What columnists or bloggers do you read for political opinion or insight on the news? Do you read the writing of those you disagree with? I confess I don’t read any columnist regularly. I take in Olasky, Belz, Seu et al with World Magazine, both online and in print. I’ve gone to The American Spectator occasionally for comment on specific pan flashes. But I don’t look to anyone for contrary opinions and turn on NPR once in a blue moon. It would probably serve me well to understand opposing arguments, but I don’t have enough interest in it–at least, I haven’t had enough interest. How about you?
Hoist up the John B.’s sail
I’m going to be speaking up in Fargo, North Dakota next Saturday. I’ll be giving a PowerPoint presentation to the annual meeting of the Georg Sverdrup Society. G. Sverdrup was a prominent Norwegian Lutheran educator around the turn of the 20th Century. He was the chief intellectual of the Lutheran Free Church movement, a (pretty small) movement to merge Lutheran theology with congregational church government.
Only a small portion of his writings have been translated into English, and a major purpose of our little society is to translate his collected works. I’m editor of the journal, and I’ve been asked to do a talk on the subject, “Problems in Translating Georg Sverdrup.”
I like to use a lot of pictures in my PowerPoints, and here’s one I’m using to illustrate a point I won’t bore you with just now:
Continue reading Hoist up the John B.’s sail
Thinking Among the Dead
In Scott Huler’s interesting and fun book, No-Man’s Lands: One Man’s Odyssey Through The Odyssey, Huler organizes his experiences around those of Odysseus, beginning with looking for Calypso’s cave, which he did near the end of his travels but which begins Odysseus retelling of his adventure. It’s a good book and should probably be on the list for many book clubs.
At one point in The Odyssey, Odysseus goes to Hell. Huler explained that he understood going to Hell was a one way trip, so he opted for another destination. Here’s an excerpt from chapter 11 of No-Man’s Lands, regarding his rumination among the dead. His location: the Capuchin cemetery within the Church of the Immaculate Conception (Chiesa di Santa Maria della Concezione).
Off the long hall are five crypts, each filled with artwork made of human bones—delicate traceries of pelvises and vertebrae; nicely proportioned thighbone archways beneath rows of human skulls; ceiling rosettes made of scapulae, collarbones, phalanges. In many crypts, bones—the bones of an estimated four thousand of more Capuchin monks—create niches in which stand, or recline, complete monk skeletons, clothed in those hooded coffee-brown robes.
Decorative art covers the walls and ceilings like the plaster filigree in a Renaissance palace—only it’s all made from bones, all with a focus on the brevity of earthly life. It’s breathtaking. . . . Continue reading Thinking Among the Dead
In which I demonstrate that I have no compassion at all
Congratulations to the New York couple who were blessed with identical triplets on Tuesday.
I link to their story because of a conversation I had in Minot. A fellow came through our encampment and spoke to a couple of our Viking Camp kids who were (or appeared to be) twins. He said, “Twins are nothing. I’m a triplet!”
Then (because the kids ignored him. That’s what kids do) he told me that being a triplet is extremely special. Twins are common, he explained. Quadruplets, quintuplets and sextuplets are all over the place today, because of fertility drugs.
But “Triplets,” he said, “are rare. I may be the first triplet you’ve ever met.”
I couldn’t contradict him.
In my Bible reading today, I was struck by the following scripture passages: Continue reading In which I demonstrate that I have no compassion at all
Irrational Snowball
“. . . the idea that Bill Maher is somehow in a position to judge whose beliefs are reasonable is kind of laughable.”
Did Someone Yell “Kill Him” at a McCain Rally?
Yesterday, we assumed someone yelled “kill him,” regarding Senator Obama, at a McCain rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Now, we should question the claim. John McCormack of The Weekly Standard writes: “This afternoon, I talked to David Singleton [the reporter who made this claim] on the phone. He told me that someone shouted ‘kill him’ ‘during the discussion by Chris Hackett of Senator Obama’s remarks about guns and religion, and how he needs to be educated about Pennsylvania.’ The shouter was ‘off to my right near the back of the crowd,’ Singleton said, but he ‘couldn’t identify who it was.'”
Apparently, no one else could verify the shout either. None of the Secret Service who were present. None of the over twenty diverse people asked about it. Makes you wonder if the reporter is being straight-forward, if he isn’t simply mistaken.
Just in case you were in doubt
There seems to be some confusion about who won last night’s presidential debate.
In my capacity as Final Arbiter, I shall clarify.
John McCain won. He won strong.
No need to thank me. Just doing my job.
Nothing resurrection couldn’t fix
Mickey McLean at World Magazine reports on a Nebraska state senator whose lawsuit against God was recently thrown out of court.
I think I read elsewhere that the senator wasn’t actually in earnest (Gee, you think?), but was merely attempting to make some kind of point.
What kind, I have no idea.
Nor do I care.
Tonight’s the big night. Tonight I get the chance to see the television broadcast I’ve been waiting for, arguably the most important night of TV this year.
I mean, of course, the return of “Pushing Daisies” on ABC.
I wish somebody with Ned’s life-giving touch could give a massage to the McCain campaign.
NYT vs. Palin-Dickens
Olasky writes: “Not only Sarah Palin is running against The New York Times. So is a new musical that opened on Broadway last month, A Tale of Two Cities.“ I wish I could see that play.
Stealing $$ for the Campaign
The Obama campaign is getting money through false credit card charges (or a supporter is doing it for them). From the Washington Post:
Steve and Rachel Larman, a Missouri couple who vote Republican, told local reporters that they found a $2,300 charge for a donation to the Obama campaign on their credit card statement that they could not explain. Patricia Phillips, a Virginia Republican, had a similar experience, she said, when she opened her MasterCard statement last month to discover a $5 charge from the Obama campaign. “I thought, ‘Oh, my! This is not from me,’ ” she said.
Other donations have arrived under such obviously bogus names as Edrty Eddty and Es Esh.
Isn’t this the kind of thing ACORN does?