Monthly Archives: January 2008

(Yes, I know that “ecstasy” is already from the Greek.)   Selections from Migne’s Patrologia Graeca in PDF files, available for downloading. Church-historical bliss!

I have to get some upgraded preaching gigs. . . .

I’ve been observing radio silence for the past few days, mostly just from distraction and preoccupation. It felt nice; I concentrate hard on what I write in public, and telling myself to just let it rest for a while came … Continue reading →

I am the case study of why people don’t expect shabbily-dressed professors to make important financial decisions. Same with abstracted, spiritual clergy — so I have a double case of financial naïveté. But I could have told you, and in … Continue reading →

This morning, NPR is featuring a story about states where repeated failures and justifiable suspicions have provoked election officials to abandon electronic voting machines in favor of good ol’ fashioned paper ballots. I’m glad that they’re covering the story about … Continue reading →

Thinking about retrospective judgment the other day piqued me to follow up my post on 1980 in music with another 25-year retrospective, this year focusing on 1983. Rather than running through all the categories and subcategories from Grammys and Oscars, … Continue reading →

Sarah Vowell contributed a glorious column on Martin Luther King to the Monday New York Times The world’s flags graded for their vexillological aesthetics. As a student of heraldry and vexillology, I appreciated the author’s critical approach, though I’m less … Continue reading →

Someone in our household — I will not name names — has fallen under the spell of the theme music They Might Be Giants recorded for Dunkin Donuts ads, “Things I Like to Do” (this year’s 30-second version, not the … Continue reading →

Choire Sicha posted a guest column on Jason Kottke’s blog concerning his shifting evaluation of PJ Harvey’s most recent recording, White Chalk; “Back in September, Pitchfork gave White Chalk a 6.8, and I would have given it a worse score … Continue reading →

Michael White’s column in yesterday’s New York Times touches on a heap of issues about which I care a lot. What counts as the true version of a Beethoven sonata? On what basis do we form such judgments? What do … Continue reading →

It was impossible to imagine that she would not return. I noticed a few days ago, in my newsreader, but it’s time to point out right on the blog that Halley’s blogging again.

Permit me to begin with an ex cathedra pronouncement: Word processing applications tend to be abominable tools for designing pages. They demonstrate a strong commitment to certain generic assumptions about text manipulation that derive from typewriting constraints. As a result, … Continue reading →