1. While my English teachers failed at the task, theologian Fred Sanders has succeeded in explaining what exactly it is that poets do that makes them invaluable:
After all, one of the things we want poetry to do for us is to name an experience which hasn’t yet been named, or which has been laboring under a false name. We learn names easily enough for a certain range of experiences –chiefly the useful experiences that we want to be able to repeat on command– but for the rest of our lives we wander around encountering all sorts of phenomena which we can’t describe. When it’s time to name something so subtle it’s escaped our powers of description, we call in the poets…
Most of us have things we want to get done and people we want to communicate with, so we narrow our range of concerns, and agree to name and describe things within the acceptable range. Can’t quite put a word to that sense of nostalgia for a place you’ve never been? Not sure how to describe what’s wrong the world when your eyes are a bit unfocused after too much reading? A bit overwhelmed with the surge of emotion brought on by a song you don’t even like? Call in the poets: they’re especially skilled at naming the just barely nameable.
2. A prime example of this skill of "naming the just barely nameable" are the poems of former Poet Laureate Billy Collins. The website Billy Collins Action Poetry features Collins reading eleven of his poems, each set to short animated films by various artists. Check out The Country, Hunger, and--my personal favorite, Forgetfulness. (HT: Very Short List)
3. Commentful is a handy service that watches comments on blog posts you put into your "Watch List." You can add a Firefox extension that sits on the Firefox status-bar and notifies you of updates by becoming green, or you can have it added to your RSS reader. (HT: Lifehacker)
4. In First Things, Gerald J. Russello reviews the HBO series Rome:
What was perhaps the most pro-Christian show on television did not have a single Christian character in it—and there was no way it could have. Rome, the hit series that has just completed its second (and for now final) season on the cable channel HBO, turned out to be a surprising affirmation of the Western religious tradition. While it is packed with sex and violence, its message—intended or not—is that the Roman world was desperate for Christianity.
5. From Frederick Buechner's Listening to Your Life:
From the simplest lyric to the most complex novel and densest drama, literature is asking us to pay attention. Pay attention to the frog. Pay attention to the west wind. Pay attention to the boy on the raft, the lady in the tower, the old man on the train. In sum, pay attention to the world and all that dwells therein and thereby learn at last to pay attention to yourself and all that dwells therein.
…Literature, painting, music---the most basic lesson that all art teaches us is to stop, look, and listen to life on this planet, and to our own lives, as a vastly deeper, more mysterious business than most of the time it ever occurs to us to suspect as we bumble along from day to day on automatic pilot. In a world that for the most part steers clear of the whole idea of holiness, art is one of the few places where we can speak to each other of holy things.”
(HT: The Point)
6. Which "culture-things" from our era will live on? Michael Blowhard's list includes Pong, the Nike swoosh, and "America's Funniest Home Videos."
7. A young British man who says he didn't like "that part of my body” decided the best option was to become a eunuch:
What does it take for a healthy man to choose to have his testicles removed? Roger Davies is one of a surprising number who have found salvation in castration.
Like many sensitive teenagers, Roger Davies felt different from his peers. He wasn’t into sport and abhorred the aggression he saw in other boys. When, at the age of 22, he still hadn’t grown out of his sense of isolation, he took radical action: he travelled to America and underwent castration.
"I’m really happy with who I am now,” says the 25-year-old cleaner and caterer from Southport. “I don’t have any desire to be accepted as a woman or change genders. I just didn’t like my masculinity.”
Davies realizes that it will affect his prospects for marriage: "I guess it’s going to be a difficult one because you can’t wait until a couple of years into the marriage to tell someone, but you can’t really tell someone on the first meeting in case you put them off." Indeed, I suspect many women would be a bit put off by finding that their dates have had a bilateral orchidectomy. (HT: Fraters Libertas)
9. In the Big Bang, matter and antimatter were created in equal amounts. But somehow the antimatter disappeared resulting in the universe, and everything in it, including ourselves, being made of the remaining matter. Scientists from the Universities of Liverpool and Glasgow are working on an experiment to answers the question, "Where has all the antimatter gone?"
10. From Peter Leithart's essay Jane Austen, Detective:
PD James devotes a considerable amount of space to Austen in her autobiography, including biographical details about Austen and an appendix where she analyzes Emma as a "detective story." She notes that detective stories don't need to have murder, but only mystery: "facts which are hidden from the reader but which he or she should be able to discover by logical deduction from clues inserted in the novel with deceptive cunning but essential fairness. It is about evaluating evidence, whether of events or of character. It is concerned with bringing order out of disorder and restoring peace and tranquility to a world temporarily disrupted by the intrusion of alien influences."
(HT: Mere Comments)
11. Stephen Metcalf (aka The Dilettante) on self-professed goodness: "The Dilettante has long considered the sentence "I am a good person" to be a Godelian koan, like "This sentence is false." It automatically cancels itself out."
12. 23 Surprising Things You Can Get for Free.
13. The Ten-Minute House (from the Wikipedia entry on "McMansions"):
The movement of the "atrium concept" home layout from popularity to ubiquity in modern American architecture stems largely from the "Ten Minute House" theory that has been espoused by real estate developers, realtors, and home builders. Economic changes in recent decades have made Americans change jobs more frequently, often necessitating moving. Today, the average American family will change houses every six years. Consequently, houses change owners more frequently and thus must be designed to be marketable and appealing to as many people as possible, with less emphasis placed on the specific needs of the house's initial buyer. Most realtors agree that a client will like or dislike a house within ten minutes of entering. Combining a home's foyer with a two-storey 'great-room' leaves secondary rooms more visible, making it easier for agents to show the house — and hopefully win the client over — in ten minutes or less.
(HT: Gagetopia, which critiques the concept of "10 Minute Software")
14. Top 5 Foods to Prevent Bad Breath
15. Philosopher William F. Vallicella on playing the lottery: "Your chances of a significant win are next-to-nil. But suppose you win, and suppose you manage to not have your life destroyed by your 'good fortune.' The winnings are arguably ill-gotten gains. The money was extracted via false advertising from ignorant rubes and is being transferred via a chance mechanism to someone who has done nothing to deserve it."
16. Some university researchers want to scrap the infrastructure of the internet and start over (with the government footing the bill, of course). (HT: Blogotional)
17. Charles Adams on Abraham, Jesus, and Kierkegaard:
Abraham's dilemma could not have been very different than yours would be if God asked you to murder one of your children, except that this was Abraham's only child, a child of his old age, and a child representing God’s promise to make a great nation of Abraham's descendents. In your case you would likely doubt your own sanity, wonder what your spouse would think of you, and worry about how the authorities would deal with you after such an action. And, of course, those are piddling concerns compared to your anguished feelings about murdering someone you love dearly.
Kierkegaard wants us to realize that Abraham had those same doubts and fears - and then some! He wants us to realize that the certainty of faith - assuming the word "certainty" is even appropriate here - is far different than the certainty of reason. It is a denying of oneself, of one's capacity for seeing and understanding, and a thrusting of oneself, in complete dependence - and come what may - upon the faithfulness of God.
(HT: Prosthesis)
18. Alexander Pruss has an intriguing formulation of the Natural Law "misuse of organs" argument against homosexual activity:
(*) It is perverse to act with and through one's faculty F at t in a way that per se makes F be incapable of exercising at t any of its natural functions.
To conclude that homosexual activity is wrong one needs the subsidiary claims that homosexual activity renders at least one party incapable of exercising the natural functions of the sexual system as well as that perverse uses of one's own faculties are wrong (maybe because they are self-alienating?).
You'll have to read the entire post for a fuller explanation.
19. From Peter Gillquist's Why We Haven't Changed the World: "All the evangelism in the world from a church that is not herself holy and righteous will not be worth a hill of beans in world-changing power." (HT: The Point)
20. Jesus tomb film scholars backtrack: The statistician who claimed that the odds were 600:1 in favor of the tomb being the family burial cave of Jesus of Nazareth now says that these referred to the probability of a cluster of such names appearing together. (HT: World mag blog)
21. Holding eye contact, or "gaze," with hysterical citizens is one of the most effective methods police officers can use to calm them down, according to new research conducted by the University of New Hampshire that relies on footage of the FOX TV show "COPS."
22. Want to see what movie Will Ferrell will do next? Create your own plot with the Will Ferrell Movie Generator . (HT: Blogotional)
23. Macht from Prosthesis has compiled 7 Propositions on Rationality, including:
1) One can be wrong and still be rational. There are plenty of examples of why this is the case. For example, most people for hundreds and hundreds of years thought the sun revolved around the earth and they were quite rational in this belief.
2) One can be right and still be irrational. If I believe 2 X 2 = 4 because 1) I know that 2 + 2 = 4 and 2) I think that anytime a symbol is placed between two 2's, the result is 4, then my belief that 2 X 2 = 4 is both correct and irrational. The fact that I am right, in this case, has more to do with me being lucky than with me being rational.
24. 101 Essential Freelancing Resources
25. Carlos Slim Helu, a Mexican telecom magnate, has edged out Warren Buffett as the second-richest man in the world ($53.1 billion, compared with Buffett's $52.4 billion). Although he's pledged to donate up to $10 billion to his country's health and education programs over the next four years, he doesn’t think charity is enough. "Poverty isn’t solved with donations," he reportedly said, adding that building businesses often does more for society than "going around like Santa Claus." (HT: In the Agora)
26. The "axis of evil" of Iran, North Korea, and (Saddam-era) Iraq may be a threat to international security, but another "axis of evil" – a pattern apparently imprinted on the radiation left behind by the big bang – may be posing a threat to standard cosmology.
27. Rob Visher asks, "What Can We Learn From Monica Goodling?
28. Is Biology Reducible to the Laws of Physics? Philosopher of science John Dupré examines that question in a review of Alex Rosenberg's Darwinian Reductionism:
Alex Rosenberg is unusual among philosophers of biology in adhering to the view that everything occurs in accordance with universal laws, and that adequate explanations must appeal to the laws that brought about the thing explained. He also believes that everything is ultimately determined by what happens at the physical level—and that this entails that the mind is "nothing but" the brain. For an adherent of this brand of physicalism, it is fairly evident that if there are laws at "higher" levels—laws of biology, psychology or social science—they are either deductive consequences of the laws of physics or they are not true. Hence Rosenberg is committed to the classical reductionism that aims to explain phenomena at all levels by appeal to the physical.
I'm surprised to find that this concept is "unusual among philosophers of biology." I had suspected that such philosophers would be as smitten with physicalism as evolutionary biologists seem to be.
29. In the current Fox television adventure series, "24," a terrorist explodes a small nuclear bomb in Los Angeles. In the May 2007 issue of the journal Health Physics, Carnegie Mellon researchers Keith Florig and Baruch Fischhoff offer simple, practical advice that ordinary citizens can use when faced by such threats.
30. Liberal columnist Leonard Pitts has an intriguing op-ed titled, "I'll say it again: Dad's shouldn't be optional":
My objection to [Mary] Cheney and [Heather] Poe is precisely the same one I have to heterosexual single women who decide to conceive children without the benefit of a stable and involved father. I believe that our slide toward a fatherless society, a society where the male parent is considered optional, irrelevant or interchangeable, is toxic for our children.
That concern is buttressed by a growing body of research that tells us the child raised without his or her biological father is significantly more likely to live in poverty, do poorly in school, drop out altogether, become a teen parent, exhibit behavioral problems, smoke, drink, use drugs or wind up in jail.
So dad's involvement would seem vital to a child's well-being.
31. Does Jerry Falwell think I'm a heretic? (HT: Between Two Worlds)
32. Juries frequently side with patients in lawsuits involving medical malpractice, right? A legal professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia's School of Law insists that's not the case. According to Philip Peters, "The data show that defendants and their hired experts are more successful than plaintiffs and their hired experts at persuading juries to reach verdicts that are contrary to the evidence." He adds: "When the jury is in doubt after hearing the conflicting experts, the benefit of that doubt usually goes to the defendant. This is the opposite of the assumption made by critics of jury decision making."
33. "Those who will play with cats must expect to be scratched." -- Miguel de Cervantes (1547 – 1616)
http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/mt/mt-trackback.cgi/3536
1
#20. Start a contest: "What will be the Next Easter Heresy?"
#31. Well, Falwell is a Baptist.
#33. "Mom always told me not to play with my food." --Alf
posted on 04.16.2007 7:27 AM2
My objection to [Mary] Cheney and [Heather] Poe is precisely the same one I have to heterosexual single women who decide to conceive children without the benefit of a stable and involved father. I believe that our slide toward a fatherless society, a society where the male parent is considered optional, irrelevant or interchangeable, is toxic for our children.
Fair enough but there is not one example in all of human history of a woman deciding to have a child without a stable and involved father. The only exception to this might be Mary. Every other example could not have happened without the father deciding not to be involved.
posted on 04.16.2007 9:42 AM3
Boonton:
Is there a point somewhere in your comment that is pertinent to the discussion--ie. there ought to be mothers AND fathers? I really don't know what you're getting at.
posted on 04.16.2007 5:53 PM4
Regarding Falwell,
Joe, Heretic is such an awful word. It has a depth of meaning behind its meaning! (if you know what I mean). All it means is that there is an opinion that is different than other opinions about doctrine. Really, being a heretic should have very little meaning. It's not like its a disagreement about dogma! I have to admit that at first I was just a little delighted at the whole concept. "Yes, the tables are turned!" But I am sad that this was my response! Differences of opinion regarding doctrine should be better tolerated and the tables being turned is no more Christian in behavior then the too easily uttered heresy comments by others such as Piper! As much as I disagree with Piper regarding the recent awful "hearing God" article, his wrong opinion about women in leadership, and the fact that he doesn't marry divorced people, etc., I have no desire for him to be called a heretic.
Therefore, since you believe there is limited atonement (?why?), and the opinion of limited atonement is about doctrine and not dogma, you only need to worry about being wrong! It's not like your damned or anything.
posted on 04.17.2007 9:33 AMAin't nothing to worry about.
5
The cat chasing the bear says all you ever need to know about cats.
And Boonton, seriously dude, have you never heard of artificial insemination? I mean, women can get pregnant without ever having to meet the father, much less worry about his stability or involvement.
posted on 04.17.2007 9:41 AM6
Nice blog and interesting post.
posted on 04.25.2007 7:48 AM