Sunday, 9. November 2008, 02:24:32
Sports, College Football, Iowa Hawkeyes, Penn St. Nittany Lions
I was at a wedding reception late this afternoon, with my Blackberry open to ESPN.com's game page for the 4th quarter of the
Iowa-Penn St. game. The automatic refresh was activated. I didn't need my Blackberry when Daniel Murray hit his 31-yard field goal to win it, though. There were a few other people paying attention, and when the field goal went through, a cheer erupted throughout the reception hall.
Iowa has 4 losses this season by a combined total of 12 points. For the first time this year, they won a close one, and it was a big one.
Monday, 20. October 2008, 01:44:50
Arnold Pent III, Books, Christianity, homeschooling
Ten P's in a Pod : A Million-Mile Journal of the Arnold Pent Family by
Arnold Pent III
My review
rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a fabulous book; one of the best non-Bible books I have ever read. It was written by Arnold Pent III, the 3rd of 8 children of Arnold Pent II and his wife Persis, when he was 21-years-old from entries in his journal from when he was 17-to-19-years-old. The 10 members of the Pent family traveled around the country singing and preaching for churches, television and radio programs, and anyone who would listen. Their goal was to win people to Christ and encourage Christians to read and memorize the Bible daily. Ten P's in a Pod is filled with (not necessarily chronological) stories over a few years of their travels. They were not from anywhere and went wherever God led them. They homeschooled and ate natural foods well before such things gained popularity in the early 1980s. Mostly, they lived their life completely trusting that God would supply their needs. This book has numerous examples of God doing just that. This book will also challenge you to have individual and family devotions, and to read your Bible daily, in a greater way than you ever have before. It is well written, reads quickly, is funny, and is inspiring. I highly, highly recommend this book. This book was first self-published in 1965. This version is an excellently published edition from Vision Forum.
View all my reviews.
Saturday, 20. September 2008, 12:00:00
Michael Farris, Parenting, Books, Christianity
What a Daughter Needs From Her Dad: How a Man Prepares His Daughter for Life by
Michael Farris
My review
rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is an excellent book providing basic and advanced instructions to fathers on how to raise their daughters to be the women God wants them to be. As the first chapter explains, we can either be a stumbling block to our daughters or a building block. This book addresses a fathers' spiritual leadership, dating/courtship, positive friendships, and training our daughters to be good citizens for their nation, among many other topics. Much of the advice applies to sons as well. It is well written and a quick read. All dads with daughters would do well to own this book.
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Friday, 22. August 2008, 03:08:01
Barack Obama, Federal Marriage Amendment, law, John McCain
...
There was an interesting and revealing exchange on marriage and the Constitution between Rick Warren and Barack Obama and then later between Warren and John McCain during Warren's presidential candidates' forum on August 16. First, Obama:
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Sunday, 3. August 2008, 12:00:00
Food
One of the great mysteries of the grocery world is the fantastic success of white bread. How is this possible? It is devoid of taste and has been stripped of its healthy nutrients. So stripped, in fact, that the government (at least the U.S. one) mandates that its manufacturers reinsert nutrients into the finished product. Which is like tearing a puzzle apart, throwing some of the pieces away, and trying to put the puzzle back together again. White bread is designed to be shipped and stored and placed on a shelf, all for as little money as possible; it is not designed--at least primarily--to be eaten, let alone enjoyed.
Saturday, 12. July 2008, 12:00:00
Michael Chang, tennis
When I was a kid, I watched men's tennis now and then, especially the Grand Slams. Boris Becker, Andre Agassi, Ivan Lendl, Stefan Edberg, Jim Courier. But my favorite player was Michael Chang after his improbable French Open victory in 1989. He was 17, was the first American to win the French Open in more than three decades, and was -- and still is -- the youngest Grand Slam tournament champion ever. And he did it in amazing fashion after coming down with severe leg cramps. In what is a classic match,
he defeated Ivan Lendl in the round of 16 after being down two sets to nothing. I can still remember him limping around and Lendl becoming openly frustrated with Chang's unorthodox play.
Chang was fittingly
inducted into the Hall of Fame today. Congratulations, Mr. Chang.
More:He'll always have Paris: Michael Chang reflects on crowning moment (SI.com, 5/22/1999)
Saturday, 5. July 2008, 12:00:00
Claremont Review of Books, Harry Joffa, Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright
...
In the
Spring 2008 issue of the
Claremont Review of Books,
Harry Jaffa provides us a timeless rejoinder to the
now famous sermon of Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's pastor and
"spiritual mentor" for twenty years. It is more than a response to a particular and poisonous sermon. It is a response to a general (and poisonous) mindset or worldview, with the context being an understanding of the founding of our country and the history of slavery in the United States. A portion of Jaffa's conclusion reads:
But if History or Progress or "change" is to be our guide, if the truth of relativism is to replace the truth of the Declaration, then the cause for which the nation fought at its birth, and in the Civil War, was meaningless, too. White power, black power, the Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, are as justifiable as Jefferson, Lincoln, or the doctrine of the equal natural rights of all human beings. We may understand how the Rev. Jeremiah Wright could so awfully misunderstand the American political tradition, inasmuch as it has been so very misunderstood for so long in circles from whom a better understanding could be expected. But this misunderstanding is a cancer which can in the end prove fatal, not only to a political campaign but to our country.
Read the rest and
subscribe to the Claremont Review of Books.
Tuesday, 10. June 2008, 12:00:00
Dan Lucarini, Books, Christianity, music
...
Why I Left The Contemporary Christian Music Movement: Confessions Of A Former Worship Leader by
Dan Lucarini
My review
rating: 5 of 5 stars
In Why I Left the Contemporary Christian Music Movement, Dan Lucari recounts his immersion in, and abandonment of, the Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) movement. And then he equips us to defend traditional music from CCM promoters and challenges the "Contemporaries" to leave behind the favored, man-centered music of the world and return to God-honoring musical styles. In short but substantive chapters, Lucari answers tough questions such as Isn't music amoral? (partial answer: the general concert of music may be amoral, but particular musical styles -- developed by man -- are not), Isn't CCM easier to sing than traditional hymns?, and Isn't God using CCM to save and disciple teens? Lucari also responds to the "show me" challenge: "Show me where the Bible says that rock music is evil." Lucari writes well, is challenging yet humble, and has given us a book worth reading, owning, and sharing.
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Sunday, 8. June 2008, 12:00:00
Bob Burg, Books, business
The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea by
Bob Burg
My review
rating: 2 of 5 stars
A book with great principles, not just about about business, but about life. Unfortunately, those principles are presented through some really bad dialogue. The book would have been more powerful had the authors research real life stories of people who had applied these principles.
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Saturday, 31. May 2008, 12:00:00
Michael Pollan, Books, Food
In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by
Michael Pollan
My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a very good book (quick, easy to ready, footnoted if you want the sources, etc.) that does a few things very well. First, it explains the harms of nutrition science ("nutritionism"), which historically has broken down our food into nutrients, declared which nutrients were best, processed foods to give us those nutrients, and then consistently re-tooled the supposedly expert formulas when the science was shown to be wrong. Instead of eating food now, many of us most of the time are eating "food-like substances." Second, it explains what we *do* know about the industrialization of food, and what we do know is not good. Third, it provides us tips to get us back to eating food rather than food-like substances. Pollan concludes that food is much more than nutrition; that food, properly understood, is natural, not a product of industry; and that food is about more than fuel, it is about relationships. I give this book a 4 instead of a 5 only because of Pollan's occassional evolutionary references; for some reason, he views the benefits of natural food over industrialized food, including its relational benefits, as a product of evolution rather than the product of a God who knows what is best for us and provided that for us. All in all, though, this book really is an excellent "defense of food." And I love the tagline: "Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants."
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