Here's a few random notes:

I'm enjoying my iGoogle home page. First, the top of the screen has art from Dale Chihuly...and it changes through a series of Chihuly images on a regular basis (Google has several artists you can pick from).

Second, (this is not an iGoogle feature on my page, but it is a nifty Google trick that Dobe asked about previously) to search a specific website for a specific term on Google, use this syntax:

search term site:[write out web address after colon]

For example, let's say the Anonymous Hawk was going to post a blistering (but wrong) comment about my being all wet on Iraq, and he wanted to find every mention of Iraq on this thread. In a Google search box, he would type:

Iraq site:http://journalscape.com/X_Zachary_Wright/

The foregoing syntax would limit the search for "Iraq" to this website only.

The sample that Google gives is:

admissions site:www.stanford.edu

Finally, there is a "gadget" that I selected for my iGoogle page that has two links for the "How To of the Day." Today's "How To" links were an odd pairing at best, but I enjoyed the quirky contrast. The first was "How to make a quilt out of your old t-shirts" and the second was "How to forgive the unforgivable." I spent about 30 seconds on the quilt site (pretty cool...imagine the artwork or what-have-you on 10 of your favorite t-shirts woven into a nice quilt), but I am not a quilter and may not admit it if I was.

As for "How to forgive the unforgivable," I spent a couple more minutes on that, and some time during lunch pondering it. It is written from the standpoint that forgiveness is something that we should all aspire to.

And maybe it is, but I'm not buying. But I do see the obvious corrosive and unsustainable nature of the middle eastern saying, "If I don't kill you, my son will kill your son. And if that doesn't work out, my grandson will kill your grandson."

However, my lack of forgiveness of Nancy has nothing to do with her daughter, who I have nothing but positive regard for and is not responsible for Nancy's actions.

Despite certain religious doctrine to the contrary, I think that it might be *unhealthy* for me to forgive Nancy, because I would forever feel guilty about forgiving her for what should be an unforgivable act.

So, I wonder: When a person believes that they will not get to heaven without forgiving the sins of others, is forgiveness sometimes a selfish act, and/or an insincere one?

Suppose a person with these beliefs has a child who is murdered in cold blood. Admittedly, this is rare, but suppose the parent comes face-to-face with the murderer in court and says, "I forgive you." Maybe I am blinded by ignorance and crippled by lack of faith, but I don't see how a parent doing the forgiving in that case can truly mean it in their heart of hearts. Are they saying some words to convince themselves that they now qualify for heaven? I'll never know for sure--since it would be, shall we say, impolite to ask anyone in the situation. And even if I could ask, there's no guarantee of a truthful answer.

There's is nothing new under the sun: Jay rambling again about (insert here: forgiveness/politics/name dropping).

Have a happy day!