Blogs, Socials, Religion

Rats! In two different senses of the word.

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Cartoonist Doug TenNapel, whose work I’ve always enjoyed, has a new web comic called “Ratfist” going here. It just started in January, so if you start now, you won’t have a huge backlog to catch up on.

James M. Kushiner, at the Mere Comments blog where I can also be seen to post occasionally, discusses a furor over the new C. S. Lewis Bible, to be published by HarperCollins. They chose to use the New Revised Standard Version Bible, the famous “emasculated Bible” where all the icky male imagery has been fig-leafed over.

Do you see a problem with this?

Not to mention the questionable taste of having a C. S. Lewis Bible in the first place. From the petition sent to the publisher:

We the undersigned wish to express our disapproval of HarperOne’s choice of the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) for their edition of The C. S. Lewis Bible. Though we commend Harper for publishing a Bible that includes thoughts and meditations from C. S. Lewis, we disagree with their choice to key Lewis’s writings to the text of an intentionally gender-neutral translation of the scriptures that Lewis himself would have opposed. By doing so, Harper tacitly suggests that Lewis would have approved of the NRSV and the agenda that underlies its gender-neutral translation. Yet, the majority consensus among C.S. Lewis scholars is that Lewis was firmly against gender-neutral usage and the egalitarianism on which it is based.

Reviews

DVD Review: The Adventures of Robin Hood

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So I wrote a while back about buying the DVD set of the old English Sir Lancelot TV series, starring William Russell. All in all it was fairly disappointing, compared to my childhood memories. The production values were low, and the plots rather silly.
I expected little better when I bought the complete The Adventures of Robin Hood from the same period (at under 20 bucks a great deal, as it ran 143 episodes). I’m happy to report that I was pleasantly surprised. The Adventures of Robin Hood holds up considerably better than Sir Lancelot, or so it appears as I complete my viewing of the first season.
My main worry was ideological. As is well known, the producers of Robin Hood hired a number of American communists, blacklisted in Hollywood, to write for the series. My occasional viewing of random episodes over the years gave me the idea that party line came out in a number of story elements.
But (at least in the first season) I actually saw little of that. In fact, much is made of the injustice of the Norman’s stealing the property of Saxons (Robin in particular). At one point, somebody even goes so far as to say that unjust taxes are theft. Also, the Church is treated with considerable respect (doubtless in deference to English broadcasting standards of the day). Continue reading DVD Review: The Adventures of Robin Hood →

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My further adventures

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It was a weekend to remember, the second in a row for me. A weekend whose chief feature was that what I expected was almost never what actually happened.

The plan was to visit my brother in Iowa, because my niece and nephew-in-law, missionaries in China, are home on a short leave. The original plan was for me to ride down with another family member who was coming from further north.

But he had car trouble, and had to cancel. So I loaded up Mrs. Hermanson and turned her nose south.

In northern Iowa, near Mason City, she lost power (though the engine continued running). I pulled her over to the shoulder, and phoned AAA. Continue reading My further adventures →

Blogs, Socials

Strange goings on

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Herring monger

I know only heartache can come from this. I get my hopes up, tremblingly extend my trust, develop confidence over time, and then… it’s gone again. Where I looked for a light respite from the trials and stresses of modern life, there is only the brute word, “Hiatus,” evocative of hernias.

Yet hope persists. And so I share the link with you — Anthony Sacramone’s brilliant Strange Herring blog is back.

For now.

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While I Was At the Conference

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I don’t usually tell you what I do offline. I’m sure enough connections have been made for an investigator to find me, so maybe I’m just kidding myself about how much distance really have between here and, well, where I am. But I want to point out some articles I’ve written this week on the men’s conference I have been working.

CBMC held a great men’s conference in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, last week with several solid speakers and a moving prayer and communion meeting on the snowy battlefield. Read the overview here. There are other short articles and videos, which you can reach from the Good News front page.

Reading, Writing

Champion's Books For Writers

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Ed Champion is a remarkable reader, critic, etc. (feel free to add to the list of how remarkable he is), and in this interview he recommends books for writers.

Ultimately, a novelist’s job — irrespective of whether she is writing speculative fiction or hard realism — is to understand how human behavior emerges from systematic consequence. If you can generate an atmosphere based on systematic consequence, then your novel will likely feel “real” even if it is set in a land populated by dancing elves or talking fruit.

For plot structure, “read Richard Stark.” For great openers, Burgess, Cain, and Murray have good examples.