The Office, Soon to Disappear from iTunes?

So apparently, NBC has decided not to renew its deal with Apple to make its shows available for download from the iTunes store. Apart from being a bad business decision for NBC, it means that those of you who have been getting your fix of The Office through iTunes will no longer be able to do beginning in 2008. So basically, NBC is punishing its customers who play by the rules, as it's clear whatever new options for legal purchase will cost more and present additional hassles, such as tighter DRM. The Office will still be available for download less-than-legally through any number of outlets online and it's hard to imagine than many would-be legitimate paying customers won't be resorting to these if for no other reason than to avoid the hassles of jumping through additional hurdles.

Commitment

I just had to share this...

France mourns former archbishop

A funeral service for the former archbishop of Paris, Jean-Marie Lustiger, was held at Notre Dame Cathedral. Born Aaron Lustiger to Polish Jews who had settled in France before World War I, the future Cardinal Lustiger became a Catholic at the start of World War II.

The ceremonies at Notre Dame began with a reading of a psalm, followed by the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, by Arno Lustiger, a cousin and 83-year-old Auschwitz survivor.

The French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, interrupted his summer holiday in the United States to attend the funeral.

Cardinal Lustiger worked to improve Catholic-Jewish relations and was an outspoken opponent of racism and anti-Semitism, who appeared frequently on television as a commentator on current issues. His successor, Archbishop Andre Vingt-Trois, praised the late cardinal's role in "the development of relations between Jews and Christians, with the encouragement and support of John Paul II".

"No really, pink and green look good on you."

This weekend I found my self trying to explain to a friend the difference between being nice and being kind. My thoughts were a little rusty so I thought that it may be helpful to jot a few things down.

Perhaps as an example one could imagine an encounter with a close friend who has made a bad choice (for the sake of this experiment lets think of something trivial, such as getting a really bad hair cut, or purchasing an ugly outfit, but you could easily imagine a more serious circumstance.) The "nice" thing to do is to tell your friend that what ever they have done is ok, or even good. "No that shirt really looks good on you." This course of action would be taken out of the fear of hurting a friend's feelings, or self esteem. Niceness is concerned with the immediate response.

The kind action on the other hand would be to clearly but gently inform your friend of the glaring mistake that he has made. In order for this act of informing to count as actually kind the motivation needs to be one of genuine concern for your friend, for example feeling bad that people will be laughing at him as he wears his yellow and orange polka dot scarf, rather than being motivated by the pleasure that you can receive from belittling your friend's sense of self worth.

Interestingly it seems that an act of "niceness" is a very simple act which does not require any sort of internal disposition that matches an outer manifestation. Kindness on the other hand is more than just a simple external state of affairs, but rather it is contingent on a sort of integrity. Kindness engages the person as a whole.

At least that's my attempt at clarifying my thoughts.

Humidity, Sunshine, and Lawn Chairs

At Quincy we had a successful first movie on the lawn last night. We were able to hang an 8ft screen from the back porch, and in spite the blistering humidity the movie was quite enjoyable. We watched Little Miss Sunshine, the penultimate film in the Quincy Summer Movie and Discussion series. Thanks to everyone who came and participated. The discussion was very lively, and I for one feel like I have a much better grasp of the film.