Island Passage

Duck Season!

Very cool. About 40 years too late for me; yet very cool. ( Via Alarm-Alarm ) An article in the New York Times Magazine about conservative Christian Colleges hosting dances on campus. Mark Oppenheimer writes as a very thoughtful outsider. When confronted by the question, "Didn't these people preach hellfire against dancing ?" he makes this insightful comment: If you want to know why J.B.U. students didn’t dance until now, it makes more sense to look out your window at Siloam Springs than to look down at the Bible on your desk. The Bible doesn’t say you can’t dance. For that matter, it doesn’t say that you can’t drink or can’t smoke. The rules against these vices are what evangelicals call “prudential” rather than scriptural: they don’t have the force of commandment, but you follow them just to be careful. These rules arose as part of a Protestant subculture so determined to eradicate sin that it began to interdict behaviors that might be baby steps on the road to perdit...

Yes, I'm a fan of Newt Gingrich. Not because I think he is has a snowball's chance of being elected in 2008, but because he is such a colorful idea generator. Newt's response to the question, "Are you running in 2008?", is to say that he's more excited to be generating ideas than to be campaigning. If in September 2007 there is no clear leader in the Republican primaries and his ideas have won a following, he will consider entering the race. What wonderful sophistry! As though a mighty army of nerds and wonks will rise up, bear him on their shoulders down Pennsylvania Avenue, and install him in the White House by acclamation. Although, when given the choice between a old-line demagogue and Newt Gingrich, boy wizard, give me Newt. But as Daniel Drezner points out : Gingrich intrigues me -- he's far more complex and interesting a thinker than the nineties stereotype of him suggested. And if Hillary Clinton can remake herself as someone who's learned fr...

Those Scots . Samurai sword terror as five stabbed FOUR teenagers were among at least five people stabbed in a street battle linked to gangland wars in north Glasgow. Samurai swords and knives were used by youths as young as 15 as the Milton area erupted into violence. As someone who is engaged in a serious study of Japanese Swordsmanship , I find myself torn between curiosity, amusement, and disgust. What kind of swords are they using? There are at least five different kinds that can be called "samurai swords." The one people are most familiar with is the katana , so I'm guessing that's what they are using. Where are they getting these things? But I should not be surprised. I was walking by a tobacco store the other day and saw several sets of swords on display. I walked in and confirmed that they were junk, created to be put on display (and not looked at too closely.) But even a scrap of metal can be sharpened to a razor edge and be very dangerous. How are they affo...

I clicked over to this to see if someone was trying to muscle into Robert Heinlein's Farmer in the Sky territory. Instead, it's the story of a guy who wants to build his own spaceship and how the government tries to stop him So it's Rocket Ship Galileo . Lots of big, wide shots, heartwarming athems building, and Virgina Madsen. I'll be see it.

In the Wall Street Journal's opinion page, Peggy Noonan comments on the funeral of former President Gerald Ford: The Marines snap their salutes and bear the flag-draped coffin up the marble steps and we hear the old hymns--"Going Home," "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," "The Navy Hymn": "Oh hear us when we cry to thee / For those in peril on the sea." We don't hear these songs much in modern life, only at formal occasions like this. We lock them in a closet until a state funeral, and then they come out and we realize how much they meant, and how much we miss them. Man, do I miss those hymns. The best of them contain a great theology lesson in verse form. Ms Noonan ends her essay with a scene from the House of Representatives: Time moves, life moves, we grow older together. And now a new era begins, and with another great ceremony. As I write, a new Democratic speaker of the House is about to be sworn in. The great hall of the House is ful...

"When apologists for eugenics discuss the potential for human engineering, they almost always mention increasing human intelligence, as if that is the most important human attribute. Funny, how they never discuss increasing our capacity to love. " Wesley J. Smith in The Corner .

Mrs. Islander, in a terrible breach of Christmas protocol, gave me the book Six Frigates by Ian Toll. I completed reading it yesterday, and I cannot recommend it too highly. I am an Army man (Signal Corp, actually), and I don't really have a visceral feel for naval issues. But I have re-read C.S. Forrester's Hornblower Saga more times than I can count, and I am happily working my way through Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey Maturin Series . In Six Frigates , Ian Toll covers the political and economic conditions that forced the creation and development of the US Navy. Into this setting he weaves the epic story of the Navy's actions on the seas, from the "Quasi War" against France, the war against the Barbary Pirates, and through to the War of 1812, when the US Navy did the unthinkable and defeated several British frigates in one-on-one battles. This is a real, rip-roaring, salt-spray, cannons-thundering sea yarn that just happens to be true. Huzzah!

I don't watch Scrubs , but all the cool kids tell me that it's a very funny and important (popular) show. So I was surprised to see this clip on YouTube . The point I'd like to make is that I don't find this depiction of Jesus troublesome. Congratulations to the producers and writers of this episode for taking on what could have been a flaming train wreck and making a well placed point. (Jesus doesn't negotiate.)