May

18

Philosophers’ World Cup

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I had never seen this before, but it cracks me up.

Mar

27

Awesome photo

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Mt. Redoubt, a volcano in Alaska, has been rumbling quite a bit recently.

I thought these two pictures were very cool.

Redoubt eruption from space

Redoubt eruption from space

 

Redoubt eruption from an airplane

Redoubt eruption from an airplane

Feb

7

Just a word now

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US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a comical gaffe while arguing for the stimulus/spending/pork bill currently on its way through Congress. She claimed that 500 million Americans would lose their jobs every month until this bill passed (or something like that anyway).

Though the plausibility of her claim is suspect — there are only about 350 million Americans, and not all of them work — it actually illustrates a problem that this kind of bill creates.  At some point, the number becomes just a word. It no longer refers to a concept that people can get their minds around. Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, commented this week that if you started on the day Jesus was born and spent 1 million (that’s 1,000,000) dollars each day until now, you still wouldn’t have spent 1 trillion (1,000,000,000,000) dollars. A trillion dollars is huge, but it’s hard to get your mind around how huge. The graph here tries to illustrate. The blue column represents 1 trillion. The column to the left is 1 billion. You can barely see it. The gray columns are the logarithm of the numbers across the bottom. I think people tend to think of big number more like the gray bars indicate. A trillion is bigger than a billion, but it’s not that much bigger.

How big is a trillion?

How big is a trillion?

Will all of that, it’s easier to understand why Speaker Pelosi was having trouble. She’s throwing around all these numbers all the time, but like most people, she only half-way understand them. They’re just words now, so an extra billion here or there is just another digit. My thought is that we ought to be very cautious when those who want to spend our money aren’t careful to understand what they’re spending. But more than that, we ought to make sure that we understand ourselves, so that we don’t have to depend on politicians to explain what they’re doing.

Jan

11

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants: A Review

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Mel and I watched The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants this week. This review is not intended as either an endorsement or a condemnation of the movie. I want to address two somewhat related ideas that the movie suggested to me.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

First, some background. The movie is based on a popular novel for girls, much like the well-known Princess Diaries. In this story, four teenage girls are preparing to spend their first ever summer apart from each other. Just before they separate, they find a pair of jeans that fits each of them perfectly, despite their obvious differences in size and shape. They agree to share the pants through the summer by mailing them to each other. Each then goes to her summer destination: one to Greece, one to South Carolina, one to Mexico, and one stays home in Maryland. The movie chronicles their experiences throughout the summer.

The script and the directing are generally pretty good. The story is not pedantic; we aren’t always told exactly what is going on, especially when it’s obvious. The solid acting performances help fill in some of the plot and much of the emotion. The photography is very nice. It’s not quite as if you could freeze any frame and print it, but many of the shots are well-composed and thoughtfully orchestrated without seeming “artsy.”

In a brief commentary on the DVD, three of the actresses decide that the movie is superior to many other girly movies because it is more realistic. Without spoiling the plot, I want to address that claim. It is true that the movie deals with more substantive issues than, say, the Princess Diaries. It is also more plausible, though plausibility is rarely a valid standard for a good story. But the actresses say that their movie is better because it doesn’t deal with trivialities like pimples and homework. And yet many teenage girls’ lives are largely consumed by similar trivialities, punctuated by more serious issues. This movie deals with those punctuation marks more than the mundane, which makes it in a sense less realistic. Good stories are not “realistic” in the trivial sense. They don’t trace the mundane. Read more

Dec

6

Thanksgiving

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Andrew and I were able to go to Greenville for Thanksgiving. We were busy most of the time. Here’s a recap of our trip.

Tuesday: We headed south when Andrew was finished with work at 4pm

Wednesday: Andrew went to his parents’ house most of the day while I stayed at my parents’ house and helped my mom make food for Thursday. The Keys and Jessica got in that evening.

Thursday: Thanksgiving dinner #1 was at Grandma and Grandpa Boone’s house around 12:30pm. My family was there as well as Grandma and Grandpa, the Ridleys, the Keys, and Jessica. Thanksgiving dinner #2 was at Grandma Q’s house at 5pm. Andrew’s family was there plus grandma and a family Mom Garland works with.

Friday: Andrew helped Dad Garland and Anthony do some work on their new property. I stayed with my family and we went downtown for awhile. It was a beautiful day. We ate supper and spent the evening with Andrew’s family.

Saturday: I helped my parents pick out a Christmas tree. We went out to lunch and spent some time with Abby and Lincoln. We spent the evening with my family.

Sunday: We went to Hampton Park for church and ate lunch with Andrew’s family and our friend Erica. The Keys and Jessica left. I helped decorate the Christmas tree. We headed back to Radford around 3:30pm and had heavy traffic the first half of the trip. It took us more than an hour longer to get back.

Dec

6

Does conservatism need religion?

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Kathleen Parker has made herself plenty of enemies on the right during this election cycle. I suspect her column this week isn’t likely to reduce their numbers.

Here’s my question, and the premise of her argument: Does conservatism need religion? In particular, does conservatism need Christianity?

I think there may be several relevant points here, but let me offer some clarifying (to me) observations. First, American conservatism is somewhat different than, say, European conservatism or Islamic conservatism. I don’t think too many people in the West think well of Islamic conservatism–certainly not many in the Republican party. American conservatism is, well, American. It gains much of its ethos from a relatively short history. But that history is profoundly religious–indeed, Christian–for better or worse.

Second, though there are some “conservatives” who claim to be atheistic (e.g. Christopher Hitchens), it’s hard to imagine how they aren’t somewhere being inconsistent. If the conservative “tent” is big enough to house a guy who’s most famous book is “god [sic] is not Great,” I wonder if shrinking the tent might be beneficial. Several commentators have noted that Hitchens–and others like him–are not merely atheistic, they’re anti-theistic.

I’m not sure what Parker is trying to do by marginalizing the Christian aspect of American conservatism. If she’s trying to appeal to those from other religions, fine. But it doesn’t follow that we should write off the Christian side of conservatism to do so.

Her example also doesn’t seem all that strong to me. She cites abortion as a conservative plank that doesn’t require Christianity. To her thinking, you can be an atheist who objects to any arbitrary killing, including killing the unborn. The argument has some merit, but it isn’t clear why arbitrary killing itself is bad. Her example is of a person who thinks of life as continuous in some sense, thereby validating the worth of any living person (?). This is true, but the continuity of life is a pretty vague concept that could be employed to make all sorts of very non-conservative arguments. Christianity offers a very good reason not to kill babies–they’re made in the image of God. But the moral government of God also permits the killing of murderers (by the state), and the ruler-ship of man gives him authority to use the Creation for his purposes since the rest of the world is made “for him.”

My tentative conclusion is that Ms. Parker’s fundamental premise is flawed. I have a number of other reasons for thinking that American conservatism needs religion, and her argument isn’t working as a credible counterargument for me.

Dec

3

I love this comic strip

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This comic strip is often very funny. It’s like a snarky version of Calvin and Hobbes — another favorite. But occasionally the artist comes draws what amounts to a political cartoon. This one cracks me up. Click the picture to see it larger.

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