Medicine of Immortality "It's a cold, and it's a broken, 'Hallelujah!'"

Posted by Rick on May 17th, 2002

I have spent way too much time and money in Powells lately.

Posted by Rick on May 15th, 2002

So I am in Starbucks last night, and I get to talking to this guy. He ends up being Reformed/reforming and we talk for a few hours. We’ll probably do some stuff with him and his buddies while I’m here. The guy wants to go to NSA and was so excited that someone had actually heard of it. Odd, huh? Oh and his buddy…his home church is the one that puts out Mars Hill Review. (Another shameless plug.)

Posted by Rick on May 14th, 2002

I added two blogs and a link: Davey P the Poetwarrior, Emeth Hesed Smith (for you BHer’s, that’s the child of Ralph Allan Smith), and Mars Hill Review. Seriously, I am going back to work now. Give a guy a ten minute break, will ya? It’s not like I am becoming Bishop Bill.

Posted by Rick on May 14th, 2002

I’m alive. But I am extremely busy grading papers. I have been to Powell’s a few times ::sigh:: So many books, so little money and so little time. And for whoever asked…yeah, what Rachel said…and…he’s making a four or five church “tour” in Oregon. Okay, back to work.

Posted by Rick on May 9th, 2002

Oh btw, I am going to a Norm Shepherd conference this weekend in Oregon.

Posted by Rick on May 9th, 2002

I am going on a little vacation to Portland, Oregon tomorrow. Well, in about nine hours. I will check my email some I am sure but not as often. I have a lot of work to do when I go up there. I need to finish packing. I am moving out of my house. When i come back, I will be in a new apartment. Good thing I started packing early or I would have never have gotten out of here in time. I am just a few boxes short, and I am tempted to drink this bottle of wine that I have been saving. I doubt they would let me bring that on a plane. I have to disassemble my computer now. It’s all I have left to pack.

Posted by Rick on May 9th, 2002

I’m having a major problem finding “Culture, Thought and Social Action” by S.J. Tambiah for a good price. I know of Alibris, allbookstores.com, and AbeBooks…anywhere else that I can find this book for under $30…every time I order it, the bookstore says it has already been sold. Anyone else know where I can look?

Posted by Rick on May 6th, 2002

Well I just finished my sixth book since Friday, and I think I am dumber because of it. A sample from one book may serve to explain:

“In addition, bird communication is a fairly long distance affair, compared with the intimacy of human language. Sometimes, the eefect can travel over several kilometres, as with the New Zealand kakapo, a flightless parrot which makes spectacular sonic booms, somewhat like the note produced by blowing across the top of a bottle, in its efforts to procure a mate. These kakape booms can go on all night, and leave the kakapo in such a state of arousal that it has attempted to copulate even with the feet of the ornithologists studying it.” Jean Aitchinson, The Seeds of Speech: Language Origin and Evolution

I am not quite sure why Aitchinson had to add that comment in at the end. Was it for humor? Was writing this book that boring? Hey, I giggled. By the way, that book is pretty intriguing, especially where Aitchinson makes the case that language is not connected to other cognitive functions. The story of Brother John in chapter 4, taken from A.R. Lecours and Y. Joanette’s “Linguistic and Other Aspects of Paroxysmal Aphasia” (Brain and Language, 10, 1-23) is absolutely fascinating. With most books on language, you have to deal with rabid godlessness, but you can’t help but try to take seriously an Oxford professor. That was the best of the books I read this weekend.

I also read an interesting article by Wade Wheelock: “The Problem of Ritual Language: From Information to Situation.” It examines ritual language, distinguishing it from ordinary language use. It made a lot of thoughts pop into my head, none of which I shall bore you with. I am just procrastinating because I still have more hours left to do my papers than pages left to write.

Posted by Rick on May 4th, 2002

I saw Spiderman yesterday.

Posted by Rick on May 4th, 2002

I posted a link to Calvin’s catechism for young children (translated by joel garver) on the presbyterians-opc yahoogroup. With the link, I included the first two questions and answers. I wasn’t too surprised when the first comment was, “This might be from Calvin, but it doesn’t sound right. I am saved because I am baptized? This sounds Roman Catholic.” We know joel likes to indoctrinate others with Roman Catholicism; showing Calvin to be a Roman Catholic must be his newest technique.