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<\/a><\/p>\nDrew Dixon on pre-game prayer<\/a><\/strong>: \u201cNowhere does the Bible call Christians to pray at government sponsored events. The Bible calls us to proclaim the gospel on street corners and in center of towns and every where we go, but it never requires that we force the government or anyone else to publically honor our religion. I believe Christ\u2019s kingdom is \u201cnot of this world\u201d (John 18:36). The New Testament envisions a kingdom that resides in the hearts of people. It is a kingdom that grows through the preaching of the gospel; not through legislature, courts, or magistrates.\u00a0I fear that this culture war to keep the government from \u201ctaking God out\u201d of our schools not only distorts the spiritual nature of Christ\u2019s kingdom, but shirks our responsibility to safeguard the gospel and proclaim it to the ends of the earth. I do not trust our public schools to get the gospel right nor do I expect them to preach it. Those duties fall to the church and so long as the church distracts itself with \u201cculture wars\u201d, I expect the church to fail to honor these sacred duties.\u201d<\/p>\n George Dvorsky\u2019s list of ten responses by Creationists<\/strong><\/a> (he confuses YEC with ID) to evolution.<\/p>\n Jealousy, good for us? Anja Steinbauer<\/strong><\/a>: \u201cOn the one hand that is quite understandable, since, as emotions go, it is generally not one of the agreeable ones. Jealousy can sweep through your life like a hurricane, destroying relationships and careers \u2013 just ask\u00a0General Petraeus<\/a>. But is jealously, while unpleasant, altogether bad? Not at all. Jealousy can be your friend: it will highlight what you value and allow you to experience yourself as a strong, rational and passionate human. Everybody should try it\u2026. Jealousy is often falsely associated with insecurity and weakness, but I believe the opposite to be true. Only the insecure cannot allow themselves to be jealous. Jealousy requires fearlessness. It requires us to stand by what we value and own up to our choices. Embrace life \u2013 dare to be jealous!\u201d<\/p>\n Leadership and the Lord of the Ring<\/strong><\/a>s.<\/p>\n Tiffany Jenkins: nostalgia is debilitating!<\/strong><\/a> \u201cIn 1688, a Swiss medical student, Johannes Hofer, made a new diagnosis. He observed that soldiers on military duty were pining for the green, green grass of home, so much so that it was debilitating.\u00a0Hofer pulled together two words with Greek roots: nostos meaning \u201creturn home\u201d and algia meaning \u201clonging\u201d, to make a new one. His dissertation had a longer life than most, as he went down in history as the man who coined the condition of nostalgia.\u00a0Nostalgia has since expanded from a medical diagnosis to mean a more general longing for a past time, a feeling we all have experienced.\u00a0But what is interesting, and what is unfortunate, is just how many of us immerse ourselves in days gone by. Our whole culture is suffering from a bad case of nostalgia. And it is debilitating.\u201d<\/p>\n Fun graph<\/strong><\/a> \u2026 you gotta find your co-workers on this chart. (Where\u2019s my \u201cbuddy\u201d David Fitch on this graph?)<\/p>\n About Noam Chomsky\u2019s linguistics<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Meanderings in the News<\/p>\n That vs. which, by Geoffrey K. Pullum<\/strong><\/a>: \u201cI guess that if doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity, it is insane for me to imagine that I could do any good by telling the readers of\u00a0The Chronicle of Higher Education<\/em>\u00a0that the rule banning\u00a0which<\/em>from restrictive relative clauses is \u201ca time-wasting early-20th-century fetish, a bogeyman rule undeserving of the attention of intelligent grownups.\u201d But that\u2019s what I will do in the post due to be published at one minute past midnight on the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack. \u201cA Rule Which Will Live in Infamy<\/a>,\u201d I called it.\u201d<\/p>\n Fiction down, non-fiction up<\/strong><\/a>. \u201cEnglish teachers are fretting that a set of curriculum guidelines could reduce the teaching of fiction and poetry in the classroom, the Washington Post\u00a0reports<\/a>. \u00a0The\u00a0Common Core State Standards<\/a>, which will be implemented by more than 40 states by 2014, require that 50 percent of elementary school reading be nonfiction, climbing to 70 percent by 12th grade. Supporters, the Post says, believe American students have suffered from \u201ca diet of easy reading and lack the ability to digest complex nonfiction, including studies, reports and primary documents,\u201d leaving them unprepared for higher education and the working world.<\/p>\n NFL and domestic abuse<\/strong><\/a>: \u201cDoes the NFL have a domestic violence problem? Perhaps not, if you strictly interpret that question to mean,\u00a0Can you prove conclusively that the rate of domestic violence charges against NFL players exceed the national average?<\/em>\u00a0But that\u2019s an excessively narrow interpretation. The NFL does have a problem in the inconsistency with which it treats offenders and minimizes their alleged crimes. NFL executives and coaches talk tough on domestic violence but don\u2019t really follow through. On Monday, I mentioned that 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh told his players that he will forgive them for anything except striking a woman. Well, in 2008, Ahmad Brooks\u00a0literally punched a woman in the face<\/a>, allegedly giving her a black eye and causing her to black out. Brooks is now starting for the 49ers. In\u00a0a recent SI.com story<\/a>about Brooks\u2019 outstanding play, the assault is referred to euphemistically as \u201cpast troubles.\u201d (For what it\u2019s worth, the woman Brooks allegedly punched was a stranger he encountered on the street, so let\u2019s count this as \u201cviolence against women\u201d rather than \u201cintimate violence.\u201d)\u00a0Teams have an incentive to hire and play the best players, regardless of how they behave off the field. The courts don\u2019t seem to be doling out justice, either. So who\u2019s going to take responsibility?\u00a0It needs to be Commissioner Roger Goodell,\u00a0who recently expressed the need<\/a>\u00a0for the NFL \u201cto do some things to combat this problem.\u201d What should he do? In the next CBA, the NFL should codify specific player behavior guidelines that establish clear disciplinary consequences for domestic violence.\u201d<\/p>\n Do Republicans need a new William F. Buckley?<\/strong> <\/a>\u201cIT is a shame that William F. Buckley Jr. passed away in 2008. The conservative movement could use him \u2014 or someone like him \u2014 right now.\u00a0In the 1960s, Buckley, largely through his position at the helm of National Review, displayed political courage and sanity by taking on the John Birch Society, an influential anti-Communist group whose members saw conspiracies everywhere they looked.\u00a0Fast forward half a century. The modern-day Birchers are the Tea Party. By loudly espousing extreme rhetoric, yet holding untenable beliefs, they have run virtually unchallenged by the Republican leadership, aided by irresponsible radio talk-show hosts and right-wing pundits. While the Tea Party grew, respected moderate voices in the party were further pushed toward extinction. Republicans need a Buckley to bring us back.<\/p>\n Salvation Army\u2019s bucket stories<\/strong><\/a>: \u201cThe anonymous gift was enclosed in a clear plastic sleeve, protection for the first shimmering gold piece this season to be plunked into a Salvation Army collection kettle in Lake County.\u00a0For good measure, the one-ounce Double Eagle gold coin worth about $1,730 was wrapped in a 1000 Yen bill worth about $12 when it was retrieved Nov. 30 from a kettle stationed at the Jewel store in Grayslake.\u00a0This pattern of anonymous donations of gold and silver pieces or large sums of cash dropped in Salvation Army kettles across the Chicago area has become a punctual practice for more than 25 years. And while expected, the first gifts still provide a surge of holiday spirit.\u00a0\u201cWe do (expect the donations), but it\u2019s always a surprise when the first coins drop,\u201d said Alyse Chadwick, a spokesman for the Salvation Army.\u00a0Technically, the Double Eagle found in Lake County tied as the first of the kettle season, which began Nov. 9 and runs through Dec. 24. Also on Nov. 30, a South African Kruggerand was deposited in a kettle at Casey\u2019s Foods in Naperville, though the estimated value at $1,700 was slightly less.\u00a0While there is some anticipation of where the first gold coins will be tallied, the satisfaction comes in knowing the flow has begun. Last year, gold and silver coins appraised at $14,000 were collected in the 66 kettle sites in Lake County, according to Capt. William Holman, who heads the Salvation Army Waukegan Corps office.\u201d<\/p>\n Comparing Haidt and Harris<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n One solid piece of score-making<\/strong><\/a> against some marketing-shaped promotions, in this case about a test that supposedly proves EB White\u2019s prose was \u201cflabby\u201d: \u201cA post by Joe Fruehwald (\u201cTo take \u201cZombie Nouns\u201d seriously, you must\u2019ve had your brains eaten<\/a>\u201c, Val Systems 11\/27\/2012) motivated me to take a second look at Helen Sword\u2019s ideas about style, which I discussed earlier in \u201cThe Redemption of Zombie Nouns<\/a>\u201c, 7\/26\/2012. In particular, I decided to take her \u201cWriter\u2019s Diet Test<\/a>\u201d out for a spin.\u00a0For test material, I choose a few selections from E.B. White, co-author of\u00a0The Elements of Style<\/em>. Although\u00a0we\u2019ve occasionally expressed skeptical and even negative opinions about\u00a0The Elements of Style<\/em><\/a>, I have nothing but admiration for E.B. White as a writer. And so I was distressed to learn that Ms. Sword consistently judges his writing to be \u201cFlabby\u201d.\u201d<\/p>\n Intelligent demographics<\/strong><\/a>: \u201cFor a brief moment last month\u2014roughly a 72-hour span beginning at 11:00 p.m. on November 6 and concluding late in the evening of November 9\u2014everyone in America was interested in demographics. That\u2019s because, in addition to rewarding the just, punishing the wicked, and certifying that America was (for the moment) not racist, President Barack Obama\u2019s victory over Mitt Romney pointed to two ineluctable demographic truths. The first was expected: that the growth of the Hispanic-American cohort is irresistible and will radically transform our country\u2019s ethnic future. The second caught people by surprise: that the proportion of unmarried Americans was suddenly at an all-time high\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n DNA photo \u2014 now this is cool<\/strong><\/a>: \u201cTo get these incredible shots, Di Fabrizio and his team \u201cbuilt a nanoscopic landscape of extremely water-repellant silicon pillars,\u201d according to Eli MacKinnon at\u00a0LiveScience<\/a>, and \u201cadded a solution that contained strands of DNA into this scene.\u201d The water evaporated and left behind DNA that stretched between the pillars; Di Fabrizio then shone beams of electrons through the holes in the silicon bed and snapped images of the illuminated molecules.\u00a0\u201cDi Fabrizio\u2019s images actually show a thread of several interwoven DNA molecules, as opposed to just two coupled strands,\u201d MacKinnon writes. \u201cThis is because the energy of the electrons used would be enough to destroy an isolated double helix, or a single strand from a double helix.\u201d But by using more sensitive equipment and lower energy electrons, Di Fabrizio believes he will eventually be able to photograph an individual double helix; in the meantime, scientists will be able to use Di Fabrizio\u2019s method to see how DNA interacts with the other ingredients of life, like ribonucleic acid, or RNA.\u201d<\/p>\n Joan Acocella, on bad endings to novels<\/strong><\/a>, and the first one that came to mind for me was\u00a0Huckleberry Finn<\/em>: \u201cMany of the world\u2019s best novels have bad endings. I don\u2019t mean that they end sadly, or on a back-to-work, all-is-forgiven note (e.g. \u201cWar and Peace,\u201d \u201cThe Red and the Black,\u201d \u201cA Suitable Boy\u201d), but that the ending is actually inartistic\u2014a betrayal of what came before. This is true not just of good novels but also of books on which the reputation of Western fiction rests. The first half of \u201cDavid Copperfield\u201d leaves you gasping. You laugh, you cry, you think you\u2019re going to faint. The scene where David, having been rescued by his Aunt Betsey and fed, given a bath, and put to bed, looks out the window at the moonlight on the Channel, imagining that he might see his dead mother there, with her baby in her arms (she died in childbirth): after I have forgotten most of the events of my life, I will remember that. But in the last chapters of the novel, the now-adult David marries a wise woman and succeeds in life, and from then on you die of boredom. Ditto \u201cWuthering Heights.\u201d After the scalding passion of Catherine and Heathcliff, who cares about the amorous back-and-forths of their uninteresting children? Yet this occupies half of the book.\u201d<\/p>\n Twentysomethings \u2014 it\u2019s good to ask them!<\/strong> <\/a>\u201cTwenty-somethings: why don\u2019t they just grow up already?\u00a0In 2010, science journalist Robin Marantz Henig tried to answer this in the widely circulated\u00a0New York Times Magazine<\/em>\u00a0article\u00a0\u201cWhat is it About 20-Somethings?\u201d\u00a0<\/a>Among other questions, she explored why Millennials were taking so long to get married, buy homes, commit to stable careers, and become parents. Were they simply coddled, the byproduct of helicopter parenting, unable to live independent lives? Or were they experiencing, as psychologist Jeffrey Arnett once put it, \u201cemerging adulthood\u201d \u2014 a special category defined by that \u201cin between\u201d feeling?\u201d\u00a0But the 20something\u2019s response looks like this:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cUltimately,\u00a0Twentysomething<\/em>\u00a0is not, as the book jacket claims, \u201cthe definitive book about being young in our time.\u201d It doesn\u2019t even begin to address the real issue at hand \u2014 which is that the concept of \u201cadulthood\u201d is slippery, and the old benchmarks don\u2019t necessarily apply anymore. The idea of home ownership feels absurdly out of reach to many of us. How could we think about investing in a house when we\u2019re facing decades of paying off student loans? But while the authors acknowledge that debt is one largest hurdles confronting Millennials, they don\u2019t explore how debt affects our life choices, relationships, marriage, and careers. In all of those areas, they deem the Millennials\u2019 experience \u201csame as it ever was.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanderings in Sports<\/p>\n Tiger Woods and charity<\/strong><\/a>: \u201cTHOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (AP) \u2014\u00a0Tiger Woods<\/a>\u00a0started his World Challenge in 1999, a chance to bring together top players from around the world for a tournament that amounted to a holiday exhibition to raise money for his foundation.\u00a0It offered big money, even for the guy who finished last. And though it now awards world ranking points, it does not count as an official win on any tour.\u00a0But it\u2019s serious business to Woods.\u00a0When the tournament lost its title sponsor last year, and a deal with a major company unexpectedly fell through at the last minute in early September, Woods spent what is believed to be about $4 million of his own money to join presenting sponsor Northwestern Mutual in covering the operating costs.\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re going to be doing everything we can to keep the tournament going and keep all our programs going,\u201d Woods said\u2026.\u00a0The World Challenge has raised $25 million for the foundation since it began, including prize money from Woods. He has won five times, which helps.\u00a0Only last year was it revealed that Woods also donates his prize money from every tournament that benefits the foundation \u2013 the AT&T National, which began in 2007, and the Deutsche Bank Championship, which began in 2003 and became a FedEx Cup playoff event in 2007. That total now stands at $14.2 million.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>The finest bird I\u2019ve ever seen: the English Robin.<\/p>\n<\/a>Roger Williams scribbling deciphered<\/strong><\/a>: \u201cProvidence, R.I. \u2022 The obscure book\u2019s margins are virtually filled with clusters of curious foreign characters \u2014 a mysterious shorthand used by 17th century religious dissident Roger Williams.\u00a0For centuries the scribbles went undeciphered. But a team of Brown University students has finally cracked the code\u2026.\u00a0A group including former library director Edward Widmer, Williams scholar and Rhode Island College history professor emeritus J. Stanley Lemons and others at Brown started trying to unravel the so-called \u201cMystery Book\u201d a few years ago. But the most intense work began this year after the university opened up the challenge to undergraduates, several of whom launched an independent project.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>The name Mary continues on the decline\u2026<\/p>\n