A pet peeve

Achtung!

[dons Grammar Nazi jackboots and Schirmmütze]

I must draw to your attention a new threat to the purity of our mother tongue: the unrestrained use of the term deconstruct, as seen, for example, in this review by Kevin DeYoung (which is pretty good, and you should read it anyway):

Evangelicals can make the mistake of thinking the Bible says everything about everything. They can also be guilty of majoring on the minors or forcing the Bible to address matters it never meant to address. Smith is right to deconstruct these tendencies.

Deconstruction is a form of literary theory, founded in the 1960s by Jacques Derrida, who famously wrote, "il n'y a pas de hors-texte" ("there is nothing outside the text"). He challenged the assumption that words have a stable reference point outside of other words (there is no objective link between a word and the object it symbolize). Words can only be defined with other words, which can only be defined with other words, and so on and so forth. Nor is there any such thing as authorial intent; that, too, lies outside the text. To deconstruct a text, then, is to abandon all assumptions about meaning, and construct new meanings through new coinages, wordplay, and so forth: finding conflicting meanings for the text and unraveling the points it purports to make.

When DeYoung points out a few inconsistencies in Christian Smith's arguments (e.g. that "biblicism" doesn't work because evangelicals can't agree on essentials, yet Christians ought to get together and agree on essentials), he is in fact deconstructing Smith's argument by exposing areas in which it is incoherent. However, when he concedes that "Smith is right to deconstruct" wacky Evangelical Bible-reading tendencies, it appears that he is using the term deconstruct in a different way. I haven't read the book, but from reading DeYoung's post, it doesn't appear to me that Smith is saying it's impossible to find the Evangelicals' meaning. It's implied that he does understand their meaning. He just finds it foolish.

When you are tempted to use deconstruct when you mean something like analyze, rebut, or criticize, please use another word: for example, analyze, rebut, or criticize.

That is all.

Superman Saturday: Superman's first challenge!

Where we last left our hero, he had just arrived on Earth after an unexpectedly long rocket ride from the doomed planet of Krypton. Despite being crammed into a toy rocket as an infant and adrift in space for 20-plus years, having no outside knowledge of Krypton or Earth, Superman arrives with fluency in English and a superhero costume in his size. Even with no money, no experience, no Social Security number and a suit he probably stole off a guy in an alley, he scores a job as a cub reporter for the Daily Planet.

Now, Superman-as-Clark-Kent is off on his first assignment: to cover the threats made against trains in the West, and specifically, the Silver Clipper, "crack train of the West Coast Railroad," which a shady figure named the Wolfe has warned will never reach Salt Lake City after departing Denver.

So put on your Superman Underoos and listen to . . .

Episode 3: Keno's Landslide (1940/02/16)

Listen! [MP3]

The airport being closed due to fog, and with only 24 hours before the Silver Clipper meets its doom, Clark Kent decides to skip the TSA groping and fly out West under his own power as Superman.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the Colorado wilderness, our villains are languishing in a cabin: Keno Carter, "gunman, gambler, bad man of the Southwest," and the "shadowy" Wolfe, Maker of Ominous Phone Calls. Keno has just planted explosives on the railway tracks in anticipation of another train, the Western Limited. While Keno is apparently OK with sabotaging the rail system, he balks at the deaths that blowing a train 300 feet down a cliff will cause. The Wolfe, however, is not so scrupulous, and he reminds Keno (in an effete Eastern accent) that his job is to obey orders. Aha - so the Wolfe gets his orders from even higher up.

Superman, who is also following the Western Limited from the air, spots Keno by the tracks. Somehow, he recognizes the gear in his hands as a charging battery for dynamite blasting - such gear apparently being rather common in Kryptonian rockets. Realizing he has to act quickly to save the train, he swoops down and boards as Clark Kent, intending to stall the train by being thrown off when the conductor finds out he has no ticket. Unfortunately, he overplays his hand: the conductor decides to give Clark the benefit of the doubt for the time being, lest he write a hit piece for the paper.

So Clark goes for plan B: he pulls the emergency brake cord. This is, of course, not legal. So far, in his short time on Earth, Superman has destroyed a trolley car, mugged a guy for his clothes, and now illegally stopped a train. Obviously, it's going to take some time for the Man of Steel to evolve into the big blue Boy Scout we all know and love.

Clark suggests that he deserves to be thrown off the train for his bad behaviour. The furious conductor threatens him with jail time. But then the dynamite goes off and drops 20 tons of rock onto the tracks, but thanks to Clark, the train is unharmed. In the general confusion, Clark slips away, changes to Superman, and clears away the rock.

In the meantime, Keno slips into the crowd and discovers that Clark Kent, reporter, is responsible for saving the train. Nonetheless, the Wolfe assures him, with 20 tons of rock on the tracks, the Western Limited isn't going anywhere soon. Of course, it leaves immediately. The Wolfe and Keno quickly run for their plane to get to Denver, continue with their nefarious plot, and take care of Kent.

All in all, this isn't a bad start for Superman's first real adventure. There's a credible challenge - saving trains is one of those things Superman does a lot of. And there's a decent antagonist, in the duo of the thuggish Keno and the ruthless Wolfe.

Mind you, I'm still going to have a bit of fun for the next little while wondering where Superman got a working knowledge of Earth culture.

How is the Wolfe going to deal with Clark Kent in Denver?

Who is the Wolfe getting his instructions from?

Will Superman straighten himself out, or continue his life of petty crime?

Don't miss . . .

Episode 4: Kent Captured by the Wolfe (1940/02/19)

Listen! [MP3]

Having arrived in Denver without further incident, Clark Kent files a story about the rockslide with the paper and pays a visit to the railroad's division superintendent. Meanwhile, the henchman Keno is down because he doesn't understand how the rockslide completely failed to stop the train. The Wolfe admonishes him for failing. When Keno insists he didn't fail, the Wolfe suggests that he should be committed along with the conductor of the Western Limited who insists that a man in a blue outfit had singlehandedly cleared away the rockslide and repaired the tracks. (Ha! Irony!)

The Wolfe has done some checking into Clark Kent, and is surprised that he got out West so quickly. "He musta flown," suggests Keno. (Irony!) Nonetheless, they want to know what the railroad is planning, so Keno is sent to the superintendent's office disguised as a messenger, to deliver a telegram and overhear as much of the conversation as he can.

In the district office, the railroad superintendent and Clark ruminate some about the rumours of a "Superman" that have circulated after the rockslide. Clark dismisses the rumours as fantasy (irony!). It's easy to forget that in Superman's earlier years, he was very much a "mystery man": a costumed vigilante who operated outside the law and in secret. (Remember in Episode 2 how he warned Jimmy and the Professor not to tell anyone about their rescue.) In 1940, Superman was treated as a sort of urban legend, and it would actually be several years before he "went public" and became such a visible symbol of Metropolis.

In his news story, Clark had hinted that he knew more of the story than he had reported. He knows that the bad guys are following him around Denver, and he intends to use himself as bait by making himself conspicuous. "Mild-mannered reporter." Riiiight. His friends, at least the ones who don't know his real identity, must think he wrestles grizzly bears made of piranhas, for fun. As we'll see in future episodes, it must be tough for Superman to pretend he's not Superman.

Now Keno arrives in his messenger outfit and leaves the Wolfe's telegram: a cryptic message, again threatening the Silver Clipper. Kent thinks that the telegram and messenger are faked, and it will also lead right back to the perpetrators. Just then, a phone call arrives: the Superintendent is shocked to learn that a locomotive and tender have vanished without a trace. The message is clear: the same fate will befall the Clipper.

Clark goes out to "hunt wolves," hops out a nearby window and, as Superman, follows Keno back to his hideout. Keno spots him outside the house (again dressed as Clark), and he and the Wolfe plot to capture Kent and drag him into the basement, where they have a steel vault to lock him in and plenty of "aids to conversation."

This episode was mainly filler, and the title pretty much gave away the ending.

What has happened to the missing engine?

How will Clark Kent face the Wolfe's torture?

Could I write that last question with a straight face?

Find out next week!

Introducing: Superman Saturdays

I've always loved Superman. It goes right back to my childhood, thanks to reruns of The New Adventures of Superman and (of course) the Super Friends on Saturday mornings. My small collection of comic books included a few Superman issues. I think that 1978's classic Superman: The Movie, starring the redoubtable Christopher Reeve, was the first live-action movie I saw on the big screen. And I was a fan of Smallville for at least the last five years of its 10-year run. (Never watched Lois & Clark more than a couple times, though.)

During my university years I became vaguely aware of an old-timey Superman radio serial, because of a midnight program on CBC titled Night Camp. (Night Camp was also my first experience with Ella Fitzgerald, incidentally - double plus!) However, I only recently discovered archives of the show on the Net; something like 1100 of 1400+ episodes are still extant. And so I became hooked on Superman in all forms of media: print, radio, television, and film.

Also growing up, Saturday afternoon was the day for old and bad movies, usually sponsored exclusively by a manufacturer of adjustable beds. This is how I discovered The Planet of the Apes and its various sequels, and of course Godzilla, my one guilty pleasure. Clearly, Saturday was the day set aside by God for relaxation and the enjoyment of B-grade entertainment.

The Adventures of Superman certainly fit that bill. They're wonderfully silly. They reflect an era when the Last Son of Krypton spent his non-working hours punching up crooks and rescuing fair maidens from burning buildings instead of the more epic challenges posed by villains like Doomsday and Darkseid.

Hence, "Superman Saturdays." In honour of wonderful silliness, I am devoting part of my weekend to the appreciation of pulp. From time to time it may be "Serial Saturday," if I feel like digressing. But for the most part, Superman - especially old-timey Superman - just never gets old.

So gather around your radio console with a tasty and nutritious bowl of Kellogg's Pep, and look! Up in the sky!

Episode 1: The Baby from Krypton (1940/02/12)

Listen! [MP3]

"Boys and girls! Your attention please! Presenting a new, exciting radio program, featuring the thrilling adventures of an amazing and incredible personality! Faster than an airplane! More powerful than a locomotive! Impervious to bullets!"
"Up in the sky, look!"
"It's a bird!"
"It's a plane!"
"It's Superman!"
"And now, Superman. A being no larger than an ordinary man, but possessed of powers and abilities never before realized on Earth. Able to leap into the air an eighth of a mile at a single bound! Hurtle a 20-story building with ease! Race a high-powered bullet to its target! Lift tremendous weights and rend solid steel in his bare hands as though it were paper! Superman! A strange visitor from a distant planet! Champion of the oppressed! Physical marvel extraordinary who has sworn to devote his existence on Earth to helping those in need. As our story begins, we ask you to come with us on a far journey - a journey that takes us millions of miles from the Earth, where the planet Krypton burns like a green star in the endless heavens . . .

The planet Krypton is doomed - doomed, I tells you!

According to its chief scientist, Jor-El, possibly in as little as a week, Krypton will be drawn into the sun and torn apart. Their only hope is to evacuate the planet and settle the Kryptonians on Earth. This news does not go over well with the Kryptonian ruling council, which mocks Jor-El and dismisses his dire predictions. He announces that their blood is on their own hands; for his part, he will look out for himself and his family.

Returning home, Jor-El completes a prototype spaceship which he plans to fire at the Earth. If the test is successful, then he will build a bigger ship capable of carrying himself, his wife Lara, and their infant son Kal-El. Suddenly, huge subterranean earthquakes announce the imminent destruction of Krypton. Jor-El urges Lara to get into the prototype, but she insists instead on saving Kal-El. As Jor-El, Lara, and the rest of Krypton dies, the spaceship and its tiny occupant escape.

Superman debuted in Action Comics #1, which devotes a single page to his origin story, and a mere frame to his Kryptonian heritage: mentioning only that he was rescued from doom when his scientist father put him in a rocket and sent him to Earth. So this radio episode may very well be the first time that Superman's origin is explained in any great detail. In fact, it's very similar to the prologue of 1978's Superman: The Movie - it lacks only Marlon Brando as Jor-El, condemning General Zod to the Phantom Zone.

Krypton, we are informed, is "millions of miles away," and on the other side of the sun from the Earth. Apparently it's within our own solar system and visible by telescope. How Jor-El intended to see if his rocket test was successful is not explained in detail; does his "high-powered telescope" see through the sun?

Second, we learn that the Kryptonians are a race of supermen "advanced to the absolute peak of human perfection": to get somewhere, they need only step as far as they want, whereas we puny Earthlings can step three feet at the most. This premise is consistent with Superman's original origin story, but at odds with its later evolution, in which Superman's power comes from Earth's lighter gravity and the radiation of its yellow sun. Jor-El proposes evacuating the population of Krypton to Earth. Did the scriptwriters think through the implications of thousands or millions of Supermen immigrating to Earth?

I just have to keep reminding myself: This is a children's program. We're supposed to thrill to the amazing adventures of the Man of Tomorrow, not think too hard about it.

As a further point of interest, Lara was played by Agnes Moorehead, best known for her later role as Samantha's mother Endora on Bewitched.

Will baby Kal-El's rocket make it to Earth?

Or will this be the shortest radio serial in history?

Stay tuned for the next adventure!

Episode 2: Clark Kent, Reporter (1940/02/14)

Listen! [MP3]

Not surprisingly, the baby Kal-El's flight to Earth is successful, if a bit longer than anticipated: by the time he arrives on Earth, he's a grown man. Since Jor-El expected to watch the prototype rocket land on Earth through his high-powered telescope, he apparently expected the trip only to take a few minutes or hours. Instead, it took something like 20 years - by which time, both Jor-El and his telescope would have been clouds of superheated gas. So we'll have to chalk up the rocket test as a failure. Kal-El survives anyway. Luckily, he apparently has no need of food, air, or in-flight entertainment on his 20-year journey.

Arriving on Earth, then, the adult Kal-El emerges from the rocket and immediately flies away to explore, and ends up "hovering with his curious power" over a highway somewhere in Indiana. The prologue of the first episode had said only that he could leap an eighth of a mile into the air - again, consistent with the comics of the day. This Superman is capable of true flight, another apparent first for his radio incarnation, of which there were several, as we will see in the future.

Meanwhile, a local, identified only as "the Professor," is going into town: taking his son Jimmy to the fair on a trolley. While the motorman is getting a drink of water, the trolley begins to roll downhill, out of control. Fortunately, Superman swoops down from above, rips the roof off the trolley and pulls the Professor and Jimmy out before it crashes. Hang on - were we not told, in the first episode, that he can "hurtle a 20-story building with ease"? Was he unable to drag a mere cable car to a stop, or lift it off the tracks? Superman's career of gratuitous vandalism begins right from day one on Earth.

In return for the rescue, Superman requests that Jimmy and the Professor promise to keep their knowledge of him secret. (No doubt he waved the wreckage of the trolley under their noses.) He also asks for advice: he is a stranger to Earth, so how can he best learn about humanity? The Professor suggests that he get a job at a "great metropolitan daily" as a reporter. Jimmy adds that he can't get a job dressed in Superman's blue tights and cape, and suggests he take an Earth name: something nice and inconspicuous, say, "Clark Kent." Superman thanks them for their help, warns them again not to reveal his new identity (possibly adding, "You wouldn't want to meet with another unfortunate accident, would you?") and flies off.

This exchange raises a whole bunch of plot holes. Superman knows he comes from a planet that no longer exists. Yet he cannot remember his own name? How did he learn English? How does he know what a newspaper is, or what a reporter does? (I know, I know, it's a kid's show.)

At the Daily Planet, in the office of the editor, Perry White receives a phone tip on a story out West concerning railroad sabotage, in which a man named "the Wolfe" may be involved. Here we have two more radio firsts: in the comics, Clark Kent originally worked for the Daily Star, and his editor was George Taylor. Perry White would be introduced to Action Comics later in 1940.

White bemoans the fact that he is shorthanded whenever a big story breaks. Fortunately, Clark Kent has been been waiting around the Planet offices, hoping to talk to White about a job. Here, again, I pause and ask: Is he sitting around the city desk in his Superman jammies? If not, how did he acquire Earth clothing? Did he stroll into a menswear store in the aforementioned jammies and buy a suit? What did he pay with? Did he mug a helpless victim in a back alley and steal his clothes? (It's just a kid's show . . .)

Since Clark has no experience, White tries to brush him off. However, he gets a phone call from the Wolfe himself, threatening that something bad will happen to a train called the Silver Clipper en route to Denver. Clark uses his super-hearing to eavesdrop on White's phone call, pretending that he is familiar with the railway situation. Impressed, White decides to take a chance on him. He tells his secretary, Miss Smith, to get Clark a cash advance and plane tickets out West. However, the airport is closed down because of fog. Miss Smith leaves Kent to wait in an anteroom while she finds his cash. She warns him to stay away from the window, as it is 20 stories up.

Kent decides he can't wait, jumps out the window and flies away as Superman. Here, I gave a little silent cheer. Forget the legendary phone booth; Supe almost never used one anyway. The window trick has always been my personal favourite way that Clark Kent would quickly change to Superman. He jumped out of the Galaxy Building in the first Action Comic I ever read.

However, then Miss Smith returns, and sees the open window. Since no one saw Clark leave the anteroom, she assumes the worst. On that note, the episode ends.

Superman was played by the legendary Bud Collyer, already a major name in radio by the time he took this part. Collyer had a bit part in the first episode, but here he makes his debut as Clark Kent/Superman. He shows that he gets the dual identity: when he plays Clark Kent, he pitches his voice in a high tenor range, but when he changes to Superman, his voice drops considerably. You really can believe that Clark Kent and Superman are two different people. Of all the various incarnations of the character, only Collyer and Christopher Reeve played Superman's dual persona so well.

I've "complained" a bit about some of the plot holes, and I'll do so again, for a little while, at least. No doubt the producers wanted to get right into the adventures, without fiddling around too much with a plausible origin story for Superman. So now that Supe's somewhat awkward transiton to normal Earth life has been taken care of, let's just get on with beating up bad guys.

Will Superman arrive in time to save the Silver Clipper?

Did Jimmy enjoy the fair?

Will Clark Kent's repeated defenestrations force the Daily Planet to weld the windows shut?

Don't miss the next exciting installments!

I've something to see, can't help myself, it's a new religion

A few days ago I received the latest number of "The Riplinger Report," the occasional email newsletter of KJV-only spinmeister (meisteren?) G. A. Riplinger. The lead article was an announcement of "[o]ur new KJB evangelist, Stephen Shutt":

Our outreach is expanding with our radio show, hosted by KJB evangelist and missionary Stephen Shutt (who is married to our daughter Bryn Riplinger Shutt). . . .

Stephen worked in Christian radio for over three years and was functioning as the station's chief operator, when he left to serve the Lord as a KJB evangelist for us and a missionary for Bearing Precious Seed and Local Church Bible publishers of Lansing Michigan.

The last I heard, the evangel was still repentance and faith in the living Christ, who died and rose from the dead to redeem sinners. I've met plenty of KJV-onlyists over the years for whom the "perfectly preserved Word of God for the English-speaking peoples" was their first article of faith. But I think this the first time I've met someone who openly proclaimed himself an "evangelist" and a "missionary" for the cause. Riplinger has been grinding away at the same street organ for ages, and she's gone further and further off the rails with each book.

In any case, the "good news" of the King James Bible is not the Gospel of Christianity. It's a new religion. We could call it KJVanity. Chop off the first two letters, and it's not far off the mark.

Meanwhile, in the same newsletter, Riplinger promotes a petition "to alert publishers that we do not appreciate their tampering with the spelling and orthography of the KJB." Apparently, some publishers have taken it upon themselves to revise the text to Americanize or modernize the spelling. Horrors!

It's amusing. KJV-onlyists continually harp on the "copyright" bandwagon, asserting that God's Word should not be copyrighted, and the KJV (unlike the modern versions) carries no copyright, so it can be printed and distributed freely. Yet when a publisher actually treats the KJV like a public-domain document, suddenly Riplinger and her trained monkeys act like it should be copyrighted and they are the de facto copyright holders, dictating to editors what they may do with the text. You gotta laugh.

And now . . . this - Jul. 13/11

You know, for every intelligent and reasonable atheist, there are probably a dozen of this guy:

An Austrian atheist has won the right to be shown on his driving-licence photo wearing a pasta strainer as "religious headgear." . . .

Mr Alm said the sieve was a requirement of his religion, pastafarianism.

The Austrian authorities required him to obtain a doctor's certificate that he was "psychologically fit" to drive.

[Full Story]

I'm all for this, with one proviso: As the pasta strainer is now on record as a religious requirement, then Austrian authorities should require Alm to wear it while behind the wheel, and fine him if he's caught without it, as he would be if he did not wear required corrective lenses. If the state must recognize your public idiocy, then allow the state to enforce it.

(H/T: Casey.)

Dear "markshriv"

Thanks to your repeated spamming of my blog with John MacArthur-related comments having nothing to do with the subject matter of the posts, you are now officially persona non grata here.

Continue, and I will take the matter up with Blogger.

That is all.

Canada is . . . 144

Happy Birthday, Canada. Again. We made it through another year.

Canada Day 2011 is special, because for the second consecutive year, we have members of the royal family present. Prince William and his new wife Kate were in Ottawa today, delighting the usual crowds of tens of thousands. (We can forgive the silly hat. She's purty.)

My longstanding Canada Day tradition is to post a patriotic song. Apparently, Will has brought Kate to Canada to show off one of his favourite places. This seems like as fitting an excuse as any to show off this year's song. Given that it's being sung by a Kenya-born Englishman, I don't know whether it technically qualifies as "patriotic." But if Roger Whittaker can sing like this about the greatest country in the world, then how could you not bring your princess to see it?

Previous Canada Day songs:

• 2004: O Canada
• 2005: The Maple Leaf Forever
• 2006: Farewell to Nova Scotia
• 2007: A Place to Stand, A Place to Grow
• 2008: God Save the Queen
• 2009: This Is My Home
• 2010: Take Off

Harold Camping suffers a stroke

Uh-oh.

Harold Camping, Family Radio evangelist whose prediction of a May 21, 2011 Rapture failed to materialize, has had a stroke, according to the Oakland Tribune.

A neighbor told the newspaper that Camping suffered a stroke Thursday and was experiencing slurred speech as a result.

[Full Story]

Obviously I'm not privy to Camping's medical history, but I have often wondered if Camping's slow and occasionally slurred speech wasn't caused by a prior stroke. So this news doesn't surprise me somehow.

Of course I don't wish evil on anyone, even false teachers. So I pray for Camping's recovery.

I do have to admit, though, that the little Scott demon on my right shoulder wants to see him live at least until Oct. 21 22.

Brigette DePape's 15 Minutes, 2011-11

So by now the entire country's seen the pictures of the idiot who decided to abuse her position as a Parliamentary page, causing an insignificant disruption in Friday's Throne Speech in Ottawa by holding up a "STOP HARPER" sign in the Senate chamber. She was, naturally, promptly removed and sacked:

Gomez and Morticia DePape, Brigette's parents, were unavailable for comment. However, her brother Pugsley informed this blog that he was happy that they would have more time now to build weapons of mass destruction together.

Jack Kevorkian, 1928-2011 (about time)

"Death Man is dead." - Vic Weems, Mystery Men

Serial killer-posing-as-medical-doctor Jack Kevorkian, who is believed to have assisted in over 100 suicides, died today, apparently of a pulmonary thrombosis while hospitalized for pneumonia and a kidney ailment.

Ironically, there was no other right-to-die advocate handy with a suicide machine.

Kevorkian once told Time that his medical specialty was death. Well, now he's had a chance to observe it firsthand. And made the world a better place by his leaving it.