Friday in the wild: September 16, 2005

IT'S FRIDAY! IT'S FRIDAY!! IT'S FRIDAY!!! IT'S FRIDAY!!!! YEEEARRRGHH!

It's a couple of weeks old, but I've finally caught up on some of my backlog of blog reading, and since I'm such a fan of Lewis' science fiction I'm exercising my personal prerogative. Mr. Dawn Treader has started reading C. S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet to his kids.

Science fiction fans who are sticklers for "realistic" science fiction may not like the book. The book was published in 1938. Lewis has to use his mind's eye to see what space travel will be like. For us, who live in the age of space shuttles and Mars rovers, it sounds antiquated. We know Mars is a cold, dry planet. We know that you can't breathe on Mars. We know a little of what space travel is like because astronauts have been to the moon and back. What existed solely in the realm of imagination in 1938 has become somewhat more familiar in 2005.

In a strange way, however, that is what makes it kind of fun to read.

[Read Touch Down On Malacandra]

I agree. Here is my own review of Out of the Silent Planet. I hope to follow up by rereading and blogging the second book of the trilogy by the end of the year.

The weird-O's at Fide-O do a post that part discusses what Christian music is, and part decries its present state:

Amazingly, the day I realized that I was no longer "hip" (if that is even the correct word) is the day I asked some of our youth at church this question, "What is Christian Music?" I received a litany of answers and realized quickly that the thought had never really crossed their minds. I have recently discovered that, according to the parents of our youth, if the music is moral and sung by people who claim to be Christian, then it falls into the "Christian Music" category. Using this logic, I concluded that Bonnie Raitt's "A Thing Called Love" is a Christian song. On the flip side, "How Great Thou Art" is not a Christian song because drug addict Elvis won a Grammy for it. (no offense to Elvis fans)

[Read What Is Christian Music]

Julie Staples fisks a popular argument for Roman Catholicism that an acquaintance forwarded to her:

A phenomenon of the Catholic Church today is that we seem to find among dissidents (here I mean dissident priests) a prior problem, usually with sexuality. It often turns out that when a priest has a history of opposing the Church's teaching, usually a teaching on morality such as contraception, he is already living a life of immorality himself.

Herein lies problem number one, a logical fallacy we like to call ad hominem. Plainly put, it's when we attack a man, personally, and his character rather than interacting with his thoughts on a subject. It's an attempt to disqualify everything said by the person because "he's not a nice guy."

Be it Luther or one of those dissident priests, if they have a problem with the Catholic church for whatever reason, the reason has to be addressed regardless of the behavior. Even the most errant people deserve an explanation into how they are wrong, otherwise how do we know they are errant?

[Read And Now for Something Completely Different]

And now for something else completely different: Julie has to build a bird feeder for the stork. Congrats!

Finally, a couple of weeks ago I started reading a relatively new blog hosted by "Pecadillo." I Drank What? isn't particularly voluminious or profound, it's just oddly goofy fun. Plus, judging by the page art, he's got good taste in fountain pens, even if the Aurora Mare is hideously expensive. His most recent post gives a, um, flavour of the blog:

I was just enjoying a "fun-size" bag of Doritos Nacho Cheesier chips. "Fun-size" is the manufacturers' name for the smallest-size bag, although, I would think the largest size would be the most fun. Anyhoo, while I was contemplating what was printed on the bag, I noticed it also says, "Now better tasting!"

Huh?

How, exactly, are they able to make such a claim? Who is qualified to tell me what I'll think tastes better? Isn't that the same as if a woman, after changing the way she does her hair, walks around with a sign that says, "Now more attractive"? Or a guy who, after seemingly bathing himself in cheap cologne, wears a shirt that declares, "Now better smelling"?

[Read "Now a better blog!"]

Again it was a relatively sane week on the Google front, with only one vaguely odd search query coming my way:

• blogs on house centipedes: Um . . . wear a shoe when you step on them. That's really all you need to know.

In other Google news, Google just launched their new blog search engine. While I'm still trying to figure out whether I can use it to track links (it does provide RSS feeds), I did notice that there appear to be three Crusty Curmudgeons out there: this one and also this one. By the way, in terms of longevity, I'm in the middle.

ENJOY!