Be Afraid... or Not

If you've been reading the news lately, it would seem that the world is crashing down around our heads. Or is it? Recently we heard that as much as 43% of the normal seaborne ice was unaccounted for. The cause? Global warming, of course! Or not... we now know the missing ice is due to cyclical arctic winds blowing ice in different places. Still there, doing its ice thing. Now we hear that there's going to be a Bird Flu pandemic which could kill as many as 7 million people! We have options here, natually. We can panic, write angsty music, perform random acts of vandalism, or maybe even realize that this 'news' is nothing more than fear mongering.

Stay with me, people, everything's going to be alright.

Muppets and Psychology

This past Sunday afternoon around Paige's dinner table we were discussing some rather random topics, mostly involving childhood television shows. Much was said on the topic of Sesame Street and how lame it's gotten lately. Oscar the Grouch is happy now? What's up with that? How did freaking Elmo, with his atrocious grammar, become a superstar when much cooler characters like Frazzle and the yip-yip-yip Aliens are almost unheard of? This is the sort of nonsense up with which we should not put.

It was decided that of all the Sesame Street characters, Grover is most in need of psychiatric help. He's a total basket case. Telly is both overly co-dependent and paranoid. Cookie Monster is obsessive-compulsive, and Oscar is (or was, I suppose) chronically depressed. I'm not going anywhere near Ernie and Bert.

Kermit is king. Long live the King.

End of an Era

Time like an ever-rolling stream bears all her microphones away. I think that's how the song goes. Either way, here at the tech desk we announce the retirement of my very first microphone. It is shown below on its last day of active duty, and the picture clearly shows its amazing on-off switch!

The Old Microphone, a gift from my old friend and arch-enemy Mark which saw service for nearly a decade, was quite a trooper. Powered by two AA batteries and fitted with a world-shattering on-off switch of great fame, the Old Microphone sat atop the monitor for years, anchored by old chewing gum. Eventually, chewing gum was needed to keep the y-axis rotater from rotating down. While we are all proud of its accomplishments, the growing communications necessities of Lanning Labs required a changing of the guard. We are all grateful to the devoted service provided by the Old Microphone, and trust that its legacy will live on for many years to come.

Philosophy is a Trap

Last night I went to the campus of Calvin College to hear an address by William Lane Craig on the subject of Apologetics. I had high hopes for this because Apologetics (giving a defense of the faith) has always been a point of interest to me. What I heard made my skin crawl.

Dr. Craig is a very learned man. What he talked about, however, was not Apologetics but rather Philosophy and how great it is. One of his primary points, in fact, was that to really be an Apologist you need to get a doctorate! He actually said, "Get a doctorate." When asked to clarify this in terms of people who really had no reason at all to get a doctorate, he said "Then just get the terminal degree in that field.". I was thrown for a loop by this. He went on to say that the way to really influence culture was through the universities, and that the only way to influence the universities was for all the Christians to get doctorates and to learn all about philosophy and logic. This is ridiculous. The Bible plainly teaches that the best way for Christians to influence culture is to live Christocentric lives and to raise God-fearing families. Learning and education is all well and good, but the Bible puts it in its proper place when it says, "Hath not God made foolish the wisdom (philosophia in Greek) of this world?".

Dr. Craig made only a passing reference to living a Christian life. In fact, he spent about 80 of his 90 minutes expounding the glories of Philosophy and how we need to be into Analytic Philosophy as opposed to Continental Philosophy, dropping names left and right (Kant! Paley! Hume! Butler! blablabla!). The guy quoted maybe two scripture verses the whole time, and one of those was quoted back to me after I asked him how any of this academic stuff was relevant to, say, a new Christian in the Sudan who has no access to anything resembling a doctorate. How is that guy supposed to defend his faith? Or how are we supposed to defend our faith with philosophy and logic when we get asked questions like, "Hey, why don't you ever swear? Why do you work so hard? So why don't you come to the meetings on Sunday?". That is where Apologetics really comes into play. It's not some super-complicated theory of thought, it's being ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us (1 Peter 3:15).

Perhaps the most disturbing quote of the night from Dr. Craig was when he said, "God knows all truth". God knows all truth, Dr. Craig? The Bible says that God is truth. The distinction between these two statements is subtle but powerful, and it's more than just different words for the same thing. It's a good example of how thinking, reasoning, and philosophizing can become a god. Dr. Craig was insisting all night long that nothing was beyond our ability to know and prove through logic! Logic is our primary tool to discovering truth in this life, according to him. Well Dr. Craig, the truth is that our pathetic ability to use logic amounts to pure drivel in relation to God, and the only way we can know the truth in this life is to study his revealed will in Scripture while praying that our eyes be opened to it.

Into the Breech

I'm about to leave to take an examination for which I am woefully underprepared. It feels kinda like that one Seinfeld epidsode where Kramer and Newman are low on gas while driving down the freeway, passing every exit seeing if they can make it to the next one. Dumb, but it's quite a thrill.

Interesting neighbor activities: my street (Paris Ave.), a half-block north of me, is solid liberal democrat territory. Just about every house on that part of the street had (and many still have) John Kerry signs up over the past election season. Well, on one of those houses, the John Kerry sign has mysteriously been replaced with a For Sale sign. This happened about the same time the Drudge Report noted that the Canadian Immigration website experienced a massive spike in hits immediately following the Nov. 2 elections. Mere coincidence, or mass exodus? If you're in the market for some prime Heritage Hill real estate, I might be able to hook you up with some numbers to call.

Musings

If you've ever wondered why people on escalators walk up/down on them, you're in an elite group I like to call "decent people". What is the point, I ask you, of being on an escalator if you're just going to keep walking on it like it's any old stairway? To save yourself 10 seconds? Just relax! Take advantage of the service the escalator provides. If you're in such a rush, you probably a) have miscalculated your time schedule, b) are avoiding somebody you didn't want to see, or c) have stolen something. Neither of those are acceptable. Expert escalator riders such as myself agree that Rushers (defined above) should all be tied up with duct tape and made to wait patiently in one spot for 5 minutes or so. A small sacrifice in the name of decent people everywhere.

Help is on the way... out the door!

John Kerry just gave his concession speech, and it was probably the best speech he's ever given. It probably was his last one of any consequence, as well. As everybody anticipated, Bush's re-election hinged on Florida and Ohio. He won them as I expected he would (which reminds me that Steve now owes me money). Bush's victory is an answer to many many prayers on the part of my familiy, friends, church, and myself. I thank God for the outcome, and I am fully satisfied that it is his will for this nation.

The party at Steve's was totally crazy-go-nuts, man! We were completely rocking it out with FOX News, Pepsi, and strange pieces of shrimp wrapped in Italian ham. I think FOX did a great job, and during commercials we'd make forays over to CNN and PMSNBC (a.k.a. MizNBC). Steve was glued to his laptop all night long, checking out county-by-county results and chatting with his lawyer buddies. An hour or so after Ohio was called for Bush, he started doing dramatic readings from liberal web logs - absolutely hilarious!

November Sky

The dull grey sky hung low over his head as he walked down Logan Street, the dead leaves crunching under his boots. A subtle but cold wind wrapped itself around him on its way through Heritage Hill. His steady pace quickened imperceptibly as he turned the corner onto James Street. A flock of crows, perched on a church building, cackled disdainfully at all passersby, as if to say "Caw! Caw!". The beaten and faded campaign signs made their last stand in silence as he entered Allan Manor. He voted.