To make Comments write directly to Jim at jimt@quixotic.ca
24
Dec
2022
Christmas Eve, 2022
Christmas and Easter sometimes remind me of the Bobbsey twins. They’re inextricably bound together, Can’t get along without each other. And yet they’re constantly competing with each other.
Briefly put, the Incarnation argues that God – whoever or whatever God is – became a human being in Jesus, the baby born in Bethlehem. The Resurrection claims that that same baby, some 30 years later, triumphed over death and will never die again.
Both focus on the uniqueness of the event. This only happened once, we declare. The rule –we commonly assume – is that God is “out there” somewhere. Or perhaps “up there”. But certainly different from us. Not mortal flesh-and-blood.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: resurrection, Christmas, Incarnation
Sunday December 18, 2022
There’s something about a season of peace and goodwill, a season marked by glad tidings of comfort and joy, that throws into stark contrast the operating systems we take for granted all the rest of the year.
I imagine that’s what prompted Eli Sopow of University Canada West to write an article for The Conversation Canada on Elon Musk.
I don’t know what you think of Musk most of the year. Envy of his wealth -- even if he’s no longer the world’s richest person? Admiration for his achievements, such as Tesla and SpaceX? Loathing? Disgust?
Whatever your feeling, I’m sure it didn’t involve comparisons with Santa Claus.
Tags: Elon Musk, Santa Claus. Jesus, Eli Sopow
Sunday November 27, 2022
Years ago, I thought I was giving the Sunday School kids a treat – no dull boring lesson today; we’d just sing some familiar Christmas carols.
We tried. One of the mothers bravely played the piano. A teenager hoping to emulate Eric Clapton played a 12=string guitar. The singing, however, was less than enthusiastic:
“Okay,” I said, “you’re not keen on our choices. What would you like to sing?”
Bigmouth at the back called out, “Rudolph!”
Without waiting for either piano or guitar, the whole group of kids launched into Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
They sang lustily. With enthusiasm. They knew all the words. They also knew all the words to Santa Claus Is Coming to Town. And to Silver Bells.
I didn’t have the heart to tell them that those had all been written by Jews.
Tags: Christmas, music, Jewish
Occasionally, The Guardian lets its hair down and writes about itself.
Recently, Sophie Zeldin-O'Neill, The Guardian’s deputy membership editor, wrote in an e-newsletter that Donald Trump's announcement of running for the presidency in 2024 “renewed a debate about how to responsibly cover him without unwittingly providing the coverage he so expertly manipulates.”
She likened it to “walking a tightrope.”
“We will have no hesitation to call a lie a lie, or indeed a liar a liar, even if they are a former US president," said Paul Harris, head of news for The Guardian US.
Tags: Trump, lies, truth, Guardian
25
Nov
Sunday November 20, 2022
Two news stories juxtaposed themselves this past week.
In the first story, the eight-billionth human was born somewhere on Wednesday, according to an estimate by the United Nations.
Maybe not precisely on Wednesday. It might have happened on Tuesday. Or Thursday. But one of the 385,000 babies born during those three days was the eight-billionth member of the human race.
Just 12 years ago, there were only seven billion of us. A century ago, only two billion.
We have, in other words, grown like mould.
That famous “hockey stick” graph of greenhouse gases is duplicated, almost exactly, by the growth of human populations.
Yet we get all upset about one statistic and avoid the other.
Tags: population, 8 billion, sperm counts, fertility