The Civil War continues to take its toll. A man in Virginia, working on refurbishing a civil war cannonball, accidentally detonated it, and was killed.

I could say something about how a historical buff would choose to go, but that’s probably inappropriate. So I’ll just say that, as a reenactor myself, I understand his passion, and I salute him. I probably would have liked him.

The good folks at First Things put me on to this blog: Stuff Christians Like. And I do like it. There’s lots of truth there.

And yet it troubles me too.

Because all these jokes about how Christians make dorks of themselves just reinforce me in my habit of never saying or doing anything about my faith, for fear of looking dorky.

I wish it were possible to list the right things to do as easily as we’re able to list dumb things.

But of course that’s unnecessary.

Because the right thing to do isn’t usually a mystery. All you have to do is choose the most embarrassing, frightening, humiliating choice you’ve got, and that’s probably the right one.

And the real kicker is that two out of three times you’ll still be wrong, and you’ll still look like a dork.

Which, I guess, explains that “fools for Christ” thing.

Demonstrating once again that there is no evil beyond the reach of the human soul, we have the story of Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man who imprisoned his daughter in his cellar for 24 years and fathered seven children with her.

People are shaking their heads, unable to imagine why a man would do this.

I’ll tell you why. I’ll tell you right now. You watch the reports of the trial, when it happens, and tell me if I’m wrong.

Fritzl believes he’s the victim. He was himself abused as a boy, and he considers it horribly unfair that everyone is making a big deal out of what he’s done now, when nobody stepped in to save him when he was victimized himself.

He believes that he actually had his daughter’s best interests at heart, because if he’d let her have her freedom she’d have used it badly.

He believes he deserves some praise for installing mechanisms (or so it’s reported) that would release the captives in the event of his prolonged absence.

He believes that everyone who’s condemning him now is a hypocrite, because they’re doing things equally bad and just haven’t been caught yet.

Maybe the crew of the Enterprise did travel back in time. Charles Q. Choi of LiveScience writes, “New handheld medical scanners coupled with regular cell phones resemble ‘Star Trek’ tricorders and could see what ails you with a push of a button.”

The best quote of the day comes from Dirty Harry over at Libertas, in a piece on a couple new films about Che Guevera: “I can’t imagine what it must be like to hold an ideology where Wal-Mart outrages me more than the slaughter of 600 people.”

Get a scoop of ice cream for 31 cents tonight at Baskin-Robbins in support of The National Fallen Firefighters Foundation.

May 1: I took the family to the East Brainerd Baskin-Robbins last night after church. It was packed. The 5-6 people behind the counter could not stop taking orders. I heard one of them say she had never seen it that busy.

Here’s a story you won’t see in your local paper. A committee from a school board in Ahmedabad, India, is looking into what appears to be a full-fledged scam for passing high school final exams. Indian students can request a writer or exam-taker, if they are injured or unable to write the answers for their own exam. Naturally, the writer is supposed to put down only the answers provided by the student who should be taking the exam in the first place, and I think the policy allows academically weak students to stand as writers for other student. Presumably, the writer would not be able to help the other student. But if, say, you bribe a strong student or someone with answers to write for your son, well, if he gets a better grade, why should anyone complain? I ask you. Does the Bible say anything about taking someone else’s test in an Indian high school? No, it doesn’t, so what’s to complain about?