Author Salman Rushdie gets a few words on book reviewing in between jokes on The Colbert Report. I like Colbert’s solution to finding good books: if it’s good, he featured it on his show.
Like Coffee to Lutherans
G.E. Veith notes the film industry will further ruin the movie rating system by raising the ratings for smoking. Commenter Organshoes said characters in some of the old films smoked a lot. “Cigarettes were offered to guests like coffee to Lutherans.”
Does the movie rating system help you when choosing something to watch?
Promising Documentary on American Colleges
What do you think about indoctrination? I’m all for it and plan to indoctrinate my children in my worldview for as long as I can. It will look like education the older they get, but as I endeavor to know the truth, I will pass it on to them.
American colleges don’t claim to follow my pattern for their students. They claim to promote freedom and the bold exchange of ideas. It’s about education for them, but in a new documentary, Evan Coyne Maloney shines light on what education means on campus. My guess is Indoctrinate U. will show how liberalism undermines its own principles. I don’t know when I will be able to see this film, but I’m sure it’s worth seeing.
Books What Should Not Be Wrote
Books that shouldn’t be, according to Peter Feld: MySpace for Dummies. Has anyone bought this book, and if so, have they used it as intended?
Books like this make the statistic on how many books are published in America less scary. I’m sure 20% of the annually published books in this country are stuff like this, and why should I complain? I don’t lose money on them.
Is Christianity Good for the World?
Authors Douglas Wilson (pro) and Christopher Hitchens (con) debate Christianity. Excerpt:
Hitchens: “the ‘Golden Rule’ is much older than any monotheism, and that no human society would have been possible or even thinkable without elementary solidarity (which also allows for self-interest) between its members.”
Wilson: “The Christian faith cannot credit itself for all that ‘Love your neighbor’ stuff, not to mention the Golden Rule, and the reason for this is that such moral precepts have been self-evident to everybody throughout history who wanted to have a stable society.”
Chattanooga Talespin Festival
This weekend, Chattanooga is hosting several storytellers for a kind of celebration of life in story. You won’t get a firsthand account from me though. I’ll be at home, maybe spinning my own stories.
No cohesion here
It’s a black dog day today, for me. Lovely spring outside, but it is winter (in Spitzbergen) in my soul. My blood is reducing to the consistency of a slurry, and a bar graph has appeared on my right thumbnail, along with the flashing message, “Low Signal.” So what I’ve got is a couple links for you tonight, and then I’ll curl up to watch an Ingmar Bergman film. Something in black and white. In the original Swedish. In slow motion.
Libertas blog put up this post the other day, featuring a photo of Fred Thompson and his wife.
I make so bold as to prognosticate that no guy Fred’s age with an arm accessory that looks like that is ever going to be elected president.
My friend “Mad Mike” Williamson, author of Freehold, showed me this site.
Now that’s my idea of aliens. They don’t come in peace. They aren’t here to teach us some mystical secret that will end all human conflict and repair the environment. They come with a technique for kicking cosmic butt. And watch for the picture of the Master. You’d just have to cast Arnold to play him in the movie, right?
Arnold Toynbee, that is.
Dick Staub on writing and culture
Dick Staub, author of The Culturally Savvy Christian, was interviewed on Moody Radio last night. Here’s the audio. It begins with a brief discussion of why Staub choose an American Booksellers Association publisher over an Association for Christian Retail publisher.
I’ll Support This
Stop reading newspapers that ask dumb questions, such as “Is the presidential race too long?”
What if we asked, “Should political debates be actual debates?” Maybe that’s kids stuff to the campaign experts of the world.
I’m doing fine
Today the glories of spring returned, after several days of rain. We needed the rain, and now it’s time for some sunshine. This Global Warming thing is working out pretty well so far, if you ask me. I mowed the lawn tonight. I’m definitely convinced it’s just a tad less goshawful than it was this time last year.
I had an interesting encounter at work today. I shall, needless to say, draw a Moral Lesson from it, for the edification of all.
We have a foreign student at the school who was running up a pretty large library fine. He’d kept some books overdue, and one book he’d lost completely. His fines accumulated as they remained unpaid, and I was worried about it getting out of hand.
I spoke to the instructor in his program one day a while back, and said I thought we’d have to come to some kind of settlement, to get him out from under. But the instructor said no. “We have to teach our students responsibility.” At least that’s what I understood him to say. So I stepped back and allowed the totals to mount up.
Last week the student came in, along with an American friend. He offered me some money (not the whole amount). I told him I could take it and reduce the fine, but that he’d still have to pay off the total. At that point his friend became quite upset, and they left. The friend said he’d come back with cash and pay the whole amount himself, and that this was not demonstrating the love of Christ.
After that I went back to the instructor and told him what had happened. The instructor said we probably needed to make some kind of settlement. I said I wanted to, but I wasn’t allowed to.
“Who told you that?” he asked.
“You did,” I said.
He became very apologetic then. Somewhere we had miscommunicated. I’m not sure how it happened, but he hadn’t meant it the way I took it.
Anyway, it got worked out. I accepted the smaller amount the student himself was able to pay, and it’s all settled. Relief reigns among the stacks.
Today the American friend came in and apologized. I told him I understood completely, and that I’d probably have reacted the same way.
It was a very godly act on his part, but when you get down to it, I did handle it wrong. Instead of simply doing what I was told, I should have questioned a decision I considered unreasonable. If I’d done that, the whole thing would have been worked out weeks ago, and much unpleasantness avoided.
It’s one of my besetting sins, this passivity. It’s the Nuremburg Defense: “I was only obeying orders.” God expects more from us. We’re Christians, not Buddhists. Quietude is not an unalloyed virtue in our moral scheme. God expects us to make a fuss now and then.
Gotta work on that.