I was on the news. Check it out.
http://www.kmov.com/video/lateststories-index.html?nvid=332751&shu=1

Expelled - No Intelligence Allowed

Sarah and I watched the Ben Stein documentary, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" last week. It was a really interesting look at intelligent design and those promoting it within the world of academia.

Stein chooses his fight carefully. Instead of taking on evolution directly, he points out that evolution does not explain how life began and argues that the idea of a designer is at least the equal of other theories on how life emerged from non-living things. No one knows how life came from non-life, but the scientific community has decreed that only non-intelligent design theories are worthy of discussion. Stein details the persecution of those in the scientific community that raise these points and argues that intelligent design deserves to be part of the debate.

The most fascinating part of the documentary is when Stein interviews Richard Dawkins, the prominent atheist and author of The God Delusion. According to Dawkins, there is little to no chance of God or a creator, but he believes that a plausible explanation for the beginning of life on earth was a visit from aliens billions of years ago.

I believe the scientific community is trying to diminish the role of God in society so that He can be replaced by a new god - the state. 

Jaydiohead

My opinions of "mash-ups" have been nothing but bad since that horrible Elvis mash-up album came out years ago. Luckily the idea has been significantly redeemed when I started listening to Girl Talk and now Jaydiohead. I have been listening to this non-stop since someone told me about it and I downloaded it. Not only was I reintroduced to Jay-Z but the quality of Radiohead's music really gets highlighted in this format. Anyway, take a listen if you're curious. It's a free download here

Bobby's 2008 Favorites

So I had been holding off posting these in hopes of annotating my list. Alas, I never found the time and it would be 2010 before I'd likely finish. So here they are. Please ask me about any specific titles if you want more info. For book info, feel free to check out my GoodReads page.

Music

Fleet Foxes - s/t*

Bon Iver - For Emma Forever Ago*

Damien Jurado - Caught in the Trees*

Beach House - Devotion

Cool Kids - Bake Sale

Walkmen - You & Me

Black Mountain - In the Future

Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Lie Down In the Light

Vampire Weekend - s/t

Sigur Ros - Med sud i eyrum vid spilum endalaust
*top three

Live Shows

Fleet Foxes @ the Hi Dive

Sigur Ros @ Red Rocks

Mumford & Sons / Laura Marling @ Falcon Bowl

Deerhoof @ Bluebird Theater

Books

(published 2008)

Fiction:

Netherland - Joseph O'Neill

White Tiger - Adiga Aravind

Atmospheric Disturbances - Rivka Galchen

Story of Edgar Sawtelle - David Wroblewski

Nonfiction:

Traffic - Tom Vanderbilt

Happy Gloves - Miyako Kanamori

Sizwe's Test - Jonny Steinberg

Childrens:

Bats at the Library - Brian Lies

Madam President - Lane Smith

Wave - Suzy Lee

Little Matador - Julian Hector

Little Hoot - Amy Crouse Rosenthal

(read in 2008)

Invention of Hugo Cabaret - Brian Selznik

Gilead - Marilynne Robinson

Watchmen - Alan Moore

All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy

Plainsong - Kent Haruf

Movies

(in theaters)

Slumdog Millionaire
The Dark Knight

Man on Wire

(on DVD)

The Visitor

The Band's Visit

Young at Heart

This American Life (tv series)

War/Dance

No Country for Old Men

Favorites From '08

2008 has come to a close. What are everyone's favorite books, movies or music from last year? Here's a few of my favorites. Yes, Bobby, I liked the Indiana Jones movie and I am not ashamed. 

Books

Liberal Fascism - Jonah Goldberg
Capitalism and Freedom - Milton Freidman
America Alone - Mark Steyn
John Adams - David McCullough
The Post-American World - Fareed Zakaria

Movies

The Dark Knight

Burn After Reading
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Iron Man

Music

Kings of Leon - Only By the Night
Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs
The Ranconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely

Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

Conor Oberst - Conor Oberst

Stuff White Christians Like

One of my favorite blogs is stuffwhitepeoplelike.com. If you're not familiar, it is the definitive guide to stuff white (liberal) people like. Stuff white people like includes: awareness, gifted children, knowing what's best for poor people, hating corporations, comparing people to Hitler... you get the idea.

I am pleased to present a shameless ripoff blog: Stuff White Christians Like at stuffwhitechristianslike.com. Any suggestion that I am posting stuff white Christians like under the pen name Abraham Calvin is preposterous! And the other poster, Luther Zwingli is certainly not a pen name for a good friend of mine in the Chicago area - equally preposterous.

Stuff White Christians Like officially launched Saturday night at 11:59 pm CST. Because the posters wouldn't dream of blogging on the Sabbath, there will be a new post every Saturday night at 11:59.

I hope you like it. Feel free to pass on the link to friends and email stuff white Christians like to abrahamcalvin at gmail.com.

Calvin College Reunions

Hey! This post is not as thoughtful as Jon's recent post...still thinking of comments for it as it did promote great reflection.

So, I got a mailing recently asking if I would participate in reunion planning for Calvin....which got me thinking, I haven't been to a reunion, haven't been inclined to go, and don't see the point as they currently are scheduled at an odd time...In fact, each year the mailings seem to inspire cynical comments about awkwardly sitting at an Improv session.

so, I'm wondering. Have any of you attended a Calvin reunion? If so, why? How was it?

Would any of you consider attending a Calvin reunion? Why? What would draw you in?

The only "reunion" I've ever attended was with many of the friends who read/write for this blog. They have been wonderful times of good conversation and reconnection in various locations. The focus was on maintaining friendship across the miles.

I most recently attended the alumni reunion at my grad school...which was great because it included a continuing ed component focused on my profession, as well as offered some great opportunities to network and reconnect with professors and classmates. Again, all in my professional circle, with an immediate "application" if you will.

This may be a bit snarky, but Calvin alumni reunions seem to have less than interesting topics, time to reconnect with classmates, but not necessarily faculty, and are great for boomers and beyond but lack a connection to our generation X/Y/Millenials. In addition to possibly missing our generation, I think the concept of a reunion as functioning as a time/place to regenerate giving to Calvin could also use some re-thinking.

Thoughts?

Conservative Charity

Democrats are making an effort to peel off evangelical Christians from the Republican base by stressing their commitment to "social justice." Conservatives are not very good at talking about the poor and are often assumed to be greedy and uncaring.

To start, social justice, as promoted by the left, is based on the false premise that inequality is evidence of injustice. Inequality is portrayed as a societal problem to be remedied by government. However, I think most people would agree that people choose different paths in life and some acquire skills that are more useful to society than others. The fact that a brain surgeon, who after years of training makes more money than a fast food worker should surprise and upset no one. The chance to make more money than the fast food worker probably played a part in the surgeon's desire to complete the necessary training. People have a right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and equal protection under the law. People do not have a right to economic equality.

Although the poor are not, as a rule, being denied justice, that does not mean we are free of responsibility to help them. Liberals have labeled conservatives as greedy and uncaring because we oppose income redistribution, however, Arthur C. Brooks' research in his book Who Really Cares shows that label to be the furthest thing from the truth. Brooks found that in the U.S., conservatives actually give more of their money to charity than liberals.

Brooks defined "liberals" as the 30% of the population calling themselves "liberal" or "very liberal" and conservatives as the 40% of the population calling themselves "conservative" or "very conservative." He was surprised to find that in 2000, conservative households gave 30% more than liberal households, even though liberal households earned 6% more on average. 24 out of 25 of the most giving states (charitable gifts/adjusted gross income) went for Bush in the 2000 election.

Brooks saw an even bigger difference when people were asked whether "the government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality." This is the crux of the argument between fiscal conservatism and liberalism. The 43% who disagreed with the statement gave 12 times as much as those who agreed strongly. The difference also carried over into volunteer hours and blood donation.

Many (certainly not all) liberals substitute political opinions for private giving while conservatives are more likely to actually give and volunteer. Favoring tax policies that "donate" other people's money is not charity and opposing them is not greed.

So conservatives do care about the poor. Why do we oppose income redistribution? It takes away economic freedom and stifles opportunity. Punitive tax policies reduce incentives to be productive. Less production means less opportunity. As Ronald Reagan once said: "I believe the best social program is a job." Private charities are much more efficient than government. Thoughtful givers can focus their gifts on efforts that help lift people out of poverty while government programs tend to keep poor people dependent and, well, poor. What's more, Brooks' research shows that these programs depress charitable giving.

I fear that President-elect Obama's policies will not help the poor. Instead his policies are likely to make them more dependent on government and reduce their opportunities to help themselves. I believe conservative policies are better for everyone, we just need to get better at explaining them.

Sorry for the book, but I had a hard time condensing my argument. I'm interested to hear everybody's thoughts.

So I was roaming around on the net and look what I found...the ever elusive Aaron Kupchella! Apparently he's in the Beijing Big Band. Pretty damn cool. I found this within Facebook. Anyone know if he's got an account on Facebook?


P.S. - The pic came out a little small here...but that's definitely him on the far left.

Reorganizing

I reorganized the stuff on the right side of the blog, hope you guys don't mind. I think it would be cool if we let each other know about movies, books or music that we enjoyed (or if you didn't like it, save somebody the $10 they were going to spend on that movie). It's really easy to do, just make sure you're logged in and then click on the little button below each section or click on customize at the top right. My ratings were on a 5 * scale, but rate things however you like.