Modernities Suicide

This paragraph from Robert W. Jenson's essay, "How the World Lost Its Story" reminds me of G.K. Chesterton's comments on The Suicide of Thought in his book, Orthodoxy.

"The modern world, the world that instrumental and critical reason built, is falling about us.  Modernity, it now becomes evident, has been all along eroding its own foundations; its projects and comforts have depended on an inheritance to which it has itself been inimical...Analysts from all relevant disciplines converge on one insight: modernity has lived on a moral and intellectual capital that it has not renewed, and indeed could not have renewed without denying itself.  They moreover agree that this intellectual and moral capital was that built up by the Christian church's long establishment in the West, even if they themselves do no share the church's faith or even admire it."

My One Attempted Felony

I didn’t want to kill anyone, but I didn’t want to be killed either. 

Earlier that afternoon, I got off the school bus, walked down our driveway, and climbed up the back steps of our house, opening the door, and noticed that all the lights were off inside.

“Hello!  Mom?  Dad?  Where is everybody?  Gary?”  My voice echoed.

I dropped my book bag on the floor.  The floor creaked.  The air was chilled in the house. Apparently no one had been tending the fire. 

“Hello?”  A silent, darkening house was my answer as I flipped on the kitchen lights, and looked for a note.  There wasn’t one.

Quietly, I walked through the house, looking for signs that might have been left for me, but everything was normal.  Fleeting thoughts of the Rapture passed through my mind, but there were no empty clothing laying rumpled on the ground.

Outside, it was getting dark early.  Winter-time early.  I had just gotten home from school, but already it was dusky out.  I walked outside and called. 

“Dad!”  My shout only echoed off the hills across our pasture.

I looked toward the barn, but there were no lights on.  Only the bwauking of the hens and lowing of the cows.

I went back inside.

“Well”, I thought, “they must be getting home soon.  They would have left a note if they were going to be gone long.”

I fidgeted.  The windows got dark, and I waited.  We had no phone, so I couldn’t call anyone to try and find my family.  So I waited.  An hour passed.  Then another.  I tried to read, but fear and concern kept interrupting my thoughts.  What if something has happened to my parents and brother?  How could I find out.  I am just sitting here, doing nothing, and they might all be in the hospital.  Or dead.

I jumped up, and wandered around the house, turning all the lights on, then sat down to think. 

The quietness was broken by an indistinct sound outside.  The gravel at the end of our driveway crunched.  I jumped up, and ran toward the living room.  I knelt down beside the window that looked out toward the road, and slowly peaked through the curtain.

A car was sitting at the end of our driveway!

“Oh MAN, what do I do?”  I snuck away from the window, and ran toward my Dad’s closet.  I opened the door, and reached through his coats to the back corner until I felt the leather of his padded rifle sheath.  I reached in, and slid out the 22 gauge rifle.  I stood on tiptoe, reaching up, my fingers feeling along the top shelf until I found the box of ammunition.

My hands shook as I fingered the shells into the chamber, and locked the gun.  I hesitated, then slid the safety to the OFF position.

Bending at the wasted, I scurried toward the living room window, and slowly peeked out through the curtain again.  There, still, were the headlights of the car shining through the dark at the end of the driveway.

My breath was coming in gasps.  What do I do next?  I peaked again.  Still there.  Man!  I could feel my heart beating, and the blood rushing in my ears.

Then I heard the gravel crunch again.  Looking out I saw the car slowly turning into our driveway!

“Oh God.  Please help me!”

The car drove around our driveway and out of site of the living room window.

I crawled through the family room, and into the kitchen, lying on the floor under the window, when I heard the car stop right outside the window, just a few feet away.  The muffled sound of the car engine idled. 

I could not look out, because there were no curtains.  The kitchen light was on and it was dark outside so the murderer in the car would see me clearly if I peeked out the window.  They would probably get a shot off before I could aim my gun.  They were probably waiting for me to pop my head into sight to they could blow it off.

My heart was beating so hard.  I can not believe this is happening!  I had read so many adventure stories, but that was not the same as having killers sitting only feet away, and nobody at home.

I took a deep breath, tried to calm my shaking arms, and made my decision.  Fearfully standing up,  in full view of the criminals in the car outside,  I quickly lifted my dad’s 22 rifle to my shoulder, and sighted down the barrel ready to pull the trigger, but hoping I wouldn’t have to.  I didn’t want to kill anyone, but I didn’t want to be killed either. 

Outside the window, the tires of the car spun, throwing gravel as the car accelerated away from our house, and around our big circular driveway.  “Thank you God!” my breath coming in short, sobbing gasps as I ran through the house to watch the killers drive away. 

Peeking again through the living room window, I saw the car drive up the road toward the top of the driveway, and stop again, the gravel crunching, and my heart stopping.  “Oh Lord, they really are going to kill me!  Where are Mom and Dad?  Where is Gary?”

I heard the car door open, and saw the shadow of a man walk around the car from the passenger door, and Gary shouted, “David!  Put that gun down you retard!  I am going to tell Dad you pointed the gun at me!”

My brother has since forgiven me for being willing to shoot first and ask questions later, but I will never forget the relief I felt as I heard my brother threatening to kill me.

Citation: Me

Espresso: Up close and personal

Citation: <espressoporn.com> Accessed 11 May 2011.

Why the library?

Over at Letters of Note a letter from E. B. White was posted, in which he expressed to the children of Troy, Michigan why the library is so wonderful.

E. B. WHITE
NORTH BROOKLIN, MAINE

April 14, 1971

Dear Children of Troy:

Your librarian has asked me to write, telling you what a library can mean to you.

A library is many things. It's a place to go, to get in out of the rain. It's a place to go if you want to sit and think. But particularly it is a place where books live, and where you can get in touch with other people, and other thoughts, through books. If you want to find out about something, the information is in the reference books---the dictionaries, the encyclopedias, the atlases. If you like to be told a story, the library is the place to go. Books hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had. And when you are reading a book, you and the author are alone together---just the two of you. A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people---people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.

(Signed, 'EB White')

Citation: White, E. B. From a letter he wrote.  
Posted at <http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/05/library-is-many-things.html> Accessed 11 May, 2011.

Wow! The Howe Brothers are amazing

Seize the opportunity

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood—it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, “Too late.”

Citation: Martin Luther King, Jr. Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break Silence New York City, April 4, 1967

Courtesy of: Pressfield, Steven (2011). Do the Work (Kindle Locations 911-918). The Domino Project. Kindle Edition. 

Friendship Ecumenism

Friendship overcomes one of the greatest obstacles to truth in ecumenical conversation: unwillingness to understand the beliefs of others in meliorem partem, which should be taken to mean not just accurately, but empathetically, in the manner one would wish to be understood oneself, if one were that other.  This, of course, does not eliminate real and substantive disagreement, but will aid in assuring the disagreements are real and substantive.  It allows us to maintain the bond of truth-loving men, which we know shall lead us all to the same end, making error detachable for the sake of love.  One is happy to see his friend in the right, even to his own disadvantage, and abandonment of error is a small price to pay for the fellowship of those one loves.

The most frustrating  respondents we have run upon over the years in Mere Comments (Touchstone’s blog) are people for whom this clearly means nothing.  They persist in misconstruing what others have said, sometimes with considerable art, in the attempt to control an argument and humiliate their interlocutors.  But friendship kills the triumphalism impulse, awakening desire that the friend should, together with oneself, know and love the truth.

Citation: Hutchens, S.M. From the “Quodlibet” department in “Touchstone” magazine. March/April 2010. Page 5.

Publishers threatened by "new" technology

The Doghouse

Thoughts on coffee

Counter Culture Coffee is my favorite coffee roaster.  Located in Durham, NC, their coffee is phenomenal and their business model is inspiring.  They are one of the “big dogs” in the specialty coffee world.  Over at the Roasters Guild website, someone posted a question about storing coffee-best practices.  Here is the co-owner of CCC’s (Peter Giuliano) response:

1. The best way to store coffee is in parchment. Oh you mean roasted coffee! Yes, yes, dark, dry, room temperature, in a washable or disposable fairly airtight container. I always recommend that people keep the coffee in the package they bought it in, especially if it is a valve bag. I feel the more times you transfer coffee from bag to bag to container to container, you lose any CO2 flush the coffee has managed to build up.

2. Have you ever seen most people's refrigerators, or better yet smelled them? I feel that coffee does not belong next to last night's enchiladas. Plus there is no point, if the coffee is reasonably fresh. I do believe that freezing might inhibit oxidation if you wanted to store coffee for, say, months by tying up any residual moisture. But that is a pretty weak benefit if you ask me.

3. When people ask me how long coffee will remain fresh, I always ask what they mean by 'fresh'. I explain coffee will not make them ill no matter how old, unlike cheescake (I learned this lesson the hard way). I then compare coffee to bread. Bread will stay edible as long as it's not moldy, but it's way better on the first day you buy it than the fifth. Same with lettuce, donuts, tortilla chips, and apples.

Most people have two different categories in their mind: fresh food and staples. Fresh food is what you go to the grocery to buy a few times a week (meat, fruit, dairy), staples are always there in the pantry (flour, sugar, rice, canned tomatoes) which are good until they go bad. We have traditionally put coffee in the "staple" category whereas I believe it belongs in the "Fresh Food" category.

4. To me, he best coffee brewers are pourover: melitta and chemex. French presses are great. I am geekily attracted to the technivorm.

As for espresso machines at home, I have an opinion about that. Do you remember back when we were kids, Pac Man in the arcade was super cool- a wonderful experience. When it came out on Atari, it was totally disappointing. Now that technology is better, I have Pac Man on my PC at home, and the screen looks the same as it did in the Arcade in 1982. But it feels different, not as good. This is the way I feel about espresso.

I feel that espresso not just a cup of coffee, but a communal event. In Italy, people stop at a bar for an espresso, some conversation, the local news, some stamps, whatever. That sense is entirely lost making espresso in your kitchen. Plus, home equipment is just always inferior when it comes to pressure and temperature stability. Why the modern host feels like it is a cool thing to offer cappuccinos to their guests is beyond me, especially when there are a multitude of other coffee preparations more suited to the home kitchen that are equally spectacular.

Now then, a problem is that it is often difficult to find great espresso out in the world. This is its own problem, and the solution may not be for all the people who care to install espresso machines in their kitchen. It is our duty to put pressure on marginal coffeehouses to make great coffee, and patronize and reward the coffeehouses that do. Save the coffeehouse. Take the couple grand you would spend on a good home espresso machine, buy a moka pot for the Italian vibe (not espresso but a legit Italian experience nonetheless) and spend the rest at a local great coffeehouse getting great shots, or making noise every time you don't. By the way, I deeply respect those who are passionate about their home espresso machines, but those guys usually have their own opinion about what is the best espresso machine and are not asking me.

People tell me sometimes I am a pain in the ass. Sometimes I understand exactly what they are talking about.

Peter

Citation: Peter Giuliano Roasters Guild website thread reply, 9 June 2003.  <www.roastersguild.com>

Alan Jacobs repost

Alan Jacobs has helped me tremendously as I have been thinking through how to respond to the changes that technology brings our way, which we must respond to one way or another.  Here is something he posted recently

"Life skills for the Technium

I have sometimes, in these pages of pixels, expressed frustration with Kevin Kelly, but his post on“Techno Life Skills” is just fantastic. My favorite point:

You will be newbie forever. Get good at the beginner mode, learning new programs, asking dumb questions, making stupid mistakes, soliciting help, and helping others with what you learn (the best way to learn yourself).

I’m going to give this to all my students for the foreseeable future."

Citation: Jacobs, Alan. Text Patterns blog on "The New Atlantis" website. 

<http://text-patterns.thenewatlantis.com/2011/04/life-skills-for-technium.html> Accessed 4 May, 2011.

Why the blog has been silent for a few days

It is interesting, being in the middle of an area that is hit by a natural disaster.  While we and our particular location was spared any direct damage, and only were effected by a power outage for several days (power is still off, but we have our generator working now) we were quite cut off because our power, landlines, internet and cell phones were all cut off or severely handicapped, so until a couple of days ago, we had no idea how widespread and devastating the damage was.  Our television and internet news were cut off, so our understanding of what had happened was mainly extrapolating what was being said by the local weather man when the power was cut off.  Then for several days our time was mostly taken up with trying to figure out how and what to cook, working on our generator to (finally) get it working after 3 or 4 days, and moving food from fridge to freezer to our neighbors freezer to try and keep the food.

Then, the news started to shape up for us as we listened to the radio, and the magnitude of the damage became clearer, the loss of life climbed higher and higher and finally, yesterday getting online and Googling to see what was happening in the cities surrounding us, watching video footage of the Tuscaloosa tornado...pretty sobering, especially in light of the fact that I have been having a blast figuring out how to "make do" with what facilities we still have.

Those of you that know me at all, know that I long to figure out how to cultivate community as a way of living that regards highly the kinds of creatures we were created to be.  I have found that having the power out is an excellent way to establish community.  I would say there was at least a 20% increase in "natural" relating with our family and neighbors as we pooled resources and gathered to discuss what was happening, as well as several community-based meals as we figured out how to use the food that was defrosting in the community freezers.

Bottled Water

Does anyone else remember the first time that they heard of bottled water? As a kid, water was like air. It was free. Actually, it is more fundamental than that. You don’t think of air being free, or costing money. It just…is. It is like a presupposition. You don’t question it. And water was like that to me. Of course, as a 7 year old asking for a cup of water at a restaurant, I didn’t think about the overhead costs of the cup, lid, straw, electricity to power the lights so I could see the cup, cost of plumbing to carry the water, cost of the sink…I just wanted a little water.I was incredulous when I first started seeing bottled water in restaurants and gas stations. “Dad, are they really charging money for water?” 

“Yes, but it is only if you get it in a bottle. If you ask for it in a cup, they don’t charge you for that." 

“Really? That is so weird.” 

That was too much for my young mind to grasp, so I asked for my water, “In a cup, please.” 

A few weeks ago, Gracie and I took a trip to Texas to move a friend to Huntsville. While we were their, we stopped by Dallas to visit some old friends of mine. We went to a place called Central Market, which is similar to a “Whole Foods” store (a chain of health food mega-stores.) Walking into the store, I stared in awe at shelf after shelf of bottled water. Bottled in interesting shaped, brightly colored containers, they came from all corners of the world. Some sparkling, some “still” (which I guess means, “not sparkling”) 

HILDON natural spring water from Broughton, Hampshire, England: AN ENGLISH NATURAL MINERAL WATER OF EXCEPTIONAL TASTE, DELIGHTFULLY STILL. 

SOLARES still natural mineral water. Producto de Espana. El agua que solo sabe a agua, tan pura como mana de la Naturaleza. (Which I will attempt to translate: “The water that only knows to water, so pure like the manner of the Nature.” Which might mean something really cool to people in Spain.) 

TyNant from Bethania, Wales. This one was cool because “Bethania” is kind of like the middle name of my niece and the name of my sister-in-law, Bethany. Also, the bottle was shaped like an irregular rock with a plastic cap screwed onto the end. 

MANIVA natural mineral water from the Italian Alps, which went so far as to list the temperature of the water at the source, and the electrical conductivity at 20 degrees Celsius. 

I started wondering. Is there really an ounce of noticeable difference in the taste of all these fascinatingly shaped waters? So I bought 6 of the most interesting ones, and conducted a taste test over the course of the next week or so. I carefully selecting a bottle, twisted off the cap, tipped the water to my mouth, and savored the liquid as I swished it meditatively around my mouth, trying to distinguish the subtly nuanced flavors of that particular water. What I found each time, not really very surprisingly, was that it tasted just like water. Actually what it tasted like was “money.” Because each of these water-flavored beverages cost well over $1.00 a bottle! 

None of these waters tasted any better than the water that could be found next to our Maple sugar house in northern New York State. After splitting wood for an hour, there was nothing, nothing! so refreshing as crawling down the bank, lifting the lid off the covered artesian well, and watching the crystal clear water bubble up through the sand about a foot and a half under the surface. I loved to stick my hand down into the skin-numbing coldness, and down into the bubbling sand. The water, when dipped into a cup, and raised to the lips, could not be chugged down, it had to be sipped because the water was intensely cold. It was delightfully refreshing, tasting just precisely like water should taste. 

And it was free.