Broken Lives

Two weeks ago, Hurricane Katrina SLAMMED the Gulf Coast. Over half a million people were without power in that region. Homes all across the coast were destroyed. It didn’t matter if you were a poor family barely trying to make it by or US Senators. The storm destroyed literally everything. We watched in horror as New Orleans fell into chaos. As we are finding out now, there were perhaps hundreds of mistakes made by all levels of government from the mayor’s office up to at least FEMA and Homeland Security if not the President and his staff. This however is not a time to place blame or even as some have done, exploit the situation to their advantage. This is a time for Americans to do what Americans do best: work together in face of a crisis and rebuild this union better than ever.

To this effect, our government has already pledged more than $62 billion in aid money. Collectively as private citizens, we have given more than $500 million. The money is still flooding in, but the amount of damage is estimated to exceed $100 billion and perhaps even $150 billion. The recovery time from this one storm is estimated not in days, weeks or months, but in years. Today, there is a great need; not only for money, clothes, food, and shelter, but volunteers. I want to encourage you to do something to help make a difference in the lives of those who lost everything. If you can give money, however if you can, give time. Volunteering your time will profoundly impact your life and all you to directly help people rebuild their lives. You can volunteer with your local Red Cross or Salvation Army. You can also volunteer through your church.

Until this tragedy, I had no idea how much of an impact one church denomination could have on people’s lives. As many of you know, I am a Southern Baptist. Our denomination has an organization call the North American Mission Board (NAMB). One branch of NAMB works exclusively in disaster relief. As it turns out, this is the group the Red Cross turns to when they run out of volunteers. In fact, when the Red Cross distributes meals, it is the Southern Baptists who make many of the meals they distribute. Here are just some of the statistics about the NAMB’s assistence with Katrina as of September 10 th:

• Volunteers Serving: 5,000+
• Meals Prepared: 1,320,664
• Jobs Completed: 1,491
• Showers Provided: 7,967
• Laundry Loads: 1,452
  

Please, consider helping the recovery effort. Talk with your pastors and find out about your church’s plans to aid this effort. Get involved. Make a difference. It will impact both your life and the lives of others.

Broken Links

Well, it’s that time in a web site’s life cycle. It’s time for Tastyfresh.com to start enduring the next phase of its evolution. This time, I am hoping for a series of small changes over a long period of time rather than one big mind bending change. With the publishing of this issue, the entire zine structure has been redone. It’s not a major upgrade, but… I have broken every external link to the articles that have been set by others. This just goes to prove that you link to other web sites at your own risk.

Some of the other improvements I hope to build in during this reworking include things like the return of an official chat room, easier editing of the site for my own sake, and the terms XML and RSS are floating around in my head as well. One of the biggest areas of concern for me though is the currently useless music section. I may decide with the next issue to simply remove it for now. The reasons for this are simple: the charts are old, the label’s page needs to be updated a good bit, and the radio show page is well… way out of date. This biggest reason however is that all of those have very little to do with what most people want which is a list of artists, their style, their releases and where they can be purchased. Speaking of purchasing, the only parts of the music site I actually feel good about are the shop listings. That said, let’s move on to more important topics…

In this Issue

This issue is another one that you should sit up and take note about. First, Brandon continues my Christianity and the Dance Scene series with a look at the history of and purpose of “Christian Raves.” Shana Gray also brings the first of a series on building a local scene. For many of us, this is an article we have been waiting a long time for. My main contribution to this issue is an article that hopefully will answer the questions of many aspiring dance producers: How do you put together a successful demo. I don’t want to steal all of the thunder out of this issue by telling you about everything inside, but what I’ve mentioned is just the tip of the iceberg. I hope you enjoy what you read. As always, feel free to discuss anything in the zine on the forums.

In Christ,
Dave R