Caveat Scientae

In my previous blog entry I made reference to John Seigenthaler SR's op/ed piece in USA Today. I have since re-read the article and have some thoughts.

John Seigenthaler states in his USA today op/ed piece;

"Naturally, I want to unmask my "biographer." And, I am interested in letting many people know that Wikipedia is a flawed and irresponsible research tool." **1

I understand that the kind of character assassination that Mr. Seigenthaler experienced from the WikiPedia Bio entry about him must have been very hurtful indeed. I agree with him that the biographer should be unmasked in some sense. Probably not in the same sense he would like but, I think (s)he should not have complete anonymity; more on that later. The statement that I really want to comment on, at least right off the bat is;

"...Wikipedia is a flawed and irresponsible research tool."

I have at least two problems with this assessment. The first is with his characterization of Wikipedia's flawed nature. I'm not about to defend any libelous material that may be, and probably is, still present on Wikipedia. I will however say that his assessment of it as being flawed, at least in my mind, betrays the fact that he believes that it should not be flawed. That is a misunderstanding of the highest order. All reference materials are flawed**2. Some are less flawed than others. To approach something as massive as Wikipedia and expect it to be flawless is a bit expecting the faucet to dispense whatever liquid you happen to be in the mood for at that moment. Wikipedia is a really cool resource, but it is not Stanley's GREAT BIG BOOK OF EVERYTHING, and it certainly does not have Don't Panic on the cover.

As a legal mind and a trained journalist I would hope that Seigenthaler could recognize Wikipedia and wikis in general for what they are. What exactly they are I don't know that I can say, but I can say definitely that they are not scholarly journals, no matter how much some people want them to be, they are not commercial encyclopedia's, and its silly to think they should try to be, (Some people are actually pushing for printing Wikipedia, which I think is the most assinine thing I've ever heard anyone propose about the use of its content) I would say that Encyclopedia Britannica in its 7 million year history has likely had a few hundred entries they wish they would have never written. And those were ostensibly subjected to stringent peer review and lots of high minded conversation and discussion, by experts in their respective fields. Wikipedia does not have a 7 million year history and doesn't always have a reviewer for each page.

If I may create a picture; I see traditional print encyclopedias as those cool looking stone lions outside of our nation's oldest public libraries. They are stately, regal, majestic, and representative of traditional learning and knowledge. They are safe lions. However they are stone so they don't change, at least not until someone paints gang graffiti on them or does one too many board grinds off the tail or nose of the beast. Even then they are basically the same, just defaced, or de"tailed" as the case may be. Wikipedia is nothing like this. Wikipedia is more like a griffin. Not a painting or statue of a griffin but an actual griffin. It is not a safe lion. While a griffin is cool and potentially useful, should you be able to harness/train it, it is still a griffin and anyone in their right mind is going to be scared out of their wits by it. This beast is alive, it has a cellular structure with stuff dying and being born. It is, like all living things, changing, fluxing.

Having said all that allow me to level some blame at Wikipedia for this perception that it should not be flawed. What have they done that I think is a bad idea? They have called themselves an encylopedia.

"Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" **3

By calling itself and encyclopedia Wikipedia has conjured up the baggage that that word carries. Some of which it is trying to free itself from, like undue commercial influence. It is however borrowing the legitimacy that the word carries with it too. I 'm how many of us copied the encyclopedia on any given subject in grade school as an authority for a history or science report. If you didn't know that answer to something and you were, like me, a particularly inquisitive kid, any given teacher or other adult, who probably just didn't want to be bothered, would say why do you go look that up. What did they mean? By in large I would say that meant go consult the WorldBook, or Encyclopedia Britannica, or if your school was slightly less wealthy, as mine was, Funk and Wagnalls, which I understand could be purchased bit by bit at a discount if you saved special coupons that the grocery store gave out.

All that to say, I would propose that Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia. It is in many ways like an encylopedia, just as the stone library lion is in many ways like a griffin. It is not, however, a griffin. Wikipedia is a wikipedia. Even the name speaks to its chimera nature. It is a new beast and in my view shouldn't be called an encylopedia. Call it a knowledge repository, or call it encyclopedia-like, or just call it what it is an information wiki.

(e.g. Wikipedia, the free knowledge repository that anyone can edit)
(e.g. Wikipedia, the free encylopedia-like entity that anyone can edit)
(e.g. Wikipedia, the information wiki that anyone can edit)

For the mis-marketing I blame the Wikipedia Foundation.

As for Mr. Seigenthaler's clame that Wikipedia is a research tool I cannot argue with that. There are thousands of articles that I, and many others have found useful in writing blog entries. It is really good for reminding you of stuff you should already know and for giving you a gloss of stuff you need to learn more about. Beyond that...

Is Wikipedia an irresponsible research tool? is the real question. Again, Mr. Seigenthaler is assuming that Wikipedia should be a responsible reasearch tool. (Whatever that is..) I suppose since it should be the Wikipedia Foundation calls it an encyclopedia. I can see that. So Wiki Foundation, if you are an encyclopedia you may very well be an irresponsible one. Will that keep me from using Wikipedia? Not likely. Why? Because I don't think Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Because of that I don't think Wikipedia has the same responsibilty as an encyclopedia. The responsibility for the content is shared between the reader and the oligarchs of Wikipedia. Caveat Emptor.

A word on anonymous postings.

While I do believe anonymous speech should be protected. I don't think it should be take seriously. GK Chesterton had some great things to say about publishing and anonymity, but this entry is already way too long, so I'll save that for next time.



-footnotes-
**1 http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-11-29-wikipedia-edit_x.htm

**2 I am of course referring to any reference book other than say the Bible or anything written by John Stott, CS Lewis, and GK Chesterton, not that the Bible is on par with those, I just like them too much and refuse to believe they are in error. (And Amanda Moore if you read this I am just kidding!)

**3 http://www.wikipedia.org

WikiPedia, Speech, & Freedom of Fiction

The recent roe in USA Today about Wikipedia started my thought process.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-11-29-wikipedia-edit_x.htm

Here are the things I'm thinking about:

How are standard encyclopedia's written?
How is wikipedia written?
What are the pros and cons of each?
I guess the bigger question in my mind is how are scholarly arcticles *really* written.
This is a big question in my mind because I have always just kind of trusted them, without giving much thought as to how they were birthed. Hence the following:


***
As I understand it the current quality control for
scholarly articles is the process of peer review.

"How is peer review normally implemented, in conventional paper journals? The journal has an Editor and an Editorial Board. With some journals it is the Editor in Chief, with others it is the Editor in consultation with the Board, or with Action Editors, who selects the referees, usually one or two per manuscript, a third or more consulted if a deadlock needs to be broken. The referees advise the Editor(s) by submitting reports (sometimes anonymous, sometimes not) evaluating the manuscript and making recommendations about acceptance/rejection and revision. The reports are advisory rather than binding on the Editor, who makes the actual decision, but a good Editor chooses his referees well and then for the most part trusts them; besides, it is only the very narrow specialty journal whose Editor has the expertise to judge all submissions on his own. The idea of peer review is also to free publication from the domination of any particular individual's preferences, making it answerable to the peer community as a whole -- within the discipline or specialty. (Interdisciplinary journals always have added problems in achieving peer consensus, and indeed, even with specialty journals, referee disagreement rates suggest that consensus is more than one can expect from peer review; nor is it clear that it would be desirable; Harnad 1985**)."

**Harnad, S. (1985) Rational disagreement in peer review. Science, Technology and Human Values 10: 55 - 62.

Who writes encyclopedia articles?

Encyclopedia Britannica says that it is written by an editorial board of "the world's greatest minds". In addition there PR material is trustworthy because: a.) they've been doing the encyclopedia thing for a long time b.) Lots of people already trust them to do the right thing c.) They let people who win prestigious awards write/edit for them**
**http://www.britannica.com/premium/

I'm not saying that I disagree with them. I just find these to be interesting reasons. It seems to me that these are not really great reasons. It seems to me that they should be talking more about their process of ferretting out facts. I mean Wikipedia fulfils all of the same requirements as the Britannica PR, with the exception of we've been doing this for a long time. The one difference that I see between the two is that Joe average like myself does not have access to the edits or the prepublication documents that Britannica uses to build its articles. With Wikipedia I can see all of that from the beginning. If WikiPedia (as an institution or a process or an organ, whatever it is) has any fault in the false information that is contained in its pages I think that it is in not having some kind of "THIS IS VERIFIED BY TRUSTED WIKIPEDIA SOURCES AS NOT LIBELOUS" flag.

Some would argue that this kind of mechanism takes the democracy out of Wikipedia, in that someone has to stamp an article with final approval before it is considered legit.

I'm still processing a lot thoughts from this WikiPedia business and would like to hear the take of others. I am all for an organ of absolute free democratic speech. By democratic I mean not overtly false. I'm willing to leave lots of room for point of view, and even for point of view to be shaded into the presentation of facts. That's fine, spin is protected speech in my view, even if I disagree with it, or don't see it as spin. Lies and intentional falsifications however have no place in my freedom of the blog/wiki/cyber press. Unless they are presented as what they are...fiction. That's a lot of rambling. My lunch hour is officially over 5 min ago, so if there's anyone left who reads this blog...Fire Away.

RSSOwl my new friend

Recently I made friends with an owl. That's right, the owl is a traditional symbol of wisdom, a quiet, efficient hunter. RSSOwl's "big eyes" are a big help when scanning the Web's vast array of RSS sources. RSS or Really Simple Syndication, or Rich Site Summary if you prefer is a pretty amazing technology in that it allows me to read all the news I care about and a bunch that I kind of care about in about 15 min. I've got to get tuned into this RSS a bit more, because I could see how these feeds could be really helpful, especially on intranet sites that always need new content, but that nobody has time to update. You know stuff like calendar data, vacation days, upcoming server maintenance, birthdays, anniversaries and the like. It could really be useful. Or what if you could build it into the operating system and use the RSS data to as code alter the the computing experience on the fly, based on other environmentally important variables, like location, date time, current interest, or apps that you currently had open? RSS could be cool. I know that I'm extending it well beyond what its supposed to be, but I mean what if...

the management sincerely apologizes for the incoherance of this post..

Worth Reading; But Brace Yourself

I browsed BBC New's website today and came across this picture

The young girl in the picture at the right did not live through the mudslide that trapped her after a volcanic eruption in Columbia in 1985. BBC News tells the story of Frank Fournier the photographer who took this disturbing picture, in the article
Picture power: Tragedy of Omayra Sanchez.

I'm not a morbid person. However this story and this photo froze my happy-go-lucky web browsing and threw me into reflection. Not everyone has 60 hours to think about their imminent death. Then again we actually do, unless of course we fool ourselves into thinking that we aren't actually going to die. I think we all do that.

(The photograph used on this page was used without permission, and is the sole property of its owner. It will be removed at the owner's request)

CCH - New Facility

Yesterday I attended an EIU Christian Campus House board meeting. Before I left I thought I would snap a photos so that all of you who graduated from EIU and were a part of CCF could see the massive new auditorium. As they say, if you build it they will come....Last Sunday CCF attendance was 284 this past Sunday attendance 287. My guess is that they will completely fill the place (approximately 400) before the end of the school year.

It is really cool to see what God continues to do at Eastern. What can you do?

1. You can come to the September 11, 2005 building dedication at 3:00pm. This will show your support for the ministry and give great encouragement to an over worked Roger and staff.

2. You can write a big fat check and send it to CCH, 2231 S. 4th, Charleston IL 61920.

3. You can encourage all the folks you know to write big fat checks. There is still about $250,000 needed to retire the debt on the building. Email me for more info if you want help figuring out how to give to the CCH building fund.

My Old Truck

As a birthday gift I received a new Duralast battery for my old red truck. 650 CCA yeah!!
However the old battery was so corroded that it was a ton of work to get the thing running again. But with the help of my dad and my good neighbor Joe and about 6 hours of sweat the job is done. You're probably thinking: "How can it take 6 hours to change a battery." Well the battery leads were so corroded that it was impossible to get them off of the battery. Well the positive one anyway. But after taking the wheel off and jacking the thing up to the moon and getting really dirty it final had power.

Although it had power it would not start. It was turning over and seemed to be getting spark. So I say to Joe, "That gas in there is pretty old, how about I put in some fresh and see if that helps." So I went to the garage, got the can, opened the little door to the gas cap, and then - I wet myself... (see picture below right)


Over the previous weeks I had seen a few bees hanging around my truck, I assumed that they were foraging around in the brush pile in the back of my truck. I couldn't have been more wrong. So after gathering my composure and snapping the picture above, Joe and I set out to destroy the bees hopefully without getting stung. I don't know if you can see, but these are really big bees. Like twice the size of a honey bee. So the question then becomes, "How can we kill and entire hive of bees right now and not get stung even once?"

I had some insect killer that said "kills on contact", as did my neighbor Joe. His comment on that stuff was something to the effect of; "If we use that we'll get massacred, shoot I think you could probably drink that stuff." While I would never drink it and definitely warn all readers of this blog not to drink it, I agreed with the sentiment whole heartedly.

The answer; Brake Cleaner. (see picture above left)
Apparently, a mixture of Heptane, Xylene, Methyl Alcohol, and Ethylbenzene is really really bad news for bees. I backed my minivan up and turned the headlights on so we could see. (It was about 9:00 at night when we discovered the bees) He stood as close as he dared and emptied the can on the hive. After that the hive was quiet. "No noise suggests, No bees". No bees, Not one; they all dropped from the hive in a great big heap. One or two of what I would guess were the "tough guys" made it about 4 inches up the spray but then dropped as dead as the rest. When the can ran out we both stood there watching the mess waiting for more to come out of the depths or for survivors to resurrect from the pile. It didn't happen. I then finished off the rest of their bee infrastructure with a water hose and thoroughly cleaned the gas tank opening.

What we say on the ground was a natural amazement. Bees in every conceivable stage. Larva, Pupa, Pupa that were almost real bees. It was like watching the discovery channel. Except for the humidity, poor lighting, and smell of brake cleaner.

The next day my truck started just fine. Last Saturday I got rid of all the brush that had collected in it, but you know what? That didn't stop the bees. A contingent of about 20 bees must have been hiding out somewhere in some sort of Bee nuclear bunker or something because I have been fighting those bees consistently since I got rid of the hive. I guess the bee constitution insures that the vice-president bee be kept at an undisclosed safe location away from the hive in case shade tree mechanics decide to stage a complete overthrow of their government with EthleBezenizitonicmanfrengenson, or whatever that stuff was.

If I park the truck in a slightly different spot the (BIA) doesn't seem to be able to find the entrance to the old hive. I guess their (BPS) systems only work with exact locations and they can't exactly visually recognized that it is the same truck just backed in instead of heading straight in. Nevertheless I was pretty impressed that they came back to rebuild.

Not because I like hearing myself type anymore.

Today it dawned on me that now that I have actual readers for this blog I don't post nearly so often. I find myself thinking, no no no I can't type that its not witty or smart enough. OR If I type that they'll all think I'm a dork. I'm pretty sure that I don't have a lot of hope in the last category, but nonetheless, the pressure to produce keeps me from blogging. That is a pity really because when I started this blog it really was because I liked hearing myself type. I mean just because I liked to type and then read whatever popped into my brain. Oh Well.

Being Old has Benefits

I got a really cool toy for my 30th birthday. A Phillips “Go Gear” mp3 etc. music player. It has a keen 512MB of on board memory and an SD slot to add more. So I have been listening to more music than usual, verdict… I like it.

What’s on there you might ask?

All of Sting’s Ten Summoner’s Tales. (save 2 tracks)
4 James Taylor Songs from October Road
A couple of Greek Pop Songs (One of which is from the flake who won Eurovision last year..BTW a Ukrainian one this year)
1 John Coltrane Cover
4 Maroon 5 Songs (A guilty pleasure)
2 funky groves that came preinstalled and have proved to be great for walking.
3 Counting Crows Songs
2 Nickel Creek Songs
1 Chris Tomlin Song
2 “Teach yourself Greek” Lessons
2 “Teach yourself Russian” Lessons

Just to get back in the swing of Posting

I have so many things swilling around in my head about our trip to Ukraine that I have not been able to just sit down and write. This picture is one of my favorites from the trip. One day we went walking along the Dneper River (pronounced Neeper). I know that the river is not in view, but it is raging behind me as I took the picture. It is about 3 miles wide at the place I was standing when I took the picture. The view is of the town of Garnestyvka in Kherson Oblast. I like this little town. We received some amazing hospitality, and made some friends that I definitely want to see again. More later...

FrankenFood - What do you really know?

As I fixed* a computer today I had a very interesting article thrust into my hand. The article was accompanied by an equally interesting conversation. I will reprint the article below with the understading that I may yank it at anytime should I catch flak about it from the person who gave it to me, or from GreenPeace, because frankly I am afraid of them.**

---

The Application of BT Corn for the Reduction of Birth Defects
Bruce M. Chassy, Ph.D., University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801

Grain and other agricultural products are often contaminated with highly toxic and carcinogenic mold metabolites called mycotoxins. Mycotoxins have been shown to have direct negative effects on animal and human heatlth. It is estimated that the impact of mycotoxins on animal agriculture is more than $1 billion in the US each year. The mold Fusarium verticullioides produces a family of toxic carcinogenic substance called fumonisins. While the effects of fumonisins on animal health are relatively well documented, until recently little investigaiton had been carried out to assess the real world impact of the fumonsins on human health. Based on data derived from animal studies, however, the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) suggests a maximum tolerable daily intake of 2 μg/kg body weight for humans.

Folic acid deficiency during the first trimester of pregnancy gives rise to babies with Neural Tube Defects (NTDs) at an alarmingly high rate. This fact prompted the Surgeon General to recommend increased folate intake for all women of childbearing age. Evidence has recently emerged from animal studies that fumonisins may have teratogenic effects on animals. It has also been deiemonstrated that fumonisin blocks the uptake of folic acid by cells. Thus, exposure to fumonisins could lead to NTDs in human babies even when sufficient folic acid is present in a mother’s diet. Research has shown that high levels of folate can, however, partially reverse fumonisin-induced inhibition of folate uptake in cultured cells.

The hypothesis that fumonisin could produce birth defects in humans is supported by recent epidemiological studies that show a higher incidence of NTDs in populations which consume large quantities of whole corn in their diets. Similar high levels of birth defects have been recorded in the Southwest US, Guatemala, and South Afica among groups whose diet contains high amounts of whole corn products. The corn consumed by thise populations often contains levels of fumonisins in excess of the JECFA recommendation.

Data from various investigators on several continents demonstrate that Bt-corn that is protected from boring insects has consistently much lower levels, often 5-20-fold, of fumonisin than conventional corn—presumably due to a reduction in the insect damage that serves as a site of mold infection. In contrast, 6 out of 6 brands tested of organic corn meal were found by the UK Food Standards Agency to contain fumonisin at levels in excess of a proposed 500ppb EC standard, while only 4 out of 24 conventional products exceeded the proposed limit. This is presumably because of the poorer insect control available to organic farmers.

A dispassionate reading of these observations would suggest that health regulatory authorities in countries where whole corn products are consumed should mandate, or at least encourage, the cultivation of Bt-corn. In some circumstances, the planting of Bt-corn could be the only means to insure acceptably low levels of fumonisin if safe maximums are set. Clearly, increased planting of Bt-corn could protect public health and reduce birth defects.

Unfortunately, activist opposition to the modern biotechnology used to produce Bt-corn has frightened consumers who might otherwise expect authorities to mandate a switch to safer corn. Some consumers buy organic foods in the belief that they are safer because chemical pesticides and GM seeds are not used in the production process. Ironically, they are actually exposed to far greater real health risks by their avoidance of GM crops (that often also contain no pesticides). The science community obviously needs to do a much better job of communicating a science-based food risk hierarchy to the consumer. The Bt-corn, fumonisin and NTD story is but one example of how misunderstaning science can damage public health and distract the public’s attention from real risks.
---
Interesting… So as I read it, don't eat regular corn, because there is bad stuff in regular corn. However if you eat Bt corn you won't get sick because the all natural bad stuff can't/doesn't grow as much in Bt corn. -- hmm whatdayaknow.

*I was’nt fixing so much as hacking in this case, the administrator password had been lost and I had to pull out my Network Analyst equivalent of a hacksaw, and smash into the SAM database and change the password. Fun stuff.

**They brought in about 300 million euros last year and even after expenditures have a reported net worth of over 100 million euros. Euros not dollars, last time I checked the exchange rate was about 1 euro for 1.10 USD.

My 3 favorite poems

Since I asked everyone else to do it I figure I better as well.. So here they are.

1. The Good Rich Man - by G.K. Chesterton
"Mr. Mandragon the millionaire he wouldn't have wine or wife
he couldn't endure complexity, he lived a simple life." (click here for more)

2. Birches - by Robert Frost
"So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back to be." (click here for more)

3. Seven Against Thebes - by Aeschylus
"Up to the citadel rise and clash and din, The war net closes in..." (click here for more)

Tagged by Johnny D - 5 books etc.

Mr Embiggen Fever Tagged me with the challenge to blog about the following:

How many books do you own: Around 300 give or take 100 (probably give).

The last book you purchased: Essential Russian Grammar by Brian Kemple.

The last book you read: The Ballad of the White Horse by GKC. If epic poems within an anthology don't count.. then, Scribbling in the Sand by Michael Card

5 books that are important to you: I've chosen to define "important to me" as meaning a book that has shaped me significantly.

1.) Digger Dan the Steamshovel Man by Patricia Lynn
In this children's book I learned the importance of trying hard even if you don't feel like it.
2.) Biography of Lenin that I read in 9th or 10th grade
This book taught me that ideas are really important, and he who controls the ideas is boss. Another book that reinforces this truth to me is Soul Tsunami by Leonard Sweet. It didn't make the list but I did consider it, and would likely put it in a list of top 20 books important to me.
3.) Basic Christianity by John R.W. Stott
When looking at the bookcase last night thinking about writing this I couldn't find Basic Christianity on the shelf. Later I discovered it was on my nightstand. I love this book. I read it often. It is a really great basic apologetic and firm summary of the key doctrines.
4.) A Godward Life Vol. 1 & 2 by John Piper
In the last 3 years these books have pointed my heart toward Christ more than any other. It is written as a series of short chapters with a point intended to make you want Christ more. It works. I return to these volumes often. They get me reading the Bible.
5.) Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton
This was hard to put on the list because I have only read this book once all the way through. However I have read parts of it many many times. Also it represents all of the books by GKC that mean a great deal to me. The reason that it stands in their stead is that many of the lines of his other books are reflected in a more codified version in Orthodoxy. For example in the Father Brown Mysteries, more times than not Father Brown's insightul dialouge is just a paragraph out of Orthodoxy that GKC has revamped to fit the situation. I know that is not really what happened but the flow of ideas can easily be seen. The Man Who Was Thursday almost made it in Orthodoxy's place, because it is so much fun to read and is one of the few pieces of fiction that I have returned to again and again for either a laugh or to find something to make me think. Nevertheless Orthodoxy stands at number 5.

Books that get honorable mention are Basics of Biblical Greek by William Mounce, and The Confessions of St. Augustine. The best computer book I've read is Steal This Computer Book byAllan Wang, and the scariest book I've ever read is Biohazard by Ken Alibek

Along with this offering I would like to give a TAG back to John and anyone else who will bite . I want to know what 3 poems are your absolute favorites, and why. Don't tell me in the comments tell me on your blog.

Russian is a humbling language

I count myself a bright fellow. I know the parts of speech and could probably diagram a sentence if someone threatened me with something sharp. Generally I can keep my subjects and verbs in agreement, and participles need not dangle at my hand. However I have now discovered that if you want to feel like a low rung on the ladder of civilization, start to learn Russian!

For example I find the following challenging:
No articles - none - nada - nunca - нэт! (a misspelled nyet - I couldn't find the correct key on the Russian layout)
Different alphabet with lots of vowels,,, lots like twice as many as English.
Everything inflects. Now this isn't that different from Latin or Greek except this is a living language not a dead one, and you can put down the book and look up the paradigm for making something a part of the instrumentive case, Instead you are actually speaking and no one wants to leave their conversation partner crocheting an afghan, whilst you feverish skim a tome for the correct way to say Jane built the bridge. (As I understand it Jane would be in the nominative case, built would be a simple past time, and bridge would not be support by an article but instead would take the instrumentive case showing that it was the direct result of Jane's industriousness. Now if Jane were not building but instead crossing the bridge it would be in yet a different case, the case of the direct object AKA the accusative case....

Has your brain exploded yet? Mine did. However, I'm a nerd so all this is fun. However, I am not yet convinced that I will be able to communicate even one word while on my journey. Wow this was a riveting post. What did you expect the name of this thing is "Because I like Hearing Myself Type."

There are more things that I find challenging however I have bored myself to death so I will stop. As my wife will attest, sometimes I bore even myself while talking; this usually results in great laughter. Because nothing is quite as funny as someone who has completely tuned out there own monotone and then realizes what they have done. I'm almost crying right now I'm laughing so hard thinking about it.

The Ballad of the White Horse

I read GK Chesterton's The Ballad of the White Horse this weekend. Previously I had played around reading it, but yesterday I sat down and read the whole thing. Wow! To say that I like it would be weak.

As I read I could feel it shaping me, sculpting, molding my opinions and feelings. Honestly, I didn't get every allusion (there were a lot) I didn't know the places about which he was talking, but still his words were like blows. Rich once said about Bible stories; "Stories like that make a boy grow bold, stories like that make a man walk straight" I know he wasn't talking about Chesterton's poetry, but I could feel that same sentiment welling up more and more from stanza to stanza. It was an amazing feeling to ride with King Alfred and his cheiftans, to be swelled by there words of valor and taste the curses of the enemy bards and kings. My favorite thing about the poem was the way Alfred grew in wisdom every few pages. I started out likely him and thinking a lot of him but by the end he was a Wessex Solomon. The climax of the story in my view was when he prophesied that the heathen would never be beaten back from England and that in the generations to come his warfare against Christendom would morph. I don’t want to give away too much lest you spring away from this blog and read the poem. Straight away, is what I would recommend. What? You’re still reading, STOP NOW and go read the Ballad of the White Horse.

A blog down memory lane

Today as I sat slogging away at my job, fiddling with something I didn't entirely understand, I get this bizarre email. The subject was something like "Flikr: The Lester has added you to his contact list". So I thinks to meself.... Les, Les Dart is that you!!! SOoo I click the link and it is by golly. Les is my best high school friend and was a groomsman in my wedding. While we have fallen out of touch, it is clear to me from reading his blogs and web writings that our spirits are still very kindred.

You see: About 9 months ago I was googling around and found Les's Flikr (online picture album) Page. So I blathered out a hello. I had completely forgotten about it, until today when I received the message. So I goggled him again, and found half a dozen blogs about his wonderful life.

So now I've made real live email contact with him and can't wait to find out what I've been missing for the past 7 (sheesh has it really been that long) years. More like 10 since we've had a conversation of length, and recurrance.

Also I can't wait to tell his fiance all the great stuff I'm sure he hasn't mentioned yet. Or that he never would mention unless an old high school friend brought it up.

Now if I somehow make contact with Jamey Tracey (2nd best high school and grade school pal) via email/ internet in the next week I will know that some strange "Truman Show" conspiracy is happening, and that my secret fear that the world really does revolve around me and I am the star the world's most popular tv show, secretly, in some sort of biodome with really good holograms, has proved to be true. - How's that for a run on!

εν αρχη ην ο λογος

Verses of the day: John 1:1-5

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made, without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it."

Facts from these verses:
1. Word = God
2. Word = with God
3. The Word has been around since the beginning of the world. (compare the Greek from John 1:1 to the Greek that the 70 scholars chose to use when translating the LXX:
^1:1 ἐν ἀρχη̨̃ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γη̃ν
now with John 1:1
ἐν ἀρχη̨̃ ἠ̃ν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἠ̃ν πρòς τòν θεόν...
It seems to me they are talking about the same beginning, they use the same phrase to kick off the books.
4. Word = He
5. Word = creator (through him all things were made. The second restatement seems to drive home the point in kind of a literary way, "without him nothing was made, that has been made."
6. Life is in the Word
7. the aforementioned life in the Word = light of men (ἀνθρώπων- mankind, humankind, the realm of people)
8. The light shines in the darkness.
9. by association of previous facts: the the life of the Word shines in the darkness, the life of God which = the Word shines in the darkness, The creator of all that has been made shines in the darkness.
10.darkness doesnot understand light, therefore doesn't understand the life of the Word

I'm sure there is much more.

How do you take your tea?

When Albert Einstein's wife was asked: "Mrs. Einstein, do you understand your husband's theories?" She replied, "No, but I know how he likes his tea."

--

I won't unpack what I think the beauty of this is, but I will say that I like this quotation very much, and that I think it speaks to the essence of a good marriage.

Hey Tony Blair - Bully for You!!

Tony Blair Wins Absolute Majority! - Xinhua News

LONDON, May 6 (Xinhuanet) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labor Party won an absolute majority of parliamentary seats in Britain's general election on Friday, passing the required 324-seat mark for the 646-member House of Commons.

The election victory means Blair has won a historic third consecutive term in office.

Irish Labour Party Praises Blair

The re-election of Prime Minister Tony Blair marks him out as one of the successful British political leaders of the past century, the Irish Labour Party said today.

The party has been watching the British general election with keen interest, as it seeks to win power at the next Irish general election.

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Ok, Ok! Those of you who know me are pretty much aware that no one can mention Tony Blair without me standing up on a chair and saying "That guy's really sharp!" So, Needless to say I am quite pleased that TB will be the PM for another term.

I think it is impossible to listen to this man speak and not be impressed. If you don't like his content you have to love the "Hugh Grant in Nottinghill" quality that his voice and inflection have. However I don't imagine that TB would sound anymore eloquent saying "Whopsy Daisies" than William Thacker did.

From a blog called "My Worst Call of the Day"

I don't usually click the "next blog" link after reading a friend's blog. However today was an exception. I stumbled on to the following, and it is too hilarious not to post here. ENJOY!

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"My Worst Call of the Day - From the dozens of idiotic calls I take each day as a customer service representative, I humbly submit the winner."

>>Double Trouble

Today, gentle readers, you’ll be getting two for the price of one. Neither one of these calls is substantial enough to merit an individual write-up, but it seems wasteful to just toss them aside. Submitted for your amusement, then, are my two worst calls of the day.

My first nut-job was an old lady who yelled at me because I had the audacity to call her “ma’am.” “Do you know what that word MEANS?” she howled. “It’s the same as calling me a prostitute!” Baffled by her interpretation of this very polite form of address, I nonetheless apologized and told her I wouldn’t use the word again.

Bear in mind, however, that customer service reps have been trained to use the words “ma’am” and “sir” when speaking to people. Because of this, I accidentally called her “ma’am” at least two more times, which resulted in her hurling a most unladylike curse at me before hanging up. I was crestfallen, as I wanted to reassure the old crone that illicit sex was the furthest thing from my mind while listening to the harsh, crackling squawk that passes for her voice.

My second bizarre call came from a husband and wife who insisted on speaking at the same time, and at a volume usually reserved for hog-calling. After the ringing in my ears stopped, I informed the clamoring couple that I could not understand them when they spoke in tandem, and suggested that one of them remain silent while the other speaks.

I had little idea of the controversy this would generate. Both parties apparently wanted to play “alpha dog,” and the fur began to fly:

“The gas bill is in MY name.”
“Well, if you had called about this THREE WEEKS AGO like I asked, I wouldn’t have to be involved.”
“For XXXXXX’s sake, just let me handle this.”
“You don’t know how to talk to these people.”
“Remind me again, WHICH one of us has a degree in communications?”

And so it went for the next couple of minutes, until they had the good sense to disconnect and continue their spat in private. Or maybe they heard me frantically scribbling notes, and muttering, “my readers will LOVE this!” I guess some people are just sensitive about being blog fodder. Go figure.

American Tolerance & Divorce Statistics

Something Baffles me, how can a nation that preaches tolerance as the highest of all virtures have such an alarming divorce rate? I will be researching this and posting a little piece of investigative journalism here in the future weeks. If any readers want to chime in their views, that would be great, in that I will consider them when looking for sources to answer the following questions:

1.) What is the divorce rate in the US
a. collect data
b. find out what people think about divorce, public opinion.
2.) What is tolerance in the US
a. collected definitions
b. my analytical definition
3.) The reason that these two things bother me, or why I see a logical / ethical fallacy here
4.) What tolerance should be in my humble opinion
5.) What I believe marriage to be
6.) What do the major religions of the world teach about marriage?

Anglican Leaders Move to Avoid Schism...

Feb 25, 2005 New York Times Online Feature Article
Anglican Leaders Seek Move to Avoid Schism

It seems to me that at some point you just have to schism. As an example: When a sect within the "He-man woman haters" club (ala The Little Rascals) begins to no longer hate women, well it seems to me that you have two or three options.

1. You can change the name of the club to reflect the uncertainty of the group. Perhaps something like "The He-man mostly woman haters", or even "The He-man woman likers, with a few haters interspersed"... or other amusing permutation, ad nauseum.

2. You can split the club based on fundamental differences. The clubs that would then ensue can only be imagined.. "He-man woman haters - REFORMED", "He-man woman haters - Fundamentalist", "He-person individual regarders" (This group would not want to either include or leave out anyone...) (sheesh!)

3. Finally I imagine you could redefine the words in the groups title making them to mean the exact opposite of there original intent. He-man now = Pansy | woman now = being | hater now = trout...Perhaps the words could be defined not as opposites but as definitions that seem utterly non sequitar. (hence; trout)

Hopefully my illustration plays to the absurdity of this entire question. I find the morality of gravity to be a cramp on my lifestyle, I think I'll disregard it....AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Thank You Google - Gmail ROCKS!

This morning when I loaded the Gmail page it had a strange surprise. (Gmail is Google's free email service) It seems that Google is adding an additional Gig to all of its Gmail accounts. But not all at once, instead a little bit at a time. So for example while working with my Gmail account this morning I saw my space limit slowly increase and my percentage of space used slowly decrease. I may be really geeky, but I find this hilarious.

BTW I have 50 Gmail invitations to give away if anyone is interested in trying the service.

-jkh

Oh Yeah - I hope this isn't a prank for April Fools Day. If so, I won't be happy.

My Friend Charles just wrote with this article, which I think gives even more confirmation that this is not just a prank:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17637-2005Apr1.html

Terri Schiavo - Uncertainty

I don't know what I think about Terri Schiavo's perdicament. Initially I like what President Bush said, .."I think we should err on the side of life". However I don't know the law or the real facts concerning this case.

It does seem to me that the husband is either the most loyal partner ever or pure evil. I tend to err on the side of the latter. I mean how loyal could he be if he has a live-in fiance with whom he has had two children? In addition I think it is pretty awful that he isn't allowing Ms. Schiavo's parents to be with her during what are ostensibly her last hours of life.

On the other side of things I guess if the law favors his position because

A. He is the legal guardian
B. His wife suppossedly communicated to him that she would want to die in this kind of situation

If these are the reasons that the law favors his take on the whole affair, I think the law needs to be changed. It should have to be in writing, and should not be allowed if the person is not certifiably in a vegitative state. Ms. Schiavo seems pretty aware to me. I'm no doctor.. but just from news footage, she has more motion that some dementia patients in nursing homes have.

I think that you shouldn't be allowed "let someone" die if they are not on a ventilator. Else there is a huge class of people that could be allowed to just "die" because they are in a brain damaged state and incapable of swallowing food.


However --
Did "feeding tube" technology exist 75 years ago? By asking that question I beg the question, What technology will exist in 75 more years that is unknown now that will prolonged severely damaged life even further than we can now? Where does it stop? I am a rabid proponent of life, but It has to stop somewhere doesn't it? It is appointed for us to die. This is a hard question...

The Coolest Site of the Week

This is the coolest site I've seen in a while. It is as dangerous as all get out, but very very cool. Don't try this stuff at home, but WOW!! - My favorite is the Tesla Coil!!


New Home of Me & My Monkey - Greg Miller's Website

Crazy Hoax, or just Paranoia?

I recently received an email from a loved one that included the following text:

"Google has implemented a new feature wherein you can type someone's telephone number into the search bar and hit enter and then you will be given a map to their house. Everyone should be aware of this! You can have your phone number removed or blocked. Before forwarding this, I tested it by typing my telephone number in google.com. My phone number came up, and when I clicked on the MapQuest link, it actually mapped out where I live. Quite scary. Please look up your own number. Read below for details. Think about it--if a child, ANYONE gives out his/her phone number, someone can actually now look it up to find out where he/she lives. The safety issues are obvious, and alarming. In order to test whether your phone number is mapped, go to: _http://www.google.com/_ Type your phone number in the search bar and hit enter. If you want to BLOCK Google from divulging your private information, simply click on the telephone icon next to your phone number. Removal takes 48-hours. If you are unlisted in the phone book, you might not be in there, but it is a good idea just to check. If your number does come up if you hit map, it will show you a direct map to your
house... Please forward on to friends and family.

Sue Russel
Travel/Corporate Card
Program Administrator
312-822-2390 - phone
312-817-3322 - fax"

----------------------------
Regarding this..

First let me say this is a real service that Google offers. Personally I think its kind of handy. To clarify a piece of information mentioned above, if you don't want your number listed with Google you can click all day on the telephone and nothing will happen, however if you visit Google's Phonebook Removal Link - http://www.google.com/help/pbremoval.html - You can fill out a little form that will remove your number from this service, although what's the point.

I don't see the cause for alarm. If Google was not providing this service, the same end result (Mapping a location via telephone number) can be accomplished by using any of a number of phonebook databases, and either a city map or free internet mapping program.

I think the moral of the story is, that if you don't want people to know where you live by doing a reverse lookup of your telephone number what you have to do is.

1.) Keep an unlisted phone number.

and if a person really felt paranoid

2.) Don't call people that you don't want to know the location of your house. (Because even if you have an unlisted number, when you call someone with caller ID your number and name appears with the call, unless you take special measure to keep it from appearing. They could then take your name and area code and most likely find out your address...Unless of course your name was John Smith ;) So I guess you should keep an unlisted number and change your name to Johnson or Smith.

If a person is really worried about someone knowing where they live linked with their phone number that have to really really do a lot more than write Google and say, don't include me.

As an example of this, the person who sent this email originally, who since she sent it is ostensibly worried about the invasion of her privacy, is Sue Russell.

I don't know Sue Russell but just from the information that was included to me in the mass forwarded email and good ole' Google I was able to find out:

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Previously I had all the personal information I found out about Sue Russel just from her email signature without using Google's "evil" tool, but I decided to delete it in that I don't think I would want someone to do that to me. Suffice it to say that in about 20 minutes I found out her home address, where she grew up , went to school, where she lived, and included a satellite photo her house courtesy "Keyhole.com" and what her favorite activities to do in her spare time were. As well as who her internet service provider is, and what kind of computer she has... So.... If privacy is what you want, don't send out mass emails to people giving your name work phone and complete email headers. It is just too easy to find out all about you and too tempting .
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Chesterton's Orthodox Paradox - continued

This morning as I read on the bus, Chesterton introduced to me the problem of the martyr and the suicide. Christianity teaches us to love the first and despise the last. Interestingly, Chesterton notes that even before he was a Christian his heart swelled at the song of the martyr and his hate reviled toward the stench of the suicide.

Courage as he put it - at least in my paraphrase - Courage is not the hatred of death, instead it is the love of life to the extreme, a love that acknowledges the truth that in order to save your own life you must loss it or be willing to lose it. The hero is not drawn to action by a death wish, he is moved by the truth that the way of the coward will most surely get him killed, but if he can slash his way through the enemy's parapet he may yet save his life through victory.

Courage becomes a peculiar institution as I see it bend and churl, much like I imagine the smoke from Chesterton's cigar or pipe. While at the moment the pattern makes perfect symmetry, after the fact I am hard pressed to describe it, or even present it in such a way that you know at all it was smoke I witnessed. Nevertheless I still have the odor of the thing on my clothes and know that when I was in its presence the smell was sweet like that of truth.

The suicide is another story. In this case it is not the love of life that causes the thing. It is the hatred of it. There is no glory in it only cowardice and contempt. In this East and West differ completely. I imagine that the Christian morality surrounding suicide is hard to swallow for someone who was raised to believe that it was the most honorable way to die. While Chesterton found a draw to Christianity from this chivalric bent had he been from the East it may have been a great stumbling block.

It seems to me that many paradoxes exist. Most often they confuse me. I may never fully understand the depth of Mr. Chesterton's writings but I do know that each time I walk away from them I can smell truth on my clothes -- or is that cigar smoke?

Chesterton's Orthodox Paradox

While reading on the bus this morning I came to the section in G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy where he presents cases against Christianity and then explains to the reader how he finds them. He gives what he sees as the reason behind each argument and then exposes what he sees as the holes in each.

Of particular interest to me were his comments on the moral brotherhood of all mankind. As an example he states that under this philosophy one might expect to travel to the orient and find it transcribed under a tree Thou salt not steal. Likewise he would fully to expect to her a remote island tribe tell their sons, Little ought to always tell the truth. This fiber of morality that seems to be innate, surely attests to the fact that the Christian God, an exclusive God, an absolute God, cannot be indeed the true God. If the critic could stop his argument there it would be a much more difficult article to defend.

But the vast majority does not stop there. They also hold in a bizarre dualism, the belief that what is right for one person or generation is not necessarily right for the next. So, to paraphrase Chesterton morality is more valid across 2000 years than it is across 200 and I would add even less so across 20. So dear reader, if you hold some version of this dualist morality and have found a way to keep a sound mind I would love to hear your thoughts. I see these arguments against the existence or effectiveness of God as confused at best and schizophrenic at worst.

This is an over simplified gloss, I will most certainly come back to this topic.

The truth about SPAM

In this article from today's New York Times it becomes clear that SPAM, that dreaded 4 letter word, the bane of the workplace, the irk of the home, will not be going away anytime soon. In fact this article posits the exact opposite, SPAM is on the rise...Is this the "Golden Age of SPAM"?

Law Barring Junk E-Mail Allows a Flood Instead - New York Times