Help with decisions.

I just had to share this, passed on from a good friend of mine.  With so much information, the internet can be overwhelming, but sometimes it really helps simplify some things.

Improvisation

Alex Ross, classical music critic for The New Yorker, has a nifty article on improvisation, or lack of, actually, in classical music.  Most people think of classical music (not big-C Classical music, the 18th century stuff, but little-c, generic – meaning it’s got violins ‘classical’) as staid, stuffy, and snobby.  Well, it is, in large [...]

Giberson’s New Project

A friend of mine passed on an article from USA Today by Karl Giberson and Darrell Falk.  I blogged on Giberson’s book here; Falk I don’t know.  In the article, they point to their new website: The Biologos Foundation.  Looks like a nice resource to add to the conversation of faith and science.

How much?!

Great article in the Washington Post (thanks to a friend at work for sharing) on the relative value of art.  Joshua Bell – one of the greatest living violinists – dressed quasi-incognito, and played Bach in a Metro station on a $3M dollar violin.  He made $32 after 1000 people passed by; a couple nights [...]

Atticus – An ambiguous hero?

Malcolm Gladwell has a new article in the New Yorker re-examining To Kill A Mockingbird, which I just read for the first time last summer.  Of course, I was very impressed with the story and Finch’s character as well – the everyman’s hero, the patience and long-suffering.  Gladwell calls that into question somewhat by looking [...]

Zen 2

Picked up The Art of Happiness at the library, by the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler.  Cutler, a Western trained and practicing psychiatrist, actually wrote the book after extensive interviews and time spent with the Dalai Lama (with the Dalai Lama’s approval, review, etc).  It’s not that I’m interested in adopting Buddhist religion, rather I [...]

Zen

Just finished Mountains are Mountains and Rivers are Rivers, a collection of excerpts from other books on Zen philosophy and practice (including Phil Jackson).  I’ve been curious about aspects of Eastern philosophy ever since I first studied Tai Chi several years ago.  Many of the concepts share principles with Christianity (and others): selflessness, balance, not [...]

Collins and NIH

Nice response to critics of Collins’ appointment to head the NIH.

“Enterprise Solutions”

My wife and I recently saw the new Star Trek, which has the first Kirk self-destructing his ship in order to save his fleeing shipmates.  Our college recently purchased two buildings from a certain aeronautical engineering company, and while taking a quick tour the other day, I noticed this emergency shut-off button with a creative [...]

Getting somewhere…

Just finished Luke Timothy Johnson’s book The Real Jesus, which I first mentioned here. In the first part of the book, he takes much of the historical quest to task for a skewed approach to the subject, and the Jesus Seminar especially.