Model shipyard revisited
August 28, 2008
It’s time for a progress report on construction of the Pride of Baltimore II, a plank-on-frame model that I started in 2004. To get the full history of Pride construction, go to Model Shipyard and select Pride of Baltimore II. I have resolved to keep construction moving in the faint hope of actually finishing it while my eyes and hands are still functioning relatively well. I have another model, The Fair American, on the ways, and there is an unopened kit of the Constitution laying around somewhere.
Here is one of the images of the Pride, as it looks on August 28, 2008.
Dave, which he likes making chips and sawdust.
Are we paying attention now?
August 23, 2008
Although I am pretty certain about who I will vote for in November, I still listen to what both Obama and McCain are saying. I doubt if many people have paid too close attention to the race so far, but columnist Peggy Noonan writes that They’re Paying Attention Now.
It’s hard for our political class to remember that Mr. Obama has been famous in America only since the winter of ‘08. America met him barely six months ago! The political class first interviewed him, or read the interview, in 2003 or ‘04, when he was a rising star. They know him. Everyone else is still absorbing.
This is what they see:
An attractive, intelligent man, interesting, but—he’s hard to categorize. Is he Gen. Obama? No, no military background. Brilliant Businessman Obama? No, he never worked in business. Famous Name Obama? No, it’s a new name, an unusual one. Longtime Southern Governor Obama? No. He’s a community organizer (what’s that?), then a lawyer (boo), then a state legislator (so what, so’s my cousin), then U.S. senator (less than four years!).
There is no pre-existing category for him.
. . . And over there is Mr. McCain, and—well, we know him. He’s POW/senator/prickly, irritating John McCain.
Traditionally, the election campaigns begin after Labor Day. and the talking heads will see to it that we don’t forget that an election is coming up. I’s up to us to supplement the media spin with some independent reading, and Peggy Noonan is always worth reading.
Dave, who may be letting his GOP prejudice show a bit.
Saddleback showdown
August 18, 2008
Saturday evening’s Saddleback political event may come to be regarded as the true kick-off of the presidential election campaign of 2008. It was unprecedented in terms of venue and format. Held at California’s Saddleback Church, Pastor Rick Warren conducted back-to-back hour-long interviews, first with Barack Obama and then with John McCain. The interviews overlapped briefly, producing this memorable photo op.
The meeting was billed as a step toward a return to civility in political public intercourse, but the candidates were not given the opportunity to engage each other, civilly or otherwise. Rick Warren posed the questions and pretty much sat back and let the candidates respond as they wished. Neither heard the answers of their rival. The result was a stark contrast of views, especially on abortion and religious faith. It was no surprise that Obama was pro-choice and McCain pro-life, of course, but what they said (or didn’t say) about their faith in front of a neo-evangelical audience was very interesting.
Taken at face value, Obama professes an orthodox Christian faith. His use of Scripture and his talk about the Lordship of Jesus Christ (indirectly) is impossible to reconcile with his pro-choice views, but at least he knew the language and basic principles of being a Christian. Quoting Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life, he professed that his religion wasn’t about Obama but about God. Or something like that.
John McCain, on the other hand, sounded like his faith and convictions were based more on patriotism than belief in God. His unbridled optimism about the future of our country is very appealing, but no one with a Christian worldview would share McCain’s enthusiasm about putting America first.
Worldview
What kept me uncharacteristically glued to the tube for two long hours with too many commercials was the hope of getting some insight into their respective worldviews. I didn’t expect either to reflect a Christian worldview, and I wasn’t disappointed in that. Missing in the responses of both Obama and McCain were clues about what they believed about Creation, the Fall, and Redemption, which arguably are the structural elements of every philosophy and ideology, Christian or secular.
When asked whether or not they believed in the existence of evil, each quickly answered yes, but they elaborated on their answers in vastly different ways. Obama sees evil mostly in the abstract and appeared to see evidence of evil both in the U.S. and abroad. His specific examples of evil were few and sketchy. My conclusion was that he does not deny that bad things happen but does not have clear conviction about the source of evil in the world or how to respond to it. Except for saying that we all must join together to fight evil in the world, his posture seemed basically reactive and vague. This partly may be because he has been fortunate enough to have had little personal contact with evil.
McCain, in contrast, has strong feelings about evil in the world. He mentioned his Viet Nam captivity, the events of 9/11 and talked about the threat of Al-Qaida today. He had no trouble pointing to specific examples of evil in the world today. Such black or white characterizations may not always be a Good Thing for a President, although in the cases of prison brutality and Al-Qaida it’s easy to agree. I would feel more comfortable with McCain if I thought his convictions were part of a Christian worldview.
The genius of Rick Warren’s approach was letting us hear Obama and McCain respond off the cuff to open ended questions about the issues of the day. It was not a debate. Each man responded in his own way to the same questions. Most of the time Warren was able to sit back and listen with the rest of us without imposing his own views.
One thought that I came away with is that Obama is too young and too inexperienced; McCain is too old and too experienced. What is sure is that they would bring quite different perspectives to the problems of the day. Who they would select as key advisors is crucial, and we should keep our eyes peeled for clues as the campaign grinds on..
When asked who are the three wisest people you know, and who would you most rely on as President, Obama first named his wife, his grandmother, and Senator Kennedy. McCain put General Petraeus at the top of his list and added a couple of respected national figures, the names of whom I don’t recall. (There is a lot that I don’t recall these days.) I found neither response very comforting.
If you listened to the Saddleback Showdown, what are your thoughts? If you didn’t listen, you may have missed an important bit of our political history.
Dave, wondering how to vote for Mr. None of the Above.
Upgrade notice
May 28, 2008
The Wordpress software that makes the Orlop appear was upgraded to version 2.5.1 on Wednesday, May 28, 2008, at 11:00 a.m. (Not that you care, if you are reading this.)
Techno-Bedouins
April 12, 2008
According to Nomads at last in the latest on-line Economist, a new generation of techno-Bedouins is emerging in the culture. Is this a Good Thing? You’ll have to decide that for yourselves. The generation gap is too wide for me to even think about it.
As a word, vision and goal, modern urban nomadism has had the mixed blessing of a premature debut. In the 1960s and 70s Herbert Marshall McLuhan, the most influential media and communications theorist ever, pictured nomads zipping around at great speed, using facilities on the road and all but dispensing with their homes. In the 1980s Jacques Attali, a French economist who was advising president François Mitterrand at the time, used the term to predict an age when rich and uprooted elites would jet around the world in search of fun and opportunity, and poor but equally uprooted workers would migrate in search of a living. In the 1990s Tsugio Makimoto and David Manners jointly wrote the first book with “digital nomad” in the title, adding the bewildering possibilities of the latest gadgets to the vision.
I commend the article for your reading. It provides a lot to think about when we consider the way various technologies have impacted our lives. Did you know that there are almost 3.5 million mobile-phone users worldwide, compared to essentially zip in 1996? Or that almost all of those users are in the 18-29 demographic?
Dave, not sure what to make of all this.
Resolutions
April 10, 2008
I’m not much on making resolutions, probably because my track record on keeping them is pretty spotty. An 18th Century theologian named Jonathan Edwards, yes that one (Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God), had a go at it on August 17, 1723, and couldn’t stop until he listed 70 resolutions that he vowed to review once a week.
My blogging friend Toby Brown suggests that some of these resolutions would be quite appropriate for bloggers of all stripes.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
What Jonathan Edwards might say to those who blog
In my devotional reading I ran across these selected resolutions of the young Jonathan Edwards. I think they have much to teach those of us who live in the digital age:
8. Resolved, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God.
12. Resolved, if I take delight in it as a gratification of pride, or vanity, or on any such account, immediately to throw it by.
15. Resolved, never to suffer the least motions of anger towards irrational beings.
21. Resolved, never to do any thing, which if I should see in another, I should count a just occasion to despise him for, or to think any way the more meanly of him.
(Resolutions 1 through 21 written in one setting in New Haven in 1722)
All bloggers will take these resolutions to heart when pigs fly, says I, but that doesn’t mean that I should not take them to heart. And not only while blogging.
Dave, who tends to be a tad cynical about some things.
A diesel in your next car?
April 5, 2008
Every time I see the posted fuel pump prices, I wonder about the premium price of diesel over gasoline. Obviously the premium still makes economic sense, but I certainly didn’t have a clue. Today’s Economist helps clear the air, so to speak, since my impression of diesel vehicles is cluttered up with inappropriate images of dark smoke and stink. I know that none of you have such ill-informed prejudices, but you might find the article interesting nevertheless.
Meanwhile, back at the pump in America, diesel currently costs 20% more per gallon than regular petrol. When that premium reaches 35%, the difference in fuel efficiency will equal the difference in price—and there will be no economic reason to make the switch. Some reckon that day is only a few years away.
All of this is pretty academic for some of us. First, there are yet no efficient family diesel vehicles available. Second, I likely will not need another car at all unless I’m still driving at age 90. I’m marginally dangerous to my fellow drivers now.
Dave, driving very carefully these days.
Equinox day
March 20, 2008
Sometime today the equinox occurs. The Astronomy Picture of the Day site provides a spectacular view of the event, courtesy of the Expedition 15 crew. Earth dwellers will experience nearly 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness. Recorded last June from the International Space Station, the Sun’s limb still peeks above the distant horizon as seen from Earth orbit. Clouds appear in silhouette as the sunlight is reddened by dust in the dense lower atmosphere. Molecules in the more tenuous upper atmosphere are preferentially scattering blue light.
Dave, quite content with a vicarious viewing.
Elections: check or romance?
February 8, 2008
Blogging economist Arnold Kling has this interesting outlook on the purpose of free elections:
I continue to view elections as an opportunity for voters to provide a check against politicians. Instead, if you view it as an opportunity to elect a great leader, you are falling into the trap of what Daniel Klein calls “the people’s romance.”
Dave, tending to agree with Arnold on this.
The Powers That Be
December 4, 2007
Written by David Halberstam, author of The Best and the Brightest, Ho, and others, The Powers That Be is another 740-pager that somehow found its way onto Mt. Toberead. I don’t know why friends keep giving me these big blockbuster books and expect me to read them. Maybe I really do.
How about a little contest? If you can tell me the names of each person above, I will award you 15 minutes of virtual, eternal fame. There’s fame for you, to quote Jack Aubrey.
Back to the book. According to the dust cover blurb (and also a clue to the names),
[TPTB] is the inside history of four of America’s greatest media institutions: Time Incorporated, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and CBS. All are rich in money and resources, all hugely powerful, and all the creation of a few inspired men and women whose individual obsessions and dreams they still to an icredible degree embody.
[Name giveaways]
We see these people and the men of political and financial power with whom they dealt as we have never seen them before - caught up in ambition or rage or triumph, making decisions or evading them, revealing themselves memorably in ways large and small.
A little hype here, but I daresay that anyone who has read any of Halberstam’s books (and I had not), will agree that here is one author that may live up to his puffery.
If personality is the essence of power, The Powers That Be is the most vivid and immediate account we have yet of power at work in modern-day America.
The events portrayed spanned the presidencies of FDR to tricky-Dicky, that is to say, during my adult lifetime. Of course I remember the events of Kennedy’s assassination, LBJ’s belly scar, and Nixon’s dramatic resignation from the presidency. That being so, reading this book makes me feel like a real hick, to say nothing of real stupid. I had not a clue what was really going on, and now I know the reason why. I was being professionally and thoroughly duped, and it doesn’t make me feel very proud.
I ask myself, “What about today and George Bush? (Larry, there’s your opening.) Fox News will never be the same to me.
If you haven’t guessed, I liked the book. If you are about to go into hibernation for the winter and have good, strong forearms and don’t mind going prematurely blind, this is the book for you.
Dave, squinting and blinking.
