Today I was given access to some more excellent photos of Sunday, taken by an entirely different friend, Emily Chesley. Emily is a painter (the fine arts kind), and the daughter of two old college friends.
First, a picture of me signing a copy of West Oversea. (You know I’ve got a book out, don’t you? You can order it here.)
Continue reading More mayhem
The Chuck Norris Bible (courtesy of Sacred Sandwich).
Saturday was a day for some housecleaning, a little yard work, and shopping, as Robbinsdale was celebrating Whiz Bang Days. There were multiple opportunities to pick up cheap DVDs (I like to embrace technology about the time it’s going obsolete; that’s when you get the sweet bargains!).
Sunday was Norway Day at Minnehaha Park (as previously advertised in this space), and it was a day worth waiting for. The temperature was moderate, and early clouds gave way to partly cloudy skies. The weather was dry, as has been our Viking Age Club schedule this summer. Some events have canceled altogether, and other usual venues have merely neglected to invite us this year. If it keeps on like this, we may be forced to raid a monastery.
I saw some friends and acquaintances, who stopped by. Some people who thought they might show up didn’t, but on the other hand some I didn’t expect did show up. One of them, Renae Allard, took some pictures of Ragnar’s and my second combat show, and I got her permission to share some of the best with you.
I like this picture very much. It’s like a screen capture from some good Viking movie (a phenomenon which does not actually exist in our universe). Continue reading Mayhem in the sunshine
Tariq Ali is writing non-fiction again because recent history is so fascinating to him. “We are in a world which is very obsessed with individuals, celebrity culture,” Ali told Reuters. “The mistake is to think of the President of the United States as a celebrity.”
That’s a good observation, but note the incredible statement about presidents and Caesars which follows it. It’s ridiculous statements like Bush is similar to Caligula that make many of us disbelieve many modern opinion writers.
Loren points out a short short story contest he entered which asks writers to run with ideas from a photo of a wine glass. I would call Loren’s submission chilling, but somehow that word does not fit. . . .
Notice of personal appearance: I’ll be at the Norway Day celebration in Minnehaha Park, Minneapolis, with the Vikings on Sunday, from about 11:00 to 4:00 or so. They say the weather will be nice.
I appreciated Gone for Good so much that I immediately launched into reading Tell No One, which Harlan Coben wrote just before it. I suppose it was inevitable that I’d be a little let down. There’s nothing at all wrong with Tell No One. It’s a gripping, fast-paced thriller with engaging characters and plenty of surprises. But for some reason (perhaps just a subjective identification with one main character over another), I didn’t like it quite as much.
There are actually a lot of similarities in the set-ups of both stories. Gone for Good’s hero was a gentle do-gooder, a volunteer who works with the homeless, whose girlfriend disappears and who soon comes under the suspicion of federal investigators. In Tell No One, the hero is Dr. David Beck, a young physician who has voluntarily chosen to work with charity cases in Manhattan. Three years ago, he was gravely injured when his wife, Elizabeth, was abducted and murdered by a serial killer. But now he starts getting e-mail messages that seem to be coming from Elizabeth herself. Meanwhile, the FBI has suddenly decided that he must have murdered Elizabeth, and they’ve got a warrant for his arrest. But David has an appointment to meet with Elizabeth—or whoever’s pretending to be her—this afternoon, and there’s no way he’s going to be sitting in a cell when that happens. So he runs.
Very good story. I’ve got no complaints. The language is not bad for the genre; the violence (some of it quite horrifying) is mostly off camera. There is a lesbian couple with a child who are highly sympathetic characters, so you might (or might not) want to be warned of that.
I liked it, and I’ve got no legitimate complaint.
Was P.D. James on to something? There’s a shortage of British sperm and egg donations.
Update 2016: Now a fertility clinic is importing sperm and eggs from Ukraine to make up for what they lack in the UK.
July 10, 2009, is the 500th celebration of the birth of John Calvin (also the second annual Hug a Calvinist Day). Calvin gave the people of God an understand of Scripture they could not get from their church leaders and tore down the idea that life was divided between sacred and secular living. Many of his day held the belief that vulgar living, by which I mean common living like milking cows, raising children, trading in the market, and building your home, is not interesting to God. The Lord of creation is only concerned with his worship, prayer, giving to his church, and service in his name. But this distinction is not a true one, and understanding Scripture in one’s first language helps clarify that.
Of course, Martin Luther helped clarify this too.
But in honor of Calvin’s birthday, you can listen to interviews and browse the blogs for tributes. If you have a post on Calvin on your blog today, give us link in the thread.
Here’s an interesting article from the BBC: “Hard work and frugality, the values espoused by Calvinism, are back in fashion as people reassess their lives because of the economic crisis.” And here’s a video on how Calvin’s teaching has influenced World magazine.
In what could be a severe blow to recent critics who have claimed that “Jerusalem is not a Jewish city” and “David never existed,” a Jewish archaeologist has (on the basis of a biblical clue) found what looks very much like David’s palace on a hill overlooking the original Jebusite city site.
But Mazar always suspected that the palace was outside the original city, and cites the Bible to prove it. When the Philistines heard that David had been anointed, they went on the attack to apprehend him. This occurred after he conquered the Fortress of Zion, which was the actual nucleus of the city, and built his palace. The Bible says that David heard about it and “descended to the fortress,” (2-Samuel 5:17), implying that he went down from his palace, which was higher up on the mountain than the citadel/city.
Mazar told Aish.com: “I always asked myself: Down from where? It must have been from his palace on top of the hill, outside the original Jebusite city.”
Mazar says she was confident in her assessment of where the palace would be. What she discovered was a section of massive wall running about 100 feet from west to east along the length of the excavation (underneath what until this summer was the Ir David Visitors Center), and ending with a right-angle corner that turns south and implies a very large building.
Tip: Dr. Gene Edward Veith.