lumrant
Sunday, March 21, 2004
John Diet 2004 Update: Nearing the Goal
(click for larger image)
All in all, it's been a month of pathetic non-adherence to the strict caloric intake limits and exercise plan that I stuck to in February. The result? More weight loss! Apparently, my body is still shocked that I'm not stuffing my face with nearly as much food as I did in the second half of 2003. So, while I've exercised a little bit in the last month, it must be the smaller portions that have been the main factor in continued weight loss. Either that, or whatever small amount of muscle I added in February got replaced by fat. Either way, it adds up to being near my goal of 175 pounds! Maybe my new goal will be 170...
Jeanie and I thrilled to the last-minute comback victory of Georgia Tech this afternoon, only to have our hearts broken twice. First, N.C. State blew a big lead late (bye-bye, Final Four entry number one for Jeanie), and then by Kentucky rallied from a big deficit and went up by seven or so, only to blow it at the end against UAB. Bye-bye, Jeanie's pick for National Champion!
I'm doing only marginally better, as I have UConn emerging from N.C. State's bracket, but I did have UK going to the championship game against Duke. Sigh.
On the positive side, our personal favorite teams both won their games (Pittsburgh won another tight one, this time against a Wisconsin squad who had a virtual home game). So, go Jackets and Panthers! May you meet in the Final Four...
For the record, I currently stand 12th out of 40 competitors in my Tournament Challenge pool entry on ESPN. Though Kentucky was a huge blow to me, it was a huge blow to almost everyone else as well. Because only one entry currently ahead of me picked Duke to win it all, and that person picked Oklahoma State to make the championship game, I believe that I can still win the pool if Duke prevails and Wake makes the Final Four over Oklahoma State. That would be sweet! Go, Blue Devils and Demon Deacons! Go, all demonic and/or satanic college hoops squads!
Thursday, March 18, 2004
Jeanie and I went to a hockey game tonight. It was an excitingly fight-filled game, which was bad news for Jeanie, who enjoys watching hockey live but isn't so thrilled about the fighting.
Unfortunately for me, the Lightning won the game, which put them a little further ahead of my beloved Flyers, who lost.
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Note: I'm going to kick off a periodic rant I call "Being Reasonable," which is my effort to write a little column that looks at a topic from a reason-based perspective.
Being Reasonable: Mel Gibson and the Real Culprits at Calvary
I'll just come out and say it: the Jews killed Christ. That is to say, the splinter group of Jews--soon to be known as Christians--who put together the most compelling myth in human history killed Him. And when I say "killed," I really mean "killed off," the way the writers of a modern TV drama might kill off a leading character in the final year of his contract and then creatively manipulate his memory over the next three seasons of the show in order to draw viewers.
The debate over Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of the Christ, has made for some strange bedfellows. Evangelical Christians who might normally decry the idolatrous slant of such a Catholic-colored treatment of Jesus have mostly agreed that the end justifies the means--the end in this case being a tidal wave of moviegoers, both secular and otherwise, brought before a gripping exposition of the basic value proposition of Christianity.
Meanwhile, Jewish leaders and other sympathetic students of history, familiar with the thin pretexts that have fueled anti-Semitic cataclysms for millenia, have banded together to protest Gibson's movie. Their claim is that the portrayal of Jesus's fellow Jews and their role in His execution is anti-Semitic. In an effort to plumb this and other debates over the movie's claims to authenticity, a popular debate has arisen around the subjects of Jesus, His family, His disciples, the Jewish Sanhedrin, Roman centurions, Roman administrators, and Jewish mobs. Sympathic articles in Newsweek and Time Magazine breathlessly pursue The Real Jesus. Even the Pope has declared, through a carefully-leaked statement, that Gibson's movie "is how it was."
In the midst of all of the furor, it seems to me that the most important questions here go mostly unasked: is this how it was, really? How can reasonable people know? Why is it relevant to us today?
The answers to these questions are: "no," "we can't," and "because we need to come to grips with the inherent dangers of modern fundamentalist religious thought and plot a course of slow, safe transition." Somewhere in the midst of that transition, exclusive dogma must turn into respectful culture. And--though we can't be certain--that respectful culture is very likely to end up as comfortable myth. See Babylonia, Greece, Rome, Tenochtitlan, et al.
Being reasonable, I acknowledge that there can be no absolute certainty about the validity of a set of religious beliefs; reason cannot trump faith. However, even the most faithful Christians often seem eager to explore apologetic arguments for the historicity of Biblical events. Faith alone may be enough for an individual, but rational evidence that offers a paradoxical "reason to believe" has become an indispensable tool of the modern evangelical. Thus armed, apologists can seemingly go toe-to-toe with modern scientists in such varied arenas as archaeology (the Dead Sea Scrolls, the James ossuary), geology (evidence for the Flood), and biochemistry (Intelligent Design). Time will tell if these apologetic theories persist. As a rationalist, I welcome the debate, so long as we as a society defend our right to accept as tentative fact the best available explanation for a given phenomenon and to transmit that information to our children as a starting point for their own exploration.
Returning to the questions posed above, let us again ask how reasonable people can know who killed Christ. Any Christian can tell you that we know the answer to that question because the Bible tells us. However, any reasonable observer will insist that we need to turn to non-Biblical sources if we are to have any hope of an objective answer. What do the newspapers, the official records, the history books of Christ's day have to tell is?
The answer? They tell us nothing. The absolute best evidence that Christian apologists can produce as a testimony to Jesus and his deeds is the following single paragraph from the great (and voluminous) history Jewish Antiquities, written by first-century Jewish historian Josephus around A.D. 93-94:
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct to this day.
What's the problem here? The problem is that 50% of historical scholars agree that this paragraph is a pure interpolation--that is, written much later by someone other than Josephus and crudely introduced between two authentic paragraphs. The other 50% of these scholars must comprise a group of extremely dedicated Christians, because I can attest to what a shocking experience it is to read Josephus and run aground on this Jesus paragraph, so different in style, substance, and intent than anything that precedes or follows it.
When you remove the Josephus underpinning, you are left with no credible, extra-Biblical corroboration dating from anywhere near the time of Christ. This fact runs parallel to the many rational (but superfluous) arguments rebutting the supposed supernatural events of Christ's life. And, while reasonable people can marvel at the success of Christianity as a popular movement (much as we marvel at Islam or Mormonism), there is no compelling reason to treat it as anything more than a myth--perhaps Based on a True Story, but perhaps indistinguishable, in its origins, from the multitude of independent mystical Jewish salvation movements that were active around the time of Jesus. With this mindset, one is free to question not only the meaning inherent to the question "who killed Jesus," but in fact the meaning of any statement that is in some way dependent on the notion of a historical Jesus, as depicted in the Bible.
Where does this leave us? Well, the Jews killed Christ, but only after a splinter group invented Him and set Him up for a fall. In my mind, this idea should form the context of the debate currently surging around The Passion of the Christ, serving as a jumping-off point for the larger debate on the future of fundamentalist religious philosophy in modern society. Instead, we are left with a familiar, interminable debate among numerous incompatible ideologies over events that have no basis whatsoever in historical fact. Feh!
Monday, March 15, 2004
It's been an eventful week with Jeanie on Spring Break (sort of). In fact, Jeanie worked her ass off for most of the week, but we did have a few exciting interludes.
First, we drove over to Orlando where Jeanie's college "friend" (heh) Jeff, his wife Sandra, and their kids were doing the SeaWorld component of their Orlando visit. A good time was had by all; Jeff and Sandra represent another fine couple who manage to have kids and still have fun.
Next, we tooled down to Fort Myers, where I took in a Red Sox spring training game (Sox 5, Dodgers 1) while Jeanie transliterated for a National Cued Speech Association board meeting. Later, we attended the evening dinner portion of events, where I got to meet all the people that I've been hearing about from Jeanie over the years. It was a great time!
Sunday, March 07, 2004
From the "Celebrating Your Family's Idiocy" department...
I'll tell you, nothing says "har!" better than old Harry S.'s expression right here. Whether it's the "different teeth" argument, the "you used to look alike, but..." argument, or the "two different placentas" argument, I have one thing to say: "there is 99.99993% probability that David Lum- Twin A and John Lum- Twin B are identical twins". Further details:
Here it is: proof that we are identical twins. It'll be interesting to----- Message from To: Subject: Personal and Confidential Dear Client: Thank you for choosing GeneTree DNA Testing Center. We are happy to have been able to serve you. Below you will find your test results. A detailed copy of the report has been mailed out to the address that you provided us on the ordering form. We try to make every attempt to present these results in an easy-to-understand format. However, should you have additional questions, or feel that something is unclear regarding this procedure, feel free to call or email us. We are always happy to be of assistance if you need it. At GeneTree, we pride ourselves on being an easy-to-access company, providing simple-to-follow instructions, and clearly written results. If there is anything that you feel we can improve upon, please let us know and we will make every attempt to satisfy the needs of our customers beyond their expectations. I hope you have found our services both convenient and easy to use. Once again, thank you for choosing the GeneTree DNA Testing Center, the dependable source for answering your difficult questions. Zygosity Analysis Report T015225 Specimen Sample #1: David Lum- Twin A Specimen Sample #2: John Lum- Twin B Probability of zygosity: 99.99993% DNA profiling was performed by standard methods, and has been completed on samples in the name of David Lum- Twin A and John Lum- Twin B. Based on the observed scientific evidence, it is concluded, for all practical purposes, in reference to the submitted samples, that there is 99.99993% probability that David Lum- Twin A and John Lum- Twin B are identical twins. Therefore, David Lum- Twin A is included as the possible identical twin of John Lum- Twin B. The odds that these two individuals are identical twins and not ordinary siblings is 1439485.45 to 1. The above information is believed to be correct, but is not purported to be all-inclusive. GeneTree cannot vouch for the origin of the samples prior to arriving at GeneTree. All results are kept confidential. Any unauthorized use of this document is the sole responsibility of the perpetrator. ****************************************************** GeneTree DNA Testing Center 2495 S West Temple Salt Lake City, UT 84115 Phone: (888) 404-GENE Fax: (801) 461-9761; http://www.genetree.com/ ****************************************************** |
For even more fun, try to decipher the Knave-scanned (read: photographed with his expensive digital camera) document below, which is the "more detailed report" that GeneTree send his way. I'm sure you'll join me in saying that Knave really got his $280 worth here! At the least, I wanted to see something that discussed As, Cs, Ts, and Gs!
"That was the biggest waste of money in history."
--Jeanie, commenting on the $280 that my brother pissed away on this little twin skirmish
"You owe it all to my smoking!"
--Mom, after hearing that identical twin-ness is not a trait carried by genes
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Poker Update: it's all over! For now, anyway.
Though Knave may have burned through $280 to find out the shocking news that we're identical twins, I spent the last few weeks burning through $300 to find out that I can't make money playing online poker. In fact, I can't even hold my own! The basic pattern was long jags of steady losing interspersed with a couple of hope-building interludes of meager winning. Here is the game-by-game story, documented painfully in Excel; the chart says it all!
Details of John Pissing Away $300
Monday, March 01, 2004
Determined to typify society's lukewarm adoption of blogging, I have practically abandoned my blog in recent weeks! I hereby throw out a few sops to my blog, starting with this backdated entry to memorialize Linda Havrilla's visit.
Yes, I choose to load the true blame for my lack of recent blogging squarely onto the back of my dad! In theory, the 'rents were to have visited Jeanie and me in Tampa a little over a week ago, but then Dad apparently crippled himself playing with his two grandsons and spent the week crouched precariously on the floor instead, unable either to stand up or lie down comfortably. To this I say, "boo!" Wuss. Old Man.
At any rate, the various activities that had been planned for the parents' trip went largely undone, but Linda Havrilla was still in town. She and I met for lunch on Monday, and I snapped this fine photo of her as we prepared to motor out of my apartment complex:
We ended up eating at a local place called Circle's, which was reupted to be good by Jeanie's colleagues. It was indeed OK, though I avoided the Italian-centric portion of their menu and thereby doomed myself to suffer through yet another mediocre Tampa-area Cuban Sandwich.
