As Gentle Readers may remember, one of your number (specifically Dan, over at Position of Ignorance was looking for assistance with some game-playing ideas. With such assistance, he has come up with an alpha version of Valley of the Drupes,…
I’ve recently puffed my local library, so it’s not meant to puff them any more to note that I found the first volume of Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha on the shelf. Although, seriously, I should meet whoever their graphic novel acquisitions…
Back when I read Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart, I said it was the best YA book I’d read since The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm. Since that time, I have read her latest to be published in English translation, Dragon…
Parshah Terumah is Exodus 25:1-27:19, and it’s all about the Mishkan, the sanctuary the Israelites carry through the desert, and the fabled Ark of the Covenant, and the sacred vessels, and the garments of the priests. Whoo hoo! Next episode,…
I happened to read a very odd op-ed piece in the New York Times this morning. It’s called “Design for Living”, and it’s by Michael J. Behe of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. Mr. Behe is arguing…
This week’s parshah is Mishpatim (Exodus 21:1-24:18). Mishpatim are judgments, or ordinances, or rules. I hadn’t ever noticed it before, but the Ten Commandments is the point at which the Torah shifts from being a collection of stories about people…
Andrew Cline, in an otherwise interesting and relevant note on Our Only President’s recent report on the State of the Union, finds it interesting that presidential speeches consisting in the main of enumerations of policies are called laundry lists, rather…
The Edge is one of my favorite Dick Francis books. Partially it’s the train, of course; I adore trains. Partially it’s the theater aspect, sure. The wise-beyond-his-years gazillionaire genius detective who can beat up his assailant in the dark despite…
Well, and it seems that if I don’t actually write about the parshah, then it doesn’t get written about. Strange. Last week was parshah Yit’roh (Exodus 18:1-20:23), which begins with the titular Jethro coming to visit his son-in-law, who is…
When I saw this stupid op-comic piece in the Times the other day, I thought, that’s a stupid op-comic piece. But that clearly wasn’t enough. There’s an actual news article on the same idea, that it’s funny to think about…