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Notepad

Notepad

Last updated on: March 3, 2005 at 11:07 am by Fred Clark

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Notepad 2005-03-03T11:07:30-05:00 Fred Clark

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Housekeeping

Peatey, you've sold me on the pitfalls of Verdana. And, since I had to fiddle with the blogroll to add some of the many folks brought to my attention through this year's Koufax Awards (Bravo, again, Dwight & Beth), I've tweaked the fontage here as well.

Cleaner? Clearer? Uglier? Let me know. What I don't know about design is a lot.

* * * * *

The Bert Blyleven Factor

As a perennial Koufax also-ran (Note to self: If you ever expect to be a finalist for "best series" then you shouldn't leave people stranded on pg. 71) I found myself at baseball-reference.com reading about near-great lefties like Mickey Lolich, Frank Tanana, Kitty Kaat, Jerry Koosman and Vida Blue.

And then I got to thinking about Bert Blyleven (who was right handed, but still). Blyleven won 287 games, but never won a Cy Young Award. He is, arguably, the best eligible pitcher not in the Hall of Fame.

My point here is not to argue that Blyleven belongs in Cooperstown, but that there's a kind of nobility, a kind of baseball immortality, even, in occupying the unique place he holds. He becomes a kind of standard, a plumb line. You can't get into the Hall of Fame unless you're better than Bert Blyleven. There are dozens of pitchers in the Hall, but only one holds this special place just outside the gate.

Not bad for a guy born in The Netherlands.

* * * * *

Shelter in place

Via Susan, this apt piece of news from Philly blogger Attytood:

Tom "Duct Tape" Ridge has been named to the board of directors of Home Depot.

* * * * *

What is truth?

Eric Boehlert is really good, and since the Salon day pass just now is the trailer for "Be Cool," it's a good time to check out his latest, "Tearing Down the Press."

"… if the press loses its credibility, that eliminates agreed-upon facts — the commonly accepted information that is central to public debate," Boehlert writes. He quotes David Brock of Media Matters, "[The White House's] explicit goal is to get us to the point where there are blue [state] facts and red [state] facts."

The idea, in other words, is that there is no such thing as truth, only competing claims and the will to power. Where have I heard that before?

Boehlert revisits White House Chief of Staff Andy Card's comments to The New Yorker: "[The press] don't represent the public any more than other people do. … I don't believe you have a check-and-balance function."

I disagree. So does the First Amendment.

* * * * *

The Word became flesh

According to the AP's Patrick Walters, the American Philosophical Society — a group founded in Philadelphia in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin, apparently in his spare time — will be displaying some of its vast collection of "just about every kind of trinket, piece of Americana and oddity imaginable. … a broad array of artifacts, historical documents, inventions and other items, many of which have been tucked away for decades."

Blueprints for ENIAC, an early electronic digital computer developed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, hang steps away from a map depicting the Revolutionary War's deciding battle of Yorktown.

And what else will be on display?

A New Testament bound in human skin — likely that of an executed convict — is displayed in glass casing …

Ack. Someone made this. Someone thought it was a good idea to make this, and then they actually did it.

Sometimes moral revulsion and the purely physical heebie jeebies are difficult to distinguish, I'm having both.

* * * * *

And speaking of horrifying books assembled by religious zealots, Teresa points out that the Malleus Maleficarum is now available online.

I have to hope that Rupert Giles is being more careful than he was the last time he started uploading his library.

* * * * *

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Speaking of the First Amendment, with the Supreme Court considering public displays of the Ten Commandments, it's time again to ask which Ten Commandments?

The Pentateuch provides three slightly different versions, and various traditions have adopted these lists in slightly different ways. (ReligiousTolerance.org has a nice rundown of the differences.) The display of any particular version, therefore, requires a sectarian choice. I'm avoiding that choice here by posting only a generic two-tablets piece of clip-art.

The most important thing to remember, however, when considering any public display of the Ten Commandments: Close your eyes Marian! Close your eyes!

Ceremonial deism can be deadly.

* * * * *

Tramp the Dirt Down

Via Atrios and DC Media Girl I learn of the passing of someone named Sam Francis. They point, respectively, to the lowlights of Francis' syndicated columns assembled at Media Matters and The Washington Examiner.

Francis' racist attitudes managed to get him fired from The Washington Times — no mean feat. The final straw was a column in which he decried the Southern Baptist Convention's statement of repentance over slavery and racism. Neither slavery nor racism, Francis wrote, is a sin.

Well, he knows better now.

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