Two stories of unexpected faith

On the death of Gary Gygax, creator of D&D:
http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/news/2008/03/ff_gygax?currentPage=all

And from Pearl Harbor to the Doolittle Raid to . . . well, read it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/us/23deshazer.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin

Signals stolen from the bullpen at Wrigley Field

As Holy Week is over, but the Holy Season is about to begin -- this baseball meditation:

Atheists want to play, but they don’t want an Umpire.
Calvinists believe the game is fixed but play hard anyway.
Arminians think you can take runs off the scoreboard.
The Mormons are in left field, while the New Agers should play catcher; no matter how wild the pitch they’ll grab it.
Catholics want the Pope to play shortstop; they claim he’s never made an error.
Amish won’t swing and they walk a lot.
Televangelists sometimes get caught stealing.
The Dunkers are down by three.
Premillenialists expect the game to be called soon on account of darkness.

Joyce, You Really Should Stop & Read This

As in right now, because it is work related to the max for you:
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2008/03/recently_i_sat_down_with.html
Apparently, this is an industry, like the tobacco industry, or the military-industrial complex . . . only not as honest.

On the other hand, i think i'll go to this

http://www.newarkadvocate.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080324/UPDATES01/303240017

Is this where the US mainline is going?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080322.wchurch22/BNStory/National/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20080322.wchurch22
If so, can i get my transfer ticket now? I'd like off this particular train.

Seven Stanzas at Easter - John Updike

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

-- John Updike (1932- )

Rest In Peace, Arthur

An elegant, brief story you may have read but would surely appreciate, from a science fiction giant who passed away a few days back at 90 in Sri Lanka, Arthur C. Clarke of "2001: A Space Odyssey" fame -- http://lucis.net/stuff/clarke/9billion_clarke.html

A blessed Holy Week to all!

Where many hearts are turned these next few fateful days . . .

[koff] Ahem . . . [koff]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025

Um, is it "no warming" as your instruments say, or "less rapid warming" as you try to reframe it?

The more folks try to insist global climate change is dangerously warming based entirely on models, and in the teeth of their own data, the more i start to edge over with the skeptics . . . Bjorn Lomborg is not exactly disreputable company, industry councils and business institutes aside.

Me, i think Peak Oil has more science and data going for it right now than "Global Warming: The Phenomenon."

David Mamet Was Already My Hero

And it isn't like he's decided to send a donation to the George W. Bush Presidential Library or something. But he may get treated like he did when this gets around:

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0811,374064,374064,1.html

I knew there was something about the man who created "State & Main" that valued tradition and integrity . . . call it progressive conservatism or conservative progressivism or whatever you want, David. Glad to be pulling on the same oar with you.

Having Argued With a Smart Person On This Last Year . . .

. . . i'm just gonna copy it right into my blog here immediately:

Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Some Perspective About War
Posted by Philip @ 11:55 am CDT
[from http://thinklings.org/?post_id=4468]

From a report published last year for Congress by the Congressional Research Service
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf

Table 4. U.S. Active Duty Military Deaths, 1980 Through 2006
Part I, Total Military Personnel

Year Total Deaths
1980 2,392
1981 2,380
1982 2,319
1983 2, 465
1984 1,999
1985 2, 252
1986 1,984
1987 1.983
1988 1,819
1989 1,636
1990 1,507
1991 1,787
1992 1,293
1993 1,213
1994 1,075
1995 1,040
1996 974
1997 817
1998 827
1999 796
2000 758
2001 891
2002 999
2003 1,228
2004 1,874
2005 1,942
2006 1,858

Total Deaths under Reagan 1981-1988 - 19,593
Total Deaths under Bush I 1989-1992 - 6,223
Total Deaths under Clinton 1993-2000 - 7,500
Total Deaths under Bush II 2001-2006 - 8,792

Deaths due to Hostile Action – from Table 5
1980-82 0
1983 18
1984 1
1985 0
1986 2
1987 37
1988 0
1989 23
1990 0
1991 147
1992-95 0
1996 1
1997-2000 0
2001 3
2002 18
2003 344
2004 739
2005 739
2006 753

Comparison of Deaths in Modern American Conflicts – from Table 6
World War I 116,516
World War II 405,399
Korea 36,578
Vietnam 58,209
Gulf War 382
Afghanistan 352
Iraqi Freedom 3,091

I put the above numbers together myself from the original source. There is lot of fascinating statistics there and I would encourage you to go read it.

And let us never forget that each number represents a precious human life.

And I want to personally thank anyone reading this who has ever served, or who has had a family member who served. Words are not adequate to express my gratitude.

Da-da-datdah, da-dadahhhhh

http://indianajones.lego.com/en-US/Games/Default.aspx

Debra J. Saunders: Everyman’s Mortgage Crisis

Comptroller General David Walker estimates that Washington has promised $53 trillion in Social Security and Medicare benefits without funding them. In real dollars, that means every American -- this means you -- owns a $175,000 share of the federal debt. It's as if you have a second mortgage -- for a home you don't own.

These days, there has been much finger-pointing at a system that allowed lenders to issue mortgages that violated the basic tenets of fiscal responsibility. How is it, people now ask, that banks could issue so many loans to buyers for homes they could not afford?

How indeed? Washington continues to authorize retirement and medical benefits without putting aside the money to pay for them. Editorials and think tanks sound the alert. Yet you hear little public complaint about the situation. Even in a presidential election year, voters are not demanding that White House hopefuls promise to balance the books.

If the sky falls, will Americans then ask why they were not warned? Every year of inaction adds another $2 trillion to $3 trillion to the tab, noted Alison Acosta Fraser of the right-leaning Heritage Foundation.

Alice Rivlin of the left-leaning Brookings Institution is the fourth member of the Concord Coalition's "Fiscal Wake-Up Tour." Asked what presidential hopefuls Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain propose to do about the pending crisis, Rivlin answered that essentially "they're ignoring it almost completely."

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/DebraJSaunders/2008/03/11/everymans_mortgage_crisis

Just look on the right hand side bar for how it looked to Vincent on a summer night a century and a quarter ago . . .

Sums it all up for me, ayup.

http://branthansen.typepad.com/letters_from_kamp_krusty/2008/03/just-months-rem.html

A Long Read, But Worth the Time

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/guitar-heros.htm

If you can read this and still say our troops in Iraq are wasting their time and their lives while indiscriminately killing Iraqi civilians, i don't have anything else to say -- pax vobiscum.

These are warriors in the most honorable sense of the word, and i believe they're doing part of what it takes to build peace. Not all, not even most, but a necessary part.

Hmmmmm

http://www.dailytech.com/Researcher+Basic+Greenhouse+Equations+Totally+Wrong/article10973.htm

What? It's just a link, c'mon . . . hey, i said it's just a link!

Wherever you stand on the politics, this is fascinating

http://www.psyccomm.com/kent/National_Pol_vs_McCain.jpg

A Third Larger Than the Giza Pyramid

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/travel/09hours.html?_r=1&8dpc&oref=slogin

Cholula's pyramid is awkwardly featured in this travelogue that focuses on food . . . not that there's anything wrong with that!

El Crematorio

A place that's much in my prayers these days . . . "The Dump" on the edge of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, known in Spanish as "El Crematorio." The Miller family is getting ready to go work with the AFE school on the edge of "The Dump," and you can see that video with Jeony's narration at http://knapsack.blogspot.com.

Jeony isn't a pastor, really, but his young daughter talked him into launching this ministry just a few years ago, in 2002, when they saw all the children working - and living - right there at the dump, when they were taking their own household trash to drop it off. Jeony notes towards the end of the other clip that "for $62,000 i can run this school for a year, serving over 100 enrolled kids, a nursery for dozens of younger ones and sports programs for all, plus the water ministry up on the garbage heap."

This video clip is a meditation in Spanish about prayer and poverty (thanks, Gay!) over images that give you a broad sense of what's going on there.

Not an Endorsment, But Still . . .

Learn a Useful Skill

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2008/03/the-art-of-the.html

Homeowner equity is lowest since 1945 - Biz Week

[details at http://www.philly.com/inquirer/breaking/business_breaking/20080306_Americans_home_equity_lowest_since_1945.html]

Americans' percentage of equity in their homes fell below 50% for the first time on record since 1945, the Federal Reserve said. Homeowners' portion of equity slipped to downwardly revised 49.6% in the second quarter of 2007, the central bank reported in its quarterly U.S. Flow of Funds Accounts, and declined further to 47.9% in the fourth quarter -- the third straight quarter it was under 50%. That marks the first time homeowners' debt on their houses exceeds their equity since the Fed started tracking the data in 1945. The total value of equity also fell for the third straight quarter to $9.65 trillion from a downwardly revised $9.93 trillion in the third quarter. Home equity, which is equal to the percentage of a home's market value minus mortgage-related debt, has steadily decreased even as home prices jumped earlier this decade due to a surge in cash-out refinances, home equity loans and lines of credit and an increase in 100% or more home financing. Economists expect this figure to drop even further as declining home prices eat into the value of most Americans' single largest asset. Moody's Economy.com estimates that 8.8 mln homeowners, or about 10.3% of homes, will have zero or negative equity by the end of the month. Even more disturbing, about 13.8 mln households, or 15.9%, will be "upside down" if prices fall 20% from their peak... Experts expect foreclosures to rise as more homeowners struggle with adjusting rates on their mortgages, making their monthly payments unaffordable. Problems in the credit markets and eroding home values are making it harder to refinance out of unmanageable loans. The threat of so-called "mortgage walkers," or homeowners who can afford their payments but decide not to pay, also increases as home values depreciate and equity diminishes. Banks and credit-rating agencies already are seeing early evidence of this.

How did Hillary do it?

The Plain Dealer tells you --
http://www.cleveland.com/news/index.ssf/2008/03/_rural_ohio_helped_clinton.html

Our county, divided

[from your Newark Advocate, Thurs., March 6]

West vs. rest voting trend continues
By KENT MALLETT
Advocate Reporter

NEWARK -- The political divide between the west and the rest of Licking County continued in Tuesday's primary election.

The voting patterns on countywide tax issues differ dramatically in central Licking County versus the western edge. The change seems to occur at the line dividing Granville and St. Albans townships, just west of Raccoon International Golf Course on Ohio 37.

The difference was dramatic again Tuesday in the vote on the county's bond issue to pay for new senior citizen centers. The bond issue failed 52.2 percent to 47.8 percent, thanks to strong opposition in the west.

BY THE NUMBERS

42-8
Record in favor of the bond issue at the 50 central Licking County voting precincts located in Newark, Heath, Granville, Hanover, Granville Township and Hanover Township.

1-37
Record in favor of the bond issue at the 38 western Licking County precincts located in Pataskala, Reynoldsburg, Johnstown, Alexandria, and the townships of Etna, Harrison, Monroe, St. Albans, Jersey and Liberty.

50.7
Percentage of the 103,622 registered voters who turned out to vote in the election.

55
Percentage of Licking County voters who took a Democratic Party ballot out of the 51,392 who asked for a partisan ballot.

8-0
Barack Obama's win-loss record in the eight precincts in Granville village and Granville Township.

110-7
Hillary Clinton's record in the county's remaining 117 precincts.

36, 2
Vote totals in St. Louisville for Sheriff Randy Thorp and former sheriff Gerry Billy, respectively.

61
Thorp's lowest percentage of the vote in any of the county's 125 precincts.

National Trends in Homelessness Funding

This is one small part of a great series, published in Philadelphia . . . and if you check out some of the other ten or twelve stories in this three day series, it will be worth your while, but here's the money quote (literally) in the most germane piece of the bunch:

* * *
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_top_left_story/20080225_The_new_mandate__First__find_them_a_home.html

In Philadelphia, this new philosophy has challenged how things are done and created tension between social-service agencies as well as more intense competition for federal funding.

The city, which spends $98 million in federal, state and city funds on homelessness, works with more than two dozen social-service agencies that promote what was once the standard in care: Bring the homeless into shelters, treat them, train them, and eventually move them into a permanent and affordable home.

But five years ago, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development began placing a premium on programs that offer housing to the most chronically homeless: those living on the streets or rotating in and out of shelters for years.

Those people represent from 10 percent to 20 percent of the nation's overall homeless population, but consume 50 percent of the spending on homelessness, said Philip Mangano, executive director of the Interagency Council on Homelessness, the agency established by Congress to oversee federal initiatives for ending homelessness.

"They're the most visible, most vulnerable, most disabled, most likely to die, and most expensive," Mangano said.

In 2006, Philadelphia lost 40 percent of its HUD funding for homeless programs because its bid - made collectively for all social-service agencies - sought too much for services and not enough for permanent housing for the chronically homeless.

In December 2007, the city regained its funding after every homeless agency cut its budget for services by 25 percent. Reflecting the new national focus, the project that got the most federal funding was a planned facility for permanently housing 79 homeless inebriates or addicts living on the streets of Center City.

What this means i'm not quite sure

As no one wants to watch the evening news for 30 minutes who isn't strapped to a walker (or so the media mavens tell us), the networks overcompensate by . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/05/us/politics/05watch.html

I compare this in my head to how churches are trying to trend-surf their way to relevance, and think -- whatever network broadcast execs are doing, i want to do something different.

What a Fun World the Internet is . . .

John Wimber on the Church

John Wimber -- http://www.vineyardusa.org/publications/equippingsaints.aspx -- wrote this arguing that everyone seems to be able to see this except those of us in the church:

"Folks, the world knows what this is supposed to look like. Years ago in New York City, I got into a taxi cab with an Iranian taxi driver, who could hardly speak English. I tried to explain to him where I wanted to go, and as he was pulling his car out of the parking place, he almost got hit by a van that on its side had a sign reading The Pentecostal Church. He got real upset and said, "That guy’s drunk." I said, "No, he’s a Pentecostal. Drunk in the spirit, maybe, but not with wine." He asked, "Do you know about church?" I said, "Well, I know a little bit about it; what do you know?" It was a long trip from one end of Manhattan to the other, and all the way down he told me one horror story after another that he’d heard about the church. He knew about the pastor that ran off with the choir master's wife, the couple that had burned the church down and collected the insurance—every horrible thing you could imagine. We finally get to where we were going, I paid him, and as we’re standing there on the landing I gave him an extra-large tip. He got a suspicious look in his eyes—he’d been around, you know. I said, "Answer me this one question." Now keep in mind, I’m planning on witnessing to him. "If there was a God and he had a church, what would it be like?" He sat there for awhile making up his mind to play or not. Finally he sighed and said, "Well, if there was a God and he had a church—they would care for the poor, heal the sick, and they wouldn’t charge you money to teach you the Book." I turned around and it was like an explosion in my chest. "Oh, God." I just cried, I couldn’t help it. I thought, "Oh Lord, they know. The world knows what it’s supposed to be like. The only ones that don’t know are the Church."

When you joined the kingdom, you expected to be used of God. I’ve talked to thousands of people, and almost everybody has said, "When I signed up, I knew that caring for the poor was part of it—I just kind of got weaned off of it, because no one else was doing it." Folks, I’m not saying, "Do some-thing heroic." I’m not saying, "Take on some high standard, sell everything you have and go." Now, if Jesus tells you that, that’s different. But I’m not saying that. I’m just saying, participate. Give some portion of what you have—time, energy, money, on a regular basis—to this purpose, to redeeming people, to caring for people. Share your heart and life with somebody that’s not easy to sit in the same car with. Are you hearing me? That’s where you’ll really see the kingdom of God."

* * *

He's right, y'know.

Homeless in Philadelphia

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/multimedia/15853472.html

Times of London poem of the week

The Country Clergy

I see them working in old rectories
By the sun's light, by candle-light,
Venerable men, their black cloth
A little dusty, a little green
With holy mildew. And yet their skulls,
Ripening over so many prayers,
Toppled into the same grave
With oafs and yokels. They left no books,
Memorial to their lonely thought
In grey parishes: rather they wrote
On men's hearts and in the minds
Of young children sublime words
Too soon forgotten. God in his time
Or out of time will correct this.

R. S. THOMAS (1958)

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article3440356.ece