Books of Influence: The Comic Book Years. Now, I don't want to mislead you into into thinking that I was an intellectual child -- far from it. My favorite reading was comic books. Yet there are some stories that really stood out and I still think about from time-to-time. For example:

In Green Lantern #61, the story "Thoroughly Modern Mayhem" is about the evil in us all. Golden Age Green Lantern Alan Scott returns home to find his house ransacked -- it's the final straw, so he uses his powers as the Green Lantern to wipe all evil from the face of the earth. Every single person on the Earth vanishes, including Scott. Hal Jordan, the "main" Green Lantern goes looking for his buddy Scott and finds Scott's Earth depopulated. He has his ring take him to Alan Scott and he finds Scott on an alternate world, along with everyone from earth, in a state of suspended animation. Jordan wakes Scott and they realize what a mistake they've made and send everyone back.

In Superman # 236, "Planet of the Angels" Superman is given a challenge by 3 angels to cross the gates of hell and rescue Batman, Jimmy Olson, and Lois Lane. Ultimately, he realizes that the three angels are intergalactic thugs and the three devils are intergalactic police. Moral -- appearances are deceiving. Or, for the biblically literate, Satan comes disguised as an angel of light.

Books of Influence I, Childhood. Thanks to Cap'n Yip, I've been thinking back to those books from childhood which have had an influence on me. First and foremost, a book I still own and look at from time-to-time, was the Time-Life book on Mathematics by David Bergamini. This book introduced me to Zeno's paradox, the Klein bottle, Fermat's Last Theorem, probability, perspective, calculus, numbers and showed that mathematics is more than just accounting.

Heads Should Roll. Seeing the pictures of the US torture and reading the quotes ("We had no training whatsoever" -- Sergeant Chip Frederick - a reservist whose full-time job is as a prison officer in the US state of Virginia) leaves me extremely angry. If true, these men and women should face extreme penalties. Not only those directly involved, but I say take it up the chain of command. Brigadier General Janice Karpinski should be subject to a full court martial and I'm not sure I would stop there.

I'm thinking that the chairman of the military Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, should resign.

Answer. On April 16, 1962, Archbishop Joseph F. Rummel of New Orleans excommunicated Leander Perez, Jackson G. Ricau, and Mrs. B.J. Gaillot, Jr. for continuing "to hinder his orders or provoke the devoted people of this venerable archdiocese to disobedience or rebellion in the matter of opening our schools to all Catholic children." In other words, these three public officials disagreed with the Archbishop over the desegregation of schools and each was publicly excommunicated and forbidden access to the Roman Catholic sacraments.

More here and here.

[Thanks to Paladin for the tip]

Who are Leander Perez, Jackson G. Ricau, and Mrs. B.J. Gaillot, Jr. and why does John Kerry have reason to fear them?

Ethical Bootlegging. I've written before about the ethics of bootlegging. Doug LeBlanc looks at the issue of music swapping here (although can we be sure it's not a sneaky way to dwell on "righteous fox" Jaci Velasquez? [vbg]).

I'm pretty clear on the notion that file swapping to avoid buying a disc is stealing. I don't buy the notion that it's okay to rip off Christian artists and their music companies for evangelistic purposes is somehow okay. Yet, what about my particular vice -- trading (not selling) bootleg concert discs?

What about those, like I have done, who post low-quality .mp3s to get exposure for an artist? A 96kb .mp3 isn't good enough to burn to a disc and listen to, but it's good enough to get the flavor of a musician.

Some other notes -- there have been artists in the past who have encouraged this practice -- evangelistic copying -- Keith Green comes to mind, along with Steve Taylor and Larry Norman (at times). So I'd say check with the artists to see.

Also, what about out-of-print records?

Here are a couple of other stories on the issue:
Praise God and pass the music files - NYTimes
Gospel Pirates - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

If you don't have qualms about bootlegging and are interested in this Recycled Sounds is a good place to look for folks who trade bootleg discs of Christian artists.

Raiders pick. I'm still hoping the Raiders will trade down (swap with Browns plus William Green), if it doesn't I can't figure out whether they'll go for the trophy (Larry Fitzgerald ) or speed (Roy Williams).

"Freestyle Evangelicals". The American Prospect on left-leaning evangelicals.

Off the Rez. Sorry for being gone for so long -- I've spent the last week in the central part of the Navajo Nation, from Window Rock, AZ to Mexican Hat, UT and places in between. Now I'm in Albuquerque, NM, for the Gathering of Nations, the world's largest pow-wow. I'll be home tomorrow afternoon.

Gorelick Must Resign. I don't have a problem with the partisanship of the bipartisan 9-11 commission. I think that sharp questioning from people who obviously have an axe to grind can be beneficial. I disagree with tactics like Ben-
asking two questions and then telling the witness to only answer one or Kerrey's disingenuous "speechifying." For the most part, Jamie S. Gorelick, former Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton administration has not resorted to these obnoxious tactics.

Nevertheless, as has been made clear, Gorelick was the architect of the policy that neutered the proactive policy of preventing terrorism and should be sitting on the other side of the table. [See here for the Gorelick memo (.pdf) implementing this bizzare wall of blindness.]

The NYTimes was all over Scalia about a potential possible conflict-of-interest, I wonder when they will start questioning Gorelick about this very real conflict-of-interest.

If Gorelick has any integrity remaining, she will step down now.

National Pastime. The NFL schedules are out. My Raiders had an easy schedule last year and proved pathetic. The 2004 schedule is more difficult with winter games in Denver and KC (two games against the Chefs 20 days apart -- the last being at 5:00 pm on Christmas day -- you're a mean one, Mr. Grinch). The highlight will be the return of Chucky and gang on Sept. 26.

Baseball can not be considered the national pastime until the national capital has a team. [BTW, nice article on team names.]

Different. Here's an article on the home of a co-worker and good friend of mine. As you can probably tell, David and I are so different that we make Oscar and Felix look like identical twins. Nevertheless, we are good friends and David is someone I admire.

Phinally! What a great win by Mickelson in the Masters.

"Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!"

--Luke 24:5-6

The New Christmas? Good article by Charlotte Allen in the WaTi today on the impact of the Passion on American Christianity.

The Twist

words by: Terry Taylor
music by: Terry Taylor, David Raven, Tim Chandler

hang on, believe
there's nothing up my sleeve
i've got no magic tricks to save the day
put down the gun
you're not helping anyone
and i'm not about to run or back away

don't walk the fence
then come to my defense
i don't need fair weather kinds of friends around
so watch and pray
as a traitor's kiss betrays
and rest your feet of clay on shaky ground

chorus
and look me in the face, at least what's left of it
tell me you still love me just a little bit
or nail me down, break the skin
hard enough to do me in
but don't leave me hanging
dying and dangling
twisting in the wind

here, touch my side
let doubt be crucified
nailed with your wounded pride
to love's grim altar
here, taste my flesh
my bloody humanness
i am no phantom guest
no skinless martyr

so taste and feel
there's nothing to conceal
you always knew the deal
as sacrifice
stand up, be strong
when all you've got is gone
i left the light turned on in paradise

[chorus]

and when the walls cave in
and the curtain's torn asunder
you'll know we're near the end
you'll hear me in the thunder
and when the sun grows dim
this will be your sign and wonder
that soon we'll meet again
just like we did last summer

Stats. I listened, off-and-on, to Rice's testimony this morning. Kerrey really ticked me off with his partisan showboating. In particular, Kerrey did not want to give Rice an opportunity to answer his questions, arguing that she could explain at length in a closed hearing (so why have an open hearing Mr. Kerrey?):

we'll have a chance to do in closed session. Please don't filibuster me. It's not fair. It is not fair.

Here are some relevant statistics from the transcript:

Kerrey's Opening Monologue: 2,839 characters.
Kerrey arguing about whether Rice should answer Kerrey's question: 750 characters.
Rice's answer: 740 characters.

Analysis done by plugging the relevant sections into MS Word and checking properties (includes spaces).

More. Yeah, I counted 5 times Kerrey referred to Dr. Rice as Dr. Clarke.

Still More. Kerrey's opening monologue was interesting since he was essentially arguing with himself. I've been hearing talk of a Kerry-Kerrey ticket. That would be fun -- two candidates, four positions. "We cover the compass!"

Wage Prayer for our brothers and sisters in Nigeria. Eight pastors and 1,500 believers have died in the past few weeks.

Pray.

Yes, I have no bananas. Or I am going bananas. Or something. Very busy at work and at home, back after Easter.

Scandal. Peter Sean Bradley looks back to the original meaning of the word, vis-a-vis the Church of Rome and how it applies to the nominal Roman Catholic John Kerry.

For those of us who are Protestants, it may seem like no big deal to flit from a Methodist Church to a Baptist Church to a Presbyterian Church for communion, but for a Roman Catholic to cross boundaries in such a willy-nilly fashion is truly scandalous.

There's something about this which reminds me of this line from Robert Bolt's Thomas More: "'When a man takes an oath, Meg, he's holding his own self in his hands. Like water. And if he opens his fingers then - he needn't hope to find himself again."