Society
We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane. Kilgore Trout -Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions, Ch 1.
There is always an easy solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong. -H.L. Mencken
Family.
Opa welcomes Maiella!
Cindy and I are dancing with joy - our first grandchild has joined our family! Maiella Skye Estaris Wiebe, whose parents, Jenn and Benn, are starting their journey as parents. May they have as rich an experience as we have had! She was born at 3:21am on June 15th, 2013, weighed in at 6lb 14oz, was 20in long and is our sweetheart. Woo Hoo!Book review, Title Born Again, Author Charles Colson, Rating 2.5,
Born Again
Charles Colson
Book review
Hearts and minds
During his years as a Republican political operative, Charles Colson prominently displayed an old Marine Corp saying in his home: 'When you’ve got ’em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.' Colson described those years and the hard crash that followed in his book Born Again as a mid-life autobiography precipitated by a mid-life crisis. After his role as a self-described 'hatchet man' for Nixon White House was slowly exposed during the Watergate scandal, he converted to Evangelical Christianity, and after being convicted of obstruction of justice, he spent some time in prison.
Pocket Review, Title The Jerk, Studio Universal Studios, Rating 4.0,
The Jerk (1979)
Director: Carl Reiner
Pocket Review
The Jerk: A movie that never gets old
The Jerk is a naïf, a not-quite-holy fool, who finds his life one astonishment after another. It is the most maniacal and subversive of Steve Martin and Carl Reiner's movies together. This film provides the perfect vehicle for Martin's comic style, which I have always enjoyed.
Movie Review, Title Bicycle Dreams, Studio , Rating 3.0,
Bicycle Dreams (2009)
Director: Stephen Auerbach
Movie Review
Bicycle dreams?
Bicycle Dreams is a documentary about the Race Across America (RAAM), an annual beyond-insane bicycle race across the U.S. Few ride it, those who finish do it in less than two weeks, and ride almost the entire time. It is only a matter of time before all participants begin to hallucinate, and some have been injured and killed because of it.
Book review, Title How Should We Then Live?, Author Francis A. Schaeffer, Rating 2.5,
How Should We Then Live?
Francis A. Schaeffer
Book review
How should we then live?
Part 4 of 4 of this review of Francis Schaeffer’s How Should We Then Live: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture suggests an alternative answer to the question regarding how we should then live, and attempts to answer the original question posed in part 1: How did this book influence U.S. Evangelical Christians to become more politically active?
Book review, Title How Should We Then Live?, Author Francis A. Schaeffer, Rating 2.5,
How Should We Then Live?
Francis A. Schaeffer
Book review
Absolutely relative
Part 3 of 4 of this review of Francis Schaeffer's How Should We Then Live examines the author's claims that Christian ethics are the only absolute standard for society.
Book review, Title How Should We Then Live?, Author Francis A. Schaeffer, Rating 2.5,
How Should We Then Live?
Francis A. Schaeffer
Book review
Christianity good, secularism bad
Part 2 of 4 of this review of Francis Schaeffer's How Should We Then Live examines the author's historical approach, and evaluates his comparison of Christendom and secular society.
Book review, Title How Should We Then Live?, Author Francis A. Schaeffer, Rating 2.5,
How Should We Then Live?
Francis A. Schaeffer
Book review
The good old days of Christendom
In his book How Should We Then Live: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture, what did Francis Schaeffer have to say that influenced so many Evangelicals to become more politically active? Part 1 of 4 of this review summarizes the author's primary theses, then assesses the impact of critical historical events that were minimized or left out of the author’s analysis of Western Civilization.
The superweed and GMO crops
Superweeds are weeds that cannot be killed with the usual pesticides used by by today's agro-businesses, such as Roundup. They have begun to pop up in fields that grow crops which have been genetically modified (GMO) to increase their resistance to pesticides. This allows farmers to use Roundup more liberally to kill weeds. This approach worked very well at first, but after a prolonged overexposure of the weed population to Roundup, weed species resistant to Roundup have been selected. This is a serious agricultural problem, as these weeds lower the yield, increase the cost of harvest, and remain a problem that is not easily solved. Why is this strategy employed, when agronomists predicted that such an outcome was inevitable? Why not just move to organic farming, eliminating the use of chemical pesticides, which like antibiotics, are indiscriminate in destroying both pests and beneficial organisms?
Stepping back from blind partisanship
Steve King recently wrote a sharply drawn satire entitled If My Guy Loses: Confessions of an Anonymous Partisan in the Atlantic Monthly. His rather ingenious device is to give full voice to an angry everyman who is broadcasting a blind partisanship, anonymous in the sense that he could belong to any political party.
Examples: I will protest things I once advocated. I will threaten to move to Canada. I will criticize the president for dishonoring the office of the presidency while I question his patriotism, citizenship, and character.
Cycle Oregon 2012 journal Day 7 from Bly – last day
Day 7 of the Cycle Oregon 2012. Riding with old friends in Southern Oregon. In which every adventure must come to an end. We finish our journey, starting from Klamath Falls and arriving back where we started in Bly.Cycle Oregon 2012 journal Day 6 from Klamath Falls
Day 6 of the Cycle Oregon 2012. Riding with old friends in Southern Oregon. In which we ride from Ashand to Klamath Falls, starting with a 12 mile climb up Dead Indian Memorial Highway. Tim was back in the saddle, and we enjoyed a leisurely ride.Cycle Oregon 2012 journal Day 5 from Ashland
Day 5 of the Cycle Oregon 2012. Riding with old friends in Southern Oregon. Rest day! Some riders took the optional climb up Mt. Ashland, but we did not. I took advantage of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and saw a great play, All the Way, then met my friends for a relaxing dinner by the creek.Cycle Oregon 2012 journal Day 4 from Ashland
Day 4 of the Cycle Oregon 2012. Riding with old friends in Southern Oregon. In which I ride from Prospect to Ashland, sans Tim, who injured his achilles, and took a day off. A beautiful day in the forests, with an exhilarating 13 mile descent into Ashland.Cycle Oregon 2012 journal Day 3 from Crater Lake!
Day 3 of the Cycle Oregon 2012. Riding with old friends in Southern Oregon. In which we ride from Fort Klamath to Prospect, beginning with long and arduous climbing to the rim of Mount Mazama, where we rode around Crater Lake in glorious weather, the Cascade mountains surrounding us. The finish was a 20-plus mile fast descent!Cycle Oregon 2012 journal Day 2 from Fort Klamath
Day 2 of the Cycle Oregon 2012. Riding with old friends in Southern Oregon. In which we ride from Silver Lake to Fort Klamath, starting again in near-freezing temperatures, wandering through the Klamath Marshes in full glorious view of the Cascade mountains.Cycle Oregon 2012 journal Day 1 from Silver Lake
Day 1 of the Cycle Oregon 2012. Riding with old friends in Southern Oregon. In which we ride from Bly to Silver Lake, starting in near-freezing temperatures, and warming while riding through scrub forests and rolling hills.Cycle Oregon 2012 journal: Day 0 from Bly
At last! Day 0 of the Cycle Oregon 2012. Riding with old friends in Southern Oregon. In which we rendezvous and prepare for the week.
Attrib: Ruth Moreau, Family.
Doctor Dad . . . Irreplaceable
My Dad, Tony Wiebe, retired as a family physician nearly twelve years ago, in 2000. He was my personal physician for most of his practice, as well as my family.During the course of his forty two years of practice, he had always taken care of family members, immediate and extended, with the greatest generosity. Dad was always available for family, 24 x 7, and family members were never charged for his services. He would get up at any time of the night and go to someone's house or meet them at his clinic when he received a call for help, whether from within his household or via the telephone.
Celebrating Frog – street jokester of Eugene
What does a dyslexic, agnostic insomniac do at night? He lies awake contemplating the existence of doG.
Years ago, my brother Craig and I were walking together on the way to somewhere in Eugene, Oregon, when a veritable gnome of a man approached us, towing a child's red wagon filled with what appeared to be hefty pamphlets. He introduced himself cheerfully as Frog, told us the joke above and offered to sell us one of his joke books that he carried in his red wagon.
Oregon Scribbler.
The Bible Tells Me So, continued (3)
A reader commented on my second post regarding the Bible and homosexuality:Do I make [GLBT people] feel unloved? Well if you are a sincere Christian, then no, setting out intentionally to make them feel unloved is not an option. As you note, love is a key goal in Jesus teaching, whether one believes that homosexual sex is sinful or not.
This is a loving response. It probably wouldn't need to be mentioned, were there not so many who profess to be Christians who are openly and markedly unloving in their response to that community. Yet the kind of charity the reader goes on to describe is limited. See my response in defense of a more supportive view.Oregon Scribbler.
The Bible Tells Me So, continued
A reader responded to my article The Bible Tells Me So, a short discussion of Matthew Vine's recent video about the Bible and homosexuality, arguing that Vine's interpretation was incorrect, and that Jesus proscribed homosexuality. See my defense of a more loving interpretation.
Family.
Grandbabies!
The birth of a new child in the family never gets old, even if it occurs a thousand miles away! My niece Janna and her husband Jerome recently had a baby, Deacan. Not long before Deacan was born, Matt and Katie Stewart had a baby, Miriam, the first grandchild of my old friends Tim and Laurie. And penultimate addition to the Wiebe family, Sophia, remains a source of regular, albeit once removed delight, thanks to Facebook.Oregon Scribbler.
The Bible tells me so
Matthew Vines, a young gay Christian, has made a serious argument that the Bible favors loving relationships for people of all sexual orientations, not just heterosexuals.
Movie Review, Title Fargo, Studio MGM/UA, Rating 4.5,
Fargo (1996)
Director: Joel Coen
Movie Review
Fargo: A movie that never gets old
Fargo is an almost blissfully surreal take on what the world would be like if everyone had an IQ of 88, building a structure of nincompoopery around a more typical tale of desperate crime gone wrong. This movie could be the Coen brother's extended take on Woody Allen's joke about a village idiot's convention in Love and Death
Can precision in writing be attained?
I was reading a recent article by Andrew Sullivan, who asks the question: "Does punctuation matter?" The discussion was nominally about internet and texting abbreviation in both word and thought, but raised other questions to me:
Does precision in writing matter? If so, when does it matter? These are devilish questions.
Book review, Title Atlas Shrugged, Author Ayn Rand, Rating 1.5,
Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand
Book review
There but for the grace of God goes … Ayn Rand?
I have been sometimes surprised by which ideologies have chosen to embrace Ayn Rand and for what reasons, wondering how she influenced anyone beyond selfish teens and the wealthy. I was particularly surprised to see signs of evangelical Christians embracing Atlas Shrugged, since on first inspection, it would seem a gargantuan stretch between the ideas of Rand, an avowed atheist who openly mocked the religious and the poor, and the ideas of Jesus, who emphasized a caring life centered around selflessness to focus on God and the afterlife he promised. It would seem impossible for evangelicals to follow Ayn Rand; how did this come about?Cycle Oregon 2012!
Woo Hoo! I have signed up for the Cycle Oregon 2012 edition, that odd mix of pleasure and pain.
Pocket Review, Title Auntie Mame, Studio Warner Bros., Rating 4.0,
Auntie Mame (1958)
Director: Morton DaCosta
Pocket Review
Auntie Mame: A movie that never gets old
Mame is a free-spirited woman who believes that 'Life is a banquet - and most poor suckers are starving to death.' She is given care of her nephew when her brother unexpectedly dies, and raises him in her very unconventional world, against the wishes of his legal guardian, an often perplexed conservative banker played with great comic style by Fred Clark . It is Rosalind Russell's best role.
Oregon loves New York: memories of 9/11
My wife Cindy and I awoke early on September 11, 2001 in Portland, Oregon. As I was preparing for work, she called me to the television, which had the smoking image of the first of the burning World Trade towers. We both stared in disbelief, and watched numbly as that terrible day unfolded, as the second tower was struck, as people began to jump from the buildings, after which one building and then the other crashed to the ground, so rapidly as to seem completely unreal. We watched as the Pentagon was struck, and followed the tense and fragmentary reporting as planes were grounded, fighter planes were scrambled, and frantic searches were being conducted to account for all of the airplanes in the air, culminating in the crash of flight 93 in a Pennsylvania field. We wondered what could possibly motivate someone to cause such horrific damage, to deliberately destroy so many innocent lives.Pocket Review, Title Moonstruck, Studio MGM/UA, Rating 5.0,
Moonstruck (1987)
Director: Norman Jewison
Pocket Review
Moonstruck: A movie that never gets old
This is the Godfather without the criminals, an affectionately detailed slice of love-deranged Brooklyn Italian family life. It is such a happy, funny movie. The operatic theme of unexpected love is done to perfection here.
Pocket Review, Title Nobody's Fool, Studio Paramount Pictures, Rating 4.5,
Nobody's Fool (1994)
Director: Robert Benton
Pocket Review
Nobody’s Fool: A movie that never gets old
This is a story of an aging small town man with deep flaws, played superbly by Paul Newman, one who abandoned his family and has lived from hand to mouth. Yet he has built a life caring for his friends.
Pocket Review, Title Arthur, Studio Warner Bros., Rating 4.5,
Arthur (1981)
Director: Steve Gordon
Pocket Review
Arthur: A movie that never gets old
When Arthur first came out, Dudley Moore's comic acting had already gotten my attention, but the premise seemed like it was built on a single joke, and I had no interest in seeing it. After some critical acclaim, I reluctantly joined the queue, and was amazed at what was conjured out of rich drunk guy jokes.
The art of writing? Just get started
I was talking to a friend about the difficulties of writing, and so gave some thought to my own writing process. I have often felt stymied in getting started writing, both in business, of which I did a large amount, or privately; I enjoy writing, and sometimes can write freely and fairly quickly, but the norm is that I struggle to start. My most usual technique is to write a set of scattered notes down, anything, and then revisit it and start shaping it. Most of my more serious “essays” started in one direction, and are in many ways unrecognizable when I am done, precisely because one idea or phrase begets another.Chess tournament etiquette: Performance art?
Several chess writers have mentioned a German 'book' entitled Instructions to Spectators at Chess Tournaments, which was comprised of three hundred blank pages followed by the phrase "Shut Up!"
This piece of performance art (the performer is the reader of the book) brought to mind an experience my son Jon and I shared years ago at a chess tournament. Jon had an early interest in chess, and starting in the fourth grade, played in multiple chess tournaments, the only member of the Wiebe family to compete in chess, even if only for a few years. I took him to his last tournament, and joined the ranks of fussy parents watching their children anxiously from the sidelines. In his second game, after perhaps ten moves, I noticed that Jon had just placed his opponent in a discovered check situation. I was excited for him, because discovered check can be a lethal tactic . . .
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