Uncategorized

Beyond dispute

Leave a comment

Tonight Hugh Hewitt (who obviously hates me) messed up my evening walk by broadcasting a debate between David Allen White and Christopher Hitchens over the existence of God.

This isn’t what I want in an exercise partly designed to lower my blood pressure. So I had to switch to the cassette function of my Walkman. I climbed down in the basement to find a cassette that hadn’t flaked off all its oxidation. I found an acceptable Sissel tape, and so saved the walk.

I hate arguments. If the Calvinists are right, and I’m not among the elect, I expect Hell to be a room full of people arguing at the tops of their voices forever. I shrink inside when people argue. I don’t have to be one of them. My fetal-position instinct kicks in.

I admire logic and disputation. I have immense respect for men like C. S. Lewis, who could go at an argument with a colleague for hours, then laugh and share a beer with him. That’s the way it ought to be. Questions should be talked out to the bitter end, all permutations nailed down, and there should be either consensus or an agreement to disagree. And no one should bear hard feelings.

Wish I could do it.

In harmony with this theme, my doorbell rang tonight, and there was a young woman “organizing the neighborhood for NARAL.” Last year they sent a tattooed, one-armed lesbian with her female “bodyguard.” This year’s representative was more presentable, though she avoided avoiding a cliché by having a stud in her nose. No visible bodyguard.

How does she dare go out alone like that, in a country steeped in rape and violence against women?

Anyway, I told her I wasn’t interested and backed away. She asked me why not, and I told her, “I’m pro-life.”

“I’m a sexist pig,” I added, as I closed the door.

That’s my zinger. I pull out the insult I expect from my opponent, and I use it on myself, to disarm them. “Your feeble bullets have no power over me, because I just shot myself!”



It doesn’t even make sense to me.

But let’s not argue about it.

Have a good weekend. I’m down to Kenyon for the biennial (semiannual?) every two year Walker Family Reunion on Sunday.

I thought of saying I’d share pictures, and then I thought, “Why?”

The Press

“Absurd, Ridiculous and Mind-bogglingly Insensitive”

Leave a comment

But that’s the New York Times for you. Opinion Journal points out an article on the NYT website by Freakonomics author Steven D. Levitt, who asks, “If you were a terrorist, how would you attack?”

Now, that question alone is a little shocking, but more importantly, it’s the same type of question the Pentagon asked in 2003 to the Times’ harsh criticism. “The insensitivity of the idea boggles the mind. . . . The project’s theoretical underpinnings are equally absurd,” they said back then. Now they must think it’s an acceptable query.

James Taranto concludes, “Has the Times become more sensible since 2003? The question answers itself. Thus it must be that the Times has become more absurd, ridiculous and mind-bogglingly insensitive.”

Fiction, Reading

Are Zombies Better Than Fantastic Heros?

Leave a comment

Mark Bertrand can make zombie movies sound sophisticated. He blogs, “I felt a little bit like I did that first time I read ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ and realized how much the coolest parts of Close Encounters of the Third Kind were ripped off from Lovecraft.”

Reading

Emergency Reading in the Trunk

Leave a comment

This is hilarious. Brian Doyle asked several people what books they keep in the trunks of their cars, just in case they find themselves unprepared for a reading opportunity. He reports, “A woman in Alaska had every single book she owned because she was moving from one apartment to another. . . . A friend in California had books on alcoholism and Lutheranism.”

Amy points this out, saying it may be a good way to her to read James Joyce. I don’t live by my car enough to make this work for me. The only times I’ve had a strong need for reading material is while stuck at a car shop waiting for my car to be returned. (via Books, Inq.)

Authors, Publishing

Editor Trumpets New Literary Voice

Leave a comment

Random House states that their man David Fickling, whom they praise for discovering and editing Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, has found a new literary talent–Jenny Downham. Fickling will be releasing her first young adult novel, Before I Die, next month.

How does that strike you? Does the news that the first editor of popular books encourage you to believe a new book passed through his hands with his blessing will be just as good as the others?

Religion

Intriguing story from Sweden

Leave a comment

I’m a little later than usual tonight, as I had to go to the dentist for my semiannual (I think that’s right. Can’t be biennial, can it?) check-up and cleaning. Since I know you’re keeping score, you’ll be relieved to know that no cavities were discovered. However there is that tooth with the old root canal that’s going to crumble like an abandoned house deck in Florida one of these days. And there’s the other tooth that’s mostly amalgam, which also needs replacement. But I put them off. I always think that I’ll maybe have some money six months from now.

If you go to this page (which you probably can’t read because it’s in Norwegian), and scroll down (unless you’re reading this article in the future, when everything’s down in Archive territory), you’ll find a story headlined, “Homoprest nekter å vie enkjønnede samliv.” Which means, “Homosexual pastor refuses to bless same-sex relationships.” I’ll translate the rest for you, because this is really interesting, and I can’t find a report in English anywhere:

Homosexual priest Erik Johansson of the Swedish (Lutheran) Church has chosen to live in celibacy. Johansson refuses to bless same-sex relationships, even though this may lead to his expulsion from his own church.

Unfortunately this web site charges you to get the rest of the story, but I really want to know more. It seems to me this is precisely the way it ought to be. A homosexual willing to submit to the same sexual morality the Bible demands of all of us, which in his case means celibacy, is qualified to operate as a pastor and upholds Biblical teaching. Maybe I’m missing something, but this guy sounds like a hero who ought to be celebrated throughout the evangelical world.

Non-fiction, Publishing, Religion

The Collector’s Edition of Foxe’s Book

Leave a comment

In 1563, John Foxe gave us a record of the blood shed for the love of Christ. According to the author sketch in this online edition:

Although the recent recollection of the persecutions under Bloody Mary gave bitterness to his pen, it is singular to note that [Foxe] was personally the most conciliatory of men, and that while he heartily disowned the Roman Church in which he was born, he was one of the first to attempt the concord of the Protestant brethren. In fact, he was a veritable apostle of toleration.

When the plague or pestilence broke out in England, in 1563, and many forsook their duties, Fox remained at his post, assisting the friendless and acting as the almsgiver of the rich. It was said of him that he could never refuse help to any one who asked it in the name of Christ. Tolerant and large-hearted he exerted his influence with Queen Elizabeth to confirm her intention to no longer keep up the cruel practice of putting to death those of opposing religious convictions. The queen held him in respect and referred to him as “Our Father Foxe.”

Now Foxe’s stories of suffering and persecution are available to you in an elegantly gold-stamped collector’s edition. This keepsake volume has a “copper-plated Cross of Fellowship” embedded in its padded cover and comes with a mail-in card for obtaining your own Cross of Fellowship pendant.

Forgive me if I have been sacrilegious here, but my wife noted this edition of Foxe’s book this evening, and I wanted to capture her response. We definitely support the Voice of the Martyrs, endorsers of this edition, and while in favor of a quality, updated edition of Foxe’s valuable history, we think making it into a nice collector’s item (that would look so good on a rich American shelf) clashes with the ideals of sacrifice recorded on its pages. This isn’t just a classic faith story. It’s a record of brutality and ultimate peace, taking up a cross which Americans often cannot imagine.

Goofing

Tonight, my imitation of Scrappleface

Leave a comment

(San Francisco) Democratic presidential contenders vied with one another to declare defeat in their own campaigns today, in a candidates’ forum sponsored by the non-partisan group Childless Gays for Education.

“I’ve been campaigning for almost eight years now,” said Sen. Hillary Clinton, “and frankly I’m demoralized. The cost has been tremendous, and I see no guarantee of success further down the road. I’ve decided it’s time to admit defeat and go home to New York.”

Sen. Barack Obama did not delay in picking up the theme. “We hear sensational stories about possible devastation to the country under four more years of Republican government. I consider that unlikely. I support the Democratic party and its operatives one-hundred percent, but the best thing we can do for those patriotic men and women is to bring them home before they’re completely brutalized by this inhuman struggle.”

John Edwards retorted, “You guys are behind the curve. I gave up months ago. I began a phased withdrawal of my campaign workers back in March. It’s been clear to me for some time that, with our present national consensus that no fight is worth the trouble unless it can be finished in a few weeks at practically no cost, this campaign is a quagmire and a waste of time. I feel that the best thing I can do for the Democratic Party is to concede to the Republicans right away. And I’m doing that tonight.”

Uncategorized

What Is Chocolate Really?

Leave a comment

Apparently, there’s a scuffle going on over a petition to allow more freedom in the definition of chocolate. There’s possibility the Food and Drug Administration will allow companies to substitute vegetable fat for cocoa butter in producing a chocolate confection. According to the website Don’t Mess With Our Chocolate, “it would allow for the unlimited use of vegetable fats from any source and at any level to replace the added cocoa butter in milk and dark chocolate and still allow the product to be called chocolate.” In candies made of white chocolate, which is supposed to have cocoa butter and no cocoa solid, this new standard appears to allow for candies with no cocoa at all. I suppose if you call it chocolate, then it is .

Book Reviews, Creative Culture