Matthew 4:12-22 (NIV)

12 When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he withdrew to Galilee. 13 Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali— 14 to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah:

15 “Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,

the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan,

Galilee of the Gentiles—

16 the people living in darkness

have seen a great light;

on those living in the land of the shadow of death

a light has dawned.”

17 From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

18 As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 19 “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” 20 At once they left their nets and followed him.

21 Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, 22 and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

Reflection:

When Jesus called the disciples, there was an immediate (no delay, no hesitation, no lapse in time, no kidding) response. We see the effect of Jesus’ ministry and authority - like light flashing in darkness - that came with an immediate and complete change of things. Jesus walks as light in the darkness, and His call to follow is light that pierces the darkness of our sin and resistance. It is a call of turning from darkness to light. We are called from our own kingdoms into something completely different - the kingdom of God. God’s Presence comes with immediacy, and therefore, an immediacy of response and obedience to follow the Lord, the Light of the World, must follow.

Responding to the Transmission:

Today, let’s once again receive this amazing calling from our Lord, the Light of the World. Without hesitation or delay, may our response be quick to follow. Let’s see God at work today. His salvation at hand. Let’s spend some time praying for our campuses, for our missional groups, for our communities, that God’s light will shine in the darkness. And may the life-light we carry in our hearts blaze in the darkness as we bear witness to the kingdom of God.

Thanks to The Atlantic!

Empire of equality: New York becomes 6th state to legalize same-sex marriage!

Rivers keep rising. North Dakota battles record flooding.

What’s with Wisconsin? Judge tries to choke fellow judge.

Diabetes doubles worldwide!

And, you might have more friends than you know!

Does Walmart treat women unfairly?

Recently The Supreme Court tried to address that question.

Scores of female Walmart employees were suing the chain store giant for discriminatory work practices.

Unfortunately for them, the case was thrown out.

But not because Walmart was guiltless of these charges. Instead the Court objected to the “class action” part of the case.

This close 5-4 vote centered on the merit of the large number of women banning together to seek justice for their believed grievances.

Views are divided across the board disappointed or praising the notable decision.

Some believe that is fair confirmation of employer protection from excessive monetary settlements.

Others see it as a loss for the working class, those who can’t afford to make these grievances individually.

“Class Action” suits are one way to challenge big corporations.This is particularly useful at this time when union rights are under seige (which Walmart continually opposes).

Women in the workforce are particularly affected.

Workers of both sexes pay the price, but women, who constitute more than 70 percent of hourly employees, pay more…Wal-Mart insists that almost all workers promoted to the managerial ranks move to a new store, often hundreds of miles away. For young men in a hurry, that’s an inconvenience; for middle-aged women caring for families, this corporate reassignment policy amounts to sex discrimination.

Maybe this is just a call for corporate change.

As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg expressed:

Managers, like all humankind, may be prey to biases of which they are unaware… The risk of discrimination is heightened when those managers are predominately of one sex, and are steeped in a corporate culture that perpetuates gender stereotypes.

The argument has also been made that insufficient evidence was brought to this case.

However a recent court ruling in Pennsylvania on work conditions at Walmart resulted in a $187.6 million fine for denying workers meal and rest breaks.

Was the Supreme Court ruling  justified?

How else can individuals take on big corporations when they exploit their workers?

AP Photo

There is nothing like a deadline to focus your mind wonderfully.

Whether it’s a term paper,  job application or saving the U.S. Economy, a looming deadline will create urgent activity.

That’s what happening in Washington at the moment as an August 2nd deadline approaches. What is at stake?

How about  a global economic panic?

The deadline in question refers to negotiations between Democrats and Republicans about raising the DEBT ceiling (see previous story here).

Things are getting real contentious on this ordinarily dry subject.

Before raising the nation’s debt ceiling (think of it like a credit card limit) both parties want an agreement on other economic savings.

Though both sides can agree this is good, they differ in the preferred methods.

Democrats are looking for new revenue sources (taxes), while Republicans are allergic to raising taxes and instead want to cut government spending.

This week things took a turn for the worse when Republicans stormed out of reconciliation talks in a huff.

The only hope for for a resolution (and aversion of global economic peril) now rests with the top dogs.

President Obama has announced that he will meet with Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D) and minority leader Mitch McConnell (R), signaling that he is going to take a lead role in the debt-limit negotiations.

Jay Carney, white house Press Secretary said,

“The president is willing to make tough choices, but he cannot ask the middle class and seniors to bear all the burden for deficit reduction and to sacrifice while millionaires and billionaires and special interests get off the hook.”

If the folks in Washington are anything like we are with deadlines, we expect this whole mess won’t be resolved until 11:59 on August 1. In the meantime we also expect a lot of political panic in the interim.

Computerworld has a story that discussed the passing of the Basic programming language and asks How are students learning programming in a post-Basic world?.

Basic was developed at Dartmouth in the mid 1960s as a language that would be easy to learn and use so that virtually anyone could learn to program. It was also relatively easy to implement a Basic interpreter for a new computer. Bill Gates and Paul Allen famously got their start by creating a Basic interpreter for one of the first micro-computers, the Altair 8800. It was also useful. I remember helping on a complicated sponsored research project at the University of Illinois in the 1970s that was done in Basic on a Wang mini-computer using giant 8 inch floppy disks.

The subhead on the Computerworld story is "Basic is (mostly) dead. Long live Python as the next starter language?" and it describes how many universities are now using Python as the language of choice for introducing people to programming. Count the UMBC CMSC program among them. Two years ago we revamped CMSC201 to use Python as the language for teaching programming concepts and practices, ending a nearly 15 year run using C.

What we liked about Python was that students can write simple, useful programs almost immediately without having to master a large number of new concepts or programming scaffolding. Its interactive, interpreter-based paradigm (just like Basic!) encourages students to explore and get "close to the machine" (just like Basic!). At the same time, Python is a powerful language that elegantly includes nearly all of the modern programming language ideas and also efficient enough for all but the most demanding applications. This combination of simplicity, power and efficiency combine to make Python very popular for software development in industry.

The NFL lockout is at it’s 105th day and the debate over collective bargaining rights looks like a hopeless case.

So, does this matter?

Last month, All Pro Linebacker Ray Lewis predicted a rise of “evil” in the United States if the lockout resulted in a loss of this year’s football season.

But that’s not all.

A study was released on Wednesday from the state of Maryland (Home of the Baltimore Ravens) suggested the state could lose approximately $40 million in revenue if the season doesn’t occur.

While the situation looks grim for players, fans and communities, one NFL player has decided to make the most of the situation.

Denver Broncos safety David Bruton took up substitute teaching in his hometown while waiting for a compromise to be reached. Bruton has worked in social studies and science classrooms for children of all ages. He plans on teaching summer school where he’s needed.

There is some hope of a settlement. A new deal is expected to surface that would give the player’s 48% of “all revenue”.

But is it enough?

Let’s hope David Bruton moves from school grids to gridiron soon.