• The strangest, easiest way to lose weight. It’s called the Shangri-La diet, and I think I am going to try it soon. 05/26/2006

Is it any wonder?

I believe if you ask anybody, they will say this is true: music defines summer. It’s certainly true for me. From “MMBop” blaring through the PA system at Holiday pool every afternoon when I was younger to cruising to Coldplay’s X&Y last summer, music has always been an integral part of my summer experience.

A few days ago, I stumbled upon the first official song of the summer of ‘06. The tune is called “Is It Any Wonder?” by British rockers Keane. The song is the first single from their forthcoming album Under the Iron Sea, and can be heard in full on their Myspace page. Give it a listen.

Dismissing the Da Vinci Code

No, not Cracking, Breaking, Exploring, De-Coding, or even Walking the Da Vinci Code. I am dismissing it, and as far as I can tell, no one has written a book about that yet. The first five links all lead to books on Amazon which generally claim to either “find the truth” or “uncover the lies” behind Dan Brown’s bestselling novel. Having read the book myself and with the movie nearing release in the US, I couldn’t resist giving my two cents.

Christians everywhere are all up in a mess about the Da Vinci Code, thinking that it somehow threatens them – even Christianity as a whole. Well, I have good news: the book is fiction. If it were a history book, people wouldn’t be buying it. If it were a history book about early Christianity, even fewer people would be buying it. But it’s a fiction book which pretends to uncover some ancient secret that’s been kept hush-hush for centuries, so people buy it, wondering what the secret is.

As I was reading the book last January, I could spot many “errors” in the book. One that stuck in my mind was Brown’s description of the tetragrammaton YHWH¹. Brown says that YHWH comes from the word Jehovah, but really it’s the other way around. YHWH is an English transliteration of the Hebrew word יהוה. Before English was Latin, and the Latin alphabet doesn’t include Y or W; I and V are used instead. So YHWH became IHVH and vowels were added so it was pronoucable: IEHOVAH. English transliterations of Latin sometimes use J for I (e.g. Iulius = Julius), so IEHOVAH became Jehovah.

I have the advantage of being a Religion major at college, and we have actually discussed things like this in class. I’ve also had other courses on topics like early Christian history, so spotting other falsities was rather easy. Many people, however, simply don’t have the background. The Da Vinci Code is the first place some even hear about the First Council of Nicaea (there were two) which happened in 325 C.E., and that’s okay.

I’ve rambled on for far too long. I guess my main point is that the Da Vinci Code is not as controversial as people think… it’s just a work of fiction. It wouldn’t be so threataning to people – especially Christians – if we simply had a working knowledge of Christian history, but the only Christian history we get takes place between 4 B.C.E. and 29 C.E (Jesus’ life).² Go ahead, read the book. See the movie. Maybe you’ll learn something. As far as fiction goes, The Da Vinci Code is alright, but another of Brown’s books, Angels and Demons, is far better.

1. I got out my book and found where he mentions this: “The Jewish tetragrammaton YHWH – the sacred name of God – in fact derived from Jehovah, an androgynous physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic name for Eve, Havah.” It’s completely false, but he makes it sound convincing. ↩
2. It is interesting and a bit funny that most scholars agree that Jesus was born a few years Before the Common Era (B.C.E.) or Before Christ (B.C.). ↩

Theses

I am taking (most of) today off, because I spent the whole day yesterday in the library finishing two really big papers. Here are the titles and theses from these respective papers.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Emergence of Latin American Liberation Theology

The emergence of liberation theology in Latin America in the early 1970s was certainly inevitable. Latin America, along with the Latin American Catholic Church, had been experiencing many crises and changes within its diverse socioeconomic and sociopolitical spheres. Much like the maturation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s own theology in response to problems with which he was intimately involved, there was a growing sense of urgency in the 1950’s and 1960’s regarding the problems plaguing Latin America.

An Exegesis of Mark 12:28-31 in Light of Alain Badiou’s Reading of Paul and Romans 13:8-10

Badiou further illustrates this paradoxical relationship between love and the law. He makes the distinction between a “legalizing subjectivation, which is a power of death, and a law raised up by faith, which belongs to the spirit and life.”¹ In the setting of faith, love names a “nonliteral law” or, perhaps, a “law written on the heart,”² which actually does the work of creating postevental truth. This truth is “postevental” because for Badiou, “the Truth-Event is simply a radically New Beginning; it designates the violent, traumatic, and contingent intrusion of another dimension not ‘mediated’ by the domain of terrestrial finitude and corruption.”³ If this is the case, perhaps Jesus in Mark is far more revolutionary than our watered-down, millennia old ticket-to-heaven.

If you’d handed me the second paper a few years ago and told me I wrote it I would have just laughed at you. Or thrown up.

1. Badiou, Alain. Saint Paul: the Foundation of Universalism. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2003. 87. ↩
2. Romans 2:15 ↩
3. Žižek, Slavoj. The Ticklish Subject. New York: Verso, 1999. 146. ↩

• I’ll be sure to watch for this tonight. There is something weird going on with the clock on 24. Apparently, the clock never shows a 0 turning into a 1, and it never shows a 1 turning into a 2 (warning: contains spoiler from last week’s episode). 05/15/2006

The 3 Step Plan for Surefire Success*

Looking for success and wondering why you keep falling short? Look no further. By following this simple three step program, success is yours for the taking. No more failures. No more disgrace. Both the co-inventor of this program and I have been using this program for more than three years with consistent results: success. The three steps are as follows:

1) Get your priorities straight.

2) Think things through.

3) Make things happen.

That’s it. Now get out there and start making things happen.¹

* The actual name is “The Salzwedel-Bouma 3 Step Plan for Surefire Success,” but that’s too long for a post title.

1. Be sure, however, to get your priorities straight and think things through first. ↩

• AIM Pages, AOL’s social networking service which is in direct competition with Myspace (and has been called a Myspace killer) is up and running in beta. Here’s my profile. 05/13/2006

People in the streets singing “Revolution”

Dr. Thunder & the Generic Sodas have been doing quite a few shows lately. Here’s a song we only ever did once: “Revolution” (the file is pretty big so unless you’re on broadband, you’re probably out of luck).

Was anybody at that performance?

This video is from the fall of 2003, at an event called OlzFest. Here a link to the YouTube page for the video.

Was anybody at that performance?

• Meet MIDAS: the Multifunction In-Dorm Automation System. A couple of students at MIT (duh) fully automated their dorm room. Includes videos. 05/11/2006
• Why most Bibles have three columns. Three reasons: economics, readability, and history. 05/07/2006
• Once in high school I drew a picture of a bottle with a label that read “Instant H20! Just add water!” At the time I thought I was being witty, but it looks like someone has taken my idea to a new extreme. 05/05/2006
• Possible follow-up songs for one-hit wonders. “Seriously, Eileen, Come On.” 05/04/2006
• Wow, this takes me back. A super long list of old Sesame Street videos available on YouTube. “Let’s start with a song we all know by heart: one two three FOUR five, six seven eight NINE ten, eleven twelve…“ 05/04/2006

Music of the month

Admittedly, it’s been a while since the last music of the month post. There is usually pretty good response to these posts, so I thought I’d give a roundup of what I’ve been listening to a lot lately.

Ben Harper, Both Sides of the Gun: This is a two-disc album, and from the moment I heard track one of disc one, “Morning Yearning,” I was hooked. He’s been getting fantastic reviews for his latest effort, and for good reason. Favorite tracks: Morning Yearning, Better Way

Wideawake, Not So Far Away: There is no amount of praise I could give this band to do them justice. If The Fray was the band that defined my fall semester¹, Wideawake is the band that has defined my spring semester. I don’t know if these guys will ever make it nationally or not (they’re pretty big in Texas), but you owe it to yourself to check ‘em out. Favorite tracks: Mariposa, Misunderstood, Broken

Josh Garrels, Stonetree: Really, I am only listening to this album because I am so excited about his new one, Over Oceans. It’s a little difficult to describe Josh’s style, and I assume many reading this are unfamiliar with him, so just check out some of his stuff on his Myspace. Favorite track: Alleluia

Dave Barnes, Chasing Mississippi: Barne’s second full-length album sounds much better production-wise. His music has always been genre-defying, and this album captures that wonderfully. He’ll go from 70’s sounding disco-pop to straight-up blues to acoustic love song without a second thought. I gave a copy to a friend of mine recently and he said it’s currently his favorite album. Favorite tracks: Miles to Go, Everybody But You, Someday Sarah

Stevie Wonder, A Time to Love: Received this album via Shawn, and I must say it is a gem. Stevie’s still got it. I think that he’s the kind of artist you’ve always enjoyed and always will, or have never enjoyed and never will. Favorite tracks: From the Bottom of My Heart, Please Don’t Hurt My Baby

Rascal Flatts, Me and My Gang: Rascal Flatts is a money-making machine; they’re pumping out albums before you even have a chance to finish listening to the last one. I think they’ve released an album every year I have been in college. For the most part this album is really crappy and disappointing. The only redeeming qualities are the first two tracks, “Stand” and “What Hurts the Most”. “Stand” is lyrically cheesy, but I think it’s done tastefully. “What Hurts the Most” is the most-played song on my iPod recently. Favorite tracks: What Hurts the Most, Stand

1. I posted about The Fray way back in September, the day their hit album came out, remember? Now their single “Over My Head (Cable Car)” is everywhere. ↩

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