Posts from — July 2005

Anyone have a good website for removing various types of stains?

We’re on chapter 22 of HP and the Half-Blood Prince. And quite enjoying it.
Expecting to finish by Saturday.

There’s a 10th Anniversary edition of Toy Story coming out September 6th.

That happens to be Fiona’s birthday, and I know what I’m getting ‘her’.

Hopefully this means Toy Story 2 will be re-releasing on DVD, too.

The wait is almost over!

Sorry for the sporadic downtime lately. The server that hosts my blog was attacked by spammers, and was taken offline to fix it and try to catch ‘em. It still may go off some time.

In other news, air conditioners don’t really make air colder. That’s a common misconception. See, they just take the heat out of the air. But that’s different from making the air colder. Or, at least says Justin, the guy on This Week In Science. I just laughed at it, though.

I think I’m going to go to a midnight release party to get a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

No dressing up for me, though.

Cracks me up.

A surly ROBBIE WILLIAMS used his two minders to keep away autograph hunters. Everyone was agreed that the singer, charm personified on stage, was the biggest grouch behind the scenes. He paced up and down outside his dressing room to make sure all eyes were on him but snarled as anyone came near him.

He turned on the charm, however, while being interviewed by the BBC’s FEARNE COTTON. She blushed as he told her: ‘My name’s Robbie Williams. I’m single. I hear you’re newly single. Why don’t we get it on?’

She replied: ‘Can we save this for when the cameras are off?’ But he continued: ‘Make Poverty History and Get Robbie Laid – they’re the two messages we’ve got today.’

And there’s so much more.

via Right Mind

Read this journal entry by Andrew Peterson: Aedan and Jesse, Guns for Hire

Here’s something I wrote on his messageboard about it…

I don’t know why this is the case, but I just now read Andy’s latest journal. The one about his boys playing, that includes the same thoughts that seem to have inspired his song, Little Boy Heart Alive. It was good to read, as is typical with Andrew’s journals.

Then I thought about my house… When my girls play, there are no guns and swords and fighting.. it is dressup, and cooking and putting the dollie to sleep, or changing diapers. After contemplating the glory for a moment or two, my mind asked a few things.

I thought about why people would get upset about that… how my girls do girl things, and Andy’s boys do boy things. Why would that be something bad? The feminists/egalitarians in our world, that presently control so much cultural currency, would probably scream.

Not long ago my wife was browsing some book titles online, because the girls’ Grandma was going to join a book club for them. One book, Richard Scary’s What People Do All Day, prompted a feminista to comment, “It has good pictures, and my kids love it, but all the jobs have men working them, and all the women are wearing dresses!” She then made some comment about the human race having evolved passed that. My comment, though, was “We need to get that book”. And we did, and our girls love it.

But why is this the case? Why do people think it is wrong for women to wear dresses and be home-oriented? It’s because they have already assumed the inferiority of what is feminine. Feminist my foot… they are enemies of femininity. They say women can be liberated by being more like men. They are the ones downplaying the importance of a woman’s role. They assume that the traditionally masculine role is superior, and demand that women be allowed to play that role. But in doing this they belittle what is feminine. Women become equal with men, in their eyes, only when women become men.

I, on the other hand, hold to the biblical gender roles. I believe women are home-oriented and men and world-oriented. And I glory in that. I know that my wife does what she does around the house wonderfully, and she does it far better than I ever could. Because she is suited for it. In my view, her staying at home does not belittle her. She is not confined by it, in need of liberation.

A man is a man, and a woman is a woman. And they aren’t in competition. A man should do what is masculine, and a woman should do what is feminine.

What I really reeled about, after reading the jounal entry and thinking about Andy’s children compared to mine, is the work of the Kingdom they are preparing for. “I can’t help but think that it means that we were born for battle.” And my girls, with their dolls and play food, are training to do battle in the service of The King.

So. There ya go.

A family we’re friends with recently moved to Lynchburg, and in their previous location they were friends with a family that was big into patriarchy. Which is fine if it isn’t overboard.
But this family, it seems, was overboard. First, at their church, when they had any kind of fellowship meal, the patriarchs always went through the line first. Of course, the men go before the women, but all the boys were instructed to let the girls go ahead of them. Confusing?

Also, this family that our friends knew… one time they were visiting together. And a young boy came in, basically whining to his mom that his sister wouldn’t give him one of his toys. What did his mother instruct him to do? Punch her in the stomach. His sister wasn’t listening to what he was saying, so she told him to punch her.

Yikes!

A review of Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas by The Banty Rooster.
A taste,

Most interesting to me was an exchange which Assayas seems to not have intended – in fact, he quickly seems to “exit stage left.” But without prompting, Bono gives Assayas a lecture on his personal faith, what it is, what it means to him, and what Christianity is all about. It is straightforward, no rhetorical sleights-of-hand. Bono says that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the sacrificial lamb who died on the cross for my sins, and that he is the only hope I have in this life. He goes further: “Good works will never get me into heaven.” When Assayas challenges him by asking, “Surely Jesus was a profound teacher, but isn’t that ‘son of God’ stuff a bit far-fetched?” Bono gives a brilliant dissertation on how one can simply not take Jesus as a “good moral teacher.” That’s precisely what the people of his day wanted, a prophet, a rabbi, and so forth. Jesus would have none of it. He claimed to be “Messiah,” even though it meant his death. Either Jesus was who he claimed to be, or he was a lunatic. And Bono rejects that he was a lunatic; he was the savior of the world.

Good stuff.

This is a quote from Peter Leithart’s book, Miniatures & Morals.

For a Christian writer, the real challenge of life is not to puzzle the ultimate realities, but to live well in very particular social and domestic settings. The moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre discerns an Aristotelian trait in Austen’s recognition that virtues are formed, tested, and manifested within community. As Aristotle pointed out, this makes ethics a subdivision of politics—that is, it makes the question “What should I do?” a sub-question under “What kind of community do I wish to live in, and what is my place in it?”

For both Austen and Aristotle, the ethical life is status-specific. That is, to answer “What should I do in this case?” we must ask, “Who am I?” And this latter question is not a question about some inner ghostly “I,” but about the role and status I have in a particular society. Darcy must not only ask, “Shall I, who love Elizabeth Bennet’s fine eyes, pursue Elizabeth Bennet?” but “Shall I, with my name and status as an English nobleman, pursue Elizabeth Bennet?” When Knightley castigates Emma for her treatment of Miss Bates, he challenges her on precisely this point: Consider your position in the society of the town, he says, and the obligation that your position places on you to show kindness to an unfortunate (if silly) spinster like Miss Bates. Given the well-defined strata of the communities that Austen deals in, this is a more obvious question for her characters than it might be for us. But it is still a central ethical question. Deciding what is right is never simply a matter of “What should I as a human being do?” but always “What should I as a male high school student, or I as a wife, or I as a car mechanic, do in this or that situation?” This is not relativism; it does not mean that there are no absolutes of right and wrong. But it does mean that the absolutes have particular applications to particular people in particular circumstances. As a father, it is right for me to spank my children; as children, it is not right for my children to spank me. Only the most sophomoric ethics ignores that moral decisions are specific to circumstances, and Austen was no sophomore.

To put the point another way, Austen’s ethical vision emphasizes the fact that we are constantly shaped, limited, and qualified by others around us. Ethics is not just about individuals seeking to live a good life or about solitary decision-making trying to achieve ethical perfection; we are simply not isolated like that. Moral training is in the community, or, as Aristotle said, the ethical life is lived in the polis. Living an ethical life necessarily involves living in a community and seeking to benefit that community.

Andrew Peterson‘s new album, The Far Country, is available for pre-order. Just $10. Just the right price for any of you that haven’t heard his music, and are interested in it. The album releases August 30th.