Hers: If she was guilty
As most of you know, Casey Anthony was declared not guilty to murder charges. I hadn't really been following this case until yesterday when I heard everyone talking about it. From what I have gathered, her two year old daughter died about three years ago, and she has just been declared not guilty for the most serious charges of murder due to lack of evidence.
Josh and I had a discussion about this situation and the spiritual ramifications on his way home from work yesterday. He posted about the idea of her being innocent, and today I am pondering the idea of her being guilty.
Suppose she is guilty. I can't imagine the horror, guilt, grief, and humiliation she must be feeling. Even though she walked out of that room innocent yesterday, the soul-searing pain doesn't walk away. It is with us forever until we are washed clean in the blood of Jesus.
To state it for the record, I am in no position to judge her. Sure, I haven't killed anyone, but I have sinned in other ways. I struggle with bitterness and anxiety quite often. Does this make me better than her? Absolutely not! John 3:16 says that we have all fallen short. Now, I do believe that we will suffer the consequences of our actions at some point. We will all answer for the good and bad we have done at the judgment seat (2 Corinthians 5:10). Justice requires no less than that. Everyone's timing might just be different. Even if she doesn't answer for what she has done here on Earth, she will answer for it when she faces the Lord one day. Romans 12:16 says, Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.” (emphasis added). This situation is a good reminder that revenge is God's job, not ours. Should our justice system enforce our laws and mete out consequences to the best of its ability? Certainly! Is our justice system perfect? Unfortunately not. This is where our Lord steps in. Thankfully it ultimately rests with Him.
One other thing should be said about this, and I deeply and firmly believe in it. We serve a God of second chances. A very wise person at our church once said the death penalty is taking away a person's second chance. While this can open a totally different discussion, it is applicable here. I know how thankful I am for second chances, and I shouldn't want to withhold that from someone else. While I should suffer for all of the wrong that I have done, I am grateful for a God of mercy and grace who gave me a second chance at life. Perhaps this is her second chance to find Him.
All of this is based on an assumption, really. The courts didn't have enough evidence to prove that she is not innocent, so we don't know. I choose to trust that judgment, and leave the rest to God. He knows best. I just hope she finds healing and a second chance in Him.
I would love to hear your thoughts during this confusing and sad time.
His: If she was innocent
Today a jury of her peers declared Casey Anthony innocent of murder, and it was a result that I would describe as nothing less than Biblical. Here's what I mean. She could have murdered her daughter, most people seem to think she did. But we live in a nation where justice is served under the presumption of innocence and the Biblical mandate is one that serves justice and mercy.
I'd like to think about if she really, truly was innocent. It reminds me of the story of Joseph and Potiphar. In the Anthony case, the trial revolved around circumstantial evidence with very little physical evidence declaring her guilt. (some described it as an overreach by the DA) In Joseph's case, he was accused of sleeping with Potiphar's wife based on the same type of evidence: he was at the scene of the supposed crime, he left evidence behind of his presence, and he had a high profile witness testify to his actions.
The difference, of course, is that Joseph went to jail because he didn't have the same protections we have here. The mere appearance of guilt was enough to convict him, despite the truth.
Assuming her innocence, the same thing could have happened to Anthony. We as a nation would have sent a woman to her execution because she looked like the puzzle piece that was missing, her blood on our hands. Supposing she was innocent, we would have foregone the rule of law in favor of what felt right. If we believed in justice (and I believe in a just God) then we would have committed a great injustice in favor of doing what we thought best rather than doing what was right.
She may very well have "been the guy." But the DA didn't prove that. And if she's innocent? Then today was a great success for both our court system and justice and a woman walked free rather than to the gallows.
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others."
How would you answer the question, "What if she was innocent?"
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A slight change this week. Rather than follow up with the exact same topic, Kristin will return by asking "What if she was guilty?" Stick around and see what she has to say.
Hers: Movies
So the topic is movies. To be very, very honest, movies are not really my thing. Sure, I enjoy a good comedy now and then (or the superhero movies, I have a thing for those!), but I don’t go out of my way to see new movies. There are two reasons (and more about me!):
1. I easily have nightmares. VERY easily. You can ask poor Josh, as he usually has to suffer through them with me. By censoring my media intake, I can usually minimize/prevent them. This makes it very difficult to go out to the movies with friends, since I am never too sure how it will end up later. This is definitely something that embarrasses me, but it is who I am! So those of you who have asked us to go to a movie and I have declined, it is because of that! I truly like you and would love to hang out, but I am sure you would not appreciate a call at 3:00 in the morning when I have trouble sleeping. J
2. Theaters are expensive! To go to a movie, it costs us about $25 on a good night. (While that is not regularly in the budget, we did go and see Thor…..shhhh….) To avoid this, we used to rent the movies after they were released. As prices rose there too, we justified buying the movies. Again, that got expensive! So here we are with Netflix, so Josh can meet his movie cravings because his silly wife struggles watching them!
As Josh mentioned in his post, we did get Netflix in April. I caved, and bought him the subscription for our two year anniversary. Looking back, I don’t know how we did without! We have enjoyed watching through various TV shows together, and he gets to watch an occasional movie when I am out of the house. It works rather well.
Since I am fond of giving numbered things in my posts, here are my top three favorite movies:
1. Harry Potter. Yes, I am one of those people who love Harry Potter. Do I wish there was a Hogwarts? Perhaps….
2. Miracle. The one with Kurt Russell about the Olympic hockey team that beats the Russian team. Love it!
3. Pride and Prejudice. Both the old and the new, mind you. In college on Valentine’s Day a bunch of us girls would come and watch it all day (the 5 hour version) with me and my roommates. It was fabulous. One of my roommates and best friend said that the reason we are such good friends is that I am like Jane and she is like Lizzy. I agree. J
So there is my take on movies. Crazy, I know! I would love to hear what other people’s favorite movies are, so please leave a comment! I’m sure Josh would like more movies to try out…
Thanks for reading!
His: Movies
My wife and I regularly watch movies. When we got married, we decided that cable was too expensive to justify. We counted channels we would want, and didn't get past a single handful. I was onboard for only ESPN, Discovery and BBC. She only added Food Network and some other station with cooking. Despite that, we knew we still wanted a TV to watch the Colts play (and the Yankees world series run!) So what were we to do with our TV besides rewatch movies from my collection?
After dropping hints for a while, like "man, it would be so much easier to Netflix this than drive to a redbox..." and "I bet we could've found it on netflix!", we finally bought in. As a gift, my wife subscribed to Netflix for me. I've always loved movies and well done television series, and I've got to say: Best. Invention. EVAR. There's nothing quite like sitting on the couch browsing for something to watch, only to suddenly relive your childhood when you stumble accross "Rockadoodle" on demand.
It has revealed to me, however, that things aren't always as good as I remember them. As a kid I loveloveloved the Jetsons movie. It was every bit as awesome as the cartoon was, except feature length. I ran across it for streaming the other day and decided it was a good time to relive that movie as well. Unfortunately there's a big difference between 10 and 25. As a kid I never noticed how over-the-top the animations are. Silly eye rolls, exaggerated movements, really bad integration of computer graphics and traditional animation. We ran it for about fifteen minutes before we gave up.
It's nice to be reminded of things you loved as a kid, but I think from now on I'll just be excited that I found them and avoid watching them.
If you've been thinking about getting Netflix, let this stand as a strong recommendation for it. While there are certainly gaps in availability of titles and it's not the timeliest service for new movies, there is no beating the low subscription price and the unlimited access.
It's been too long between posts, so I thought I'd pop in a few words. (Posting has been on the backburner with the million things I have to get done as well as the broken A/C in the house this week, going on day 4 of 90+ heat with no relief!)
Yesterday was the staff retreat for the agency I work at. This year we had a bit of fun with social media at the Indianapolis zoo. Instead of a traditional scavenger hunt, we had our resident pregnant lady sending us tweets for clues from back at the Riverhouse (she couldn't do the walking, so she got the joy of being home base). The team leaders each were subscribed to her (protected) feed, and as they got clues remotely the teams were to take photos to match the clue and then upload them to flickr. All in all it was a very fun experience.
At the end of the day, my colleague working home base commented that it was fun to be back at control because she got to see what was happening in next-to-real-time as we uploaded and tagged our photos. She knew where we were and what we were doing, and got to watch the search unfold as we completed it. While I'm sure the scavenger hunt idea using social media isn't new by any means, I think it serves as a great example of how social media can be used.
For instance, suppose you have multiple reporters in who agree to set up a single flickr account and then individually post to sets. Now you get to watch the story unfold from three different angles as it happens, and something that would otherwise be missed by a lack of personell or cooperation can be caught. Or maybe you're lost and need help. You can send out images of where you are and can get immediate feedback if anyone can identify the landmarks. It's very, very powerful when used creatively.
Twitter is not Statistically Sensible
If you're in the business of marketing, or if you work with marketers, or if you read blogs done by marketers you may have noticed a new game that's gotten wildly popular: Statistic Says. It's an exciting new game that takes Twitter to a whole new level by finding statistics relating to the demographics and use of Twitter, then making up stories about it's future boom or bust. While it's a lot of fun, it's about as useful as looking to Hollywood for accurate depictions of history.
The unfortunate reality of the situation is that most of the competitors in Statistic Says don't actually know how to read, or use, statistics. Tossing fuel on the fire, Harvard Business released a set of statistics that examine who is using Twitter and who they follow. The real trick to going through this report is interpreting the data.
Watching this hit, I noticed a general reaction to a particular statistic: Among Twitter users, the median number of lifetime tweets per user is one.
It seems that there are two camps on this.
1) Nobody actually uses Twitter! If most people only post once, it shows that it's pretty useless!
2) Twitter isn't about posting, or Tweeting. It's about other people Tweeting and gleaning information.
What Harvard Business did, instead of trying to interpret the data alone, was look at trending from other "social media" sites. They compared contribution rates from users of Twitter, Wikipedia, and Facebook and noticed that Twitter was far more like Wikipedia than Facebook. As a user of all three, I can't say I find the trend surprising.
During a day of using Twitter, I find that there are several kinds of people, including those that never tweet. The catch, however, is that they still use Twitter. Compare me to Guy Kawasaki for instance. You'll notice a small (read: enormous) disparity in our posting rates. Me: 826 updates, 66 followed, 107 following. Guy: 25,411 updates, 122,767 follwed, 127,137 following. We may not use Twitter equally. I have 3.2% of his total posts and only follow .05% of the total number of users he does.
However, this follows the exact trend that Harvard Business points out: the top 10% of active users account for 90% of the content. It's just like Wikipedia. Most of the people who use Wikipedia (and Twitter) don't actually go there to push content. They don't have a whole lot to say. Maybe nothing. Instead, they find value in watching it and listening. A few examples of my own use include following the Indianapolis Star's shopping feed on Black Friday to find out where the lines and sales were. Or following RedBox to get a free rental every Monday. Maybe it's following Mike Massimino to find out how the Hubble repair mission is going. It could be following the Yankees to get scores on my phone without having to pay for a subscription.
Whatever the case may be, Twitter users aren't always "users" in the sense that they contribute content. To see the tweeting rate and take it to mean the usage rate is to ignore some very common sense facts about statistics. With that, I leave you with one more thing to think about: lurkers. If you participate on message boards, you likely have noticed the large number of people who never post as well as the very few people who post a lot. The same is true of a very public, very real time message board.