We’re four days into Christmas and this year I have the sense that instead of insisting that we put the Christ back into Christmas, we maybe ought to insist we take the “merry” out of Christmas. Before you simply write me off as a curmudgeon, scrooge, or crank, let me explain. There are a series …
Month: December 2011
An After Harvest “Hi Cow” Poem
After the corn was harvested across the road from our house, our neighbor put up an electric fence so he could run some cows in the corn field. They're a skittish heard, so every time I walk out to get the mail or say anything to them, like, "Hi cow," they move farther south away …
Christmas Hike
A Christmas hike has become a bit of a tradition around our house. After turkey it's either a nap or a walk, and in the last few years, we've opted for the exercise. Of course it helps that in the last few years (with a couple of notable exceptions) the snow cover has not been …
David Frum on “Jesus vs Santa”
David Frum has an amusing article over at the National Post about the "single holiday shared by two deeply antagonistic religions:" The religion of Jesus Christ and the religion of Santa Clause. He does add this "positive" note: Santa and Jesus do not disagree on everything, of course. Both figures are very tree-positive.
Avg: 6.2 mph
Christ is born! Glorify him. And now, on to something quite a bit more mundane. My normal exercise routine is to start with 15 to 20 minutes of wind sprints. (Well, this time of year at this latitude, doing as close an approximation to wind sprints as is possible on a treadmill.) But yesterday I …
The Fulness of Time
The "stoicheion" (a Greek term) are the elements from which all things derive. That would include the Higgs Boson, the so-called God particle which the wise men are so close to discovering over at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). When finally discovered and more fully understood, that little boson will go a long way toward …
Inventing Nations
The status of Palestinians was in the news again this month when Newt Gingrich said (and then reaffirmed) that Palestinians were, in his opinion, an invented people. In another interview (totally unrelated except for the fact that I belatedly heard the program, which was recorded weeks, if not months, ago, a few days after the …
Mob Violence: Good for the Economy?
The following is from an article found here by David W. Cooney. He has just recited some of the egregious violence that occurred during this year's Black Friday, and has reminded us that businesses and economists encourage (even expect, if not require) us to take part in this mob, which increasingly ends in violence. "What …
Munk Debates 2: Hitch on Religion
As a follow-up to the previous post, a year or so ago Chris Hitchens debated Tony Blair in a one-on-one Munk Debate. The resolution was, "Be it resolved: Religion is a force for good in the world." For the next several hours, in memory of Chris Hitchens' life, and in honor of his recent death, …
Eat, Eat, Eat!
I listened to the most recent Munk Debate today. The Munk Debates are formal debates featuring high-profile experts in their fields which are funded by Peter and Melanie Munk. They take place in Toronto. The resolution of the most recent debate was as follows: Be it resolved: North America faces a Japan-style era of high …
Just Another Jim 