text:
by Krista Tippett, host
Albert Einstein's famous equation, E=mc2, remains difficult for me to grasp fully. But I feel I have come to understand something of the man — his expansive spirit, his relentless curiosity, and his reverence for the beauty and order of nature and thought. I was daunted as I began, but delving into Einstein was a delight.
And there is a logic of sorts to that, as humor was an aspect of Einstein's genius. Freeman Dyson suggests that his ability to make light and to laugh, even at himself, was one key to the magnitude of his scientific accomplishment. Science is often about failure. Einstein himself proposed that he made so many discoveries because he was not afraid to be proven wrong, repeatedly, on his way to all of them. But Einstein also employed humor to philosophical and ethical effect, weighing in trenchantly on mankind's foibles.
Einstein held a deep and nuanced, if not a traditional, faith. I did not assume this at the outset. I've always been suspicious of the way Einstein's famous line, "God does not play dice with the universe," gets quoted for vastly different purposes. I wanted to understand what Einstein meant as a physicist when he said that. As it turns out, that particular quip had more to do with physics than with God, as Freeman Dyson and Paul Davies illuminate.
Einstein did, however, leave behind a rich body of reflection on the "mind" and the "superior spirit" behind the cosmos that has never made its way into popular consciousness. He didn't believe in a personal God who would interfere with the laws of physics. But he was fascinated with the ingenuity of those laws and expressed awe at the very fact of their existence. Throughout his life, he thrilled to all he could not yet understand. He was more than content with what he called a "cosmic religious sense" — animated by "inklings" and "wondering," rather than by answers and conclusions. Here is a passage that comes close, I think, to a concise description by Einstein of his quintessential "faith":
"A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty — it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves … Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvelous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavor to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature."
With Paul Davies, I was able to pursue how Einstein changed our view of space and especially time, a subject that has always intrigued me. Before Einstein, as Davies describes it, human beings thought of space and time as fixed and immutable, the backdrop to the great show of life. But we now know they are elastic and intertwined, part of the show themselves. Einstein described our perception of time as an arrow — traversing linear and compartmentalized past, present, and future — as a "stubbornly persistent illusion." Such language is evocative from a religious standpoint. As Davies discusses, it echoes insights that run throughout Eastern and Western religions and ancient indigenous cultures. Davies finds an affinity between Einstein's view of time and the religious notion of a reality "beyond time," and of "the eternal." And because he speaks as a person conversant in current advancements of Einstein's science — cosmology and the Big Bang, black holes, even the search for life beyond this galaxy — his insights carry for me a special weight of authority and, yes, wonder.
I came across many wise and touching pieces of writing by the spiritual Einstein while preparing for these conversations. Einstein was a passionate letter writer. He wrote to fellow scientists, friends, and strangers. He loved responding to the letters of schoolchildren. One of his correspondents for a time was Queen Elisabeth of Belgium. He had struck up a warm friendship with her and her husband, King Albert, just before World War II. In one tragic season in the midst of already tumultuous political times, her husband died suddenly, as did her daughter-in-law. Einstein wrote to her:
"Mrs. Barjansky wrote to me how gravely living in itself causes you suffering and how numbed you are by the indescribably painful blows that have befallen you. And yet we should not grieve for those who have gone from us in the primes of their lives after happy and fruitful years of activity, and who have been privileged to accomplish in full measure their task in life.
Something there is that can refresh and revivify older people: joy in the activities of the younger generation — a joy, to be sure, that is clouded by dark forebodings in these unsettled times. And yet, as always, the springtime sun brings forth new life, and we may rejoice because of this new life and contribute to its unfolding; and Mozart remains as beautiful and tender as he always was and always will be. There is, after all, something eternal that lies beyond the hand of fate and of all human delusions. And such eternals lie closer to an older person than to a younger one oscillating between fear and hope. For us, there remains the privilege of experiencing beauty and truth in their purest forms."
I emerged from these discussions with a new sense of Albert Einstein — not just as a great mind, but as a wise man. He was fully human and flawed, certainly in his intimate relationships. But he was undeniably an original, and not just as a scientist. If past, present, and future are an illusion, as he said, none of us ever really disappear. We all leave our imprint on what is now. I have a profound sense of Einstein's imprint, and it comforts me. I suspect that if he heard he was the subject of a program called Speaking of Faith more than 50 years after his death, he would make a funny, kindly, self-deprecating joke. But if he could listen with twenty-first-century ears, he might be intrigued by how his generous, questioning, "cosmic" religious sense is deeply kindred with the religious and spiritual yearnings of our age.
Images: top, an inset of a page from one of three existing Einstein manuscripts on special relativity (1912). No known original manuscripts exist from the year of publication in 1905. (courtesy of The Jewish National & University Library, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
bottom, Albert Einstein sailing his boat on Saranac Lake. (courtesy of The Fantova Collection, Princeton University)
by Nancy Rosenbaum, associate producer
Julian Assange of WikiLeaks holds a copy of The Guardian newspaper that features a report using the site's leaked documents on the Afghanistan war. (photo: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)
[Governments] used to be able to control what…newspapers and news organizations would do in part by informally controlling their access to information, by in essence saying, 'If you go over the line, we'll stop talking to you. We won't invite you on to the press plane. We won't give you a seat on the bus.' And reporters behaved within certain parameters in part, because they do need that continued access. WikiLeaks doesn't need a seat on the bus.
—Micah Sifry, executive editor of TechPresident.com on FutureTense
Micah Sifry's commentary on the unfolding WikiLeaks story on the war in Afghanistan has gotten me thinking about questions of trust and relationship-building in and beyond the realm of journalism and politics. At its worst, needing to keep our "seat on the bus," as Sifry puts it, can result in collusion and self-censoring. Information or, put differently, necessary truths, get squelched in favor of preserving expedient relationships.
Maybe we do this with family, friends, and loved ones — keep things to ourselves to maintain a connection, a sense of belonging, or simply to get our basic needs met. But coming at it from another direction, I believe there are moral and relational benefits to interdependence. Both sides have to consider each others' needs. Empathy is triggered. No one party can act with reckless abandon. The work of peacebuilder and conflict transformation practitioner John Paul Lederach comes to mind here.
I wonder if the truths unearthed through WikiLeaks' release of classified documents about the war in Afghanistan will galvanize a public response. NYU Journalism professor and blogger Jay Rosen offers some sobering insight in his PressThink blog:
"We tend to think: big revelations mean big reactions. But if the story is too big and crashes too many illusions, the exact opposite occurs. My fear is that this will happen with the Afghanistan logs. Reaction will be unbearably lighter than we have a right to expect — not because the story isn't sensational or troubling enough, but because it's too troubling, a mess we cannot fix and therefore prefer to forget."
What do you think?
by Maria Clara Paulino, guest contributor
When I first heard the interview with Matthew Sanford on the radio, I was moved beyond words. I wanted to hear it again. The second time I heard it, online, I was more moved still.
I wanted to understand what had touched me so deeply beyond his extraordinary story of loss and victory, and the candid and engaging quality of his telling. There was something else I could hear in the silences between his words that mesmerized me. What was it, exactly? I still do not know, but I keep asking the question.
On the surface, Sanford's life and mine have little in common. Very different stories indeed. Why, then, do I feel so strongly that I know what he is talking about? It cannot be the accident, the hospital, the paralysis — all of it so tragic that to say I understand would be worse than arrogance; so tragic, indeed, that it almost drowns out a subtler resonance. And yet, is it not this resonance that Sanford points to when he mentions silence, darkness, and quietness as portals to a deeper awareness?
It could be an illusion, this feeling that there is something in common, something that I understand. But it could also be that the commonality resides not in what human beings experience but in the way we experience it; that it is not in the action but in the gap, in the silence that follows and precedes action, that we meet as equals and see the other in ourselves.
A similar question comes to mind when I think of what Sanford calls "the gulf" — the isolation of personal experience from other personal experiences, the "existentialist" separation between self and even those the self most loves. I do not share with him the exact same reason for this gulf, his particular experience of pain and loss; what I share is the awareness of the separation and the anguish that results from that awareness.
Sunset at the mouth of the Douro in Porto, Portugal. (photo: Simon Blackley/Flickr)
As Sanford acknowledges, we all share it. We know we cannot be sure that the emotion we feel is perceived in the same intensity and depth by anyone else, however much intimacy there may be between those concerned. And, when two lovers watch the sun bleeding into the ocean, do they see the same shades of orange and red? Yet, if we share the desperate awareness of this gulf, is that not a most powerful commonality?
Mystics and theologians, Buddha and Christ have claimed for such a long, long time that separation is the illusion, yet we hang on to this illusion with all our might. It is clearly more soothing to us than that which we have in common. After all, "to have in common" means to have one's boundaries less clearly marked, to feel with another — pretty scary stuff that may explain why we lend so much weight to our differences and place so much value on them, from individuals to societies, from East to West and North to South. Even when we hate the differences (those seen as negative always embodied in "the other") and in direct proportion, it seems, to how much we hate them, we pour our attention on them; we bring them out under the glaring sun so everyone can stare at them until they seem insurmountable in their three-dimensional "reality."
But, Sanford claims, if we find ourselves in darkness, or in a very quiet place, we become more attuned to a different, subtler reality; and if we are strong enough to become vulnerable, to stay with the fear — in short, if we "surrender" — we may glimpse the contours of authentic feeling (how scary is that?) and hear the song of our oh-so-common human experience of striving and losing, loving and letting go, living and dying at every moment of existence.
And this may be the most healing story we can tell ourselves.
Ms. Paulino lives in Rock Hill, South Carolina and teaches Art History and Criticism at the University of Winthrop and the University of Porto. In her "Writing in the Margins" she muses on a home in-between: languages, places, ways of seeing.
We welcome your reflections, essays, videos, or news items for possible publication on SOF Observed. Submit your entry through our First Person Outreach page.
by Anne Breckbill, associate web developer
On June 30, Krista interviewed Alan Rabinowitz for this week's show "A Voice for the Animals" — discussing topics ranging from his severe stutter, Dawi (the last pure Mongoloid pygmy), large wild cats, genetic corridors, and his recent cancer diagnosis. We live-tweet (SOFtweets) all of our interviews now. Here is the Twitterscript of that interview:
—Tom Banchoff, director of Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs
All this week, NPR has been airing Louisa Lim's reports from Beijing that highlight various aspects of religious growth and change in China, including stories about burgeoning support for Buddhism, women's mosques and female imams, divided Catholics, and the rebirth of folk religion. "God is rising here…" says one Chinese Christian woman quoted. This series "New Believers: A Religious Revolution in China" helps illustrate how that's happening.
Colleen Scheck, senior producer
by Pádraig Ó Tuama, guest contributor
Last year, while working with a primary school class here in Belfast, a child said:
"Pádraig, let me ask you a question. God loves us right?"
Avoiding the complexity of anthropomorphic projections of human experiences onto God, I answered, from the heart of me, with what I hope.
"Yes," I said.
"And God made us all didn't he?" she continued.
I avoided discussions of "made" and "He" and said:
"Tell me this," she said, "why did God make Protestants?"
When I asked her why she was asking me this, she said:
"Well, they hate us and they hate Him."
I had been amused at the start. Now, I was not amused. I wondered what stories were educating this funny, witty, engaging, and lively child.
This child understood some human lessons and had learnt them well. They hate us. They hate our God. They are unknown, and the hollow story we tell is that they are also unknowable.
Another child that I was working with once drew a picture of a big boot, kicking a small figure. The boot was labeled "Catlichs" and the boot "Purdestints". He could not yet spell, yet he knew the rules of the story he believed.
There is an Irish saying that I love: ar scáth a chéile a mhaireas na daoine. It translates as "it is in the shelter of each other that the people live". Krista's interview with John Paul Lederach reminds me of the intentionality we must incarnate when working with our lives to create avenues out of violent conflict. We must nurture unpredictable relationships. We must share shelter with people whose shelter we would rather not share. We must share stories with people whose stories we would rather not share. This may not be popular, but it may just save us.
Last week, I watched from my window as a band parade made its way from commemorations in the city northwest up the Crumlin Road. My flat is about 300 yards from the place where a sit-down protest was underway to stop those parading. The history of both groups, one mostly Catholic-Nationalist and one mostly Protestant-Unionist is important.
What is also important is that each was saying to the other "We belong here".
"We belong here" has often been coupled with "And you don't", a point which we've proven in Ireland with grief and grieving. The slow, slow antidote to this story of not-belonging has always included something that is older than language — a positive encounter with a person who represents the thing that we think we should hate. There are stories from here that make me cry and hope every time I hear them — stories of bravery, honesty, truth-telling, sheltering, and embrace across every possible barrier to belonging.
Part of my work is facilitating discussions between people who are interested in building relationships with those who are perceived to be an "other". Earlier this year, one group spoke of their neighbourhood's trauma following a shooting on a Friday afternoon in the 1990s. Seven men left dead. One of the women said "and there's many that died whose hearts kept beating". She spoke of a Protestant paramedic who tended the bodies of Catholic dead who was so traumatised that he could never return to his work. While we speak of 3,700 people who lost their lives from our 30-year conflict, we all know someone who kept their life, but who felt like they'd lost it. There are stories within stories that are desperate to be heard, and when they're heard, they bring us to the place of encounter and empathy, which is the essence of hope and humanity.
The riots that brought attention to Belfast last week are localised. This doesn't mean that they are ignorable. They are not. They speak to a deep wound in our capacity to remember. A mostly-ignored government funded "Report on the Past" was published last year. Its recommendations are brave and I hope we can pay attention.
I am thinking now of Anaïs Nin who said: "We do not tell stories as they are. We tell them as we are."
And who are we in this part of Ireland? We are people who all know stories of hurt, pain, division, separation, fury, and prejudice. We are people who have loved the land we live on. We are people who have done and spoken and created and given beautiful things and terrible things to each other. We must be educated by the stories that gave rise to last week's events. We must engage in Lederach's vision of the moral imagination to hear, include, and transcend these events.
And, we must tell different stories. Not necessarily new ones, but deeper ones — stories of remembering, belonging, safety, and shelter.
Pádraig Ó Tuama lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland where he works in reconciliation and chaplaincy initiatves, primarily with the Irish Peace Centres' Faith in Positive Relations programmes. Part of his community work involves writing poetry to encapsulate some of the stories of living and dying in the context of the Irish conflict. He posts occasional poetry at Hold Your Self Together.
We welcome your reflections, essays, videos, or news items for possible publication on SOF Observed. Submit your entry through our First Person Outreach page.
Photo Caption: Nationalist protesters block the route of Loyalist Protestant Orangemen in the Ardoyne area of North Belfast, Northern Ireland as they return home from their traditional Twelfth of July celebrations in the city center on July 12, 2010. (photo: Stephen Wilson/AFP/Getty Images)
by Anne Breckbill, associate web developer
Exhaustion. A tough day and I was late leaving work when I realized that it was my night to cook for my vegan housemates. What easy, go-to meal did I have in my repertoire that I could whip up quickly without shopping ahead or thinking too much? Chili? Nope, meat. Omelet? Nope, eggs. Quesadillas? Cheese. Spinach soufflé? Eggs, milk and cheese! Arriving home, I glanced at the newly constructed cooking schedule to find that it was not my night to cook after all. A reprieve.
Sometimes work and life collide unexpectedly and serendipitously. This week, as I migrated comments from previous releases of "The Ethics of Eating" show into our current commenting system, I learned, of course, that our listeners are thoughtful, passionate, and diverse. While many expressed appreciation for Barbara Kingsolver's reflection on her year of eating locally, some were outraged at the fact that she referred to slaughtering animals for food as "harvesting" them. Some found her yearlong experiment to be steeped in economic privilege. Still others considered it to be an impractical if not unsustainable way of life given limits of time and energy.
As I read these comments, I couldn't ignore the fact that my current situation roots me centrally in these ideological and spiritual questions. Two weeks ago, I welcomed two new housemates into my home for the coming year. Our intention is to not only share expenses and responsibilities, but to share meals together as well. It won't be simple. They are vegans; I am not. They buy only organic products and shop exclusively at the co-op; I shop sales at a large supermarket. They are home much of the day; I have a full-time job.
Suddenly I find myself challenged with the very questions and decisions that Kingsolver and SOF listeners invite me to face. Some of these challenges expose a lack of clarity in my own belief system, while others expose a misalignment between my held and lived values. So as I embark on my own yearlong experience with (at least partial) veganism, I open myself to these challenges and the myriad questions that accompany them:
As I settle into the messiness of these questions, I'll start planning ahead about what to serve the vegans this week.
Krista Tippett, host
My grandfather was the Reverend Calvin Titus Perkins, known by all as C.T. He was a Southern Baptist evangelist — a traveling preacher in Oklahoma, the former Indian Territory. He arrived, when he was a very young boy and it was a very young state, in a covered wagon. That famous dry Oklahoma dust seems embedded in the few black-and-white photos I've seen of him and his unkempt, unsmiling siblings. Several of them went on to drink and divorce. He was a man of passion but also a lover of order, a believer in rules. The bare bones Calvinism that flourished on the frontier offered him not only a faith but a way beyond the chaos and poverty he knew as a child.
When I left home at 18 for Brown University — in part because it was farther from Oklahoma than any other school that accepted me — my grandfather epitomized what I felt I had to escape from. His was a small, closed world defined by judgment. I was throwing myself toward possibility, toward life with a liberating small "l." The Eternal Life that all his theology drove toward was really about the avoidance of death and damnation. As I grew older, this threat utterly lost its sense for me. How could every Catholic and Jew, every atheist in China and every northern Baptist in Chicago, for that matter — every non-Southern Baptist — be damned? Could God be so petty, and heaven so small?
The meanness of the God C.T. preached was contradicted, more poignantly, in his own person, though he would never have seen this in himself, nor did I have the words for many years to describe it. He was funny and smart and large-hearted. He had left school after second grade but could perform complex mathematical equations in his head. The copious notes he made in the margins of the Bibles he preached from bespoke a delight in the workings of his mind.
But I saw with my own brand of judgment that there were questions that he would not ask — contradictions too frightening to name. I would leave. I would ask. He reconciled himself to my move in the knowledge that Brown had a Baptist foundation in Roger Williams. Yet for a good decade, at Roger Williams's erstwhile institution and beyond it, religion ceased to interest me altogether.
Religion, and my grandfather, began to catch up with me again in my thirties and forties, as life (that liberating small "l" heavier now with time) played its sweet circular tricks. I left a high journalistic and political road to study theology. I could scarcely believe that I was becoming religious again and vowed that I could do so only if I could reconcile it with the fullness of my mind. In this, I was still defining myself in opposition to my grandfather, again defying his example.
Strange, then, that as I set out to create a public radio program about religion in the early 2000s, I began finally to be grateful for his place in my life. Our public imagination about religion was dominated by a few shrill preachers, and evangelical Christianity had reentered American politics in a whole new way. Missing from view was a universe of thinking faith and spiritual inquiry I had found thriving just beneath the surface of extremes and platitudes. Missing too was an awareness of the humanity of people like my grandfather and the hard-won integrity of his way of life, circumscribed as I might find it with my farther-traveled, better-educated eyes. The religious historian Martin Marty speaks in the plural about the categories we use to describe vast groups of religious people, salvaging the messy, diverse humanity that slips beneath the cultural radar: evangelicalisms, Protestantisms, fundamentalisms. I'd add: Judaisms and Buddhisms.
"Islam" doesn't lend itself to pluralization in that way, either linguistically or theologically, but "Muslims" does. "The Muslim world" is as deceptively monolithic a phrase as any we use and as meaningless as "the Christian West." I've spent more time learning that, excavating it, than I could possibly have imagined when I proposed this radio experiment two years before 2001.
So what would my grandfather think of me spending my days illuminating the faith of Muhammad? His thorniest interfaith challenge was breaking my mother's heart by forbidding her to see her high school boyfriend, who was Methodist and therein a peril to her mortal soul. Still, even the religious world of Oklahoma has changed, and the larger world's changes have reached Oklahoma. We hear from an inordinate number of Muslim public radio listeners in places like Tulsa.
Last year I received a package that moved me to tears, from a Southern Baptist minister in the Deep South. He had been shaken by the hatred he experienced rising up in his congregation, in their community, in the years following 9/11. Hatred, he knew, was not Christian and could not be of God. He had written an illustrated book introducing the faith of Muslims to Christian children so that understanding and compassion might take root in the place of fear. He sent me an inscribed copy.
I love to think, as I wrote back to him, that my grandfather's faith might have evolved in this way if he had lived into our century. This Southern Baptist minister embodied the "depth theology" which the great rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel best described — those places deep in our traditions where orthodoxy becomes paradox. For whether or not Muslims will go to heaven remains a real question in Southern Baptist belief and many other forms of Christianity. But in a place just as doctrinaire, compassion for the stranger, the outcast, the other is a command. The one is a question to be held, in the knowledge that its meaning will not be unlocked in this lifetime. The other is a command to be lived, breathed, and embodied right now. The seeming contradiction between them is Mystery — a mystery which can form the basis of shared life between the righteous across boundaries even as they remain faithful to beliefs that set them apart.
These days I'm in conversation with scientists as much as religious thinkers. I know too much to take the clash of civilizations between science and religion seriously any more than I can accept it as a framework for the relationship be tween Muslims and the West. I've explored the social ethics of Charles Darwin and the "cosmic religious sensibility" of the quintessential scientist, Albert Einstein. Einstein fervently dismissed the notion of a personal God that my grandfather held so dear — the idea of a God who would set the laws of physics in motion and then turn around and meddle in them. Yet Einstein spent his days pursuing the order he perceived "deeply hidden behind everything" and describing it mathematically.
As I pursue my fascination with the spiritually and morally evocative nature of his scientific discovery and others, I am experiencing my grandfather for the first time as an intellectual companion. I feel his untapped mind, those questions he bottled up and could not ask, right beside me, delighting too. The cutting-edge insights of physics, biology, and neuroscience don't defy or in any way address most of his orthodoxies directly. Instead they open a whole new world of imagination about what it means to be human, alive, and amazed. They open new and deeper questions about what it means to be religious. The Vatican has even brought Galileo back into its fold — Galileo, who wrote that mathematics is the language in which the universe is written. I love to imagine how different my grandfather's faith would have been — how different his life might have been — if he had pondered the notion that the mathematics in which he was so mysteriously fluent might be the mother tongue of his God.
—Abhi, blogger for Sepia Mutiny
Do cultural identity and role models have a different form between generations? I had to wonder after reading this article from The New York Times about Indians in U.S. politics. Nikki Haley, the Republican nominee for governor of South Carolina, and Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, are both of Indian descent. They both converted to Christianity in their early 20s. Governor Jindal changed his first name from Piyush to Bobby, after the Brady Bunch character.
The reaction is mixed within the Indian community. Many are asking whether they should celebrate the increased visibility of Indian Americans within politics, or lament their conversions that mask or downplay their South Asian heritage.
But Abhi's quote above might point to a difference in generations. It seems the younger generation of Indian Americans views their identity as diverse and more fluid. Thus, they are more willing to revel in similarities, whereas the older generation might be more rigid in their definitions of identity. What do you think?
Shubha Bala, associate producer
—Mary O'Hara, from her op-ed "Poverty Is the Backdrop to the Riots in Northern Ireland" in today's Guardian.
As I read this, I couldn't help but think of our recent interview with John Paul Lederach and his emphasis on peace as a long-term effort that comes about by finding solutions to basic needs, such as employment and housing that is needed in these impoverished parts of Belfast.
Trent Gilliss, senior editor
Susan Carpenter Sims, guest contributor
I'm a research junkie and a word nerd. When I was in graduate school, I spent a year researching one of the earliest Old English poems, "The Dream of the Rood." The project began as a lexical analysis for a linguistics class, and what I discovered was that many words had multiple senses — and the available translations didn't emphasize this. I ended up doing my own translation of all 256 lines. It was immensely rewarding to unfold levels and layers of meaning this way.
I then began studying the Bible with a concordance and would spend whole afternoons looking up every word in one verse. I felt like I was digging up ancient treasure. Word archaeology. I began to see an analogy between words and computer icons. The way you can click on something and it opens up a whole world you couldn't have imagined before you clicked.
I've also read a couple of books by Neil Douglas-Klotz in which he translates various words of Jesus into the Aramaic that Jesus actually spoke, and from there into English. The result is quite poetic and illuminated. For instance, here's an excerpt from his translation of the Lord's Prayer:
Grant us what we need each day in bread and insight:
Loose the cords of mistakes binding us,
As we release the strands we hold of others' guilt.
The other day I was doing evening prayer with the radiant little book, Celtic Benedictions, by J. Philip Newell. One of the verses was: "I commune with my heart in the night, I meditate and search my spirit" (Psalm 77:6). In my New Revised Standard Version Bible, there was an alternate translation for "I commune," which I read as "My music spirit searches." I found this odd but inspiring. It took me a minute to realize that because of how the notes were laid out, I was reading it wrong. The alternate translation for "I commune" was simply "My music," and for "search my spirit," it was "my spirit searches." So the verse would then read, "My music is with my heart in the night; I meditate and my spirit searches." The New International Version translates this verse as "I remembered my songs in the night. My heart mused and my spirit inquired."
Maybe all of this doesn't excite you like it does me. I realize it's this very sort of thing that confirms some folks' rejection of the Bible, but, for me, it emphasizes poetic truth as what's valuable over hard fact. There's grace and mystery in it, not fixed formulaic answers.
Much has been made of what gets lost in translation, but I'm here to say that a lot can be found. When I research and explore this way I feel like I'm peering into a divine kaleidoscope. My music spirit searches, and finds communion in and with the words.
The image above of "The Dream of the Rood" is scanned from the only surviving manuscript, known as the Vercelli Book, from the medieval period.
(credit: image and text courtesy of the University of Oxford)
Susan Carpenter Sims is a writer and collage-maker living in Taos, New Mexico. She writes a weekly column for The Taos News and blogs about her love of a historic local church at The Whole Blooming World.
We welcome your reflections, essays, videos, or news items for possible publication on SOF Observed. Submit your entry through our First Person Outreach page.
Editor's note: Update (2010.07.14) A resourceful reader, Allison Boyd, helped us find her!
The following entry was submitted by a guest contributor without a name or an email address. Rather than letting this lovely post go unread, we published it with the hopes that the author will recognize her or his fine work and contact us so we can give proper credit and adulation!
Shubha Bala, associate producer
Trent Gilliss, senior editor
The World Cup final expects to draw 700 million viewers in a few hours. And with all the fanfare and elaborate ceremonies preceding this championship game, soccer at its core is a game of universal appeal and absolute simplicity. Nowhere is this more obvious than on the continent of Africa itself.
We saw a continent come together to support its last surviving participant, Ghana, when all others were eliminated. Can you imagine the English doing the same for their Scottish brothers, or Americans celebrating Mexico advancing?
As photographer Jessica Hilltout, who documented the many ways in which the sport is played across Africa in her series "Amen: Grassroots Football," points out in her interview with The New York Times, "The beautiful game exists in its purest form in what I saw — people playing for the joy of playing." And, the game can be played almost anywhere using almost anything: driftwood fashioned as goal posts, leather sandals as soccer shoes, pitches as gravel parking lots, and even balls made out of old socks and plastic bags and twine.
This passion for play, regardless of one's environment or circumstances, takes place in the farthest reaches of our planet. The slide show below is a selection of photographs from Flickr capturing that joy of the game.
(photo: Child in Soale, Ghana by Jessica Hilltout)
Trent Gilliss, senior editor
Nancy Rosenbaum, associate producer
Your community, The Simple Way, has expanded in the last several years, even in terms of physical space. What used to be one house is now six residences. I imagine life at The Simple Way has changed quite a bit. How has it changed from its humble beginnings?
We are turning into a little more of an intentional village than an intentional community. We had a big fire about four years ago that burned down our main house and community center, and it caused us to step back and think about where we are headed together. Instead of building back the center, we decided to buy up some of the abandoned and troubled houses on the block and grow into them — and to build a park on the old land where our houses used to be.
What's cool is we are a little more decentralized and sprinkled in the neighborhood. It is less about a house on the corner with a bunch of missionaries and more about a neighborhood that is on a mission together. So now we still gather for prayer and meals, but it is just as much neighbors as "relocaters" to this neighborhood.
What's it like living there now?
Growing a community is sort of like raising a kid; there are different stages. Each has its own charm and its own awkwardness. We continue to stay true to our original vision: "To love God, love people, and follow Jesus." But now, we are not a bunch of young folks in one house. We like to say we are a web of subversive friends plotting goodness together with an open invite for new conspirators. In fact, you can have a bunch of folks living in a house and not have community, and you can have community without all living in one house. Things are still hubbed out of our neighborhood here in inner-city Philadelphia with the gardens and murals and open fire hydrants on hot days, but all sorts of stuff has been born, provoked, and inspired by the story here in Philly. I like to believe we are still committed to doing small things with great love. After all, Mother Teresa's mantra has always been close to our heart: 'We can do no great things, only small things with great love.' What is important is not how much we do but how much love we put into doing it.
What's gained and lost with this type of success and growth?
The world is infatuated with success and growth, bigger is better. So we started The Simple Way as a prophetic critique, calling ourselves a 501c3 anti-profit organization. I guess The Simple Way is less simple now. Ha ha ha. But no less fun. Now we just get to give more money away. We are helping to rebuild a hospital in Iraq that was bombed by the U.S. and that I visited again this year in January.
We have a football league now where young men are being mentored and learn character (and conflict management!) on the football field, with over 150 kids on a dozen teams, each sponsored by a local congregation. We still get to help kids with homework, but now we also get to see some of them beat the odds and actually make it through high school and even to college. So we are doing all sorts of new stuff in the neighborhood. And around the world.
We have a magazine now called Consp!re magazine and a directory of communities called Community of Communities. I suppose the great thing is it really does feel like a movement. After all, we are not spreading a brand or a franchise but just want people to inspire each other to live meaningful lives that are not centered around themselves but around God and neighbor. Just as important as choosing a campaign or issue or cause, it is important to choose relationships with real people. We will not "Make Poverty History" until we "Make Poverty Personal." And, unfortunately, it is often more popular to talk about poor folks as it is to talk with poor folks.
You cited Martin Luther King Jr. in a previous conversation with Krista: "'We're called to be the Good Samaritan and lift our neighbor out of the ditch.' But after you lift so many people out of the ditch, you start to say, 'Maybe the whole road to Jericho needs to be transformed.'" What does that road look like today in terms of a sustainable, self-reliant community?
Yeah, we can't just swat at the mosquitoes, we have to do something about the swamp that is producing them. As long as we uncritically care for victims, the systems will continue to produce victims. That's why charity has to lead to justice, otherwise we just end up accommodating injustice with our philanthropy and volunteerism. In fact, sometimes charity is a way we quell our guilt but do little to change our lifestyle, much less challenge systemic injustice or take on the principalities and powers.
As we mature, we get to ask new questions, deeper fundamental questions about poverty and violence — and not just respond to the symptoms. For a while we were giving people food, then we started asking why people are hungry. You know the old give someone a fish and they eat for a day, teach them to fish they eat for their life — and then there is more. You start saying, "Who owns the pond?" "Who polluted the pond?" "Why does a fishing license cost so stinking much?"
The great thing about community is that we can feel like we are part of something bigger and more holistic than ourselves. We are more together than any of us is on our own. Some folks will love feeding people. Others will love tearing down the gates around the pond. Regardless, we celebrate that each is critically important and incomplete without the other.
One of the things we have really wrestled with this year is the gun violence. In 2006, guns murdered 27 people in Australia, 59 folks in England, 190 folks in Canada, and 10,177 people in the U.S. We have nearly one homicide every 48 hours in Philly. So we are trying to teach kids conflict resolution and nonviolence as we see it exemplified in Jesus and the cross. And eventually, after you hold a kid as he bleeds from gunshot wounds, as I did a few months ago, you also start to ask, "Where are they getting the guns?" And the answer is that there are a few notorious irresponsible gun shops in Philadelphia. So we have begun to approach the owners asking them to sign a voluntary code of responsible business that our mayor and 300 other mayors insist would decrease gun violence. When they refuse, we have gathered outside the gun shops and held vigils and prayer services, even direct action putting our bodies in the way of the trafficking of guns. And it seems to be working; the worst gun shop in Philadelphia closed down last year, but we have many more to go.
We also see things like the bio-diesel coop creating jobs for formerly homeless folks. It's all about having imagination and creativity as we interact with the patterns of injustice and oppression.
You travel and speak quite a bit, and you've been invited to speak in a dozen countries in the upcoming year. What are you learning from other communities that you're taking back to The Simple Way?
It's funny. Four years ago when I wrote my first book, the publisher said, "Social justice books don't really sell, but we like yours because you don't argue people into social issues. You story people in." Now after about half a million sales, it seems like I get a social justice book every few weeks to do a foreword or cover-blurb for. There is a new Christianity emerging in post-religious right America. And it is arising from a generation that is convinced that we cannot settle for a Christianity that uses our faith as a ticket into heaven and an excuse to ignore the hells around us. And it comes from a growing movement of Christians that not only care about people, but are genuinely and intimately in love with Jesus. People care about the fragile world we live in. They are reading the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other and asking, 'How does my faith affect the way I live?'
Can you share a story that illuminates what you're learning?
What's beautiful is there are many different expressions. Protestants and Catholics are living together in Northern Ireland. Black and white South Africans are raising their kids together outside Johannesburg. Israeli and Palestinian Christians are fighting the home demolitions together. Christians along the U.S. border have created sanctuary houses in places like Arizona and are helping folks get proper documentation and confront terrible laws (We even met folks that had organized worship services along the wall with Christians living on both sides serving each other communion by throwing it over the wall.). That is what I see. Christians living with brilliant courage and creativity and whose faith causes them to engage the world and the injustices facing our world.
I am excited as I see these sorts of communities because they catch people's attention. And I believe the Gospel spreads best not through force but through fascination. In the past few decades, much of Christianity has become less and less fascinating to the world. But I see so many signs that this is changing, and there is a whole new crop of Christians that are reading the words of Jesus and asking, "What if he really meant the stuff he said?"
Conversely, faced with these commitments that take you away from Philadelphia and The Simple Way community, how do you stay connected to the people you care about and love? What have you learned from them as your stature has grown publicly?
Actually one of the things that's really hilarious is seeing neighbors who I've known for years stumble across a story I've done in Esquire magazine or see me on CNN and come over hooting and hollering. The cool thing is, after we laugh it off, we go right back to jumping in the fire hydrants or weeding the garden.
One of my favorite moments this year was getting to take a ton of my neighbors along with my family from Tennessee to commencement at Eastern University where I got an honorary doctorate. It was the most beautiful site to see kids I had mentored, and had seen grow up, with my mom and pop and some of my favorite scholars. Then a couple of weeks later I got to go with kids here to the high school graduation around the corner and celebrate them. There are lots of heroes here.
In the end, community keeps you pretty grounded. People who know you well are not overly impressed by you. Ha ha ha. I have a quote on my wall that says:
Dear God, forgive me for thinking too highly of myself.
Dear God, forgive me for thinking too lowly of myself.
Dear God, forgive me for thinking of myself too much.
Is it vital that you stay grounded in The Simple Way community so that your message stays true to how you're actually living? How does this message deepen as you live and work?
We are always tempted to abandon the small things in pursuit of the big things — to leave community for the sake of the movement or to leave the grassroots to lobby on Capitol Hill. There are book deals and TV shows and clothing lines. Oh my… We can convince ourselves that there are more important things to do than help Tyreek with his homework or sit on the steps and listen to Betty talk about her husband beating her up again. But those are the important things.
As I look at Jesus, one thing that strikes me is how He is constantly present with pain and struggles around him. The Gospels are filled with interruptions and surprises — someone whose daughter just died, a party that ran out of wine, someone pulling on his shirt or asking him for something. He lives in those interruptions, the very things we don't have time for and try to squeeze out of our predictable routinized lives.
I love trying to connect my public vocation with my life in the neighborhood. I've gotten to travel with families here and take homeless folks to Yosemite as I travel. And I continue to try to have integrity with how I travel — having folks offset the carbon footprint and insisting on staying in homes not hotels so I get to meet real people and save real money. Ha ha ha. I am grateful for a community that supports me as I do that.
I also find it utterly important not to think too highly of ourselves if God should graciously use us. One of my friends has reminded me that there is a story in the Old Testament where God spoke through a donkey. He says, "God spoke to Balaam through his ass, and God has been speaking through asses ever since."
Krista Tippett, host
News this week of a remarkable conversion, as the Southern Baptist Convention — the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. and one of the most socially conservative — takes on environmental stewardship with both humility and boldness. The Southern Baptist Declaration on Environment and Climate Change is introduced with words like this:
"We believe our current denominational engagement with these issues have often been too timid, failing to produce a unified moral voice. Our cautious response to these issues in the face of mounting evidence may be seen by the world as uncaring, reckless and ill-informed. We can do better. To abandon these issues to the secular world is to shirk from our responsibility to be salt and light. The time for timidity regarding God's creation is no more."
I can't help but hear echoes of Ellen Davis here, and be confirmed in my sense that her kind of theological reasoning has spread much farther and deeper than has heretofore been visible on the surface of our public life. It is also a reminder of the effect of up-and-coming generations in and around Evangelical Christianity, like Shane Claiborne, who has continued to grow in visibility and influence since I interviewed him in 2006. We're putting him back on the air this week.
Shane Claiborne — and this week's Southern Baptist declaration — are reflections of a fascinating process of discernment and self-examination that has taken place in many quarters in the aftermath of the intense, electorally oriented, Evangelical political focus that culminated in the early 2000s. As Richard Cizik — then VP of the National Association of Evangelicals — said on SOF a few years ago, Evangelicals' core virtue of "conversion" can be a powerful force when they change their discernment about something and throw themselves behind it. We called that show "The Evolution of American Evangelicalism." And the group Cizik is now leading, The New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, is yet another expression of that ongoing dynamic.
The fact that change is possible is one of the simplest and most powerful antidotes to despair about entrenched divisions in our culture. I cleave to that reality, and I see it borne out every day.
Volunteers with the Southern Baptist Convention based in Kansas clear debris from a yard in Biloxi, Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina struck the coast in 2005. (photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)


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Envision Aviation Has a Vision for Aircraft Paint Schemes
Envision Aviation has a vision for paint schemes that it is translating to the exterior paint of business jets. "We've done two airplanes and are most definitely open for business," said Envision president Heath Moore of his newly defined company.
The key, he told AIN at NBAA 2011 in Las Vegas, is a patented software program that allows the artist to flatten the plain of the curvature and from it cut a full-size mask that is then applied to the aircraft prior to paint application. "And we can do this in any pattern–dots, lines, pixels. And if we don't already have something, we can custom create whatever pattern or design the customer wants."
Based in Savannah, Ga., Envision Aviation is now working on a virtual 3-D program that will allow the customer to "see" a paint scheme proposal from any angle in real time and make adjustments. Envision is currently working with the Jet Aviation paint shop at Savannah Airport and with Savannah-based OEM Gulfstream.
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Thursday, June 20 2013
Danger, Romance, Adventure and the Health Bar, or How I Learned to Love the HUD
In the game world, we can't feel the pain of taking a bullet or check our wallet to see what's in it. There just isn't a button for that.
Wednesday, June 11 2008
Jack Thompson Finds Rock Bottom
Jack Thompson has finally ticked off enough people to get disbarred. The final step on the way to that disbarment was just kind of sad.
Thursday, May 29 2008
Grand Theft Auto IV
The insane brilliance on display is exemplified in the microcosm of the in-game television.
Grand Theft Auto IV
Niko is very interested throughout the game in killing for the sake of revenge but, perhaps, even more so for the opportunity of wiping out his own past and eradicating his previous life.
Friday, May 9 2008
Grand Theft Auto car-jacks pop culture
Thursday, May 1 2008
Why We Can't All Just Get Along
The parallels between those taking sides in the battle over the merit of Grand Theft Auto and the battle over the merit of blogs as journalistic devices are striking.
Wednesday, April 30 2008
Latest 'Grand Theft Auto' steps it up a level
Thursday, March 27 2008
Grand Theft Auto Goes…Social?
Yesterday, Rockstar Games announced the Rockstar Social Club, which sounds like a good idea despite the fact that there's nothing "social", really, about it.
Friday, July 1 2005
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
The 'violence' seemingly promoted by this GTA is less a violence to be feared for its realism, and one more committed against the dirty realism of history itself.
Sunday, January 1 1995
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories
Occurring three years prior to GTA III, Liberty City Stories gives players the same sort of criminal storyline and felonious side missions of other GTA games.


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This Sausage, Tomato and Cheese Grits Casserole is wonderful for breakfast along with eggs or make it for a main dish for dinner and serve with a green vegetable. We like grits anytime. They can be served so many different ways and are a staple in most Southern homes.
1/2 pound pork sausage (You could use Smoked sausage, or even Italian or Polish in this recipe)
3 cups cooked grits, (can be regular or the quick-cooking grits)
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped green pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 (10 ounce) can diced tomatoes with green chilis, undrained
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese or cheese of your choice
Brown sausage, green pepper and onion in a skillet on top of the stove. Drain. Spray a 2 quart casserole dish with cooking spray. Combine sausage, onion and pepper with cooked grits. Add salt, pepper, garlic, melted butter and diced tomatoes. Stir to mix. Sprinkle cheese on top and bake in preheated 350 degree oven 30 to 35 minutes, uncovered. Makes about 8 servings. Enjoy!
If you like this recipe, you might also like my recipe for Garlic Cheese Grits.
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Filed under: Sausage, Sausage, Tomato and Cheese Grits Casserole, Tomato and Cheese Grits Casserole | Tagged: Breakfast, casserole, cheese, dinner, easy recipes, food, grits, pork sausage, sausage, Southern, southern lady, tomato | 1 Comment »


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Great for sys admins, but what about normal, single-machine users? This is especially disconcerting since Apple's provided little plain language documentation on this (and access control lists) and the only things available are written in Unix-geek-speak.
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Come see all the characters I did for the 30 Characters Challenge. There are 30 of them, and it was challenging to do them all. The surprising thing is that there were more characters I wanted to do, but couldn't because I want it to be a surprise when they are revealed.
World's Onomatopoeia-est Comics - The Blog Ask me anything
December 1, 2011
30 Characters Challenge - The Whole Shebang


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Offensive tackle to remain in New England. Terry McCormick
The New England Patriots have reached an agreement on a contract extension with tackle Sebastian Vollmer, per Field Yates of ESPNBoston.
Vollmer, the Patriots starting right tackle, has had back issues in his career, but has been a solid component of the New England offensive line when healthy.
Follow me on Twitter @TerryMc13
Terry McCormick covers the Titans for TitanInsider.com
NFP's Introduction to Scouting Class is now registering for our Winter sessions! Save $200 if you register before December 1st! REGISTER NOW!
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OCT 26 Joel Corry
Inside Gerald McCoy's monster deal
The Tampa Bay defensive tackle cashes in for $95.2 million.
OCT 20 National Football Post
Our Introduction to Scouting students break down the Wisconsin Running Back
OCT 18 Joel Corry
The salary cap implications of the Percy Harvin trade
Seattle shipped the wide receiver to the Jets in a surprising move on Friday.


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Added Sep 25, 2012
Arroyo Grande, C...
I made this dress a couple of years ago and it's been one of my favorites- so simple yet so versatile! I actually made it in Tonga when I was in the Peace Corps there and I wore it all the time- it was modest enough but at the same time light and cool in the hot, humid weather. And it was easy to sew up in a day! I made it from this cheap and lightweight polyester fabric- cotton would have been more comfortable, but I didn't have many options and I really liked the wave print.
I didn't modify the pattern too much, but I did take it in a bit on the sides to be more fitted and also added a tad bit of length to be "teacher-appropriate." Anyway, I would highly recommend this pattern- it's very easy to make and flattering too!
You can read my post about this project on my blog, Scavenger Hunt: http://scavengerhunttheblog.blogspot.com/
Sep 25, 2012, 06.52 AMby Mary Athey
love your dress and i agree about the memory blanket!! would.nt it be amazing to find the family?? x
Sep 25, 2012, 05.29 AMby schnui
Great dress!!! I just had a look at your blog and the Bedspread is amazing. It really belongs in a museum and maybe you should take it to your local museum as it tells so much of the time it was embroidered. It has been embroidered in a stitch that was meant to last and done so beautifully, so consider sharing it with your local community as it really is a National treasure.
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© Thinkstock
Why Every Man Needs A Prenup
What man in his right mind would willingly enter into a contract that could cause him to lose 50% of his investment on a whim? Well, that's marriage, guys. When you say "I do," your house, your business and all the rest of your assets are up for grabs should you get divorced.
And these days, with divorce rates skyrocketing and so many brutally mercenary women out there who think that they're entitled to your hard-earned money, getting your fiancee to ink a prenup is a necessity, not a choice. That's why we're here to explain why every man needs a prenup.
A prenup protects your assetsSimply put, a prenuptial agreement is a legal document signed before your marriage that specifies very clearly how your assets will be divided in the event of death or divorce.
You absolutely have to protect yourself with a prenup if:
- You own major assets such as a home, stocks or retirement funds
- You may be receiving an inheritance or lottery winnings
- You have children and/or grandchildren from a previous marriage
- You own all or part of a business
- You have a significantly larger amount of assets than your wife-to-be and/or she has substantial debt
- You are starting out in a potentially lucrative profession such as law or medicine
- You are likely to achieve great success in your business or career
- You aren't sure about your fiancee's motives
- You have suffered a previous divorce
Financial protection The next reason why every man needs a prenup has to do with protecting yourself financially. Nailing down a prenup before tying the knot is savvy financial planning in an era in which the majority of women use marriage and divorce as a business. Let's face it: There is a huge financial incentive for a woman to get divorced from a man. Women can enter into marriage as paupers and walk away millionaires.
Depending on where you live, your soon-to-be-ex-wife can legally coerce you into handing over 50% (or more) of the house you built, the assets you accumulated and the business you started years before you even met her, even if she's never lifted a finger to help you — and even if she institutes the divorce just because she's "bored" and "wants to find herself" or she cheated on you.
No woman deserves half a man's assets just for saying "I do." The harsh reality is that marriage is a legally binding contract; once you sign on that dotted line, she has you by the checkbook and she knows it.
Read on for more reasons why every man needs a prenup...


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The fine folks at Superhero Hype caught up with TMNT reboot director Jonathan Liebesman and asked for his response to the "Turtlegate" insanity. His response:
"I heard about it, and I'm glad there's such a passionate fanbase—I think that was good news for everyone—but literally, I've just been locked in a room with Kevin Eastman. I think what we're developing, the fans will love. I'm a fan, and I love what we're doing. It's a lot of stuff Kevin's been thinking about for a long time and just hasn't done. Anything we expand will tie right into the mythology, so I think fans will go apesh*t when they see it." - Jonathan Liebesman, Superhero Hype
Along with this comes news from IGN.com that Peter Laird, one of the original co-creators of the TMNT, clarified his previous sarcastic response:
"Did you really get out of what I wrote that I in any way, shape or form LIKE the idea of a planet of Turtles? If so, I guess I have to re-think how I express myself… Just so it's absolutely clear — I think a planet of turtles is not, in and of itself, a bad idea for some kind of science fiction/fantasy story. But as a way to explain any aspect of the backstory of TMNT, I think it is awful and unnecessary. Of course, we have no idea at this point if the plan is to have a planet of Turtles. It's probably a good idea to wait and see." - Peter Laird, IGN.com
Are we in the clear? Let's cross our fingers!
According to AceShowBiz, TMNT co-creator Peter Laird recently took a stance on Bay's "Turtlegate" on his blog:
"I have has several requests from 'TMNT' fans doing this past week to comment on the idea of the Turtles being 'reimagined' as aliens for the upcoming 'TMNT' movie to be produced by Michael Bay… A few people, who don't seem to understand that I am no longer in control of the property, want me to stop this somehow. Obviously, I can't do that, even if I wanted to… I would actually encourage 'TMNT' fans to swallow the 'chill pill' Mr. Bay recently suffused they take, and wait and see what might come out of this seemingly ill-conceived plan… It's possible that with enough truly creative brainpower to this idea, it might actually whorl. I'm saying it's probable, or even somewhat likely… but it IS possible… However, as I have pondered this further, I have realized that in one way it IS truly a genius notion… Anyway, to get back to the 'TMNT are aliens' thing, the reason I say it could be a 'genius idea is that, for the first time, someone has come up with a way to have as many freakin' Turtles as they want. I mean, if the 'TMNT' are actually members of an alien race, there could be a while PLANET of them! Joy." - Peter Laird, Peter Laird's TMNT Blog
There you have it. One of the two co-creators is speaking out.
Again, we want your take! Please send us feedback via twitter (@TMNTPartyVan) or email email@example.com!
Sides are being drawn in the pro/anti-Bay "Turtlegate." According to IGN.com:
'Robbie Rist, who voiced Michaelangelo, posted a letter to Bay that said the filmmaker was "sodomizing" the beloved franchise with his alien approach. Said Rist, "I know believing in mutated talking turtles is kinda silly to begin with but am I supposed to be led to believe there are ninjas from another planet? The rape of our childhood memories continues…"' - IGN
On the other side of the fence, Brian Tochi, Leonardo's voice actor in the '90s movie stated:
"If Michael Bay wants to of a different take on the turtles origin story… mazel tov!" - TMZ
Along with Tochi, original April O'Neil actress Judith Hoag says she's excited about Bay's take on the turtles but also stated the following:
"I was in 'Armageddon'… which Michael directed… as well as 'Nightmare On Elm Street' and 'I Am Number Four' which he produced." - TMZ
Now, what could really settle this debate would be original Donatello voice actor, Corey Feldman's take on the situation!
If you are not up to speed, the other day, Michael Bay announced that the movie reboot would see the TMNT as part of an alien race.
Shortly after, Bay made a public statement telling fans to "chill."
We want to hear what you think about this situation! Hit us up on Twitter @TMNTPartyVan or send us feedback at email@example.com!
Yesterday, March 19, around 8p.m., Michael Bay made an official statement on his official forum regarding the uproar of the recent TMNT "alien" news:
"Fans need to take a breath, and chill. They have not read the script. Our team is working closely with one of the original creators of Ninja Turtles to help expand and give a more complex back story. Relax, we are including everything that made you become fans in the first place. We are just building a richer world." - Michael Bay, The Official Michael Bay Forums
Hopefully that puts everybody at ease.
What is our take? Possibly a plot that includes the mutagen (ooze) to contain alien specimens/DNA (possibly of the same species as Kraang?).
Hopefully Michael Bay isn't hellbent on destroying our childhood as he did with Transformers fans… three times over…
News comes via Topless Robot.
In a previous post, we mentioned that Viacom CEO announced that the TMNT would be making their return to the big screen by the end of 2013. Now, according to Box Office Mojo, that release date has become a bit more defined: December 25, 2013.
Stay tuned for more updates at TMNT Party Van!
On March 8th, during Viacom's 45-minute annual meeting, CEO Philippe Dauman discussed the their future with the TMNT franchise:
"[Dauman] says that he's enthusiastic about the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series launching on Nickelodeon later this year - to be followed by a Paramount film due out by the end of 2013. Dauman added that the company plans a global consumer products initiative for the franchise. 'It'll be a big hit,' he says." - Deadline, New York
Confirmed thus far are a TV series, film, and toy lineup with speculation of a new video game based on the TV series by Call of Duty publisher Activision.
The TMNT seem to have a pretty bright future ahead of them! Stay tunes to TMNT Party Van for more updates!
Leaked images confirm various plot information and character bios! (via The Outhouse)
On February 27th, the Mall of America (Bloomington, MN) announced that they, in partnership with Nickelodeon Universe, will celebrating the grand opening of the new TMNT Shell Shock ride on March 17, 2012 at 9 a.m.
According to the Mall of America, the attraction will lift "riders 70 feet in the air in a matter of seconds."
On top of the announcement of the grand opening, the Mall of America put out an open call to all TMNT fans in an effort to break the Guinness Book of World Records' "Largest gathering of Ninja Turtles:"
"To celebrate the Grand Opening of the newest ride at Nickelodeon Universe, TMNT Shell Shock, we're calling all TMNT and Nickelodeon Universe fans to join us Saturday, March 17, 2012 at 9 a.m. Registration begins at 8 a.m. in West Market Square to break the 786 person record of TMNT fans dressed as Ninja Turtles. Nickelodeon Universe will provide t-shirts and green face masks to the first 800+ people while supplies last. For participating, guests will receive a complimentary ride pass to check out Shell Shock before anyone else!" - Mall of America
Stay tuned to TMNT Party Van to see if the record was broken!!!
According to TheHDRoom, In a photo taken of the Playmates marketing strategy poster at the 2012 International Toy Fair in New York by @Toyark, "Call of Duty" publisher Activision is listed as a "key licensee."
"Cross-Promotions with key licensees, including IDW & Activision" - Playmates Marketing
Activision is the publisher of "Transformers: Fall of Cybertron" and the refresh of "007 Goldeneye: Reloaded."
Justin Kroll at Variety has reported that director Jonathan Liebesman (Battle: Los Angeles, Wrath of the Titans, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning), is in talks to direct Paramount's live-action TMNT reboot.
Other details include:
- Michael Bay (Transformers,The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning), and horror reboot kings Brad Fuller and Andrew Form (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amityville Horror, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th) would produce for Platinum Dunes.
- Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol writers Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec have written the script.
Can we expect a darker, more action packed reboot of the TMNT brothers? Check back at TMNT Party Van for future updates!
Thanks to @IGN for the lead!
As of February 8th, IDW Publishing released "Change Is Constant," the first four issues of the new TMNT comic series bundled into a single book!
Get it from Amazon here!
It has been officially debunked. The rumor started a few weeks ago that video game developer Rocksteady Studios would be developing a new TMNT has been debunked according to Kotaku:
"Rocksteady chief Sefton Hill told Kotaku that, while the rumor was amusing, they're doing no such thing" - Kotaku
While it was only a rumor and based purely on speculation, it was fun while it lasted. Rocksteady has certainly done an amazing job with the Batman franchise and it would a dream come true to see the TMNT get the Rocksteady treatment (no pun intended). While on the topic, we whole-heartedly agree with 4X's comment.
View the source here.


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The enthusiasm was there for all to see as a large number of people turned up to participate in the "Syndicate Bank Udupi Half Marathon" here on Sunday.
The morning chill made no difference to the 2,000 participants participating in the half marathon (21 km) and other races.
Besides the half marathon, there was a 5-km race for boys and girls in the under-16 and under-14 categories, a 3-km race for girls and boys in the under-12 category, a 5-km race for senior citizens, for citizens between 40 and 50 , 50 and 60 years — separately for men and women categories. There was a 5-km race for college students and bank employees. The event had a touch of glamour, with the actress Pooja Gandhi of Mungaru Male fame being one among those who flagged off the event. The half marathon, which began from the Head Office of the SyndicateBank here, culminated at the same point. Ms. Gandhi told at the prize distribution function that she was touched by the dedication of people of Udupi. She sang a couple of lines of the song Anisutide Yekko Indu from the Kannada film Mungaru Male and was cheered by the youngsters. The winners in the men's section of the marathon were — Daasri Vasu of Alva's, Moodabidri (first place); Siddappa S., Chalukya Sports, Badami (second); P. Nagendra Rao, Alva's, Moodabidri (third); Prakash P., MEG, Bangalore (fourth); Santosh, MEG, Bangalore (fifth), and R.B. Subba, Alva's Moodabidri (sixth).
In the women's section of the half marathon, the winners were — Rajashree Patil, Alva's, Moodabidri (first place); Smitha C., Alva's, Moodabidri (second); Disna Malkanth (third); Chaitra, Alva's, Moodabidri (fourth); Kripa, Alva's, Moodabidri (fifth); Deepika, Alva's, Moodabidri (sixth). The first, second and third place winners in men's and women's section got a cash prize of Rs. 50,000, Rs. 25,000 and Rs. 15,000.
Keywords: Half Marathon, Syndicate Bank, Udupi, Participation


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Cloud Infographic: Facebook's Cloud App Economy Source: EngineYard
Cloud Infographic: Facebook's Cloud App Economy Source: EngineYard
Meteor to speed up Web App development Straddling the ongoing OS fragmentation divide through a web app may sound like the best thing to do when developing such an app but straddling the interaction between the client, server, multiple devices and a ton of cloud services while still having to deal with legacy infrastructure isn't
Four Reasons Why Google Drive Will Not Kill Dropbox Now that Google has entered the cloud storage market with the long-awaited Google Drive, will it kill Dropbox and other cloud computing services? This is a hot topic in Dropbox forums and elsewhere in the cloud computing world. Here is what one forum poster said, as
Will Facebook Halt Instagram's Gratification to the Cloud? I'm sure that by now you've heard the news that Facebook has purchased Instagram. Even bigger concern for us cloud aficionados has recently been made news by Data Center Knowledge, one of Instagram's place in the cloud. Will Facebook scoop it up from its roots there, or
Cloud Computing Will Produce the Next Mark Zuckerberg The next king or queen of science and technology will come from the cloud, I predict. Budding geniuses wanting to make a name for themselves must master cloud computing. Naysayers wag their fingers with conservative statements like "the cloud is far too new to generate history-making change.


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This is an attractive and zesty all in one dish. It's full of veggies and chicken, and loaded with flavor. A quick fix for a long day. If desired, top with shredded cheese and tortilla chips.
Original recipe makes 4 servings
- 2 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
- 1 (1.27 ounce) packet dry fajita seasoning, divided
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 (15 ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
- 1 (11 ounce) can Mexican-style corn
- 1/2 cup salsa
- 1 (10 ounce) package mixed salad greens
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 tomato, cut into wedges
- Rub chicken evenly with 1/2 the fajita seasoning. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat, and cook the chicken 8 minutes on each side, or until juices run clear; set aside.
- In a large saucepan, mix beans, corn, salsa and other 1/2 of fajita seasoning. Heat over medium heat until warm.
- Prepare the salad by tossing the greens, onion and tomato. Top salad with chicken and dress with the bean and corn mixture.


text: Greetings Good Gentles of Elfsea and our fair neighbors! Next Monday, April, 21st, the Elfsea Business Meeting will be held atLord Kensing Von Morgarten's home located at 3901 Brookgate Court, Arlington, TX76016. We will start at 7:30 pm. You can get a map at: http://maps.yahoo.com/#mvt=m&lat=32.684675&lon=-97.208019&zoom=17&q1=3901%2520Brookgate%2520Court%252C%2520Arlington%252C%2520TX%252076016 Remember, EVERYONE is welcome to attend. Should you have any problemsfinding us or have any questions, please feel free to contact me at469-556-2299. Yours In Service, Ascelyn of Glentewrde Seneschal, Barony of Elfsea & Central Regional Missile Marshal Per bend Sinister Gules and Or, a Unicorn Argent and a Rose Proper -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.ansteorra.org/pipermail/elfsea-ansteorra.org/attachments/20080415/9f22f8d7/attachment.htm


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More servicewomen have been killed in Iraq than in any other overseas action in the past 60 years. Good thing we're keeping women soldiers safe and out of "combat positions," eh?
Even though they are not assigned to ground combat units, 39 female soldiers have been killed in Iraq since March 2003. Four died and 11 were injured this weekend after an ambush in Fallujah. Military officials have said they believe the female troops may have been specifically targeted.
About 11,000 women are currently serving in Iraq. And even with the latest news that record numbers have given their lives in service to this country, some schmucks on the homefront are still focused on their baby-making capabilities.
Take it from Lemoyne Sanders of Jacksonville, NC, whose wife is a field medical corpsman in the Navy:
"You'll never get a woman to be as physically strong as a man," he said, adding: "Women get pregnant. It's just different."
Men die in combat. Women die in combat. I don't see how a uterus makes any difference.
5 Comments
I don't see how a uterus makes a difference either. Don't periods stop when you train that much anyway? It's hardly inevitable that women would get pregnant.
Do you actually need to be strong in combat anyway? I mean, how often do soldiers need to use the extra percentage strength they apparently have? Footage of them only ever shows them patrolling, at roadblocks, shooting… Is there a lot of lifting work we just never hear about? I imagine most of that is behind front lines. Why not argue men are more useful doing the brawn work, while women soldiers, attributed with multi-tasking, communication skills, higher pain thresholds and less of a likelihood to provoke aggressive response do the front line fighting?
I would just like to point out that the uterus is made up of extremely strong muscles, and is hardly a weak little organ. Ahem.
And my friend who was in the army tells me it's common to put women on hormone birth control that eliminate their periods entirely. Which kind of skeeves me out, but does point out that the Army already has a method for dealing with female troops and fertility.
The packs that ground troops carry can be extremely heavy, and that may put women at a disadvantage as infantry. But it has nothing to do with their ability to fly planes, pilot ships, shoot guns, or drive tanks.
Women who make it to the front lines as ground troops would already be strong enough to carry their packs and weapons or they wouldn't have made it that far. Secondly, the women would have been gone through all of the training that men go through for all of the other functions (pilot training, engineer training, shooting, etc.)
In fact, a guy friend that was in flight school always told me about how the females in engineer training and flight school with him were just as strong (if not stronger) than a lot of the guys. Recall that many military men are not bodybuilders, but are fairly skinny (yet defined). Before my friend went to training he always tried to drop as many pounds as possible so that he had less weight on him. He also mentioned that the women in his classes were top performers, were smarter than most of the guys, and came up with innovative solutions to problems posed by commanders when they were in simulation training.
I think it's ridiculous that the military can ask women to join, to serve, and to die, but still considers them "not good enough" for the front lines.
"You'll never get a woman to be as physically strong as a man"
I don't know about you ladies, but there are millions of men that I am stronger than. I'd like to
All men are NOT stronger than all women. The average man is bigger than the average woman. But the average man is also 5'9 and 180lbs (can we say pudgy?). I therefore agree with MEP. The women in the military are not average women.
Physical strength is only a requirement for certain types of troops. The duties that the women in the danger zones (performing searches on female civilians and such) are duties that are done out of respect for their culture. Who do you think searched the german or japanese women during wwII? It is our own sense of honor and respect that is placing the women in danger.
We're better off as a country if we respect what these women do and apprieciate why they are placing themselves at risk. Don't forget, it is a volunteer force and these women are proudly serving.


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Strike a blow for animal rights. Whether you think it was a well written proposition or not, the general public in California has spoken, and they say that our farm animals deserve better treatment. WIth 28% of the precincts reporting, Proposition 2 has been deemed a winner with 2.4 million "Yes" votes - 62%. (Results courtesy of KTLA.com at 10:23 pm - local Los Angeles television station.)
We'd been waffling over the past few weeks on how to vote. There are compelling arguments for both sides. But it seems the overwhelming sentiment is that something is better than nothing. Congratulations to Wayne Purcelle and the HSUS on a successful campaign.


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What Was VC Tom Perkins Thinking When He Compared "Persecution" of the 1% to Nazi Anti-Semitism? Here's What.
Tom Perkins Cries "Nazi!" to Defend the 1%. And Guess What? It's Working.
What the 2013 State of the Union Means for Men
Intersectionality and Men of Color
Quote from a very interesting article linked in an Open Thread (hat tip to Matthew Swank): I also said that [the documentary] marginalizes MOC because for example, the women make 70-something cents per dollar thing (that white feminists *always* use) is white women to white men. Black men, for example, make less than white women. And […]


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World on a Wire v Serene Velocity
I was pretty blown away when I saw this juxtaposition of images in the most recent issue of Cinema Scope. It's been almost two years ago since I have seen World on a Wire, but Serene Velocity has been omnipresent the few months. (We recently had out 16mm copy digitized at the Walker for an upcoming show where it will be highlighted.) Check out Chuck Stephens' fascinating article here.


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Related Photo Galleries
Originally installed in a Vietnam-era Sea King or Sea Knight helicopter, the 300-pound GE turboshaft engine was modified internally by Tim Arfons (Art's son), who also installed an afterburner. Its mounting system was designed by Ron using finite element analysis then fabricated by Sullivan Racing (Campbell, California). Because the engine "grows" by 0.150 inch as it warms up, Bob Sullivan used a sliding rear mount and rubber isolation to prevent damage at 26,000 rpm. A 14-gallon Kevlar fuel tank is mounted under the body in the spare-tire well. Behind the rear bumper are two electric fuel pumps; a Barry Grant drag-racing pump feeds the engine-a modified, 24-volt, magnesium military pump feeds both the afterburner and "big fire" nozzle (which dumps raw fuel into the tailpipe, just for fun).
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ANDREA BY SADEK Nurse Figurine
ANDREA BY SADEK Nurse Figurine
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Sold Date: 08/03/2007
Channel: Online Auction
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This figurine is in perfect condition. No crazing or cracks that I can see. It's approx 7 1/2" TALL. It's marked Andrea by Sadek on the bottom with the numbers 6969. Payment please within 7 days from end of auction. THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR TIME!!!
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Rep. Jerrold Nadler is taking the lead with two Democratic colleagues to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, signed into law during the Clinton Administration.
The law bans the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, which denies couples certain protections and benefits.
With the proliferation of same-sex marriage in some states since the law was passed, Nadler said its repeal is necessary to give full rights to legally married gays and lesbians.
"The full repeal of [the Defense of Marriage Act] is long overdue," said Nadler, who chairs a subcommittee on the constitution and civil rights, in a statement. "Discrimination against committed couples and stable families is terrible federal policy."
Nadler's bill, the Respect for Marriage Act, would only have the federal government recognize same-sex marriages from states where they are permitted.
Tags: anti-gay, law, Nadler, rights, same-sex marriage, West Side Express
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"We pay close attention to the way young people consume news," says ACU's Kenneth Pybus, faculty adviser of The Optimist. "They tend to use all the tools at their disposal to get information. With the iPad, we foresee the potential for an explosion in news consumption."
Professors Pybus and Bacon believe the iPad and its publishing platform will yield a marriage of audio, video and text unseen even since the advent of laptops and smart phones.
George Saltsman is executive director of ACU's Adams Center for Teaching and Learning. "The work we will do leading up to the formal debut of the iPad is an outgrowth of research that's been happening on our campus for three years," says Saltsman. "Our campus community is already riding the next wave of digital communication. Publishing The Optimist on the iPad means our students will be ready to work with this revolutionary technology in the marketplace the minute they graduate. For some of our students, that day is right around the corner -- so of course they'll have a major jump on not only their peers, but also on veteran software developers nationwide."
The aspect of this software development drive that most fascinates Bacon is how it could revive the publishing sector as a whole, and newspaper publishing specifically. "The news business must find a way to keep news delivery profitable. Remaking the model for news delivery is the single most important discussion in journalism under way today," she says. "If our students and faculty, by being in the middle of that discussion, can help devise a profitable new delivery system, we will have accomplished something extraordinary."
Via: Business Wire | News Archive | Tags: Apple, school, ACU, ipad, newspaper
Does this mean that they will now hand out iphones and ipads to incoming freshmen? Sounds pricey, but if it gets them to come.
I'd rather get that money in cash instead, lol. I'm guessing students are forbidden from using Zunes on campus. I know some graduate programs that heavily encourage students to own certain devices, but I don't remember ever seeing an institution handing them out to students.
Except we still have smart phones and laptops. The transition to digital media would make newspapers profitable again though, but would it be any different than just checking Google News, CNN.com instead?
from what I am getting is they already hand out iPhone 3gs to new students now they will get iPads either as well or in place of iPhones. But linking there school publications to it seems bigger to me at least in a larger scale. Other public entities may take notice and follow suit.
The iPhone is one thing, but the iPad hasn't been field tested yet, plus remember because of its reflective surface, the device will be hard to view in sunlight.
Yes, I know the screen is basically only suitable for reading in doors. However; as this happened so soon after its introduction, I would imagine Apple is sponsoring it to some extent. They get good press and more interested students, and pay half the price at most for an iPad in bulk shipments. They tell the students they get one free, but don't pay for the 3G, so At&t and Apple both get business, and they charge every student and extra 75 bucks a month whether they got one or not as a fee. WIN/WIN/WIN/Lose School/Apple/At&t/Student!
Yeah, I get the feeling that may be the case. Though I'm guessing the university has free wifi for the students on campus. But even if the school buys the iPad/iPhone for the students, you know they're passing on the cost by raising the tuition proportionately. If I was a student there I would protest this cozy relationship between the administration and Apple.
That's another thing about the iPad that I don't like, the $15/month for 250MB is ridiculous, and the $30/month for unlimited is absurd. With the speed of AT&T's 3G network, you'll be lucky to get the 250 MB of bandwidth.
rofl those are some good points, However; if you were 16-18 do you think they would be on your mind? I doubt it the first thing on your mind would be getting to go to a cool school which your parents will buy and getting free i equipment. And yes 250MB of BW is a joke especially for a device that last at 10 hour straight use intervals lol.
you may never know, there could be some geeks out that that just want it so bad they might go there. I for one wouldn't but there are people that would.
Yeah inspector that's exactly what I was talking about, this is a nation with over 350 million people and new ones are born daily. So to grab 1000 would not be all that hard I would not think if its got an attractiveness In one way or another which this would add to some so I think it's more a publicity stunt to pull some students. Also remember you don't actually have to do good nor stay more than one quarter to owe a school bundles of money.
You're right, as long as this becomes the next cool item, it will appeal to the under 25 crowd. It has many things going against it though, like its high cost and large size. Also, if you already own an iPhone, what can the iPad do for you that your iPhone can't....besides reading e-books (not exactly high on priorities for under-25 consumers). However, if other universities endorse is as a standard textbook replacement, the tablet could have a bright future.
Not even a laptop a few hundred dollars more, it's overshadowed by netbooks within the same price range! It's going to take some very clever marketing for this to work (something as good as the colorful iPod silhouettes). However Apple does have a guaranteed revenue stream from the Applemaniacs who will be lining up for a glimpse of this. The reason why the iPod and iPhone enjoyed so much success is because they appealed to the mainstream consumer. The cost of this device is too high for it to compete against other e-readers and its features are too lacking for it to match up against other tablets/netbooks/lower-end laptops. Sometimes Steve Jobs' over-zealousness can work against him.
Yeah I agree gibber, the whole picture of this thing just seems off to me. I guess we will see though when it releases and following of course.
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WSOT is a low-power television station in Marion, Indiana, broadcasting on local digital UHF channel 27. Founded in 1990, it is owned by Sunnycrest Baptist Church. WSOT is an independent station, airing programs from various Christian inspirational networks as well as locally produced shows and family-friendly television series.
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