Fire and Knowledge

“Christians should neither undervalue nor overvalue literature. Literature is not exempt from artistic, moral, and intellectual criticism. Yet its gifts to the human race are immeasurable: artistic enrichment, pleasurable pastime, self-understanding, clarification of human experience, and, in its highest reaches, the expression of truth and beauty that can become worship of God.”
-Leland Ryken, “Thinking Christianly About Literature” in in The Christian Imagination

“By stripping rock guitar of its ornamentation and playing almost every note in a violent, accelerated downstroke, Mr. Ramone helped create the sound of punk. His style — fast, repetitive and aggressive, though always tuneful — influenced, directly or indirectly, almost every punk guitarist since, from the Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones to Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain and contemporary players like Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day and Tom Delonge of Blink-182.”

And now he’s dead.

This is crazy. The Socialist Workers Party is crazy.

Calero is legally ineligible to serve as President of the US because he is not a US citizen himself. His running mate, Arrin Hawkins, is also ineligible to serve as Vice-President as she is only 24, well below the legally required age of 35. However, there is nothing in the Constitution that says they cannot run for elective office, especially as they have no chance of winning. Calero has no campaign Web site that we could find, but the SWP’s newspaper, The Militant, describes the two as the only fighting alternative to the twin parties of imperialist war and economic depression. The Party appears to support traditional hardline communist policies, such as defending the Cuban revolution, but is very scant on details.

Calero was born in Nicaragua and moved to the US in 1985. He was convicted of selling marijuana in 1988, and the government attempted to deport him but failed.

If you want good summary coverage of Mr. Rather’s shenanigans, look no further than Justin Taylor’s new blog Between Two Worlds. Complete with cartoons and commentary!

“This, so far as I can see, is the specific value or good of literature considered as Logos; it admits us to experiences other than our own…. Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom fully realise the enormous extension of our being which we owe to authors. We realise it best when we talk with an unliterary friend…. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented…”
-C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism

“In God’s economy, the writers of the Bible did not have something better to do with their time and ability than to be artistic to the glory of God.”
-Leland Ryken, “Thinking Christianly About Literature” in in The Christian Imagination

Konica Minolta reveals their first DSLR—the MAXXUM 7D. Hopefully the quality will be better on this then their most recent offerings.

“If God made the flowers, they are worth painting and writing about. If God made the birds, they are worth painting. If God made the sky, the sky is worth painting. If God made the ocean, indeed, it’s worth writing poetry about. It is worth man’s while to create works upon the basis of the greater works God has already created.”
-Francis A. Schaeffer, “Perspectives on Art” in The Christian Imagination (ed. Leland Ryken)