Sunday Brunch: A Brunch on Brunch

1) Do you eat breakfast on a regular basis and why or why not?
No. I love breakfast, but I love sleep even more. If I skip breakfast, I only have to get up one hour before I need to be almost any place I might need to go. If I eat a microwave breakfast, as I do sometimes, that ups the time by ten or fifteen minutes. A good, freshly prepared breakfast would do substantially more damage to my sleep time.

While I don't have to rise as early as some, breakfast just does not come out important enough to make it worth the extra time. As a side note, I would point out that most breakfast foods (short of a “full” breakfast as described below) do not seem to be overly filling, and therefore I just end up eating more on a day that I eat breakfast. If I just eat lunch, I end up consuming the same amount of lunch and feel just as satisfied, despite having a net of less food during the day.

2) What is your typical everyday breakfast?
A glass of milk or chocolate milk is my average “breakfast.”

3) How do you eat your eggs?
I prefer omelets, strongly, but I do like fried eggs on occasion. My favorite omelet is a western style with cheese and without mushrooms (i.e. green pepper, ham, onion and cheese, and, optionally, jalapeno peppers). Although I have not figured out how to create my ideal omelet, I know a cafe down in the Ozarks that does know how — they manage to make the egg very thin, thus allowing the omelet to be wrapped up like a burrito rather than the typical clam-shell style folding. The best omelet should have its ingredients that go inside the egg sautéed prior to making the actual omelet, rather than dumping the ingredients “raw” inside the egg. Cheese is best on top, not inside the omelet. Serve with ample hash browns and some good toast or biscuits with fresh jam.

If an omelet is out of the question, I will generally opt for two fried eggs, over medium, sausage links and hash browns. If available, though, I like Captain's Hash as well (that's where the sausage, and hashbrowns are tossed together with green pepper and onion — the egg remains on the side).

4) What is your favorite restaurant to eat breakfast out at?
McDonald's, Hardees or Jack-in-the-Box are all good for a quick breakfast, although I vastly prefer going some place that will serve the aforementioned, properly prepared omelet. At most fast food restaurants I will opt for a sausage, egg and cheese sandwich with a hashbrown. I do like McDonald's breakfast burritos and McGriddle sandwiches too.

5) Describe your perfect breakfast in detail.
I think I already did that in the course of explaining proper egg preparation. Like Christopher, I would express my dislike of breakfast served at times other than breakfast. The one exception would be a brunch type setting where you might have breakfast and lunch foods mixed in a late morning/noonish type setting, but I very much dislike breakfast for dinner.

Challenge Set #9

House Cleaning
Let's answer the unfinished questions of the past:

7.4.) Who was the one clergyman to sign the U.S. Constitution? What was his affiliation? (5 pts.) Whoops, I should have asked for a signer of the Declaration of Independence instead. The answer then would be John Witherspoon, who was president of what is now Princeton University for a time.

7.5.) What are the two parts of AT&T, other than Baby Bells, that will be reunited if the SBC-AT&T merger is approved by regulatory agencies? What makes this merger such an interesting contrast to AT&T's 1998 acquisition of Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI)? (10 5 pts.) If you check the numbers, AT&T paid sizably more for the upstart TCI than SBC is paying for the telephone company, Ma Bell, just a few years later.

8.1.) Who wrote/spoke the following and, if applicable, what is it? What other thing — I'm being intentionally vague here — derives its name from a phrase within here? (10 pts.)

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

The answer here is William Butler Yeats (notice the connection to my name) and it is a poem entitled The Second Coming. Kevin guessed Achebe's Things Fall Apart for the latter part of the question, which is exactly what I was shooting for.

8.3.) Name the ties of the apostate UCC denomination to the Puritans and eighteenth century Methodists. (10 pts.) BONUS: Link it to the German Pietists as well for 5 pts. The Congregational Christian church resulted from the merger of a part of the eighteen century Christian movement (which in turn came from Methodist/Revival influence) and the Congregational Church, the church of the Pilgrims. This new church merged with the Evangelical and Reformed church, which traces part of its roots back to the German Pietists that settled in Missouri and elsewhere.

Generally, I Don't Say "Coke," do Y'all?

That's right; contrary to what the title of this post might imply, I speak general American English with a tinge of Yankeeisms and with relatively little Dixie or Upper Midwestern influence. Oddly, having grown up in the Midwest, I speak 0% Midwestern, according to this test. I'm not sure how scientific it is, although I do know I purposely do avoid some regional slang, so maybe that's the reason it comes out this way.

Your Linguistic Profile:

75% General American English

15% Yankee

5% Dixie

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

How about y'all (and, in case you are wondering, I cannot remember the last time I said “y'all”)?

Hat tip goes to Christopher.

Late Night Haiku V

XI.
Softly night falls here,
The sound of the computer
Mourns the passing day.

XII.
The wind blows to, fro,
My mind too goes for the ride,
Where does it lead me?

XIII.
Quiet, the cars drone on,
The soft sounds of a city night,
Someone heads t'ward home.

Rant: Social Contracts and the Web

If you use this tool, be aware of a sensitive issue. Although you may feel that your enjoyment of some Web sites is marred by the presence of ads, these ads represent a revenue stream for the Web site. If you block ads, there are those who would assert you are not holding up your end of a “social contract” between yourself and the Web site that you are browsing.

—Chris Lynch, NewsForge

I saw this on Slashdot today. Here is someone that gets the web advertising situation perfectly. While many people are oblivious to it, much as they are other ethical situations, there is an unspoken “social contract” to viewing web sites. If you view my site and it has ads on it, it does not require a serious ethical consideration to understand that a barter situation is going on under the honor system, and the honorable thing to do is to download the ads.

As I have said before, in most cases, the person viewing a site has unmetered access and the person providing the site does not. Therefore, when you download an ad, it costs you time, but when you view my site, it costs me money. And it still costs me money when you do not view my ads. If we were dealing with any situation other than web site viewing, I really doubt someone would feel it was ethical to not uphold their part of the bargain despite the fact that they were materially costing the other party. And TiVo analogies do not hold water: NBC is not materially impacted in any way when I watch a show like Revelations. While it still may be right to view the ads, they do not have to amplify their signal more because I am tuning in; therefore, the web developer's situation is much more like that of a shopkeeper selling goods than the television network broadcasting a show.

I continue to insist that the moral thing to do if you do not like the ads on a site is to quit viewing that site. It is simple and ethical. If I don't like how much the grocery store charges for an apple, I do not steal the apple, I go somewhere else to buy apples. Likewise, web surfers should examine the cost of a given site and then choose whether to “shop” there or elsewhere, not give themselves a five finger discount because it is easier than “driving to the other store.” Remember: if everyone did that…

A frequent argument is that the web was fine without commercialized sites. Perhaps it was. Those who feel that way should simply refuse to use commercialized sites rather than trying to force commercialized sites to become non-commercial by raiding and pillaging them. Nothing is stopping users from ignoring the boom of sites that have appeared thanks to advertising revenue.

And that, my friends, ends my rant of the night.

Baptists

I know I have several Baptists reading this, so perhaps one of you could straighten me out on an issue that is confusing me. How exactly are the Primitive Baptists and Free Will Baptists of the nineteenth century connected to the modern day ABC and SBC? At first, I thought perhaps the two present conventions descended from one or both of those groups, but I almost get the feeling that the precursor to the present mainline Baptists actually had the Primitive Baptists and Free Will Baptists split off from it.

Any light that can be provided would be appreciated.

Revelations: Omnium Finis Imminet

Joshua Claybourn recommends NBC's mini-series Revelations, and I'd have to agree with that assessment based on tonight's premier. This is the first prime-time, major network show I have watched in ages and it was really good.

So far, I cannot figure out the exact eschatological interpretation being employed, but there was nothing objectionable. Certainly, I am not expecting to watch this to improve my understanding of the books of Daniel and Revelation, but I think it has the makings of a good series that, as Joshua notes, puts a positive spin on Christianity for once. On the other hand, there were a very good number of quotes from apocalyptic Biblical passages throughout the program, both quoted by the protagonist nun and shown on-screen before or after commercial breaks.

As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said yesterday and I have marked elsewhere, it does have a certain X-Files-like feel to it (especially the cinematography). It also has some elements that remind me of the plot structure of the Da Vinci Code, which is probably no coincidence given that NBC did a special Dateline look at the Code immediately preceding Revelations.

It looks like the first part is going to re-air multiple times over the next week on various NBC-owned stations, such as USA Network and Sci-Fi, so if you missed the premier tonight, you ought to catch it elsewhere before part two of six is shown next Wednesday at 8 PM CDT.

Rating: ***1/2 (out of ****)
Content: Moderate violence and perhaps some language, although I don't recall for sure on the latter part. I'd follow the suggested age rating given by NBC (14 and above).

A Difference of Opinion: Prewired Knowledge

Part Two in a Three Part Series on C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud

We run into a problem here that Freud simply cannot mount. If the Christian claim is right, and God created us, it is impossible for us to reason ourselves beyond God, and therefore anything that we look at can be argued to be “tainted” by being only the creation looking at the creator. If God has created everything, including our reason, how can we ever presume anything we think is not influenced by God? Freud even noted, in defense of psychoanalysis, that those who disagreed with him would likely use his very own system of psychoanalysis to argue against his points (47), just as I have done above.

Unlike the case with the believer who can assert having experienced God calling at us and nagging at us until we finally come to belief, there can be no experience to validate the Freudian view for a person, much less in a way that everyone can accept. Therefore it might be good to turn back to Pascal’s wager for a moment and reflect on the truth of it. Unless we find ourselves completely unable to believe, why would one accept Freud’s argument of conjecture when Lewis can offer a system whereby we can authenticate his claims with personal experience? I can experience God and I can experience the absence of God, but I can only experience either if God exists for if God does not exist, what is it like for Him to be absent from me? Said another way, I cannot know God is not there unless I know what it is like for God to be there. This is a serious conundrum for a skeptic trying to prove religion an illusion.

Another key point of disagreement between Freud and Lewis is the origin of moral behavior. Freud makes the case that morality originates from evolutionary progress that leads to the need for civilization. To use his example, one might think it would be good to be able to kill off one’s rivals and then, with them out of the way, take their possessions for one’s own use (18). There is an obvious flaw in this idea that appears quite quickly, however: if I could do this, then so could everyone else, and they will likely do the same to me that I did to the person I killed. I would have to be a very strong person indeed to defend myself against this, and even then, I would likely be overpowered eventually (51-52). In a society without the standard trimmings of civilization, Freud notes that only one person can be happy, that person being the “tyrant,” and even he would want people to observe a prohibition on killing. Therefore it is not hard to make a case that people simply must act in specific ways, if only for the selfish reason of hoping others will return the favor. This makes reasonably good sense.

Lewis disagrees with this, not surprisingly, and suggests that we instead have an innate Moral Natural Law inside of us (4). Now, so far we are no further than we were before, since we have two authors presenting two polar viewpoints concerning the subject of morality. Lewis anticipates the critique from Freudian thinkers and answers it in its very own chapter. According to Lewis, it makes sense to assert that humans might have a type of herd instinct or other natural reasons linked to self-preservation to follow basic social conventions, but he then demonstrates a situation wherein this does not seem to apply all that well (9). According to Lewis, if I hear a person in danger cry for help, I will have two instincts come into play, a herd instinct and a self-preservation instinct. I want to help the fellow in trouble, but I do not want to die doing so. Despite this, I will likely feel that following the former instinct’s advice is the right thing to do, and may disregard the latter instinct’s warning.

Logically, if I have judged the two instincts and found one to be good and moral in contrast to the selfish and immoral behavior of the other, then I must have judged them both according to a higher standard (10). This, he asserts, is moral law; moral law, he explains, serves as the sheet music for the piano keys that are the instincts.

Moreover, Lewis brings in the example of judging Nazi morality against Allied morality (14). Perhaps a less well known example might be more suitable, since Nazi comparisons in present times often do little more than serve a technique for poisoning the well, but it does fit this example well. From purely a survival standpoint of the majority, we must question how we can prove that the Nazi’s morality was inherently bad compared to “Christian morality” (13). Yet we do want to assert that Nazi morality is indeed bad and the morality of the opposing forces was inherently better (regardless of the Allied nations’ goals of fighting the Nazi’s, at the very least, it can be said that we stopped the Nazis). Would it not have been easier for many to simply join the Nazis and not risk their lives fighting them?

Now, if things that go against my own self-preservation can be judged to be better, how can it be mere desire for a good society that leads me to act against my own interests? While we can explain away why I might agree not to steal, how do we deal with things that might end my own life for the benefit of others? Clearly, if I am going to be just plain dead, and not in an afterlife, I should have no reason to risk my life for others, since any benefits reaped will never be witnessed by me, should I die. It would therefore follow that I should be best off if I followed the example of Shakespeare’s Falstaff and “counterfeited” my death whenever danger arose, taking due note of the fact that honor is “insensible […] to the dead” (5.1.137-138).

In the third and final part of this series, we will look at one topic both men seem to use as a foundational core to projections on the future of humanity, albeit to extremely different ends: evolution. Finally, I shall conclude with a few final thoughts on issue of choosing sides.

Note: Works cited information will appear in the third part of this series.

Song Du Jour: Every Time it Rains

This song caught my attention the other day when I first heard it. The words are pretty good, although you really need to hear it to appreciate it. It is available via iTunes Music Store if anyone interested.

Every time it rains I listen to the sky
And wonder what's so great about sunshine
Everybody lives and everybody dies
And no one's gonna love you like I do

When it was getting dark
I didn't need a match
I never needed light to see you
You thought I disappeared
But I was always here
I could never get that far from you

Though I misunderstand
And been misunderstood
So love me 'cause you can
And not because you should

Every time it rains
I know it's good to be alive
Every time it rains
I know I'm trying to survive

—Charlotte Martin, Every Time it Rains

So what are you listening to right now?

The Second Questioning

A fellow Timothy who also happens to live in my neck of the woods gave me the following excellent questions to answer as part of the Interview Game. I now “owe” interviews to seven people. Would you like to be interviewed and receive your own question set of five questions? If so, please say so in the comments. You can see my answers to the last round of the game, here. Without further ado…

1) When and how did you become a Christian?
I became a Christian when I was 14. I grew up in a Christian family, although I had adopted a Pluralist viewpoint and really didn't “get” the Gospel. I equated good deeds with admission to heaven and therefore doubted my own eternal destination at times (the realization that I wasn't “mostly good” was probably one of the few orthodox ideas I had at the time).

I did not want to go to Confirmation, but my mother insisted, and that is where I first really came to an understanding of the Gospel. Within the first few weeks of the program, the students were asked if they had been “born again.” I didn't understand what they were talking about. But, I did soon learn what this meant, and shortly thereafter I prayed to ask Jesus into my heart. Over the years, there have been times that I felt like I've slipped away a bit from that initial plunge, and at those times I've prayed to recommit myself to Christ, but that time during confirmation is definitely when I would pick out as when I was “saved.” (Note: I do affirm the believe in the perseverance of the saints, so I do not believe I ever backslid out of my faith, but I still do see the value in renewing my commitment to Christ at times.)

Like many people I've talked to who grew up in a church but were theologically off-base, I did not have a dramatic conversion experience that makes for a “great testimony.” Much of the process was a gradual change rather than one experience I can point to. I'm not sure one could really have discerned a difference in me on the day before I prayed the sinners prayer and the day after, but God has slowly molded me into a much different person than I was before.

2) What tools do you use for blogging and why do you think they are better than other tools available to do the job?

I use my own blogging tool, known as SAFARI 2, which I hope to release under a Free Software license at some point. It does not have a lot of distinct advantages for blogging, but I have spent a lot of time trying to shoot for efficiency concerning database querying with an eye to making this a tool that can hold up to Slashdotting-like loads of traffic (and therefore, be usable for my company's online publication, OfB). I've also tried to avoid some of the mistakes in WordPress that makes it easy for spammers to post spam, added a “forum-like” view of comment activity and I am working on a new system of categorizing posts that I think will be advantageous for proper archiving of old content.

3) What hobbies do you have that have not yet made an appearance in your blog?

Hobbies that haven't appeared on my blog? I think now that I'm entering into my fourth year of blogging, I've pretty much touched on all of my hobbies at one point or another. Let's just go over a quick list of my hobbies, eh?

• Theology and Philosophy — primarily theology, but that's only because I've lacked the time to immerse myself in both to the same extent. I love these two fields perhaps too much though — they both should be the means, the windows, to the truth of God, not the end itself. Right now, I'm on a Karl Barth kick (who was repeatedly recommended to me by my professor Dr. Meyers over the past few years). Next up is a book on the “historical Jesus,” pitting evangelical N.T. Wright against Jesus Seminar scholar Marcus Borg.
• Politics — I enjoy political theory almost as much as the above mentioned subjects of philosophy and theology. Yes, I like abstract subjects that aren't suppose to be discussed in polite company. So sue me.
• Other readings — I do a lot of reading on the topics above, but I also enjoy good fiction, be it literature (Go Aeschylus!) or a modern novel, such as the Da Vinci Code.
• Creative writing — I'm the better part of 20 sonnets into my first sonnet sequence. I've written a bunch of haiku and one tanka, one villanelle, and various other poetry, some of which is posted here. I also have a novel and a play in progress at the moment.
• Photography — I love playing around with my camera, and it shows. I have over 10,000 digital photos in my iPhoto album.

Notice the conspicuous absence of computer related hobbies. I'm burnt out on computers at the moment, so they've been banned from the list. In reality, this really is the case: these days computers the things I work on as a job and I simply don't find it all that amusing fighting with them “after hours” anymore.

4) What one blog do you read on a regular basis that people who read your blog might be surprised about?

I may be proving rather unexciting now. There are only a handful of blogs I read that are not presently in my blogroll. Yours, Sparkle, Mysterium Tremendum (to which I add: et fascinans!), Celerate, the Book of Confusion…

5) If I had responded last time you did the Interview meme, what would have been one of your five questions?

“What would you say are the most surprising similarities and differences of living in the U.K. and St. Charles County, Missouri?”