I Predict 2022

This is a bit late, but here goes:

1. I will fish at least once every month, including in some weather conditions that will cause some people to think I am crazy for going out.  But as Sir Ranulf Fiennes says, “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.” I already got out in January, and got a nice plump trout that was a good meal for two. February will be challenging, since I have never ice fished.

I have an old boat now, that used to belong to my brother, so that will help me reach this goal.

2. Public discourse will become much more coarse and combative. “Let’s Go Brandon”, in addition to being an insult to Joe Biden, captures the feelings of people who know that they are being brazenly lied to.  That is just the beginning of what we will see in 2022.

3.  At some point, people will just ignore COVID-19 (or is that COVID 21 now?), and it will largely go away.  We may just accept that there is an infectious disease out there that has a small but non-zero chance of killing you. This the way we lived until antibiotic use became widespread, and we will have to adjust our expectations.

4. There will be a hard turn against “wokeness”, “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion”, transgenderism, and other forms of leftist thought.  The people espousing these views will not change for a while, but their victims are going to realize that they can’t be appeased, which means that they must fight back.  Once they fight, they will discover that their opponents are not all-powerful, and can be defeated.

5. Things will not get better for Joe Biden.  Pundits always “this is what Joe Biden can do to turn things around”.  But Joe can’t do this.  He was never very smart, he was wrong about everything for 50 years, and now on top of that he is old.  One bad thing after another will happen to him politically, but the prospect of Kamala Harris as President will keep him there for a while longer.

6. I will play in 3 physical, real chess tournaments where I get to see the tears run down the cheeks of the little kid who helplessly watches me Queen my pawn. I miss playing chess in real tournaments.

7. I will read 12 books this year. Audible books do not count, but if I read Moby Dick, or War and Peace, it can count double.

The Big Bear Brag

A priest, a pastor, and a rabbi were hiking together in the woods, when they saw a big bear.

The priest, who was a competitive sort, boasted, “I bet I can lead that bear to the one true Church, and get him to join my parish.”

The pastor, who was a Baptist keen on fulfilling the Great Commission, responded, “No, I think I will get that bear to come to my church every Sunday.”

The rabbi could not be left out of this, and replied, “I think that I can convert that bear to the Jewish faith and bring him to my synagogue.”

They agreed that the Priest should go first, and that they would meet the next month.

The priest met them with a big smile. “I had great success. First I used some special incense, and that made him sleepy,” he reported. “Then me and a few ushers dragged him to the stream, and I baptized him. Then I gave him Communion. I hope at least to see him at Christmas and Easter.”

The pastor congratulated him, but asked for his turn with the bear. A month later, he came back, beaming. “Well, Cousin Elmer shot him with a tranquilizer dart, put him in his pickup, and brought the bear to our church picnic.  When he woke up he ate a bucket of Sister Mabel’s fried chicken and all of Aunt Betty’s casserole. Then he ate the jello salad and drank about a gallon of our sweet tea. Me and Deacons Bubba and Billy Bob took him down to the deepest part of the stream and baptized him by full immersion, and now he comes back every Sunday for our pot lucks. He even comes to our Men’s prayer breakfasts, though he does more bacon eating than praying.”

The rabbi did not think he could beat this. For one thing, he did not imagine how to get the bear to give up bacon.  But he asked for a month to try.

The next week, the Rabbi’s wife called the priest and pastor. “Come to the hospital quickly, your friend is badly injured.” They went, and found him with broken bones, bite marks, and scratches all over his body. “What happened?” they asked the poor rabbi.

“Well, I found the bear, and I gave him a bagel with lox on it, and I started chanting a Psalm in Hebrew.  I thought I was doing well,” he said. “And then things went horribly wrong.”

“I never should have tried to circumcise that bear.”

Father Francis Hears a Confession

Father Francis was manning the confessional booth one Saturday morning, when he was surprised to see a doe walking up to him. Her head and tail were down, and her big brown eyes were sad. He thought he would give the poor creature an apple that he had packed for his lunch, but he was surprised when she spoke to him, saying, “Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.”
“Oh fairest of the forest creatures,” said Father Francis, “What could such an innocent creature as you have done?”
Thinking that this was her first confession, and that she might need help, he prompted, “Did you steal corn from Farmer Brown’s cornfield?”
Father Francis had recently heard Farmer Brown confess to anger about this, and thought this might be the reason. Also, he thought that if the doe repented of this quickly, she might be more likely to survive hunting season.
“Oh no,” said the doe. “I am always careful to eat acorns from the forest, and I only eat apples that have fallen from the trees and can’t be eaten by humans. I didn’t steal.”
“Were you the one who ran in front of Billy’s car and caused him to crash when he was taking Emily out on a date? If so, know that they are not hurt. You may be happy to know that Billy is grounded and cannot hunt this year.”
Father Francis had heard Billy confess to taking Emily parking, and had heard Emily’s father confess to wanting to throttle Billy. Emily was a Baptist so he did not hear her side of the story. He knew a lot about life in this town.
“No,” said the deer, whose name, by the way, is completely unpronounceable by humans. “That was my aunt. She gets careless sometimes, especially at this time of year. I am glad that they are well. I would not want to harm a human.”
“If it is not that, then what troubles you, my child? I am a human priest, and I do not know what sins could trouble a forest creature like you.” The priest was beginning to think that his namesake did not have such an easy job after all. He ran through the Seven Deadly Sins to try to help her.
“Was it Pride, Anger, Greed?”
Suddenly, the doe’s head slumped a little more, and her ears drooped.
“Father, I am embarrassed to tell you what I did for a few bucks.”

Snow What?

So, Erie is expecting 8-12 inches of snow starting any minute. We have had an early morning snow of 2-3 inches, which is totally normal for Erie.

Everyone is in some sort of panic.

The City of Erie declared a state of emergency starting at 8 a.m. Saturday and continuing until Monday, before any significant snow had fallen.  One commentator observed that this enables them to write more tickets.

Meanwhile, our governor has also declared a state of emergency, which limits speeds on interstates and bans commercial vehicles starting at noon today.  (If you drive a truck, you are out of luck.)  The declaration even enables the National Guard to be called out.

Guys, this is 8-12 inches, or maybe 10-15 in the worst case predicted, and it is far less in the southern parts of the state.  This is not the 48″ Snowmaggeddon of last year.  This weather would not even normally shut our schools down.  And since Monday is MLK Day, schools are already closed.

Who has decided that we are such incompetent weakling wusses that even the prediction of a foot of light, fluffy snow will confine us shivering to our warm houses, waiting for our Governor to give us the “all is safe, you may come out” sign?

2018 – A BLOGGING SABBATICAL

To my surprise, I have not written anything here in a year. I know that blogging is such less popular than it was 10 years ago, but still, it is surprising that the creative juices have failed to flow.

But 2018 was quite a year.

In 2017, I changed jobs, after 20 years at one place. The new job is with a better company, but it does come with a long commute. So I do not have as much spare time to write, especially since writing comes slowly to me. (Blogging helped me a lot with increasing writing speed.)

Combined with the job change and the long commute was a rather awful winter, which sometimes doubled my commute time.

But also, media like Facebook are bad for creativity. They discourage complex thoughts, and encourage a quick quip, or reacting to the latest madness in the world. (Twitter is even worse, which is a good reason not to Tweet.)

But on the plus side for this year, the nest is a bit emptier, and all residents of the household now have their driver’s licenses. And my commute leads me to listen to many audio books which leads to thinking, which is a necessary prerequisite for writing.

So, let’s see if 2019 will be a bit more inspired.

Missionary Stories about Marriage

It is good to hear the stories of missionaries, and find out how people in the rest of the world do things differently.

A few years ago I was traveling and visiting another church (if you are a Christian, and traveling on Sunday, you should do this – I have never regretted it), and we heard a report from missionaries who worked among Muslim refugees somewhere in southern Europe. As these Muslims became Christians, the question came up. Was their Muslim marriage valid? Many of these marriages were arranged based on the desires of their parents, and the terms of Muslim marriages frequently give few rights to the woman. (For example, in many Muslim countries, the husband may take up to 4 wives. This is uncommon, because it is expensive, but it can happen.)

The solution arrived at by the missionaries was for the newly Christian couples to renew their vows in a Christian marriage ceremony. They did not deny the validity of the Muslim marriage, but they re-affirmed the marriage in new, Christian terms. “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy…”

A pastor I know teaches in Africa, and he reports on a strange (to us) marriage custom:

How many cows is she worth? The bride price is a culturally embedded practice that has prevented many in the church from marrying. Unless the uncles of the bride are given their determined amount of cows, or the equivalent value in cash and gifts, they do not grant permission for a young woman to marry. They receive these gifts and the couple makes promises to one another and to their families at the very colorful event called the Kwanjula. The Christian churches have added to this by requiring that the couple then have a “white wedding” in the church building to bind the couple before God. This, too, is a very costly and extravagant event. Many couples put off this white wedding, but they live together without rings on their fingers, having children and grandchildren.

We have the custom of giving gifts to the new couple. In Africa, somehow the uncles have managed to make marriage into a way for THEM to profit. (If anything, the cows ought to go to the bride’s father, to be held in trust for the bride.)  Some churches, unfortunately, have added another layer of expense, so that many couples want to be married, and they live as married couples, but they have a load of guilt because they are not certain of their real status.

This pastor recognizes that these couples are married before God once they have taken their vows, and that they should wear rings and feel no shame. But to make matters clear, and put their fears to rest, he presided over a simple church wedding service for some couples in this situation, with a simple party.

We Americans may be tempted to look at other customs and feel superior, but how would other nations look at our customs?  Undoubtedly, our super-expensive wedding customs deter some people from marrying.

Sassing Back at Senator Sanders

Senator Sanders, fresh from losing to Hillary Clinton, has decided to take up theological arguments in the middle of a Senate hearing for a position in the Office of Management and Budget. (BTW, we could use Dave Ramsey in the OMB, but he was not the nominee.) Apparently believing what most Christians have believed for the last 2,000 years, and having the audacity to publish opinions based on this belief is enough to get the socialist Senator extremely angry. (Watch the video here. Senator Sanders acts shamefully starting at about 24:00, and then at 40:00.)  Russell Vought, unfortunately, was not expecting this treatment, and so this exchange quickly devolved into verbal mud-wrestling.

We Christians need to get used to this sort of treatment, and be ready to respond quickly. So here are some proposed improvements to Mr. Vought’s responses:

Sen. Sanders: Let me get to this issue that has bothered me and bothered many other people. And that is in the piece that I referred to that you wrote for the publication called Resurgent. You wrote, “Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ, His Son, and they stand condemned.” Do you believe that that statement is Islamophobic?

Vought: Absolutely not, Senator. “Phobia” means irrational fear, and in the long run, there is nothing to fear even from Islamic terrorists. Even though they currently kill gays, Jews, and Christians, they will all, just like you, Senator,  bend their knees before King Jesus. Unfortunately, in the short term they seem to be causing some problems, such as blowing up gay nightclubs and pop-music concerts. And that is why I practice concealed carry, Senator. Do you?

Sen. Sanders: I apologize. Forgive me, we just don’t have a lot of time. Do you believe people in the Muslim religion stand condemned? Is that your view?

Vought: Are you asking me if I believe that Muslims will not go to heaven when they die?

Sen Sanders: Yes, that is a fair restatement of my question.

Vought: I assure you that on that point, I am in complete agreement with the position of the American Atheists Society.

Sen. Sanders: What about Jews? Do they stand condemned too?

Vought: Don’t you mean “we”? If you are concerned about where you will go when you die, then perhaps can talk in another place.  May I remind you that, even though I am a Christian, I am nominated for a job in the Office of Management and Budget, not a job in the National Cathedral.

Sanders (shouting): I understand you are a Christian, but this country are made of people who are not just — I understand that Christianity is the majority religion, but there are other people of different religions in this country and around the world. In your judgment, do you think that people who are not Christians are going to be condemned?

Vought: Thank you for probing on that question. As a Christian, I believe that all individuals are made in the image of God and are worthy of dignity and respect regardless of their religious beliefs. I believe that as a Christian that’s how I should treat all individuals, including those who constantly interrupt me in the middle of a sentence.

Sanders: You think your statement that you put into that publication, they do not know God because they rejected Jesus Christ, His Son, and they stand condemned, do you think that’s respectful of other religions?

Vought:  I said that I strive to respect all individuals, even if they have beliefs that I disagree with.  So for example, I try to respect even people whose holy book tells them they can have multiple wives, and that Jews would be turned into monkeys and pigs.  I even try to respect people who call themselves socialists, and who own 3 houses that they don’t share with others.

Sen. Sanders: I would simply say, Mr. Chairman, that this nominee is really not someone who this country is supposed to be about.

Chairman: Perhaps you should look up the beliefs of the people who sailed on the Mayflower…

A Modest Proposal for the Rioters in DC Protesting Inauguration Day

So, Donald Trump was inaugurated today, and there was much rejoicing. Winners are supposed to celebrate, so that is good.  There was also a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth.  That’s OK, too.

And then there was this.  (Like idiots, they smashed the windows in a Starbucks.  Starbucks, as a business, is as far left as they come.)

And this.  (Destroying an unused limo only hurts the driver, if he is inside.  Morons):

and this:

There is plenty of video too, of protesters setting fires, smashing windows, and occasionally hurting policemen.  Here is one:

The DC riot police are now Trump’s to command, and he faces some choices.

If the riot police use the force that is needed to end this quickly (which arsonists, rioters, and vandals deserve), we will never hear the end of the complaints about police brutality.  If he lets them get away with it, that is also very bad.  They will just go burn down another city the next time they get mad.  And there are an awful lot of people to arrest and prosecute, so even with their best efforts they will only be able to punish a small number of these criminals.

So here is an idea that should be pursued in aditional to any criminal charges.

The riot police should use their batons and shields and firehoses and teargas to herd these protesters  (or at least a large portion of them) into a confined area, like they were preparing to arrest them.  And then they should wait.

For hours.

In an area where the protesters have no food.

Or water.

Or bathroom facilities.

Just let them stew in their own juices for maybe 12 hours.  Or 24 or even 36 if they are being real jerks.

They won’t be able to complain about brutality, and there won’t be any video generated that will discredit the new administration.  There will just be a bunch of pathetic, cold, filthy, hungry vandals and arsonists.

 

I Shouldn’t Wine About this, But…

In the Christmas season, our office is full of gifts from vendors.  As expected, the Purchasing Department gets the most stuff, because, well, they buy the most stuff.  And most of it is food.  So if I visit that department enough, I don’t even need to buy lunch.

But sometimes even us engineers get a present.  Like this bottle of local wine a vendor sent me, as a token of appreciation for buying his equipment. It is called “Duct Tape Red”.  Unfortunately, this vendor is not from a place known for its wines, so our family of wine snobs did not give it the greatest reviews.  But that doesn’t mean I can’t write a blurb for it.  So here goes:

“Like its namesake, this red wine fixes everything, at least for a few hours, if used in large enough quantities.  With hints of its namesake, cranberries, and Gatorade, it is best enjoyed in a Red Solo cup, over ice, in large quantities, after a nasty break-up, the death of one’s favorite ‘Walking Dead’ character,” or despair over the results of the last election.”

I think it will be OK if we add some juices and make sangria out of it.

Why is Christmas on December 25?

Many people will say that December 25 (or January 6, if you are Eastern Orthodox) is a made-up date for Jesus’ birthday. They will say that Christians chose the day, not because it was Jesus birthday, but because it was the same time as Saturnalia. The idea is that Christians picked the date either to replace the pagan feast day, or to be able to celebrate something on that day in order to evade persecution. So, when was Jesus really born?

In Luke’s gospel, there are some hints at the real date of Jesus’ birth. Luke is the gospel writer who is most detail oriented, and the most likely to tie events to secular history. For example, in Luke 2:1-3, we know that Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem as a result of a census. If we knew from Roman history when the census was, we would at least be able to place the date of Jesus’ birth within a season. Lacking this, however, we can begin to work backwards.

The people at that time believed that it took nine months (270 days) from conception to birth. This is not exactly right (at least these days), but it is fairly close.

Luke 1:26-38 records Gabriel’s message to Mary. There are two chronological clues here. One is that this event happened “in the sixth month” (v. 26). I have two commentaries (William Hendrickson and Matthew Henry) that say this is referring to the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, but it could also mean the sixth month of the year. The other clue is that Elizabeth is in her “sixth month” of pregnancy when Gabriel spoke to Mary. For this to work, we need to assume that Mary conceived very shortly after Gabriel appeared, it is sixth months from Elizabeth’s conception of John the Baptist to Mary’s conception of Jesus.

So we know that John the Baptist was conceived 15 months before Jesus was born.

If we continue backwards, we note that John the Baptist’s father was Zecharias, a priest of “the division of Abijah.” This means almost nothing to the modern reader, but for a reader in Luke’s time this meant a lot. There were many priests by this time, and they had to take turns ministering in the temple. If you knew which division a priest came from, you could figure out when he served at the Temple. It was believed that a priest ended his service in the Temple at the end of a Jewish calendar year.

There is another assumption at work here. The calculation assumes that Zecharias, shortly after his vision, went home, and that John the Baptist was conceived shortly thereafter. This is not a bad assumption.

So if we follow these dates, working backwards from December 25, we get:

Gabriel appears to Mary (March 25)

Angel appears to Zecharias (September 25 of previous year).

There is an ancient church document (“De Solstitiis”) which works with the assumption that Zecharias completed his term of service in the Temple on this date (which is also when the Jewish year changes over.)

Here are some notes from a lecture by Dr. Jack Kinneer (Origins of Christmas) that explain how and when Christmas originated, and how the dates were calculated. This focuses on how the date was derived using biblical data.

Here is another article (Calculating Christmas, by William J. Tighe) which looks at other ways that the date of Christmas was calculated.

In conclusion, the date of Christmas that we celebrate may not be right, but it was a good educated guess by teachers in the Ancient Church. It was not a date picked because of its association with a pagan holiday. (In fact, the reverse may be true.) To get this date, they used information from the Bible, plus knowledge of Jewish practices, plus some assumptions that were common at the time.