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March 27, 2004
Passion of Christ line drawings
Woodcut-style ink drawings from the events of Holy Week to the Ascension:
Evangelio - PASION - RESURRECCION
Posted by thdyck at March 27, 2004 | Comments (0)
Ego surfing
from my friend Dan Vandebelt:
What you do when you Google for your own name: ego surfing.
Posted by thdyck at March 27, 2004 | Comments (0)
Romeo Dallaire speaking at geocide conference
The head of the small UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda at the time, Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire, told the conference that no-one was interested in saving Rwandans and the bulk of his force was ordered to leave.
He suggested that attitudes now had not changed.
"I still believe that if an organisation decided to wipe out the 320 mountain gorillas there would be still more of a reaction by the international community to curtail or to stop that than there would be still today in attempting to protect thousands of human beings being slaughtered in the same country."
BBC NEWS | Africa | UN chief's Rwanda genocide regret
Posted by thdyck at March 27, 2004 | Comments (0)
March 26, 2004
Canadian "Urban Literature"
San Grewal was a classmate of mine in Western's Journalism program. He comments on the emergence of "urban literature" in the Canadian Market.
"The students, meanwhile, would rattle off authors like Sister Souljah, Eric Jerome Dickey, Colin Channer and Sharon Flake."
...
One of the books often mentioned by young black girls in Toronto interested in the genre is Nalo Hopkinson's first novel Brown Girl In The Ring. "Oh yeah, they snap it up off the shelves," Sadu says.
It's a mix of science-fiction and inner-city life, about a young Caribbean girl who calls upon the traditional spirituality of her ancestors after moving to Toronto, to help save the inner city once it is barricaded and left to rubble because of a strange event that takes place.
"You have great Canadian writers in their 40s and 50s, Nalo Hopkinson, George Elliott Clarke, Cecil Foster," Chapman says. "But then there's a drop off."
And it's the younger readers, agrees Chapman, who most desperately crave literature that reflects their personal stories.
TheStar.com - A hip-hop approach to lit
Posted by thdyck at March 26, 2004 | Comments (0)
March 25, 2004
Corinne Vonaesch's Gospel of John: Illustrated in 21 Paintings
The Gospel of John in 21 paintings. The is the setting of the wonderful breakfast scene in John 21. 153 fishes of abundance!
Posted by thdyck at March 25, 2004 | Comments (0)
Cultural Differences at the SF Robolympics
Cultural differences
The competitions seemed to break down along cultural lines. The Japanese robots reigned supreme when it came to sumo-wrestling, while the European teams showed off their skills on the football pitch.
As for the American machines, they specialised in demolishing the living hell out of each other in one-on-one robot combat.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Robot clash reveals cultural divide
Posted by thdyck at March 25, 2004 | Comments (0)
March 24, 2004
BBC: Python film to challenge Passion
The Life of Brian is my favorite Monty Python movie. It isn't about Jesus, but some other poor sap who gets caught up in messiah hysteria through an unlikely combination of accidents. The "liberation faction" scene is a favorite because it so reminds me of Mennonites.
Monty Python's film The Life of Brian is to return to US cinemas next month following the success of The Passion of the Christ.
The Biblical satire will be re-released in Los Angeles, New York and other US cities to mark its 25th anniversary.
Adverts will challenge Mel Gibson's blockbuster with the lines "Mel or Monty?", "The Passion or the Python?"
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Python film to challenge Passion
Posted by thdyck at March 24, 2004 | Comments (0)
March 22, 2004
A personal account of refugee traffic in West Africa
In Timbuktu the 15 of us got into the back of a lorry. We travelled by night before reaching Gao, the last stop before the desert.
There, we met thousands of other migrants waiting for transport across the Sahara.
We bought bread and tinned sardines for the journey. We poured water into the inner tubes of car tyres, which hold more than bottles. Normally we only travelled at night.
That first afternoon, our driver stopped and showed us the graves of seven people, including a 21-year-old woman from Nigeria.
He said he had found their bodies - their lorry had broken down in the middle of the desert and they had waited in vain for help, before dying of thirst.
BBC NEWS | Africa | Billy's journey: Crossing the Sahara
Posted by thdyck at March 22, 2004 | Comments (0)
A Prayer of Confession from Acts 9:1-20 (the Conversion of Paul)
A Prayer of Confession for Christian Adults
Eyes-open God,
You see us always,
Breathing threats and murder against your kingdom.
Hot, angry breaths.
Full of the power of our own authority to lead our own lives,
With arrogance enough to ask,
"Who are you, Lord?"
We think we know sometimes
But how often we forget.
Forgive us, Lord. We are a sinful people.
Lift us up from the ground,
As we seek to belong to the Way.
Your way, not ours.
Your power, not ours.
Your kingdom.
Your will.
Yours eyes.
Thank you
for your gift
of sight.
--Timothy Dyck
Posted by thdyck at March 22, 2004 | Comments (0)
Forgive me O God
Forgive me O God:
I was angry that I had no shoes,
then I met someone who had no feet.
-- anonymous, China source, p. 66
Tirabassi, Maren C. and Kathy Wonson Eddy. Gifts of Many Cultures: Worship Resources for the Global Community. Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 1995.
Posted by thdyck at March 22, 2004 | Comments (0)
March 20, 2004
A brief history of Christian popular music
Peter Bagge cartoon: "A Secular Humanist Looks Inside the World of Christian Rock"
Posted by thdyck at March 20, 2004 | Comments (0)
March 19, 2004
Barth on Prayer
To clasp the hands
in prayer
is the beginning
of an uprising
against the disorder
of the world.
--Karl Barth
from Imaging the Word, vol. 1, p. 229
Posted by thdyck at March 19, 2004 | Comments (0)
Where will the 'Passion' dollars go?
My big question is, since Gibson financed 'The Passion of the Christ' using his own fortune, what will he do with the enormous proceeds from this film? What a responsibility.
Mel Gibson's religious film has earned more than $273m (£149m) while topping the US chart for three weeks.
...
Meanwhile the Passion film has been a huge success in the US, topping the box office there since its release last month.
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Zombie film 'will beat Passion'
Posted by thdyck at March 19, 2004 | Comments (0)
March 18, 2004
Agnus Dei, Lamb of God
Come, rag of pungent quiverings,
dim start.
Let's try
if something human still can shield you,
spark
of remote light.
-- Denise Levertov
Posted by thdyck at March 18, 2004 | Comments (0)
Breaking the fast
When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish that you have just caught." So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast." Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, "Who are you?" because they knew it was the Lord.
-- John 21:9-12, NRSV
Posted by thdyck at March 18, 2004 | Comments (0)
Faith on Film Festival 2004
This coming weekend the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is having its annual film festival. The theme is "The Blessings of Laughter" and the film list is online at http://www.usccb.org/movies/festivalfilms.htm. Something to clip and save.
(from Sojourners' SojoMail e-mail list)
Posted by thdyck at March 18, 2004 | Comments (0)
George "Lionel" Bush and Tony "Diana" Blair
Sensitive, new-age guys, the both of them.
This amusing video casts the Iraq war alliance between George W. Bush and Tony Blair in a whole new light. Created by Johan Söderberg for a Swedish television program called 'Kobra,' this parody synchs up images of Bush and Blair singing Diana Ross and Lionel Richie's breathless ballad "Endless Love." Their international coalition may be crumbling, but their hearts still beat as one.
Bush and Blair Sing Endless Love
from Lawrence Lessig, interviewed at http://trends.newsforge.com/trends/04/03/17/156205.shtml?tid=137&tid=147
Posted by thdyck at March 18, 2004 | Comments (0)
March 13, 2004
Being a grandmother is good for your health
Women with grandmothers nearby tend to have children sooner and more often than they would otherwise.
Nor was the increase due to a single effect. Instead, Dr Lahdenpera was able to disentangle a range of beneficial phenomena which, when added together, resulted in the increased reproductive success that she observed. People whose mothers were still alive both gave birth to more offspring and raised a higher proportion of those offspring to adulthood. They also gave birth to their first children at a younger age than those whose mothers had died, and the births of their children were more closely spaced. All of these things contribute to reproductive output.
Moreover, the physical presence of the matriarch was vital. Children who lived more than 20km from their mothers produced significantly fewer offspring than those who lived in the same village. That suggests the increase in the number of grandchildren was due not to some subtle genetic effect, but rather to help--whether physical or in the form of advice--that matriarchs were contributing.
Perhaps the most evolutionarily significant finding, though, is the age at which the matriarchs in the study died. The average lifespan of post-menopausal Finns was 68. Of Canadians, it was 74. These ages correspond to the points where the matriarch's children themselves had stopped reproducing. At that point, a woman's fitness plummets. And so, sadly, does her life expectancy.
Economist.com | Why women live so long
Posted by thdyck at March 13, 2004 | Comments (0)
Kim Stanley Robinson on the history of fiction on Mars
Kim Stanley Robinson has written the best fiction of Mars I've read (his Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars triology).
The news galvanized the world. Other writers immediately recognized that if there really were a civilization on Mars, it could be anything; Lowell's version was only one guess. Quickly other Martian fictions appeared in all the leading industrial nations, and many had a major impact. In Germany Kurd Lasswitz's "Two Planets" (1897) sold several hundred thousand copies, and clubs formed to discuss it. Lasswitz described a Martian technological utopia, enjoying great domestic comfort through advances in food production, transport, urban planning and space travel. Young men like Wernher von Braun and Willy Ley were greatly impressed, so much so that they later became rocket scientists. It could even be said that it was Lowell's imagination that got us to the moon by 1969.
In Russia the book was "Red Star," by Aleksandr Bogdanov. Here the utopia is political, though also technically advanced. Mars's socialist civilization has been living in peace for five centuries, but when it sends emissaries to Earth, terrible problems arise. Can social progress be imposed on a less developed culture?
This very impressive novel, written in 1908, considers this and other questions while offhandedly predicting much of 20th-century history. It, too, inspired clubs, debates, professional and amateur sequels, and a generation of young scientists, including engineers in the Soviet space program.
Essay: A Red Planet Forever in the Orbit of Science and Dreams
Posted by thdyck at March 13, 2004 | Comments (0)
Handing that person over to God
The end
At a little past 0800, I called emergency services and gave her name. The person who answered the phone was very nervous. She directed me to the place where the doctors would have more information.
Minutes later, they offered me a pill. And then, although I didn't say anything to any of my family, I was absolutely convinced that my wife was dead. That was it. The end.
I've always thought the same about terrorism - in Madrid as much as anywhere else in the world. And that is that it's meaningless.
When you use force to make a point, there will be a backlash against you, and that will be either as big or bigger than the problem was to begin with.
Child again
It's absurd. I don't feel any repulsion. I don't know - indifference. The only thing I know is that they've torn out my heart. And now I'm like a child of five years old. Now I've got to start everything again - becoming an adult all over again.
I've got to say that it's all the same to me - whether it's Eta, or al-Qaeda, or any other group of terrorists. To me it's the same feeling. The only thing I know is that they've snatched away a part of my life and nobody can bring it back.
I don't care who they are. I don't care what happens to the people who did it.
When you bury a person, the pain is that it is the last moment when you have that person next to you and when the ceremony ends you hand that person over to God. You don't lose them, but you stop having them at your side through everything.
--Jesus Antonio Munhoz, Madrid, Spain
BBC NEWS | Europe | 'The day my wife was snatched away'
Posted by thdyck at March 13, 2004 | Comments (0)
March 12, 2004
The Technology of Ice Cream
Did you know that all ice cream (except for chocolate) starts as a vanilla receipe? Or that sweeteners are the cheapest way to bulk up ice cream?
A sweet ice cream is usually desired by the consumer. As a result, sweetening agents are added to ice cream mix at a rate of usually 12 - 16% by weight. Sweeteners improve the texture and palatability of the ice cream, enhance flavors, and are usually the cheapest source of total solids.
http://www.foodsci.uoguelph.ca/dairyedu/icingr.html
Or that hard and soft ice cream are made exactly the same way?
Ice cream contains a considerable quantity of air, up to half of its volume. This gives the product its characteristic lightness. Without air, ice cream would be similar to a frozen ice cube. The air content is termed its overrun, which can be calculated mathematically.
As the ice cream is drawn with about half of its water frozen, particulate matter such as fruits, nuts, candy, cookies, or whatever you like, is added to the semi-frozen slurry which has a consistency similar to soft-serve ice cream. In fact, almost the only thing which differentiates hard frozen ice cream from soft-serve, is the fact that soft serve is drawn into cones at this point in the process rather than into packages for subsequent hardening.
Hardening
After the particulates have been added, the ice cream is packaged and is placed into a blast freezer at -30° to -40° C where most of the remainder of the water is frozen. Below about -25° C, ice cream is stable for indefinite periods without danger of ice crystal growth; however, above this temperature, ice crystal growth is possible and the rate of crystal growth is dependant upon the temperature of storage. This limits the shelf life of the ice cream.
The main ice cream page is at http://www.foodsci.uoguelph.ca/dairyedu/icecream.html.
I have always loved ice cream. When I lived in the Philippines, my dad would drive me to the local market on his motorcycle and buy me an ice cream cone of ube ice cream. This was flavored with taro root and had a dark purple color. It had a nutty taste -- what a distinctly Philippino flavor! Halo halo was also yummy.
Ube ice cream receipe
other Philippino ice cream flavors (Ramar Foods International Corporation)
Posted by thdyck at March 12, 2004 | Comments (0)
March 10, 2004
The reasons people die
Physical Inactivity and Poor Nutrition Catching up to Tobacco as Actual Cause of Death
In 2000, the most common actual causes of death in the United States were tobacco (435,000), poor diet and physical inactivity (400,000), alcohol consumption (85,000), microbial agents (e.g., influenza and pneumonia, 75,000), toxic agents (e.g., pollutants, asbestos, etc., 55,000), motor vehicle accidents (43,000), firearms (29,000), sexual behavior (20,000) and illicit use of drugs (17,000).
Actual causes of death are defined as lifestyle and behavioral factors such as smoking and physical inactivity that contribute to this nation's leading killers including heart disease, cancer and stroke.
CDC - Media Relations - Fact Sheet - March 9, 2004 (via BoingBoing)
Posted by thdyck at March 10, 2004 | Comments (0)
Mmmm... gyoza.
A loving, shot-by-shot chronicling of how to make Gyoza (pot stickers). I love that dish. I was once on an extended business trip in Urbana, IL and ate this dish four or five times while there. I would order it as a side sish twice and skip the main course.
Gyoza.org - Gyoza - Japanese Dumplings
(thanks BoingBoing)
Posted by thdyck at March 10, 2004 | Comments (0)
Chiasms in contemporary langauge
We were discussing chiasms in Greek class on Monday. These are literary structures (conscious or unconscious) that have a A B C C' B' A' pattern. Having had our feelers primed, I saw this one in a BBC news report the next day:
Last Updated: Tuesday, 9 March, 2004, 03:50 GMT Blix details his 'mission impossible' By Paul Reynolds BBC News Online world affairs correspondentBlix's still small voice of calm on Iraqi WMD was not loud enough
If there was one man who could have stopped the war in Iraq last year, it probably was not Hans Blix.
He faced a mission almost impossible. He was looking for something which did not exist.
When he duly found nothing, the Americans and British would not accept that absence of evidence meant evidence of absence.
Posted by thdyck at March 10, 2004 | Comments (0)
March 7, 2004
Evolution debate in the church in the 1950s
Some became worried that the ASA had taken an official position on the evolution issue or, at least, that certain members were trying to give the impression that it had. That it had not was a matter of practice and policy. Various ASA Journal articles reprinted here do not endorse an evolutionary position. Rather they demonstrate what one member later called the "fuzziness" of a group of people with an "exploring attitude." Whether everyone possessed an attitude of openness is easily disputed, but the ASA Journal editor, Delbert Eggenberger, did his best to keep the ASA periodical an open forum. Circumstances compelled him to clarify this policy on a few occasions: "It is emphasized that there is not a uniform or official ASA interpretation.... To publish only articles of a particular theological system would defeat the very purpose for which the A.S.A. was founded." Later he wrote, "It would be easy to establish a 'party line' ... [but] the ASA has a purpose ... of open-minded study that precludes such restrictions." (p. 28
Kalthoff, Mark, ed. Creation and Evolution in the early American Scientific Affiliation. Creationism in Twentieth-Century America, Vol 10. Garland Pub, 1995.
Posted by thdyck at March 7, 2004 | Comments (0)
March 5, 2004
Church of England seeks 'web pastor'
Church of England seeks 'web pastor'
Last Updated Fri, 05 Mar 2004 7:49:28
OXFORD, ENGLAND - The Church of England began running ads Friday for an online vicar to take care of worshippers at its first internet parish.
The diocese of Oxford needs a part-time "web pastor" to minister to people who want to be part of a congregation but are unable or unwilling to join a traditional parish.
"We are aware of statistics which show that 50 to 52 per cent of the population is prepared to put 'Church of England' by their name, but only eight per cent is in church on a Sunday morning," said Rev. Richard Thomas, the diocese's communications director.
He expects the online parish will be popular with people with mobility problems, or those who must travel for their job or do shift work.
CBC News:Church of England seeks 'web pastor'
Posted by thdyck at March 5, 2004 | Comments (0)
March 4, 2004
Amish TV show runs into trouble
And two senators from Pennsylvania - which has America's best-known Amish community - wrote to complain.
"We know of no other reality series that singles out the beliefs and practices of a specific group of people as a subject for humour," the letter from Senators Arlen Spector and Rick Santorum said.
"For almost three centuries, the Amish have lived the way they do out of piety and conviction, not out of ignorance. If, by producing this show, you fail to respect that, you will be opening yourselves to charges of bigotry."
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Amish TV show runs into trouble
Posted by thdyck at March 4, 2004 | Comments (0)
March 3, 2004
Loretta Lux's digital paintings of children
Ms. Lux uses her own paintings in the backdrops, and photographs the children separately, divorced from any social setting. The artist then places the subjects into the background, digitally enhancing various aspects of the image, including the costumes, subjects and settings. The effect is of isolation and distance, which Ms. Lux explains as a basic experience of human existence. This distance shifts Ms. Lux's images outside the normal realm of portraiture.
Lux's photographs of children are not portraits in the traditional meaning of the word. Rather, she sees them as imaginary portraits which deal with the idea of childhood as a paradise lost. The carefree, innocent childhood ideal is explored in the photographs as an imaginary kingdom, one which is created more by the projection of adult ideals and concerns. The images, portraying self-aware children, are about the discovery of the self, or the development of a concept of one's self. "We are radically alone and forced to choose our own path and create our own authentic life, but the self is a mystery," says Lux.
Yossi Milo Gallery: Loretta Lux (from BoingBoing)
Posted by thdyck at March 3, 2004 | Comments (0)