NBierma.com File

2006-08-26T11:23:00.000-05:00

The Gospel According to ... ... Charlie Brown, Tony Soprano, and other unlikely spiritual guidesAndy CrouchThe early church was awash in gospels. Yet early bishops managed to winnow the field, and for well over a millennium, Christendom knew of just four "evangelists." In the gothic chapel of the seminary I attended, they stare down imposingly from niches above the altar, four carved figures with

2005-05-06T12:28:00.000-05:00

'The place at the edge'By Nathan VanderKlippeThe Edmonton JournalSunday ReaderSun 01 May 2005Page: D4ISACHSEN, Nunavut -- A little more than a thousand kilometres from theNorth Pole, a line of snowmobiles snakes through a blistering wind.Behind each snowmobile, a wooden sled called a kamotiq bounces its loadof jerry cans, tents and food across the rough and uneven ice of thefrozen Arctic

2005-03-20T20:31:00.000-06:00

(Is true love possible in 90 minutes?Also see 2nd item here)A lot to do in 90 minutesby Devin RoseChicago TribuneFebruary 6, 2005True love had better slip alongside me and bowl me over, because it's notgoing to happen if it takes as much work as is spelled out in "How to MakeSomeone Love You Forever! In 90 Minutes or Less" by Nicholas Boothman(Workman Publishing, $16.95).Not only do you have to

2005-03-20T20:29:00.000-06:00

C'mon, 'Baby' -- let's do the twistYou'll be surprised to hear why we hate spoiled endingsBy Julia KellerChicago TribuneFebruary 6, 2005Relax. We will not be discussing the controversial ending of "Million DollarBaby."We will, however, be discussing the reasons why we can't discuss thecontroversial ending of "Million Dollar Baby."Firmly holding us back is the fact that the film's conclusion

2005-02-05T14:46:00.000-06:00

Catching Light: Looking For God In The Movies -- by Roy M. Anker Capsule submitted to The Banner Nathan Bierma It's been said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture. Why write about music when you can listen to it? The same may seem to be true of movies--isn't the point to watch them, not to read about them. Roy Anker shows just how wrong this statement is. In 13 florid

2005-01-24T14:28:00.000-06:00

Posted 12:45 PM <2003_06_08_nbiermafile_archive.html> by Nathan Bierma E-mail from history professor on Robert Putnam, individualism, and post-Sept.11 altruism: The Putnam reference is pretty interesting, and in fact this question came up in one of my classes this week (I think I was the one who raised it though ...). Are we really not as individualistic as he says we are? I think Putnam would

2005-01-05T11:05:00.000-06:00

More from Grant Barrett on the evolution of slang (see below for his multi-tentacled bio): The people who have to look up the meaning of chillax are people who are disconnected from the common sources of slang, such as hip-hop or youth culture or technology or the Internet. If you're on the leading edge of language, such words come with their meaning in context, so you have no need to look

2005-01-04T17:15:00.000-06:00

Reprinted by permission of the ACTFL American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) 2004 Convention – Chicago, Illinois OPENING GENERAL SESSION November 19, 2004 11:00 a.m. Remarks by Ambassador Michael Lemmon Dean – School of Language Studies Department of State / Foreign Service Institute ____________ Language Policy and the State Department: A Strategic Plan and Roadmap

2005-01-04T17:12:00.000-06:00

From The Banner, February 2003 By Nathan Bierma linked from my 4/7/03 B&C blog It's been 20 years now since USA Today changed the face of newspapers. It appeared as a colorful, pepped-up paper with splashy graphics and thinned-down articles, dispensed from boxes that looked like televisions. Called "McPaper" for its preference for news nuggets and bright colors over news nutrition, its

2005-01-04T17:10:00.000-06:00

Interview with Victor Eremita, continued from my 4/7/03 B&C blog How does your use of a pseudonym parallel Kierkegaard's, who wished to appear idle so as to disguise the pace of his solitary work? You’re right that the pseudonym Victor Eremita comes from a pseudonym Kierkegaard used, as does the journal entry from which I took the title “Obedient Hound” for my website. In the journal entry,

2004-12-31T13:34:00.000-06:00

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,125516,00.html Saving 'Merry Christmas' Wednesday, July 14, 2004 LOS ANGELES - It isn’t exactly the season for “Jingle Bells” and Santa Claus, but one man is on a crusade to save Christmas anyway. Manuel Zammarano has formed the Committee to Save Merry Christmas (search ) to protest the fact that big retailers profit from Christmas shopping dollars but refuse

2004-12-29T11:09:00.000-06:00

From the Plain English Campaign: We'll leave you this year with the following piece, sent to us by Alexandra Jones of San Francisco, who received it from Ralph Ostermueller of The Financial Valuation Group. The Night Before Christmas: Whereas, on or about the night prior to Christmas, there did occur at a certain improved piece of real property (hereinafter "the House") a general lack of

2004-12-29T11:08:00.000-06:00

Among the additions to the forthcoming 2nd edition of the New Oxford American Dictionary, according to Oxford editor Erin McKean: Splen·da /?splend?/ * n. trademark an artificial sweetener used as a calorie-free sugar substitute. cop·y·left /?käpï?left/ * n. an arrangement whereby software or artistic work may be used, modified, and distributed freely on condition that anything derived from it

2004-12-23T13:51:00.000-06:00

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-11-23-tv-rather_x.htm?csp=34 CBS News anchor Dan Rather has been known for his folksy sayings. A sampling: Election night 2004: "(John) Kerry can still win it, but at this point he's got his back to the wall, his shirttail on fire, and a bill collector's at the door." The election is "closer than Lassie and Timmy." "Put on a cup of coffee; this race

2004-12-17T09:19:00.000-06:00

I had linguist Mark Liberman diagnose this statement by my wife: "Oh well, right?" I'm inclined to support your analysis that it's a kind of quote. A similar case might be the use of fragments of familiar phrases: "'How sharper than a serpent's tooth', right?" or "'Let him who is without sin', right?" But the context doesn't seem to be as open to non-linguistic material as quotative "

2004-12-08T14:20:00.001-06:00

OED on merry I. That causes pleasure. 1. a. Of an occupation, event, state, or condition: causing pleasure or happiness; pleasing, delightful. Obs. eOE ÆLFRED tr. Boethius De Consol. Philos. (Otho) xxxi. 70 [For] y ic nat hwæt a wor[uldlustas] myrges bringa [L. quid habeat jucunditatis] hiora luf[igendum]. eOE Metres of Boethius (partly from transcript of damaged MS) xiii. 45 Him a

2004-12-08T14:20:00.000-06:00

2004-12-06T14:29:00.000-06:00

The New York Times October 19, 2003 ON LANGUAGE; Flagellum Dei By William Safire We will come to sodomy in a moment. To stagger together through today's column about grammatical possessiveness, you and I must agree on the difference between a gerund and a participle. Take the word dancing. It starts out as a form of a verb: "Look, Ma, I'm dancing!" When that word is used as an adjective to

2004-12-04T10:31:00.000-06:00

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/03/entertainment/main556831.shtml http://www.afi.com/tv/handv.asp From the American Film Institute's list of top 100 movie heroes and villains, with character and performer names and the film: Heroes 1. Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck), ``To Kill a Mockingbird.'' 2. Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), ``Raiders of the Lost Ark.'' 3. James Bond (Sean Connery), ``Dr.

2004-12-03T18:08:00.000-06:00

Becoming Good: A Pentadic Analysis of the Moral Messages in Elementary School Curricula and Textbooks from Two Contexts Marissa Bambrey, Wooster College presented at NCA 2004 partial list of Works Cited: Bellitto, Christopher M. “Incomplete Pictures: Religion in High-School Textbooks on European History.” Social Studies 87 (1996): 274-80. Kohlberg, Lawrence. “Moral Development and the New

2004-12-03T18:07:00.000-06:00

NY Times 11/29/04 DEAR DIARY: It was a weekday afternoon. I was on a downtown E train absorbed in my newspaper. The door from the preceding car opened and a bespectacled man entered. "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen!" he shouted and, as if reading my mind, added: "I am not here today to ask you for money. I am here to thank you for what you have already been kind enough to give me over the past

2004-11-29T16:28:00.000-06:00

The New York Times ON LANGUAGE; Pg. 21 By William Safire June 27, 2004 Sunday Gone Missing 'An Astrophysicist Goes Missing, and His Children Search the Stars'' was a headline that caught the eye of Daniel Baldwin of New York: ''My intuition tells me that the term goes missing is grammatically incorrect,'' he writes. ''Here is a possible explanation: It is proper to link goes with a gerund (e.g.

2004-11-22T13:45:00.000-06:00

Grief gives life to gift business; Ways to express sympathy move beyond flowers By Susan Chandler Chicago Tribune September 12, 2004 As a social worker in a neonatal intensive care unit, Renee Wood became adept at comforting people in the throes of grief. She often would sit with families while their babies were being taken off life support. But when her sister-in-law's father died

2004-11-18T20:39:00.000-06:00

Some e-mail responses to this op-ed in the Detroit Free Press: BLEEDING HEARTS: - Since the election I have struggled and debated with some of my closest Christian friends about why I voted for Kerry and why they voted for Bush. ... A lot of [my Christian college friends] were very conservative Republicans! How do we as Christians change this mind set? - Thank you for setting the record

2004-11-05T14:13:00.000-06:00

From grammar maven James Vanden Bosch: These structures are very much like absolute phrases, although they probably come into existence in a slightly different way than ordinary absolute phrases do. Absolute phrases are reduced forms of clauses, reduced to the phrase level in order to be subordinated to the main clause they are attached to. The structures in the nightly news broadcasts have,

2004-10-25T16:21:00.000-05:00

Rico the dog's vocabulary restarts linguists' debate By Nathan Bierma Chicago Tribune July 1, 2004 ... But while there was no question that Rico's skills were remarkable, the study did reignite a contentious debate among linguists about whether animals can actually understand language. Rico can fetch different toys, but does he understand what his owner is saying? No way, fumed Geoffrey Pullum

2004-10-15T16:06:00.000-05:00

LCA Bulletin Fall 2004 Lexington Christian Academy A Way of Seeing The Role of Literature in Cultivating Inquiry by Theresa Morin Honor. Morality. Truth. The acknowledgement of sin and the profession of faith. Tragedy, comedy, and everything in between. This is life. This is literature. Like us, Achilles, the main character of Homer's Illiad, wrestles with what it means to be human and have

2004-10-12T15:53:00.000-05:00

Sports Illustrated September 22, 2003 Houston, We Have Liftoff; With a weekend sweep of the Cardinals, the Astros took command in the NL Central and gave a football town reason to believe in its baseball team By Tom Verducci Baseball in Houston is a cup of tea at Starbucks, an order of salmon at The Palm or a car ride through Venice. It has an odd ring to it. Forty-one years after the major

2004-10-11T11:37:00.000-05:00

Linguist Anatoly Liberman, on whether "cream" was a blend of "cramum" and "cresme," as dictionaries speculate: To begin with, Latin CRAMUM was recorded only in the 6th century, whence the reference to LATE Latin in most dictionaries. The word is usually believed to be of Gaulish origin, but good arguments have been advanced that it is traceable to Latin. This circumstance is irrelevant for

2004-10-07T10:07:00.000-05:00

Chicago Tribune REDEYE EDITION February 20, 2003 Excuse me, can I ask a question? By Jimmy Greenfield The other night, on my way to the Red Line, a man who appeared to be in his early 20s stopped me to ask for money. Actually, he didn't stop me. He approached me and I chose to stop. It was after midnight and there wasn't really anybody else around, so I'm not sure why I didn't feel more

2004-09-20T15:04:00.000-05:00

From wordcraft.infopop.cc A dumbbell is a fine tool for exercise, but what does it have to do with a bell? A church's bell ringer would pull down on a rope, causing the bell to swing and toll the hours. Since bells were heavy, bell ringers developed great upper body strength. Their work also required a good deal of practice. (I presume this was, in part, to learn to time the pulls to match the

2004-09-20T15:02:00.000-05:00

Nathan VanderKlippe CanWest News Service Yellowknife, N.W.T. Sept. 2004 Somewhere in the murky depths of the continent’s deepest lake lurks a monster. Jim Lynn is sure of it. This week, the 66-year-old Roman Catholic priest was looking out from his home on the shores of Great Slave Lake near Yellowknife when he saw an object trailing a small boat across the water. “I got the goggles because

2004-09-14T13:48:00.000-05:00

From wordcraft.infopop.cc The classical Greeks, like any other ethnic group, used ethnic slurs upon their neighbors. This week we'll present some of those slurs that have come into English. Yes, I can foresee you saying for some of these words, "That wasn't ancient Greek. It was coined by later speakers versed in the classics." Or, "That referred not to the ethnic group, but to the traits of a

2004-09-14T10:30:00.000-05:00

Ethnic News Tribal College Journal of American Indian Higher Education 2004 Spring; Vol. 15, No. 3; Pg. 8-9 1235 words Native Languages: a Question of Life or Death By Ambler, Marjane During the Vietnam War, a Blackfeet man, Marvin Weatherwax, and three other soldiers were captured by the enemy. They hung the soldiers by the arms along the wall and asked, "What unit are you from? How many are

2004-09-07T10:04:00.000-05:00

David Denby, New Yorker, on "We Don't Live Here Anymore" He frames this discordant material with formal elegance and a soothing, even redemptive beauty--the right aesthetic strategy, I think, since other people’s unhappiness, however fascinating, can be merely tawdry when offered without the relief of lyricism. David Denby, New Yorker January 12, 2004, on "House of Sand and Fog" The ineluctable

2004-09-05T16:02:00.000-05:00

From wordcraft.infopop.cc A pair of words whose meanings contrast but whose etymologies pose like problems. peccadillo – a small sin or fault punctilio – 1. a fine point of etiquette 2. precise observance of formalities But do these words come from Italian? The authorities' etymologies cite both Italian and Spanish.¹ But the first English citations are 1591 and 1596 respectively, and I'd say

2004-08-31T13:29:00.000-05:00

Recent instances of wise as a suffix (see 2nd item here), pulled off Lexis: meaning "wise about": City officials are asking people to be water-wise and hinting that if they don't comply voluntarily, it will be mandatory. The Arizona Republic July 9, 2004 Friday But if a particular group isn't into the dead poets society, [Burt Kornegay] knows when to close the book. "Burt, categorically is

2004-08-30T11:34:00.000-05:00

Most common surnames, Census 1990 http://www.census.gov/genealogy/names/dist.all.last Name/% of sample/% of sample including all names listed above SMITH 1.006 1.006 1 JOHNSON 0.810 1.816 2 WILLIAMS 0.699 2.515 3 JONES 0.621 3.136 4 BROWN 0.621 3.757 5 DAVIS 0.480 4.237 6 MILLER 0.424 4.660

2004-08-30T11:25:00.000-05:00

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2004/08/08/the_price_of_gas/ The price of gas By Jan Freeman Boston Globe August 8, 2004 FIGURATIVE PRICES won't put a dent in your wallet, but they fluctuate just like real ones, and reader Phil Smith sniffed danger in my recent reference to politicians' avoidance of "10-dollar words." "When I was a lad," Smith e-mailed from Waterloo, Ontario, "

2004-08-23T16:33:00.000-05:00

What the world's watching Hint: Michael Phelps isn't that big a deal in Italy, Pakistan or China Chicago Tribune August 23, 2004 Dispatches by Kim Barker, Michael A. Lev, Hugh Dellios, Dennis Ginosi, Charles Hawley, Peter Almond, Colin McMahon, Kirsten Fogg and Michael McGuire Not exactly cricket By Kim Barker, Tribune foreign correspondent ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Few people really care about

2004-08-23T09:38:00.000-05:00

Linguistic foraging yields a hoard (horde?) of eggcorns Rocky Mountain News Linda Seebach August 21, 2004 Now that I have a name for eggcorns, I find them everywhere. Here's one, from an Op-Ed about education sent in by a reader: [President Bush] "stomps for his 'No Child Left Behind' policy." Can't you just see the president stomping across the stage to the lectern, preparing for a stump

2004-08-19T10:23:00.000-05:00

Academics on the attack over religion journalism By James Warren Chicago Tribune July 5, 2004 There's nothing like a good academic spitball fight, so please, oh please, check out the spring issue of a tiny publication called Religion in the News via Trinity College, a fine institution in Hartford, Conn. "Journalistically Ignorant" is editor Mark Silk's rejoinder to a piece titled, "Religiously

2004-07-30T16:17:00.000-05:00

Newspapers looking for love in all the wrong places Kathleen Parker It's hard to watch a loved one grow sick and die, as print journalists know too well. Newspapers have been on a slide for years and remedy seems remote. Thus, a recent memo to Tribune Co. employees came as little surprise, just another notice in a series of bad years. Two hundred jobs in the news division are being eliminated

2004-07-23T11:14:00.000-05:00

Charleston Post and Courier 7/18/04 Artist examines the mind's magic, mystery BY BILL THOMPSON Of The Post and Courier Staff Cacophony, anyone? "The real wonder of the brain, I think, is the ease with which it can craft a fluent, persuasive stable sense of self when there is all this uncertainty and commotion going on." Diane Ackerman should know. She has been deflecting the din of the

2004-07-16T10:53:00.000-05:00

Your name is Kerry Edwards? That's the ticket By Christine BadowskiChicago TribuneJuly 16, 2004If John Kerry, the likely Democratic nominee for president, had picked, oh, say, Richard Gephardt as his running mate, the ticket would have been a lot less troublesome for many folks since there just aren't many Kerry Gephardts out there. But the name Kerry Edwards, well, that's a different story. A

2004-07-16T10:49:00.000-05:00

For some it's coffee; for others it's classBy Dan Mihalopoulos and Antonio OlivoChicago TribunePublished July 16, 2004Starbucks, an icon for everything from gentrification to Seattle chic to corporate dominance, means something simpler to 5th Ward Ald. Leslie Hairston."You are officially a neighborhood when you get a Starbucks," said Hairston, who fought to bring one to South Shore even as

2004-07-14T11:52:00.000-05:00

The Weekly Standard May 3, 2004 3341 words For the Birds; New adventures in literary birding. Robert Finch, The Weekly Standard The Verb 'To Bird' Sightings of an Avid Birder by Peter Cashwell Paul Dry, 273 pp., $14.95 The Big Year A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession by Mark Obmascik Free Press, 268 pp., $25 Going Wild Adventures with Birds in the Suburban Wilderness by

2004-07-13T13:57:00.000-05:00

I did the reporting for this story over several months in 2002 for the Chicago Tribune. The story was eventually rejected by the features department for being too much like a news report (feature-type flourishes, I found, can be hard to come by when everyone close to an upcoming trial isn't allowed to comment). Although I lacked much appetite to pry into this family's personal problems, I did

2004-07-13T11:11:00.000-05:00

I covered the inaugural season of the Grand Rapids Force in the U.S. Professional Volleyball League for The Grand Rapids Press. I submitted this story to Grand Rapids magazine in October 2002, but it was cancelled when the USPV suffered the sudden pullout of key investors and went belly-up before its second season. Tour de Force By Nathan Bierma Grand Rapids' minor league sports boom was about

2004-07-12T16:14:00.000-05:00

Pos Batters Edit Opp Status H/AB R HR RBI SB AVG C J. López (Bal - C) 106/330 45 12 42 0 .321 1B D. Lee (ChC - 1B) 96/316 42 12 49 6 .304 2B M. Loretta (SD - 2B) 112/347 60 8 36 2 .323 3B V. Castilla (Col - 3B) 84/309 47 16 71 0 .272 SS R. AuriliaNA (Sea - SS) 63/261 27 4 28 1 .241 OF L. González (Ari - LF) 86/319 61 15 43 2 .270 OF S. Podsednik (Mil - CF)

2004-07-02T10:19:00.000-05:00

Traditional knowledge helps point way for new science Nathan VanderKlippe CanWest News Service Thursday, February 19, 2004 A FIVE-PART SERIES In a joint project of The Journal and Global Television, CanWest reporter Nathan VanderKlippe travelled to the Canadian research ship Amundsen in the ice of Franklin Bay, N.W.T. - TODAY: Researchers rely on Inuit know-how. ON GLOBAL TV at 5:30

2004-07-02T10:16:00.000-05:00

Arctic research makes greenhouse-gas find Scientist shocked at rate northern ice draws down carbon dioxide from atmosphere Nathan VanderKlippe CanWest News Service Tuesday, February 17, 2004 THE NEW ARCTIC EXPLORERS A five-part series In a joint project of The Journal and Global Television, CanWest reporter Nathan VanderKlippe travelled to the Canadian research ship Amundsen amid the

2004-06-29T17:56:00.000-05:00

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/entertainment/books/6634673.htm Posted on Thu, Aug. 28, 2003 Book Review | At a reunion, he ruminates about lost love Reunion By Alan Lightman Pantheon. 231 pp. $22 Reviewed by Marta Salij Man goes to 30th college reunion. Remembers girl who got away. Feels sad. The end. You just got five hours of your life back. Too harsh? What if I told you that the

2004-06-28T12:40:00.000-05:00

Chi.Tribune editor: I hate to think a bit of history has come to be considered an "ugly, pointless and noxious" affectation [as a letter writer says]. "lede" (pronounced leed) is a term for the first paragraph of a news story. "lead" (pronounced leed) is a term for the most important news story; traditionally it carries the biggest headline and runs on the right-hand side of Page One, above the

2004-06-21T15:48:00.000-05:00

My mini-corpus for "back in the day," "back in those days," and variants. To scan it, hit Ctrl+F, type "back", and keep hitting return. ----- coming [home to] ... people who knew you back, back, back in the day, is one of the most rewarding feelings of the world. livejournal.com I mention this because for years I have listened to business whine about how it is not appreciated in Massachusetts.

2004-06-21T10:43:00.000-05:00

Sports Illustrated May 24, 2004 The First and Last Annual Alphabet Awards By Steve Rushin Numbers don't lie, but letters sometimes stretch the truth. KFC now pretends, in commercials, to stand for Kitchen Fresh Chicken, and it can't be long before we see the similar rebranding of Fatburger (to Fitburger) and IHOP (as in, I'll Have Oatmeal, Please). Worse, San Francisco Giants rookie David

2004-06-20T21:40:00.000-05:00

The New York Times May 13, 2004 Thursday Correction Appended Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section G; Column 1; Circuits; Pg. 1; STATE OF THE ART LENGTH: 1539 words HEADLINE: Google Mail: Virtue Lies In the In-Box BYLINE: By David Pogue. E-mail: Pogue@nytimes.com BODY: AS Google's white-hot initial stock offering hogs the headlines, its rivals can only gnash their teeth and wonder:

2004-06-16T19:59:00.000-05:00

Detroit Free Press June 16, 2004 Pistons are part of our town's glory BY IFFY THE DOPESTER; FREE PRESS COLUMNIST Asking Iffy to reminisce is kinda like asking Phil Jackson to whine about the refs -- naturally he's going to do it. So it should come as little surprise to faithful readers that even now, while Pistons fans are walking on air, Iffy's taking a stroll down memory lane. The head

2004-06-10T10:44:00.000-05:00

Ottawa Citizen January 31, 2004 Saturday Observer; Pg. B1, 3479 words //Other tongue: More than 100 years after it was introduced, Esperanto has only 1,000 native speakers. Elaine O'Connor investigates what happened to a utopian ideal.// Kulture neutrala kaj pli facile lernebla ol la angla lingvo, Esperanto estis kreita en 1887 por esti lingva slosilo al utopia socio. Oni celis, ke gi estu la

2004-06-10T10:29:00.000-05:00

Habits of the High-Tech Heart by Quentin Schultze Reviewed by Nathan Bierma The Banner, 2001 The cyber-boom of the 1990s came with such dizzying speed and delivered such profound changes to our lives, we’re only beginning to weigh the consequences. Quentin Schultze is among the first to haul out the scale. The spread of digital technology over the last decade may have brought some improvements

2004-06-10T10:06:00.000-05:00

Dear sir/madam, This mail will definitely be coming to you as a surprise, but i must crave your indulgence to introduce myself to you. I am Miss Marah sadija, former mistress to the son (Qusay) of the Iraqi former leader, Saddam Hussein. I am an Ethiopian, by birth and i am presently in a refugee camp in Zimbabwe,where the living conditions are unbearable. I do not

2004-04-12T11:58:00.000-05:00

Chicago Sun-Times 3/18/04 By Cathleen Falsani //From 'The Passion' to The Purpose-Driven Life, superficial God-talk in the public square is being replaced by complex -- and equally public -- conversations about faith. Could we be in the midst of ...// About 20 percent of the American public attended services at a house of worship last week, according to pollsters and statisticians who keep

2003-10-20T11:20:00.000-05:00

test post

2003-06-11T12:45:00.000-05:00

E-mail from history professor on Robert Putnam, individualism, and post-Sept.11 altruism: The Putnam reference is pretty interesting, and in fact this question came up in one of my classes this week (I think I was the one who raised it though ...). Are we really not as individualistic as he says we are? I think Putnam would say that the compassionate response isn't necessarily evidence that

2003-06-11T12:44:00.000-05:00

E-mail from Will R in response to my thought of the day on religious freedom: A free intellectual/moral marketplace -- a marketplace of ideas, if you will -- and a free economic marketplace are not the same thing. The former functions better with less government intrusion; the latter needs repeatedly to be beaten with a stick to avoid devouring us. Point well taken about the strip club thing

2003-06-11T12:41:00.000-05:00

By Nathan VanderKlippe, February 2003 It’s not every day you get paid to be a human penny, rolling down a super-sized version of one of those mall charity funnels. But the West Edmonton Mall was opening a new slide called the Tropical Typhoon, and duty called: I came to work armed with my swimming shorts. Best to arrive informed, I thought, and called Kevin Hanson, the mall’s operations

2003-06-02T12:04:00.000-05:00

>e-mail fwd: Why did the chicken cross the road? GEORGE W. BUSH We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is either with us or it is against us. There is no middle ground here. AL GORE I invented the chicken. I invented the road. Therefore, the chicken crossing the road represented the

2003-05-05T12:42:00.000-05:00

Ventura County Star February 1, 2003 Freedom to search Unitarian Universalists find liberation in individual interpretations of God Tom Kisken; kisken@insidevc.com Who or what is God? In a Unitarian Universalist religion that prides itself on challenging questions, this one is a doozy. It's sparked by a national controversy spiced by allegations of faulty journalism, the temptation to pin

2003-05-03T18:09:00.000-05:00

60 above zero: Floridians turn on the heat. People in Michigan plant gardens. 50 above zero: Californians shiver uncontrollably. People in Saginaw, Michigan sunbathe. 40 above zero: Italian &English cars won't start. People in Michigan drive with the windows down. 32 above zero: Distilled water freezes. The water in the Detroit River gets thicker. 20 above zero:

2003-04-16T15:26:00.000-05:00

"Wrigley Rapture" By Steve Rushin Sports Illustrated, May 28, 2001 The elevated train clatters toward Wrigley Field and a female conductor drones "Addison is next" and "Stand clear of the opening doors" and "Parents, hold the hands of your children as you leave the train." Then--from her sealed box, through crackling speakers--she sighs, "It's a beautiful day for a ball game." Exit the station,

2002-12-02T10:16:00.000-06:00

E-mail rec'd, re: Olbermann reax: Most of this information has been widely circulated in rumors and second-hand accounts since Olbermann's departure. To this day, I think it was a "lose-lose" for ESPN and for Keith Olbermann. His exit led to the ascent (or BAD scent) of Stuart Scott, which then enlightened us to the ebonics we never knew ... or wanted to know ... like "pimp-slapped" and "

2002-11-23T10:34:00.000-06:00

The New York Times October 20, 2002, Sunday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section 1; Page 37; Column 2; Metropolitan Desk; Second Front LENGTH: 1457 words HEADLINE: Crimes Admitted, But Not Committed; Confessing Can Seem Easy After Hours in a Hard Light BYLINE: By JIM DWYER BODY: Yes, the interrogation had taken a long time, but the murderer had freely answered the questions, the

2002-11-22T10:59:00.000-06:00

The New York Times September 23, 2002, Monday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section E; Page 1; Column 4; The Arts/Cultural Desk LENGTH: 1261 words HEADLINE: WRITERS ON WRITING; The Eye of the Reporter, The Heart of the Novelist SERIES: WRITERS ON WRITING: Facts Beget Fiction BYLINE: By ANNA QUINDLEN BODY: There's always a notebook in my purse. I learned my lesson one day many

2002-11-22T10:42:00.000-06:00

Subject: The rest of the story Story Number One: World War II produced many heroes. One such man was Lieutenant Commander Butch O'Hare. He was a fighter pilot assigned to an aircraft carrier Lexington in the South Pacific. One day his entire squadron was sent on a mission. After he was airborne, he looked at his fuel gauge and

2002-11-19T14:26:00.000-06:00

Dubai Solves Beach Shortage, Building Palm-Shaped Island By STEVE STECKLOW Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL November 18, 2002 DUBAI -- There's a buildup going on in the Persian Gulf these days, but this one has nothing to do with a possible war with Iraq. A mile off the coast of this thriving emirate, huge dredges are sucking sand off the bottom of the sea and spraying it along the

2002-11-19T14:25:00.000-06:00

College Town in Jordan Is Full of Internet Cafes By Lee Gomes The Wall Street Journal November 18, 2002 IRBID, JORDAN -- If you ask a Jordanian about the Internet, he'll invariably tell you how this college town in the country's north holds the Guinness world record for "the most Internet cafes in a single kilometer." In fact, the Guinness folks in London say there's no such record. Too bad,

2002-11-13T10:04:00.000-06:00

A Laugh a Minute? In TV Today, That's Not Nearly Fast Enough By EMILY NELSON Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL November 13, 2002 When "ER" premiered eight years ago on NBC, its dialogue was so rapid-fire that scripts ran 60 pages, about 10 pages longer than the typical one-hour drama. Viewers loved it, and the show was a huge hit. Today, the show isn't a minute longer. But its scripts

2002-11-13T10:02:00.000-06:00

Posted to MediaNews Letters November 12, 2002 Let go of the "lite" dream From ERIC GILLIN: While it is noble that Don Hewitt would love to craft a newsmagazine for college-aged students, I hope he doesn't get that chance. By dubbing such a show "60 Minutes Lite," Hewitt reveals his true thoughts on what he feels college kids can process and what they can't. Typical. Whenever it comes time to

2002-11-11T15:40:00.000-06:00

The Boston Globe October 8, 2000, Sunday ,THIRD EDITION SECTION: NATIONAL/FOREIGN; Pg. A1 LENGTH: 1464 words HEADLINE: VOTERS' NEW PRIORITIES MAKE POLL-TAKING A TOUGH CALL BYLINE: By John Aloysius Farrell, Globe Staff WASHINGTON - Call waiting. Caller ID. Answering machines. Computer modems. Cell phones. Home fax machines. Voice mail. Pushy telemarketers. For most of us, they are

2002-11-08T11:49:00.000-06:00

PAGE ONE Why Some Pollsters' Findings Were So Wrong on Election Day By JOHN HARWOOD and SHIRLEY LEUNG Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL November 8, 2002 Just before Election Day, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a stunning poll about the governor's race in Illinois: GOP candidate Jim Ryan was ahead. The Republican's 43.5%-43.2% edge over Democrat Rod Blagojevich, though tiny

2002-11-08T11:46:00.000-06:00

Mangled metaphors By Nathan VanderKlippe Northern News Services Yellowknife (Nov 04/02) - Territorial politicians are like mushrooms, hunched in the dark where cabinet refuses to shine the light of information. Or, the territorial government is fast sinking on a ship without bailing buckets. Worse, the political sailors trying to cup the water out of the boat are drunk,

2002-11-04T12:45:00.000-06:00

E-mail from Ryan Schuiling Re: http://www.freep.com/voices/columnists/ebierma8_20020508.htm Strong, opinionated, and focused. Thematic and rhythmic, dripping with healthy anti-rhetoric. Could border on the sanctimonious or self-enlightened, but that is also the heart of its power and appeal. Having a point and having an opinion will make you a controversial figure, will draw crticism, and

2002-11-04T11:21:00.000-06:00

Books&Culture submitted draft By Nathan Bierma David Dark has deepened my resolve not to get home delivery of to the New York Times, though my newsstand expenses nearly justify it. Neither he nor I mean to knock on the Times; it's one of the few remaining resources of responsible journalism, quality writing, and curiosity about world affairs. It's about the only newspaper worth actually reading

2002-11-04T11:19:00.000-06:00

Chicago Tribune RedEye By Nathan Bierma submitted draft/published Nov. 3, 2002, page 2 We have seen the future of politics. If you missed it, catch the re-run next spring. Last month [Oct. 19], John McCain hosted Saturday Night Live, in a rare case of a sitting senator doing stand-up. As I watched McCain's impersonation of attorney general John Ashcroft, which you had to see to believe, I

2002-11-04T10:33:00.000-06:00

Season Finale The S.S.Badger makes its last Lake Michigan crossing for the year Chicago Tribune By Charles Leroux Tribune senior correspondent Published October 25, 2002 MANITOWOC, Wis. -- Roadside sweet corn stands have given way to roadside pumpkin stands. Packer baseball caps are being replaced by warmer Packer stocking caps. Along the Lake Michigan shore here, 80 miles north of Milwaukee,

2002-11-04T10:31:00.000-06:00

Legend to outlive storied hospital `No place in world' like Cook facility Chicago Tribune By Kirsten Scharnberg Tribune staff reporter Published November 3, 2002 A doctor tells of Cook County Hospital being so short-staffed that several physicians once trained a few homeless men sleeping in the halls to do lab tests. A nurse describes women in hard labor stumbling into the maternity ward

2002-11-04T10:24:00.000-06:00

The New York Times October 20, 2002, Sunday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section 3; Page 1; Column 1; Money and Business/Financial Desk LENGTH: 1909 words HEADLINE: The Arches Are Sagging. What Would the Doctors Do? BYLINE: By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH BODY: McDONALD'S may serve Happy Meals at its 30,000 sites around the globe, but it's a pretty safe bet that meal times -- and the hours

2002-11-04T10:19:00.000-06:00

The New York Times October 15, 2002, Tuesday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section A; Page 16; Column 1; National Desk LENGTH: 827 words HEADLINE: Anaheim Journal; Angels-Crazy Suburb Longs for an Ending Right Out of Disney BYLINE: By JOHN M. BRODER DATELINE: ANAHEIM, Calif., Oct. 14 BODY: The Anaheim Angels' success in the American League playoffs is not just a victory for a

2002-10-25T08:18:00.000-05:00

E-mail from Richmond: The sniper has been caught, it appears. A 42-year-old disenchanted (and "other than honorably" discharged) Gulf War army veteran and a strange accomplice - a 17-year-old nobody, not his son - are under arrest. They were found sleeping at a rest area in Frederic, Maryland. There are many ties of evidence to these two - all signs point to their guilt ... including the

2002-10-25T08:16:00.000-05:00

The New York Times August 11, 2002, Sunday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section 3; Page 4; Column 1; Money and Business/Financial Desk LENGTH: 1951 words HEADLINE: Business; White-Collar Criminal? Pack Lightly for Prison BYLINE: By RUSS MITCHELL BODY: ASSUME you are a major corporate executive accused of a securities fraud that has caused hundreds of millions of dollars of investor

2002-10-22T08:49:00.000-05:00

e-mail from Richmond: As many of you know (and as my fellow Richmond resident [X.] also knows first-hand), Monday was a roller coaster day - with each day creating more tension here in the Richmond area. The latest shooting in Ashland, followed by an apparent call made from a pay phone in Richmond (Parham and Broad, close to where [my wife's office] used to be - very close to [X]'s apartment

2002-10-11T08:53:00.000-05:00

The Washington Post December 09, 2001, Sunday, Final Edition SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. B07 LENGTH: 841 words HEADLINE: The Genius of Ari Fleischer BYLINE: Michael Kinsley BODY: The press briefings of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are widely acknowledged to be the best show on television, and watching him perform in person is probably even more entertaining. By contrast it must

2002-10-09T09:48:00.000-05:00

Detroit Free Press Original submission/published article By Nathan Bierma By now I've lost interest in the question of whether we should invade Iraq, however fascinating the constant news coverage suggests the subject is. I’m not convinced Saddam Hussein is more of a threat than he was two years ago, or less of a threat than he will be two years from now. But President Bush's hawk-heavy staff is

2002-10-08T09:28:00.000-05:00

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/arts/chi-0210060187oct06.story Animators ready to take a leap of faith Big Idea hopes its salad days have arrived By Robert K. Elder Tribune staff reporter October 6, 2002 Behind the nondescript doors of the makeshift Big Idea animation studio in a rehabbed Lombard Woolworth building, talking vegetables rule. Now, they are trying to expand their reign to

2002-10-08T09:00:00.000-05:00

Wisdom amid the digital noise The Banner, August 28, 2002 By Nathan Bierma The cyber-boom of the 1990s came with such dizzying speed and delivered such profound changes to our lives, we’re only beginning to weigh the consequences. Quentin Schultze is among the first to haul out the scale. The spread of digital technology over the last decade may have brought some improvements to the world,

2002-09-30T21:33:00.000-05:00

The New York Times Company The New York Times September 23, 2002, Monday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section A; Page 6; Column 1; Foreign Desk LENGTH: 1063 words HEADLINE: Educators Try to Tame Japan's Blackboard Jungles BYLINE: By HOWARD W. FRENCH DATELINE: YOKOHAMA, Japan BODY: Across Japan these days, by the first or second grade, elementary school students commonly

2002-09-30T21:31:00.000-05:00

The New York Times Company The New York Times September 23, 2002, Monday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section A; Page 18; Column 1; National Desk LENGTH: 934 words HEADLINE: Lights, Camera, Action -- Cut! BYLINE: By The New York Times DATELINE: LOS ANGELES, July 21 BODY: Jim Bosche awoke at 3:30 a.m. in his fourth-floor downtown loft one day last spring to find a white-hot

2002-09-13T09:43:00.000-05:00

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company The New York Times September 1, 2002, Sunday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section 1; Page 1; Column 2; National Desk LENGTH: 1557 words HEADLINE: On Ship of Condos, Life's an Endless Cruise BYLINE: By WILLIAM L. HAMILTON DATELINE: ABOARD THE WORLD, St. John's, Newfoundland, Aug. 31 BODY: Life, they say, is a journey. But who would

2002-09-13T09:41:00.000-05:00

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company The New York Times September 1, 2002, Sunday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section 2; Page 1; Column 2; Arts and Leisure Desk LENGTH: 1629 words HEADLINE: ART/ARCHITECTURE; In a New Times Square, a Wink at Futures Past BYLINE: By AVIS BERMAN; Avis Berman directs the oral history project of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. BODY: THE Pop

2002-09-04T10:10:00.001-05:00

Copyright 2000 Chattanooga Publishing Company Chattanooga Times / Chattanooga Free Press November 5, 2000, Sunday SECTION: PERSPECTIVE; Pg. F1 LENGTH: 1453 words HEADLINE: Poll-taking can be a tough call BYLINE: John Aloysius Farrell The Boston Globe BODY: Call waiting. Caller ID. Answering machines. Computer modems. Cell phones. Home fax machines. Voice mail. Pushy telemarketers.