Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
In Caitlin Flanagan's interesting piece on the college admissions scandal, she makes this statement that jumped out at me: I just about got an ulcer sitting in that office listening to rich people complaining bitterly about an “unfair” or a “rigged” system. Sometimes they would say things so outlandish that I would just stare at …
Continue reading "Settling for Lehigh Isn’t the Worst Thing That Could Happen"
The news that Lifeway Christian Stores will all close brought back a memory of something that happened in one of them that was, in some ways, life altering. In 2010 the Church of God decided to abolish the Department of Lay Ministries, which I was working for at the time. That left me without a job …
Continue reading "My Lifeway Memory: Doing Church of God Business in a Baptist Bookstore"
It's pretty sad out there: What many are calling the worst admissions scandal in higher education emerged Tuesday, with federal authorities announcing 50 indictments in a scheme that allegedly involved faux athletes, coaches who could be bribed, cheating on the SAT and ACT, million-dollar bribes and "guarantees" that certain applicants would be admitted to highly …
Continue reading "Meritocracy? What Meritocracy? Just Pay the Money!"
To be Roman Catholic these days is an unenviable business, especially if you're aware of what's going on in the Catholic Church (and many Catholics, sad to say, are not.) It's easy to comment on what's happening, but what really matters is how one plans to fix the problems that face the Church. Let's start …
I recently reviewed Latta Griswold's The Middle Way, this is another quote from that, in his advice on sermons: The most ineffective, and ultimately the most objectionable of all preachers, is the scold. There is a vast difference between rebuking evil and exposing to a congregation the sins to which they are prone, and scolding. …
Recently I posted a piece entitled The Day Science Died where I lamented the fall of a real scientific/technological urge in our society after we landed men on the moon in 1969. Evidently that urge is still out there, in this case Israel: A dramatic nighttime launch from Cape Canaveral sent Israel’s privately funded lunar …
This week's post comes on my companion website, Chet Aero Marine, and is entitled The Day Science Died. But the other thing that came in reading this book was an ache–an ache for a time when we were literally reaching for the stars (or at least the moon.) The passing of that time–something that basically lost …
If there's one term that gets misused in Anglican-Episcopal circles more than any other, it's the via media, the middle way, which Anglicanism is supposed to embody. Probably it's original intent was best expressed by the men who "translated" the King James Bible. In their dedication to their "dread sovereign," they said the following: So …
Continue reading "Book Review: Latta Griswold’s The Middle Way"
Positive Infinity 