This quarter’s Read This pick from the Litblog Co-op is a curious tale of a Boston rat. No, it’s not political commentary. Ed Champion recommends it: “I was entirely unprepared to read a wry and remarkably thoughtful book about the state of imagination in American society. The book had teeth, perhaps a continuously growing set of rodent-like incisors ground to manageable size so that the teeth in question wouldn’t puncture the brain.”
Genes and Big Medical Questions
Speaking of Michael Crichton, his next book promises to have us asking some strange questions: “Could your loved one be missing some body parts? Is everyone at your dinner table of the same species? It’s 2006: do you know who all your children are? Do you know humans and chimpanzees differ in only 400 genes? Did you know one fifth of all your genes are owned by someone else? Could you and your family be pursued cross country just because you happen to have certain genes in your body?”
If we come to a point where we can define our bodies and our mental abilities while living or define them for our children (or by government mandate, one another’s children), then we will have lost our humanity or at least some of it. Mars Hill Audio has discussed this repeatedly, talking to Nigel Cameron about the ethics of current bio-technology. As C.S. Lewis said, if we gain the ability to define our attributes like we can software, we will not have conquered nature; we will have become its slave.
What do you think it means to be human? Are you and I really barely different than apes? Is your body only the vehicle for your soul or whatever is the real you inside?
Call on the hills to cover the lab
I drove up to Fargo, North Dakota on Saturday, for a meeting of the Sverdrup Society (I edit their journal and newsletter). It’s about a four hour drive, with stops. Getting to Fargo from here involves passing through Fargo’s sister city, Moorhead, Minnesota. That reminded me of a story told by my brother Moloch (whose birthday it is today, by the way. Remind me to call him).
Moloch and his wife were visiting Concordia College in Moorhead, their mutual alma mater. They took a guided tour led by a young female student. As they passed by a small hill on campus, Moloch said, “There’s where the biology lab used to be. They tore it down and put in that hill.”
The student said, “No. That hill has always been here. The students talk about it. There’s an Indian legend about it and everything.”
Moloch and my sister-in-law assured her that the hill was modern and man-made, and they’d spent a fair amount of time in the old biology lab on the site.
Afterwards Moloch said to his wife, “You know what this means, don’t you?
“It means we’re older than the hills.”
I thought I’d link to a couple more Viking photos. Since I’m constitutionally incapable of balance in thinking about myself, I need to alternate my nihilist and pessimistic posts with posts of a more full-of-myself, “look at me!” nature.
This first picture is from the Viking Meet in Elk Horn, Iowa. The sinister gang I’m posing with is not my own Viking group, but the Skjaldborg guys from Omaha. And no, I did not tease the big guy about his pink tunic.
This one is from two weekends ago, in Dallas, Wisconsin. Here we see me demonstrating graphically to the others exactly how far my fame and fortune as an author take me in terms of… well, fame and fortune.
Credit to Eric and Shari Anderson for the pictures.
Revelations by M. Scott Byrnes
Part of the appeal of Scott Byrnes‘ science fiction novel, Revelations, is the story behind it. He wrote a screenplay, probably catching a writing bug during that time, and decided to make it into a novel. He says he wanted to bring a pretty outrageous idea down to earth as an enjoyable thriller in the way he believes Michael Crichton does with stories rooted in an odd scientific observation. So Mr. Byrnes saved some money and quit his day job in order to write his first novel. That’s admirable dedication.
Does it pay off? Well, I must say I felt compelled to finish the story. The characters aren’t too round. The writing style is good enough, though a couple parts are laughably bad. One part that should hold several pounds of suspense drops it all by dwelling too long on the characters’ thoughts. The plot stretches thin a bit, the worst coming about midway when the characters tackle some language translation. But storyline is compelling.
A team of scientists are on Mars hoping to uncover something earlier exploratory results have hinted at. In the process, they discover something that radically changes scientific understanding of the red planet. About the same time, a brilliant young man, named Tim Redmond, is ushered out of an African Red Cross camp by federal spooks when his name is called out by a terrorist who has taken international hostages. The terrorist wants world leaders to make a fast decision made about the Martian discovery, saying it will destroy mankind, but how he knows about it and what he wants Tim to do are big questions.
I believe Mr. Byrnes is planning to write more, which is probably a good idea. Judging from this book, he appears to have the talent and perseverance to write strong, entertaining stories. I look forward to hearing of his success in the future.
Calling All Descendants of David, King of Israel
In May 2007, The Eshet Chayil Foundation invites all children of David, the King of ancient Israel, to a reunion in Jerusalem. If you happen to know anyone who qualifies, please let them know.
No One is Morally Ignorant
From my notes on Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy:
The attack on objectivity of values is not an attack on general objectivity of values, but a ruse for the supremacy of certain values over others. Because you can get a long way in winning your argument if you don’t have to argue for it at all.
Our problem is not the disconnect between the heart and intellect. The problem is what composes our intellect. Nothing is considered moral knowledge today; consequently, no one is morally ignorant.
Good Monsters
“We are part of all the things we know,
And we are forms of all the things we love.
Do you know what you are?”
from “Good Monsters” by Jars of Clay
Autumn
Human companionship? Ick!
I have to say thanks to all the people who took the trouble to encourage me in yesterday’s Comments. My natural response is to wonder what I’ve done to deceive you all so egregiously. But I appreciate the sentiment.
Forgot to mention the big news in my life yesterday. My street is open again! Not the actual street I live on, but the street that runs past the park into my neighborhood and makes my house easy to get to. In the absence of that access, finding my place involves a rat’s maze of creeping through torn-up streets around a strip mall and a park.
What this means, aside from my own greater convenience, is that I’ve lost my last excuse not to advertise my spare room for rent.
I am not a wealthy or a highly paid man. I’ve already spent all the money I’ll probably ever see from my published books. I made the down payment on this house with the money I inherited from my dad and my aunt. I was still left with a mortgage that’s just a little more than I can reasonably carry, barring emergencies (and emergencies always happen, as any homeowner knows). I knew from the beginning that I had the options of a) selling another book or b) renting my spare room. And I haven’t sold a book.
I put up a poster at the seminary where I work, but those people know who I am, so small hope there. I delayed advertising more widely because of the torn-up street, figuring anybody who came to look at the place would probably never find it. But that’s fixed now.
I regard the prospect of sharing my personal living space with another hominid with all the enthusiasm of an Ivy League university president reviewing an application for professorship from Jimmy-Bob Hawkins, Arkansas Boy Evangelist. I can think of a whole list of likely drawbacks and very few advantages (except for the money). I plan to place the ad in the local Christian giveaway newspaper, in hopes that I can get someone reasonably congenial in lifestyle. Still, I expect that paper is read regularly by gay activists looking to find Christian landlords they can drive into evicting them, then sue for the benefit of society.
Still, the worst might not happen. Having someone around would probably add accountability to my life, and I can’t deny I could use that.
Maturity calls.
I hate it when that happens.
The world according to me
Yesterday’s post drew more attention than I expected, and I guess it would be in order to address the issue of My Single Blessedness in a post. I try to avoid this sort of thing (I know it doesn’t look like it, but you’d be amazed the things that never get uploaded) because I have a well-founded suspicion that the rest of the world doesn’t share my fascination with the precise configurations of my emotional viscera.
I’m not upset with yesterday’s comments. Shoot, for a passive-aggressive like me, that kind of attention is like mother’s milk. But I want to explain the reasons why I’ve essentially given up on finding a soulmate.
I’m open to correction. I’ll tell you how the world looks to me. You tell me where I’m wrong. I’m self-aware enough to know that having an emotional disorder means precisely seeing the world wrong.
My perception is that women want “bad boys.” Not bad men. Very few women really want a bad man. But they want a man with something of the bad boy in him. They want all the proper things too, of course. They want him to be supportive and nurturing, and they want him to be a good provider and a good father. But they also want to know that now and then Rhett Butler will come out in the open, kiss them hard while they pummel his chest with their little fists, sweep them into his arms and carry them up the staircase. They yearn a bit for the motorcycle gangster, for Billy the Kid. (See my review of Shotgun Alley the other day, and the descriptions of nice guy Weiss and bad boy Bishop.)
I’m not a bad boy, Heaven help me. When a woman encounters me or any of my (fortunately few) eunuch brothers, she immediately reads, in our eyes and in our body language, that we possess all the thrill potential of a virtual checkers game. She sees the word “BORING” inscribed on our brows. If she’s generous enough to grant us a date, she quickly regrets it as the hours drag and she smiles stiffly and mentally composes excuses for an early escape. She knows instinctively that if she married such a man, she’d have to initiate intimacy herself, because he’s too emotionally fragile to run the risk of a physical rejection.
All in all, she’d rather treat herself to a day at the spa. Or just adopt a cat.
I do not blame her for this.
And if there is, out there, some woman who’s actively looking for a man who’d be easy to dominate, I don’t think I want to meet that woman.