Meanderings, 24 September 2022
I’ve been doing these meanderings so long I no longer remember how long. Hobbits would have it dated, or at least Tolkien’s narrator would have it dated. Probably around 15 years. Anyway, they come from my reading, Kris’ reading, and some who pass links our way. One of whom, whose name goes unmentioned, has been especially faithful in passing links on to me. Let’s call this Appreciation Day for those sending me links!
Speaking of Tolkien, is this perhaps like Middle Earth in the fall?
Photo by Dillon Austin on Unsplash
Digital library lending is no small matter, not least for authors:
The Hachette v. Internet Archive case has been in the press lately following the parties’ filing of summary judgment motions. But the case is not about the end of copyright as we know it, as Copyright Alliance CEO Keith Kupferschmid implied in his July 18 PW Soapbox, “Standing Up for Copyright.” Nor is it a “torpedo” aimed at the Copyright Act, as AAP CEO Maria Pallante said in a recent PW q&a. Rather, the case concerns the special role of libraries to provide open, nondiscriminatory access to books.
At issue in the publishers’ lawsuit is a practice called controlled digital lending, the principles of which my colleague Dave Hansen and I codified in a 2018 white paper. Under CDL, libraries (including the Internet Archive) make scans of their legally acquired physical books and loan the scans in lieu of the print under rules that mimic physical lending: only one person can borrow a scan at a time; the scans are DRM-protected; and only one format can circulate at a time to maintain a one-to-one “owned-to-loan” ratio. In other words, if the scan is checked out, its print counterpart cannot circulate, and vice versa.
I hope you have noticed how well the Cleveland Guardians are doing. Have I mentioned here that our son now works for the Guardians so we followed them quite closely this year, and they have exceeded all expectations. This week they took three games out of three from the White Sox.
Bobonbooks finds some value in St Francis’ “brother ass”:
It was St. Francis, most likely, who first spoke of our bodies as “Brother Ass.” This has been one of those days when that name has been particularly fitting. C. S. Lewis commented on this description of the body, observing:
“Ass is exquisitely right because no one in his senses can either revere or hate a donkey. It is a useful, sturdy, lazy, obstinate, patient, lovable and infuriating beast; deserving now a stick and now a carrot; both pathetically and absurdly beautiful. So the body.“
I won’t go into the earthy details of why this name seemed appropriate today. Let’s just say, I learned one more thing this 68 year-old body doesn’t handle well–the closest adjectives Lewis used that applied are “infuriating” and “pathetic.” It absorbed attention and energy that I might have devoted this evening to a review of a book on the theology of Jonathan Edwards. I’ll put that off for a day.
I must confess that, like the ass, my body has been incredibly useful for those 68 years. Through it I’ve encountered a myriad of other embodied persons including my companion in life with whom I’ve been married over 44 years. I’ve dug and harvested gardens, driven and cycled and hiked and run and climbed. I’ve listened to glorious music and sung choral works and painted pictures and written–oh, I’ve written! And I’ve barely scratched the surface of my body’s usefulness.
Turnaround’s fair play: if the complementarians want to appeal to “inspiration” so can the egalitarians.
Understanding the inspired vocabulary of 1 Timothy 2:11–12 (“quiet” and “authority”) reveals that Paul was not forbidding women to be teachers or to hold positions of authority over men in the church. Paul was forbidding women from being a particular kind of teacher or leader—one who was unteachable, combative, self-appointed, domineering, bullying, and abusive. Obviously, neither women nor men should exercise such leadership in Jesus’s church.
Paul’s message in 1 Timothy 2 is that appropriately gifted women of godly character should be commissioned by the church to lead, teach, and pastor, but that women should never seize those roles for themselves to become church bullies.
Race and power are not the same thing:
This was not an ethos precipitated by riots where political protest escalated into violence; rather, it was precipitated by the continuous threat and application of white supremacist violence. We would do well to call massacres and lynchings what they are and not shy from the brutality of the language. This is an abyss that every American, especially, must stare into, for it shaped the country in which we live. We have an extensive history of political power being snatched through the slaughter of the defenseless. We have an extensive history of people suffering attacks because they “stepped out of place”. The racial violence that we witness in our history was not ultimately in the service of hate; it was ultimately in the service of domination and exploitation. If we are to cut it off at the root, we must see it for what it is…and call it what it is. It is not a coincidence that most of the massacres narrated or referred above happened on or around election days. In this country, race has always been about power.
Rep. Mary Peltola's election to the U.S. House of Representatives made history in several ways.
With her recent swearing-in, it became official for the first time in more than 230 years: A Native American, an Alaska Native and a Native Hawaiian are all members of the House — fully representing the United States' Indigenous people for the first time, according to Rep. Kaiali'i Kahele of Hawaii. Now, there are six Indigenous Americans who are representatives in the House.
Kahele shared this history-making moment on social media this week with a photograph of him, Peltola, and Rep. Sharice Davids of Kansas (a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation).
Peltola, the first Alaska Native and woman elected to the House for Alaska, is taking over for Rep. Don Young, who died in March.
"It's a historic moment," Lani Teves, an associate professor at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa said.
What baffles me now, however, is that Mohler is basically tethering Christian faith to fealty to a Trump-shaped GOP. He’s already done his “Hooray for Christian Nationalism” thing, but he is now going all-in on Trumpism.
Part of me wonders if Mohler is just reading which way the wind is blowing in his own denomination and setting his sails to catch it. Or else, does he face pressure from his board and donors to lean into Trumpocracy? Or, even worse, does he really believe it? I’m somewhat perplexed by his words.
I understand why people voted for Trump, but I don’t understand why people are devoted to Trump, even after he tried to overturn an election! Preserving democracy and the peaceful transition of power is more important than any other cultural war issue.
Many are vexed and affronted by Mohler’s remarks about voting and faithfulness. …
I think it’s okay to exhort Christian friends to discern within the precincts of their consciences how to vote faithfully. But to tell Christians that unless they vote one particular way, they are being unfaithful is not partisan it is positively pernicious. I’ve heard of a progressive version of this. When Trump won the 2016 election, an Episcopal church forbade anyone who voted for Trump from receiving communion one Sunday, which is near-heresy. Or else Mohler is like when Joe Biden told African-Americans that if they didn’t vote for him, they “ain’t black.” A stupid comment that Biden rightfully apologized for. To equate voting for one party or one candidate with Christian fidelity- whether conservative or progressive - is deeply wrong.