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Starbucks banned at Bob Jones University

Dr. Steven Jones, President of Bob Jones University, announced today in chapel (the official "platform" of BJU) that we are not having Starbucks coffee ever, ever, EVER AGAIN at good ol' BJU... Know why?  Cup #43 in their "The Way I See It" line carries a quote from a gay person endorsing the gay lifestyle....

*cricket, cricket*

Okay, if I left it there people would most likely be saying stuff like "Of course, those bigots in their whited fundamentalist towers WOULD be doing stuff like that.  Yup, going off the deep end is BJ's specialty.  Gay quotes on coffee cups equals Starbucks mystically subverting young people's minds.  But BJ is doing that already, aren't they? Well, that explains why they'd want to get rid of the competition."

**Please notice the quotes there! I am playing the Devil's Advocate (and a very good one at that, I must admit. sounds really antagonistic, doesn't it?).  This does not in any way reflect the official opinion of anyone officially connected to the school.  That means me, zacfoo.**

So, you can probably guess what the topic of conversation at lunch today was.  You guessed it: music....

But, wait!  Wasn't that whole thing about "gayness" and "coffee" and "hypnotic powers" important enough for a conversation piece.  Sounds controversial to me.  And you know how college students love talking about controversy.

I should back up.  Dr. J went on to explain WHY we were doing that.  Back in September, "#43" caught people's eyes here at the Institution. Mr. President promptly wrote a letter to everybody in Starbucks corporate kindly asking for an easy explanation as to why they are selling such "potentially" offensive material especially when they have Christians, soccer moms, and good ol' fashioned-family values people consuming this stuff (coffee, and gayness to this one aspect) on a highly regular basis.  (I have no problems with drinking a lot of coffee, Starbucks or not, and paying for it too.)  They got back to him in November.  Yah, that late... Like they didn't care.  But the guy from Starbucks said they did care, that they were getting a lot of negative feedback from the paying public, and were talking about doing something about it after the Holidays.  He promised to call back in less than 2 weeks.  After 3 weeks of no contact with Starbucks, Dr. J sends a total of 8 emails/phone calls none of which are returned, answered, or apparently cared about.  The regional sales guy from our area even called the corporate dude and told him we were somebody to be reckoned with.  They still didn't care.

Thus, we don't have Starbucks anymore.  And I agree with the school on this one.  BJ was patient, kind, considerate, tactful, and concerned.  They were even humanitarian, reaching beyond the Bubble to remind Starbucks that other people shared in their displeasure.  But all to no avail, apparently.  Starbucks couldn't care less.

So, us lunchers talked about music instead...

Does Starbucks have an agenda?  I don't know, but this makes them suspect.

The whole thing is really ridiculous:  Starbucks has the whole world of books and authors and smart people to quote from on their cups.  But they choose to use a gay man (I'll give 'em that; homosexuals can truth too) and his gay-promoting quote (not good) to encourage English-speaking youth (people like me and younger; like, YOUR KIDS) to explore and experiment with gayness.  That is just plain wrong.

Sorry, Starbucks.  You are no longer my cup o' tea.  Even if you try to make up for it with a Rick Warren quote...

why do I feel like I have to do this

Having a blog is a good thing, right?  Why do I feel like I have to update; I must fill you in on what's going on here in g'vegas?  Yes... I'll purposely leave that ambiguous.  I needed to say that; whether that's my real opinion on the subject I don't know yet.

My friends are asking me why I don't update more often... I don't think about it.  I've been so wrapped up in school and everything that's going on here that it's been too easy to forget about everything else that I'm supposed to be up to.  So, I'm gonna try to be better about it.  But, if you've followed me for any length of time you've heard me say this too often.  So, I'm capricious...

Yes, a friend called me that the other day.  And yes, I am; I do have to admit it. Although I personally like the more neutral word: spontaneous.  But it's to a fault; especially in certain areas.  I'm working on it...

I finished Last of the Mohicans, albeit the last few chapters were on SparkNotes.   Yah, I really hate that.  I so want to finish the book for real, but since i'm not having class on Thursday I had to finish by tomorrow.  Big quiz on the whole book and stuff.  I don't think I planned poorly for reading it, its just that Mohicans was really long.  And it's tough to plow through in three weeks, when there is other stuff going on too.  But I liked it.  Natty Bumppo is a really neat character.  Heyward is cool, too.  The Indian vs. White man conflict was treated on an individual basis and provided deep insight into how White imperialism in America affected the Native American.  Good stuff.

Props to my chica.  The grilled cheese was wonderful.

grape nuts

have you ever gotten a headache by chomping on Grape-Nuts in the morning?  i have a doozie now, all brought on by that cursed cereal.  dern you, Post!

lots going on here

wow, this semester sure started out in Turbo Mode. i won't bore anyone with the details, but i will say that this semester will sure be interesting.  zacfoo will need your prayers, big time.

first clip, podcast to come...

here's a little clip i did with my friends. just dumb stuff.

new addition to the zacfoo universe

Find me on MySpace and be my friend!

For those of you who drink Starbucks

The Starbucks Hack

Get your coffee, latte, and cappuchino in "short" size now. Better taste and better price; what could be better?

SGI #3

**Sorry that I didn't post this earlier, but I'm on vacation after all... Give a blogger a break, huh?!**

So, you ask, what is my general feeling of this conference? Has it met my expectations?  Have they (the SGI conference staff and guest speakers) met the goals that SGI set: has the title, “Declare His Glory Among the Nations”, been adequately defined and explained? Yes.

Was this conference better than the last one?  Yes.

So, where does that leave me?  The second full day of the conference, from my point of view, cannot be said to have been better or worse than the first. But that is not the point, is it?  I will say though that I learned more on the first day, but was more spiritually challenged today.  I didn't learn much today because I spent the last night (the second night of SGI) at a good friend's house talking till 2 in the morning, and as a result sleeping in and missing the first two sessions of the morning.  I was told that Dr. Jordan's message this morning was excellent; too bad I missed it.  Lunch was the next exciting thing of the day as I spent most of the time talking heatedly with friends about the conference rather than eating. 

Funny how I can remember that we had a good discussion going but cannot remember a lot of what we were talking about.  It was important and pertinent, but not too memorable, regrettably. The major theme we covered was about how we fundamentalists (I use the term lightly), as a group, tend to focus so much on peripheral issues rather than core issues.  For example, we enjoy talking (complaining, most of the time; especially if you're a student) about music standards and dress codes: like whether something “checks” or not.  And the real issues at hand are whether the gospel is getting out to a lost and dying Greenville, SC or if the Dupont Drive neighborhood is seeing God high and lifted up in a certain zacfoo's life.  I mean, c'mon, “checkability”?!? GROW UP and MOVE ON, childish thinking like that is playing into the devil's hands; no one in the real world cares about such trivialities.  I've often had the feeling/attitude that the Institution looks on us students as “old children” instead of “young adults”.  Well, keep that “checkability is all-important and I like to make mountains out of molehills, too” viewpoint and they're gonna continue looking at us that way.

Sorry, I didn't mean for that to turn into a rant... Our conversation during lunch was much more uplifting than that; we advocate deference here @ zacfoo.com.

I picked the next session because it wasn't going to be audio-recorded and it seemed to be somewhat controversial, like the China sessions were the previous day.  This one was not controversial in any way.  The speaker spoke on ministering for Christ in a closed Muslim country. Interesting.  Good information presented on how to deal with very kind, yet dead-set in my Islamic way of life, thank you very much, people.

After this session was the best part of the day:  the Concert of Prayer.  This was a structured prayer time, led by Dr. Doran, in which we focused an hour of the day on praying for missions and missionaries and our role in missions and for God to continue to work through the conference, even past the end of SGI. This was my prayer: that God would use me in missions in any way that he sees fit.  That he would continue his work on my desires for the Chinese church and that I'd remain open to his leading regarding that part of the world.  That I would do my part in home-based missions (primarily witnessing to people in Greenville) faithfully and consistently.  That I'd be an encouragement to my peers to be involved in missions. That I'd attend Missions Prayer Band consistently. That I'd pray for missionaries more. That I'd keep in contact with a missionary (J.D. Crowley, in Cambodia, perhaps).

The closing session was the perfect ending to a great missions conference.  Dr. Doran challenged us to consider whether the name of Jesus Christ is a strong enough motivation to give up everything and follow him.  Is serving Christ worth the risk involved in losing everything you have?  What do you consider of more worth than the name of Christ?  Give up everything? My take (directly from the Moleskine): As a student, it's easy to say such a thing, because you don't have much to give up. The longer you wait, the harder it becomes to give everything up.  He ended by making a great comparison; one I believe I've heard before; but this time around it hit home well.  Doran compared missionary service to military service.  Think about it: It's okay to die for patriotism for one's country; we applaud it and have Memorial Days for it. Great stuff: movies are made about it all the time.  But we flinch and even shudder at the thought of simply telling our neighbor about Christ, much more giving up all to preach Him in a foreign country. Meditate.  The mission always demands this type of commitment.

I know I have a lot of praying to do.

Bottom line: you should've been there, it was tremendous.  SGI: done.

now @ zacfoo.com, a DNS

courtesy of GoDaddy.com, zacfoo.com is now actually http://www.zacfoo.com  Go ahead, type it in the address bar.  Thanks to the site here I can now receive hits from people who hear of my site and think that's the address:  because it is the address!!

So make sure you update your bookmarks, if you want.  I'm still hosted at Typepad and the zacfoo.typepad.com address still works.  but to help you remember, and to help as you refer all your friends to my site, you can simply use www.zacfoo.com and my mug will be featured along with all the miscellaneous verbage you have grown to love about me.

SGI over

Great conference on the last day too.  I'll write about it later today.  I just got home a few minutes ago, so I'm gonna sleep a long time.  Don't hold your breath for too long...