Explanation II

So I’m sitting at the Thanksgiving dinner table talking to my Mom. She mentions the play she saw the previous Sunday. She comes up to see plays at the Arena stage with her friends, and I meet her for lunch beforehand. There is much lamenting at the end of lunch that I don’t then join them all for the play, but I’ve been to a couple plays at the Arena and they didn’t impress. But that’s not what I’m trying to explain here.

The play is apparently much ado about truth and honesty, which brings my mother to the question of “What would you do if the gestapo came to your door while you were hiding Anne Frank in your attic?” I hate that question.

Statement III

This post discusses the three corollaries of the Ineffability Principle (P2): The Doubt Corollary, the Tolerance Corollary, and the Rejection Corollary.

Quote IV

Quote of the week:

“Every club has a real jackass – the guy who smirks and makes some belittling remark when he beats you, always loud enough so that the other players can hear. Go play a few games with him. I guarantee that you’ll get motivated pretty quickly.” -Steve Lopez

Movie Review XI

Paul

Two British geeks on vacation to Comicon, leave on a road trip to visit the hot spots of USA’s UFO mythology: Area 51, the Black Mailbox, and Roswell. They are fleeing down the highway from what they think is a pair of angry rednecks, but find out after the car chasing them crashes that it is actually an alien named Paul, who has escaped from Area 51. Thus ensues a road trip/chase involving an ill mannered alien, an accidentally kidnapped Christian, her psychotic father, a man in black with two incompetent helpers, and the aforementioned angry rednecks.

Women II

Wednesday at work I was talking to some people. While we were all chatting about clouds, Thanksgiving, and Sharp Floor, Tall Needle walked around the corner. I have talked about Tall Needle before in the post Women I, but WordPress is not letting me insert hyper links today, so I can’t give it to you in one click.

Family II

So I went down to Charlottesville for Thanksgiving. Normally I leave early Thursday morning. There’s usually not a lot of traffic early in the morning, although it can get nasty later on. Then I stay overnight and head back Friday, which is also pretty leisurely.

Statement II

Principle 2: God is Beyond Our Understanding (The Ineffability Principle)

So there I was, believing in a miracle after rejecting my culture’s explanations for such things. Hell, I was even rejecting my culture’s common perception of what the miracle was. Besides, I was (am?) too stubborn to give in on a point like that. So I was left looking elsewhere for answers. And looking around, I saw a veritable cornucopia of religions. How could I determine which one was true?

Habit XIII

Wow! Five days since I last posted, no wonder my views are way down. So, let’s do an update on the habit formation. It sort of feels like the whole habit thing is over because the online course is over. But so far the Simple Method is working, and as long as it keeps working I am going to keep working on forming new habits. I’m assuming that eventually I will run out of room for habits, but I can use the method to change habits around as my life changes, and some of the habits I’m working on will make room for more habits.

Statement I

One thing I have been trying to work on, but have been failing to work on, is a document entitled What I Say. The Quaker movement was founded by George Fox. During my early attendance at Charlottesville Friends Meeting, I heard a quote attributed to Fox that really struck me: “You will say Christ saith this, and the apostles say this, but what canst thou say?” I found it to be a powerful call to examine my own beliefs and think for myself. It also resonates with the Buddha’s apocryphal last words: “Be beacons unto yourselves.” While this brought me to think about my beliefs, it didn’t get me to do it in any coherent fashion. Recently I started trying to be more coherent about it, which is how I started to work on What I Say, but work kept stalling out. Sitting here tonight after working on my Chess (23 tactics problems, 19 flash cards, and 13 moves in correspondence games), I realized I had more energy for writing this blog than I did for working on What I Say. The obvious solution was to move What I Say to the blog.

Movie Review X

Green Lantern

Abin Sur of the Green Lantern Corps is mortally wounded facing an unknown enemy. He crash lands on earth, where his magic green ring Hal Jordan, reckless and irresponsible jet pilot, to become the heir of the greatest Green Lantern ever known. Can the new, reluctant Green Lantern overcome his fear, save the planet earth, and get the girl? Don’t bother watching the movie, it’s not worth finding out.