Category: Uncategorized

A bunch of our friends came over tonight to celebrate with us, and more would have if they could have. The family — Nate, Si, and Pippa, Jennifer, Juliet with John — gathered, and Laura came to be with Si, and her parents Doug and Carol; Michelle and Frank, with a dessert cameo from Stephen; Trevor and Susan; Trish and Tripp; Kristin, John, and Grace; Sarah, Clay, and Luke, all joined us for lasagna, cake, brownies (all with gluten-free options), and gelato. What a joy it was for friends from different eras and different locales and different generations and different theological outlooks all gather and spend a voluble evening bouncing ideas and memories around! Friends — what a great invention!

Now we’re lounging around while Margaret makes a late grocery run, David pulls into town, and we drift off to our various bedrooms. Tomorrow’s the service at St Luke’s; Nate will play the prelude, PIp and Si will sing in the choir, Sarah will preach, friends will gather again (those who are not themselves preaching), and we’ll reaffirm our vows before God and the people, all over again.

Big lasagna dinner at our place tonight — haven’t had a thought worth blogging all day.

The Disney Corporation has filed suit against Iron Age “pirates” for what it termed “anticipatory copyright violation” in the case of the recently-discovered Mickey Mouse brooch ornament, as reported on the Discovery News website.

“The claim that the perpetrator cannot be held liable because Disney had not yet copyrighted Mickey Mouse misunderstands the nature of intellectual property. If Disney had not refined and rendered more humorous the two-round-ears visage, then Iron Age forger wouldn’t have had Mickey Mouse to serve as the evolutionary goal of his craft.”

When confronted with archaeologists’ claim that the brooch does not represent a cartoon mouse, but a lion, Disney executives responded, “If it’s supposed to be a lion, why does it look so much more like Mickey? The comparison to a lion only strengthens our case, because proves that the unidentified copyright violator had no natural-life model for his work. Instead, he carved a crude facsimile of the universally beloved fantasy figure whose image Disney owns in perpetuity.”

The lawsuit asks damages based on fines in contemporary currency, deflated to Iron Ages rates, then subject to compound interest for 1100 years. If the government of Sweden does not turn over the perpetrator — or his legal heirs — Disney will hold the entire nation liable.

When asked what Disney would do if the lawsuit fails, counsel indicated that Disney would appeal to the United Nations to pass the quickly-drafted “Cher Copyright Pre-extension Act,” which stretches copyright backward in time for 1100 years or the lifetime of Cher (whichever is longer).

[Hat tip to Boing Boing for the background story]

Nate and Jennifer are here, we’re rearranging the household for tomorrow’s pre-service dinner, and of course we’re gearing up for the reaffirmation service Sunday morning.So I’m busy and distracted, and enjoying the unscheduled-ness of my second day of leave time.

In a couple of weeks, I’ll be in Pittsburgh participating in a meeting whose point is to support and, ideally, enliven technological practices in theological education. As I’ve thought about the meeting, I it occurred to me that I would bring more valuable information to the meeting if I weren’t relying only on my own ideas. So: How might an education-support organization best enhance the engagement between theological education and technology? If it sounds like The Disseminary, I’ll be lobbying for it anyway — but what other priorities should be brought to the table? What benefits theological education most, and what dead ends can you help us avoid?

(Apologies for this context-dependent joke, to readers who have not been watching The Office, as Margaret and I have been.)

Continue reading “Message From Future Margaret”

While Margaret and Pippa have been running errands and attending meetings downtown, I’ve been wrestling my last few grades into order. This morning, though, Pippa decorated the kitchen in honor of Margaret’s and my wedding anniversary today:

Now, a few more grades, a few episodes of The Office.
Continue reading “Twenty-Five”

Some smallish pockets of the Web have shared grief at the death of Richard Rorty; not, so far as I can tell, as wide and deep a mourning as lamented the death of his French counterpart, Jacques Derrida. While it’s silly to rank philosophers — as though their value could be weighed out in carats — I’d wish for Prof. Rorty more appreciative response. More to the point, I wish that fewer people were so willing publicly to disdain his standing, as though the nation were overrun with philosophically-minded sales managers, copy editors, and small-animal veterinarians who out-thought Rorty in their free time. Professional standing doesn’t make all the difference in the world, but when one calls into question the institutional discernment of the community of professional peers, one had better bring some strong arguments to the table. Jürgen Habermas, frequent opponent of Rorty on topics philosophical, allowed that “Among contemporary philosophers, I know of none who equalled Rorty in confronting his colleagues – and not only them – over the decades with new perspectives, new insights and new formulations.”

Rorty exemplifies many of the qualities I most cherish in an intellectual, and some that irritate me. In those areas where we part ways, he may (after all) be right; he’s not the only atheist on the block, nor even the smartest, and certainly (thank heaven) not the most derisive. He made one of the strongest arguments for liberal democracy that I can imagine, even as I wince at reverence for the idols of liberalism. Rorty offered the world his greatest gifts: a capacity to diagnose overinflated claims about truth and reality, an appreciation for American philosophers in the strength of their cultural context, an unswerving dedication to justice and “the general welfare.”

I will miss him — as an articulate writer, as a clear-sighted philosopher, as a judicious opponent of theology. I learn discipleship more from challenging intellectual, ethical adversaries than from scornful yea-sayers.
Continue reading “Missing Rorty”

I ordinarily feel a wave of relief when the academic year ends, but the prospect of my full-year sabbatical leave has filled me with so intense an intoxication that I’m having a hard time bearing down and finishing the Easter-Term grading. The weather is lovely, and soon I’ll be totally free to let my mind wander, to follow whatever interests catch my attention, to shake free and stretch out.

But I really really really must finish grades now.

On our trip to the Art Institute, Margaret and I delighted in this painting of Job, which the title card identified as an anonymous Spanish work from the early seventeenth century:

(Job is saying “Noli me condemnare,” “Do not condemn me,” from the Vulgate of Job 10:2: “I will say to God, ‘Do not condemn me; show why you judge me so.‘ ”)

The way the painter adopted lettering that looks like metal type tickles us pink. What does this imply about the way the anonymous painter thinks about speech, about print, about communication? Would a brush script not have sufficed? What models did the painter have — perhaps only the blackletter banner-lettering from cheirographic and woodcut Bibles? Did he think that by emulating a Roman text metal typeface, he rendered the image “modern”?

(Cross-posted to Beautiful Theology)
Continue reading “Intermedia, Post-Renaissance Style”

“Hold the newsreader’s nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers.”

Not a power brick coffee heater, a USB hub/coffee heater Found via Shelley’s link to USB devices for geeks.