This curriculum outlines the differences betweet Christianity and other prominent worldviews vying for allegiance in Western culture: Islam, Postmodernism, Secular Humanism, Marxism, and the New Age. In a time when more than half of all Christians lose their faith in college, no other curriculum so effectively prepares its students to defend the Christian worldview against all its competitors.

• Ken Ham, a chronic liar for Jesus who repeatedly pretends to understand the science of biology in order to misrepresent the state of the art in evolution,
• David Barton, a man who repeatedly cherry-picks the writings of the Founding Fathers in order to prove America is founded as a "Christian Nations", and make it seem like the lack of mention of Christianity or Jesus in the Constitution was not because the Founders believed in freedom of religion, but because they assumed it so overwhelmingly that it didn't need repeating,
• Ray Comfort, the bizarre little man who so homoerotically caressed a banana to "prove" it was intelligently designed for the human hand, and who regularly asserts that Hitler was "inspired" by Darwin,
• Josh McDowell, the "Campus Crusader For Christ" and another anti-evolution nitwit,
• Kerby Anderson, another "All the Founding Fathers of America were Christians as only evangelicals understand Christianity today!" maroon,
• Along with many others.

Just got back from delivering books to the liaison for our local domestic violence shelter.  This is the fourth year I’ve collected books to be given out for the holidays, and once again I’m blown away by everyone’s generosity.  There was a lot of good SF/F in there, as well as Seuss, an anime collection, some YA, mystery, romance … it’s a wonderful mix of books, and will mean an awful lot to the families who receive them.

The only downside, of course, is that now I want to read them all.  So many books … guess I know what to ask Santa for this year!

All total, we ended up with about 75 books.  Most of the books in the picture above were signed and sent by the authors.  Others were purchased new and donated.  My deepest thanks to everyone who contributed:

• Elizabeth Bear
• Heidi Berthiaume
• John Fitch V
• Chris Gerrib
• Betty Hanawa
• Samantha Henderson
• Mindy Klasky
• Michael Merriam
• Melanie Nilles
• Richard Parks
• Julia Reynolds
• C. L. Rossman
• Karen Schwabach
• Kate Shaw
• S. Andrew Swann
• Emily Testa

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/TUfMQEZ1IIM/times-square-snowbal.html

Photo of people having a massive snowball fight last night in NYC's Times Square, by James Sims. #snOMG!

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/cU7rRZ5qZ4s/eff-lawsuit-reveals.html

Related NYT piece, and here's a related LAT piece. Comprehensive information and document copies are here at EFF.org. The ACLU filed a related action, details on that here.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/IkGKKcL6MtU/eliot-spitzer-propos.html

http://scifiwire.com/2009/12/avatar-is-number-one-with.php

James Cameron's 3-D sci-fi epic Avatar was the weekend's number-one film, as expected, and pulled in a robust estimated $73 million domestically, which was nevertheless a bit below expectations.

http://www.brenda-cooper.com/2009/12/20/reading-recommendation-the-lacuna-by-barbara-kingsolver/

http://www.brenda-cooper.com/?p=1291

Fair warning – this is not a genre book, not fast paced, not adventure, almost but not quite devoid of plot twists.

But there are other things for books to do.  One of those is to comment on who we are, to use story as a way to teach.

I have been in awe of Barbara Kingsolver’s writing ability since I read The Poisonwood Bible (which you might note is still in print and available in almost every possible edition even though it’s now almost 12 years old).  If you haven’t read it, you should.  Anyway, I know I’m in capable hands with Barbara’s work.  So when I saw The Lacuna a day or two after it came out in a great big happy stack of blue books with yellow covers, I grabbed it without even bothering to read the dust jacket.

It took a few weeks start to finish, and at one point I wished she were writing form the POV of some of the other characters (I wanted to know more, for example, about Frida Kahlo).  nevertheless, in the end I was in awe of the work, and felt I learned a lot about our current times from her exploration of our history.  I highly recommend this for those who want a thoughtful read with exquisite line by line writing.

http://carriev.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/avatar/

http://carriev.wordpress.com/?p=1598

The short review:  Part of me feels like I’ve been waiting for this movie my whole life.  And part of me wishes I’d seen it without knowing anything about Dances With Wolves.  Or John Carter of Mars, for that matter.

The long review, because of course I have more to say about it.  My expectations on this were very high.  Partly because of that, I was never able to entirely shut off my analytical brain, which made me a little sad.  Also, I felt the thing was pretty heavy handed.  However, the more I think about it (and it’s impossible not to think about it), the more I like it, and I want to see it again, for itself, instead of for my expectations.  A few things:

• This film is hard on its heroes, which I liked a lot.  They fail over and over and over again.  Badly.  It takes a deus ex machina to save the day.  But because this is James Cameron, who is very good about lining up his guns on the mantel and firing them at the right time, it’s set up fairly well.
• I liked Jake, the main character, and his arc.  We don’t often see a disabled hero in an action film, and that really rocked.
• I loved loved loved the pure science fiction of the thing.  Beautiful sapphire worlds in orbit around hazy gas giants, multi-moon scapes with four-winged dragons flying by.  Power suits and cryo-chambers and neural interfaces.  And a beautiful big spaceship.  The kind of SF bits I see in books all the time but rarely in movies, which seem to use SF tropes as eye candy rather than using them to build up whole worlds like this.
• This leads into an on-going rant about CGI in movies, and how for such a long time CGI wasn’t being used to its full potential.  But here (along with movies like Immortel, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and Speed Racer) we have CGI being used to make new worlds that we never could have seen otherwise.  We have twelve-foot tall blue aliens interacting with live-action actors — seamlessly.  I forgot it was CGI, which ought to be the whole point.
• The part of my brain that took a seminar called “Victorian Imperialism” in grad school twitched through the entire movie.  Because this story — the heroic European/American adventurer who meets the Noble Savage and goes native — has been around for a long time.  One of the reasons Dances With Wolves is such a good movie is because it’s almost an inversion of the story — Dunbar goes native, but the Sioux are just people, and he doesn’t lead them in a great uprising, he’s not a chosen one destined to save them.  In fact, he leaves the tribe in order to protect them.  (Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now also take stabs at deconstructing the trope.  Kurtz goes native but there’s nothing noble about it.)  Alas, Avatar gives us the version where Jake goes native because he learns how noble and wise the “savages” really are and is mysteriously chosen by some mystical energy to be the one to lead them all in a great uprising.  Seeing as how this takes place on another planet with aliens and all, I’d have liked to see a twist on it.  Some cool variation.  But the aliens here are suspiciously similar to the Sioux. (In fact, the chief of the alien Na’vi tribe is played by Wes Studi, one of Hollywood’s go-to actors for Native American roles.  And yes, Studi was in Dances With Wolves as a Pawnee warrior.)  And really, Edgar Rice Burroughs already did the “on another planet” version of the trope with the Mars books.
• There was a trailer for the new Clash of the Titans.  Yes, there’s a Clash of the Titans remake.  “Release the Kraken!”  Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!

UPDATE:  I purposefully write my reviews before reading any others.  I’ve just done a quick tour of the web to read other people’s reviews.  And wow.  People either love this movie or hate it.  The reviews are either, “Yeah, it’s heavy handed but WOW HOLY COW IT LOOKS SO AWESOME YAYAYAYAYA!!!11!!!!!!”  Or, “Holy crap could there be a more heavy handed worse written patriarchal blah blah blah…*This* is what’s wrong with western civilization!!!!11!!!!”

But I have a question:  Can’t I have both reactions at the very same time?

Fair warning – this is not a genre book, not fast paced, not adventure, almost but not quite devoid of plot twists.

But there are other things for books to do.  One of those is to comment on who we are, to use story as a way to teach.

I have been in awe of Barbara Kingsolver’s writing ability since I read The Poisonwood Bible (which you might note is still in print and available in almost every possible edition even though it’s now almost 12 years old).  If you haven’t read it, you should.  Anyway, I know I’m in capable hands with Barbara’s work.  So when I saw The Lacuna a day or two after it came out in a great big happy stack of blue books with yellow covers, I grabbed it without even bothering to read the dust jacket.

It took a few weeks start to finish, and at one point I wished she were writing form the POV of some of the other characters (I wanted to know more, for example, about Frida Kahlo).  nevertheless, in the end I was in awe of the work, and felt I learned a lot about our current times from her exploration of our history.  I highly recommend this for those who want a thoughtful read with exquisite line by line writing.

Mirrored from Brenda Cooper.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/va3woSsYbY4/ornate-laser-cut-bal.html

Victorian Doll House Birch plywood Laser Cut Kit 2 (via Wonderland)

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/mHbEcls8ACE/wsj-national-enquire.html

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/LyYFEXn0bMk/nuclear-reactor-cuta.html

These images are derived from pdf files [UNM CSEL Nuclear Engineering Wall Chart Collection] hosted on New Mexico's Digital Collections portal for the Centennial Science and Engineering Library at the University of New Mexico on behalf of NEI. Something a bit different, to be sure.