Back of the Envelope

A bit after the fact, but Jeremy Pierce of Parableman has taken up my challenge to say what's wrong with slavery by arguing that there's nothing wrong with it in principle:

Donald asks what makes slavery wrong and why it's so offensive that everyone should recognize how horrific it is simply by thinking about it. I say that there's nothing that makes slavery itself wrong, nothing that should make people so horrified that they should think slavery itself is wrong. People are often rightly horrified about some of the practices of slavery that the world has seen. What's horrific about those cases is not the slavery itself, though. It's other factors.

Donald actually gives a hint of movement in the direction I'm thinking when he acknowledges that a serf's role in the socioeconomic system of the middle ages wasn't much better than that of a slave, and an indentured servant is a little more autonomous than that. I don't think that's the right way to look at it, but that's a good start. What's more accurate, I would say, is that there's a scale from those most enslaved to those least enslaved, and each case of enslavement is thus a matter of degree. I'm a slave to my employers. They don't have as much control over me as slaveowners in the 19th century U.S. South did, but they have enough control over me that it's not entirely inaccurate to describe me as a waged slave working under their authority and serving their needs. In exchange, they give me some money. 19th century U.S. plantation slaves didn't get money in exchange, but they did get food and shelter out of the deal. The conditions they lived under were terrible, but the difference between them and me is really only a matter of degree. It's a great degree of difference, but there's a whole continuum between the two cases.

I think that Parableman may be using the definition of slavery broader than is usually meant when people talk about it. As it's commonly used, slavery implies a relationship of absolute control. That definition, however, would probably exclude slavery as it is described in the Torah, and the translations don't really make the distinction. In his next post, Jeremy then defends slavery to Christ, which is undeniably an aspect of our relationship to him:

He asked me if I thought there was any biblical support for the view that slavery is always wrong in itself, and I thought for a few seconds before responding that the Bible tells us that we're all slaves. He then knew that I was thinking along the same lines he was, and we proceeded to work through some of the things the Bible says about slavery. The first and most obvious is that everyone is a slave. That's just all too clear, even in the translations that hide the slave language and make it come out as servant language. There's enough slave language there to see it. We're slaves to sin in our fallen state, and Christians are made slaves to Christ. Now Paul also says when he uses such terminology that only the slave to Christ is truly free, but the point is that we are slaves, one way or the other. It's just a fact that the Bible says that. Christians can't dance around it and pretend slavery is inherently wrong if it's right for us to be in a master-slave relationship with Christ. That was the starting point for me and Wink in our truly radical (but I think biblical) view that slavery is not in itself wrong.

The second observation to draw, once you see that it can be morally ok to be in a master-slave relationship, even for the master, is that slavery is not just ok for Paul. To be a slave to the perfect master is actually freeing. We have more freedom in not being bound to sin and death when we are slaves of the perfect master. What this means is that slavery doesn't just exist on a continuum between absolute control and absolute license. There's at least a third dimension, one not of how much control (or lack thereof) the master exercises but of how righteous the master is. A truly righteous master will seek the good of the slave. No mere human being can do this perfectly, of course, but the principle of the good master freeing the slave not by abandoning the master-slave relationship but by making it a righteous relationship is not just a theoretical device I'm using to make a point. It's what the Bible says the Christian's relationship with God truly is.

I agree that a relationship of absolute power over us is perfectly okay for God, because God has that right. I would argue that for any mere mortal to have that sort of absolute control is not right, primarily because for him to have it would be to claim authority which is rightfully God's. This is what Jeremy points out is the Lockean argument for human rights. And I think that for a human to have this sort of control is wrong no matter what it's called, whether it's the power of the Roman Emperor over a citizen, a king over his knight, a master over his slave, or a father over his son. In fact, in Roman law, the distinction between son and slave in this matter was razor thin. The patriarch of the household had patria potestas, absolute authority over his wife, sons, daughters, and slaves. Everything they owned, including their own lives, belonged to him, and he could do as he pleased. Fortunately, custom, and eventually law, frowned upon capricious use of the patriarch's authority.

I think that Jeremy and I do largely agree on this matter, except for definitions, but for that we can blame dictionaries (to which I lend less weight than to the common usage and sense of the word) and the failure of the English language to distinguish between American slavery, Roman slavery, and Torah slavery.

Mark Steyn ain't exactly cheery these days (via Instapundit):

But either way the notion that it's a superpower in the making is preposterous. Most administration officials subscribe to one of two views: a) Europe is a smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater; or b) Europe is a smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater where the whole powder keg's about to go up.

For what it's worth, I incline to the latter position. Europe's problems -- its unaffordable social programs, its deathbed demographics, its dependence on immigration numbers that no stable nation (not even America in the Ellis Island era) has ever successfully absorbed -- are all of Europe's making. By some projections, the EU's population will be 40 percent Muslim by 2025. Already, more people each week attend Friday prayers at British mosques than Sunday service at Christian churches -- and in a country where Anglican bishops have permanent seats in the national legislature.

Some of us think an Islamic Europe will be easier for America to deal with than the present Europe of cynical, wily, duplicitous pseudo-allies. But getting there is certain to be messy, and violent.

The real question is how much of that will hurt us. Do I really think things are going to be that bad? I hope not, but I just haven't seen a lot of reasons to hope recently. Glenn's covering the debate between the optimistic, the gloomy, and the really gloomy on Instapundit.

Well, I finished the rough draft of the next chapter of Eyes in the Shadow this weekend. That is mainly due to the fact that I've set up a new writing regimen. During my four months of unemployment, I made an effort to write 1,000 words a day, five days a week. It's not rapid compared to the prolific professionals, who recommend that you write at least 2,000 words a day, every day, but I found that even at the rate I was going, my writing had a tendency to outpace my inspiration, and a lot of rambling, unfocused prose made its way into my works.

Now that I've started my new job, I've found I'm having a lot of trouble writing on days that I work. I either have time to write or blog, not both. So I can only really write on weekends. If I only did 1,000 words each on Saturday and Sunday, I couldn't even keep up with Eyes in the Shadow, much less work on anything else, so I've decided to focus on writing at least 2,000 words each day I have off. I think this is a rate I can manage, and by taking the work week off, I give my inspiration time to recover. I don't know how those professionals do it, but my ideas need time to percolate, and I find that if I come back to a storyline after leaving it for a week, I have a much better idea of how to continue. I may do my revising during the week, since I don't want it to cut into my actual writing.

In addition to this, I want to start dividing my effort a bit more, working on not just Eyes in the Shadow, but also the sequel to Fire. I'd like to finish that by the end of the year, which means I need to get through the rough draft in the summer some time. But I also don't want to put off Eyes in the Shadow any more, submitting fillers to the Storyblogging Carnival rather than my continuing story. So, what will probably happen is that the individual chapters of Eyes in the Shadow will become shorter--which means, incidentally, that more of them will be cliffhangers, since I won't have a chance to resolve the immediate situation as I prefer--but they'll appear every other week like clockwork. I'm really not sure whether this will make Doc happy or angry, but, well, it's more for my sake than his. I believe that I'm more than halfway through the story, so the more rapid pace befits the approaching climax. I just wish I knew what that climax was.

I've received a lot of visits this weekend, mainly due to a link in Right Wing News's weekend sidebar. The last time that happened I created a "Best of" post to direct people to some of my better postings. But that was before I had topics, so instead I'll suggest that you visit my topics' pages, depending on whether you're interested in Politics, the War, or Religion. If you decide you're tired of all that, there's always my Fiction page.

Sluggy Freelance — Bun-bun defeats Donaly, then takes most of Calix's village captive. That makes for one very unhappy first mate. Somehow, I don't think Bun-bun's solution is going to calm him down. In other news, it looks like Meanwhile in the Dimension of Pain/Grief/whatever has come to an end. I admit that it had gotten pretty old. I wonder what will replace it.

Day by Day — Captain's Quarters gets a mention. Ted Rall gets dissed. Zed ends up with Paris Hilton's old cell phone data, but it turns out to be fake.

Scary Go Round — Shelley's rehired by the mayor, and makes big plans for a festival to help relieve the town's tensions. She recruits Erin to help locate the child.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Man, I know April hasn't been very good recently, but I feel bad for her. First, she wakes up next to Paul, the transvestite hooker. Then she finds out that he's going to charge for what she thought was free sympathy sex. And then Diana takes the whip to her when she's reluctant to pay. And thus April loses another friend. Fortunately, their little spat draws the attention of Chester-seeking Dave. Of all the Roomies, Dave's the most likely to intervene on April's behalf. He's naturally nice, and none of April's Mike-hurting attempts affected him. In fact, having been on the receiving end of Mike's evil more often than not, he might want to thank her.

General Protection Fault — Well, Trudy isn't very open to the Gospel message. She definitely needs it, and even she should have a shot at redemption. I've never seen Mr. Darlington bring his faith into the comic so openly. I'm not sure how much I like it. On the one hand, I agree with pretty much everything Akhilesh has said, but I'm not sure how well it fits with the the story's flow. Well, it's a difficulty I'm likely to face as well.

Schlock Mercenary — General Tagon issues a few orders. But can even he keep Schlock in line?

Dean Esmay says:

Someone asked me once why I criticized the U.N. instead of proposing how to fix it. I'll tell you why: the only way to fix it is to eject every non-democratic nation. Problem: a majority of the member nations aren't democratic.

So throwing them out wouldn't be very democratic, would it?

John Hawkins of Right Wing News is now a full time blogger. I'd say that was really cool, but I don't think he's entirely happy with the circumstances that led to it. Still, I think he'll do okay. Go read, and make sure you visit his sponsors.

I went to a new Bible study last night, one which contained a couple of people I knew from MIT and a lot of new ones. It was a lot of fun, but I didn't get home until 10 pm, so I'm afraid there won't be much blogging today. Maybe I'll post something this evening.

John Zimmer at Letters from Babylon makes an interesting argument:

Lately I've been thinking about the relationship between Christian doctrine and experience. Today the question can seem a bit like the one about the chicken and the egg, but the analogy is false. If there is any truth to the claims of Christianity, regarding the works of Jehovah or the acts of Jesus, then experience must come first. On the other hand, if these claims are nothing but man-made myth then doctrine necessarily comes first and there is no genuine experience, only psychologically generated fantasy. I happen to believe that Christianity, from Abraham to Paul, was not fabricated but instead rests firmly on actual experiences of people. To a first approximation, then, doctrine can be thought of as an attempt to explain or make sense of previous experience, experience that is first believed to be true.

This is an important point that is sometimes overlooked in the modern church. I know that I often discount experiences, even my own, in exchange for the comfortable logic of doctrine. But if Christianity is true, it is true not because of doctrine, but because of experience. Abraham did not have a doctrine of God, he had the experience of God's actions in his life. Peter had no doctrine of the Incarnation, but the experience of knowing the man who was also God. Our faith is built on the experience of others, and what revelation is communicated through them was also an experience.

So what makes experience today less valid than that of 2,000 years ago? I'm a bit hesitant to answer this. While it is valid, as John says, to compare current experience with doctrine to see whether it is consistent, that measure is not completely satisfying. After all, much of what Jesus said ran contrary to doctrine as it was understood at the time. It makes more sense to compare current experience with previous experience and to look for a consistent doctrine.

I'm not arguing that we need to re-write our doctrine everytime someone claims to receive a revelation. I think that there are different levels of experience which command greater authority. There is the directness of the communication (Did God speak audibly or did you get a feeling?), the number of people who experienced it, and the evidence (prophecy, miracles, etc.). In the case of the Bible, the authority of Jesus is well attested in all these ways, and he re-affirms the authority of the Old Testament, so I'm not so much worried about measuring the authority of the experience described in the Bible as the experience described by people today.

The Christian Carnival is now online at Wallo World. I submitted my posts on Christianity and Slavery.

I've complained for a while that I no longer have the #2 spot on Google for "back of the envelope." Well, guess what? I'm back. I'm not quite sure how that happened, or what put me up there. Or even whether I'll stay when my front page's content changes. If I were to guess, however, I'd say that it was probably Joe Carter's Church Directory that put me back at #2. Thanks, Joe!

Jonah Goldberg doesn't think Deep Throat really exists:

Woodward and Bernstein have long promised that they will reveal the identity of this super-source on the occasion of Deep Throat's demise. Speculation and anticipation in Washington have been rising of late as the health of various potential candidates has deteriorated. Professional Watergate veteran John Dean recently wrote an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times claiming that Mr. Throat is very ill and that his obituary has already been written.

Here's the first problem: Nothing is easier than pinning a crime on a dead man. Here's the second problem: I don't think Deep Throat exists.

I'm not alone. Recently, Fox News media analyst Eric Burns revealed that the late, great historian Stephen Ambrose had told him there never was a Deep Throat. Burns's evidence was secondhand at best. He said Ambrose had shared an editor with Woodward and Bernstein — the legendary Alice Mayhew — and she had told him that Deep Throat was a composite of various sources. Mayhew told Ambrose that the first manuscript of All the President's Men contained no references to Deep Throat and that she told them the book needed a stronger plot device. D.T. was the result.

This version corroborates that of David Obst, Woodward and Bernstein's former literary agent. In his memoirs, Too Good to Be Forgotten, he confirms that the first draft of the book didn't mention Deep Throat and that Bob Fink, the researcher who organized the reporters' huge pile of sources, notes, and articles into a workable manuscript, was stunned to discover the appearance of Deep Throat in later versions.

What do I think? Well, to be honest, I don't really care. I was born the year Nixon resigned, and I haven't thought a whole lot about it since. Okay, that's not precisely true, but that line was too good not to use. I've never been curious about who Deep Throat was, or about the particulars of the scandal. Nixon committed a crime, which I used to think was a big deal, but after Clinton, cover-ups no longer seem very important. Most importantly, I don't remember when I used to believe the myth of the courageous newsman. I'm not saying that there are no brave reporters, just that journalism, by and large, is not about courage. There are a few jobs which are: firefighting, law enforcement, the military. Reporters can, and sometimes do, show courage, but it's not a profession that requires it except in extraordinary circumstances, the same as most other jobs.

La Shawn Barber is looking for posts on the Religious Right and the libertarian/social conservative divide. I don't really have anything new to say on the topic, but I've said plenty in the past:

So Dean's going to be the new DNC chair, huh? — If Dean continues to lead the Democrats down the path of self-destruction, I suspect that in a few years the real debate in this country will be between the libertarians and the social conservatives.

The religious right: extreme minority? — Social conservative positions aren't as far out on the fringe as some people would have you believe.

Dr. Dobson and Mr. Squarepants — I find it irritating how quick libertarian bloggers are to join in the name-calling when it's a religious conservative being criticized. Since when do they consider The New York Times a reliable source on, well, anything?

Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism: A Primer — Here I try to explain the difference between evangelicalism and fundamentalism. Not everyone agreed with my definitions.

Joe Carter of the Evangelical Outpost has a new job. He'll be paid to be the manager of Internet Development at the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity. Not bad for a blogger who isn't in IT, huh? No one's offered me a really cool job because of my blog, although I did get a really cool job because of my Ph.D. Of course, for me, the Ph.D. was more work. I really think that Joe has put more work into his blog than I put into my Ph.D., however.

Mark Steyn thinks Bush's trip to Europe is all tone and no substance:

"The change for the moment is more in tone than substance," wrote Alec Russell, reporting on President Bush's European outreach in yesterday's Telegraph. You don't say.

My colleague is almost right. In Brussels yesterday, the President's "charm offensive" consisted of saying the same things he always says - on Iraq, Iran, Palestine, the illusion of stability, the benefits of freedom, the need for Egypt and Saudi Arabia to get with the programme, etc. But, tone-wise, the Bush charm offensive did its best to keep the offensiveness reasonably charming - though his references to anti-Semitism and the murder of Theo van Gogh by a Dutch Islamist were a little more pointed than his hosts would have cared for.

But, in the broader sense vis-à-vis Europe, the administration is changing the tone precisely because it understands there can be no substance. And, if there's no substance that can be changed, what's to quarrel about? International relations are like ex-girlfriends: if you're still deluding yourself you can get her back, every encounter will perforce be fraught and turbulent; once you realise that's never gonna happen, you can meet for a quick decaf latte every six - make that 10 - months and do the whole hey-isn't-it-terrific-the-way-we're-able-to-be-such-great-friends routine because you couldn't care less. You can even make a few pleasant noises about her new romance (the so-called European Constitution) secure in the knowledge he's a total loser.

Me, I'm glad Bush didn't go to Europe to apologize, which seems to be what all the Leftists were hoping for. No, Bush is saying the same thing over there as he does here, even if nobody is listening. A few of them, expecting him to tone down his rhetoric, might be surprised, but I think most of them have gotten used to it by now. Whatever else you might think of him, Bush is consistent. He says what he means and he stays the course.

Serge at Imago Dei is debating with A Thinking Nurse whether humanism or theism is a better grounding for human rights. A Thinking Nurse says:

The humanistic justification for caring for human beings is that they are human beings - and being human is what ultimately matters.

Now Serge rightly questions the solidity of humanism for justifying human rights, arguing that "Human rights under humanism are simply asserted as fact, needing no grounding or justification." As such, who is deserving of human rights and what those rights are can be redefined at the whim of the humanist. Oddly, Serge does not address some of A Thinking Nurse's misconceptions about theistic nursing. For example,

Theistic nursing is serving God, a spiritual quest expressed through the medium of the people who present as patients. Humanistic nursing is showing solidarity in a human way with other human beings

This dispassionate means of "serving God" may be how some Christians behave in practice, but it is hardly the ideal that theistic service strives for. God commands us not only to do good to our neighbor, but to love him as we love ourselves. This may sound like an impossible command--how can we make ourselves love someone? While I believe that coming to love our neighbor requires an investment of time and effort in order to develop, God does give us a starting point. Christians love God, a command made easy by the fact that God is eminently loveable, and has already lavished his love upon us. God, whom we love, directs us to love the people whom he loves--our neighbors. While it is not automatic, it is so much easier to come to value someone at the encouragement of someone whom we love.

A Thinking Nurse also says:

Another danger is this question of the `ideal man' - if we are made in the image of God, and we are all so different, some of us must be closer to the image of God than others. Traditionally religions have argued that men are closer to the image of God than women - one reason why they have resisted the idea of women priests. Presumably they also imagine that non-disabled men are closer to this image than men with disabilities, mentally stable men closer than people suffering from psychosis.

Which brings up the question of what it means to be in the image of God. Very few Christians think this is a physical description, and that race, gender, and physical perfection has anything to do with it. So what is it? That would be a theological debate that could go on for a while, but I tend to view it as more spiritual. As for the question of the ideal man, you'll find that atheistic philosophies have much more highly developed superman theories than Christian theology. We know who the ideal man was--it was Jesus. And he, though perfect, humbled himself for the imperfect, he talked with children, ate with tax collectors and prostitutes, touched lepers, and healed the demon possessed. No Christian considers himself an ideal man. He does strive to be Christ-like, by showing the same compassion that Jesus showed and by seeing the same value in others that Jesus saw, even when it's not apparent.

Well, Chris at Powerblogs has been reading my complaints, and recently he rebuilt the archives so that the weekly archives are now truly weekly, each week starting on Sunday and ending on Saturday. Wow, they really spoil me, don't they? Once again, Powerblogs shows that it has incredible customer service.

I mentioned this before, but Doc's been complaining about my slacking off and not having the next chapter of Eyes in the Shadow done in time:

Donald has once again posted something that I've already read. Get cracking, guy! I'm waiting to find out what Red Eyes is up to.

...Donald's stories rely on suspense and adventure and when you get left not knowing what happened it's a major pain. Sheya's stories are more centered around personalities. There is some suspense, but it's more intimate. Sort of like getting a letter from someone who tells you what is going on in their life. You get left not knowing how it came out, but that's not so bad because you mainly just wanted to know how they are doing.

That's why Sheya's continuing stories don't annoy me as much as Donald's.

The ironic thing is that while I like keeping some suspense, I usually resolve the immediate situation. Only Chapter 1 was an actual cliffhanger. But Doc's post reminded me that I really need to keep the suspense up, so I made this last chapter a cliffhanger, just for him. He's already told me how much he appreciates it.

Okay, that's not exactly true. I was planning a cliffhanger anyway. Like I said in an earlier post, I felt the need to change the direction of the story, and this is it. On the downside, this was the easy part. The next chapter will be the hard part. Doc needn't worry though. I wrote about 2,000 words last night, so I should be done in time. Okay, technically, not all of those 2,000 words were part of Eyes in the Shadow, but it's more writing than I've done in a while.

By the by, I originally forgot to post chain Chapter 8 with the others. I've fixed that now.

Doc Rampage will be hosting the next Storyblogging Carnival on Monday, the 28th. Since the Carnival happens once every other week, this thirteenth carnival will be the half-year aniversary of the Storyblogging Carnival. Look for Doc to use some funky numbering system.

Old Post: The first chapter in this series is here, while the most recent chapter is here.

Well, it's two weeks late, but here it is, the next chapter of Eyes in the Shadow. I originally had a draft of this done two weeks ago, but when I was doing the revision, I decided that I didn't like how it went. There was one completely extraneous thing that I liked, but served no real purpose in the story. It just acted as a useless and unlikely coincidence that would almost certainly be a red herring. So I decided to save it for later... What?

Anyway, I like how it reads now much better than how it did.

---

Chapter 8
An Ill-timed Walk


Ryan opened one eye. It was the change in the car's movement which had first disturbed his rest, then the sudden brightness had woken him fully. They were parked at an Exxon station, stopped right in front of the convenience store. Between the light from the store window and the fluorescents illuminating the area under the gas pump's canopy, it was nearly as bright as day. Ryan opened and shut his eyes a few times trying to get them to adjust to the light. It was giving him a headache.

"Why..." He paused and cleared his throat. His voice was always hoarse when he first woke up. I couldn't hear what I said. "Why are we stopping? We're not out of gas, are we?"

"Nah," said Emily. "I just really needed to go. Besides, it's about time one of you guys took over driving."

Slinging her purse over her shoulder, she got out the door. The light gave her blond hair a golden halo. Ryan looked back at Dominic, who was still slumped back in his seat, hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat. With his sunglasses still on, it was hard to tell whether he was awake or not. He considered checking, then decided that there wasn't much reason to, so he got out of the car as well, absently scratching at the cut on his arm as he did so. The damn thing was annoying the Hell out of him. It didn't itch the way a cut should; instead it tingled, which was even more annoying. He hoped it wasn't infected.

Ryan's legs felt weak still, but as he had spent most of the day sitting down, that wasn't unexpected. He saw Emily disappear around the corner of the store, and after a moment he followed. It turned out that she knew where she was going, as the doors to both restrooms were on the side of the building. There were no windows on this side, and the wall blocked out most of the light streaming from the canopy, so aside from the flickering low-wattage bulb hanging between the two restroom doors, this side of the building was pretty dark. Emily entered the closest door, and after checking for unwelcome shapes in the shadows, he went to the second one. The Men's room was a cut above most gas station restrooms, meaning that it might be clean enough to serve a greasy diner. Still, it was brightly lit, and a quick glance in the mirror didn't show him anything he needed to worry about. Ugh, I'm getting so tired of looking for someone in the mirror every time I enter a room. Does it even help? Not every room even had a mirror, and no mirror showed him everything, but he was not going to start carrying a hand mirror around to scan every corner. I'd probably get arrested for doing that in a restroom. After doing his business, Ryan washed his hands and then pushed up the sleeve of his sweater to get a better look at the cut on his right arm.

It was across the inside of his right forearm, crossing his veins in a straight line. In fact, if it were a little bit closer to the wrist, it'd be like the scar left by a razor blade in an attempted suicide. The creepy thought gave him goosebumps. The scratch didn't look infected, at least not how he thought an infected cut should look: red and swollen and hot to the touch. Instead it looked... dead. The skin around the cut was pale and cool, even clammy. It felt stretched thin, taut, and it seemed to be actually pulling the wound open, exposing the pink muscle beneath. It still oozed a bit of blood. He pulled the sleeve back down.

What if it poisoned me? Ryan shoved the panicked thought back. "It" hadn't been there. He had cut his forearm on something, a nail protruding from the wall perhaps, and then dreamt about the shadow creature in his half-dozing state. He refused to believe that the shadow-thing was real. He could deal with the psychotic mutant demon if he had to—it was solid, a physical entity of a certain size and mass, even if some of its attributes were beyond his ability to explain. He would not allow himself to be spooked by ghosts which came out of mirrors.

Ryan almost looked at the cut again, then stopped himself. Looking at it wouldn't do him any good. He needed to go to a hospital and have them check it out. It could be tetanus. That's not what tetanus looks like! the panicky part of his brain argued. How do I know what tetanus looks like? He needed to see a doctor about it, but now wasn't a good time. After we get to Emily's house, I'll ask where I can find one.

The door opened, and in the mirror Ryan saw Dominic enter the room, still wearing his sunglasses. "Isn't it a little dark for those things?" he asked.

Dominic shrugged. "It's either dark and clear or bright and blurry. Anyway, one of us should take over driving. Do you want to, or should I?"

"Are you kidding? You just said you couldn't see anything."

Dominic snorted a half-laugh. "I did, didn't I? Well, I could probably manage, but maybe you should be the one driving."

"Yeah, I think that'd be best. I'll see you at the car."

Ryan pushed the door open and stepped out into the night. Even in the relative darkness on this side of the convenience store, glimmers from the front hurt his eyes. He rubbed his eyes, then his forehead. It didn't hurt much, but his head was definitely complaining. I hate it when I wake up from a nap with a headache. He looked in the opposite direction, where some trees stood behind the gas station's lot. I shouldn't... but I just want to walk around a bit before I have to take over driving. Once around the building can't hurt.

Ryan walked past the corner, his left hand trailing on the brick wall. You know, if this were a horror movie, going off on my own would have to be the most stupid thing ever. Don't you yell at the idiots who do that? He spun as he heard a crackling in the leaves, but he saw nothing but shadows and moonlight. Most of the noise he heard came from the other side of the building, where all the people and cars were—maybe it had come from there and he'd just imagined it came from the woods. It wasn't really a woods at all, just some sparse trees going back a few hundred feet and what looked like some houses beyond. There wasn't much underbrush either. Okay, Red-eyes won't attack me. He's not even after me, not really. It's Emily or Dominic he wants... and maybe I shouldn't have left them alone. He shook his head in a vain attempt to shake off the worried panic. I wasn't always this paranoid, was I? They haven't been alone for more than a minute or two yet. I can't just follow them around everywhere. He had always worried about things, but he had never been this bad. Ryan just wanted this to be over. The tension was getting to him.

The air was cool, but not really cold, and despite being right behind a gas station, it smelled fresh. That must be because the wind was coming from the other direction, carrying the scent of damp leaves rather than gasoline and car exhaust. It had rained here too, and water still dripped from the leaves, but only a drop or two touched him. The cold water felt nearly as good as the cool wind on his flushed skin. The car had been stuffy; between the three people and the heat blowing from the vents, it had been hot and humid, making him feverish. Right now, I'd rather walk than drive. Too bad South Carolina is just too damn big. One reason he liked Boston was that he could walk pretty much anywhere, and he much preferred to walk rather than drive. There weren't a lot of trees in Boston though, and it was rare for him to walk on dirt rather than pavement, so the feel of leaves beneath his feet was odd but pleasant.

Ryan's fingers brushed against the brick wall, then lightly touched a blank metal door, the only one on this side of the building. He didn't know why anyone would use it, as there was nothing back here, not even discarded rubbish. He looked to the woods, where he could hear water dripping from the trees, and noticed something. From where he stood, it looked like it might just be a shadowy patch on the ground, but he was pretty sure that it wasn't. Digging into his pocket, he drew out his key chain. Aside from the mass of keys, most of them to the offices and labs he needed access to for work, Ryan kept two other items hooked on his keychain: a pocket knife and a flashlight. They were, in his opinion, the two things absolutely essential for a man to have with him at all times. Unfortunately, he'd had to give up the knife when he got on the airplane. He still considered that sort of paranoia ridiculous. However, he still had his tiny LED flashlight, and he clicked it on and played its surprisingly bright light over the shadow. The shadow didn't dissolve into damp leaves and roots; his light didn't seem to penetrate its depths. Ryan left the wall to approach, his curiosity getting the better of his caution. As he got closer, he could tell why the shadow had seemed so deep: it was deep. It was the product of a hole in the ground, a round pit lined with grey bricks and flush with the ground. He couldn't tell how deep it was, as his little light couldn't find the bottom from here. It had to be deeper than he was tall. He moved closer, to try to get a better angle, but stopped when he was still a few feet from it. It was about ten feet around, and it had to be deeper. What the Hell is that? Maybe an old well? Why would anyone just leave a big hole in the ground out here? Shouldn't it be covered up or marked off or something? Ryan was just glad he hadn't stumbled into it.

Still staring at the hole, he felt a sudden chill at his back. He turned, the panic rushing through him again, but still managing to step away from the pit as he did so. Shadows cast by the trees swayed across the surface of the wall. It took him a moment to realize that the lighting behind the shadows was the moon itself, as no other source behind him cast as much light. It was amazing that he could see them at all considering the halo of light coming over the roof of the convenience store. Something about the movement of the shadows struck Ryan as odd: their swaying lacked any unified motion, which didn't make sense, as all the trees experienced the same wind. Something about their motion was oddly mesmerizing, and it was getting faster, an agitation boiling through the shadows utterly unlike the rippling of the leaves that was their source. Ryan heard only a soft and steady susurration overhead. If anything, the wind was decreasing, dropping to the barest breeze that could not create that whirlwind in the shadows. Of a sudden, the shadows collapsed, the scattered bits and pieces pulling together, collecting at the center of the closed metal door in a small dark circle no bigger than Ryan's head. In doing so, they left the rest of the wall dim and grey and lacking any distinction in lighting. Remembering the flashlight in his hand, he shined it at the wall, trying to chase away the shadow, or at least illuminate some part of the grey wall, but the flashlight wouldn't touch it, even though it lit the leaves at the wall's foot. The circle of darkness pushed outward, stretching unevenly in every direction, here and there coming up against limits, then collapsing in on itself again. It expanded again, and again, breathing in and out and each time going a little bit further, more and more of it reaching the outer edges of the shape it was trying to fill, a vaguely man-like shape with oddly shaped arms and a bird's head.

Ryan hadn't believed it was real. He still didn't believe it was real. But he recognized the shape of the shadow-thing, even with the darkness filling out only part of the form. The breathing shadows expanded one last time, reaching all the way to the tips of its talons, and this time the shadows didn't collapse again. It was flat, two dimensional, just the shape of the thing Ryan had seen before, until it opened its glowing red eyes, cat-like pupils shrinking to a slit, as if this cat had more than enough light. The head had seemed bird-like to Ryan before, but he hadn't realized quite how ugly it was. This was no Egyption god with the head of an eagle. It had neither the fierce beauty of a hawk nor the humble grace of a swallow. Instead, it looked like the head of a featherless, newly-hatched chick, all wide eyes and hungry beak and wattles of skin hanging from bone. It began to move. As it had reached out of the mirror to claw Ryan before, now it lifted one leg, its knee joint bending in the opposite direction of a human's, and the cat's paw it had for a foot lifted off of the metal door the shape had formed on. Only when it separated from the wall did it gain any depth, but it was no longer a paw when it did so, but a scuffed and muddy black boot, covered by the hem of grey slacks. More of the leg appeared, and if it weren't for the shadow that preceded it, it would have looked like it was walking through the closed door. Ryan knew who he was looking at even before the tail of a black trenchcoat came off the wall. It was Red-eyes.

Scratch the mutant theory off the list. No mutant can do that! The face lifted out of the metal surface, still blocky and locked in a rigid grimace as if it were made of stone. He stepped out of the wall and kept walking, not pausing to catch his bearings after taking form out of shadow. His clothes were the same expensive garments he had worn before, but while he had seemed well-groomed and neat when Ryan had first seen him, now he was unkempt. Water streamed down his face, although it was not raining here. His hair lay limp, matted to his head, and even his mustache dripped water. His blank trenchcoat was damp and dripping as well, stained with mud, and his pants were stained and rumpled and frayed. Ryan had nearly forgotten how big he was, wide as well as tall. It didn't take much for someone to tower over Ryan, and this guy would tower over anyone. The eyes were still red, and while they did not glow with the same intensity as the shadow-form, they still shone in the night, reflecting light like some animal's. It seemed unlikely that the moonlight could produce that bright of a reflection. Maybe... maybe it's an hallucination. Maybe I didn't just see him appear out of shadow. Maybe he's not even here. Why would he be? I thought he wasn't after me.

Ryan decided that real or not, he better act as though it was, and right now there wasn't time to speculate. He had to run, to get to the car. If he made a wide enough arc around Red-eyes, if he was fast enough... Red-eyes was too close already, but Ryan took a step back, shifting his legs so he could sprint in the transverse direction. Ryan had never seen Red-eyes move quickly, never seen him run, or move at any speed other than that distance-eating stride, but somehow Red-eyes covered the intervening space quicker than Ryan could even shift his weight. He couldn't even cry out before the large hand locked around his neck. Red-eyes didn't squeeze, not like in the dream where he had strangled Ryan. Or had that been the shadow-thing? The huge hand only applied the minimum pressure to hold onto him. The hand was cold, the same icy chill he had felt in the dream, and damp with what felt like ice water. Ryan thought he could feel his body temperature dropping, and in his shock, he didn't even think of struggling. What could he do?

"What do you want with me?" he asked, hoping to stall as long as he could still breathe. Maybe I can kick him... If I can reach! His arm's as long as my leg!

The mouth opened, and again Ryan heard a voice that sounded as if it came from a long way off, coming from this man's lips as if he were just mouthing words spoken by another. "You still do not know? You are a fool." Maybe Ryan was crazy, but he was pretty sure the lips weren't even in synch with the words.

"Yeah, maybe. So tell me."

"I do not want you."

"Do you want her? Her brother? Why attack me?"

Red-eyes stared straight into his eyes. "To get what I want, I must go through you."

Ryan closed his eyes to shut out the sight and saw an afterimage of the shining eyes. His headache was getting worse, though the slight feverishness he had felt before was replaced with a chill. Even his teeth ached with cold. Ryan's heart should have been thudding faster than a drum, but it had instead slowed, choking on his sluggish blood. The tingling which had affected his scar seemed to be growing, as now his entire forearm tingled. Ryan had wondered why Red-eyes wasn't squeezing the life out of him, but now he realized he was. Ryan was dying not by strangulation, but by hypothermia. Was that even possible? Could Red-eyes leach the heat out of him like this? It's happening, whether I believe it or not. If I'm going to survive, I have to do something now! His arms felt leaden and numb, aside from the tingling which had now passed Ryan's right elbow, and that had become worse. It now felt like pins and needles jabbing their way into his flesh. Forcing his arms into motion—he had to open his eyes and look to make sure they were really moving--Ryan managed to wrap his hands around Red-eyes' wrist. He pushed against his arm, at the same time digging in with his heels and thrusting himself backwards.

To his surprise, Red-eyes' grip really was no tighter than it felt, and Ryan's sudden action broke him free of it. He tried to catch himself with one leg as he started to fall, but his foot found no ground beneath. The pit! How'd I get so close to the edge?

His hands still had hold of Red-eyes' wrist, and now he was the one who held on despite the freezing numbness in his hands. His right foot found the wall of the pit and scrambled to find the ledge, but Red-eyes was already moving forward, his other arm reaching towards Ryan's hands. He could not have made a reasoned decision to fall rather than be caught. Maybe it was panicked reflex that made him let go, or perhaps his cold-dead fingers just didn't have the strength to hold on. Let go he did. Red-eyes wasn't going to let him go that easily, and his huge hand wrapped around Ryan's, crushing the fingers in its attempt to hold onto him. But he was off-balance as well, and with Ryan's forward momentum added to his own, his preternatural steadiness left him. As Ryan went over the edge, Red-eyes went with him, the two of them twisting as Ryan tried to pull away and Red-eyes tried to hold on. Earth and leaf-dappled sky, darkness and Red-eyes whirled in Ryan's vision, and the only thought he had time for was that when Red-eyes landed on top of him, he would be crushed.

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This chapter is 3,448 words long, bringing the total length of the story to 27,253. Okay, now it's novella length. Let's see if we can reach full novel size!

As I promised earlier, I'm going to share some of my thoughts on Christianity and slavery. But first, you have to understand something about how God prefers to work. God prefers to work subtly and inconspicuously. He starts small, using the least likely and the least important things to do great things. He prefers not to be showy. There are plenty of examples of God doing flashy things: the plagues of Egypt, the pillar of smoke and fire, manna from heaven, just from the Exodus. But he prefers to start small: a small nation which would incubate his Word, his Son in the form of an unimportant man, a few fishermen and assorted outcasts as his inconstant followers... All to promote a gospel which appealed to the weak and downtrodden, one which humbly attracted people rather than forced itself by conquest. In the same way, Christians were to change the world, not by use of political or military power, but one soul at a time, drawing them into the fold. Christianity isn't just good for Christians, either. Even where only a few believe, its ideas and its example overflow into society, subtly altering it, changing attitudes and norms and customs. This is what it means to be salt and light. (I don't want to get into why God prefers to work this way here, although I tend to think it has a lot to do with the fact that God wants us to have to choose, rather than have the choice made for us, and that by making the right choices, we become better in heart and in mind, which is way more important than our physical circumstances anyway. And when the results do finally change the circumstances and society, the changes are more authentic and enduring because they come from within rather than being imposed from without.)

And so, Christianity was not originally the religion of the powerful. At the time of its founding, it was a small, persecuted faith which appealed mainly to the weak and powerless. The instructions given to Christians were therefore instructions on how to live in their society, not how to rule it. Many of the Christians, probably most in some of the Gentile cities, were slaves. Any instruction to put an end to slavery would have been seen as an act of open rebellion. Rome did not put up with incitement of slaves, and this would have led to a quick, brutal obliteration of Christianity which would make the subsequent persecutions look mild. However, I think staying out of Rome's cross-hairs (to use an anachronism) was a mere side-benefit of the fact that God prefers to start small.

If Christianity was to attack slavery, that's how it would. Working subtly. So, did it? I asked my readers to tell me not just that slavery is bad, but why it is. Both Doc Rampage and Tom Harrison shared their thoughts. Both focused on the absolute authority of one human being over another, and the assumed superiority of the master over the slave. I think they've homed in on the reasons fairly well. The other aspects of slavery we find so repulsive--the buying and selling of human beings, the cruel treatment and devaluing of human life, the forced labor--are all side effects of the central logic of slavery: that the slave does not have the same humanity as the owner, so the owner may do as he wishes to the slave. Slavery was also a social class, an economic condition (many people sold themselves into slavery because they could not pay off debts), perhaps most akin to indentured servitude.

Christianity dealt with slavery by dealing with it not as an institution, but as a relationship. It began with the simple premise: in the eyes of God, slave and slave-owner are equal. And as imperfect and faltering as its efforts were, the Church attempted to mimic God's attitude. Slaves had equal parts in the sacraments, and equal parts in the leadership of the Church. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Gal. 3:28 (NAS)). In fact, many slaves held positions of rank in the early church. Among them, Pliny the Younger--no friend of Christianity--mentions two slavewomen who served as Deaconesses in a letter written in 112 AD:

These examinations made me think it necessary to inquire by torments what the truth was; which I did of two servant maids, who were called Deaconesses: but still I discovered no more than that they were addicted to a bad and to an extravagant superstition.

Nor was this the highest rank slaves rose to. It is believed that Pope Pius I (c. 140-154 AD) was a former slave.

However, the role of slave was still to be followed outside of the Church, and that is where the teachings that people find disturbing come from:

Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ; not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. With good will render service, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free. And masters, do the same things to them, and give up threatening, knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him.

Ephesians 6:5-9 (NAS)

The fact that so much more instruction is given to the slaves than the masters is partly a function of the ratio of slaves to slave owners in the early church (many more of former than the latter), and partly due to the fact that the main instruction to the masters is to do the same thing as the slaves, knowing that both are the same in the eyes of God. Notice also that the commands don't specify whether the slave or slave owner towards whom the Christian is supposed to be doing good works is a Christian as well. The absolute power of one man over another loses its force if both are answerable to God and to the Church. The Church could, and did, adjudicate disputes between its members, although I don't know of any specific disputes between masters and slaves that it decided, aside from Paul's intervention in the case of Philemon and Onesimus. As for the side effects, if the Bible's teachings were applied, then such things should be discarded as a matter of course. Christianity praised humility, honest work, and compassion. The poor and powerless were favored by God. Cruelty and brutality were not countenanced at all. To be great in God's kingdom you had to be the servant of all, the slave as well as the master.

So there remains the last step which Christianity did not take. Why did it not instruct the Christian masters to free their slaves? Now in Roman times a slave could be freed. He did not then become a citizen, but a freedman, which was a whole other social class, above slave but well below citizen. Freedmen were still dependent on their former masters for financial support and legal protection, and usually continued to work for them. Rome's bureaucracy depended on a large corps of Imperial freedmen. Some Christians did free their slaves, and some Christian leaders condemned the practice of slavery in very broad terms, but this was not done wholesale.

Nevertheless, by changing how slaves were perceived by Christians, the Church was changing how slaves were perceived in the Roman world. As the Church gained temporal power, some of it went into increasing legal protections and legal standing of slaves. It took a long time, and there were frequent relapses, but by the Middle Ages slavery had largely disappeared from the Christian world. Which is not to say that Heaven had been achieved on Earth. Serfs were, if not slaves, still only a step above them in legal standing. And at the end of the Middle Ages, with serfdom dying out (largely due to economic changes), slavery had a resurgence in the Western world with the advent of imperialism. The reason why is not that hard to see. Slavery's decline came about because of the growing belief in human equality, largely due to New Testament teaching and the brotherly love encouraged among Christians. Imperialism brought slaves who were foreign, of alien religion and appearance, which made it easy to regard them as unworthy of the same equality. The West's belief in its own superiority and civilization made it easy to look down on the primitives. But ultimately it was Christians who challenged this belief, asserting that God's commands to love your neighbor were not dependent on their similar manner or technological advancement.

Slavery died largely because of Christian beliefs, which dealt with slavery not directly, but by striking at the heart of the matter, insisting on common human worth and dignity.

Whew, got this update done just under the wire. For once, I posted it directly, rather than scheduling it, since there wasn't enough time to schedule it.

Sluggy Freelance — So, Pete does a few sprite comics as filler. Even if they're sprite comics, they're funny. But we do get some important information on how this timeless space works before the big fight scene between the villagers, Bun-bun's crew, and Captain Donaly's crew. That ought to be a fun fight.

Day by Day — The MSM's the big target these days, and Bloggers get tons of praise. On the character front, Zed's cell phone buying antics are the best part.

Scary Go Round — I'm not really sure why The Boy's love life is taking center stage right now. Most of these characters I barely recognize, although I did think that scene between Erin and Dark Esther was sweet.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — So Mike's not very forgiving, is he? And if Mike won't forgive April, how the heck are we going to get peace among the Roomies? I really wish April would get over her Mike obsession. There are other fish in the sea, and most of them are nicer than Mike. And in other news, Dave's planning to call Blue. That's sweet, even if he has to borrow Mike's cell phone to do it. Dang, it's hard to be a D&Mer these days.

General Protection Fault — A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the prominence of Christian themes in General Protection Fault. Here we see them coming to the fore more openly, and we see Dr. Akhilesh, the comic's only openly Christian character, caring for Trudy. He really does seem saintly, doesn't he? I am glad to see that Trudy doesn't succeed in her suicide attempt. I'm gladder to see that she isn't going to murder the good doctor. Trudy is a scary chick.

Schlock Mercenary — So, Kevyn manages to con a bunch of scientists into hiring mercenaries for personal protection. Hmm, maybe he should go try to solve the teraport problem now. He really needs to do some more science stuff, and let somebody else take charge of the mercenary stuff for a while. And that's just what he intends to do.

I've been working on the second post concerning slavery and Christianity, but it's not going to go up before this weekend. Partly that's because it's taking a lot of time to write, but partly it's because I'm looking for more comments on my original post. The question of why slavery is wrong is central to my thoughts on how Christianity deals with it, and I'd like to hear from a few more people on this. (I know Tom Harrison's commentary is a hard act to follow, but you can try.) Meanwhile, you may find this article from New Advent's Catholic Encyclopedia worth reading.

When Dean Esmay is supporting Terri Schiavo's right to live, you know it's not just a Religious Right cause:

From what I can see, Terri Schiavo is alive and, according to people who love her, she is able to respond to them in a way that a human vegetable would not be able to. They say that they're willing to care for her for the rest of her natural life, and they say they ask nothing of her husband except that he go away and leave them alone. They also say that she is not on "life support," but rather, that she merely requires a single tube to provide her with food and water.

All of that being the case, I see no reason to support a court order which says that she should die of thirst. Which is what her estranged husband (who now lives with another woman with which he has children) demands.

I think that about sums it up. If you're interested in helping out, read this letter from Terri's father.

I was watching the show Mythbusters on the Discovery channel last night. If you're not familiar with it, this is a show where people with special effects experience take myths and urban legends and test them out to find if they're feasible. This isn't the Snopes type of research where they look through news stories to find out whether something really happened or not. Instead, they try to reproduce the story. For example, one of the things they tested last night was whether someone shot with a bullet could really be knocked backwards, blown flying across the room, like what happens in the movies. In order to test this, they took a 180 pound dead pig, precariously balanced it hanging from a hook, then shot at it to see if they could knock it off. Sounds fun, huh? They found that they couldn't, which makes sense when you think about it. With Newton's third law, whatever force the bullet makes on impact, it should also direct the same amount of force in the opposite direction when fired. In other words, if your bullet knocks someone back ten feet, it should have knocked you back ten feet when you fired it. (Fortunately, this force is better distributed on the shooter than the target.) They said as much after they had had all the fun shooting at a dead pig. Well, I'm glad I'm not a Hollywood director making films that are so inaccurate to real life. I'm not obsessive about it, but I try to at least be deliberate when I break the laws of physics in my own stories...

Um, wait. Didn't I...? Hold on a moment, let me check...

...

...huh, what do you know? I did, in fact, use gunshot knockback to dramatic effect in Chapter 4 of Eyes in the Shadow. I can't change it now: it's too integral to the scene! But, wait, it's a dream sequence, so, um, yeah... I meant to do that. It's a dream, so it's not supposed to be realistic. In fact, it makes more sense if it follows the movie logic, since it's all happening in Ryan's brain. [Good recovery. -ed. Oh, shut up! -DSC]

From Fox News:

Iran and Syria on Wednesday said they would unite against any challenges or threats to their nations' livelihoods, a move that could raise the stakes in the ongoing international dramas involving both countries.

The announcement came on the same day that a large explosion supposedly rocked the southern Iranian city of Dailam, but details remained sketchy about what happened.

On the alliance issue, Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref, after meeting with Syrian Prime Minister Naji al-Otari, told reporters in Tehran: "We are ready to help Syria on all grounds to confront threats."

Frankly, it's not surprising. They already had a de facto alliance, as there's evidence linking both of them to the ongoing terrorism in Iraq and elsewhere. They are the two biggest state supporters of terrorism in the world. And they're both scared. Syria more than Iran, probably. It's a smaller country and it's surrounded by nations which are not friendly to it: Turkey, the new Iraq, Israel, and an increasingly restive Lebanon. In the event of an all-out war, Iran's help would consist of attacking US forces in Iraq, since it would have a hard time moving conventional forces to Syria through Iraq.

I hope it doesn't come to that, but as state sponsors of terrorism, I think there is sufficient casus belli, and it's more a question of whether it's worth the cost than whether it's right. But right now there is sufficient internal dissidence that I think that support for the democratic forces within and pressure on the governing tyrrany could bring regime change in both countries without any direct intervention.

Update: Oops, forgot the link. It's there now.

La Shawn Barber drew my attention to this article by Thomas Sowell:

To me the most staggering thing about the long history of slavery — which encompassed the entire world and every race in it — is that nowhere before the 18th century was there any serious question raised about whether slavery was right or wrong. In the late 18th century, that question arose in Western civilization, but nowhere else.

It seems so obvious today that, as Lincoln said, if slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong. But no country anywhere believed that three centuries ago.

Sowell then goes on to explain that "Nothing could be more jolting and discordant with the vision of today's intellectuals than the fact that it was businessmen, devout religious leaders and Western imperialists who together destroyed slavery around the world." Of course, it took Christianity a couple of millenia to take on slavery. The Bible mentions slavery on numerous occasions, but when it does deal with this issue its instructions are along the lines of "Slaves, obey your masters; masters, treat your slaves well." Non-Christians often use this as a reason why the Bible can't be the Word of God: if God is real and good, how could he have countenanced slavery?

I've thought about this a bit, but before I address what the Bible has to say about slavery, I have a question for you. Slavery has existed since before recorded history, and as Sowell has said, the concept that slavery could be and should be destroyed didn't seem to occur to anyone until a couple of centuries ago. So I think the burden of proof is on us, the modern Westerners. Why is slavery wrong? What about it is so offensive? More to the point, why should it be self-evident that it is? What principles underlie this conclusion? My point is not to argue that there's nothing wrong with slavery, but to get you thinking about what it is that is wrong with slavery.

John Zimmer at Letters from Babylon has some thoughts on using technology to extend life expentancy:

Unlike de Grey, Kurzweil imagines that human aging will be defeated before today's newborns have graduated from college. Another striking difference is that Kurzweil's immortal man sounds more like a cyborg than a marvel of biology, equipped as he is with intelligent `nanobots' flowing through his blood, making repairs and even enhancing normal cognitive performance to levels well beyond that attainable by any member of the species so far.
...
And finally Princeton biologist Lee Silver says: "[To achieve Kurzweil's ideal of a united humanity] I think it would require a change in human nature, and I don't think people want to do that."

My take? We fear death and we treat one another badly. No amount of cultural or technological development will ever change that. Nor is it our choice to alter or not to alter human nature. These views are not cynical, but rather are supported by the entire historical record as well as virtually everyone's personal experience and observation. There is hope, but it is not found in us.

I happen to think nanotechnology is cool, but I also think that the technology to do what Kurzweil wants is farther away than he does.

As I said in John's comments, I don't just want to live forever--I fully intend to. I don't intend to do it in this world or in this body, though--I'm not a masochist. This life extended indefinitely is not my idea of paradise.

I haven't had much to blog about the last couple of days. Aside from not being very inspired, I've been trying to go to bed earlier, since I feel like I haven't been getting enough sleep. I can make it through the day, but I feel exhausted by the time I get home, which is when I do all my blogging.

Hopefully, if I can get a good sleeping schedule, I'll feel up to more blogging. It doesn't help that going to bed early doesn't necessarily mean that I get to sleep early. I've occasionally lain awake for two hours or more just trying to sleep. If there's anything more boring than trying to get to sleep and wondering if you should just get up and blog, I don't know what it is.

It looks like Doc isn't too happy at the delays in Eyes in the Shadow. Well, the next chapter will be up in time for the next Storyblogging Carnival, so he can relax.

Well, technically, he never went anywhere, as he's been publishing columns all over the place. But now his website is being updated again, so it's much easier to find all his columns. Don't forget to read his Valentine's Day ruminations.

Welcome to the twelfth Storyblogging Carnival. I hope you've enjoyed our Carnivals so far, and that you'll keep coming, and consider participating. And now, on with the stories:

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Non-Automated Biography
by cbeck of Feeding the Habit
A 209 word brief story rated PG.

For a young man, the curve of a soft neck, the smell of her air, it all eludes the immediate understanding.

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The Prologue of Fire
by Donald S. Crankshaw of Back of the Envelope
A 1,412 word excerpt of a 90,111 word novel.

The spectators to what seems to be an ordinary event are most decidedly not ordinary.

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aliens
by Dave Gudeman of Doc Rampage
A 1,684 word short story rated PG.

Old-style, hi-tech, sci-fi adventure. Short form.

[The frantic pace reminds me of some computer games I've played. -DSC]

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A Little Vanity
by Wichidude of Storyman
A 2,090 word short story rated PG-13.

Technology changes, even for the oldest of things. Yet, there is always a little vanity and pride involved in a job well done. Some things change, others remain the same. No matter what you get hit with.

[This one is oddly appropriate for Valentine's Day. -DSC]

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Chapters 32 through 34 of The Child (Beginning)
by Sheya Joie of Tales by Sheya
The next 2,739 words of a 27,019 word novella in progress rated PG.

They have been chosen; now, they must make ready to go. And that can be more dangerous than it looks at first.

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A Sinking Feeling
by Andrew Ian Dodge of Dodgeblogium
A 4,500 word short story rated PG.

It's called a sinking feeling and it involves Cthulhu & his minions...

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Thanks for coming by. If you'd like to join the Storyblogging Carnival e-mail list, just drop me a line.

Today is the one year anniversary of Back of the Envelope. It is also Valentine's Day. What of it?

In honor of the day (my Blogiversary, not Valentine's Day), I am reprinting my very first post:

After wasting hours and hours reading blogs and wishing I was doing something productive, I decided to start my own. That way I can waste hours not only reading, but also posting, which means that I am producing something, so that, by definition, I am being productive, even if what I am producing is pure drivel.

So now you see why I started a blog. My original blog was on Blogspot, and the entire first day of posting is archived there. It's been fun, and I look forward to another year.

The twelfth Storyblogging Carnival will also go up today. Now, if I had only begun the Carnival two weeks earlier, my blogiversary and the Carnival's half-anniversary would go up on the same day.

Sluggy Freelance — All right, so we learn where the aliens come from and get an X-Com cameo while we're at it. I think I'm going to like Calix. He has the sort of cynical attitude that befits a primitive encountering advanced technology for the first time.

Day by Day — The MSM, Ward Churchill, and cell phones get the standard mocking. La Shawn Barber, on the other hand, gets a promotion. Well, actually, she probably wouldn't consider that a promotion, but it's cool to see her mentioned.

Scary Go Round — More about The Child this week, although The Boy seems more concerned over his love life. Of course, Ryan's unsanitary living also receives a few swipes, and it looks like Tim and Riley are running for the hills.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Margaret, asking for help? Begging for it? I'm actually glad to see her deciding she wants to live, not to mention admitting that she needs help for once. It's too bad that Dave's not there, but it would probably cause a relapse in his Margaret obsession. I'm kind of hoping Chester will show up at least. That way Dave could literally be there in spirit. Meanwhile, Dave decides to get some sleep, even if it means inflicting Mike's and Marsha's "fun" on April.

General Protection Fault — Hey, it's the good doctor, the guy who helped the real Trish. I'm glad to see him again. He's pretty cool, even if he's a bit too much of an innocent to deal with Trudy.

Schlock Mercenary — Remind me to bring a band of heavily armed mercenaries next time I go to a scientific conference. Gav--one of them, anyway--has just started talking about a weird, unpenetrable barrier at the center of the galaxy. Let the speculation begin!

La Shawn Barber was mentioned in today's Day by Day. Cool, huh? She doesn't seem to want the job Chris Muir has suggested her for.

I just wanted to say that I'm really enjoying the new job, moreso than I expected to. I think it helps that I'm doing something very different from my thesis work, and learning as I go, but that I have enough support and independence that I don't feel like I'm doing nothing but learning, which is a problem I've had before.

Howard Dean's outlasted all the competition, so it looks like he'll be the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee. You know, I really thought they wouldn't do it. They rejected Dean as their Presidential candidate, surely they wouldn't make him their Chairman. The one thing I forgot, however, is that while the Presidential Candidate is decided by actual voters, the Chairmanship is decided by the Party insiders. Notice how Dean's now the presumed chairman without a single vote cast. If the Democratic nominee for President had been done this way, Dean would likely have run against Bush. And lost by a much wider margin than Kerry did, as he couldn't even fake taking the war seriously.

While this is good news for the Republicans, as they can look forward to more gains in the House and Senate, it's bad news for conservatism. As the Democrats move further to the Left, the Republicans do so too, to fill the void in the middle, and the country as a whole becomes less conservative.

I guess what I'd really like to see is the political landscape altered to such a degree that the two major parties represented a libertarian view and a social conservative view. I could see useful debate coming from that. Unfortunately, I just don't see the Democrats representing either one, as their libertine socialism just isn't compatible with either.

I installed a TiVo system last night. I've spent some time playing with it. The first thing I noticed is that it takes forever to get up and running. For the most part it doesn't require my input, but last I checked (around 7:30 pm), it said that it wouldn't be able to record anything for 4 to 8 hours. I'm assuming that it needs this time to download the television information.

I'll be playing with it over the next couple of days and I'll let you know what I think.

Don't forget to get your entries to me by tomorrow at 11:59 pm. You have 15 hours left. If I'm lucky, I'll have my story up by then.

Via Instapundit, two articles, one by Jonah Goldberg and one by Glenn Reynolds himself, reminding us that monsters are real. From Jonah's article:

A lovable monster is a very new concept because, first and foremost, monsters are about evilness. The original meaning of the word "monster" derives, via Old French, from a word for "divine omen or warning." The Latin monstrum comes from the verb monere, meaning "warn." A monster was a deformed person or animal that people m