David Ancell's Virtual Home

Videocast: Why I Returned the Panasonic GX850

  /   Friday, March 17, 2017   /   Comments(0)

I have posted a new videocast

Since I did a review of the GX850 and gave it a pretty good review, I believed it was only right that I gave an update since I returned it.  I wanted people to know what happened so that anyone considering this camera can make a decision as to whether it will suit them or not.

The bottom line is that the first one I bought had the touchscreen quit responding.  I exchanged it and got another one, and then I noticed the lens motor sounds in my video.  They made the camera unusable for my purposes, but there may be some people who can use this despite this issue with the kit lens.  A Panasonic engineer said that the noise was part of the normal operation of the camera, so others are likely to experience this.

Another user posted a video with the same issue.  Here is the link to that video.

Category: Technology, Videos


Podcast: It’s Ok to Give Up Chocolate

  /   Saturday, March 04, 2017   /   Comments(0)

I have posted a new podcast episode.

Download it here.

A popular Lenten devotion series online advertises itself with the line “Don’t give up chocolate for Lent.”  I’m sure they had good intentions, and I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with that series.  However, this is really not a good way to promote your devotion.

The practice of giving something up is valuable.  Lent involve prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and giving something up is a good way to practice fasting.  I explain more in this episode.

Category: Podcasts


What About the Other Side of This

  /   Wednesday, March 01, 2017   /   Comments(0)

I have heard over the years about different politicians and groups insisting on protecting “access” to contraception as though it were something necessary and hard to obtain. I have also heard all I can stand from people who insist that the new version of “nondiscrimination” is more important than the faith of people who run businesses and provide services. I’ve often thought about how such policies, and especially the actions of our previous administration, would end up limiting the medical profession to people who will essentially follow our culture, preventing people of faith from being able to practice both their faith and a healing profession. I’m glad to see that there still are some people still trying to stand up for the rights of faithful health care professionals.

However, there is another aspect of this that needs to be considered. I have had my fill of media describing women seeking abortion, contraception, or a morning-after pill being made to feel guilty about their “reproductive choices,” but very few in the major media are willing to apply that to faithful Catholic women who wish to embrace the Church’s teaching about openness to life. Where is their “access” to faithful physicians who have a mindset other than the prevailing cultural mindset about families and children? Where is their “access” to an OB / GYN who understands natural family planning? If you want to talk about discrimination, then you should hear the comments these women (including my wife) get when they try to explain that they don’t want contraception.

However, for all the grief they get, at least there is not yet legislation pending to make the teaching of natural family planning illegal or to saddle it with ridiculous requirements. For another group, such laws are in place in some form in a number of states and cities. They city of Toledo, Ohio is the most recent I have seen to ban any form of “conversion therapy” for people with same-sex attraction. Claims you hear are that it protects people, presumably minors, from being forced to undergo supposedly harmful therapy for something that supposedly isn’t a problem. The Toledo version doesn’t appear to be limited to minors, though, as some are.

Well, I really don’t know how well current methods of therapy work for same-sex attraction. Even the NARTH institute is not suggesting that everyone (or even most people) with same sex attraction can completely reorient themselves. Therapy certainly will have no helpful effect on anyone who does not want to change. However, banning all therapy with such a goal sets a dangerous precedent.

What about those people who do want to try and change or reduce unwanted same sex attractions? What option are we leaving them? Some people may be able to do so if they get help before the feelings become deep rooted. Instead, the only “support” option available to them in these jurisdictions is someone who tells them to accept this as who they are and get on with it. The same can also happen to someone who experience discomfort about their gender. They may not have anyone to turn to except people who insist that they believe that they are really a woman in a man’s body or vice versa, and this is who they are.

For their own ideology, the activists are shutting down the scientific inquiry and the treatment choices for people. By doing this, the only freedom or choice they support is for people who fit their ideas. Those of us who want treatments in conformity with our faith may find ourselves out of luck if we don’t do something about it.

Category: Catholic, Response


           



David's Pages

RSS Feed
Atom Feed

Archives