Christus Surrexit. Alleluia!

And once more, matter becomes inextricably coupled to light...

This is my friend...

For Easter Saturday

This seems to me to be the perfect Holy Saturday hymn.

All we can do is tell the story of our friend "in Whose sweet praise, I all my days could gladly spend".

Aure Entuluva

For Good Friday

There seems to be two reasonable responses of the Christian to the events of Good Friday. The first is an echoing of Christ's utterance of the Psalm 22 which acknowledges the sense of being overwhelmed by evil but holds steadfastly to the hope that something better will arise from it. "Day will come.. again!" Ultimately, psalm 22 is a psalm of triumph.

The second is the response of that of Psalm 50 (51) said with the knowledge that, ultimately, it is we who are the oppressors; we are the ones who cause the others to cry out "Day will come again".

Miserere mei, Deus
Secundum magnam misericordiam tuam
Et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum
Dele iniquitatem meam
Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea
Et a peccato meo munda me
Quoniam iniquitatem meam ego cognosco
Et peccatum meum contra me est semper
Tibi soli peccavi
Et malum coram te feci
Ut iustificeris in sermonibus tuis
Et vincas cum iudicaris
Ecce enim in iniquitatibus conceptus sum
Et in peccatis concepit me mater mea
Ecce enim veritatem dilexisti incerta
Et occulta sapientiae tuae manifestasti mihi
Asparges me hysopo et mundabor
Lavabis me et super nivem dealbabor
Auditui meo dabis gaudium
Et laetitiam exultabunt ossa humiliata
Averte faciem tuam a peccatis meis
Et omnes iniquitates meas dele
Cor mundum crea in me Deus
Et spiritum rectum innova in visceribus meis
Ne proicias me a facie tua
Et spiritum sanctum tuum ne auferas a me
Redde mihi laetitiam salutaris tui
Et spiritu principali confirma me
Docebo iniquos vias tuas
Et impii ad te convertentur
Libera me de sanguinibus
Deus, Deus salutis meae
Exultabit lingua mea iustitiam tuam
Domine labia mea aperies
Et os meum adnuntiabit laudem tuam
Quoniam si voluisses sacrificium dedissem utique
Holocaustis non delectaberis
Sacrificium Deo spiritus contribulatus
Cor contritum et humiliatum
Deus non spernet
Benigne fac Domine in bona voluntate tua Sion
Et aedificentur muri Hierusalem
Tunc acceptabis sacrificium iustitiae
oblationes et holocausta
Tunc inponent super altare tuum vitulos.

That's My King

For Palm Sunday, a fantastic version of the famous sermon "Seven Way King" (aka That's My King) as spoken by Dr. S.M. Lockridge set to footage from the movie "The Passion of the Christ". 

A fuller version of the text is given below (taken from here)

The Bible says my King is a seven-way King:

He's the King of the Jews - that's a racial King.

He's the King of Israel - that's a national King.

He's the King of Righteousness.

He's the King of the Ages.

He's the King of Heaven.

He's the King of Glory.

He's the King of kings and He's the Lord of lords.

That's my King.

Well, I wonder do you know Him.

David said, "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork."

My King is a sovereign King - no means of measure can define His limitless love.

No farseeing telescope can bring into visibility the coastline of His shoreless supply.

No barrier can hinder Him from pouring out His blessings.

He's enduringly strong.

He's entirely sincere.

He's eternally steadfast.

He's immortally graceful.

He's imperially powerful.

He's impartially merciful.

Do you know Him?

He's the greatest phenomenon that has ever crossed the horizon of this world.

He's God's Son.

He's the sinner's Saviour.

He's the centrepiece of civilisation.

He stands in the solitude of himself.

He's august and He's unique.

He's unparalleled, He's unprecedented.

He is the loftiest idea in literature.

He's the highest personality in philosophy.

He is the supreme problem in higher criticism.

He's the fundamental doctrine of true theology.

He is the core and the necessity for spiritual religion.

He's the miracle of the age, He's... yes He is.

He's the superlative of everything good that you choose to call Him.

He's the only one qualified to be an all-sufficient Saviour.

I wonder if you know him today?

He supplies strength for the weak.

He's available for the tempted and the tried.

He sympathises and He saves.

He strengthens and sustains.

He guards and He guides.

He heals the sick.

He cleansed the lepers.

He forgives sinners.

He discharges debtors.

He delivers the captive.

He defends the feeble.

He blesses the young.

He serves the unfortunate.

He regards the aged.

He rewards the diligent.

And He beautifies the meek.

I wonder if you know Him? Well, my King---

He is the key, He's the key to knowledge.

He's the wellspring of wisdom.

He's the doorway of deliverance.

He's the pathway of peace.

He's the roadway of righteousness.

He's the highway of holiness.

He's the gateway of glory.

Do you know Him?

Well, His office is manifold.

His promise is sure.

His life is matchless.

His goodness is limitless.

His mercy is everlasting.

His love never changes.

His Word is enough.

His grace is sufficient.

His reign is righteous and

His yoke is easy and

His burden is light.

I wish I could describe Him to you.

But He's indes... Wooah, yeaaah! yeaahh,

He's indescribable - yes He is ! He's God.

He's, He's indescribable, yes, He's indescribable.

He's incomprehensible.

He's invincible.

He's irresistible.

Well, you can't get Him out of your mind,

You get Him off of your hand,

You can't outlive Him, and you can't live without Him.

Well, the Pharisees couldn't stand Him, but they found out they couldn't stop Him.

Pilate couldn't find any fault in Him.

The witnesses couldn't get their testimonies to agree.

Herod couldn't kill Him.

Death couldn't handle Him and the grave couldn't hold Him. Yeah !

THAT'S MY KING !

THAT'S MY KING ! YEAH !

And Thine is the Kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever and ever and ever.

How long is that ?

And ever and ever.

And when you get through all the forevers, then

Amen !

GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY ! AMEN ! AMEN !

Dr. S. M.. Lockridge

Some Maths Tricks - Calculating Square Roots

I love these types of "calculating-tricks", i.e. simple procedures for calculating arithmetic operations on numbers. This one is a good one and its fun to try to see out why it works.

A full explanation can be found here.

Glissando - Floods

Glissando - Floods (Shortened Version)

Sigur Rós - Varúð

Sigur Rós - Varúð (Valtari Mystery Film Experiment / Directed By Jeff Ray)

I really like this.

Eliminating Eliminativism

The Maverick Philosopher down among the eliminativists.

I have to confess that, as someone who was never formally trained in philosophy, I can't even begin to see how eliminativism can address the points that Bill Vallicella raises here, along with the ones Feser investigates in his series of posts on Rosenberg's book.

Cheese-eating Surrender Monkeys - Not so much!

Kevin Stroud's "The History of English podcast" is still going strong and is a fascinating listen. One interesting snippet of information from a recent episode was that one possible explanation of the success of the steppe-peoples who spoke the proto-indo-european language, and their expansion out of their ancestral lands north of the Black Sea around 2500BC, was the acquisition of the ability to digest lactose and the subsequent development of dairy farming. The ability to process lactose gave them a significant nutritional advantage to the extent that archeological evidence suggests that they were on average 3 to 4 inches taller than the people they supplanted in Eastern Europe. Together with their domestication of the horse and their use of the chariot in battle, they were able to expand out of the steppes, taking their language with them.

Irrational Rationalists

Mike Flynn has some fun at the expense of our more scientistifical friends.

Habemus Papam...

... Franciscum

Pope Francis.

Ultimate Ends

I discovered, somewhat belatedly, from Mike Liccione's blog that Fr Al Kimel has restarted blogging. The story of the trials that he and his family have suffered over the last few years are very sad and the pilgrimage he has undertaken is difficult for me to understand - in some ways sad as well - but I remember this post "Disbelieving the Predestinarian God"from his old Pontifications blog, which, I think, ... I hope... , expresses very eloquently the reality of the situation.

xkcd-What If Twitter Feed

I'm a big fan of the xkcd comics (see here, here and here for a taste of the humour) and the What-If site is also good. It's worth looking up just for the link to the numbers twitter feed.

Barry Mazur on Evidence

Brandon Watson over at Siris puts up a link to a very interesting article by Harvard mathematician, Barry Mazur, on the concept of "Evidence" in mathematics and science.

They Did It Right

Being a teenager in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I never really understood - and to be honest, still don't understand - the appeal of punk rock as either a musical or a cultural movement. I mean, I understood, at least when I was at college and was expected to have a view on these sort of things, what people were talking about in terms of democratisation of popular music and so-forth. But it aways seemed to me that this was just an excuse for people with little musical ability to be in a band and stand up in front of an audience. And it was clear that it was merely the next in a series of inter-generational cultural conflicts stretching back to the creation of the "teenager" in the mid-1950s.

Part of the problem for me was that there already was an English "back-to-basics" musical genre in existence at this time. This was the pub-rock scene of the mid 1970s, the main exemplar of which was the Canvey Island group "Dr Feelgood". These bands were the musical descendants of sixties bands like the Animals and the early Rolling Stones. I love the cover of their 1974 album "Down by the Jetty" which captures perfectly the feeling of grey, dreary, hardness of recession-hit mid-70s Britain.

Here they are performing probably their best track (although you could also argue for "Roxette"), "She does it right". In terms of sheer energy, this leaves the like of the Sex Pistols looking distinctly underpowered. Despite the decidedly-dodgy TotP environment and mid-70s fashion of the audience, they dominate the stage.

There's another link here to another, may be better, version in which Lee Brilleaux is wearing his trademark white jacket.

The sheer prowling menace of both Lee Brilleaux's vocals and Wilco Johnson's guitar-playing remain a testament to the vibrancy of that era of popular culture. It wasn't a musical wasteland populated by the excesses of prog- and glam-rock and banal, mindless pop. There was real passion and danger in the music. And it was about the music, not some superficial attempt at rebellion that all-too-soon became swallowed up by the very machine that they were trying to fight against.

Lee Brilleaux died of cancer in 1994 and I heard an interview with Wilco on the Radio 4 a couple of weeks ago in which he described his feelings at his own recent diagnosis of inoperable pancreatic cancer. He said that his overwhelming feeling on hearing the news was of being "vividly alive".

Go pick me out a winner, Bobby...

The two best scenes from "The Natural".

Glenn Close warding off evil.

The final scene. Roy versus his younger self.

The film ends in a very different way to the book and there is a debate about whether you should do that. I know that I thought the ending of the 2008 version of "Brideshead Revisited" was a travesty for changing the final scene in the chapel. Here, I am not so sure. It's not Malamud's story but, in my view, it is a better story.

Two from Mitchell and Webb

By way of comparison, two modern day classics from Mitchell and Webb.

"Are we the Baddies?"
The first is a live version of the sketch from the TV show

I love some of the lines from this, especially the last one.

The second is the "Brain Surgery"sketch. Even when you know what's coming, it's still funny.

Four Candles

A classic sketch from The Two Ronnies.

All the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order...

From the Morecambe and Wise 1971 Christmas Show, with Andre Previn.

From 10:00 to the end, it's just perfect.

At 10:45...
Previn: You're playing all the wrong notes.
Eric: I'm playing all the right notes... but not necessarily in the right order...

Hypatia and the Flight from Reality

Mike Flynn returns to one of his favorite topics and systematically takes apart the entry on Hypatia on the (so-called) RationalWiki. Again, it is rather like shooting fish in a barrel as the demolition is so comprehensive that it is clear that the poor individual, or group of individuals, who wrote the article had no understanding of any of the methods of historical analysis, such as, for example, the use of primary sources. It's a simple rehash of the anti-historical myths about the war between science and religion that produced the recent film Agora, which itself was the subject of a comprehensive analysis by Tim O'Neill on his old blog.

The post has a useful link to the TOF's previous writing on this matter in his Aulde Blogge.

Feser on Hart on Natural Law

Ed Feser weighs in on David Bentley Hart's recent critique of Natural Law Theory.

Also Brandon Watson over at Siris makes some further points.

Just Plain Weird

From the article: "Eyes Work Without Connection to Brain: Ectopic Eyes Function Without Natural Connection to Brain":

"For the first time, scientists have shown that transplanted eyes located far outside the head in a vertebrate animal model can confer vision without a direct neural connection to the brain."

via John Farrell's Progressive Download blog.

Rio Bravo

John Wayne (again), Dean Martin and another study in friendship, this time from Howard Hawks. The opening scene, of which this clip is the follow-up, is a masterclass from Wayne on how to act by not acting.

It's interesting to compare the film to the remake "El Dorado". I think Robert Mitchum makes a better drunk,  although Dean Martin has more vulnerability,and James Caan plays a better role than Ricky Nelson. But Rio Bravo is still a better film.

Watson on Hart on Natural Law

Brandon Watson attempts to rebut David Bentley Hart's analysis of Natural Law Theory.

I have great respect for both parties and it is good to see substantive discussion.

Noam Chomsky - "The machine, the ghost, and the limits of understanding: Newton's contributions to the study of mind"

Interesting lecture on the nature and limits of scientific enquiry by Noam Chomsky.

Genetics and Environment

Interesting article by Mike Flynn on the relationship between genetics and environment - part of a longer pre-occupation of his on distinguishing between such stochastic concepts as non-random and deterministic.