Says Dan Siedell:

Art and religion both require belief for them to work. For the religious believer, water sprinkled over the head of an infant is more than a hair washing, it is the work of regeneration by the Holy Spirit; drinking a thimbleful of wine and eating a wafer is more than a snack, it is the body and blood of Jesus Christ, what the Church Fathers called the “medicine of immortality.” So it is with the believer in art. For this believer, a clump of fired clay with pretty decorations on it is more than the sum total of its materials, it is something more, it is “art,” an object with meaning and significance, an object that enriches one’s life with beauty. For the believer in art, a painting is more than the sum total of its banal and quite silly materials: smelly oil paints brushed onto a canvas sheet. It does something.

There are many who do not believe in religion. They think it is silly. They do not believe that water is a means by which the Holy Spirit saves or wine and bread the means by which Christ nourishes us. But there are also many who do not believe in art. They think it is silly. They go to an art museum and do not find powerful experiences of beauty and transcendence, they find only clumps of clay with decorations on them, canvas sheets with oil paints smeared on them. Art and religion are sacramental practices. They both require belief on the part of their participants that elements of the material world: water, oil, wine, bread, canvas, clay, oil paint, paper, and graphite are the distinctive means by which the immaterial comes to us. The transcendent appears to us through the vehicle of the immanent.

This email has been going around lately. It’s pretty funny. Unless you’re a Longhorns fan.

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BCS DECLARES GERMANY WINNER OF WORLD WAR II
US Ranked 4th

After determining the Big-12 championship game participants the BCS computers were put to work on other major contests and today the BCS declared Germany to be the winner of World War II.

“Germany put together an incredible number of victories beginning with the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland and continuing on into conference play with defeats of Poland, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. Their only losses came against the US and Russia; however considering their entire body of work–including an incredibly tough Strength of Schedule–our computers deemed them worthy of the #1 ranking.”

Questioned about the #4 ranking of the United States the BCS commissioner stated “The US only had two major victories–Japan and Germany. The computer models, unlike humans, aren’t influenced by head-to-head contests–they consider each contest to be only a single, equally-weighted event.”

German Chancellor Adolph Hiter said “Yes, we lost to the US; but we defeated #2 ranked France in only 6 weeks.” Herr Hitler has been criticized for seeking dramatic victories to earn ’style points’ to enhance Germany’s rankings. Hitler protested “Our contest with Poland was in doubt until the final day and the conditions in Norway were incredibly challenging and demanded the application of additional forces.”

The French ranking has also come under scrutiny. The BCS commented ” France had a single loss against Germany and following a preseason #1 ranking they only fell to #2.”

Japan was ranked #3 with victories including Manchuria, Borneo and the Philippines.

While the Elect in D.C. decide whether or not to give a lot of your money to the *dying* auto makers, the folks at Investors Business Daily remind us that the “UAW spent more than $11 million in the last election cycle to elect Democrats. They’re owed.” The most recent bailout/restructuring plan would make Congress the “uber-manager” of the Big Three, “telling them how to become profitable again” without liquidating the union.

Think it’ll work? “[A]re we supposed to believe that the same Congress responsible for next year’s estimated $1 trillion deficit can profitably run a market-sensitive company like a car manufacturer?” Probably not.

Keep a close eye on the folks participating in this “new era” of politics. When 60% of Americans are opposed to a government bailout, one would have to think that these legislators are being motivated by something other than “the will of the people.” I’ll give you one guess what that motive might be…

Paedo/credo baptism can be a touchy subject. Unlike some other “finer points of doctrine”, this one has a lot do to with what we “do”. It also involves our kids. So, when I say I believe that babies should be baptized, there is an unavoidable bit of condemnation in there that says, “You’re not raising your kids correctly because you didn’t baptize your babies.” Want to have the iciest Christmas on record? Tell your sister/cousin/aunt that she’s not raising her kids correctly. Then, duck. So, this doctrinal point is inherently personal. Handle with care.

One other caveat for the credos among us. Yes, there are some denominations that, as I see it, go too far in their belief of what baptism *does* to a baby. Not all paedos think that their kid is once-saved-always-saved because he was sprinkled on the 8th day. Furthermore, some of these denominations base their position on tradition and doctrine handed down from “denominational ancestors”. However, not all paedobaptists are guilty of holding to beliefs based on “tradition and the teachings of men.” It is profoundly ignorant to accuse a paedo of not “going to the scriptures” on the issue after he has argued his point from passages in Exodus, Psalms, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Colossians, 1 Peter, and 2 Timothy. To someone who holds sola scriptura at the center of his theology, this is about as offensive as telling him he isn’t raising his kids correctly.

Finally, let’s all admit that it is possible that *you* could be wrong on this one. There have been godly men and women on each side of this issue, dating back several centuries. R.C. Sproul is not a heretic, and neither is John Piper. If those guys can come down on different sides of the issue, something tells me that it’s OK if we do as well. That is not to say that truth does not matter. It does. In Reality, these positions are oppositional and, therefore, can’t both be correct. However, we can also admit that this is a complicated issue and both conclusions can be reached based on humbly and sincerely searching the Scriptures for God’s truth. God’s grace is big enough to cover this one. I promise.

By the way, I spent a bit of time outlining my position on the issue awhile back, when we decided to baptize our oldest two. My position has developed a bit further in the past couple of years, but it hasn’t changed a whole lot. And, no, I don’t think you’re raising your kids incorrectly!

Mommy actually works at Home Depot, where she sells shovels. What were you thinking?

“Memory is a child walking along a seashore. You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up and store away among its treasured things.”

~Pierce Harris, Atlanta Journal, via: Writer Dad

I see this from my own childhood. There are some things I remember because Dad said them about a thousand times (e.g. “It’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it”, or “Even if you could get away with it, would it be right?”) that I find myself still repeating today.

There are other things that stuck and I have no reason why. I changed the oil in our van the other day, which brought back a picture-perfect memory of being in the driveway with my dad when I was 16 or 17 and he walked me through it for the first time. I remember the exact words he used in telling me to let it run for a bit so the oil would be warm, so it would flow out more easily. It couldn’t remember it more clearly if it had happened yesterday.

This makes me a little nervous. When my kids are grown, what will they remember? Will it be the time I lost my cool because one of them got out of bed one too many times? Will it be one of the nights that I didn’t make it home in time for dinner like I said I would because something came up at work? Will it be some random event, like changing the oil in the middle of the afternoon on some Saturday in the Spring? It all seems so unpredictable.

There’s an article over at Slashdot about the mysterious absence of acorns across the country this year. Nobody really knows what’s going on, but one commenter suggested that squirrels may have lost everything after having placed their acorn crop in highly leveraged investment vehicles. The Media have picked up on the story, noting the hardship the squirrel community is facing has led many to take second jobs. Some even believe that Congress will need to step in with a bailout package before the end of the year, before things get worse. Barney Frank has gone as far as suggesting that Congress set up a fund to finance the deployment of an army of blind sows, pointing out that they are known for their ability to find acorns every once in a while.

Japan zoo finds polar bears fail to mate as both are female

Yeah. That would be a problem.

HT: The Point

I’ve been seeing a lot of examples of this faux-miniaturization technique lately. Full-size scenes are processed with a tilt-shift effect, making them appear to be miniatures of the real thing. Pretty cool, if you ask me. Smashing Magazine has put together a list of 50 of these, and there are some real good ones on the list.

I had to finish up some work last night from home, and when I needed a break I fired up Fireworks and gave tilt-shifting a try, miniaturizing my alma mater. I’ve called it “Model University“. I’m not sure that I fully have the hang of it, but it was fun to make. I’ll probably try this out a few more times, until I get bored and move on to something else…

Apparently, nobody’s safe in the current credit crisis:

HT: Challies