Good article on Richard Pipes here. I first ran into Pipes on a C-SPAN show where he was arguing, based on a recent book he had written, that freedom was intimately tied to notions of private property.

So it seems I've agreed to lead a trip to Ukraine next summer. I'm really looking forward to going again, but taking on worrying about a whole team instead of just me and my wife will be a bit challenging. Plus I have to do fundraising again. Ugh.

Sometimes a story is just so heart-warming that you have to share it.

Book Notes
Reading my very first Tom Clancy book now. First impressions are that he is overly fond of military and political jargon. It's not at all incomprehensible, it just seems that he gets a kick out of saying ". . . POTUS said . . ."

Reading the Arabian Nights was kinda fun. The intoductory story was quite a bit racier than what followed, so that was a bit of a let down; not a bad way to get just a peek into arabic culture though.

Reading Mesopotamia and the Bible reminded me that I'd rather be vivisected by aliens than read about archeology.

The Golden Age was really one of the most amazing and inventive sci-fi novels I think I've ever read. I think there was more plot in the first 15 pages than in the whole 1st Matrix movie.

For a guy who never finished a college class, PKD always astounds me with both his knowledge and his thoughtfulness, not to mention the humor and fun plot lines. A Scanner Darkly is about drugs and dual personalities (caused by taking the drugs), and about the ability of people into institutions to sabotage themselves. The main character is both a drug dealer and a drug enforcement officer, never realizing that he's in fact tailing himself.

Reading Aquinas is a bit odd, since it consists of watching someone who lived over 700 years ago have a conversation with someone who lived over 1200 years before he did. He has lots of good things to think about, but a great deal of it seems, at least to me, to be superfluous. I'm in the section now about virtues, which is good since it talks about how to live well, but I can't say I'm all that interested in exactly how each virtue is related to ach other virtue and which are the cardinal ones and the principle ones and which can exist without the others, etc.

Of course, in the age of google, to ask a question of a certain type is the same as finding the answer. an excerpt from a book on the ethics of eating by Stephen Best, a philosphy prof from UTEP:

"...[W]e have duties not only not to interfere with animals and not to eat them, but also to come their aid and defend their interests; it is not simply enough not to harm, we have an active duty to assist. Which epitaph would you prefer: 'here lies Mr. Bland, he did no harm and minded his own business,' or 'here lies a citizen of the world who served others with passion and conviction'? There is some truth in the stewardship ethic: our unique status as conscious, self-aware, ethical, rational beings gives us unique duties and responsibilities. Among our duties is the negative duty to avoid flesh and to boycott the meat and dairy industries; when we buy their products we are saying: 'yes, I approve of what you are doing to the animals and the earth; here is my money to support your venture'! But the positive message of both Christianity and a secular rights standpoint is that ethics demands compassion, love, sacrifice, and service. How corrupted do our sensibilities have to be to think that this message applies only to human beings? Do love and compassion have boundaries? Of gender, race, tribe, or nation? -- or species? We are to serve all those beings who need our assistance; the least among us have the greatest claim to our service, and thus the animals have a mighty claim indeed; they do not have a voice and so they must rely on the voice of human reason and compassion...."

So here I the questions I have about vegetarianism. Is it wrong for anyone to eat meat? Under what sort of circumstances might it be allowable? When was it discovered that eating meat is morally wrong, and by whom was it discovered? Can ethics be discovered? Was eating meat always wrong or just recently?

I wonder if someone has already published something thorough on these issues?

I think if I were a smart philosopher type, I might like to write a paper on the ethics of vegetarianism. AKMA pointed me to this blog started by a second grade teacher for her class. It looks fascinating so far. I certainly think children's questions can lead to lots of interesting reflections.

Don't you hate it when you loan your car to someone and then the car dies on them?

I think all of us old folks will get a kick out of this, at least those of us who had an atari at home.

Today is our tin anniversary. If you want to know how to stay married this long, I'd be happy to tell you the secrets.

If you have not yet read Mark Helprin's Memoir From Antproof Case, go out, buy it, read it, then read the rest of this post.

Ok, welcome back. Good book wasn't it. Now, tell me if this story is real or not.

All of these quotes can be found through this page, in case you are interested in reading more online.

And, of course, this:

What about John Calvin do you like and dislike, and what imbalances do you think a college that attempts to be Calvinist would suffer as a result of that emphasis?

Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve read straight through the Institutes, so I can’t pretend to be up on Calvin. But, Calvin has always been influential in my work because he was a sanctificationist. People often times don’t notice that in the Institutes Calvin treats sanctification prior to justification. And in that sense, I think Calvin offers a real alternative to Lutheranism, which over-determines the notion of justification by faith by grace as the center of the gospel, which oddly enough took – and it shouldn’t have done it – emphasis away from the Incarnation and why it is that Jesus’ whole life is part and parcel, and crucial, for our understanding of what it means to be a Christian, and so I think Calvin is terrific on how he thought about those kinds of things. I think Calvinism in places like Calvin [college] can too quickly become an end in itself and forget that it’s not about being Calvinist; it’s about being a Christian in a manner that we identify with the Church across time, and that Christianity did not begin in the Reformation. And I know there are people at Calvin who remember that all the time and who are committed to connecting Calvinism to the great catholic tradition. But I think that’s absolutely crucial.

Or especially things like this:

I’ve always thought of myself as a theologian, because what I’ve wanted to do is show how theological language works to tell us the way things are and how it shapes us to be the people we need to be to know the way things are. I want to remind us that learning how to become a creature is every bit as complex as learning what justice is. It’s a way of reminding us that theological claims are practical down to the very bone.

ZH – Why is that important?

SH – As a matter of fact, it turns out to be very important. The way disciplinary divisions work within the modern university and seminary is intellectually corrupting. For example, theologians think that students learn to read Scripture in Old Testament and New Testament courses, and therefore we theologians don’t need to use Scripture as part and parcel of the way we do our work. I try to defy that in every way I can. And I refuse to accept the assumption that you need to know all the historical, critical scholarship behind the text to know what the text means.

ZH – Say more about that in terms of the work of people such as John Crossan or Marcus Borg.

SH – Yeh, I have very little use for the Jesus Seminar. The Jesus Seminar’s idea that somehow or other through the use of historical methodologies they’re going to get to the “real Jesus” is absolutely crazy. The real Jesus is the resurrected Jesus, and the idea that somehow, since these Gospels were produced later and therefore are not newspaper accounts, and therefore they’re not getting the real Jesus, is just absolutely conceptually crazy. It’s crazy! So, I think that the Crossan- and Borg-like presumptions that they are quasi-scientists reconstructing the real Jesus that we can somehow believe in is a sign of the intellectual corruption in modernity that assumes that historians know what they’re talking about.

I don’t think historians know what they’re talking about at all.

Also things like this:

I sometimes think that there is a conspiracy afoot to make Alasdair MacIntyre's account of the manager in After Virtue empirically verifiable.

That the manager has become characteristic of liberal politics should not be surprising, but I continue to be taken aback by the preponderance of such character types in the ministry. Of course, I should not be surprised that a soulless church produces a soulless ministry devoid of passion. The ministry seems captured in our time by people who are desperately afraid they might actually be caught with a conviction at some point in their ministry that might curtail future ambition. They, therefore, see their task to "manage" their congregations by specializing in the politics of agreement by always being agreeable. The preaching such a ministry produces is designed to reinforce our presumed agreements, since a "good church" is one without conflict. You cannot preach about abortion, suicide, or war because those are such controversial subjects-better to concentrate on "insights" since they do so little work for the actual shaping of our lives and occasion no conflict.

I confess one of the things I like about the Southern Baptists is that they have managed to have a fight in public. Fundamentalists at least believe they are supposed to have strong views, and they even believe they are supposed to act on their convictions. The problem with most of the mainstream churches is that we do not even know how to join an argument-better, we think, to create a committee to "study the issue."

Here's part of the reason I find Hauerwas so congenial to reformed (in this case, vantillian) ways of thinking:

Michael J. Quirk: Your Gifford lectures contain critical appraisals of both William James and Reinhold Niebuhr, as well as the astonishing claim that Karl Barth is the most successful natural theologian of the twentieth century. One usually finds Barth depicted as the resolute enemy of all natural theology. Could you explain how you came to this understanding of Barth?

Stanley Hauerwas: It fits as part of my larger argument that a natural theology is unintelligible separated from a full doctrine of God. And of course what a full doctrine of God entails is an understanding, first of all, that God is not part of the metaphysical furniture of the universe. What many of the Gifford lecturers have assumed is what Nicholas Wolterstorff has called an "evidentialist apologetic" that tried to show that God, as an empty signifier, must exist. And I'm trying to show that if you could successfully show that that God must exist then you would have evidence that the Christian God does not exist. Because the Christian God is the God who created gratuitously. So there can be no necessary relationship between creation and God from the Christian point of view. Accordingly, the whole modernist enterprise that the Gifford lectures named was based upon a decisive metaphysical mistake vis-а-vis the Christian doctrine of God.

If anyone is curious, Quicksilver is much better than the majority of amazon reviews would suggest. Not AS good as Cryptonomicon, but good nonetheless. It is odd to read a book that long and realize that it is only the first part of a trilogy. It does feel incomplete.

Interview for Josh:

1 Have you seen the new Luther movie yet?

2 What is your favorite religiously themed movie?

3 If you could change one thing about all the calvinists you know, what would it be?

4 Did you participate in "Talk Like A Pirate Day?

5 If you were stranded on a desert island with plenty of food annd water and came upon a brass lamp with mysterious markings of the letters a though d all over it, and you rubbed the lamp and a genie came out and said, "CHOOSE ONE OF THE FOLOWING", which would you choose:

A. A generator, big screen tv, DVD player and a magical subscripttion to Netflix,

B. Magical acccess to any books from the library of Congress whenever you wanted,

C. A Beautiful woman, or,

D Transportation back to your normal life?

streblo! (HBWVF(my new acronym for high bandwidth video file))

It really seems lie you are not a responsible computer owning Christian unless you take advantage of this.

Reason number 257 not to live in South Africa.

Interview for Jonathan:

1 If you could undo one thing you did from your college years, what would it be?

2 Have you ever heard John Derbyshire sing?

3 What inspired you to go see the Power Team?

4 Do you think Josh will ever cease to be a grumpy Lutheran?

5 If someone gave you access to Bill Gates bank account for one day, what one really dumb thing would you love to do with his money (this has to be something you could complete in one day).

Ah, so this is what kids are up to in today's music scene (don't read shortly before, during or after eating).

Interview questions for Scott Cunningham

1 What's the best (or worst) economist joke you've ever heard?

2 If you were leading a class of college educated Christians on the subject "Great Books I Think You Should Read", what would you put on the list? (limit of 10 max)

3 What one area of popular american culture makes no sense to you at all? (I'm looking for something general rather than a specific like Barney or Pauley Shore)

4 Explain how a study on corporal punishment can fall under the purview of an economist. (My wife wants to know)

5 What's the single dumbest question or statement you've heard said by a student or a prof in an econ class. You may include one of each if you like.

Please note I was nice to you. I thought about asking things like, "If you could change one thing about your wife . . ."


::If you would like to participate too, here are your instructions:
1. Leave me a comment saying "interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you five questions (not the same as you see here).
3. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.::

The deacon interviewed. I was interveiwed recently (actually right now, since this is live) by Valerie. Here are the answers to questions which have benn plaguing my reader(s) for time untold:


1) My piano has not been tuned in probably over 30 years. Should I be sentenced to a) a term in solitary confinement (specify length), b) a term of hard labor (specify length and nature of work), c) a term in the public stocks (specify length), or d) other (specify specifics)?

Since this gets to a subject close to my heart, I'll give you a serious answer. When I meet someone who really neglects their piano, not just skipped a tuning here or there, but doesn't service it at all and doesn't really play it either, my thought in my heart is usually, "why don't you sell this or give it to someone who wants it." I'm discouraged by the fact that pretty much 0% of the homes I see have piano or any other sort of home made music as the central form of family entertainment, while well aver 90% have a prominently located television. And it's not that I hate tv, but rather that I hate to see people being so passive coupled with not learning music.

2) Speaking of sentences, you've just been sentenced to 30 days of solitary confinement. They've given you a walkman and enough batteries to play a total of about 15 hours of music. What CDs do you take and why (home-burned mixes not allowed!)? How do you allot the 15 hours?

I'm not sure any particular pieces are so important to me that I would feel like I really HAD to take them with me, but, given the opportunity I'm sure I could pick some things out to help pass the time.
Hour One--Arma Lucis, by the Soli Deo Gloriam Cantorum (my favorite choral collection)
Hour Two--Mozart Requiem, pretty much the only Mozart piece I love
Hour Three--Phil Keaggy and the PKB, Emerging, classic rock by a great musician with thoughful lyrics
Hours Four and Five--Havergal Brian, Symphony 1 (The Gothic), though I have trouble imagining listening to this on a walkman, it's a piece to wake up the nieghbors with
Hour Six--Ralph Vaughn Williams, Symphony 3 (The Pastoral), just for a complete change of pace
Hour Seven--Golden Brass, Philip Jones Brass Ensemble, collection of brass music from the renaissance through the 20th century
Hour Eight--Emerson, Lake and Palmer (self titled first album) good, interesting and varied music
Hour Nine--Shostakovitch, Symphony number 5, to help me reflect on the injustice of my sentence and put it into perspective
Hour Ten--Glad, No Less Than All, something to encourage my heart a bit (plus I heaven't listened to it in a while)
Hour Eleven--The Kinleys first album, just to remind me of my wife
Hour Twelve--Buxtehude toccatas and chaconnes, I had this on tape years ago and completely wore it out. I never get tired of his organ music
Hour Thirteen--Le Mystere des Voix Bulgare, practically anything, maybe the Cathedral Concert album, just to hear the acoustics of them in a cell should be interesting
Hour Fourteen--Brahms Symphony number 1 and John Rutter's Gloria (I think I can squeeze those into an hour)
Hour Fifteen--King's X, Gretchen Goes to Nebraska, something to get me pumped up for release back into the general population

3) Tuning pianos is your forte. What sort of job would you consider yourself least qualified for and/or least interested in doing?

I think I've had some of the jobs I'm least qualified for (speaking tempermentally, rather than strict technical qualifications), specifically commission sales. I'm horrible at convincing someone to buy stuff. As far as least interest, really anything that involves sitting at a desk in the same room all day. I like a change of scenery every hour or so :) I guess putting things together, telemarketing would be the worst.

4) How did you propose to your wife?

I asked her if she would marry me. We were dogsitting for one of my customers, and I just decided it was time to ask. I hadn't planned it out and didn't have a ring yet. I just figured I'd better ask before she got to know me TOO well.

5) What are the most challenging and the most rewarding aspects of being a deacon?

One of the rewarding things was being able to rotate off recently :) I think I liked just being called upon to do some physical things which didn't require too much reflecting or handwringing. The chairs need to be moved, so let's move 'em. It was also nice to both be able to get to know some of the great guys at my church and to get to see how the church is run and see the leadership a little closer. My respect for my church has really only gone up in the process.

I think the most challenging part was seeing my own weaknesses come out, putting off assigned tasks, taking easy ways out of things, etc. Also trying to think about how to implement charitable works into th structure of our particular church was very hard. I was very excited about that when I started three years ago, but feel like very little has changed. Our church model is geared more toward encouraging members to involve themselves in outside institutions rather than doing things ourselves. This has good and bad sides, but makes some things pretty hard.


::If you would like to participate too, here are your instructions:
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2. I will respond by asking you five questions (not the same as you see here).
3. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions.
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5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.::

Guess what I have in my hands right now (hehe):

Neal Stephenson issueth from a Clan of yeomen, itinerant Parsons, ingenieurs, and Natural Philophers that hath long dwelt in bucolick marches and rural Shires of his native Land, and trod the Corridors of her 'Varsities. At a young age, finding himself in a pretty Humour for the writing of Romances, and the discourse of Natural Philosophy and Technologick Arts, he took up the Pen, and hath no since laid it down.

Two weeks ago my church had its first men's conference. A small group of guys have formed an ad-hoc committee and really run with men's ministry ideas, and they managed to put a big shindig together. Our speaker was Tom Hawkes, pastor of a PCA church in Charlotte, speaker at men's and leadrship conferences and brother of one of our elders. His address was really quite challenging, talking about Men and God, Men and other Men, and Men and Women. As you would expect, the latter was the most interesting, culminating in small group discussions and confession of sins. Interspesed with the teaching segments were small workshop/brainstorming groups focusing on various ideas for future ministry ideas such as a Habitat for Humanity project, marriage and family seminars, mentoring, and other things. I was amazed at how productive the whole event was. If you or your church has any interest in bringing in a speaker for men, I recommend pastor Hawkes very highly.

Time to end my little blogging funk. Sometimes I'm just not inspired to write anything. When it comes down to it, I'm not really a creative person; I like prefer working with other people's ideas and fixing them or commenting on them.

While I'm on a music kick, let me recommend this entry from Terry Teachout. I think if I was only allowed to listen to one more symphony in my lifetime, it would be Shostakovitch's Fifth. I think the real test of a piece of music is how often you can hear it and still enjoy it. I picked up this particular piece in high school and it never sounds the least bit dull to me. Some Beethoven, and Dvorak's Ninth have moved into the "i've heard this too many times now" category in my mind, as has virtually all pop music I used to love. Maybe I just have a short attention span.

I'm not sure if this makes me hungry, thirsty, or just low on protein. (Make sure to check it out thoroughly)

Perhaps I should make it a policy to post all and any good news coming out of the episcopal church. (my impish side tells me that would be less work than the opposite, but you didn't hear that from me.)

New hope for those who need some extra cash, but think they have nothing to trade for it. Fortunately I still have more books to sell, but when they run out, I may give these guys a call. They seem so nice.

Is it just that people don't have the patience for music, or is it that music no longer has patience either? This article has an interesting point.

Clock the last 40 years and you'll find the beat getting relentlessly faster. The scholarly rationalizations are more sophisticated now, but somehow what they invariably add up to is: You can't be skinny enough or fast enough.

There's a speed sweepstakes going on. Six years ago in Boston I heard a Bach "B Minor Mass" from which slow tempos had been essentially banished. No more grandeur, no more sublimity, no more sweetness, no more tragedy—all qualities in which the "B Minor" is incomparably rich. Or used to be. In this performance the speeds were brisk, brisker, breakneck. In the "Crucifixus" movement, Christ trotted all the way to Golgotha, pumping his cross.

I thought that was the last freaking straw, everything fast as possible, until two years ago I heard a conductor take movements of the "B Minor" faster than possible, chorus and orchestra scrambling desperately to catch up. In the crowd after the performance I heard one guy exclaim, "I didn't know Bach was so bouncy!"; another, an organist no less, wondered, "I don't get it. What's the big deal about that piece?" The most trenchant comment was from an older composer, who sighed as I passed, "Too bad. It really is the greatest music in the world."

George Grant, on his blog, recently quoted someone as saying there's no such thing as too many books, just not enough bookshelves. This seems so self-evident to me that it hardly needss saying. But, from time to time, I try to weed my book collection, getting rid of titles I neither want to read again, nor can I think of anyone who might like to borrow them. I threw out a couple of decrepit paperbacks. Then I started looking at amazon's used book deal. Hmm, one of the books I have but am not planning on reading has a suggested price of aboiut ten bucks, and someone wants to buy one. Just looking around my office/computer room/library I start checking used prices. Some of my collection I bought as remaindered books, and all of these seem to be going for a dollar or less. Hardly worth it. But many seem to be going for several dollars.

I listed five books for sale yesterday, sold one the same day and now have sold another. Three cheers for amazon.

An old customer of mine loaned me a copy of Pablo Casals' autobiography several years ago. He was really quite a person, often disdaining the spotlight which his talent had earned him to just spend time in his small Catalonian village. Most of his story I have now forgotten, just retaining hazy images, but one thing I remember very clearly. Each morning when he arose, he would play through one prelude and fugue from J S Bach's Well Tempered Clavier. For those of you not so conversant in music history, this is possible the single most influental book of music ever published. It's form was studied by virtually all of the great composers, and many composers for the piano, Debussey and Shostakovitch just to name two, published their own books of preludes (preludes to what?) in each key as Bach did.

While I am not so conisitent in my piano practice as Casals was (he was not a noted pianist, btw), I have become more so lately, playing through at least one prelude or fugue most days, though not first thing in the morning. They are certainly great reading and skill exercises, and I'm feeling slightly more confident with them each time I go through the book.

I was just noticing yesterday how Bach generally seems to stray the furthest from conservative tonality/harmony in the last eight bars of each piece usually. I have this vague recollection of learning somewhere that Bach like to build tension towards the end of a piece to make a fulfilling resolution, so that must have something to do with it. It is a bit disorienting at times though to get to the end of the piece and suddenly be faced with both a whole different rhythmic structure as well as an overwhelming number of accidentals.

So far as I know, there aren't any pianists reading this, so I'll just shut up now. Piano, in addition to being my prefession, is one of my soapbox topics. Why do people now think that playing music means pushing a button on an electronic machine? Why don't more churches at least provide musical instruction for their youth?

I actually drove through this community in June, though I saw neither tomatoes nor firearms at the time. A few "road apples" were in evidence. Such a sad story.

Updated the links on the side there. Way overdue for some folks. This is not the entirety of the bologs I frequent, just the "special" ones :)

Last night we watched a movie called Deacons for Defense. It was really quite good, IMHO. Was produced, apparently, for Showtime and is now in the stores. It's about the black community in a small town in Louisiana in the mid-sisties and their decision to take up arms to defend their children (the non-violent protestors) against the Klan. To say much more about it would give away some of the drama, so I won't. Forest Whitaker plays the lead role, so you just know its good already, even though he isn't a samurai this time.

Just watched Gangs of New York. I was going to wait until I had read the book, but we were at the video store and it just seemed like the thing to rent. Pretty good look at how awful some of our history is.

I'm slowly breaking my prejudice against public libraries. After checking out the new Eco book, I've now borrowed the new(ish) Donna Tartt book (not bad so far), plus, from their DVD collection, 2 plays, Signs, and Spirited Away, the latter of which I watched last night. Good stuff.

In case you no one has told you yet, Yoder's The Politics of Jesus is an awesome book. You should read it.

In case you can't tell, I ran into the 'design your own hell' site today. Perfect for your most vindictive side.

Parents who bring squalling brats to R-rated movies
Circle I Limbo

Objectivists
Circle II Whirling in a Dark & Stormy Wind

Democrats
Circle III Mud, Rain, Cold, Hail & Snow

Greens
Circle IV Rolling Weights

Scientologists
Circle V Stuck in Mud, Mangled

River Styx

Gray Davis
Circle VI Buried for Eternity

River Phlegyas

Osama bin Laden
Circle VII Burning Sands

Saddam Hussein
Circle IIX Immersed in Excrement

NAMBLA Members, Bill Clinton
Circle IX Frozen in Ice

Design your own hell

If your name is Scott Cunningham, you may click here and here.

I've been requested to link to the star wars fan film competition winner. Just click where it says Pink Five. I haven't looked at any of the other films, so let me know if they are any good. Thanks to Chris O"Donnell for the link.

If some of you have not yet seen the ping pong video, you can find it here. It's a long windows media file, just to warn you. But definitely worth it.

A general word of advice. If you are having an affair (which I already don't recommend anyhow), it might no be such a good idea to write it up on your blog before letting your spouse know.

Attention. We break from our normal, boring routine to make a brief announcement. John Bush, blogger, MTW missionary, and radical republican, AKA discoshaman, host of Le Sabot Post-Moderne, has moved his site to here. Thank you for your attention. You may go back to your normal time wasting now.

Wonderful discovery (for classical musicians)! Yesterday I discovered that music publisher Theodore Presser has put sheet music onto CD's, thus allowing someone to purchase huge quantities of sheet music and then print or view what they like, all for a pretty reasonable price. For instance, the complete solo piano music of Grieg and Mendelsohn, 1100 pages worth if I remember correctly, is on one CD for less than 20 bucks. Like the rest of the music publishing industry, TP does not sell things directly on the net, so, should you be interested, you'll have to find them via search engines. The only down side I can see is that you might spend more printing things out yourself than it would cost you to buy them pre-printed, depending on the circumstances.

Liberalism illustrated. Of course, by liberalism, I mean american political philosophy generally, not the thinking of those designated "liberals". Sometimes I think the story of my post colege education has been to learn the flaws, weaknesses and problems with the ideas presented in that file.

One of the best, simple and original ideas to hit the internet.

Hmm, I can't figure out which of these circles is moving.

In other news, I was wandering in a field and stumbled over a treasure of great worth, so I took a small amount of money from my wallet and bought the field, and the treasure therein. Actually what happened was that I was browsing the local used book store, looking to find some Graham Greene novels on the cheap. As I looked at one of them I noticed something stuck inside. As I pulled the object out, I discovered it to be a Barnes & Noble gift certificate, still in a sealed envelope. I showed it to the store clerk, who said, "Well, I suppose it's finders keepers . . . if you buy the book." So I did. I have been making a slight effort to contact the person named on the certificate, but if he doesn't respond soon, I'm calling it mine.

I'm sure you need some good cheer this weekend, so if you haven't already (or lately), go over to www.poetry.com, and search for the first name "Freemont". Just make sure that your own mother is wearing heavy boots or steel socks or some other adequate protection.

Received yet another letter from one of my Ukrainian students today. Now I have to write back though. Also I received an email from the organization we were serving in Ukraine with some of the student feedback comments. Thought you might enjoy reading it. None of these were my students though.

Alexander: "I enjoyed this opportunity to communicat with English
speakers.
The teachers were very professional in their teaching methods of
English"
Tomila: "These classes were very helpful for me. I learned a lot of new
words, imporved my pronunciation. I liked that the groups were small
enough
for everybody to particiapte in discussions> The atmosphere was open
and we
could express our points of view freely without being afraid to be
misunderstood."
Sergei: "It was a surprise for me that these Americans would come to
our
country and do something good for us for free. It seems that these days
nobody does anything without wanting to get something out of it for
himself.
WE felt that these people came here really to help us. That made me
think
that maybe I should explore closer Christian ideas that they were
presenting."
Irina: "I was concerned that they would impose their Christian views
when I
found out that we would be studying the Bible. But I didnt' feel any
pressure and I could openly disagree and I could make my own
conclusions.
This experience changed my attitude to Christians".
Andrei: "I liked learning more about American life style. I was kind of
surprised that people there have problems too. I thought American is
like a
Paradise. I was surprised that even though these Americans were
University
educated people they believed in God. I thought only uneducated weak
people
can believe in that kind of stuff".

Interesting new review of a fairly old game here. If any of you try this, let me know, cuz I might be interested in trying it myself.

Infrequently asked questions
Q1 So, why haven't you been blogging much lately?

A. Dunno. Just don't feel talkative maybe. Doing lots o' reading and stuff.

Q2 Have you received any letters yet from any of your students in Kiev?

A. Why yes I have. Funny you should ask!

Q3 How was the grammar in this letter?

A. Atrocious. Plus she told me that all of her family members were "high" raher than "tall". I might need to explain the difference when I write back.

Q4 What else have you been wasting time on, since you haven't been blogging?

A. Excuse me? Wasting time? Me? Well, we watched all the episodes of Fawlty Towers this week. Plus I've gotten into a neat board game turned into internet game called Cosmic Encounter.

Q5 If we were interested, could we play with you for free?

A. Yes you can.

Q6 How will we know who you are in the game?

A. I use the name "deacon".

Q7 Have you had any recent encounters with poison ivy?

A. Do you mean the character from the Batman movie or the actual plant?

Q8 Who's asking the questions here?

A You are.

Q9 Alright then, just answer me, and no more lip.

A. Ok.

Q10 Well?

A What?

Q11 What's your answer?

A Could you repeat the question again?

Q12 Be glad I'm patient. have you, or have you not had any encounters with poison ivy lately?

A Do you mean the . . . [SMACK!!!] . . . OWWW! Ok, ok. Yes, I've gotten it all over one knee, which is now twice the size of the other knee and is now dripping with a nasty goo on what seems to be a permanent basis.

Q13 And how long do you expect this condition to continue?

A How should I know. Am I a doctor?

Q14 Didn't I warn you about asking questions?

A Yes . . . sir.




I apologize for the lack of any substantive comment on this blog, both now and at all times future and past. If you want something informative and entertaining, I suggest you try somewhere else.

Looks like fun for the whole family. Or some of the family at least. I won't point out that the wife in question doesn't have to be one's own wife.

My young old friend Daniel Vos has just reminded me that this year is the 200th anniversary of the death of Caleb Adams. Perhaos you are wondering who Caleb Adams was. Perhaps you should be wondering how and why he died. Read it all here. BTW, Daniel first published this story when he was 13, iirc.

I suppose it's time to provide y'all with an overview of our recent trip. We drove up to Baltimore (for reasons too complicated to explain here) and flew from BWI to Iceland to Stockholm to Munich to Kiev on June 6-7. On the evening of the seventh, having fought our way through Ukrainian customs (less than self-explanatory), we were greeted by Nick, the president of International Partnerships. He drove the four of us (Lenise and I, Jamie Boyce--a chemistry grad student, and John Hamilton--a long-time navigator and veteran of many of these types of trips) to an apartment building on the left bank portion of Kiev.

Perhaps the most frightening part of the whole trip was the elevator ride to the sixth floor of the building. The elevator made sounds I've not heard outside of science fiction movies, but eventually made it up to the seventh floor. As a perceptive reader, you will have noticed that that was not out intended destination. We begged to just walk down the stairs, but Nick insisted that we just needed to hit the 6 button again. We did make it to the sixth floor this time, and proceeded down a very dark hallway to our apartment. Thanks be to God! The IP staff had stocked the place to the gills with food and bottled water. I was especially concerned about the water, knowing that I need to drink a lot of it, and that the local tap water is generally unsafe.

After settling in and learning some of the, umm, idiosyncrasies of the apartment (nothing serious), we went to bed. Sunday we attended church with the IP people and potential translators in another apartment. This is where we met the other two members of our team, Don and Janelle Robinson. Don is a professional violinist and Janelle is a pianist, so they played a few songs for the church service. Probably about 30 people at church. We were invited to play basketball or volleyball afterwards, but we were still a bit tired from the trip, so we declined. Mostly rested and prepared our lessons for Monday.

Monday morning breakfast: bread, cheese, ham, coffee (or cherry coke--Nick's favorite), yoghurt, or cereal (Zaloti crunch--Jamie and Lenise thought it was the world's best cereal). Meeting at 9:15 to discuss the plan for the day. Peter and Diana Shulyagin are the leaders of the Kiev team (IP has teams in about 10 cities) and they gave us some (odd) ideas for icebreaker questions for our groups. Our format was to have 3 hour classes three times each day. Two hours of English lessons and an hour of Bible discussion, with breaks each hour. Three class levels: beginning, intermediate, and advanced. Before the trip, Lenise and I had agreed to teach the intermediate classes. We didn't realize that we got the lucky draw. There weren't too many inter. students, so we each only had one class, mine at 3 pm and hers at 7 pm. All the others had two classes each (the first group started at 10am). Lenise went to Jamie's class to see what it would be like, and John and I took a walk down to the grocery store to look around. Only interesting thing was seeing some guys selling cartons of cigarettes from the back of a truck.

Lunch at about 1:10. All the food through the week was pretty edible, with the posssible exception of the side salad; something vaguely resembling coleslaw. I ate it all the first day, but only picked at it on subsequent days. Our meeting place was a local kindergarden (actually k-4th grade), so the food was prepared by the school staff. Three pm saw me nervously fidgeting in front of my class of about 7 students. Lenise came along to learn from my mistakes. I realized painfully throughout the first two hours that although I understood the lesson quite well, I hadn't really developed a plan for how to bring it to the students. Quite a few awkward silences. At 5 it was time for the bible discussion, so I thought, "hey, I'm better prepared for this, since we've practiced a few times." The text was from Ecclesiates about how two are better than one. I shared a story of how someone helped me (John helping us navigate customs at the airport), and asked if any of them had stories of giving or receving help. Not much response. Everyone seemed to agree thoroughly with the sense of the text, so there wasn't much controversy, hence no one felt the need to say much. Peter and Diana showed up and helped keep conversation going, but I felt pretty defeated.

Off to dinner, then a little break before I went with Lenise to her class. While she certainly did better than I, things were still pretty quiet all around. She had the added disadvantage, in my mind, of only having four students, so it was even quieter than my class. At 10 things were done for the day and we headed back to the apartment to talk about the day and sleep.

Tuesday morning woke up quite early (as I did pretty much each day of the trip), and spent lots of time reviewing ideas for the lesson after finishing my devotions. During the morning session John and Lenise and I took the trolley to the metro and rode downtown. The old central part of Kiev is quite beautiful. We found a little sidewalk vendor who served us 2 draft beers four five grivnas (approx $.95). But had to head back petty quickly to meet up for lunch. Over lunch my wonderful translator, Nadia, gave me some great ideas for my class ("teach them some songs"), so things went much more smoothly. I let Lenise handle her own class alone and did some studying and preparing in the evening.

Wedensday Jamie, Janelle, Lenise and I took one of our translators (Larisa) along for the "official" tour of Kiev. Went to the service at St Vladimir's cathedral (makes one glad to be a protestant), saw some of the other cathedrals, satatues, parks, and the national university. Lunch in a little cafe downtown was inexpensive but not especially good, plus we all seemed to have some, shall we say, digestive issues over the next day or so. My class was anxious to hear about my excursion around town, and seemed to be more open than before.

Thursday. Made arrangmeet with John Bush, fellow blogger, fellow republican, fellow presbyterian, and missionary to Kiev. We took taxis around the city (every vehicle in Kiev is potentially a taxi!), had a nice lunch, a great chat about religion, books and films, and another jaunt around some of the sights of Kiev. Classes, yadda, yadda, yadda. Discussion of Psalm 121 was quite interesting.

Friday. John decides it's time to make the official video of our trip (to be used for recruiting by IP). Gets us brushing our teeth, eating breakfast, asks us what our biggest fears were, biggest surprises etc. Also, John invites me to his evening advanced class to demonstrate the difference between Southern and Midwestern accents. Was fun being with the advanced group, as I could talk at almost a normal speed. Feeling better and better about how things are going. People in my class are coming early and staying late to ask me questions.

Saturday. Last official day of classes. Discussed John 3. Dmytro, one of my students and a RC seminarian (though only about 19) said there was too much to say about God's love. Somehow the discussion devolved into an argument about how much a soul weighs. Aparently this is an issue of some interest in the orthodox community. Another student, Natasha, came up to me afterwards to tel me she wouldn't be there for the wrap up party Sunday but that she had enjoyed the class immensely. One student gave me a box of chocolates. We took all the translators out to McDonald's for dinner, which they enjoyed quite a bit.

Sunday. Went to Second Presbyterian with John Bush (and Don and Janelle) while the others went to the IP church again. The sermon of course was all in Russian, but I liked the look in the pastor's eyes and his tone and manner. Then we took the IP staff out to a nice restaurant to eat and debrief. Lots of appreciation passed around (they said we were their easiest group to deal with), and some good suggestions for improvement as well. Afternoon party for all the students back at the school. Unfortunately it was less well prepared or thought out than the other activities so we were all a bit confused, but we had fun and took lots of pictures of each other. Evening concert with Don and Janelle and a local string quartet at the nearby baptist church went over very well. Said some more goodbyes. I gave away the books I had brought along to Nadia and Larisa who were very excited to get some books in English.

Monday got up at 3:30 to leave for the airport at 4. Flew back to Munich on the way to Stockholm. Collected luggage and hopped in a taxi. Sweden regulates the price a taxi can charge for airport runs, so no haggling was needed. Went to our rented apartment right smack in the middle of the old city/tourist district. The contrast with Kiev was quite stark. went from ugly buildings and cheap food to beautiful buildings as far as the eye can see and more restaurants with $30 entrees than I've ever seen in my life. So we had two days in this nordic Disneyworld to unwind and rest before heading back home (which in our case involved lots of driving to visit with friends and family first, but that's another story).

Lots of other things I could say about Kiev, but my fingers are worn down to the bone, so I'll stop here.

how about scientology for the sans-a-belt generation?

I think tonight we're going to focus some on our "post-trip" activities. Label pictures, financial report for the church, short trip summary--what we learned or accomplishesd, that kinda stuff. But for now: your one stop source for interesting conservative political cartoons.

Back home now, finally. More about the trip later. Lots to do today to catch up. Just wanted to mention this book for those of you who are into theology and Paul. The first chapter on justification is amazing.

Well,
here I am in an internet cafe in Stockholm. We left Kiev with a certain amount of weeping very early Monday morning. Our flight left at 6:30, so we had to get up at 3 to get ready. We are now in an apartment right smack in the middle of the olderst part of Stockholm (Gamla Stan, for those of you famailiar with Stockholm or who want to look on a map). To be honest our part of town looks sort of like a Lutheran version of Disneyworld. Very touristy, all pedestrian traffic, and restaurants with 30 dollar menu entrees. Very pretty, just kinda weird, especially after Kiev.

The part of town we were in in Kiev was all built in the last several years, but it looks much, much older. Someone need to introduce paint over there. In any event, we really fell in love with the people we met there, both the staff of IP and the people in our English classes and Bible studies.

I really need to write more in my journal over the next couple of days so I don't forget too much. Kiev is a great place to visit just in case any of you get the chance. More later when I'm more collected.

Ah, looking at the new blogger stuff. Looks snazzier from inside here. 11 hours to leave in the morning. We just found out that the guitar I had so carefully wrapped in bubble wrap was not the guitar we are supposed to take. I sure hope we can re-use this bubble wrap. Flexibility. I learned it in music performance, but it's always a bit hard to change things at the last minute.

Countdown: now 50 hours left til we leave the house to start our trip to Ukraine.

So I've been poking around the atheist board on and off today. Sheesh, those guys have arguments almost as nasty as Christians do :)

I was so impressed by NT Wright's new book and his arguents for the resurrection that I thought to myself, surely, this will be good for some intelligent atheist out there. Thus, I have started a little discussion thread at a place where I know people like to discuss atheism. Just go to the forum on biblical criticism. Any Wright readers and fans who care to would be welcome to join in the fun. Gotten a few responses already.

A friend of mine who visited Australia a few years ago reported to me that the folks down under had a generally bad attitude towards the more successful members of society. They were referred to as "tall trees" who needed to be cut down. I won't stand in judgment, but it sounds like a serious cultural envy problem. But apparently Atlas is shrugging a bit, or at least going out for a walk.

from game design blogger Greg Costikyan:

but inspired by the fact that actor Hugo Weaving plays both Elrond and Agent Smith.

"You seem to live two lives, Mr. Baggins. In one, you are a peaceful and productive resident of the Shire. In the other, you flit about the world in the company of wizards, dwarves, and other low lives, apparently attempting to hurl a magic ring into a volcano.


"One of these paths has a future, Mr. Baggins."

I know I've said this before, but this is really the funniest thing I've ever seen (or heard in this case). Go down to "They might kill you/We are the Microbes" and take a listen. Just don't do it with a mouthful of liquid.

I suppose this would be one way to watch the day go by.

You are Morpheus, from "The Matrix." You
have strong faith in yourself and those around
you. A true leader, you are relentless in your
persuit.


What Matrix Persona Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

This article points out something I've known for a long, long time, namely that our education system favors girls. George Gilder pointed this out to me in a book he wrote back around 1980. But what I've learned recently, due to my particular circumstances, is that the problem of males fslling behind seems to be much, much worse in eastern Europe. The typical east European (of either sex, from what I've heard) views the typical male as a worthless drunk. This is not meant to make us feel better in any way. Just if you think of praying for Ukraine or Russia, pray that God would raise up some male leadership.

and BTW, we watched A Man For All Seasons tonight. I'd always heard that it was good, but shied away from it before. I have this irrational instinct that historical movies are boring. In any case, this is a GREAT film. Go find it and watch it. Now. Stop reading and go to the video store or library of your choice. I mean it. Go away.

My most natural state is to remain silent, and that, I'm afraid, is the only reason I haven't posted more lately. Progress toward our mission trip is coming along. It appears now that the team in Kiev has secured an apartment for us to stay in while we are there, so that's one more thing we don't have to worry about. For some reason now I keep thinking about the possiblilty of our luggage being lost. I know that I have to put all my absolute essentials in my carry-on, so I shouldn't worry too much.

Also quite enjoying the new Wright book. It's dense and slow, of course, but I do get a chuckle out of it now and then. Like his comment about Philo being discarded and only the academic worms gnawing his bones. Guess you had to be there for that one.

My other big worry, though, is teaching SS in July-August. I've done lost of research already, and always haveideas coming into my head, but I worry about my ability to organize it into coherent lectures. I also worry about whether anyone will come, given that there will be quite a number of classes to choose from. And I worry about . . .well, enough of my worries. I should just do the work and stop whining.

Freind of ours just got a good article published at FrontPage about a certain university.

We certainly have no monopoly on interesting baby names in this country (tx to K-Lo).

BBC Proves Hobbes Right

Yesterday I heard a BBC reporter interviewing some Iraqi women. One of them stated, surprising both me and the reporter, "I'd rather have five Saddam Hussein's than our current situation." The reporter asked if freedom of expression didn't count for something now. the woman replied that there is no freedom without peace and security.

Just as biologically we cannot exist without oxygen, so socially we cannot exist without a modicum of safety for our persons and possesions. Perhaps we all need to take a break to thank God for the gift of peaceable society we have enjoyed for so long.

And of course, only users lose drugs.

Some theories need to be checked out once in a while, and it's about time for this one. Brief quote:

At first, said Phillips, "the lead male got a stone and started bashing the hell out of it.

"Another thing they were interested in was in defecating and urinating all over the keyboard," added Phillips, who runs the university's Institute of Digital Arts and Technologies.

I'm not linking to this to make fun of the japanese. I'm doing it to . . . umm . . . ok, I don't know why.

I hope someone can explain this site to me or it will bother me for the rest of my life.

Not sure if I have much blogworthy this week, besides being stung by a bee. Also had to change the number our men's singing group will be singing this Sunday due to someone unexpectedly not being able to make it. This weekend will also be the church's women's retreat, so I look forward to seeing all the men trying to take care of the kids :)

In the spirit of everyone making favorites lists, I've spent some time to think up my top ten list of symphonic pieces of music. The task of coming up with favorite pieces of any kind was just too daunting. So I have left out wonderful chamber pieces, solo pieces, choral masterpieces, and short works. These are all multi-movement (with one exception) symphonic works. In looking over them, I've noticed certain weird things about my taste, among them that most of these pieces are ones I became familiar with in high school, or earlier. I suppose the music of youth has a way of estabishing itself in one's mind. So here is my annotated list, alphabetically by composer:


1. Johannes Brahms, sym #4. This serves as a stand in for all 4 symphonies, not to mention the fact that he is in my estimation, the most skillful composer to live since J S Bach.

2 Havergal Brian sym #1 (The Gothic). An overwhelmig piece of music my perhaps the most unjustly neglected composer of the 20th century. Brian created a prodigious output of what I understand to be high quality music (I haven't heard much of it myself). This particular work is notable for the fact that it takes around 300 muscians to pull it off. You have to hear it t believe it, but it isn't for the timid or the time-challenged as it lasts over two hours.

3 Anton Bruckner sym #9. Don't know what to say about this one other than I never grow tired of it. Seems like the sort of thing an Ent would like; slow, ponderous, deliberate and powerful.

4 Aaron Copland sym #3. If you have ever enjoyed Copland but aren't familiar with this one, go get it. This is, if I understand correctly, the source for his famous Fanfare for the Common Man.

5 Howard Hanson sym #5. Again, this is a stand in for all his work. Another lesser known composer, but someone who tirelessly promoted the music of other americans. This particular piece I performed with a youth orchestra in Sweden, Denmark and Germany, so it carries a lot of memories for me. It is designed as a musical depiction of Passion Week.

6 Aram Khachaturian sym #3. Brass, brass and more brass. I grew up playing brass (French Horn) and have never gotten it out of my system. This one has some zip to it.

7 Felix Mendelsohn Incidental Music for A Midsummer Night's Dream. This is a piece which I listened to every night at bed time for several months when I was about 14. By far the closest to "classical" of anything on my list. I think I'm just amazed that he wrote this at the age of 16.

8 Dmitry Shostakovich sym #5. I think Shostakovich appealed to the melancholy in my character. I used to have a great love of the tragic, and there isn't much for me that evokes tragedy quite like this.

9 Sibelius sym #2. Though I like all his symphonies (#5 is also terrific), this is the one I performed so I got a real sense of the details of it. The final movement reminds me of being carried along giant waves.

10 Ralph Vaughn William sym #6 (The Pastoral). I don't think many are familar with this, but it's another one I've never tired of, and quite a chage from the louder stuff on this list. Quiet, smooth, and peaceful.

Runner's Up:

I had to leave off works such as The Planets and Respighi's Roman set, because I didn't think they quite fit the category (plus I wanted to keep it to ten). Other close calls were Dvorak's sym #9 and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Sheherazade.

You probably shouldn't visit this site.

In other news, last night we attended our first eeting of the Mebane Historical Society. Heard a terrific lecture by the man who heads the county historical museum (also a lecturer at UNCG). Learned a lot about what yo umight call the pre-history of our little town. Long story short, the town exists pretty much because the Mebane family paid off a legislator in the next county to the north and we ended up with the railroad tracks instead of them.

Also watched Run, Lola, Run. Enjoyed that quite a bit. Certainly was funnier than I had anticipated.

Phew! We got our visa applications in the mail today. Lenise got her updated passport bak on Monday, so I made sure we got the forms ready. Then just as I went to get the mailing address, I find that the Ukrainian Embassy website was down. Fortunately on the internet there is usually more than one way to skin a cat, so I found the info I needed. BTW, if you want a little intellectual puzzle, look up the list of countries for which Ukraine does NOT require an entry visa. Such entities as Mexico, Israel, Croatia, Cuba and Vietnam. I figured I'd go to the grocery store, buy the money orders for the fee and bring them over to the local Wrap Pack and Ship. Not having bought a money order in about 10 years, I had forgotten that you need CASH MONEY DOLLARS to buy them. So I had to go back to the bank to get the money. Even though I go into the bank about every week, I happened to get a teller who didn't know me, so I had to show ID. No biggie. Back to the store. Now there was a line to wait in. Thumb twiddling. Bought the money orders. Wrap Pack and Ship is 2 doors down. Unfortunately they don't open til 10. Got some reading done. Go in at 10. Took about 25 minutes to arrange everything. Also the store didn't know where the business cards were which I had ordered from them 2 weeks ago, but that's another story. In any event, the applications are on their way. Pray that the consular beaurocrats would not find fault and return them to us in a timely fashion.

And happy Easter to all. We had what should be mandatory for Easter, i.e. lamb. Plus asparagus, carrots (which all the kids present called Laura), vino (French, in the spirit of forgiveness), cake and cigars for the men. Lovely day all around.

Nerds rejoice! TRS-80 computers were Y2K compliant.

This might be one of the best paragraphs I've seen from this writer (and I've seen a lot of them).

I'm looking at a slide: It shows me, standing on the beach in my bathing suit, displaying a degree of musculature rarely found outside the asparagus family. My face has an expression that conveys the emotion: ''I cannot see a thing.'' I had removed my thick, Soviet-style eyeglasses, in the foolish hope that this would make me attractive to girls, which it did not, and even if it had, I would have been unable, without sonar, to locate them.

I'll paypal $.02 to the first person who can tell me who wrote it.

Courtesy of William Gibson, this is both a fascinaing and disturbing look at the war from our "friends" abroad.

Amazing. Where's the academy award for this one? Also, I won't link directly to this one, because of content, but someone made a really interesting short film about internet chatrooms, called The Parlor. It explores what a chatroom would looklike if it was in an actual room. It appears to have been an entry in something called the Chrysler Million Dollar Film Fest (or something like that). I found it at albinoblacksheep.com. That shoul give you plenty of info to find it for yourself. It does contain the sort of language that keeps me out of chatrooms myself, just to warn you.

You have to ask yourself, would we be better off today if our poiticians wore masks.

Finished the Paul Tourier book today. No great feat, as it ws only 63 pages long. But goodness, what a great writer and thinker he was. Inspires me to think that someone well outside of the professional religious community could write so well on Christian issues.. This particular book asks several questions about how people, especially Christians, should participate in conflict (not limited to military ones). He had amazing skill at what we americans would call cutting through the crap on this issue. Short summary of his approach is that a purely intellectual approach to the question, "Am I obligated to stand up and fight about this, or am I obligated to let it all pass", is not likely to be fruitful. Beyond trying to reason it out he suggests the two approaches of prayer and letting God change you. This may sound trivial the way I put it, but when illustrated with real examples from his patients, it was quite powerful. If yo ucan find or borrow this book, I do recommend it highly.

On a down note, did a little googling of Mr Tournier today. One of the top entries was an old paper from a Wheaton student which showed pretty conclusively that Tournier was a universalist. I say conclusively, because Tournier said as much in a personal letter to the writer. I guess no one's perfect. In any event, I don't have the least doubt that Tounier was quite genuine in his faith, theological stumblings aside.

It is exciting to see the funding start to come in. We've gotten a check each of the last 3 days. I do waver between faith and doubt on the whole funding of our trip. I guess I'm leaning towards the desparation of faith since we've bought the tickets now.

Mission trip update:

I do love searching for best prices on things, just as a theoretical exercise. However, trying to get the best price for a group of people for this trip has been a little time intensive. Plus there's the minor frustration of finding what looks like a good price, but then having to check with others before actually booking the tickets, then having that fare become unavailable. Also, if one more person suggests one more "great place to find cheap tickets" I think I'll scream. Then there's the "what if we change this date", or "what if we leave from a different city" scenarios. Good thing I have some time available and a certain amount of patience at dealing with this sort of thing.

If any of you would like more info about what we will be doing, or would like to help with funding support, just email me (link over to your left), and I'll send you our official letter.

I'm curious as to exactly how many churches send their business to this company (notice the top of the left sidebar).

Math for doctors:

I'll give you a couple examples relating to medical care. In the U.S. and many European countries, women who are 40 years old are told to participate in mammography screening. Say that a woman takes her first mammogram and it comes out positive. She might ask the physician, "What does that mean? Do I have breast cancer? Or are my chances of having it 99%, 95%, or 90% ­ or only 50%? What do we know at this point?" I have put the same question to radiologists who have done mammography screening for 20 or 25 years, including chiefs of departments. A third said they would tell this woman that, given a positive mammogram, her chance of having breast cancer is 90%.

However, what happens when they get additional relevant information? The chance that a woman in this age group has cancer is roughly1%. If a woman has breast cancer, the probability that she will test positive on a mammogram is 90%. If a woman does not have breast cancer the probability that she nevertheless tests positive is some 9%. In technical terms you have a base rate of 1%, a sensitivity or hit rate of 90%, and a false positive rate of about 9%. So, how do you answer this woman who's just tested positive for cancer? As I just said, about a third of the physicians thinks it's 90%, another third thinks the answer should be something between 50% and 80%, and another third thinks the answer is between 1% and 10%. Again, these are professionals with many years of experience. It's hard to imagine a larger variability in physicians' judgments — between 1% and 90% — and if patients knew about this variability, they would not be very happy. This situation is typical of what we know from laboratory experiments: namely, that when people encounter probabilities — which are technically conditional probabilities — their minds are clouded when they try to make an inference.

What we do is to teach these physicians tools that change the representation so that they can see through the problem. We don't send them to a statistics course, since they wouldn't have the time to go in the first place, and most likely they wouldn't understand it because they would be taught probabilities again. But how can we help them to understand the situation?

Let's change the representation using natural frequencies, as if the physician would have observed these patients him- or herself. One can communicate the same information in the following, much more simple way. Think about 100 women. One of them has breast cancer. This was the 1%. She likely tests positive; that's the 90%. Out of 99 who do not have breast cancer another 9 or 10 will test positive. So we have one in 9 or 10 who tests positive. How many of them actually has cancer? One out of ten. That's not 90%, that's not 50%, that's one out of ten.

Here we have a method that enables physicians to see through the fog just by changing the representation, turning their innumeracy into insight. Many of these physicians have carried this innumeracy around for decades and have tried to hide it. When we interview them, they obviously admit it, saying, "I don't know what to do with these numbers. I always confuse these things." Here we have a chance to use very simple tools to help those patients and physicians to understand what the risks are and which enable them to have a reasonable reaction to what to do. If you take the perspective of a patient — that this test means that there is a 90% chance you have cancer — you can imagine what emotions set in, emotions that do not help her to reason the right way. But informing her that only one out of ten women who tests positive actually has cancer would help her to have a cooler attitude and to make more reasonable decisions.

Blogger ate my last three entries. Not sure how I offended the internet gods. Or who I need to propitiate.

hmmm

Oral arguents in Grutter v Bollinger going on right now apparently. Can listen here if you like that sort of thing.