Month: May 2004

A Run to Remember

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I’ve started running again this week and amidst the soreness (I hadn’t laced up my running shoes in about a year) I am reminded that it was 50 years ago this month that a 25-year-old medical student named Roger Bannister became the first person to run a mile in under 4 minutes. My personal record … Read more

Fun with Names

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In the garden of Eden, God gave to Adam the responsibility of naming all the living creatures (see Genesis 3:19-20). That was then. In this day and age, most living creatures already have names, leaving only newborns as the players to be named later. I always find it ineresting when the Social Security Administration releases … Read more

Mixing it Up: Diversity as the New Morality

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There was a time when fairness was a moral virtue worth fighting for. Fairness centered on the concept of justice, and had to do with making things right. Fairness has gone the way of the dodo. Having attended and heard reports of various commencement ceremonies of late, it would seem that fairness has now been … Read more

No Ambiguity

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Everyone’s been talking about President Bush’s hugging the girl whose mother was killed in the 9/11 attacks. If you haven’t yet read it, read it now. In addition to that, Hugh Hewitt references an item about the president keeping his promise to go running with a soldier who lost a leg. Stories like these do … Read more

Brand Wariness

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Several blogs have addressed this issue already very adequately, but something I saw today that made me want to give it another look. I’m talking about the quickly growing trendiness of the “Jesus is my Homeboy” t-shirts and the like. Celebrites have been caught donning the gear, and many Christians have taken to wearing them … Read more

Well Read? Well, Maybe Not

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Here’s a list that’s floating around the internet. It’s a list of works considered to be classics. While all such lists are invariably lacking, they’re usually helpful in pointing us new and important works. The ones I’ve read are in bold typeface. As you can see, I have a good way to go on this list (though I have read other books by the authors listed). [hat tip: Collected Miscellany]

Beowulf
Achebe, Chinua — Things Fall Apart
Agee, James — A Death in the Family
Austen, Jane — Pride and Prejudice
Baldwin, James — Go Tell It on the Mountain
Beckett, Samuel — Waiting for Godot
Bellow, Saul — The Adventures of Augie March
Bronte, Charlotte — Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily — Wuthering Heights
Camus, Albert — The Stranger
Cather, Willa — Death Comes for the Archbishop
Chaucer, Geoffrey — The Canterbury Tales

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It Must Be the Diet

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A woman in Minsk, Belarus (an old stomping ground of mine) has reached the ripe young age of 116: Today, [Hanna] Barysevich moves with difficulty but unaided. She complains of occasional headaches and worsening vision “but nothing else bothers me.” She attributes her longevity to genes: Her paternal grandmother was 113 when she died. As … Read more

Side Issues

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You’ll notice a new feature here at TruePravda. It’s called On the Side, and it’s a sort of weblog-within-a-weblog, if you will. In On the Side, I’ll feature different articles of note from around the web with little to no comments. These are basically things I’ve found interesting which I’m either waiting to blog about … Read more

Is There Any Hope for Honor?

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Honor is but one of many virtues that seems to be disappearing from the landscape of American culture. The recent revelations about mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq by our soldiers are vivid reminder that moral abdication can happen anywhere. Of all places in American culture, the military is one of the few places where honor … Read more

The Problem of Good

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Normally, when we study theodicy, we think of the problem of evil. “How can a good and loving God permit evil?” we ask. What we often fail to realize is that theodicy has to deal with the problem of good just the same. Walker Percy has his slightly deranged lead character offer forth this in … Read more