Goodbye, August

Well, today I must finally say goodbye to August 2012 for good. I’ve seen this coming for a while now. How sad to see the summer passing away so quickly.

I do, however, have a lot of things to be thankful for when I look at this weekend and this coming week.

  1. Next week my lovely little daughter will turn 5 months old!
  2. This weekend is my 2 year anniversary of living in this old house in Essex, Ontario!
  3. Today my daughter made her first piano recording, which I’ve captured.  I think Jenn is going to share it on our child’s “5 month” post.
  4. My lovely, brilliant wife just did a fantastic job of revamping our front porch room setup.
  5. It’s a long weekend!
August 31, 2012 | Posted in: Personal | Comments Closed

Out And About (08/31/2012)

Theology

  • Mark Jones offers a review of Kevin DeYoung’s  ”The Hole In Our Holiness”.    It is generally appreciative and supportive of its emphasis.  However, Mark Jones is also quite critical of what he sees as a very important omission.

Family

  • My wife is a genius at making sorbet. Case closed. Exhibit A.

Linguistics

  • In The Voice of Tyranny, Mike Reid shows how subtle linguistic techniques frame the way things are presented in news and other sources, zeroing in on the passive voice and how it distorts and  tends to shirk responsibility.  He refers to Orwell’s Politics and the English Language.

When To Be Suspicious

Once in a while you will stumble across a sentence that goes something like “theology says…”, “philosophy says..”, or “economics says..”. That is, I would argue, the time to be suspicious.  I’m not saying that what follows will be necessarily false.  Just inherently suspicious.

These are broad fields. With plenty of disagreement. And  radically opposed schools. They are not a unified and objective source which can be consulted directly.

Here’s what could be happening:

1. The creation of an authority with a unified voice which doesn’t exist (you can’t consult “economics” and get one answer unless you narrow your query to a particular school of economics or a particular source).

2. The person may be referring to a general consensus (ie. 80% of modern economists believe such and such), but this can be problematic because it is assuming that a non-consensus view can’t be true (often without providing any supporting evidence).

Sometimes a writer will build a whole framework of ideas supported on that often weak leg of “[XYZ] says..”.

One recent example of this is Matthew Yglesias’ recent article over at Slate.  I have no desire to defend any politicians mention in the article. However,  when Matthew says “Economics says he shouldn’t”,  I believe he is creating a consensus that doesn’t exist. He pretends that economics speaks with one voice on an issue in an area that is highly controversial.

I would recommend that the next time we are tempted to say something like “economics says”, do this instead:

  • Narrow what you are saying to a particular school of thought within the field. ie: “Austrian economics says” or “19th century Methodist theology says”   (it still may be a questionable consensus you are referring to, but at least you are making it less sweeping).
  • Narrow what you are saying by tying it to a personal experience. ie: “My survey of economics tells me that”

And, above all, if you are a reader, please squint your eyes a little and grunt when you see an appeal to the consensus of an entire field that is not narrowed and qualified in some way.

Out And About (08/26/2012)

Literature

Theology

Local Interest (Windsor/Essex County, Ontario)

  • A coyote was found in the foyer of a business in downtown Windsor, Ontario!

Weird

A Review of “You Are A Writer (So Start Acting Like One)”

Imagine a public speaking book married a weight loss treatment sales pamphlet and had a child about writing. Okay, I admit that’s an awkward image, but it seems fitting here. To be fair, the central point of the book is valid. If you are an aspiring writer, don’t wait for approval, write and build an audience.

I felt like I was sitting through an awkward sales pitch. It’s as if I was reading a self-help book, and got the striking sense that the author was trying out his techniques on me!

I mean no personal offence towards Jeff at all, but I’m not sure I want to become this kind of writer. I see little, if anything, in the writing style that could inspire emulation. If one were looking for a pep talk, they could probably find a more generic self-help book helpful.

I’m thankful I got the book for free and it was a really quick read. I recommend that readers read the title and move on, applying the title to their craft.  I also recommend that this book be renamed to capture a broader audience. Perhaps “You Are A Sales Person (Now Start Pitching Yourself)” would be suitable.

Letter From Bradbury To Heinlein

Since it is Ray Bradbury’s birthday today, I figured I’d post the text of a letter Bradbury once wrote to Robert Heinlein. They are both towering figures in the world of science fiction. It goes to show how having a good mentor, or someone to look up to in general, can be of great assistance to a new writer.

DEAR BOB:

YOUR INFLUENCE ON US ALL, FROM 1939 ON, CANNOT BE MEASURED. I CAN ONLY SAY I REMEMBER, WARMLY, YOUR MANY KINDNESSES TO ME WHEN I WAS 19–20–21 YEARS OLD. THAT YOUNG MAN BASKED IN YOUR LIGHT AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE GRATEFUL FOR THE HELP YOU OFFERED WHEN I WAS SO POOR & NEEDFUL! YOURS IN THAT MEMORY — RAY BRADBURY

AUG – 1976

August 22, 2012 | Posted in: Literature | Comments Closed

Some Brief Thoughts On Vacation Memories

I was an awkward, skinny little kid back then. My trips to various cottages in Ontario in the early to mid 1990′s now seem to have melted together into one unified experience.

There was a common thread to Stoney Lake, Marten River, Lake Matinenda and various other unremembered places. They all had enough majestic trees, moss-covered rocks, clear skies, hawks, snakes, and mysteriously deep lakes to captivate a young nature-loving boy.

I have a lot of little amusing memories to share. Take for instance, the time I caught a frog and brought it to a deck and threw it into the water, only to see a huge bass, probably a largemouth, swallow it. If only I had set that frog on a hook! There was also that time we were driving somewhere north, following my aunt and uncle’s car, until we noticed a head full of gray hair in the car’s back seat that neither my aunt nor uncle owned.

Or once there was a muskie under a deck, and all the men within shouting distance came with all kinds of absurd tools in hopes that they might somehow get the fish. I’m talking things like shovels, baseball bats, brooms, or poles.

Life changed a lot since then. I haven’t slid a worm on a hook for years and I sold off most of my lures. My uncle and aunt no longer go to cottages. I now have a family of my own and haven’t had a sore back from hopping waves in a boat for many years now. And, yet, I’m still figuring out how these vacation memories have formed my early experiences and  how they’ve contributed to who I am today.

I think now as a parent I want to replicate this to some degree for my daughter. I don’t mean that I want to duplicate these experiences exactly, because every kid is different, every family is different, and the conditions have changed since back in the 1990s.  What I am saying, though, is I want my daughter to have some fond memories of some type that links her with family, outdoors, and things that are inspiring. And by God’s grace, she will.