Sorry about the lack of blogging lately. I've been pretty sick. I had the flu, which has somehow morphed into a cold.

We saw "Clones" today. It was ok. Lots of eye candy, but none of the characters seemed to have much in terms of motivations, outside of Anakin. (BTW I would probably turn to the dark side too if everyone started calling me Annie).

John Perkins book is very good. Its wonderful to me to see how people from very different theoogical backgrounds come to the same conclusions about particular issues. Mr Perkins spent most of his life doing urban community development work. He came from a very poor black community in Miss.; even saw his brother beaten to death by whites. Yet his conclusions about this sort of work are almost indistinguishable from what I've read from Tim Keller, Marvin Olasky, and what I've heard from Durham Rescue Mssion founder Ernie Mills. Given the work that all of those men have done, I suppose I should listen to what they have to say.

On the literary side, Avram Davidson has been something of a serendipity to me. All I knew of him was that Gene Wolfe respected him a lot, so that wa enough for me. The Phoenix and the Mirror is inspired by a set of medieval tales about Vergil (yes THAT Vergil) as a great magician. So the story is, more or less, about an alchemical quest in Roman times. The author's vocabulary is quite astonishing, but somehow never holds up the narrative flow, which I sometimes felt was one of Wolfe's flaws. He's certainly worth a try for you sci-fi fans, if you can find his stuff. I believe most of it is out of print.

My car died last week. But fortuitously my sister-in-law just bought a new car and was looking to get rid of her old one, so we don't have to buy a new one quite yet. Unfortunately I have to drive up to Cleveland and back to make the swap, so I won't be writing til at least late Tuesday. 'til then