Scripturient

Forgery!

2013-01-28 2013-01-28 Arts / Atheism & Spirituality / Books & Reviews / ReligionLeave a comment

Forgery. It’s something that one normally associates with criminals; passing counterfeit bills, scammers, online pirates, people selling fake relics or fake ID. It’s something I would not normally associate with religion. But it’s a significant problem in the book millions of people cherish as infallible, perfect and absolute: the Bible. At least that’s what Bart D. Ehrman contends in his latest book, Forged. If you are not familiar with Bart D. Ehrman’s writing, then you are in for an intellectual treat. He writes about a fascinating subject: the development of early Christianity, including all the fringe groups, challengers like the ……… click below for more ↓

More construction at Centennial Pool

2013-01-26 2013-01-26 Collingwood / Municipal Politics / PhotographyLeave a comment

Here you can see the additional aluminum supports that have been erected to hold up the fabric covering. Only a small area at the north has had some of the fabric installed (visible at the lower left of the photo). Workers were doing some maintenance jobs, Saturday. You can see how tall the centre of the building is. It will feel spacious and airy, inside. Checking the struts and supports. Nice to see the company working on a weekend. This gives you an idea how big and roomy the final building will be. A view from the intersection at Spruce ……… click below for more ↓

Another day on the job in Paradise… chapter one

2013-01-25 2013-01-25 Balderdash & Hoaxes / Humour & Satire / Literary pretensions / My WritingLeave a comment

Mayor Ralph “Bosco” Hearne, whistling softly “Everything’s Up to Date in Kansas City” under his breath, gazed at the wood-and-polished-brass, 19th-century front doors of town hall and nodded slightly in approval. He stopped whistling, paused, and breathed out a gentle sigh of satisfaction. The gleam of the brass was unobstructed; his view extended through the big glass window clear into the atrium and to the back with its veined marble wall without a single thing to distract it. A few short minutes and the doors would open; town hall would be bustling with staff; residents would come and go, doing ……… click below for more ↓

Not the expected blog post, I’m afraid

2013-01-24 2013-01-24 Books & Reviews / Humour & Satire / Literary pretensions / Municipal Politics / Personal Reminiscences5 Comments

Sorry to disappoint those readers who expected this to be a blog post on ukuleles, tequila or our beautiful Mexican Sister City, Zihuatanejo (“Zee-hwa” for those in the know). I refer, of course, to comments in the recent parody video, in which my blog was commented upon (as if blogging was something conspiratorial, but it seems pretty much everything is, these days for some folks…). However, my energies have of late been taken up by several other pressing projects, meetings and local political issues, so those topics have become back-burner projects. Sorry. Speaking of conspiracies, my main research – online and ……… click below for more ↓

Foolish words that still resonate

2013-01-23 2013-01-23 Books & Reviews / Humour & Satire / Language & Grammar / My Writing / Religion2 Comments

Foolosopher. What a wonderful word. Not much in use these days, but it ought to be. It is a portmanteau word, first used in English way back in 1549*, according to my copy of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. It defines foolosopher as, “A foolish pretender to philosophy.” So foolosophy is therefore the “foolish pretence of philosophy.” Philosophy comes from the Greek (philo and sophia), meaning, literally, “love of knowledge,” but more generally the word means just knowledge or reasoning (Johnson, 1755). We suffer from a surfeit of foolosophers, these days, methinks. Thanks to the internet, foolosophers have sloughed the ……… click below for more ↓

What’s this nonsense about mushrooms?

2013-01-19 2013-01-19 Balderdash & Hoaxes / Collingwood / Critical Thinking / Municipal Politics / Science & Technology13 Comments

In the middle of a video parody on YouTube that skewers council on our new rec facilities, there’s a comment about “the mushroom farm debacle.” It then goes on, rather erratically, to rail about “two yanks” and mushrooms growing in manure and “enobe” mushrooms. What debacle? Clearly the video’s creator never actually watched the public presentation made to council a year ago about a possible use for the terminals as an indoor mushroom farm. Or read the stories in both newspapers. Or heard the news reports on local radio. Or asked anyone on staff or council about the proposal. Or ……… click below for more ↓

It’s snowing, snowing, snowing…

2013-01-18 2013-01-18 Critical Thinking / Places & Geography / Politics / Science & Technology2 Comments

I was looking outside today as the snow fell in Collingwood (-11C when we awoke, -10C when I first walked my dog…) and thinking of my brother-in-law in England, where they are getting walloped by a Canadian-style winter. He must be perplexed by the weather this week. It’s very Canadian. These pictures are from the Daily Mail, sent in by their readers from all over the country. You don’t normally think of Britain in the snow. Rain, yes, fog, yes, but not often snow. After all, there are places in England where palm trees grow in the warmth provided by ……… click below for more ↓

Centennial Pool gets covered!

2013-01-17 2013-01-17 Collingwood / Municipal Politics2 Comments

Not sure how much will get done today – it’s a cold, windy winter day. But yesterday, in more clement weather, six frame struts for the Sprung building were erected at Centennial Pool, and I got these photographs: Here’s the frame going up, on January 16.Six frames have gone up – there are another eight to go. You can get an idea of how big and spacious the building will be inside by comparing the height to that of the workers and equipment. One panel of the Kevlar-coated, high-tech covering was installed before construction stopped, Wednesday, but not both components ……… click below for more ↓

The Art of Worldly Wisdom

2013-01-10 2013-01-12 Arts / Books & Reviews / Canadian Politics / Language & Grammar / Literary pretensions / Municipal Politics / Quotes & Mis-quotes2 Comments

Published in 1647, The Art of Worldly Wisdom is a collection of 300 aphorisms about life, behaviour, politics, morality, faith, philosophy and society. One comment, on Amazon.ca called it, somewhat unfairly to Machiavelli, “Machiavelli with a soul.” I have been reading it of late as part of my ongoing study of Machiavelli. It was written by Balthasar Gracian (1601-1658), a Spanish-born Jesuit priest, and titled in its original Spanish, “Oraculo manual y arte de prudencia” which translates to “The Oracle, a Manual of the Art of Discretion.” Today it is known as The Art of Worldly Wisdom. A popular English ……… click below for more ↓

Rereading the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

2013-01-08 2016-12-10 Arts / Books & Reviews / Culture / Language & Grammar / Literary pretensions / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

There are many books weighing down my bookshelves into soft, drooping curves, but not many of them have the privilege of tenure. Only a handful have travelled with me for more than a couple of decades; a small selection of tomes that are read, perhaps infrequently, but more than once, and still manage to speak to me every time. Most of my books have, over the years, been donated to libraries or sold to bookstores, to make room for the new ones always crowding in and demanding attention. Those that have escaped the culling so long are ones that mean ……… click below for more ↓

Is Tar Baby the new N-Word?

2013-01-05 2013-01-05 Books & Reviews / Canadian Politics / Internet & Social Media / Language & Grammar / Politics / Quotes & Mis-quotes / Social Order & Disorder / US Politics2 Comments

As far back as I can recall, the term “tar baby” was a metaphor in common political parlance for a “sticky situation.” It has no racial meaning in that context, any more than saying “honey trap” or “sticky wicket.” Both have similar, but not synonymous meanings. But in the last decade, “tar-baby” has become the new N-word on the political stage.* The tar-baby theme is common in mythology from many cultures (referenced, for example, in Joseph’s Campbell’s groundbreaking work, Hero With a Thousand Faces). It represents an apparently attractive situation that traps the beholder and, once you embrace it, the ……… click below for more ↓

The Hidden Costs of Gambling

2013-01-01 2013-01-01 Canadian Politics / Collingwood / Games & Gaming / Municipal Politics / Social Order & Disorder3 Comments

Let’s start 2013 with a sober consideration of the social and economic costs of gambling. Back n 2006, the Canadian Medical Association noted that, “Provincial governments may be glossing over the societal and health costs of problem gambling, including depression and suicide, because of the significant income they gain from gambling, claim several public advocacy and mental health organizations.” Glossing over is a polite way of saying “deceiving.” They’re hiding the facts from the public. The CMA called for a thorough and scientific study of the “relevance of depression and suicide among problem gamblers.” “The normal system that provides checks and ……… click below for more ↓