My Top 5 Websites

note: these are in no particular order

1. The first wesbite I'd like to express my love for is invisiblechildren.com.  This website is the online home of the non-profit Invisible Children that uses media, particularly the art form of expertly crafted and highly artistic documentaries, to raise awareness about the atrocities commited by the rebel leader Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistence Army across East and now Central Africa.

For those who love and follow the work of Invisible Children, the website is a great place to keep up with what they are up to. The short update videos could never be described as even remotely dull. Each one, being about 2 minutes long, is a beautiful narrative in and of itself about the work being done in the office and on the ground. One can easily tell from the videos that their staff puts time and effort into making sure that each one informative yet visualy and audibly beautiful and insanely creative.

Besides being a great resource for the history of the conflict and the organization's current operations and projects, the website also has an excellent blog that features world news updates, fascinating book reviews, a look into the underground music scene, and beautiful pictures.This part of the website features pieces that are sometimes relevant to the mission of Invisible Children and Africa in general, but sometimes not. It is just a great place to discover new things and stay in the loop.

In all, I love this website because of its ability to inform and inspirre through breathtaking spunk and creativity.

2.  My next favorite website is relevantmagazine.com . This website is essentially the online version of the magazine and offers a lot of the same articles that would be featured in the print version, plus a lot of bonus articles and reviews, as well as videos that can only be found online.

The tag line of the magazine is "God.Life.Progressive Culture." This sums it all up.

The God section of the website is not exactly what one would expect. It is not simply a place full of links to articles re-writting and explaining the same old Bible verses. No, this section offers fascinating articles that address many issues that are not usually talked about in the life of young Christians.

For example, one such article entitiled "Even Jesus Wept" explores the question of the place of grief in theology. Is God emotionally affected by our everyday behaviors and the general tragedies of our world?:

"But what happens when you see God as immutable—as unchangeable? What happens when you see God as impassible—as emotionless?
So many Christian traditions believe God is utterly unable to change and unaffected by emotion, unprovoked by the behavior of the world He so loves. Should it be a surprise that so many of us become unmoved and emotionally repressed? That we temper our joys and bury our sorrows?"

Another thought provoking article in this section is about the battle between faith and reason that is played out in the minds of many in our society.

The Life section of the website offers poignant articles about general subjects such as the nature of relationships, as well as beautiful pieces on our changing world such as articles about the pros and cons of the Occupy Movement and a review of the effects of 9/11, 10 years after the tragedy.

 "Sept. 11, 2001, was a startling reminder of just how suddenly and completely our lives can change—how easy it is on a Tuesday morning, under a brilliantly blue summer sky, for a small group of strangers to alter the course of our stories—and how quickly we can veer from action to reaction, and from unbridled optimism to something else."

Lastly, the Culture section of the website offers current reviews of the latest music, books and movies.

They review both underground and mainstream work, such as the Icelandic band Sigur Ros's new album entitled "Inni" and a Q&A with the cast the recent hit "The Muppets" (which is an excellent movie by the way).

3. www.cnn.com is another one of my favorite websites. I know that news sites can be tricky, because everyone has their own definition of what is biased and what is not. In my opinion, all news sites are biased in some way. However, one must stay informed some how.

 I like CNN's site because it, to me, has a diversity of articles in terms of issued covered.

This is especially true when one looks at their world news section, which has a balance between political and social issues. I also like how one can scroll down and see the news divided up by world region, so that if one desires, they can concentrate on a specific part of the world.

I also really enjoy the sections of the website that are dedicated to CNN's mission of fighting modern day slavery. In a section called "The CNN Freedom Project" that features in depth articles, as well as videos to accompany them, about the many facets of modern day slavery, including sex slavery and the use of child slave labor to produce chocolate in many parts of the world.

Lastly, I find the site's "Belief Blog" very enlightening. It features a wide array of articles and opinion pieces a like, such as pieces about religious freedom and the Supreme Court and the effects of 9/11 on American religiosity.

In all, I think the diversity of CNN's website makes it a real stand-out.

4. www.pandora.com is an amazing musical resource. Getting a free account with pandora opens the door to discovering so much music that is seldom played on your usual top 40 radio. Though one can create stations according to one's own taste, the algorithms used make it so that one is sure to stumble upon old and new gems that one has not heard before.

It can also be a great place to listen to throw-back songs that take you back to the good old days. I am currently experiencing that with my new N*Sync station.

5. Last but certainly not least is www.ultimateguitar.com. This is a great resource for guitar players who have not yet perfected the art of reading and interpreting traditional sheet music and applying it to guitar just yet (aka where I am with guitar).

It is essentially a search engine where one can type in the name of a song and a list of items appears that has the title of the song various artists who have such a song.

When you see the one you want, it links you to the lyrics and the guitar chords needed to play the song.

Granted, one must figure out the strumming and/or picking pattern on his or her own, but getting one's hands on the chords needed is a huge help.

I recommend this song to all guitar players!