouhaha is that we collectively gave in.

You can find a good post-mortem here.

++Alan

Windows PowerShell



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According to this, PowerShell nee MSH nee Monad is on the verge of release.

This is exciting news for me because I spent this week learning the tool. I have had requests to make bulk updates to work items in Team Foundation Server. I decided to investigate MSH as a platform for creating custom scripts to fulfill this request.

Now that it is on the verge of release, I won't have to overcome resistance to deploying pre-release tools. Life is good.

++Alan

[UPDATE] Keith Hill suggests some new acronyms for the Windows PowerShell.  I vote for POSH.

"Oh the posh posh traveling life, the traveling life for me..."

PoSh | Programming | Tools |