Elizaphanian | Trying to be a man who pleases God – If the Church of England were to fail, it should be found in my parish." (Keble)

Elizaphanian | Trying to be a man who pleases God – If the Church of England were to fail, it should be found in my parish." (Keble): The principal driver of this crisis is the United States, seeking to expand the borders of Nato to the edge of Russia. They are seeking to humiliate Russia. This is not a strategy of statecraft but of small boys in a playground.

Google and the right to be forgotten | Technology | Technology | Mail & Guardian

Google and the right to be forgotten | Technology | Technology | Mail & Guardian: On May 13, the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ), the highest court in the EU, ruled in favour of Costeja González and against Google. González asked the search engine giant to remove some unflattering links from the results that appeared when anyone searched for his name. Google refused, and so he took the company to court.

We can all sympathise with González. When his home was repossessed in 1998, a notice appeared in a local paper and on its website. Most people would want to forget such an unpleasant and embarrassing event as soon as possible. But Google’s results continued to remind the world of the repossession more than a decade later.

With its ruling, the ECJ effectively created a new legal right – the right to be forgotten. Since the ruling, tens of thousands of requests for removals have been pouring into the system that Google built for their handling. But the current solution is both deeply problematic and impractical.

Fragmentation of News and Causes � CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

Fragmentation of News and Causes � CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names: In the shadow of neocolonialism, criminal elements within NGOs, religious and otherwise, converge like so many hyenas on the unfortunate victims of the typhoon, for purposes of human trafficking. As in Haiti, soon the women and baby snatchers will be replaced by the likes of Bill Clinton, who will promise investments and reconstruction so long as the country’s assets are liquidated in a fire sale to corporations. More than three and a half years after its earthquake, Haiti is not reconstructed, but rather more demolished than ever before, and it is firmly under the boots of disaster capitalists.

The end of the hipster: how flat caps and beards stopped being so cool

The end of the hipster: how flat caps and beards stopped being so cool | Fashion | The Observer: At some point in the last few years, the hipster changed. Or at least its definition did. What was once an umbrella term for a counter-culture tribe of young creative types in (mostly) New York's Williamsburg and London's Hackney morphed into a pejorative term for people who looked, lived and acted a certain way. The Urban Dictionary defines hipsters as "a subculture of men and women, typically in their 20s and 30s, that value independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive politics". In reality, the word is now tantamount to an insult.

Genea-Musings: FindMyPast Acquires Mocavo, Mocavo Provides Free U.S./ Census Indexes

Genea-Musings: FindMyPast Acquires Mocavo, Mocavo Provides Free U.S./ Census Indexes: The Mocavo Genealogy blog post by Mocavo founder Cliff Shaw is at http://blog.mocavo.com/2014/06/new-chapter. The post highlights the announcement, plus provides a link to the U.S. census record indexes that are FREE (and Cliff says they always will be).

The link to search all of the census records is http://www.mocavo.com/1790-1940-United-States-Census/126199, and you can select a specific census from that page.

Genea-Musings: FindMyPast Acquires Mocavo, Mocavo Provides Free U.S./ Census Indexes

Genea-Musings: FindMyPast Acquires Mocavo, Mocavo Provides Free U.S./ Census Indexes: The link to search all of the census records is http://www.mocavo.com/1790-1940-United-States-Census/126199, and you can select a specific census from that page.

Zambia & Rhodesia Genealogy help: Christians of the Copperbelt

Zambia & Rhodesia Genealogy help: Christians of the Copperbelt: Here is a surprising find -- a recent book on the internet archive, in full: Christians of the Copperbelt. For the purposes of this blog, the bonus is that the book has an index including a list of names of people who were influential in the early church on the Copperbelt of Northern Rhodesia.

This account by John V. Taylor and Dorothea A. Lehmann was published in 1961 as part of the World Mission Study series. The book is based on an eight and a half month study undertaken in 1958 and particularly at Nchanga Mine in Chingola and in the township of Kansuswa near Mufulira. Although mainly about the Copperbelt, the authors also worked in rural areas elsewhere in the country, including Northern and Luapula Provinces. The authors say that the time they allowed for their work was too little and that suspicion of political motive hampered their success in interviewing local people. Nevertheless, there will be much of interest here to anyone with missionary roots, to help understand the story of the growth of the Christian church in Zambia, particularly at the time of the transition to independence, and to help understand the impacts of urbanisation. Also of interest is the study of Alice Lenshina's Lumpa Church before its bloody clash with UNIP just before independence in 1964.

Ayn Rand-loving CEO destroys his empire - Salon.com

Ayn Rand-loving CEO destroys his empire - Salon.com: The invisible hand waves bye-bye to Eddie Lampert, whose business plan has run Sears into the ground

Flannery O'Connor: Friends Don't Let Friends Read Ayn Rand (1960) - | Open Culture

Flannery O'Connor: Friends Don't Let Friends Read Ayn Rand (1960) - | Open Culture: I hope you don’t have friends who recommend Ayn Rand to you. The fiction of Ayn Rand is as low as you can get re fiction. I hope you picked it up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail. She makes Mickey Spillane look like Dostoevsky.

Cherie's Place -- Avebury

Cherie's Place -- Avebury: Avebury is a fascinating site that connects to other prominent features in the ancient landscape. What remains of the Avebury Circles is largely reconstructed. In the 1930s Alexander Keiller having purchased the site of Avebury and part of West Kennet Avenue started to excavate the site and in time restore the site to some of its former glory. Where stones had been removed he placed concrete plinths to mark their former position. The outbreak of WWII put a stop to the excavations and restoration. Sadly the excavations have never been resumed.

Facebook email switch continues causing problems - latimes.com

Facebook email switch continues causing problems - latimes.com: After causing a raucous week by changing users' listed email addresses to ones ending in @facebook.com, Facebook's switch is causing yet another embarrassment for the company and problem for many users.

The email switch has gone beyond the walls of Facebook, according to various users, who are saying that the change is affecting the emails listed in their contact books.

Across the Web, people are saying the emails listed for many of their contacts in their address books have been replaced by @facebook.com emails.

Fasting for three days can regenerate entire immune system, study finds - Telegraph

Fasting for three days can regenerate entire immune system, study finds - Telegraph: The researchers say fasting "flips a regenerative switch" which prompts stem cells to create brand new white blood cells, essentially regenerating the entire immune system.

SS songs and antisemitism: the week Golden Dawn turned openly Nazi | World news | The Observer

SS songs and antisemitism: the week Golden Dawn turned openly Nazi | World news | The Observer: Supporters of the far-right party gave Hitler salutes and sang the Horst Wessel song outside parliament last week. Helena Smith reports from Athens on how Golden Dawn has taken on a sinister new tone

14 Google Search Tricks That Make Life A Whole Lot Easier

14 Google Search Tricks That Make Life A Whole Lot Easier

Zuma going full circle – from apartheid telecoms and back

Zuma going full circle – from apartheid telecoms and back: Unbeknownst to many people, Zuma returned to the structure used under the apartheid government, which had a Department of Communications and a Department of Post and Telecommunications.

The cabinet of FW de Klerk, which ran South Africa from 16 August 1989 to 11 May 1994, had Roelf Meyer as minister of communications and Piet Welgemoed as minister of post and telecommunication.

Zuma’s decision to go back to the pre-1994 structure is seen as a mistake by many commentators – and they have a point.

In South Africa, telecommunications services were operated by the South African Post Office until 1991. It therefore made sense to combine telecommunications and postal services into one ministry.

However, Telkom became a public company in 1991, which meant that it started to operate independently from the SA Post Office.

Ten Reasons to Love Uruguayan President Jose Mujica

What did we do to deserve Jacob Zuma?

Isn't this more in line with tbhe spirit of the old ANC? The ANC of Mandela, Tambo and Sisulu?

Ten Reasons to Love Uruguayan President Jose Mujica - FPIF:

President Jose Mujica of Uruguay, a 78-year-old former Marxist guerrilla who spent 14 years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement, recently visited the United States to meet with President Obama and speak at a variety of venues. He told Obama that Americans should smoke less and learn more languages. He lectured a roomful of businessmen at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce about the benefits of redistributing wealth and raising workers’ salaries. He told students at American University that there are no “just wars.”

Whatever the audience, he spoke extemporaneously and with such brutal honesty that it was hard not to love the guy. Here are 10 reasons you, too, should love President Mujica.

What is a Christmas beetle?

How your etymology and entomology can be confused, depending on where you live.

Confusion in South African English: A Christmas beetle in Gauteng is seen but not heard. A Christmas beetle in KZN is heard but not seen.

Flying peanuts, Christmas beetles, leaf chafers, May beetles / Melolonthinae (Invertebrates) by tony rebelo on 13th January 2012 | iSpot:

which Xmas Beetle? The Cicada, this chappie or something else (the Red Driver Ant, for instance) - Just google "Christmas Beetle South Africa" to get a taste of the discussion and see answerit.news24.com/Question/Are there still Christmas Beetles in South Africa? for an overview of how people dont even talk about the same thing.

My wife insists that what I call a Christmas beetle is a "hardie", but we both agree on the singing of Christmas beetles at Christmas time. We were both born in Durban, but I moved to the Transvaal at the age of seven, and so learnt some Valie ways. I know that the Christmas beetles you hear are really cicadas, but are rarely seen, and when seen they're green. But the Christmas beetles that you see are brown...

Analysis: An Arab spring for South African Jews | Daily Maverick

Analysis: An Arab spring for South African Jews | Daily Maverick: South Africa’s Jewish community is regarded as one of the most conservative in the diaspora, its blinkered support for the Jewish state characterised as an approach of ‘Israel – right or wrong’. But recent developments are recalibrating local Jewish opinion on Israel-Palestine, and posing challenging questions regarding the politics of sovereignty, security and democracy. By REBECCA HODES.

Impact of Social Sciences – How to manage a research library with Zotero

Impact of Social Sciences – How to manage a research library with Zotero: Keeping up to date with research and managing an ever-increasing number of journal articles is skill that must be well-honed by academics. Here, Alex Hope sets out how his workflow has developed using Zotero, Dropbox, Goodreader and his iPad.

Skitt's Skittering Grounds

Skitt's Skittering Grounds: Do YOU realize that the overwhelming majority of people have more than the average number of legs? A staggering fact, isn't it!

The Up-Goer Five Text Editor

The Up-Goer Five Text Editor: Can you explain a hard idea using only the ten hundred most used words? It's not very easy. Type in the box to try it out.

Why a South African Braai beats a US bbq | Peace, Love & Giraffes

Why a South African Braai beats a US bbq | Peace, Love & Giraffes: Trust me. I was skeptical too. When my then boyfriend, now husband tried to explain the beauty of a South African Braai, I’ll be honest, I didn’t really get it. It sounded like a basic barbecue. A gathering of friends and family eating food from the grill. “Our barbecues are great,” I argued. “My dad makes a mean burger.” But whenever we cooked out on the grill, my husband’s face said it all – he longed for his beloved braai.

Analysis: A dam(n) crazy idea | Daily Maverick

Analysis: A dam(n) crazy idea | Daily Maverick: Right now there are 10,000 cubic kilometres of water behind dam walls – five times the volume in the planet’s rivers. The weight is so great it triggers earthquakes, and geophysicists estimate that the redistribution of weight from reservoirs may be having a measurable impact on the speed the earth rotates, the tilt of its axis and the shape of the gravitational field.

Disinformation, Carl Bildt, and Eastern Orthodoxy | David Heith-Stade's blog

Disinformation, Carl Bildt, and Eastern Orthodoxy | David Heith-Stade's blog: I usually don’t write on current political issues, but during the last days there has been a piece of “news” circulating on Russian websites about which Russian, Greek, and Finnish friends have made me aware.

A recent English version of this piece of “news” has the following headline “Carl Bildt thinks that Eastern Orthodoxy is main threat to Western civilization.” (Carl Bildt is the foreign minister of Sweden; therefore, I have been asked about this.)

1959. Extension of University Education Act No 45 - The O'Malley Archives

1959. Extension of University Education Act No 45 - The O'Malley Archives: This act made "it a criminal offence for a non-white student to register at a hitherto open university without the written consent of the Minister of Internal Affairs" (Lapping 1986: 184).

It also "provided for the establishment of a series of new ethnically-based institutions for Blacks, together with separate universities for Coloureds and Indians"

Have We joined Satan’s Side? - A Russian Orthodox Church Website

Have We joined Satan’s Side? - A Russian Orthodox Church Website: In reality, war does not begin when people start shooting at one another. It begins when certain convictions, upsurges in awareness, or news darken people’s reason and they stop seeing what is most important in those near them. They stop understanding that within the person near them – or not near them but, relatively speaking, “on the other side of the barricade” – there is much more to love than to hate.

Something terrible is happening to us now, when we stop seeing in our neighbor that which is most important, profound, and authentic. As a result, Satan is running the show. We are only giving occasions for the demons to rejoice, for their revelry, when, during our Pascha, we say “Christ is Risen!” to someone, but at the same time write terrible things about others on Facebook and rejoice that someone has “knocked off” someone else, and so forth. Hell is triumphant.

Free Family History and Genealogy Records — FamilySearch.org

Free Family History and Genealogy Records — FamilySearch.org



Getting better, though I still miss some of the functionality of the old one, like the ability to download Gedcom files.

The Case for Drinking as Much Coffee as You Like - Lindsay Abrams - The Atlantic

The Case for Drinking as Much Coffee as You Like - Lindsay Abrams - The Atlantic

7 Ethnic Names with Figurative Meanings

7 Ethnic Names with Figurative Meanings: 7 Ethnic Names with Figurative Meanings
by Mark Nichol

Names of ethnic groups have inspired nonliteral associations, many of them derogatory designations for the “other.” Here are seven such terms based on such names.

Devshirme � Blog Archive � Menstruation And Holy Communion

Devshirme � Blog Archive � Menstruation And Holy Communion: Metropolitan Methodios distributed the writing below to us at our monthly clergy brotherhood meeting this morning. It is from St. Gregory the Great to St. Augustine of Canterbury and is the last word on the “issue” of women receiving communion while menstruating. Some of his language reflects the time in which this was written (6th century) but the bottom line is that a woman’s period should not keep her from receiving communion (no matter what Yiayia may say about it : ).

Logismoi: C.S. Lewis & St Silouan

Logismoi: C.S. Lewis & St Silouan: Third, and most interesting to me and, I presume, my readers, he had a meeting with his spiritual director, the Rt Revd Simon Barrington-Ward, the former (Anglican) Bishop of Coventry and a friend of Lewis at Magdalene College, Cambridge. At this particular meeting, Barrington-Ward was trying to explain ‘what Lewis meant by “wordless prayer”, a significant theme of Letters to Malcolm and one that had occupied much of the first year of my doctoral research.’

Ranks of Angels - Russian Orthodox Church of Three Saints � � � �Храм Трех Святителей�

Ranks of Angels - Russian Orthodox Church of Three Saints � � � �Храм Трех Святителей�: The Celebration of the Sobor [Assemblage] of the Leader of the Heavenly Hosts Michael, and the Other Heavenly Bodiless Hosts was established at the beginning of the IV Century at the local Laodician Council, which occurred several years before the First Ecumenical Council. The Laodician Council by its 35th Canon condemned and renounced as heretical the worship of angels as creators and rulers of the world and it affirmed their proper Orthodox veneration. A feastday was established in November -- the ninth month from March (with which month the year began in ancient times) -- in accordance with the 9 Ranks of Angels. The eighth day of the month was decreed for the intended Sobor [Assemblage] of all the Heavenly Powers -- in conjunction with the Day of the Dread Last - Judgement of God, which the holy fathers called the "Eighth Day" -- since after this age in which the seven days [of Creation] have elapsed will come the "Eighth Day" -- and then "shalt come the Son of Man in His Glory and all the holy Angels together with Him" (Mt 25:31).

10 Tips for Creative Writing Submissions and Getting Published :Writing Forward

10 Tips for Creative Writing Submissions and Getting Published :Writing Forward

Barack Obama, Pro-Life Hero

Barack Obama, Pro-Life Hero | Sexuality/Gender | Religion Dispatches: Writing in the National Catholic Reporter in early August, Nicholas Cafardi made the provocative assertion that between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, the president is the more pro-life candidate. A significant part of the Duquesne law professor’s argument is that Obama favors “support for vulnerable pregnant women and alternatives to abortion [which] will make abortions much less likely, since most abortions are economic.” A few weeks later, just thirty-four days before the election, that argument became even stronger.

Who should I vote for for US president?

If I were American, who should I vote for?

Who should you vote for? US Presidency 2012 quiz

Democrat	-9
Libertarian	-9
Republican	-15

You expected: Dem
Your recommendation: Democrat/Libertarian
Click here for more details about these results

Orthodoxy and Creationism: by Deacon Andrew Kuraev | Salt of the Earth

Orthodoxy and Creationism: by Deacon Andrew Kuraev | Salt of the Earth

What's the difference between these two brains? - Telegraph

What's the difference between these two brains? - Telegraph: To neurologists who study the brain, and who have worked out how to interpret the images, the difference between these two brains is both remarkable and shocking. The brain on the right lacks some of the most fundamental areas present in the image on the left. Those deficits make it impossible for that child to develop capacities that the child on the left will have: the child on the right will grow into an adult who is less intelligent, less able to empathise with others, more likely to become addicted to drugs and involved in violent crime than the child on the left. The child on the right is much more likely to be unemployed and to be dependent on welfare, and to develop mental and other serious health problems.

BBC News - Five million paid less than Living Wage, says KPMG

BBC News - Five million paid less than Living Wage, says KPMG: One in five workers in the UK is paid less than required for a basic standard of living, a report has claimed.

Cold caller firm pays out for wasting businessman's time - Telegraph

Cold caller firm pays out for wasting businessman's time - Telegraph: Richard Herman, 53, was so upset with firms phoning him up and trying to sell him goods and services he decided to charge them for the time they took out of his day.

Paperback Writer: NaNoWriMo Ten

Paperback Writer: NaNoWriMo Ten: Kleimo's Random Name Generator -- This generator uses US census data to produce name lists of up to 30 for males, females or both genders. You can also set the obscurity factor from 1 (extremely common names) to 99 (extremely uncommon names.)

Mehdi Hasan: Being Pro-Life Doesn't Make Me Any Less Of A Lefty

Mehdi Hasan: Being Pro-Life Doesn't Make Me Any Less Of A Lefty: What I would like is for my fellow lefties and liberals to try to understand and respect the views of those of us who are pro-life, rather than demonise us as right-wing reactionaries or medieval misogynists.

One of the biggest problems with the abortion debate is that it's asymmetric: the two sides are talking at cross-purposes. The pro-lifers speak about the right to life of the unborn baby; the pro-choicers speak about a woman's right to choose. The moral arguments, as the Scottish philosopher Alasdair Macintyre has said, are "incommensurable".

Another problem is that the debate forces people to choose sides: right against left, religious against secular. Some of us, however, refuse to be sliced and diced in such a simplistic and divisive manner. I consider abortion to be wrong because of, not in spite of, my progressive principles. That I am pro-life does not make me any less of a lefty.

BBC News - Mau Mau struggle for recognition at home and abroad

BBC News - Mau Mau struggle for recognition at home and abroad: From the reaction of the Mau Mau veterans in Kenya, you might have been forgiven for thinking they had won their torture case against the UK government.

Straight from the Heart

Straight from the Heart: Like many Orthodox, I am fascinated by God’s annual gift to His Church of the Holy Fire, which He kindles faithfully in the Church of the Resurrection (or "the Holy Sepulchre") in Jerusalem every Holy Saturday. I first heard of the Holy Fire from reading (of all things) H.V. Morton’s famous travelogue of his visits to the Holy Land, his In the Steps of the Master (first published 1934). It’s fair to say that this English churchman was not impressed. He wrote that he thought it “an extraordinary thing” that “a frenzied ceremony that might have occurred in a grove of Adonis should have taken place at the Tomb of Christ”, wherein “hundreds of simple, but apparently mad, Christians believed that God had sent fire from heaven”. Morton didn’t believe God did send fire from heaven. He wrote, “The crowds have been told time and again that the Holy Fire is a piece of symbolism, but nothing will shake their belief that on this day it descends from heaven into the Tomb of Christ.”

Datablog: deaths after police contact or in police custody | News | guardian.co.uk

Datablog: deaths after police contact or in police custody | News | guardian.co.uk: 1,433 people in England and Wales have died either in police custody or following other police contact since 1990, according to data compiled by Inquest, a charity specialising in the investigation of contentious deaths.

950 deaths took place in custody, 317 following a police pursuit, 112 were the result of a road traffic incident involving a police vehicle and 54 were police shootings.

The highest total was recorded in 2003, when 104 such deaths were recorded. Fourteen of these fell within the operational jurisdiction of the Metropolitan police, of which one was a shooting.

Police Officer Who Shot at Amadou Diallo to Get Gun Back - NYTimes.com

Police Officer Who Shot at Amadou Diallo to Get Gun Back - NYTimes.com: More than 13 years after the police shooting of Amadou Diallo, Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly has agreed to restore a service weapon to one of the four New York City officers involved, a decision that Mr. Diallo’s mother characterized as a betrayal.

Half of the Facts You Know Are Probably Wrong - Reason.com

Half of the Facts You Know Are Probably Wrong - Reason.com: Dinosaurs were cold-blooded. Vast increases in the money supply produce inflation. Increased K-12 spending and lower pupil/teacher ratios boosts public school student outcomes. Most of the DNA in the human genome is junk. Saccharin causes cancer and a high fiber diet prevents it. Stars cannot be bigger than 150 solar masses. And by the way, what are the ten most populous cities in the United States?

Map of Individualism (vs Collectivism)

Map of Individualism (vs Collectivism): I believe that individualism is an innate (hence genetic/hereditary) trait of character. It's opposite is collectivism. Please check the thread How individualistic are you ? for a preface. I believe that the individualism-collectivism dichotomy is responsible for many fundamental cultural differences between European countries.

Collectivist and individualist cultures - Psychology Wiki

Collectivist and individualist cultures - Psychology Wiki: Cultures are typically divided into two categories: collectivist and individualist. Individualist cultures, such as those of the United States and Western Europe, emphasize personal achievement at the expense of group goals, resulting in a strong sense of competition. Collectivist cultures, such as those of China, Korea, and Japan, emphasize family and work group goals above individual needs or desires.

Police have shot dead 33 people since 1995 - only two marksmen have ever been named | Mail Online

Police have shot dead 33 people since 1995 - only two marksmen have ever been named | Mail Online: Since 1995 a total of 55 officers have opened fire on and killed members of the public, but in only two cases have their names been revealed.

The figures can be revealed as the inquest into the death of 32-year-old barrister Mark Saunders continues – and the policemen who shot him dead in May 2008 are allowed to remain anonymous while giving evidence.

BBC News - Sainsbury's chief attacks plans to reform Sunday trading

BBC News - Sainsbury's chief attacks plans to reform Sunday trading

Banned | South African History Online

Banned | South African History Online: People banned under Apartheid

Catholic Charismatic Renewal in England - Goodnews online

Catholic Charismatic Renewal in England - Goodnews online: it's packed with news and articles, plus masses of information on what's happening in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

MYSTAGOGY: Is Augustine of Hippo A Father of the Church?

MYSTAGOGY: Is Augustine of Hippo A Father of the Church?: Augustine is indeed Orthodox by intention by his willingness to be corrected. The real problem is that he does not theologize from the vantage point of personal theosis or glorification, but as one who speculates philosophically on the Bible with no real basis in the Patristic tradition. Furthermore, his whole theological method is based on happiness as the destiny of man instead of biblical glorification. His resulting method of analogia entis and analogia fidei is not accepted by any Orthodox Father of the Church. In any case no Orthodox can accept positions of Augustine on which the Father’s of Ecumenical Councils are in agreement "against" him. This website (www.romanity.org) is not concerned with whether Augustine is a saint or a Father of the Church. There is no doubt that he was Orthodox by intention and asked for correction. However, he can not be used in such a way that his opinions may be put on an equal footing with the Fathers of Ecumenical Councils.

Gay. Mormon. Unicorn. | The American Conservative

Gay. Mormon. Unicorn. | The American Conservative: Via reader DeeAnn, here’s an amazing post by a Mormon therapist who comes out as a happily married gay man. Happily married — to a woman.

Research Shows That the Smarter People Are, the More Susceptible They Are to Cognitive Bias : The New Yorker

Research Shows That the Smarter People Are, the More Susceptible They Are to Cognitive Bias : The New Yorker: Here’s a simple arithmetic question: A bat and ball cost a dollar and ten cents. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

The vast majority of people respond quickly and confidently, insisting the ball costs ten cents. This answer is both obvious and wrong. (The correct answer is five cents for the ball and a dollar and five cents for the bat.)

The Witness

The Witness: JUNE 2, 1972, was a day Cape Town should remember: a peaceful UCT student protest outside St George’s Cathedral was bludgeoned apart by the SA Police (SAP): the first occasion in South Africa where white students had been physically attacked and injured in significant numbers during any political demonstration.

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation Part I

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation Part I: One of the earliest on the Laurel Canyon/Sunset Strip scene is Jim Morrison, the enigmatic lead singer of The Doors. Jim will quickly become one of the most iconic, controversial, critically acclaimed, and influential figures to take up residence in Laurel Canyon. Curiously enough though, the self-proclaimed “Lizard King” has another claim to fame as well, albeit one that none of his numerous chroniclers will feel is of much relevance to his career and possible untimely death: he is the son, as it turns out, of the aforementioned Admiral George Stephen Morrison.

And so it is that, even while the father is actively conspiring to fabricate an incident that will be used to massively accelerate an illegal war, the son is positioning himself to become an icon of the ‘hippie’/anti-war crowd. Nothing unusual about that, I suppose. It is, you know, a small world and all that. And it is not as if Jim Morrison’s story is in any way unique.

Outside the Walls, But Not the Tradition | Emergent Village

Outside the Walls, But Not the Tradition | Emergent Village: But I do have to say, I’m uneasy with one of Halter’s assumptions. And since he’s so adamant about questioning our easy assumptions, I have to mention it here. From the very beginning of Sacrilege, Halter says that he wants to show us the real Jesus—the Jesus who walked in Nazareth, who comes alive when we read the Scriptures aright. He wants to give us Jesus without tradition. The assumptions of American Christendom, (assumptions, I should repeat, that deserve to be questioned) get lumped into a category called “tradition.” But my worry is this: I’m afraid it’s actually a deeply American assumption to think that we can get back to “the real Jesus” without tradition. We love to jump from the New Testament to now. But a plethora of Jesus scholarship has shown us that when we make that leap, we almost always end up creating Jesus in our own image.

Alice Grist: Momma was Gay, Poppa Was a Witch - A Personal Account of Gay Parenting and Gay Marriage

Alice Grist: Momma was Gay, Poppa Was a Witch - A Personal Account of Gay Parenting and Gay Marriage: I was born and initially raised by a handsome stable of heterosexuality. Dad was the local church vicar, Mum his loyal wife. My playground was the extensive vicarage with views of a graveyard. I was a good girl who refused to snack on the body of Christ, even when offered. I knew I wasn't old enough. Life was all sunshine and loveliness.

Then real life struck. Like many children before and after me, my parents divorced. Daddy was to become a 'writer' needing his own space, whilst Mummy moved in with a woman. Life never looked different. My main devastation in all this was that I had to leave my beloved Brownie troop. It didn't occur to me that the lesbian partnership I was about to be raised by was anything less than normal.

The weirdest thing about my childhood was probably when Dad turned his back on the church and became a Pagan High Priest. I was taken aside and point blank informed, "Alice, I'm a Pagan."

Owl of the 80s

Owl of the 80s. Thoughts on 1990s culture.

Deformable Mirror

Deformable Mirror

Is this thing working?

For the last day or so I (haven't been able to post anything on my Blogger blogs. because it keeps telling me "Illegal post time (format is: hh:mm AM/PM)"

But it seems to work OK in this blog.

Since it enters the posting date/time automatically, it must be a fairly new bug in the software.

The Western Confucian: I Read the News Today, Oh Boy

The Western Confucian: I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: "# Sandro Magister on an unenviable position — Christians in the Middle East. Crushed between Islam and Israel.

# 'Somebody eventually had to say it -- and German chancellor Angela Merkel deserves credit for being the one who had the courage to say it out loud,' says Thomas Sowell; 'Multiculturalism has 'utterly failed'' — The Multicultural Cult."

BlogExplosion - Paros Paradise - Greek island life

BlogExplosion - Paros Paradise - Greek island life

How the New Atheists are abusing the truth | spiked

How the New Atheists are abusing the truth | spiked: "Apparently the British state is about to roll out the red carpet for a seriously evil rape facilitator. Pope Benedict XVI is the boss of a church that acts as a ‘patron, protector and financier of child rape’, says one secularist writer. Last week the UK Independent reported that in America, ‘over 10,000 people have come forward to say they were raped as part of this misery-go-round’ overseen by His Holiness and His Lackeys. In Ireland alone, a tiny country of 4.5million people, ‘Thousands were raped in reform schools’, said a British broadsheet headline last year, ramming home the ugly truth of how many kids have been raped by the Catholic Church’s army of paedophile priests.

But how true is this ugly truth? Were 10,000 children in America and thousands more in Ireland really raped by Catholic priests? In a word, no."

Lesley's Blog: Gospel Personality types

Lesley's Blog: Gospel Personality types

Bishop David's Blog: Orthodoxy, a Vicar in Sunderland, and Pentecost

Bishop David's Blog: Orthodoxy, a Vicar in Sunderland, and Pentecost

Srebrenica: The Sacred Lie by Nebojsa Malic -- Antiwar.com

Srebrenica: The Sacred Lie by Nebojsa Malic -- Antiwar.com: "And as the forensic evidence mentioned indicates, a number of them were captured, bound, and shot. This was clearly a war crime, and should be prosecuted as such. But to call it genocide requires stretching the definition of the act beyond recognition."

Ivan Illich, "Brave New Biocracy: Health Care from Womb to Tomb"

Ivan Illich, "Brave New Biocracy: Health Care from Womb to Tomb": "DNA maps and genetic cleansing; embryo cloning and euthanasia; organ transplants and physician-assisted suicide--never before have the traditional boundaries of life and death become so blurred. Never before has science intruded so pervasively into the sanctuary of the person. Where once only angels would tread, the medical establishment now treats. Are we closer to the secret of life, or just farther from God and nearer to the dust?"

Ed Stetzer - Monday is for Missiology: Meanings of Missional

Ed Stetzer - Monday is for Missiology: Meanings of Missional: "One of the questions in Orlando that night had to do with the meaning of the word 'missional.' The question reminded me of my need to finish my series on the subject, particularly since I am about to start a new series on the issue of contextualization in mission for my 'Monday is for Missiology' columns."

How to set the windows path in Windows 7

How to set the windows path in Windows 7: "Modifying the path statement will enable an MS-DOS window opened in Microsoft Windows as well as older programs to locate files that may be required to run the program."

Freegaza - News section

Freegaza - News section

The Boy Next Door

The Boy Next Door: "The three main characterizations are a little thin. The story starts with Betty waiting for her brother Robin to return home from boarding school, and since her cousin Lucy is also due to arrive the same day, Betty is excited at finally having someone to play with! In the usual Blyton fashion, ages are quickly established, in this case with Betty thinking to herself, 'Robin's eleven, Lucy is ten, and I am nine.' Both Betty and Lucy are almost like hangers-on, not integral to the plot in any way. Robin starts out being a bit of a snot, by shunning Betty's enthusiasm to see him and announcing that 'it will be dull with only two girls to play with.' Robin warms to Lucy when he sees she's brought her dog Sandy (after all, a Blyton book wouldn't be complete without a pet of some kind—although the Secret series managed quite well without any regular pets at all)."

The Treasure Hunters

The Treasure Hunters: "When Jeffery, Susan and John are told that their mother and father are going away for a few weeks, because their mother is feeling under the weather and needs some 'strong sea-air,' the children find themselves shipped off to Granny and Granpa's. But it's all good news. Jeffery, the eldest of the three children, remembers the old house well—he says it's the sort of place all kinds of things have happened, and 'anything might still happen.' Susan has been there too, but hardly remembers it, while John, the youngest, has never been there at all. And so, with very little fuss, the children are packed up and ready to go."

The Treasure Hunters by Enid Blyton

The Treasure Hunters by Enid Blyton: "The story begins with news that Jeffrey, Susan and John are going to stay at their Granny's and Grandpa's home, Greylings Manor, as their parents were going away to the sea-side, so that Mummy could get some 'strong sea air', recommended by the doctor."

Blogger in Draft: The Blogger Template Designer

Blogger in Draft: The Blogger Template Designer: "Go to http://draft.blogger.com/ to log in to Blogger in Draft. (If you’ve never been there before, Blogger in Draft is just like regular Blogger, except with new, in-development features like this one.) Click on your blog’s “Layout” link to go to the Layout tab. The link to the Template Designer is at the end of the row of sub-tabs."

Book Aunt: Enter Three Witches...

Book Aunt: Enter Three Witches...: "Who are the best—or rather worst—witches of all time in children's literature? Obviously, we have to turn to fairy tales to get started."

SUZANNE MOORE: Jon Venables is serving life, whether he's in jail or not | Mail Online

SUZANNE MOORE: Jon Venables is serving life, whether he's in jail or not | Mail Online

Are There Secular Reasons? - Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com

Are There Secular Reasons? - Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com: ". . . the secular vocabulary within which public discourse is constrained today is insufficient to convey our full set of normative convictions and commitments. We manage to debate normative matters anyway — but only by smuggling in notions that are formally inadmissible, and hence that cannot be openly acknowledged or adverted to."

Christians in Context: from orthodoxy to orthopraxy.: Evalutating the Charismatic Movement in its 50th Year

Christians in Context: from orthodoxy to orthopraxy.: Evalutating the Charismatic Movement in its 50th Year

What’s the buzz | bidorbuy blog

What’s the buzz | bidorbuy blog: "Here are a few helpful hints for those who get overwhelmed by Buzz:

* Stay away from fellow-Buzzers who are popular and likely to have a large following.
* If a particular thread gets too chatty and annoying, silence it: choose Mute from More Actions menu in Gmail. To mute a post from within Buzz, choose Mute this post from Comment drop-down menu.
* To kill Buzz altogether, go to the bottom of your Gmail account and look for turn off buzz link. Click it to opt out of Buzz updates and hide the Buzz link permanently."

Julia Duin: My book is finally out!

Julia Duin: My book is finally out!: "'Days of Fire and Glory: The Rise and Fall of a Charismatic Community' is about one of the most gifted leaders of the charismatic movement and the newspaper reporter who unwittingly unearthed his secret.

Millions of evangelical Christians who lived through the Jesus movement and the charismatic renewal of the 1970s and 1980s wish to process what happened them in the early days of their faith. Some even moved into Christian community households to replicate the pattern of the early church in Acts 2."

Accidental Historian: Breaking the Master Narrative, Part 3

Accidental Historian: Breaking the Master Narrative, Part 3

DOS print USB Windows printers

DOS print USB Windows printers: "Why DOSPRN?
Nowadays, many laser and inkjet printers have powerful features but cannot print simple text accurately. Besides, some inexpensive printers (the so-called win-printers) can not print in text mode (dos print mode) at all."

Reclaiming the Mission � Why is the Emergent/Missional Church So White?: Soong-Chan Rah’s Next Evangelicalism and Why It Doesn’t Go Far Enough (in Exposing White Western Cultural Captivity)

Reclaiming the Mission � Why is the Emergent/Missional Church So White?: Soong-Chan Rah’s Next Evangelicalism and Why It Doesn’t Go Far Enough (in Exposing White Western Cultural Captivity): "Indeed most sociologists (see Peter Berger’s article here) would agree that the great majority of the spreading church in Asia, Latin America and Africa is driven by some version of prosperity gospel and charismatic experiential Christianity. It is a version of Christianity that I would argue is indisputably tied to the Western values of individualism, consumerism and materialism."

The Missionary Who Wouldn't Retire | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

The Missionary Who Wouldn't Retire | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction: "Lesslie Newbigin, born 100 years ago today, launched a new career at age 66 by calling Western churches to act like they were in the mission field.
Krish Kandiah | posted 12/08/2009 10:07AM"

What Does "Burning A Feed" Mean? | GeneaBloggers

What Does "Burning A Feed" Mean? | GeneaBloggers: "The question of “what does it mean to burn a feed?” may seem very basic to most genealogy bloggers but I bet when you first started your blogging habit, you had much the same puzzled look as I did when I first heard of 'burning a feed.'"

The Western Confucian

The Western Confucian: "Said the architect of 9/11, four years before the attack, 'A reaction might take place as a result of US government's hitting Muslim civilians and executing more than 600 thousand Muslim children in Iraq by preventing food and medicine from reaching them' — The Osama bin Laden interviews. (Cf. Clinton's secretary of state on those '600 thousand Muslim children' — 'We Think the Price Is Worth It'.) The terrorist continued, 'So, the US is responsible for any reaction, because it extended its war against troops to civilians.' That's what 'aggressive policies' get us."

Letter from Hardscrabble Creek: 'Cultural Appropriation' is not a Religious Issue

Letter from Hardscrabble Creek: 'Cultural Appropriation' is not a Religious Issue

Contact Online Weblog: Book Review - Days of Fire and Glory

Contact Online Weblog: Book Review - Days of Fire and Glory: "Her book traces the journey of Graham Pulkingham, an Episcopal priest who led Church of the Redeemer, one of the nation's fastest growing and most vibrant churches in a Houston slum and left a legacy that lasts to this day. He held thousands spellbound with his Gospel preaching and influenced millions with his daring vision of a compelling, charismatic Christianity made visible by a system of worldwide communities. Yet, Pulkingham hid from his followers a dark double life that he at first resisted, then secretly pursued and finally allowed to twist his personal theology into a gordian knot of accommodation and self-deceit and finally death."

Nouslife: Health Care International

Nouslife: Health Care International: "If a picture is worth a thousand words ...."

VICTORIA_CONCORDIA_CRESCIT

VICTORIA_CONCORDIA_CRESCIT: "Review: 'Exploring Ecclesiology: An Evangelical and Ecumenical
Introduction' (Brad Harper and Paul Louis Metzger, 2009).

Here's a good textbook for a basic course in 'Ecclesiology 101' (or what
used to be called 'Church, Ministry and Sacraments' back in my seminary
days). Though written 'densely' in text-book fashion (a few good
stories, lots of Bible texts, with some useful quotes and endnotes) it
would also comprise an excellent study-guide for church leaders."

Diabetic Gourmet Magazine - Official Homepage

Diabetic Gourmet Magazine - Official Homepage

The Ugley Vicar: In what sense is God ‘He’? (A first reflexion)

The Ugley Vicar: In what sense is God ‘He’? (A first reflexion)

The Ugley Vicar: So what, if we call the Spirit 'She'?

The Ugley Vicar: So what, if we call the Spirit 'She'?

philorthodox: All Saints Sisters of the Poor in Catonsville, Maryland Defect to Rome

US Anglican sisters become Roman Catholic

philorthodox: All Saints Sisters of the Poor in Catonsville, Maryland Defect to Rome

Know Your Place: Come: climb the Dark Mountain

Know Your Place: Come: climb the Dark Mountain: "I believe it is time for new stories, and it seems I am not the only one. The Dark Mountain project aims to foster a new movement of writers, artists and creative thinkers, a new school of writing and art for an age of massive global disruption. We are calling it Uncivilisation."

C.S. Lewis and Deification � The Website of Unknowing

C.S. Lewis and Deification � The Website of Unknowing: "I haven’t read this yet, but it sure looks tasty… and I wanted to go ahead and post a link here, since I know some of my readers are interested in C. S. Lewis and some are interested in the doctrine of deification (in the Greek, theosis). So here’s a chance to ponder how this Orthodox doctrine figures in the thought of the most popular of Anglican authors…

Shine as the Sun: C. S. Lewis and the Doctrine of Deification

Which is actually part two of a two part essay; here is part one: The Orthodox Worldview and C. S. Lewis (Part I)"

Bishop Alan’s Blog: Liturgical Terrorism or the future?

Bishop Alan’s Blog: Liturgical Terrorism or the future?: "Fifty years ago, most denominations had some degree of closed communion — people were generally nice about it, but the denomination was the gatekeeper. Since the 1950’s this rather Brethren way of doing Church has largely broken down in the West.

People who are not personally excommunicated are admitted on the basis of baptism, and the whole Church, not the denomination is the medium of the Sacrament. The institutional denomination is only trustee for the Lord, to whom the Sacrament belongs."

Why Orthodox Christianity Is Outside the Culture Wars by Frederica Mathewes-Green - Beliefnet.com

Why Orthodox Christianity Is Outside the Culture Wars by Frederica Mathewes-Green - Beliefnet.com: "And there didn't even seem to be an Orthodox catechism, for goodness' sake. It seemed like the faith was supposed to be learned almost by osmosis, by living it. How could that work?%20If%20a%20church%20with%20an%20infallible%20pope%20and%20a%20magisterium%20could%20have%20as%20much%20rioting%20in%20the%20pews%20as%20the%20Catholics%20did%2C%20what%20hope%20did%20the%20Orthodox%20have%3F%20So%20I%20figured%20it%20was%20just%20a%20matter%20of%20time.%20Trying%20to%20maintain%20the%20classic%20faith%20without%20a%20powerful%20hierarchy%20didn't%20look%20like%20doing%20a%20high-wire%20act%20without%20the%20net;%20it%20looked%20like%20doing%20it%20without%20the%20wire.%20"