Friday, August 17, 2007

Lutherans in the news today

On Saturday of last week, delegates at a Lutheran Churchwide Assembly in Chicago approved a statement asking bishops to wait until 2009 to discipline gay pastors who are in relationships (they already allow gay ministers, but requires them to be celibate). For some reason I’m at a loss to ascertain, this is news today.

The NYTimes:

The vote was too late to prevent the defrocking of Bradley Schmeling as pastor of St. John Lutheran Church in Atlanta, who had told his congregation and his bishop that he was in a long-term same-sex relationship.

But Mr. Schmeling’s congregation intends to keep him as its pastor. The resolution permits his bishop, the Rev. Ronald Warren, to forgo disciplining the congregation for retaining him.

“I’m disappointed that they couldn’t fully change the policy,” Mr. Schmeling said. “But I think it’s a big step forward for us. For the first time, the church is saying that there are partnered gay and lesbian pastors who are serving faithfully and well in our church, and they should stay in place for sake of the mission of the church.”

Tomorrow’s AJC:

The Rev. Bradley Schmeling of Atlanta believes he and about 20 supporters made a difference in how one Lutheran denomination will deal with gay members and ministers in coming years.

Schmeling and members of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Atlanta lobbied representatives of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America this month to stop removing gay pastors from pulpits. And church representatives did just that, at least for two years.

“There is a little more space for [gay] pastors to serve without fear,” said Schmeling, who is gay and has felt the sting of church discipline.

Superbad

I have to say I was totally resistant to Knocked Up. Then totally enjoyed it. It sounds like the same crowd has used the same formula to do the same thing in Superbad:

Let’s say you’ve totally mastered the grown-up thing. You’ve got a good job, meaningful relationships with your loved ones, a nice place to live—basically, you’re king of your universe. If that description fits you—or even if it doesn’t—then “Superbad,” written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, directed by Greg Mottola, and produced by guy-of-the-moment Judd Apatow, is for you: because you’re never too old, or too together, to relive the humiliation of your teenage years.

On some level, “Superbad” is a sweet story about friendship between teenage boys, specifically about the way our society’s expectations of men—of any age—often prevent them from expressing their true feelings. Mostly, though, it’s about teenage boys struggling to get laid, trying to buy alcohol with a fake ID, and, last but not least, riding the bus. And really, that’s enough. Even though the movie’s characters do learn some valuable lessons and are therefore redeemed—at least partially—there’s nothing metaphorical about “Superbad.” The movie doesn’t need any superfluous redeeming qualities: Its pleasures and charms lie in its very crudeness, in the way the characters’ thoughts begin in their dicks and spill out of their mouths, completely bypassing their brains.

Here’s the trailer. I am not Superbad.

Ubuntu security concerns dismissed

You’d think placing repurposed surplus machines with the free Ubuntu Linux OS in a school for students with special needs is a no-brainer. You’d be wrong. Resistance is the way of our world I guess.

Still, we’re moving the computers into place today.

And the resistance - from the administrative side of the house under the guise of security - will no doubt raise the recent security concerns. Canonical dismisses them:

Concerns over the security of the Ubuntu Linux distribution arose this week, when five out of eight community-run servers sponsored by Canonical had to shut down.

The servers had “started attacking other systems,” according to an Ubuntu newsletter. The issue first came to light on Saturday, when Ubuntu users voiced concern over a problem with local community (loco) hosted servers.

London-based Canonical moved quickly to minimize the issue and reassure users that the operating system is secure.

“This is not a problem with our production servers,” Gerry Carr, marketing manager of Canonical, told ZDNet UK, sister site of CNET News.com. The issue was with “loco servers that we pay for but that do not sit in our data center.” As a result, the security in Canonical’s data center was “in no way compromised by these attacks,” Carr said.

I’m not real sure that will mollify my guys.

[T]he company did accept that the servers had been poorly managed. The problem arose because the responsibility for security lay “between Canonical and the community,” Carr said.

“Most of the time,” this was just as it should be, Carr said, but “server management is maybe not one of those times.”

The issue is one for the community to decide, he said. “Either the loco servers come into our data center and are subject to our standard, rigorous security and management, or they sit completely outside of it and are run by the community.”

The issue is outlined in detail in an e-mail from Ubuntu’s community manager, Jono Bacon.