Pray for North Korea. I learned today that 100 years ago, Pyongyang witnessed a huge revival, so much so that the city was called the Jerusalem of the East.
Alternative History Named Evil
Author Orson Scott Card calls a thriller he read “evil.”
At the beginning of the book, we are shown a Palestinian during the 1948 war over the creation of the state of Israel. . . . [Steve] Berry sets this scene against a background in which Israelis are systematically driving all the Palestinians out of Israel; the Israelis are heavily armed by the British while the Palestinians have no weapons to counter them; and the Israelis have rounded up whole villages of Palestinians and slaughtered them, men and women alike. . . .
This is the kind of thing that readers — especially ones who don’t know anything about history — are likely to assume the writer has researched, so that it can be trusted. . . . So when a novel like Berry’s The Alexandria Link treats such events as background, as if everybody knew that this is how Israelis act, what it is really doing is furthering the propaganda of one side in a desperate war.
An Abundance of Single Cats
Have you seen the list of 40 things which only happen in movies?
- One man shooting at 20 men has a better chance of killing them all than 20 men firing at once (this is known as Stallone’s Law).
- All grocery shopping involves the purchase of French loaves which will be placed in open brown paper bags (Caveat: when said bags break, only fruit will spill out).
One of them stands out above the rest for me, that being “all single women have a cat.” Help me out here. I know all single women do not have cats, but aren’t there a lot of them who do? I mean, most of them?
Rooten English Spellin
Ever wonder why the words through, bough, dough, and rough, are pronounced different despite their similar spelling? Mark this down as another opportunity for that familiar past-time of all warm-blooded Americans: blame the French. It’s an exaggeration, but don’t let petty details get in your way of a good anti-Gaulic rant. From David Crystal’s The Fight for English: How language pundits ate, shot, and left:
Much of the irregularity of modern English spelling derives from the forcing together of Old English and French systems of spelling in the Middle Ages. People struggled to find the best way of writing English throughout the period. … Even Caxton didn’t help, at times. Some of his typesetters were Dutch, and they introduced some of their own spelling conventions into their work. That is where the gh in such words as ghost comes from.
The words in our first sentence come from the Old English words thurh, boh, dag, and ruh.
It’s Friday. All you get is scraps
Will Duquette of View From the Foothills is another favorite blogger of mine whose posting has regrettably decreased. But he put up an entertaining poem about Smeagol this week, and I wanted to wave you in that direction.
Guy Stewart shares this butt-kick for discouraged Christian Science Fiction writers.
Have you heard the recording of Alec Baldwin chewing out his daughter on voice mail? What’s your take on that? I know that even the best parents can be pushed past the limit sometimes and say things they regret, with no harm done in the larger scheme of things. But I grew up in a situation where this kind of tirade was pretty much daily fare, and so it’s hard for me to judge where the limits are. Do you parents out there respond to the recording by saying, “Wow, I’m glad there wasn’t a recorder on the last time I cut loose on the kids,” or do you say, “That was definitely over the line”? I’m just curious. I honestly don’t have a gauge for this, and I’m not a parent myself.
It's Friday. All you get is scraps
Will Duquette of View From the Foothills is another favorite blogger of mine whose posting has regrettably decreased. But he put up an entertaining poem about Smeagol this week, and I wanted to wave you in that direction.
Guy Stewart shares this butt-kick for discouraged Christian Science Fiction writers.
Have you heard the recording of Alec Baldwin chewing out his daughter on voice mail? What’s your take on that? I know that even the best parents can be pushed past the limit sometimes and say things they regret, with no harm done in the larger scheme of things. But I grew up in a situation where this kind of tirade was pretty much daily fare, and so it’s hard for me to judge where the limits are. Do you parents out there respond to the recording by saying, “Wow, I’m glad there wasn’t a recorder on the last time I cut loose on the kids,” or do you say, “That was definitely over the line”? I’m just curious. I honestly don’t have a gauge for this, and I’m not a parent myself.
For Want of a Book Review Editor
Atlanta’s newspaper, the Journal Constitution, has released its book review editor. The paper plans to continue its books and arts coverage on Sundays with fewer staff (as far as it goes).
The Great Expectations Log Flume!
What luck! There’s a Charles Dickens theme park in Kent, England. “If it’s done right, it can exploit precisely the kind of thing that made Dickens popular in his own day,” one man says.
Pilgrim’s Progress
Back on July 24, 2003, Dr. George Grant blogged on John Bunyan and Pilgrim’s Progress. He briefly described the circumstances in which Bunyan wrote, and generalized on the book’s theme and styles.
For nearly a decade, Bunyan had served as an unordained itinerant preacher and had frequently taken part in highly visible theological controversies. It was natural that the new governmental restrictions would focus on him. Thus, he was arrested for preaching to “unlawful assemblies and conventicles.
The judges who were assigned to his case were all ex-royalists, most of whom had suffered fines, sequestrations, and even imprisonments during the Interregnum. They threatened and cajoled Bunyan, but he was unshakable. Finally, in frustration, they told him they would not release him from custody until he was willing to foreswear his illegal preaching. And so, he was sent to the county gaol where he spent twelve long years–recalcitrant to the end.
My favorite part of this book is in the Interpreter’s House. I don’t remember which picture impressed me most at the time I read it, but this one is a good one and illustrates the Interpreter’s House section.
Then I saw in my dream that the Interpreter took Christian by the hand, and led him into a place where was a fire burning against a wall, and one standing by it, always casting much water upon it, to quench it; yet did the fire burn higher and hotter.
Then said Christian, What means this?
The Interpreter answered, This fire is the work of grace that is wrought in the heart; he that casts water upon it, to extinguish and put it out, is the Devil; but in that thou seest the fire notwithstanding burn higher and hotter, thou shalt also see the reason of that. So he had him about to the backside of the wall, where he saw a man with a vessel of oil in his hand, of the which he did also continually cast, but secretly, into the fire.
Then said Christian, What means this?
The Interpreter answered, This is Christ, who continually, with the oil of his grace, maintains the work already begun in the heart: by the means of which, notwithstanding what the devil can do, the souls of his people prove gracious still. And in that thou sawest that the man stood behind the wall to maintain the fire, that is to teach thee that it is hard for the tempted to see how this work of grace is maintained in the soul.
The full text can be found at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.
Pilgrim's Progress
Back on July 24, 2003, Dr. George Grant blogged on John Bunyan and Pilgrim’s Progress. He briefly described the circumstances in which Bunyan wrote, and generalized on the book’s theme and styles.
For nearly a decade, Bunyan had served as an unordained itinerant preacher and had frequently taken part in highly visible theological controversies. It was natural that the new governmental restrictions would focus on him. Thus, he was arrested for preaching to “unlawful assemblies and conventicles.
The judges who were assigned to his case were all ex-royalists, most of whom had suffered fines, sequestrations, and even imprisonments during the Interregnum. They threatened and cajoled Bunyan, but he was unshakable. Finally, in frustration, they told him they would not release him from custody until he was willing to foreswear his illegal preaching. And so, he was sent to the county gaol where he spent twelve long years–recalcitrant to the end.
My favorite part of this book is in the Interpreter’s House. I don’t remember which picture impressed me most at the time I read it, but this one is a good one and illustrates the Interpreter’s House section.
Then I saw in my dream that the Interpreter took Christian by the hand, and led him into a place where was a fire burning against a wall, and one standing by it, always casting much water upon it, to quench it; yet did the fire burn higher and hotter.
Then said Christian, What means this?
The Interpreter answered, This fire is the work of grace that is wrought in the heart; he that casts water upon it, to extinguish and put it out, is the Devil; but in that thou seest the fire notwithstanding burn higher and hotter, thou shalt also see the reason of that. So he had him about to the backside of the wall, where he saw a man with a vessel of oil in his hand, of the which he did also continually cast, but secretly, into the fire.
Then said Christian, What means this?
The Interpreter answered, This is Christ, who continually, with the oil of his grace, maintains the work already begun in the heart: by the means of which, notwithstanding what the devil can do, the souls of his people prove gracious still. And in that thou sawest that the man stood behind the wall to maintain the fire, that is to teach thee that it is hard for the tempted to see how this work of grace is maintained in the soul.
The full text can be found at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.