At first, I wasn't surprised when I read this.

NAZRAN, Russia (Reuters) - Armed men drove into Russia's
Ingushetia region and abducted up to 15 people including policemen from a
checkpoint and a slot machine parlour, police and witnesses said on
Friday...

Islamist groups fighting an insurgency in Ingushetia against
Moscow's rule frequently target gambling halls and shops selling alcohol, saying
they contradict Islam....

I have read enough stories about people comitting violence in the name of religion (usually Islam, unfortunately), that they don't have much impact to me anymore. But Robert's comment on his Jihad Watch post ("Morality: gambling? No way! Armed kidnapping? Fine,") got me thinking a bit. As a person of strong religious beliefs, one of the challeges of my life is to make sure that my behavior matches up with my professed faith. For some reason, Americans are willing to forgive all manner of immorality and indescretion, but generally have little tolerance for hipocracy, especially when it is a person of faith displaying it. While I have not comitted a kidnapping in the name of stopping slot-machine gambling, I wonder how many times someone has looked at my life and seen a contradiction between my words and my behavior...

OK, so I know that October is Breast Cancer Awareness month (how could anyone NOT know...you can't get away from it), but it seems like you can't turn on the TV or radio or look at a magazine or newspaper without being reminded of it. Now I'm not going to say that it is a bad thing to raise money to fight a deadly disease, or that we shouldn't be raising awareness of treatments and preventative measures. What I am going to say is that a little perspective is necessary. According to the American Cancer Society's numbers for 2004, an American female is nearly twice as likely to die from lung cancer as breast cancer, and there is much more that can be done by changing behavior (quitting smoking, etc.) to prevent lung cancers. Also, more men die each year from prostate cancer than women from breast cancer. I think a little more balance is necessary. Maybe I'll start wearing a different color ribbon to support prostate cancer awareness...then again, maybe I'll just stop watching so much TV.

OK, so if you are a faithful reader...well, if you claim to be a faithful reader, you are lying. I think I have been so dreadfully inconsistent here that even my mother doesn't remember that I ever posted here. So, for those of you who are somehow stumbling onto this blog for the first time (you know who you are), please know that I will in fact get better at posting here. It actually is not quite as bad as it looks. I did start another blog over at Manful Deeds and posted there for a little while (although my wife never did like that name as much as this one). In any event, I don't see myself posting there for a while, I'll focus my energies here. Unfortunately, I don't have much to say today, so I'll go ahead and sign off for now. I'll talk to you soon...I promise!