This year’s CYBIL Awards, the Children’s and Young Adult Blogger’s Literary Awards, will start taking nominations for books published primarily this year on October 1. Learn more about the award and how to nominate your favorite book on their website.
100 20th Century Poets with Rebutal
Edward Bryne, a poet, blogger and professor, posted a list of 100 recommended books of American 20th Century poetry. He invited his readers to comment and add to the list, and he got a good bit of feedback. (via Books, Inq. for both links) Bryne notes:
At first I was hesitant about sharing this list, thinking along the line that Robin Kemp stated in her comment, “Boy, you’re really asking for it, aren’t you?!” Nevertheless, I believe readers’ replies exhibited something expressed in John Guzlowski’s comment: “I think that what this list and the comments adding more names to the list suggest is that poetry isn’t dead. It’s alive as you or I.” On the other hand, Daniel E. Pritchard at The Wooden Spoon offered a contrary view as he observed: “I’m struck by how sparse the century was in terms of really obviously great poetry. This list probably could have been 50 titles and some of them still would’ve been in dispute.”
“There was nothing but land: not a country at all”
More on Self-evident Truths
On Big Hollywood, Jeremy D. Boreing writes about America’s founders.
Of the four claims about God and Americans outlined in the Declaration, it was the idea that man was made by God to be free that was the most radical, and which was so pivotal. The British press mocked it openly. It is, however, at the very heart of the founding ideology. If it is God who made men free, then Liberty is not a pragmatic imperative; it is a moral one. Governments that encroach on that liberty are not only violating the preferences of the governed, they are violating the very intention of God for government. For the Founders, this idea would fundamentally redefine the relationship between government and citizen. Man does not exist to be governed; governments exist to protect man’s freedom. Man does not owe government anything, other than what is necessary to aid that government in securing his basic rights. Likewise, government does not owe man anything other than protection from those who would intrude upon his freedom, be it his fellow citizen, foreign enemies, or the government itself.
We Hold These Truths to be Self-evident
Jacques Barzun: “Political correctness does not legislate tolerance; it only organizes hatred.” (by way of Books, Inq.)
Educated Outside the System
Thomas Jodziewicz writes about Frederick Douglas’ education into freedom. “Our popular culture promotes the injurious fiction,” he says, “that the world is all about me, myself, and my ephemeral needs, a temptation that American culture has confronted for a long time. But a true liberal arts education can provide an escape from such alienation and loneliness—and boredom. A true liberal education is a way to discover that you are not alone.”
Friday blather
I had an e-mail at work from Dr. John Eidsmoe yesterday. He was looking for the documentary source of a quotation from Luther that most of us have read more than once (I first saw it in Francis Schaeffer’s work):
“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the Word of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Him. Where the battle rages there the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battle front besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”
John couldn’t find it, and he thought maybe I could help (not as hopeful a thought as he imagined). Still, I attacked our complete edition of Luther and its index, and found precisely nothing.
So I went online, and finally found this interesting discussion.
There’s a lot of back-and-forth in comments, but the upshot seems to be that the quotation doesn’t actually come from Luther (though he said something different on the same lines), but from a 19th Century novel called Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family, by Elizabeth Rundle Charles. Continue reading Friday blather
Life by Hemingway
I don’t know much about Ernest Hemingway, despite my desire to read his work. The fact that he killed himself in a type of defiance of God colors everything I read about him. But Brett has taken up Hemingway’s ideas and made several motivational poster images in his most recent post, and they’re worth browsing. I love the top photo.
In the Secret
Sherry writes about secret places in stories. I enjoy these places too. I’ve always loved the idea of a secret room in a large house. Of course, I’d want to go into it often–the kids would too–so the secret or secluded part of being in the room would wear out soon. But true stories like this one of a man finding a hidden room while renovating a 120-year-old house are so cool–unless you balance them with stories about hidden rooms with notes (“I owned this house for a short while, and it was discovered to have a serious mold problem.”).
What is this strange, unaccustomed feeling?
Yesterday I had all sorts of stuff to blog about. Today I’m pretty dry.
The only unusual thing about my life right now (aside from its usual unusualness) is that I feel pretty good.
Years back, I used to jog. I was never a hard core runner, though there was a time when I might have become one. I’d gotten my running up to four miles at a time, and was enjoying it. Then I blew out my knee (due to my own stupidity), which limited me to two miles a day ever after. And eventually I couldn’t even do that anymore.
After a long hiatus (and gaining back a lot of weight I’d kept at bay for fifteen years), I took up walking a few years back, taking half hour walks instead of twenty minute runs. It was better than nothing, but there was very little pleasure in it, and sloughing off was easy. I didn’t know why.
But lately, out of desperation to improve my condition, I started lifting some very light weights (which I bought back when I was running) while doing the walks.
And lo, I discovered what I’d been missing all these years. I was missing pushing it. I was missing actually having a workout that took effort. Now the burn is back, and I feel better than I have in years.
Sorry to break out of the Lars Walker character you know and have come to expect. I’m sure I’ll be griping about something again soon.