Here’s an interesting article about the state of Social Studies and history education in America. Surprise, surprise- multiculturalism is getting in the way of good history education.

History is mostly about people doing really nasty things to each other, and contrary to what our multiculturalist tendencies in this country tell us to think, some groups of people have been nastier than others at various times. Right now, for example, probably three out of any random four news stories involving someone doing something really evil to someone else will be about a Muslim. Well, that’s just at the moment, but there it is. But if that’s insensitive, then I can’t say it. It doesn’t matter whether it’s true, just whether it makes us feel good about our multiculturalism. So a lot of those stories might make it into the news media, being less systematic about their selection of material, but it doesn’t make it into the multiculturalist history book.

I especially liked the bit about textbooks being bland and uninspiring. I read somewhere at some time that this is the result of most history textbooks being written by committees these days, instead of by an individual author. When an individual writes a book, it may be good or bad, but it’s a lot more likely to be interesting since you’ll get all of that individual’s biases and perspectives on whatever he’s writing. Then, you may agree or disagree, but at least there’s something to think about. All that being said, I went to a Christian, “outside-of-the-mainstream” school, and I never remember textbooks being anything other than bland and uninspiring. When I homeschool my kids, I can have them read all sorts of fun stuff like Paul Johnson and Florence King.

You know, as I re-read this, it seems like maybe the percentage of bad stories about Muslims has dropped off some in the last year or so. The result of a so-far successful war on terror?

I Thought She Was An Animal Lover!

From This Is Local London:

An impassioned animal rights campaigner, she follows the maxim ‘do as you would be done by’, and feels that violent protest is as wrong as the very research on animals which she hates.

We watched Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai last night. At 7.5 out of 10, I think it’s one of the more over-rated movies on IMDB I’ve seen so far. How a homeless man learns several martial arts and the skills of a high-tech assassin in a few years… I don’t know. I’m all for suspension of disbelief, but a movie needs to give me something to suspend it on.

But it was a Jim Jarmusch film, and I’m still trying to decide if I like Jim Jarmusch. It wasn’t a bad movie, just a little silly. Not as good as Dead Man, or Stranger than Paradise. Any huge Jim Jarmusch fans out there would probably like it, but I don’t know any Jim Jarmusch fans, except maybe my cousin Beth. (I’m assuming, since Beth is the biggest movie buff I know, once even commenting on the factors, other than the T in TULIP, that drives a man to make a movie like The Pillow Book).

We got the extended version of Brazil too from Netflix, but that’ll be a social occasion, so you’ll have to wait a bit if you’re interested.

Does this story seem sad to anyone else? I hadn’t even discovered these wonderful things yet, and already they’re on the way out…

Hi all. No posting since Friday. Right now, that’s going to be typical since Sunday’s busy with chuch most of the day, then I drive in to Colorado Springs for my Bible study, stay the night in town and don’t come back to Limon until Monday afternoon.

We’re getting it figured out which things to buy here and which things to buy in Colorado Springs. At first we thought we should just buy every thing in Colorado Springs, but that turned out to be wrong. We need to at least buy our meat in the local store. It’s local, fresh, and awesome. Probably a lot of the produce too, for the same reasons. We will continue to buy our marijuana in the Springs though. Haha, just kidding. No, really, board of elders. Just kidding.

Bible study was on the parable of the sower. A key parable, Jesus implies at least in Mark 4. It’s one of those really fascinating paradoxes that Jesus seems to be so fond of. He’s of course telling us that we need to be fertile ground for the word, and not the rocky or thorny ground. Our sinfulness and our worldliness cannot get in the way of the gospel taking root in our lives. All of this is of course true. But why tell us? If we’re that bad ground, then we can’t hear the parable anyway, and if we’re good ground, do we really need it?

So, wrestling with the paradox, one digs deeper into the truth that Jesus has for us. As with all parables, it’s the one central actor who makes it all happen. The kingdom of heaven is caused to exist by one being, not by many. It’s the landowner, the shepherd, the father, the farmer. He creates the kingdom. And the creation of the kingdom and the development of the kingdom is all for this purpose- weeding out, dividing, separating- those who will produce for the master, and those who will not. Glory be to God- I can’t turn myself from unproductive ground to productive ground, especially on the basis of a teaching I can’t understand unless I’m productive ground already. So the real lesson is on the nature of that kingdom, its origin, and its purpose.

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Limon smells nice in the fall. Fall’s my favorite time of year, and I believed that even before I read this. I swear. Ask anyone I know.

I discovered another unanticipated aspect of small town life today. This requires a tiny bit of back-story.

I have an MP3 player in my car. So, I burn copies of CDs (that I own) onto CD-R’s in MP3 format to listen to in the car. I can get about 14 albums on one disc in that format. One quirk of that format though is that when you turn off the car and then turn it back on, the song you were listening to starts over from the beginning instead of where you left off.

This is a long way of telling you that I’ve heard the first thirty seconds of Morcheeba’s “Who Can You Trust” about fifteen times in the last two days. That’s the farthest anything is from anything else here in the town of Limon.

Eugene Volokh has a cogent summary of some of the main issues surrounding intellectual property rights and whether they should be considered the same as physical property rights. Highly recommended to anyone interested in issues of copyright law, or just whether you should download that latest Norah Jones song.

He makes a brief reference to the possibility of a moral right to have exclusive control over one’s own production. I like the issues he raises, but I wish he’d written more about that part of it. That’s not his area of specialty of course, but being raised in a Rushdoonyesque home, I was always taught that the Eighth Commandment (that’s the one about stealing) was the basis of all property rights and copyright law, not public utility. Seems like public utility is a scary basis to rest property rights on. Volokh’s argument perhaps rests it only partly on public utility. But still, someone is always likely to come along and define public utility in a way that means they get to steal your stuff.

The sermon this Sunday is on Genesis 6:1-8. That’s the lead-in to the story of the Flood of Noah. It won’t surprise anyone who knows me to discover that I believe in the literal interpretation of the flood.

On the second anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, there’s a lot of reflection on the web about the meaning of the attacks and subsequent events (see NRO and Instapundit’s September 11th posts for good starting points). I did not even think about preaching a 9/11-relevant sermon this Sunday- that’s not really how I operate. But this one sure will be. God sent the flood because violence filled the earth.

In Victor Davis Hanson’s National Review article in the 9/15/03 issue, he says that recent events (the France heat wave, the Northeast blackout, suicide bombings) should remind us that only with our constant diligence can civilization be maintained. Genesis 6-8 counters with the idea that it is only by God’s grace that civilization is possible at all, and only by His providence and preservation that we don’t all slit each other’s throats. It’s still a good article and analyzes the situation well from a merely earthly perspective, but without the element of God’s sovereignty taken into account, it is a perspective that will lead only to despair.

I’m starting a Bible study here in Limon, on the subject of Biblical interpretation. We’ll be starting a week from Wednesday. It’s open to the public. If anyone is in the Limon area and is interested, drop me a line and I’ll let you know more. The email link is on the right sidebar.

We got a good taste of leisurely small-town life last night. We went out for dinner at a local restaurant at around five thirty, thinking it was a little early to go out. There were two other couples at the small restaurant, and we got our menus and ordered drinks. We were served our drinks in about five minutes and placed our orders. I noticed at this point that one of the other couples, who already had their drinks when we sat down, had brought newspapers to read. I thought perhaps they were just antisocial, but as it turned out they were just prepared for the leisurely pace of food service here.

We got our salads at ten after six, and our main courses around a quarter to seven. We ate pretty fast, as little Katie just does not have patience for two-hour dining experiences, and had left by five after seven or so. Everyone at the restaurant was very friendly and attentive, and nobody seemed to think it at all odd that our entrees took almost an hour to arrive after being ordered. I guess if I need to eat fast, I’d just better go to McDonalds.