It's Not About Me

They Are Just Not That Smart

"In explaining any puzzling phenomenon, remember to leave room for idiocy over conspiracy, incompetence over cunning. Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."   - Unknown

Speaking English Good (# 2)

"And don't start a sentence with a conjunction."

Sin

I've heard told the story of a reporter who stopped Harry Truman as he left church one Sunday morning. He asked the president, "So what did the preacher preach on?" Truman answered, "Sin." The reporter hoping for a little more, followed with, "So what did he say about it?" Truman's reply, "He's agin it."

"The great power of sin is in this, that it is inherently absurd. It destroys what it longs for, creates what it hates and turns the world upside down."  - R.C. Sproul, Jr.

Sailing On The Gulf Of Derision

Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

Go On, Try Putting Your Feet Up!

"If you are really a product of a materialistic universe, how is it that you don't feel at home there?"    - C.S. Lewis

Wha'd You Say?

Dopeler Effect (n): The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

Boob Tube Idiot Box TVerculosis Glowing Babysitter Mind Melter

This quote is by Reginald Damerall and was stolen from Magistra Mater.

"No child or adult becomes better at watching television by doing more of it. What skills required are so elemental that we have yet to hear of a television viewing disability."

Smoke Signals

I have a friend who eschews email. He’s not a Luddite or even Amish for that matter, in fact he used to own a computer business. I think though that he is ahead of the curve. My friend has already put into practice what so many of us know, and that is, large volumes of instant communication do not make for a satisfying life. Unfortunately, although he's abandoned email, he’s not picked up his pen either. A third friend has suggested that maybe smoke signals would be the preferred method of communication.

These thoughts were triggered by an article in the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal entitled, “Not So Fast”.  Some worthwhile highlights by John Freeman:

“We will die, that much is certain… Being someone else, traveling the world, making new friends gives us a temporary reprieve from this knowledge, which is spared most of the animal kingdom. Busyness – or the simulated busyness of email addiction – numbs the pain of this awareness…  Given that our days are limited, our hours precious, we have to decide what we want to do, what we want to say, what and who we care about, and how we want to allocate our time to these things within the limits that do not and cannot change. In short, we need to slow down.”

“…In the past two decades, we have witnessed one of the greatest breakdowns of the barrier between our work and personal lives since the notion of leisure time emerged in Victorian Britain….  It has isolated us from the people with whom we live, siphoning us away from the real-world places where we gather. It has encouraged flotillas of unnecessary jabbering, making it difficult to tell signal from noise. It has made it more difficult to read slowly and enjoy it, hastening the already declining rates of literacy. It has made it harder to listen and mean it, to be idle and not fidget.”

“The speed at which we do something – anything – changes our experience of it. Words and communication are not immune to this fundamental truth. The faster we talk and chat and type over tools such as email and text messages, the more our communication will resemble traveling at great speed. Bumped and jostled, queasy from the constant ocular and muscular adjustments our body must make to keep up, we will live in a constant state of digital jet lag.”

“…In using this tool (the Internet) so heavily, consumers aren’t just frying their attention spans, they’re forfeiting one of the large sources of information that comes from face-to- face interaction and business. A butcher can tell you which cuts of meat are the freshest; an online grocer may not. That same butcher, if he is good, might not just remember your preferences – which an online retailer can do frighteningly well – but ask you how your mother has been doing, whether you caught the latest football game. These interactions remind us that we are more than consumers; they remind us that we are part of the world in a way no amount of online shopping ever will.”

There are many more ideas in this article, which I’m sure, ironically, is available on-line. If you’ve made it this far, you be spending too much screen time. On the other hand, if this is useful, read slowly and enjoy. Another, older resource, even better written, is Wendell Berry’s “Why I’m Not Going To Buy A Computer”.

Anyway, give it a rest!

Corollary To "It's All Religion"

"Every culture has blasphemy laws. They are not always called that, but no society allows citizens to rail against the reigning deity. In our pluralistic times, these blasphemy laws are called 'hate crimes' legislation, among other euphemisms, but they are really religious protections to keep the reigning god, demos, from being blasphemed."   - Doug Wilson

It's Inescapable - It's All Religion

"All cultures are the incarnational outworking of a religion or combination of religions. When you deny a transcendant God, this does not eliminate the need for a god at the top to make the system coherent. It just means that the applicants for the position of deity are all, to use one of Christopher Hitchens' favorite words, "mammals". It can be just one mammal, as in North Korea, or it can be fifty million mammals with a system of primary elections, a general election, topped off with an electoral college election. If there is no God above the system, then the system is god. All societies are religious organisms, not just the ones with a religious exoskeleton."  

(This quote is of course another by Doug Wilson.)