Weekly Meanderings

It’s cold here in Chicago, my home town.

Bob‘s got the posts of the week.
April‘s got the room ready for those kids.

Mark’s advice on preaching the other Christmas Story. Brad Lomenick’s advice for 55+ leaders. Dan Reid’s infallible advice about publishing … the link takes you to one page, but scroll down a bit and see on the right sidebar the list of the others.

LaVonne‘s posts about Social Security are good ones: “Several of my conservative Facebook friends responded to yesterday’s post about Social Security. I commented that “my dad, who was born in 1910, used to thank God every day for Social Security. Beforehand, he said, Grandpa too often lived in a tiny unheated room in the attic.” One of my friends responded, “LaVonne, I would be willing to bet money that your father would have done fine had he been allowed to keep what is taxed away in Social Security. What would he have been able to do had his lifetime income been 15-20% higher?”

God is, after all, Pentecostal. Brad Wright teaches us how to ask for a better grade.

First Corinthians 13, Christmas version.

Michael Ruse on the dustup at Calvin: “One can surely agree that a church-affiliated college has the right (and the duty) to see that its faculty does not presume unlimited license. I think abortion should be a woman’s choice, but I can see the point of saying that a faculty member at Notre Dame should not be preaching abortion on demand. If you want to do that, go somewhere else. Having said that, evolution is true and Adam and Eve are at best mythological. The human species never, ever got down to two people only. Nor did it start that way. So one can only welcome it when trained, serious, committed theologians try to reinterpret their beliefs in terms of (or compatible with) modern science. It is a sad day indeed when a faculty member of one of the leading Christian colleges in the nation is threatened with the sack by his president for trying to stay true to the faith of his parents and to the demands of reason and evidence, showing that he is indeed made in the image of God. John Schneider is just the sort of man who makes me, a non-believer, realize that for all its faults there is much good in religion. I hope good sense and Christian charity prevail in Michigan.”

Back to Ireland: Patrick has a post on evangelicals in Ireland.

Meanderings in the News

1. Andrew Keen nails it: “For all their fetishization of the supposed accountability, openness and transparency realized through digital technology, Anonymous is a quintessentially oblique organization rooted in hiding behind the very technology that is supposed to be making the world a more open place.”

2. Ross Douthat, on political moderates: “It’s also possible that political moderates tend to be very good at cutting deals when there’s something in it for everyone. But because their convictions are thinner, and their electoral positions more precarious, they aren’t always the best people to forge bargains that require shared sacrifice. Last week’s tax cut deal is a case in point. In a sense, it’s a triumph for the political middle. If it passes, it will do so with the votes of Democratic moderates, while the president’s liberal caucus howls in protest. But the lamenting liberals will have a point. Absent a plan to stabilize America’s debt, the deal is a remarkable exercise in “moderate” irresponsibility. In essence, President Obama acceded to the Republicans’ desire to extend the current deficit-financed tax rates … in exchange for hundreds of billions more in deficit-financed spending and tax cuts. Everyone won — except the U.S. Treasury. Or as Coburn put it last Thursday on the Senate floor, criticizing his colleagues for celebrating the tax cut deal, last week’s bargain could easily become another example of how “both parties have laid a trap for future generations by our inaction, our laziness, our arrogance, and a crass desire for power.” That’s extreme language. And we need more of it.”

3. David Waters, on Faithfully Rich: “What interests me more than how much they will give away is why. What has caused some of the wealthiest among us to become so unnecessarily magnanimous and benevolent? Have they found religion?”

4. Deroy Murdock on Rwanda economic recovery: “The Washington Wrestling Federation is a world away in style and substance from today’s Rwanda. During a four-day visit here, I found that the enthusiastic consensus for pursuing the free-market path out of poverty resembled an Amish barn-raising. Rather than practicing the class warfare that cripples America, Rwandans are pulling together to become prosperous.”

5. Sam Dillon, and I’m not one who is convinced student evaluations measures effective teaching well enough, but studies of public schools suggest otherwise: “Thousands of students have filled out confidential questionnaires about the learning environment that their teachers create. After comparing the students’ ratings with teachers’ value-added scores, researchers have concluded that there is quite a bit of agreement.”

6. President Obama on the legal decision in Virginia: “Keep in mind this is one ruling by one federal district court. We’ve already had two federal district courts that have ruled that this is definitely constitutional,” Obama said. “You’ve got one judge who disagreed. That’s the nature of these things.”

7. On snoring: “We use to think that if people snored, but they tested negative for sleep apnea, then this was mostly a nuisance for the bed partner. We called this “benign” or “primary” snoring and we rarely treated it. That is all starting to change. Now there is more than one study showing that snoring alone (without sleep apnea) increases the risk of serious disorders such as stroke and metabolic syndrome. This is important news because snoring is so common and so treatable. One large study of middle -aged men and women found that roughly 45 percent of men and 30 percent of women were habitual snorers. Occasional snoring is virtually universal.”

8. There’s something morally despicable here, by Anemona Hartocollis: “Last year, more than 1,200 people in New York City officially turned their backs on their husbands and wives to qualify for Medicaid, triple the number of people five years ago. The practice, known as “spousal refusal,” is becoming more common as the population ages and the cost of nursing care rises — and it is coming under increasing attack by government officials looking to curb ballooning Medicaid expenses.”

9. Perri Klass on ADHD: “But A.D.H.D. is not a metaphor. It is not the restlessness and rambunctiousness that happen when grade-schoolers are deprived of recess, or the distraction of socially minded teenagers in the smartphone era. Nor is it the reason your colleagues check their e-mail in meetings and even (spare me!) conversations.”

10. Stanley Fish on the Browne Report: “But at second thought this paean of self-praise is merited once we remember that that the report’s relentless monetization of everything in sight has redefined its every word: value now means return on the dollar; quality of life now means the number of cars or houses you can buy; a civilized society is a society where the material goods a society offers can be enjoyed by more people.”

Meanderings in Sports

Randy Youngman gives his Top Ten of sports streaks — and Favre’s starting games is not in the list.

Yes, Kerry Wood is back: White Sox offer Wood 3.5 million; Cubs offer Wood 1.5 million. Which team does he pick? DaCubs!

If you like baseball, and understand how to teach young catchers, here’s a great spoof on teaching catching skills.