New Derek Webb CD

Mocking Bird.

"She Must and Shall Go Free" is about Jesus and the Church. This one's about proclaiming the Kingdom.

Here's an inciteful interview about the album.

Beautiful Savior vs. Fairest Lord Jesus

I found this intriguing: "Beautiful Savior" in the Psalter hymnal comes as "Fairest Lord Jesus" in other hymnals. I am not sure of the reasons for this change, but I suspect that the Psalter editors didn't like the lyrics in the first verse, so they threw them out, renamed the song, and modified several other lyrics. I honestly don't know which is the original or classic version, but I have seen the Psalter change the original before. Judge for yourselves.

This is what I grew up with in "Praise! Our Songs and Hymns":

Fairest Lord Jesus

Fairest Lord Jesus! Ruler of all nature!
O Thou of God and man the Son!
Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honor,
Thou my soul's glory, joy and crown.

Fair are the meadows, Fairer still the woodlands,
Robed in the blooming garb of spring:
Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer,
Who makes the woeful heart to sing.

Fair is the sunshine, Fairer still the moonlight,
And all the twinkling storry host:
Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer
Than all the angels heav'n can boast.

Beautiful Savior! Lord of the nations!
Son of God and Son of Man!
Glory and honor, Praise, adoration
Now and forevermore be Thine!

Here is the Psalter's rendition:

Beautiful Savior

Beautiful Savior! King of creation!
Son of God and Son of Man!
Truly I'd love thee, truly I'd serve thee,
Light of my soul, my joy, my crown

Fair are the meadows, fair are the woodlands,
robed in flowers of blooming spring;
Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer;
he makes our sorrowing spirit sing.

Fair is the sunshine, fair is the moonlight,
bright the sparkling stars on high;
Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer
than all the angels in the sky.

Beautiful Savior! Lord of the nations!
Son of God and Son of Man!
Glory and honor, praise, adoration,
now and forevermore be thine!

Common Latin Phrases

This is a list of some of those annoying Latin phrases that people could say in English, but rather say in Latin in order to be pedantic.

New Buddha?

I vote that he's been dead for weeks.

Expensive art

I can't say I understand why this is valueable art. Probably a lot of factors, and a lot of art factors I don't understand. There seems to be this elite art culture that can tell what "good" art is, while the rest of us scratch our heads. To me it seems subjective in part. I do think there is a lot I would need to study about art before I understand why this is valuable, but then, the artists these days are painting for the elites. As a non-art-elite, I see no reason why I should value this art at all. I don't think it is absolutely ugly. I might look at it and say, hmmm. But if I didn't know better, I'd think somebody forgot to finish it, or that there was just excess paint on piece in front of it.

CSI Joins the Embrionic Stem Cell Debate

Last night's CSI episode included a confrontation between Catherine Willows and the head of an organization that finds surrogate mothers for leftover embryos from in vitro fertilization. Willows tends to be arrogant and snappy, and this episode followed suit.

Two obsevations about the encounter:
1. Willows had the upper hand in the confrontation. She referenced a Pope from the 1600's who stated that life begins when the mother can sense movement. The other woman (I will call her the nurse) could only resort to the weak post modern retort, "Thats just your view." When the nurse had clearly lost the arguement, she was unhelpful to the investigators because Willows' statements were stated disrespectfully.

2. When Grisom reprimanded Willows for her conduct, he actually gave her advise for a stronger argument. He quoted a verse from the Bible about blood being the determiner of human life.

Basically, this episode manipulates the viewer into thinking that the normal, and intelligent people have no problems with killing embryos, and that those who are against it are unintelligent and have no basis for it beyond their faith. They also use strawman arguements which give a very slanted presentation of the issue. It may well be that the writers have only had confrontations with prolifers like the nurse, but this still sets back the prolife movement since many people who watch CSI will never hear the real prolife response to Willows' and Grisom's arguments.

What are those responses? Well, basically, I don't give a lot a weight to the pope. And, if I remember correctly, the life blood verses in scripture refer more to a means of seeing who has died, or to dietary laws. The reason to oppose stem cell research is that the embryo is a human in an early form of development (this cannot be refuted successfully) and should be respected of its right to life (this is what is disputed here). I do not see how one can come to the conclusion that killing a human at a particular age is moral without drawing arbitrary lines in the sand. They may be informed lines, and there may be reasons behind it, but they are not difinitive. It is a prefrence to think that human life is only worthy if brain waves are flowing. It is a prefrence to think that we can kill humans if they have yet to get blood pumping. Why can I not then prefer to kill my two year old for the reason that his sexual organs are not yet developed? For this reason I think those artificial lines in the sand are absurd.

Yummy

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"Living" Constitution

It is a hard thing to amend and modify the Constitution. The founders made it that way, to ensure that a large portion of the population is sure that they want that change. The Constitution was even quite controversial in its ratification. It was a compromise to get, not just a majority, but a super-majority.

Because of this, I find it hard to believe that the framers were concerned about leaving things in the Constitution vauge enough for a future court to interpret new meaning into the document, like "right to privacy." If they went through such pains to get it ratified initially, new rights and application of rights should also go through the agonizing process of debate and ratification in order to be added.

Currently, the Supreme court puts new meaning into the Constitution by abstracting concrete and specific rights, and generalizing them to apply to other concrete situations. This adds new rights and takes away other rights to their whim and reasons. But in effect, this is the equivalent of a revolution. Rather than take up arms, demand a change, and work something out amongst the survivors, they are wiggling their pens in the name of progress to make a new Constitution; one that has not been ratified by a super-majority.