To the faithful readers of this blog (all three of you),
I regret to inform you that this is my final post. Life has caught up with me. My responsibilities as a husband, father, friend, missionary/teacher, seminary student, and aspiring ice sculptor currently leave no room for the time consuming task of constructing coherent, meaningful (and hopefully somewhat amusing) blog material. Maybe when I retire (or find a job that only requires me to work twenty hours a week and still pays the bills) I’ll take this endeavor up again. For now, the Amateur Aficionado™ will stand as a monument to my desire to write about important issues (such as the meaning of life, coffee, and German shepherds) and my unfortunate lack of resources—viz. time, energy, and talent—to fulfill that desire.
In celebration of the relatively short life (not quite two years) of this blog, I leave you with my “Top Ten” favorite posts:
This is the third (and unfortunately the final) part of a conversation begun on the post, Dr. Watson’s Woes. In it we will be discussing whether a moral imperative (an “ought”) can be derived from a statement of fact (an “is”). Continue Reading »
To my fellow evangelicals: Don’t let Pat Robertson drag our name through the mud! His ridiculous comments only spread ignorance among his followers and incite others to angrily persecute anyone bearing the name “evangelical”. Sure, persecution must come, but let it come as a result of doing good (1 Peter 2:20), not because of Continue Reading »
This is the second part of a conversation begun on the post, Dr. Watson’s Woes.
Chris wrote,
I agree it is possible to feed selected evolutionary principles into a demonic mixer & come out with Nazi genocide. But a similar sort of appliance could take in bits of Christian thought & turn out the Crusades or Continue Reading »
Black Friday was indeed black. A mob of deal-hungry shoppers crashed through the doors at a Wal-Mart in Long Island yesterday at 5 a.m., trampling to death a store employee.
My heart breaks to think of the pathetic fate of the victim (he was only 34!). What an ignoble way to be killed. Where are the public demonstrations calling for justice? Where are the conscientious cries for reflection and repentance from our excessively materialistic ways?
Silenced by the heartless system that depends on greed and prodigality in order to thrive.
This comes from a conversation begun on the post, Dr. Watson’s Woes.
Chris wrote,
I’m intrigued though by expressions like ‘evolutionarily inferior’ & the idea that science’s inability to decide if one race is inferior to another represents some sort of moral issue that only theology can resolve. I don’t think it’s that science hasn’t yet come up with Continue Reading »
Sitting in a cafe/restaurant in Colonia, Uruguay last month, Emily and I were introduced to Bajofondo. One of their concerts was flashing on a wall-mounted flat screen TV and blasting through some stereo speakers. At first it sounded like the typical trip-hop, electro-tango jam. But then I realized it wasn’t. It had phat beats and beauty.
Bajofondo also uses real instruments, such as upright bass, violin, bandoneón, drums, and piano (along with some electronic gadgetry, of course), and they create real melody rather than looping fragments of existing songs. A handful of talented guest artists, including some well-known singers (such as Elvis Costello, Nelly Furtado, and Julieta Venegas, who, by the way, if you haven’t heard of her is really worth checking out), are also involved in the project. By the time we finished our dessert, I had made up my mind to buy their album as soon as I got home.
If you’re looking for something fresh and cross-cultural (specifically Argentine/Uruguayan, seasoned with a rich mixture of Milonga and Tango) then I highly recommend Bajofondo’s latest album, Mar Dulce.
