Happy T!

November 26, 2009

From years ago: The Homestar Runner crew wishes everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.
Disclaimer: If you don’t already know about the characters of Homestar Runner, this will not be funny to you. Here’s a classic Thanksgiving toon from homestarrunner.com:

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FDR Changes Thanksgiving

November 25, 2009

Bill Kauffman, a Batavia local and my favorite writer at Front Porch Republic, gives us some interesting Thanksgiving history. Read the entire article. It’s very funny. Here’s a teaser:
It seems that in 1939 Thanksgiving was to fall on November 30th, a matter of consternation to the big merchants of the National Retail Dry Goods Association [...]

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Logos and Identity

November 24, 2009

Once a unifying Logos or belief in a reason outside ourselves is abandoned, all we have left are feelings and desires. If we cannot let the world or our place and meaning in the world be defined by the Logos, then we will define it entirely within the context of our own desire.
And this is [...]

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Fashion and Permanent Things

November 22, 2009

It always amuses me when I hear people picking on the fashion of the 80s, or even the fashion of last year. On what basis?
What standard tells you that high hair and leg warmers are absurd?
And yet I hear people speak with more certainty about what is fashionable and what is not – and heap [...]

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Moses, Meteors, Tobacco and Grace

November 18, 2009

I think my dog Moses just had his first experience chewing tobacco.
I was trying to put together thoughts for a lecture I’m giving on Harry Potter in a couple of days at the Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University, and I decided to go outside, smoke a cigar (Oliva Serie V), and hope to [...]

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Art and Criticism

November 17, 2009

John Gardner, from On Moral Fiction:
[E]ven at its best, criticism – including the criticism set down by poets and novelists, composers, pinters, sculptors, dancers, and photographers – is easier than authentic art to grasp and treat as immutable doctrine. Depending as it does on logic and scheme, on arguments well argued, criticism uses parts of [...]

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The Death of Apologetics Obsession

November 14, 2009

From an article at Patrol Mag:
But so many twenty-somethings are not calling themselves “post-evangelical” because they know too little theology or have put too small an effort into synthesizing it with reality. They have come from the most apologetics-obsessed generation of Christians in American history, and have realized that many of their prepared answers are [...]

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This God

November 11, 2009

Quoted by @JaredCWilson on Twitter today:
“We trust not because ‘a God’ exists, but because this God exists.” — C.S. Lewis

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Baptism and Assurance

November 9, 2009

“We must not try to decide what is God’s will by prying into His secret counsel, when He has made it plain to us by external signs.” (John Calvin on 1 Timothy 2)
“Whenever there is any question of forgiveness of sins, we must flee to Baptism and from it seek a confirmation of forgiveness. For [...]

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Check Out that Banner!

November 8, 2009

The new banner here at Letters from the Perilous Realm is the work of Aaron J. Smith, aka Cultural Savage. Those buttons for my two books on the sidebar below the pictures of Rochester are also his work.
If you’re looking for logos or banners, this is the guy you want to work with!

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All Saints and All Souls Day

November 1, 2009

Last night, I watched, for the first time, the film 28 Days Later. An incurable infection spreads causing a rabid, inhuman rage within 10-20 seconds of exposure. One small pocket of the uninfected exists, consisting of a few military men and the story’s three main characters.
The military commander gives an interesting speech at one point, [...]

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Happy Halloween!

October 31, 2009

I’ll post pictures later of Sophia in her Clifford costume, Tricia in her Marge Simpson costume, and me in my vampire costume. In the meantime, I need to link the James Jordan piece on Halloween that I link almost every year. It’s a favorite.
PubCast #71: “A Hog’s Head Halloween,” or “John Granger’s Tell-Tale Dead Dog” [...]

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Rest in Peace, Mary Travers

September 16, 2009
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Everyone is Lying

September 10, 2009

This health care debate is as painful as it gets when it comes to politics in America. I am exhausted by watching people willingly abandon critical thinking about their own beliefs in order to join a team and tear apart the other team.
Listen: Both sides are lying a little bit. Both sides have folks who [...]

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Bob Dylan Christmas Album!

September 4, 2009

I cannot wait for this.

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