John Colton's blog

I've mentioned that I'm a singer in the La Crosse Chamber Chorale (bass), and am also on its board of directors. The Chamber Chorale is directed by Paul Rusterholz. Most of our concerts get recorded to be broadcast on the radio. If I do say so myself, we're really darn good for a community choir!

We had our first practice for the new season this past Tuesday. Some good songs coming up! In honor of that, I've decided to post some favorites of mine from the past three years. The songs below are only from a subset of what we sing, because I had to restrict my choices to ones whose compositions are no longer copyrighted (the recordings themselves are still copyrighted by the La Crosse Chamber Chorale; I received permission to post them here). That means that all of these pieces were composed prior to 1923. We also perform many more modern compositions--spirituals, modern classical-style music, Broadway musical numbers, etc.

To play the music on most internet browsers, simply click on the title of the piece. To find out more about the composer, click on the composer's name. The pieces are sorted by when we performed them, and the title of our concert is also given. Disclaimer--the pieces are mp3 files that are typically several megabytes large, so if you don't have a high speed internet connection, be warned!



Nov 2003: With Voices Lifted
Elegy (Sanft Wie Du Lebtest) - Beethoven (in German)
Wie Lieblich Sind Deine Wohnungen - Brahms (in German)
The Silver Swan - Gibbons (in English)

Dec 2003: Advent Hymn Sing
Hodie Christus Natus Est - can't remember the composer (in Latin)

Feb 2004: A New Heaven: Visions of Eternity
Alma Redemptoris Mater - Anonymous (in Latin)

Apr 2004: Thou Hast Turned My Laments Into Dancing
Tristis et Anima Mea - di Lasso (in Latin)
Ave Verum Corpus - Byrd (in Latin)
Maria Magdalene - Gabrieli (in Latin)

Nov 2004: A Musical Menagerie
I wasn't actually in this concert due to a conference I had to attend. But I sang this with the Chamber Chorale at another (unrecorded) concert.
Sicut Cervus - Palestrina (in Latin)

Feb 2005: Celestial Mysteries
Locus Iste - Bruckner (in Latin)

Apr 2005: Voices of Renewal and Hope
Ecco Mormorar L'onde - Monteverdi (in Italian)
Psalm 22: "Mein Gott, mein Gott, warum hast du mich verlassen?" - Mendelssohn (in German) (soloists: Matt, can't remember his last name, and Mary Lansing)

Nov 2005: A Time to Sing
Haec Dies - Byrd (in Latin)
Im Herbst - Brahms (in German)

Dec 2005: Advent Hymn Sing
Hodie Christus Natus Est - Sweelinck (in Latin)

Feb 2006: Sacred Seasons
I Was Glad - Purcell (in English)
Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis - Stanford (in English) (soloists: Sanna Yoder and Hans Laping)
Blessed Art Thou, O Lord - Rachmaninoff (in Russian)

Apr 2006: Seasons of Love
Spring Returns - Marenzio (in English)
April Is In My Mistress' Face - Morley (in English)
Justorum Animae - Stanford (in Latin)
Coelos Ascendit Hodie - Stanford (in Latin)
Beati Quorum Via - Stanford (in Latin)

If you especially like any of the pieces, feel free to comment!

A couple of months ago I signed up for emusic.com.

The way it works is you purchase music by the song (in mp3 format). You can listen to the tracks with an mp3 player, or you can burn your own CDs assuming you have a CD burner on your computer. It's about $0.25 per song or less, which translates into $3 - $4 for a typical album. I tend to just download all the songs in an album, instead of cherry-picking the best songs. It's certainly much cheaper than buying the actual CD, although this way you don't get the liner notes. They make you pay a monthly fee--$10 for 40 songs, in my case--rather than having you pay as you go. Actually, I signed up for a one-year committement, which comes with a discount, so I think I'm paying only $0.20 a song.

They don't have all albums ever made, but they do have an interesting assortment. Here's a list of the albums I've downloaded since I signed up, with my reviews/ratings.

3 albums of Vince Guaraldi's Peanuts music:
A Boy Named Charlie Brown - 10/10
A Charlie Brown Christmas - 10/10
Charlie Brown's Holiday Hits - 10/10
These albums are what got me originally interested in emusic--a local friend (Patrick) mentioned that he picked up several albums from Vince Guaraldi as part of a free trial. Since we're a fan of the Peanuts TV specials and George Winston's "Linus and Lucy: the Music of Vince Guaraldi" album, my interest here was natural. Plus they had been highly recommended by other friends back in Berkeley (Matt & Suzette), and these albums are hard to find. That is, you may be able to get them from amazon.com, but I've never seen them in an actual CD store.

Smilin', by Rockapella - 7/10
Up-beat acapella music by Rockapella, a group made famous by the TV show Carmen Sandiego. Pauline and I saw them in a concert in La Crosse last year that was very entertaining. Their style might not be for everyone, though. "Off My Mind" and "Lazy River" are two on this album that they performed in their La Crosse concert--I know, because I jotted them down at the time as being ones that I especially liked. The album has many strong songs if you like this type of thing, such as "Shambala" and interesting arrangements of "Here Comes the Sun" and "Surfin' Safari".

Happy Together, by the Turtles - 6/10
This albums contains songs that I've known since I bought a "Turtles' Greatest Hits" tape in high school: "Happy Together", "She'd Rather Be With Me", "She's My Girl", and "You Know What I Mean". A couple of other nice songs were "Me About You", and "Too Young To Be One" (to the tune of Simple Gifts).

Earth Songs, by John Denver - 6/10. Pretty mellow. Some nice songs, but nothing in particular stands out. I had 4 of the tracks already on a Greatest Hits album, so I didn't download them--otherwise it would have gotten a higher rating (probably 7.5/10). Those tracks were "Rocky Mountain High", "Sunshine on My Shoulders", "The Eagle and the Hawk", and "Wind Song".

Be Thou My Vision, by John Rutter directing the Cambridge Singers - 10/10. Simply fabulous. These are all Rutter-composed pieces, directed by Rutter himself. If you have any interest in religious choral music at all, you must get this album! One of the highlights of my musical life was attending a concert of a University of Maryland choir in which my mom sang, that featured Rutter as a guest conductor. Listening to this album is almost as good! ;-) There are too many good pieces to start naming all of my favorites, but these are likely to be the ones most well-known to Mormons, having been recorded by the Tabernacle Choir on recent albums: "Open Thou Mine Eyes", "A Gaelic Blessing", "All Things Bright and Beautiful", "As the Bridegroom to His Chosen", "For the Beauty of the Earth", and "The Lord Bless You and Keep You".

Chronicle Volume 1, by Credence Clearwater Revival - 10/10. Great classic rock! Classic songs on this album include "Susie Q", "Proud Mary", "Bad Moon Rising", "Down on the Corner", "Travelin' Band", "Who'll Stop the Rain", "Lookin' Out My Back Door", "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" (11 minute long version! much of which is the instrumentalists just jamming together), and "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?". Guaranteed to make your feet start tapping!

Hits! Hits! Hits! by Roy Orbison - 8/10. Contains classics that almost everyone will recognize: "Crying", "Only the Lonely", and "Pretty Woman". There are also a lot of other really good songs, such as "Ooby Dooby", "Working for the Man", and "Blue Bayou".

They Might Be Giants, by They Might Be Giants - 7.5/10. A lot like their very good and very well-known album Flood, but less polished--I think this was their first album. Interesting music, and bizarre lyrics. Here's the one I just happen to be listening to right now, the song called "Boat of Car":

(Daddy sang bass) [repeated]
I took my boat for a car.
I took that car for a ride.
I was trying to get somewhere but now I'm following the chases
of your fingernails that run along the windshield of the boat of car.
(Daddy sang bass)
Chases of your fingernails that run along the windshield on the
boat of car, on the boat of car, on the boat of car, on the boat of car.

Bells are Ringing, soundtrack from the musical - A cute musical that I know fairly well, because AIS (American International School, where I went to grades 1-5) put on the show when we lived in Vienna. The high school part of AIS, that is, not the elementary school part. I guess Nancy must have been in it, since I remember attending a number of rehearsals after my elementary school got out, but I don't recall what part she played. So I know basically all the songs from the album. This particular recording is pretty good.

Ultimate Mancini, songs written/directed by Henry Mancini - 7/10. Very nice/high quality recording, heavily weighted towards classic movie songs and themes. Among the highlights are the Pink Panther, Moon River, and the Peter Gunn Theme (made famous by the classic "Spy Hunter" computer game).

Classes for the Fall semester start next week... so my blog publishing rate might decrease substantially. We'll see.

I'm teaching the following:

Advanced Electrodynamics - the second semester of the upper-level (junior/senior) class on electricity and magnetism. I've only got three students enrolled in the class. I've taught the course before. Should be fun.

Electronics, with associated lab - a junior level electronics class. I've taught about half the course content before, in the prior iteration of the class. But we added a sophomore "Circuits" class, which covered about half of the previous electronics class. So this one will cover the second half of the previous electronics class, plus half a semester of new stuff. Hopefully that was comprehensible. The new stuff, unfortunately, will be mainly dealing with microprocessors--something that I've never taught before, and don't have any experience with myself. So it'll be a challenge, and is the primary reason why I'm dreading the coming semester a bit.

Physics 103 Lab - Lab section for the "Fundamental Physics" class. Tends to be mainly biology/pre-med type students. I've taught it a couple of times before, and have even written a lab manual. I revised a couple of labs in the lab manual a few weeks ago, based on student comments from last time around. Got about 28 students in my lab section, but it shouldn't be too bad.

Those wacky Japanese! I'm not sure if this was a game show or a reality show or what. But it's hilarious!

Note--these videos are about 10 minutes each, so make sure you have a bit of time when you start watching them.


This is the first one I watched... had tears rolling out of my eyes.


Second one I watched.


Third one... I completely lost it at one part, about 7 and a half minutes or 8 minutes in--you'll know it when you see it!

I don't know how long this has been there (lack of a time/date stamp on a news item is really rather unforgivable IMO), but I just discovered a LENGTHY interview with LDS Church leaders Elder Oaks and Elder Wickman, by the LDS Public Affairs office, asking for clarification on the LDS policy towards homosexuality and gay marriage.

Basically, I have to give kudos to the interviewer for asking meaningful questions. The answers were pretty forthright in most cases, but there were a few places where I thought they didn't answer what the interviewer was asking (whether intentionally or just through misunderstanding the question, I can't judge).

Some key points that were made:

1. They emphasized the same inclination/behavior dichotomy that the church has taught in recent years. That is, homosexual *actions* are what is evil, not necessarily homosexual *tendencies*. I agree with church leadership that this is an important distinction.

I agree completely with Elder Wickman's comment: "One of the great sophistries of our age, I think, is that merely because one has an inclination to do something, that therefore acting in accordance with that inclination is inevitable. That’s contrary to our very nature as the Lord has revealed to us. We do have the power to control our behavior."

2. They didn't take a stand on whether homosexual tendencies come from nature vs. nuture. This is wise, in my opinion--that's a medical topic, not a religious topic.

3. They didn't shy away from the "celibacy is expected" implication of the church policy. Elder Wickman's example of his handicapped daughter having similarly no chance for a marriage/sexual relations was interesting. I'll have to think about whether I feel that is a fair comparison.

4. They emphasized that homosexual members should not define themselves via their homosexuality.

5. A lot of the interview centered on how parents should treat children that are active in a homosexual lifestyle.

5a. They emphasized that even though parents should not express approval of the child's lifestyle, families should continue to love and maintain contact with homosexual family members. For example, the first thing that Elder Oaks said in response to a specific "what if" question is that you should tell your child "You’re my son. You will always be my son, and I’ll always be there to help you."

Then later, "My first responsibility as a father is to make sure that he understands [that homosexual behavior is sinful and will affect his church membership], and then to say to him, "My son, if you choose to deliberately engage in this kind of behavior, you’re still my son."

5b. They emphasize the need for families to make their own decisions as to how much or little inclusion the child's homosexual partner should have in the family. Elder Oaks said that is "a decision that needs to be made individually by the person responsible, calling upon the Lord for inspiration."

6. They clarified a few reasons why the church opposes gay marriages: (a) Marriage has been defined by the Lord, and we humans shouldn't change the definition. (That's one I've heard from church leadership before.) (b) Such a fundamental change in the *definition* of marriage must necessarily result in a fundamental change in the *intitution* of marriage.

7. It's not just the *name* "marriage" that the church opposes for homosexuals--anything packaged up identically would be de facto marriage, even if not called the same. That's an argument I've heard before, but not from church HQ.


All in all, a serious and interesting discussion of difficult and meaningful topics.

My very first blog entry mentioned that I had started reading Black Sun Rising, the first book in C.S. Friedman's Coldfire trilogy.

Since then, I've finished all three books. The second and third ones are When True Night Falls and Crown of Shadows, respectively.

I'll review the trilogy together now.

Overall rating: 10/10

Wow, I was blown away. This is the best fantasy/science fiction I've read in years. It's kind of a hybrid of fantasy and science fiction. The science fiction aspect is that it's set in the future on a world far from earth, and re-gaining lost technology is a major part of the back-story. But I consider it mainly a fantasy series: characters use swords and magic. The magic is via a native bacteria-like (from what I gather) life form called the "fae", which take human emotions and desires and give shape to them. It's an interesting take on magic, and Friedman does a good job of defining rules for the operation of the fae which her characters must follow--usually a good sign of a quality serious story.

(Aside: the "fantasy in science fiction garb" business reminded me of Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern books--the Dragonriders books are ostensively science fiction stories, but in practice they are about dragons, castles, and other fantasy-type stuff.)

One of the major success of the Coldfire books is the successful incorporation of serious religious themes. The fae, as mentioned, give shape to emotions and desires, so they can also take shape as demons and gods. There are thus churches, enemies of those churches, and demon-banishing is a serious business. The main character is a "fighting priest" type, and his own internal conflicts and interaction with his church play a major role in the story.

It reminded me of something that I think Orson Scott Card wrote once that science fiction/fantasy is the last bastion in today's society for giving serious treatment of religious topics. Not to be preachy, of course, but to have the flexibility to address the effects of religion in a society. Sorry, I did a web search and came up empty for the exact quote. If anyone can help me out here, I'd appreciate it! In the process of my searching, though, I did run across these other two quotes by Card on religion in speculative writing that are interesting: interview 1, interview 2.

Back to Coldfire: the heart of the books are the two fascinating characters Damian Vryce and Gerald Tarrant. Vryce is the genuinely religious one, who must do good at all times regardless of personal cost/effort. Tarrant on the other hand, is an evil man who willingly became a vampire and kills in order to extend his natural life. The two get joined together by a common enemy, and must interact with each other. The possible redemption of Tarrant is an obvious theme to use, and Friendman does. What proved even more interesting to me was the possible "fall from grace" of Vryce. That is, even as he helps Tarrant become less evil (or does he?), Tarrant's influence leads Vryce to compromise his own values. A large part of Vryce's own internal conflicts revolve around the serious question of whether/when the end justifies the means.

In short, they are extremely highly recommended. I can't believe I hadn't run across these books before, considering the third one came out more than 10 years ago.

Here is some more info about the books (these links contain plot spoilers):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sun_Rising
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_True_Night_Falls
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_of_Shadows

While browsing around my hard disk a couple of days ago, I ran across this review that I wrote in 2003, which I posted on the newsgroup soc.religion.mormon ("SRM" for short). Since it seems fairly relevant to the "Mormons and the Bible" topics that I've been writing about recently (documentary hypothesis and all that), I thought I'd post it here as well even though it's fairly lengthy. Since I haven't read the Sorenson article again since then, this review is mainly unchanged from my 2003 version.

"BoM" is short for "Book of Mormon". "BP" is short for "Brass plates". "OT" is short for "Old Testament". "DH" is short for "Documentary hypothesis". If there are any other abbreviations that are hard to figure out, let me know.

A summary of "The Brass Plates and Biblical Scholarship", by John Sorenson, found in Nephite Culture and Society, copyright 1997. The article is apparently based on an earlier Sorenson paper, published in Dialog, in 1977. Summary written by John Colton, April 2003.

Outline of my summary

1. Introduction
2. Brief intro to documentary hypothesis
3. Brief intro to the brass plates
4. Main point: brass plates likely from E document
5. Evidence of main point
    A. Influence of Northern Kingdom and tribe of Joseph
    B. Lack of mention of Davidic covenant
    C. Considerable attention to Abrahamic covenant
    D. Jacob is called "Jacob" rather than "Israel"
    E. The Jews are consistently branded as evil
    F. "E" source names of God occur in the BoM
    G. BoM focuses on events, rather than people
    H. The Book of Abraham (in Pearl of Great Price) does *not* contain "E" elements
6. Conclusion
7. My comments

And now, on with the fun!
___

1. Introduction

The topic on "What does the Book of Mormon imply about the documentary hypothesis" was brought up in a recent thread [on SRM, in 2003], and I was asked to summarize Sorenson's writing. This topic is something that I had wondered about ever since learning a little bit about the DH around 3 years ago. It seems clear that the Old Testament-type writings contained in the BoM might argue either for or against the DH. The LDS people I asked at the time were largely unaware of any analysis on the topic. It seemed like no one had thought of it, which greatly surprised me. I let the matter drop, but then coincidentally ran into this Sorenson article which dealt with precisely this topic. In this article, Sorenson takes the view of "Let's assume the BoM is correct; what does this imply about the DH?" Since I find this interesting, and apparently so does at least one other SRM poster, I'm posting this rather lengthy summary.


2. Intro to the DH

The documentary hypothesis was developed in large part by Julius Wellhausen in the late 1800s, although the concepts existed prior to Wellhausen, and have been modified to some extent since his time. Some form of this is accepted by most of today's Biblical scholars. The basic idea is that chunks of the Old Testament existed prior to their current form, and were compiled from these original "documents" into the current OT. There is a fair amount of internal evidence that this may be the case, but I’m not going to go into too much detail here. I'm unaware of any *external* evidence; i.e., people haven't actually found these original documents. Some of my first exposure to this concept was the book (written for a popular audience) Who wrote the Bible by Richard Friedman, who argues that the compilation into the current form took place around 600 BC. Some people (early LDS leaders, for example) feel that this challenges the authority and divinity of the Bible; such is not my feeling (nor that perhaps of current LDS leaders), but that's perhaps a subject for a different thread.

There are 4 main documents which have been identified, known by letters:
J: uses the name "Jehovah" for God
E: uses the name "Elohim" for God
P: emphasizes the importance of Priests
D: emphasizes the Deuteronomic law

I won't go into further differences between the documents, except for the evidence Sorenson identifies in point #5 below. I will say that this concept (which I tend to believe) helps explain some parts of the OT that I wondered about for a while, like why there are two seemingly contradictory accounts of Noah and the ark--the DH explanation is that one account came from J, one from E, and they were merged together into the current form. And, of course, these four documents may have been compiled from still earlier writings.

The 600 BC date is interesting from the BoM perspective, because that's very close to when Lehi left Jerusalem. Thus, if the DH (and this date) is correct, there is a fair chance that Lehi would have had one of the original documents, rather than the current version of the OT.


3. Intro to the brass plates

The "brass plates" are a scriptural record talked about in the Book of Mormon that Lehi and company brought with them out of Israel around 600 BC. From the start, it's apparent that these are not merely the OT, because for example, they contained the genealogy of Lehi's family-- something Lehi had not known prior to reading the BP, by the way. He found out he was a descendant of Joseph of Egypt, apparently through Manasseh.

Later in the BoM, differences between the brass plates and the OT become more noticeable, because the BoM mentions and quotes OT-era prophets from the BP who are not present in the OT: Zenos, Zenock, Ezias. Also mentioned is Isaiah, and Neum (who may be Nahum).

What we know about the content of the brass plates comes from (a) direct quotes in the BoM, like Zenos's allegory of the olive tree, (b) passing mention in the BoM, such as the one-line mention of Ezias, (c) what is *not* mentioned in the BoM (see eg. 5B below), and (d) societal influences on BoM authors and peoples. The last is not something I had thought about before, but of course is Sorenson's specialty. For example, BoM authors may choose to write a certain way because "that's how it was done in the BP" (see eg. 5G below).


4. Main point

I don't want to keep you in suspense: Sorenson's main point is that it seems likely that the brass plates included, or were derived from, the "E" document. Thus, rather than the DH arguing against the divinity of the Bible (as some early LDS leaders may have thought), the DH is actually supported not only by the Bible, but also by the BoM.


5. Evidence of main point- this is the bulk of Sorenson's article. I'll focus on the most compelling/interesting aspects.

A. Influence of Northern Kingdom and tribe of Joseph
(1) E has a strong North Kingdom slant. In fact, some believe that it was an official rewriting of J intended for the North, perhaps produced around 900 BC. Sorenson basically takes that as a given.
(2) Lehi's genealogy (tribe of Joseph) is clearly a NK link, even though Lehi lived in Jerusalem. See Lehi's blessing to his son Joseph, for his emphasis of this link. In fact, the BoM adds data on Joseph not found in the OT.
(3) Zenos says, "as for those who are at Jerusalem", and nowhere else mentions either the tribe of Judah or the city Jerusalem. Thus he likely was not located within the lands of Judah.
(4) 3 Nephi 10:16 implies Zenos and Zenoch were from the tribe of Joseph
(5) The emphasis on Egyptian tradition and language (witness the characters used in writing the BoM) is also consistent with Northern Kingdom heritage.

B. Lack of mention of Davidic covenant--As Sorenson writes, "The Book of Mormon virtually ignores the Davidic covenant, which is a J element. David is mentioned but six times (twice only incidentally in quotations from Isaiah). Two instances involved strong condemnation of David."

C. Considerable attention to Abrahamic covenant--"all 29 references to Abraham [in the BoM] are laudatory."

D. Jacob is called "Jacob" rather than "Israel"--J refers to Jacob as "Israel", rather than as "Jacob". The BoM, however, always calls him "Jacob", an E characteristic.

E. The Jews are consistently branded as evil-- This should come as no surprise to readers of the BoM, and again, is consistent with a work that originated outside the lands of Judah.

F. "E" source names of God occur in the BoM-- In particular, the BoM contains the names "Most High God" (Hebrew "El Elyon") six times, and "Almighty God" ("El Shaddai") eleven times. These are E source names.

G. BoM focuses on events, rather than people-- One difference between J and E is a tendency on J's part to give "remarkable characterizations of people", and a tendency on E's part to "focus on events". The BoM, like E, tends to give minimal treatment of characters, and instead typically describes the action. This may be because of the example of the BPs. Similarly, the BoM (in contrast to J) describes contacts with God through dreams and angelic ministers rather than through direct appearances of the Lord.

H. The Book of Abraham (in Pearl of Great Price) does *not* contain "E" elements-- Sorenson cites a not-yet-published work by Robert F. Smith, "A documentary analysis of the Book of Abraham", which shows that the BoA does *not* contain features of the E document, but features of J and P instead (unfortunately these features are not delineated). Thus, it's unlikely that Joseph Smith's personal writing preferences are just coincidentally similar to the E style.


6. Conclusion

Sorenson concludes that "There appears good evidence that the BoM contains elements which are congruent with what scholars on the OT distinguish as the E or Elohistic source." He views that as fitting in very well with the brass plates coming from a tribe of Joseph heritage, as is described in the BoM.


7. My comments

I don't really have the background to know whether everything Sorenson said about E was accurate, so I have to trust him on that. I do know the BoM quite well, however, and I was impressed that Sorenson was able to point out things that I hadn't thought of before, such as the lack of mention of the Davidic covenant, and the tribe of Joseph heritage of Zenos and Zenoch. In short, I do find the arguments presented by Sorenson to be persuasive, if not 100% convincing. Any one of the points above may be considered circumstantial, but taken as a whole they are fairly solid in my opinion. At any rate, it's interesting to think about.


The End

Spanglish - 6/10. A very entertaining movie that was unfortunately ruined for me by one IMO unnecessary bedroom scene between Adam Sandler's character & wife--otherwise it would probably be a 9/10. It was very witty, and didn't follow the stereotypical Hollywood script. Paz Vega was outstanding as Flor, and the innate goodness that she exuded was the key to the movie.

Cast Away - 7/10. Tom Hanks on screen by himself for 90% of the movie--wow, how many actors could pull that off? Interesting character study. Well-known movie, so I don't have to say more.

Miracle - 9/10. Doesn't get a 10 because I'm not sure how meaningful it would be for someone that has no interest in hockey (my kids seemed bored at times, for example). Very inspiring to me, though.

Say Anything - 5/10. A very deep movie compared to the typical "high school kids coming of age" film--in this movie, the kids are struggling with very grown-up problems. Interesting screen play, witty dialog, but I can see why it isn't as well-known as some other movies of the genre/era-- what was the target audience? It was likely not interesting/fun enough for the teens, and likely to high-schoolish for adults. Sex became too big a topic about halfway through the movie, and all in all I can't really recommend it. Nicely acted by John Cusack, but I thought the girlfriend's acting was weak.

Cellular - 7/10. Too much "s-word". Interesting setup, but Pauline gave up on the movie after ~30 mins because she felt the "can't hang up" business was getting old. Very suspenseful, though, especially once the cell phone connection was lost (about halfway through the movie; sorry for the spoiler). Well acted by Chris Evans as the initially self-centered guy who catches the call and proceeds to risk everything to save Kim Bassinger and her family. Bassinger does a good job as well.

Angels With Dirty Faces - 7/10. Classic gangster film. James Cagney was very good in the role. What made the movie was the twist at the end where Cagney's priest friend appeals to Cagny to show true courage. How and why the priest does that, and whether Cagney follows through with the request, I'll let you find out for yourself.

Just to follow up on the Mormons and the Bible book summary I did a couple of weeks ago. (Find it via that link, or by going to the July archives.)

I gave a summary of the interesting book, but not too many personal thoughts, so here are some of my reflections.

One thing in particular that I thought was interesting was how wide the spectrum actually is on LDS biblical views. If you think about official church statements, there's the article of faith, "We believe the Bible to be the word of God..." but that's about it-- there's nothing that tells LDS how literal/symbolic the word of God actually is. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just one that I hadn't really thought much about before. So members are free to form their own opinions.

I think this should probably be emphasized more, because as the book points out, the rigid McConkie view has become the norm now. And people who don't hold that view may even feel embarrassed to bring up competing viewpoints.

For example, a month or two ago we had a Sunday school lesson that covered an incident where the Israelites slaughtered an entire city, including women & children--and according to the literal text of the Bible, they were commanded to do so by the Lord. The teacher (Pauline, actually) basically presented this reading of the text as if it were fact, until someone in the class spoke up and said, "Doesn't this bother anybody else?" He didn't say much more than just that, but from talking to him afterward I learned a bit more about he viewed the passage. After reading the book, I can see now that his view was basically that of Lowell Bennion--that our knowledge of God should trump the actual text of the Bible. So in that case, he felt that the Bible was in err because it didn't fit what we know about God's nature from elsewhere in the scriptures.

I think his view is certainly an acceptable view that people can consider. And in fact, I myself spoke up in the class after his comment, to point out that the particular chapter was apparently written long after the events (there was a verse saying something like, "and thus we see how such-and-such started happening"), and that it may well have been recorded wrong. "The victors write the history," and all that—and that is actually my own view on many of these type of Old Testament incidents (although I wouldn't always go as far as Bennion apparently did).

But—and this is what I now think is most interesting—this man apparently didn't feel entirely comfortable expressing his full view in the class. And that's too bad, in my opinion. He would probably have been surprised to find out that Brigham Young called parts of the Old Testament "baby stories", and that his own "controversial view" (as he apparently felt) was probably well within the overall spectrum of LDS belief.

One other thing I didn't mention in the book summary is that Barlow places each of the case studies in the historical context and shows that a lot of times the LDS person's view mirrors the larger view of religious society at the time. What it seems like to me, though, is that due to the LDS emphasis on tradition and authority, the LDS perspective changes in a much different way than does that of larger society.

In other words, Joseph Fielding Smith's reaction to higher criticism was just the same as many other church-goers of his era—but since LDS today revere McConkie as an inspired apostle, and McConkie revered JFS as an inspired apostle, JFS's views tend to still be very applicable in todays' LDS church. By contrast, some random [makes up denomination] Presbyterian church leader from the same time period as JFS might have had a similar view, but those views would likely not count for much in his church today.

This works subconsciously I think, for the most part—but also selectively. That is, even though we all revere Brigham Young as an inspired church leader, his opinion of the Bible probably doesn't get quoted nearly as often as e.g. McConkie's and JFS's. But that doesn't necessarily mean it shouldn't.

Last weeks Sunday School lesson was on the Biblical book of Proverbs. In honor of that, here's a list of 20 of my favorite proverbs from the book. They still seem like very good advice today!

Importance of learning

1. Proverbs 1:7 - The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

2. Proverbs 9:9 - Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.

3. Proverbs 14:7 - Go from the presence of a foolish man, when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge.

Trust and listen to the Lord

4. Proverbs 3:5-6 - Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

5. Proverbs 3:11-12 - My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.

Hold your tongue (esp. do not gossip or lie)

6. Proverbs 12:22 - Lying lips are abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly are his delight.

7. Proverbs 13:3 - He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life: but he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction.

8. Proverbs 18:8 - The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly.

9. Proverbs 29:11 - A fool uttereth all his mind: but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards.

Hold your temper

10. Proverbs 14:29 - He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding: but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.

11. Proverbs 15:1 - A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.

12. Proverbs 16:32 - He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.

Keep the commandments

13. Proverbs 6:16-19 - These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.

14. Proverbs 8:13 - The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.

15. Proverbs 14:34 - Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.

Miscellaneous

16. Proverbs 16:18 - Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

17. Proverbs 17:17 - A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

18. Proverbs 17:22 - A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.

19. Proverbs 22:1 - A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold.

20. Proverbs 22:6 - Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Another bit of news from my life that I should mention, is that I was asked to be the V.P. of the La Crosse Chamber Chorale. I had formerly been a board member, so my Chamber Chorale salary will be double last year's amount! ;-) The VP always becomes the president the following year, so I have that to "look forward" to as well. Hopefully the additional time committment won't be too much. It's an excellent choir with an excellent group of people, though, so I think it's a good investment of my time.

OK, I fixed a couple of things that were bothering me. Construction complete for now.

I'm working on the blog template for a bit. Apologies if things don't look quite right.

After I wrote the "How do I know you?" post two days ago, I realized that what I really wanted was a guestbook like my parents used to keep--visitors to our house when I was a kid would sign in, leaving their name, address and comments. So, I started one! Instead of leaving comments in that "How do I know you?" post, please sign my new guestbook. Thanks!

(Sorry Patrick and Mom, that means you have to sign in again! ;-) )

I've noticed via my "map counter" that this blog has had visitors from many more places than I would have guessed. I suspect almost everyone that visits here is either a friend, a family member, or an acquaintance from Jazzfanz.com--since those are basically the three groups of people that I've told about my blog.

So, if you don't mind, please take a second and leave a comment saying who you are and/or how I know you. Much appreciated!

Edited: apparently I had been using the setting that only allowed registered users to leave comments. I think I've changed that, so that anyone can leave a comment now: select "Anonymous" user.

Here's a link to a once-in-a-lifetime basketball shot. I had to watch it three times to convince myself the ball really went in.

http://www.collegehumor.com/movies/1702220

On the way home from Bayfield, we stopped by Lake Wissota, in Chippewa Falls, WI, which is by Eau Claire. There was a small zoo nearby, so we stopped there as well.


Leslie wading in the lake.


Kids sitting on a bear.

I got into trouble when I tried to put too many pictures in a single blog entry, so here are two more pictures. Click to enlarge the pictures, as usual.


I think this was the mainland, on our way back.


A panoramic view of the islands, created by "stitching" together 9 photos side-by-side. I was pretty happy this turned out so well. Round of applause for our Canon Powershot S45!

Note: if the last picture seems rather small, it's likely because Microsoft Internet Explorer tends to resize the picture automatically to fit the browser window. After clicking on the thumbnail picture in this page, move and hold your mouse over the larger image that comes up, for a few seconds. An "expand" icon will then appear in the lower right hand side. Click on it and you'll see the picture full size. Or you can download the picture directly from here (right click and select "Save target as") and view it with whatever image viewer you like!

Bayfield is right next to the Apostle Islands. We took a boat tour of the islands.


A view of Bayfield from our tour boat.


A typical Apostle Island.



A couple of interesting rock formations.


Emily having groovy hair on a windy day on the boat.

We took a few days of vacation last week and drove north to Lake Superior. It has enough fresh water to fill all of the rest of the Great Lakes put together! Here are some pictures from our trip. Enjoy! (Click on the pictures for larger versions.)

These pictures are from Bayfield, WI, where we stayed for a night.


Pauline and kids in front of the "Old Iron Bridge" in Bayfield, WI.


Pauline on a twisty path we took to see some (small) waterfalls.


The whole family in front of the bridge.

I got to thinking a couple of days ago about reasons why I like living in La Crosse. Of course there's plusses & minues, but here are some of the plusses. And I'm sure I've left some off the list, but these are the ones that sprang immediately to mind.

• People smile & say "Hi" to strangers on the street (this was the item that kind of started me thinking; when I went to Madison last month I was really taken aback that people on the sidewalk would look down and refuse to make eye contact as I walked by)
• Nice neighbors
• 7 minute commute (8 minutes by bike)
• La Crosse Chamber Chorale, an excellent community choir that I can sing in. (And a 7 minute drive to choir practice!)
• A good, thriving, undergraduate physics program at UW-L (and good co-workers in the Physics Dept)
• Area festivals (Riverfest, Jazzfest, sand sculpting by the river, Cornfest, Applefest, etc)
• Fireworks on July 4th and Dec 31st
• Good schools
• City programs for the kids
• Seeing people I know about 50% of the time I go into a store, restaurant, musical event, etc.
• Not worrying too much that stuff will "wander off" if not locked up 100% of the time ("slippery", as the Book of Mormon would call it)
• (later addition, thanks to Todd E.) The gorgeous bluffs & Mississippi river

This is a painting Pauline did a few months ago, one of my very favorites that she's done! Hope she doesn't mind me sharing! (Click on the image to see a larger version.)

This was a rant I ranted night before last, at a basketball website, of all things-- www.jazzfanz.com (best Utah Jazz fan website out there).

It was prompted by someone posting a link to this news article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060731/ap_on_re_us/creation_museum_1

Museum uses bible to tell earth's history

By DYLAN T. LOVAN, Associated Press Writer

PETERSBURG, Ky. - Like most natural history museums, this one
has exhibits showing dinosaurs roaming the Earth. Except here, the giant
reptiles share the forest with Adam and Eve.

That, of course, is contradicted by science, but that's the
point of the $25 million Creation Museum rising fast in rural Kentucky.

Its inspiration is the Bible — the literal interpretation that
contends God created the heavens and the Earth and everything in them just a few
thousand years ago.

"If the Bible is the word of God, and its history really is
true, that's our presupposition or axiom, and we are starting there," museum
founder Ken Ham said during recent tour of the sleek and modern facility, which
is due to open next year.

Ham, an Australian native who started the Christian publishing
company Answers in Genesis in the late 1970s, said the goal of his privately
funded museum is to change minds and rebut the scientific point of view.

"We're going to show you that we can make sense of the different
people groups, we can make sense of fossils, we can make sense of what you see
in the world," he said.

Visitors to the museum, a few miles from Cincinnati, will be
able to watch the story of creation unfold in a 180-seat special-effects
theater, see a 40-foot-tall recreation of a section of Noah's Ark and stare into
the jaws of robotic dinosaurs.

"It's education, but it's also doing it in an entertaining way,"
Ham said.

Scientists say fossils and sophisticated nuclear dating
technology show that the Earth is more than 4 billion years old, the first
dinosaurs appeared around 200 million years ago, and they died out well before
the first human ancestors arose a few million years ago.

"Genesis is not science," said Mary Dawson, curator emeritus of
vertebrate paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh.
"Genesis is a tale that was handed down for generations by people who really
knew nothing about science, who knew nothing about natural history, and
certainly knew nothing about what fossils were."

Ham said he believes most fossils are the result of the Great
Flood described in Genesis.

Mark Looy, a vice president at Answers in Genesis, said the
museum has received at least $21 million in private donations. He said two
anonymous donors have given $1 million, and he expects the museum to be
debt-free when it opens next May.

John Morris, president of the Institute for Creation Research in
San Diego, an organization that promotes creationism, said the museum will
affirm the doubts many people have about science, namely the notion that man
evolved from lower forms of life.

"Americans just aren't gullible enough to believe that they came
from a fish," he said.

Most of the responses were appropriately (IMO) against the establishment of such a "museum". Here's one I agreed with:

That's where I have trouble with it...when they start claiming
that it's science. It hurts our scientific community in more ways than
one.

And lets not get into what our math and science situation is in
this country.

I replied to that opinion, to begin my own rant.

__________________

[begin rant]

Bingo.

It's time for me to inject some more of my own opinions into this thread. Prepare for me to step on the soapbox.

I'll tell you, the quote from a previous poster that probably has bothered me the most in this whole thread was:

More importantly, where do you get off calling someone that has a different belief system than you ignorant?

Maybe he didn't mean it in precisely this way, but this is where political correctness has led us to: person A's theory is just as valid as person B's theory, because "it's OK for people to have different belief systems".

That is the antithesis of the scientific method.

The scientific method says we test out theories, and if they hold water, we keep them. If they don't, we don't. Pardon the religious metaphor here, but it's what allows us to make decisions (like governmental policy) on a foundation made out of rock, rather than a foundation made out of sand.

I was recently at a teaching conference where one of the topic of conversations was "What should students learn from their general education experience?" A list of 10 or so items were tossed out from an opinion piece we were discussing--an opinion piece which had "inspired" many of my fellow professors. Many of the items mentioned in the piece were good and important, in my opinion. But far too many of them focused on things like "appreciating diversity", "learning to think outside one's own world-view", and "recognizing validity of alternate viewpoints" (I'm paraphrasing).

Not a single one addressed "critical thinking" in any form.

I would have put that at #1 on my list of what college students should be learning. How to tell fact from fiction. How to weigh evidence and understand what's significant. What is likely to be true. How to use their heads. How to separate hoax from reality. How to research a topic and decide whether someone else's opinion is meaningful/correct/etc. How to make meaningful estimations based on known evidence. I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

We were asked "what items would you add to this list", and I mentioned "critical thinking". Not a single one of my colleagues (we were about 15-20 people, from all different disciplines) spoke up to agree with me, to say, "Yes, that's really important for students to learn." Boggled my mind.

___

Let me move on to Creationism--and by Creationism I don't mean the folks that believe in a Creator, since I'm one of those myself. In fact, anyone who's read much here knows I am one of the most religious guys on this site. By Creationism, I'm talking about the folks that tend to believe in a literal reading of Genesis, as discussed in this wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation-evolution_controversy

Intelligent Design is the subset of Creationism that is typically involved in these discussions. ID as is used in today's political climate is not just the belief that the universe was intelligently designed--after all, as a religious believer, that's something I think is true--it tends to be a belief in a particular type of design, basically that viewed as correct by a particular religious crowd. See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design_movement

What really bugs me about this particular crowd is that they are trying to win scientific equivalence for theories which are not science. And they are trying to win this equivalence through political--not scientific!--channels. "Let's pass a bill requiring science teachers to teach both evolution and creationism. What's the harm? They're both just theories. We should give equal time to opposing arguments."

The harm is that one is a scientific theory, having gone through the scientific process, peer review of articles, etc., etc., and the other is not. One is part of the scientific consensus, and is believed by 99.9% of scientists to be the truth, or fairly close to the truth. The other is not.

There is no equivalency between the two, and to teach our kids that there is does them a tremendous disservice. It destroys any chance we have of teaching them critical thinking and the scientific process.

You might be interested in reading these two editorials from the past year, written for the American Physics Society News. I don't agree 100% with the writers, but I agree with a lot of what they have to say.

October 2005
http://www.aps.org/apsnews/1005/100518.cfm

April 2006
http://www.aps.org/apsnews/0406/040617.cfm

The second one in particular, by Lawrence M. Krauss, seems to have some good quotes which summarize my views fairly well:

The dishonesty of ID lies in its proponents pointing to a controversy when there really is no controversy. A friend of mine did an informal survey of more than 10 million articles in major science journals during the past twelve years. Searching for the key word evolution pulled up 115,000 articles, most pertaining to biological evolution. Searching for Intelligent Design yielded 88 articles. All but 11 of those were in engineering journals, where, of course, we hope there is discussion of intelligent design. Of the 11, eight were critical of the scientific basis for ID theory and the remaining three turned out to be articles in conference proceedings, not peer-reviewed research journals.

The ID strategy is also unfair in a very particular way. Consider how real-world science gets done. Suppose you have a novel scientific claim. You do some research on it. You then submit an article to journals. The journals send it out to idiots called peer reviewers, and those idiots tell you why you're wrong, and then you have to fight with them and tell them why they're idiots, and it goes on and on. If you're lucky, you get published. What happens next? If your work is interesting, other people will begin to look at it and do follow-up research. If it's really interesting, you'll build a scientific consensus, which may take ten, 20, 30, or 40 years. Only then does your work get mentioned in high-school textbooks.

ID advocates want to skip all the intermediate steps. They want to take their theory straight into high school textbooks. And that's not fair. ID advocates are unwilling to play by the same rules as scientists. If they believe ID is a scientific theory, they should welcome the requirement that they go through all the steps that other scientists have to go through before their work makes it way into textbooks.

We face a vast problem in the public understanding of science.... [A good fraction of people surveyed] thought creationism, evolution, and ID should be taught-on grounds of fairness, of course.

So what's the harm of this particular museum? Probably not too much, but it is symptomatic of something much larger which is doing serious harm to our country.

[end rant]

# posted by John Colton @ 10:08 PM 2 comments

OK, I may have missed a few of the best, but I recently created this list for someone who said he hadn't watched many movies. I thought about what movies I would consider "must see" for someone returning to civilization after having been on a deserted island for 20-30 years, and this is the result.

Feel free to add comments with more suggestions, and if I agree I'll add them to the list.

12 Angry Men
Amadeus
Apollo 13
Aresenic and Old Lace
Back to the Future trilogy (esp. 1 and 3)
Batman Begins
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Charade
Chariots of Fire
Duck Soup
Gandhi
Ghostbusters
Groundhog Day
Guess Who's Coming To Dinner
High Noon
Hoosiers
In the Heat of the Night
Lord Of The Rings Trilogy
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Mr. Smith Goes To Washington
Napoleon Dynamite
North by Northwest
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
Raiders of the Lost Ark trilogy (esp. 1 and 3)
Rudy
Secondhand Lions
Shrek & Shrek 2
Singin’ In The Rain
Sky High
Some Like It Hot
Spiderman & Spiderman 2
Stand and Deliver
Star Wars trilogy (original)
A Christmas Story
The Emperor’s New Groove
The Fugitive
The Incredibles
The Maltese Falcon
The Manchurian Candidate
The Prince of Egypt
The Princess Bride
The Producers (original version; I haven’t yet seen the remake)
The Right Stuff
The Sting
Toy Story & Toy Story 2
Young Frankenstein
Zoolander


Hard to go wrong with any of those.