You’ve seen photos of horrible fires in California, but here’s one a little removed from the flames.
Girls, Girls, Girls
A review of modern culture and modesty. “If he’s pressuring you for sex, he probably doesn’t love you,” no matter what last nights TV show taught you. I hope that become common wisdom soon.
This book looks like a good one. From the review:
Shalit’s book [Girls Gone Mild] has been attacked by one feminist critic for suggesting that the sex act “should have an everlasting warranty of love attached to it.” To the contrary, writes Nona Willis-Aronowitz in the Nation, all girls should realize that sex “is the ultimate risk, a risk that makes human relationships complicated, intoxicating, and wonderful. It is a risk that women are finally allowed to take without being chastised for it.”
Or, as Shalit herself quotes a feminist lawyer barking: “I am very suspicious of telling girls they need to be morally good—that’s sexism right there!”
That’s right, girl. Tell the next generation to follow their hearts, regardless of what’s in their hearts. And kill the offspring so they won’t get in the way. What is life but today’s comfort?
What’s Your Chocolate IQ?
How much do you know about chocolate? Here’s a chocolate quiz. My wife and I got 5/10, so we have plenty to learn.
A Simple Way to Pray
This October 31 is the 490th anniversary of the day Martin Luther nailed a few minor concerns about the Catholic Church to a cathedral door. For that reason, I offer this link to quotes from Luther’s guide to prayer.
I have wanted to be a man of prayer for a long time, but it is one of the hardest things I try.
Oh, My! She Fainted.
Vivienne Parry asks why wet feet brings on putrid fever or the like in many literary heroines. “For, I confess,” she writes, “part of me has always longed to grab them and say: ‘You only got your slippers wet. For heaven’s sake, girl, just get a grip!'” (via Books, Inq.)
This isn’t a post. This is an excuse for not posting.
Ack. I’m worthless tonight. I’m in the grip of some kind of vague, unlocalized malaise, probably psychosomatic. Had to slug my way through work. My body seems to be saying to me, “Take it easy and feed me protein,” and that’s what I’m doing.
All in all, I’m glad I live in Minneapolis, and not southern California. All the world wants to live in S. Cal, but we Norwegians (at least the ones who haven’t absconded to Mission Viejo) sit here and say, “Yeah, the weather might be nice most of the time, but you gotcher earthquakes. You gotcher wildfires. Better to stay home where the disasters are usually less catastrophic, and generally come on a scheduled basis.”
It’s a particularly Norwegian point of view, I think–“I won’t ask much, but in return I expect very few bad surprises.” Comes from generations of explaining to our children why we continued to live in a place where the sun didn’t even rise half the year.
Same goes for living in Minnesota, more or less.
I was sent a quotation once. Forget who said it. Somebody commented on Charles Lindbergh’s not having much of a sense of humor, and the quotee replied, “Did you ever try to tell a joke in Minneapolis?”
To which my reply is, “Remember Lou Grant? Remember how funny his life was on the Mary Tyler Moore show, set in Minneapolis? Then he spun off to Los Angeles and his own show, and the yucks stopped cold.”
I think that settles that.
In closing, here’s a YouTube link from Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost. The kind of counselor all of us neurotics dream of (played by Bob Newhart, no less). He’s just as effective as all the others, and charges you less.
Lieu to you too
Another beautiful day. Bright sun, and it got up to about 70 in the afternoon, I think, though it was much cooler by the time I took my afternoon walk, which has suddenly become an evening walk.
The wind’s blustery, which is too bad, because it means the trees that turn their leaves early are shedding them now. So when the great crescendo of the visual chorus that is autumn arrives at last, they’ll have no “voices” left. The perfect weather for fall is still and dry for a couple months.
Not that I’ve got any business complaining about high winds, considering what’s going on in southern California.
Today I want to strike a blow for precision in language. I want to smash, and smash vengefully, a common error that seems to be growing more and more common.
How often these days do we read a sentence like this: “In lieu of the senator’s statement, advocacy groups organized a massive letter-writing campaign”?
This is bad. Don’t do this anymore.
What the writer meant to say was, “In view of the senator’s statement…”
“In lieu of” and “in view of” are not the same thing.
The phrase, “In lieu of” is defined by Merriam-Webster this way: “in the place of; instead of.”
If someone says, “During the war, we ate margarine in lieu of butter,” he’s using the words properly.
Why do people make this mistake?
Because they’re trying to use a fancy, frenchified word in lieu of a perfectly good, easily understood English one.
When in doubt, use the simple word. When not in doubt, the simple word is still usually the best bet.
Now read this post again. Read it over and over until you understand it.
The world will be happier for it.
Or at least I will.
Writin’ Ain’t a Manly Persuit
Writing is No Longer Manly with the Possible Exception of Australian Travel Writers, reports David Thayer.
Tim Keller Writes on “Belief in an Age of Skepticism”
Pastor Tim Keller of Redeemer PCA in New York City apologetically announces his new books, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. He wants to avoid the appearance of hype, but now that the news has hit the blogosphere there’s no stopping the hype. It will take on a life of its own, ha, ha. Really, it looks like a good book. He says, “Ever since I got to New York nearly two decades ago I’ve wished I had a volume to give people that not only answered objections to Christianity (what has been called ‘apologetics’) but also positively presented the basics of the gospel in an accessible yet substantial way.” Only Mere Christianity does that, he says, and it doesn’t address some issues pertinent today. So Keller has written the dual purpose book himself, not to replace Mere Christianity, but to add to the modern intellectual debate on God.
Writing Contest for Elmore Leonard Book
Contest: The Rap Sheet will “give a copy of Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing to the person who can send us the cleverest Leonard-related five-line limerick.” See The Rap Sheet for details.