SQJ Taipei

Best news of the day SO FAR!

BURGER KING(R) Brand Positioned for Growth in Taiwan

And more from the Taipei Times

Ever since we lost the one in Yonghe several years ago… I figured Burger King would just fade away here in Taiwan. In the past month, I’ve seen 2 new ones… and now this news…

I might have to go celebrate by having some flame broiled goodness today after I renew some ARCs, pay some bills, get the oil changed and the van inspected… or maybe I’ll celebrate BEFORE I do those things…

I wish I could do as good a job with restaurant reviews as the hungry girl who blogs at A Hungry Girl’s Guide to Taipei… but I already know I’ll fall far short. For example, I have no pictures and just don’t have the knack for writing about food/restaurants like she does. In my defense, I didn’t think about writing a review for the blog until I was already out the door. I probably would have more careful observations had I been planning on a review during my entire visit.

A few weeks ago Angie found this place in a Yonghe alley and told me about it when she got home.

Actually…upon looking at the address on the namecard, it is Zhonghe… actually it is in an alley that is right on the border of Zhonghe and Yonghe.

Here’s the address:

Zhonghe City, Zhonghe Road, Alley 378, #2-1
中和市中和路378巷2-1號
02-2929-0102

It is EASY to get here:

1. Take the MRT to the Yong An Market station.
2. Exit the station (only one exit at this station) and turn left.
3. Take the first left.
4. Walk about 30 meters and the restaurant is on the right.

View Larger Map

Now for the food…

Angie has ordered and enjoyed the smoked chicken calzone, but she didn’t save me any so we’ll have to take her word for it.

Tonight I got a 9 inch pizza… double sausage.

On the Chinese menu it is 雙味香腸 which means there are 2 different kinds of sausage. So… yeah… it is “double” but not in the sense that there is double the amount of sausage.

As soon as I was seated, they handed me an English menu. I don’t really like to use the English menus at most places because there are usually lots of translation problems… however this one looked fairly well done and my server’s English was quite good. So if you don’t read and/or speak Chinese… you’ll still be OK at this restaurant.

My pizza was great. I was impressed. The crust was thin and crispy… the sausage properly tangy… the olives and mushrooms were fine… the cheese was good. In all, it was probably the best pizza I’ve had in Taipei besides Alleycat’s and what we make at home. I haven’t been to many other places though… so I’m not really a pizza authority here. I prefer almost anything to Domino’s or Pizza Hut. Hungry Girl has reviewed several pizza places here.

My pizza cost NT$180 and came with black tea. For an additional NT$100 you could add soup/salad/bread/desert.

I did add on and the corn soup was good… I thought the Caesar’s salad was great… the bread was excellent (and homemade!)… the desert was a small pudding cup (also homemade) and it was good too.

As for the portion size… and value for the price… I’m not sure what to tell you. I felt like the quality of the food was VERY much worth the price. But it isn’t fair for me to knock them for the fact that I’m still a little hungry. I could have eaten the very same meal again… but I eat more than anyone I know. I’m sure that the quantity of food is adequate for most people and the price is fair on quality alone.

Staff was friendly… background music was nice… I thought the lighting was too dim (tough to read while I was eating).

If you don’t know what POSK is… here’s the first one

From: The World’s Last Night, CS Lewis, pp 89-91

---

Life on Other Planets

I…fear the practical, not the theoretical, problems which will arise if ever we meet rational creatures which are not human. Against them we shall, if we can, commit all the crimes we have already committed against creatures certainly human but differing from us in features and pigmentation; and the starry heavens will become an object to which good men can look up only with feelings of intolerable guilt, agonized pity, and burning shame.

Of course, after the first debauch of exploitation we shall make some belated attempt to do better. We shall perhaps send missionaries. But can even missionaries be trusted? "Gun and gospel" have been horribly combined in the past. The missionary’s holy desire to save souls has not always been kept quite distinct from the arrogant desire, the busybody’s itch, to (as he calls it) "civilize" the (as he calls them) "natives." Would all our missionaries recognize a fallen race if they met it? Could they? Would they continue to press upon creatures that did not need to be saved that plan of Salvation which God has appointed for Man? Would they denounce as sins mere differences of behavior which the spiritual and biological history of these strange creatures fully justified and which God Himself had blessed? Would they try to teach those from whom they had better learn? I do not know.

What I do know is that here and now, as our only possible practical preparation for such a meeting, you and I should resolve to stand firm against all exploitation and all theological imperialism. It will not be fun. We shall be called traitors to our own species. We shall be hated of almost all men; even of some religious men. And we must not give back one single inch. We shall probably fail, but let us go down fighting for the right side. Our loyalty is due not to our species but to God. Those who are, or can become, His sons, are our real brothers even if they have shells or tusks. It is spiritual, not biological, kinship that counts.

I hate to use 2 CS Lewis quotes in a row… but I didn’t realize it had been so long since my last quote of the POSK and this is just how it worked out.

I love it… totally love it. It is such a shame that we can’t have anything new from Lewis today.

I, too, have found it difficult to stand firm against all exploitation and all theological imperialism. It most certainly is not fun. Sometimes it seems like failure… and only my hope keeps me from calling it an outright failure… but fighting for justice is most definitely the right side.

Press on my friends. Be His hands… be His feet. It is never in vain.

A friend asked me this this question today…

Actually she asked “Do you believe that Mary had other children?”

I wrote the following reply…

————snip from email————–

Short answer… yes.

Actually I never gave it much thought because of this passage in Matthew 13:

54 Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. "Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?" they asked. 55 "Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? 56 Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?" 57 And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, "Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor." 58 And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

and this passage from Galatians 1:

18 Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days. 19 I saw none of the other apostles–only James, the Lord’s brother.

Seems pretty clear to me… and I think it is reasonable to believe that he was a leader of the early Jerusalem church and most likely wrote the book of James.

However… when you asked me I remembered that you mentioned before about being Roman Catholic. And… I’m not that up on the particulars of Roman Catholic doctrine, but I figured that Mary having other kids might be a problem due to her supposed perpetual virginity.

So… I looked around a bit and probably didn’t find anything that you haven’t already seen, but I did like how this guy put it.

He admits that there are some translation issues and historical issues that we might quibble over when addressing the question of if Jesus had brothers and sisters or not… but comes to the same conclusion as I do… that Mary and Joseph probably had a pile of kids just like all the other 1st century Jewish families did.

————snip from email————–

My friend wrote back with a bit of discussion… a few insults regarding my seeming inability to read long articles in one sitting (lol)… and with this link…

After reading that one… I found this one…

In the end… I just don’t see how this matters?

What am I missing?

I’m hoping that those from the area around Rome itself might jump in with a comment or two…

I know Catholics believe that Mary was sinless… but why would having other kids be a sin in any way?

Just to be clear… I’m not arguing one way or the other… I’m declaring my ignorance and apathy about this subject. I can’t see how this “doctrine” matters one way or the other to anybody… but it must be very important to be so controversial?

Any thoughts? Does this matter to you? Should it matter to me?

RealLivePreacher recently posted Why political debates aren’t very helpful

From that post…

So the debate becomes just another format for candidates to deliver campaign speeches. True, the speeches are more off-the-cuff, so you can see how they react under pressure. But that’s what we are hearing. Sound bites and campaign speeches. We hear what the campaigns want us to think about the issues. This is one step removed from reality.

Now if that was all that was happening with modern debates, it wouldn’t be so bad. After all, politicians have been giving campaign speeches for as long as anyone can remember.

Unfortunately, there is a second step that takes us even further away from reality. Right after the event itself, television pundits step in to analyze the debate. The debate itself was an event in time, but the minute it is over it no longer exists except in the fading memories and impressions of the few people who were actually listening closely.

So true… so true.

I was able to watch/listen to the 2nd presidential debate this morning while sitting at the computer… and I just kept thinking how useless it was.

Most people will hear what they want to hear from their own preferred candidate and then everyone will just hear and watch the soundbites that the various media outlets have chosen for ratings purposes only.

I watched the HBO miniseries John Adams this past summer (or whenever it was on… can’t remember for sure). It was excellent in *many* ways and I recommend it. One scene that really caught my attention was when John Adams received a letter delivered by a man on horseback that informed him that he had been elected president. I wasn’t just thinking nostalgic about the early days of the republic and the simpler life and slower pace, etc. What I enjoyed thinking about was that the “candidates” didn’t campaign for months (or years) before the election. Yes, I know the election was not by popular vote so there was less need to campaign on a larger scale. But I just loved thinking about how it went down in those days and got me thinking about election reform here in the present day. I have a few ideas - which are not what this post is really about and I’m not sure I’m ready to share them anyway because I’m sure I don’t understand their implications fully at this point.

When choosing the candidate you’ll cast your vote for, RLP suggests the following…

First, choose the issues that are most important to you…

After you select one or two or maybe three top issues, take the time to research and read what the candidates say they are going to do. Since you’re only dealing with a few issues, surely you can do that. And you won’t be listening to what the candidates say about their opponent. You’ll put forth your best effort to find out the truth about what they plan to do.

Then make your choice.

THIS IS IMPORTANT: Due diligence is all that is required of you. If you have a Ph.D. in economics, for example, you should bring all of your knowledge to play in your decision. If you never graduated from high school and have a hard time reading, bring the best you have to this as well.

I like this… especially the last part. Do your own due diligence. There are people EVERYWHERE out there… TV, radio, internet (including this blog! lol)… who are trying to tell all of us WHAT to think. We have the power to think for ourselves and to make up our own minds.

If you haven’t wrestled over how you are going to handle this coming election, I submit that you are outsourcing your responsibility to others who may or may not have your family, personal, and/or national interests in mind.

RLP shared his top 2 issues… war and health care.

Here are my top 3 at the moment… war, energy, understanding of the US Constitution (the limits of the federal government and the rights of the citizens).

So the NU v. Mizzou game went just about as I called it. I’d look even more psychic if I’d have stuck with my original pick of 50-17.

You win some… you lose some… and some you lose… you lose badly. Unfortunately, this week NU travels to Lubbock where things may get ugly again. Possibly even worse than last week. But I still have hope.

I don’t think I’ll ever tire of supporting Nebraska football, even if they never get back to playing like that amazing run from the late 1960’s through the 1990’s.

Here’s a well done recent interview with Eric Crouch.

David Max runs the Huskerpedia website and he gets Crouch to relax and I think it is fun to hear Eric talking about his life and his time at Nebraska. I especially enjoyed his account of the Black 41 Flash Reverse Pass. Husker fans are insane… I mean? A Wikipedia article for that play? Awesome.

Some of you know that my degree is in accounting. I probably wouldn’t choose that one again if I could go back (I’d choose physics, most likely), but I did enjoy studying business, finance and economics. I found such study valuable in much of my work after college and before coming to Taiwan.

I’m not claiming to be an expert, but I’m fascinated with all of the discussion surrounding the recent economic troubles.

I enjoy the challenge of wading through the political spin and getting to the root issues. Turns out that *political spin* actually *is* one of the root issues… but that’s the world we live in these days.

When looking at any issue, I like to get all the information I can from all the sources I can find. Over time I’ve come to trust some sources over others, but I’m always interested in a broad spectrum of perspectives. This may take more time and effort, but in the end, this approach helps ensure that we don’t look for “facts” that fit our biases and throw out the rest.

Here’s a few non-partisan links that I’ve found helpful (so far)…

First, a simple Google search for Community Reinvestment Act will bring up some good links about the single greatest cause of the current crisis. I think each person’s quest for answers should start here.

And now the rest in random order of importance.

I’m sure that you’ve heard that one of the causes is “deregulation”. Actually, the opposite is true. Although I don’t agree with much of the piece, Sebastian Mallaby is 100% correct in his conclusion that deregulation is not the cause and regulation is not the answer. The next president will be under HUGE pressure to enact MORE regulation and since both candidates lean that way already… it seems that the American people will continue to feel the pain.

So blaming deregulation for the financial mess is misguided. But it is dangerous, too, because one of the big challenges for the next president will be to defend markets against the inevitable backlash that follows this crisis.

Russell Roberts’ piece in the Wall Street Journal, How Government Stoked the Mania, is a clear and fair analysis of multiple ways that the legislative and executive branches of the federal government created this current mess. It’s hard to find a small part to quote because it is all so important… I’ll go with the article’s own intro…

Many believe that wild greed and market failure led us into this sorry mess. According to that narrative, investors in search of higher yields bought novel securities that bundled loans made to high-risk borrowers. Banks issued these loans because they could sell them to hungry investors. It was a giant Ponzi scheme that only worked as long as housing prices were on the rise. But housing prices were the result of a speculative mania. Once the bubble burst, too many borrowers had negative equity, and the system collapsed.

Part of this story is true. The fall in housing prices did lead to a sudden increase in defaults that reduced the value of mortgage-backed securities. What’s missing is the role politicians and policy makers played in creating artificially high housing prices, and artificially reducing the danger of extremely risky assets.

The Money Meltdown is a blog/website with a simple format and some excellent links… be sure to check it out.

Andrew Hill sums it up nicely…

If you owe the bank $10, it’s your problem. If you owe the bank $10m, it’s the bank’s problem.

If you and a million others owe the bank $10 each, it’s still your problem – but it’s also the bank’s problem.

If the bank then sells to an investor the $10 you owe, it ought to be the investor’s problem.

But if you have a problem repaying the $10 – and so do a million others – it’s both the investor’s problem and the bank’s problem.

Your problems and the investor’s problems mean the bank now owes another bank $10bn. That is both banks’ problem. But if neither bank will pay the $10bn it owes the other, it can quickly turn into a $700bn systemic problem.

And if the government then owes the banking system $700bn, it’s your problem.

Where Do We Go From Here? How About Back To The Basics is a simple (some would say obvious) list of ways the “average person” can keep above water now and in the future, come what may.

1. Live within your means starting TODAY.
2. Budget your income starting TODAY.
3. Formulate a plan to get out of debt TODAY.
4. Seek ways to diversify your income TODAY.
5. Save something out of every paycheck TODAY.

The Christian Science Monitor has a Global Credit Crisis Blog with some good posts if you wish to follow it more closely.

I hope these links are helpful. I think they will be, but I encourage you to do your own research, come to your own conclusions, and make a good plan for the future.

Home service (or furlough) is a regular part of most missionaries’ lives.

For us, it comes about every 2-3 years and consists of us visiting various people and churches in the USA. Our next home service is scheduled for November 2008 to March 2008.

It seems like this experience used to be called furlough and that most mission organizations use a different term, like home service or home assignment. It is a welcome change because the word furlough indicates a “leave of absence or vacation” and for most missionaries, their time away from the field and in their home/sending country is anything but a vacation.

That isn’t to say that we don’t like home service or that there aren’t parts of it that are spent like a vacation… but I’d guess that most missionary families are like ours in that they actually try to take a vacation when they return to their country of service after home service.

In the August 2008 issue of Horizons, my friend (and missionary to Italy) Matt Crosser wrote an article about home service titled “An Old Country Perspective”.

Here’s a direct link to the August 2008 issue in PDF format (2.4MB)

Here’s part of Matt’s answer to the question, “How have your goals and expectations for the future changed
as you are now an experienced expatriate?”

Well, we have defnitely seen how important it is to keep taking regular days off.  Once we were introduced at a church as “Matt and Angie Crosser, who are on vacation here in the states and will tell us about the work they do in Italy.”  I think there is a major misnomer about furloughs for the average church goer. When we are in the states, we work at least as much as when we are on the field, it’s just now we get to be nearer to family, friends, and a comfortable culture.  We didn’t have family members who were missionaries or ministers before us, so our learning curve for insider language was vast.  It was on our second home assignment (furlough) that a close relative of ours finally realized himself that we weren’t on vacation while we were in the states.  He just didn’t know.  It was outside his personal experience.

Lots more in Matt’s article. Good job Matt!

yeah… I know that Mizzou is gonna win this one… probably about 43-17 or so…

but I still picked NU to win 33-31 over at Huskerpedia (because 32-31 was already taken)

Here’s the deal… Mizzou has always been the sleeping giant of midwest football (along with Illinois) and it seems like they’ve finally put fences up around the border to keep other schools from recruiting their top players. You’ve gotta give credit for that. Now that Mizzou is regularly getting *all* the top talent from KC and St. Louis they have a chance to compete every year.

Reasons Mizzou will win:

• They have better talent at almost all positions.
• Chase Daniel is a fantastic QB and his receivers hang on to the ball. He’s one of those players that has gotten to a point where everything in the game comes so naturally and is so routine that you get the idea that he could be planning out his NFL fantasy football strategy while he drops back and avoids the pass rush.
• Mizzou’s improved running game (from last year) will help the offense in multiple ways.
• Big plays… again and again.

Reasons Husker fans should have some hope:

• For the most part, Nebraska has always competed on a national level with less talent than the other schools. The players’ passion, attitude, and teachableness (teachability?) puts them on equal footing. Bo Pelini and staff have brought these traits back to Husker football.
• Depth is a problem, but NU’s D line can get pressure on Daniel and they need to hit him every play.
• Mizzou’s D is not very good. They have playmakers, though.
• If the game stays close, I think that Pinkel will give NU three to ten points somehow.
• Nate Swift and Todd Peterson are excellent receivers and can make big plays.

It is easy to see why Mizzou is the clear favorite but I think Nebraska has a shot. I know Mizzou is *way* better than Virginia Tech, but there were about 3 plays that made the game v. VaTech an “L” instead of a “W”, despite subpar play. To play so poorly against a good team like VaTech and still have a chance to win in the final minute says something about this year’s Huskers.

I think that this is the first time since I’ve been in Taiwan (since 1999) that I won’t be able to follow at least part of a Nebraska game online. Due to the late game start time and our church taking a trip to visit a church in another city tomorrow (which means leaving early) I probably won’t know anything of the game until I get home and the game is long over.

GO BIG RED!