Back of the Envelope

Jonah Goldberg thinks that conservatism might just survive:

From the 1950s onward, various conservatives — mostly, but not entirely, of a libertarian bent — have predicted the movement must come a cropper from its internal contradictions. Buckley was constantly fending off assaults from ideological brigands trying to commandeer the ship of conservatism and steer it toward purer waters of religious, libertarian or anti-Communist hues. Buckley stood firm and said, no! There be monsters there. Buckley was aided by the conservative theorist Frank Meyer, who fashioned the doctrine of "fusionism," which held that freedom and virtue were inextricably entwined; virtue not freely chosen is not virtuous.

As conservatism blossomed in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan, some conservatives jumped ship, unwilling to accept the compromises and responsibilities of power. The late "paleocon" Samuel Francis bemoaned the Reaganites as "hapless" sellouts. Others among his confreres banged their spoons on their highchairs because "neocons" got jobs in the administration they felt were rightly theirs. On foreign policy, realists, neoconservatives and traditional anti-Communists tussled in an endless mosh pit.

In 1992, R. Emmett Tyrrell proclaimed that a great "conservative crack-up" was taking place before our eyes. Throughout the 1990s other conservatives made similar pronouncements, even as conservative ideas won under a Democratic president and Republican politicians inexorably claimed majority party status in this country.

Personally, I dislike much of Bush's "compassionate conservatism." Indeed, I find it astounding that even as Bush has moved the Republican agenda leftward in many key respects, the left has screamed all the louder about how "right wing" he is. But simply because I think Bush is wrong about, say, Medicare, it doesn't mean I think it's a sign the conservative movement is falling apart. Lots of folks thought FDR's New Deal was a disaster at the time, and look how that turned out.

What I'm not sure of is whether that last sentence was sarcastic, as I believe there's much about the New Deal that Jonah thinks is disastrous.

I received an interesting e-mail from a reader that I thought I would share. It started:

i (and millions of others) found your site when i googled "christian webcomics."

That's not exactly true, as I'm not quite in the millions yet, but I've gotten a good number of hits from people running Google searches of "Christian webcomics." It led to this post, where I wrote:

I'll admit that I didn't come up with this topic on my own. I noticed that one of the Google searches which led people to my blog was "Christian webcomics." Now, I am a Christian, and I do read webcomics, which explains how that search led here, but are any of the webcomics that I read explicitly Christian? Some of them are written by Christians. Some of them have Christian characters. Some of them deal with Christian themes. But I don't think any of them are explicitly Christian.

The reader, kiran-fai, continues:

you mentioned that some webcomics may be written by christians and/or have christian themes, but may not be explicitly christian. my theology on this has evolved lately into thinking that anything that is true and good is indeed explicitly christian.

ie: god created mathematics which states that 2 + 2 = 4. this makes mathmatics a christian concept because it is a truth forged by god.

I'm not sure I'd put it quite that way. I don't have any dispute with the assertion that mathematics comes from God, although I tend to think of it less as a creation of God than a reflection of his nature. (I think the same thing about love, incidentally. It's not that God created love, but it is an inseparable part of his nature. God is love.) However, I don't think the idea of everything good being explicitly Christian really fits the defintition of "explicity."

I agree with the rest of the e-mail in its entirety:

when a believer applies this theology to as many areas of his life as possible, two things happen: one, god gets real big, real quick. he is no longer confined to live within the walls of "religious things" (church, the bible, hymns), but he is loosed to take proper authority over ALL THINGS. two, the foolish idea of a "secular" world and a "sacred" world gets shattered in a hurry. there is only one world and it all belongs to god.

this allows me to say things like, "some of tom petty's music is explicitly christian (ie: won't back down), but a lot of 'christian' music fails to paint a realistic picture of what it means to live life as a true believer" and "the precious moments figurines mock the biblical existence of angels, but the recent film constantine portrays spiritual warfare in a believeable way."

i look forward to yor response and you may feel free to use this letter in any way you see fit.

A Christian's faith should be reflected in all he does, and it doesn't necessarily have to tell the Gospel message aloud in order for it to contain a bit of the good news.

Incidentally, two of the webcomics I mentioned in my previous post have gotten a lot more explicit recently. In General Protection Fault, Trudy just heard the Gospel message, while in College Roomies from Hell!!!, Dave's just received what looks like divine help.

The latest Christian Carnival, number sixty-three, is up at Weapons of Mass Distraction.

Nick Queen has his latest Out of the Wilderness showcase up, introducing new Christian blogs. Featured this week are Musings of Micah Girl, Proving Up: The Art and Science of Placemaking, and Amy's Humble Musings.

Morgan Evans at jediphilosopher has been debating with me about Terri Schiavo. Recently, he posted on a slightly different topic:

Several changes in thought topic later, I was thinking about the differences between Philosophically supporting something, and practically supporting something. Now, philosophically I support several ideas that would probably be quite unpopular to a good deal of people. However, I also recognize that they would not work well in this world with humans the way they are, and do not support them as practical ideas.

I started to wonder about this. Just what is the difference between a philosophically good idea and a practically good idea? Can something that is right and good, that is in accord with God's will, be a bad thing when put into practice in our world? Can something that is not right, that goes against God, be justified?

While part of me wants to say that of course this cannot be, there is evidence to the contrary. The early church, we are lead to believe, practiced something similar to communism. It seems a good idea in theory. Yet put into practice in our modern world, the results have been universally a failure.

This is an interesting question, and worth some thought, but I believe the simple answer is that there are a lot of things that are good in theory, but that don't work well in practice. Now, as an engineer, I design things, and while I can sometimes try to make use of a new theory (I spent years working on a specific type of qubit, with moderate success), for the most part I extrapolate from what I know to work. You have to know the limitations and flaws of the available technology, and adapt your designs to them. The same goes, to some degree, to political systems. The American political system was desgined with the assumption that mankind was fallen and that power corrupts, and thus it was designed to distribute and limit power, preventing any person or group from accumulating too much power, and protecting those who had none. (I worry that the system is not working as well as it should, as the judiciary, which was supposed to be the weakest of the government branches, has become the most powerful, and there is precious little to limit them.) The fallen nature of man has to be taken into account in any system.

Fortunately, Christianity does indeed take that into account. It is, in fact, targeted at addressing exactly that point. And while Christians are redeemed, their faith acknowledges that being redeemed is far from being perfected, and calls on Christians to hold one another accountable. Now, I'm not going to call Christianity as practiced a perfect system, not even as practiced by the early church, but I tend to believe that it's been far more successful than it is usually given credit, but like any good system, it also needs to acknowledge its mistakes and its need for improvement and correction.

I've been remiss not to point this out earlier, but Maritza Campos has a Livejournal. It seems to be purely personal, although she does discuss the strip from time to time.

The media is reporting on memos sent around by the Senate Republicans, saying how beneficial to their cause the Terri Schiavo case is. For example, the Washington Post:

In a memo distributed only to Republican senators, the Schiavo case was characterized as "a great political issue" that could pay dividends with Christian conservatives, whose support is essential in midterm elections such as those coming up in 2006.

Republicans deny that they sent around such a memo. In a Weekly Standard article, John Hinderaker of Powerline points out some inconsistencies in it, arguing that it's a Democratic dirty trick. While he makes some good points, there's no smoking gun evidence, as there was for the Rathergate story. So the question becomes on whom lies the burden of proof? The Republicans proving that they never sent around the memo? The media proving that they did? Or John Hinderaker proving that it's a Democratic dirty trick? Personally, I'd go with both B and C, on the theory that the burden of proof lies with the accusers. I don't see enough evidence to support either, so it's not clear who created the memo or for what purpose.

The full text of the memo is here.

Doc tries to explain the view that others take of the Terri Schiavo case:

This is how they see it --the people who would let Terri die: imagine that a woman died, but before her body decayed the doctors cut off an arm and then kept alive artificially. The arm has no soul, no right to life. It's just a macabre relic of the person who is no longer with us. The arm is not the person.
...
You don't agree? You don't have to. But before you attack them for callousness, you have to understand where they are. Imagine a woman's arm, kept alive for fifteen years because her hysterical parents can't bare to let it go. They like to sit and hold the hand and talk to it. They tell you it responds by squeezing their fingers and that it appreciates having them there. Wouldn't you think that was a bit ghoulish? And if her poor ex-husband went to court to get the arm destroyed, wouldn't you be sympathetic? And if the courts ruled that it should be destroyed but the parents fought the ruling for years, wouldn't you be annoyed? And then if Congress actually passed a law to cater to the hysterical parents, wouldn't you be disturbed?

This is how they see Terri. They see a gruesome living corpse. They genuinely believe that Terri is no more; that keeping the body alive is a ghoulish bit of sentimentality. Please put yourself in their place before you start judging and criticizing. You can argue over whether Terri is alive or not, but please don't call them names as if they believe the same things you do and simply do not care about Terri.

I could understand this viewpoint, and I could argue against it effectively, I believe. That is not the viewpoint of the people who've been commenting on my blog, however. They are arguing that Terri is suffering, and that it is more merciful to let her die, to let her soul go to a better place. Doc's summary of the views of my own side are less than complete as well, and don't fully reflect my views on the matter. I guess that my point is that it's a bit more complicated than Doc lets on, that there are many, many different viewpoints that can lead to each of the two conclusions: either let her die or help her live.

Welcome to the Fifteenth Storyblogging Carnival. Here we gather fiction from around the blogosphere to share with our readers. The previous carnival was right here at Back of the Envelope, while the complete listing can be found here.

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One Tank
by Lee Zanello of See the Donkey
A 400 word brief story rated G.

They are best friends, possibly more, and they have the whole road ahead of them.

[It's not often that you see a story written in 2nd-person present tense, but it works well here. -DSC]

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I, Werewolf
by Andrew Ian Dodge of GoD:blog
A 2,266 short story rated PG.

A short story written in the misery that was my years at my alma malus: Colby. Published warts and all as a hint at my literary beginnings.

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Suspicions, Chapter 10 of Eyes in the Shadow (Whole story)
by Donald S. Crankshaw of Back of the Envelope
The next 2,291 word chapter of a 32,632 word novella rated PG-13.

Red-eyes, the psychotic mutant demon which had chased them from Massachusetts to South Carolina, is dead. But are demons really that easy to kill?

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Chapters 41, 42, 43, and 44 of The Child (Beginning)
by Sheya Joie of Tales by Sheya
The next 2,306 words of a 35,756 word novella in progress.

Could things possibly get any worse?

[While this story can sometimes be read as a Christian allegory, I'd recommend reading it as story first and allegory second.-DSC]

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A Meating of Mines, scenes 7,8, and 9
by Dave Gudeman of Doc Rampage
The next 2,366 words of a 10,291 word story in progress rated PG-13.

Rolf doesn't have so much to say, we learn that Zantar--far from being slow--is practically the Shakespeare of Dwarfdom, and Something finally Happens.

[After my hectoring last time, Dave finally included a full story word count. Meanwhile, his comedic screenplay kicks into high gear and there is much plot progress. -DSC]

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Boll Weevil
by Lyle Skains of Hermitville
A 4,213 word short story rated R.

Jake Fuller travels home from college for the first time, reuniting with his childhood love. He discovers, however, that the girl in reality is much tarnished compared to the girl he holds in his mind.

[While a little heavy on the sexual content (nothing explicit, though), this story is very well written. Lyle is a new participant in the Storyblogging Carnival, and he introduces himself with not one but two stories, both well written and with very different voices. -DSC]

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Guns, Boats, & Cadillacs
by Lyle Skains of Hermitville
A 4,373 word short story rated PG.

As she cares for her ailing father, Charlotte's life has turned into an endless cycle of Groundhog Days--until today, when she quite literally loses him.

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I hope you enjoyed this carnival. If you would like to participate or even just join the mailing list for the Storyblogging Carnival, please contact me.

Update: The link for Andrew Ian Dodge's story was wrong. It's fixed now.

This is a continuation of the previous post on the Harmony of the Gospels, specifically as it refers to the resurrection. There I quoted from all the gospels, here I talk about the differences.

You'll note that there are differences between the gospel accounts. In my younger days, this troubled me a lot. I've had twenty years now to think on this, but while I won't claim to have fully figured it out (although I do have some thoughts I'll share in a moment), I have learned that the weight of the evidence is convincing, even if my belief in the Gospels' inerrancy remains troubled. Before I discuss some possible interpretations, it's fair to ask whether it's worth the effort. Lee Strobel in The Case for Christ rightly points out that there is enough agreement that the essential story is clear, and enough differences to indicate that the four accounts came from different sources. C.S. Lewis in Miracles (Chapter 16) points out that there's more to the Resurrection than the first morning:

When modern writers talk about the Resurrection they usually mean one particular moment--the discovery of the Empty Tomb and the appearance of Jesus a few yards away from it. The story of that moment is what Christian apologists now chiefly try to support and sceptics chiefly try to impugn. But this almost exclusive concentration on the first five minutes or so of the Resurrection would have astonished the earliest Christian teachers. In claiming to have seen the Resurrection they were not necessarily claiming to have seen that. Some of them had, some of them had not. It had no more importance than any of the other appearances of the risen Jesus--apart from the poetic and dramatic importance which the beginnings of things must always have. What they were claiming was that they had all, at one time or another, met Jesus during the six or seven weeks that had followed His death. Sometimes they seem to have been alone when they did so, but on one occasion twelve of them saw Him together [by twelve here C.S. Lewis (and Paul) means the Twelve, who in fact were only eleven by that point], and on another occasion about five hundred of them. St. Paul says that the majority of the five hundred were still alive when he wrote the First Letter to the Corinthians, i.e. about 55 A.D.

The "Resurrection" to which they bore witness was, in fact, not the action of rising from the dead but the state of being risen; a state, as they held, attested by intermittent meetings during a limited period (except for the special, and in some ways different, meeting vouchsafed to St. Paul).

The actual events of Resurrection Sunday are, for the most part, skimmed over very briefly in the first three gospels. Why? One reason is pointed out by C.S. Lewis--those events were actually a very minor part of the Resurrection story. The apostles themselves didn't see any of it, and the story told by the women didn't convince them. Women, after all, were not considered reliable witnesses in first century Judea, which may be another reason that their involvement wasn't dwelt upon. There are a few other points to keep in mind, which have more to do with the nature of ancient histories and biographies than the gospels themselves. The first is that chronology was never considered terribly important in ancient histories: the point is to tell the events, not necessarily to get them in an exact order. The second is that quotes are not full quotes. Go ahead and read the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). I doubt it will take you more than fifteen minutes. Yet Jesus usually taught for hours on end. None of the sermons we have are full transcripts; they are all highly abridged, and that likely applies to all quotes found in ancient writings. Some commentators argue that all the quotes are paraphrased; they are at the least translations, as Greek, the language in which the gospels were written, was not the spoken language of Judea at this time. There are some scholars who believe that no quotation used by ancient writers is even meant to be exact, simply what the writers think the speaker should have said. I don't subscribe to that theory myself. The third and final point is that when listing people present, writers usually just listed the important people, leaving an assumed "and others." If you want more on the nature of ancient histories and the reliability of the gospels, I recommend F.F. Bruce's The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?

Since John is the most clearly different, and the most detailed of the accounts, we'll start with his gospel account and build on that. Clearly, John was telling the story of Mary Magdalene, so the focus is on her, and the other women aren't even mentioned. According to Luke, there were at least five of them there: he lists three, and then says there were other women (plural). Of these, four are named in the Gospels: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Salome, and Joanna (I suppose it's possible that Salome and Joanna are two names for the same woman--I don't really know). The exact time is around dawn. John says that it was still dark, Mark says that it was "when the sun had risen." I'll admit that this bothered me at one point, but I don't remember why. It can be pretty dark just as the sun is rising, and I imagine the episode--travelling to the tomb, arriving, witnessing, then leaving--took long enough that it was dark when it began and light when it was over. In any case, Mary Magdalene arrives, sees the tomb is empty, then runs to get Peter and the other disciple (John, who carefully avoided naming himself throughout the gospel). There's no account of angels or Jesus yet in John. Of course, there's no mention of the other women either, and I wonder what they were doing. Did they go with Mary, or did they remain there? One possibility, which is one I've never heard mentioned in any commentary I've read, is that they split up. When they found the tomb empty, Mary went back to find Peter and John--perhaps alone, perhaps with some of the others--while the others remained there. There they saw the angels. This, then, could be the main source of the discrepancy between the gospels. If the other women remained while Mary went to get Peter, then perhaps there are two encounters with the angels, one by these women and one by Mary Magdalene, and perhaps, although I'm less certain of this, two encounters with Jesus. Jesus and the angels were, after all, in the area. Jesus would be meeting with lots of people that day, including some of his disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:12-32), and the apostles that evening (Luke 24:33-49). 1 Corinthians 15:5 tells us that he met with Peter before the apostles, although we're not told exactly when (he may have been one of the disciples on the road to Emmaus).

This resolves most of the difficulties involved, except for a couple of details. First off, how many angels were there? At least two. There could have been a whole choir involved in this event (I imagine there wasn't any lack of volunteers). All the accounts except Matthew's mention two, but Matthew's is the only one which has an angel doing more than talking to the women. After doing all the hard work of subduing the guards and moving the stone, before the women arrived it appears, this angel gets top billing in doing the actual speaking. Where were the angels? While Matthew's active angel was sitting on the stone at one point, there's no reason to assume he was still there when the women arrived. Who reported to the disciples? All of the women, apparently, but it seems that it was Mary's report, when there were still very few facts, that got Peter to go and look, as recorded in Luke and John.

This is clearly not the only possible explanation for the differences, and I make no claim that it is the correct explanation. It's simply the one that makes the most sense to me, but I've been convinced that the weight of evidence is such that the exact details are less important than I once thought.

I posted these two posts on Easter Sunday last year, and I thought I'd repost them today. As on good Friday, all posts today will be Easter themed.

From Matthew:

Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave. And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. And his appearance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. The guards shook for fear of him and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying. Go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead; and behold, He is going ahead of you into Galilee, there you will see Him; behold, I have told you."

And they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to report it to His disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and take word to My brethren to leave for Galilee, and there they will see Me."

(Matthew 28:1-10)

From Mark:

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, so that they might come and anoint Him. Very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. They were saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?" Looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, although it was extremely large. Entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe; and they were amazed. And he said to them, "Do not be amazed; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen; He is not here; behold, here is the place where they laid Him. But go, tell His disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see Him, just as He told you.' " They went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had gripped them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

(Mark 16:1-8)

From Luke:

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing; and as the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, "Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen. Remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again."

And they remembered His words, and returned from the tomb and reported all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now they were Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James; also the other women with them were telling these things to the apostles. But these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they would not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings only; and he went away to his home, marveling at what had happened.

(Luke 24:1-12)

From John:

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb, while it was still dark, and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb. So she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him." So Peter and the other disciple went forth, and they were going to the tomb. The two were running together; and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter and came to the tomb first; and stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there; but he did not go in. And so Simon Peter also came, following him, and entered the tomb; and he saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the face-cloth which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb then also entered, and he saw and believed. For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead. So the disciples went away again to their own homes.

But Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping; and so, as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying. And they said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him."

When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?" Supposing Him to be the gardener, she said to Him, "Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away." Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to Him in Hebrew, "Rabboni!" (which means, Teacher). Jesus said to her, "Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, 'I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.' "

Mary Magdalene came, announcing to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord," and that He had said these things to her.

(John 20:1-18)

More later.

He is Risen indeed!

Happy Easter! As Good Friday is the most solemn of Christian Holy Days, Easter Sunday is the most joyous. This is in stark contrast to the first Easter itself, which was marked by fear and confusion. I'm not advocating that for today, mind, but sometimes I think modern Christians could do with a bit more awe in their faith. I'll have some more Easter posts up later today.

Sluggy Freelance — Calix and Donaly go to get the map, and who do they find but Kada? It's lust at first sight. Too bad Calix has to steal the map from Kada in order to save his village. She's not going to like that. Well, once Donaly double-crosses him, Calix can try out the bomb Bun-bun planted in Donaly's hat, assuming he can find the right detonator. I think Kada will be going with them, whether she likes it or not. I can't wait to see her meet Bun-bun, as I'm still thinking she's the daughter or granddaughter of Sasha and/or Riff.


Day by Day — Let's see, who gets mocked this week? The UN, of course, the mainstream media, Howard Dean (Sunday's Rove-Bush discussion of Dean is especially fun), Playgirl, and Martha Stewart. All in all, an easy week for Chris. Imagine if these people would just make an effort to be less mock-worthy.


Scary Go Round — Amy's attempt to forget her troubles in Bulgaria is interrupted by the curse she earned from her poor tipping. So she goes drinking in order to forget her new trouble. So far, no pianos falling on her head, but how long can that last?


College Roomies from Hell!!! — Dave's in big trouble at the beginning of this week. Satan is planning on killing his cat so he can mess with Dave's soul, and all Dave can do is pray. And boy does he get an answer! We're not really sure what's happened yet, but dang does that look like some good old-fashioned smiting! Bright light, noiseless explosion, Satan down, Dave free and not just unharmed but healed.


General Protection Fault — Professor Wisebottom's research has revealed that Fred has an undiscovered ability. He can control people. Arrgh! He's one of those weird take-over-the-world alien parasites that appear in all those sci-fi shows. I don't think Fooker particularly cares for being under Fred's control.


Schlock Mercenary — And just when it looks like the mercenary crew is about to be arrested, help arrives in the form of a mysterious force attacking everyone and everything except the mercenaries. It's Petey! I kind of guessed that. He must have found out about the conspiracy to destroy the galaxy. You could do worse than to have Petey on your side. Too bad it's so hard to trust him.

The Rest of the story: If you missed the last chapter, it's here, or you can see the whole story on one page.

This chapter was hard to write. I'm not even sure why, exactly, it just didn't feel right once it was written. I finally resorted to my read-it-aloud-and-see-if-it-sounds-stupid technique, something I haven't done recently for anything I've written. Not too surprisingly, I think it helped at one point where things just didn't flow very well. See what you think.

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Chapter 10
Suspicions

Ryan took a step back, eyes locked on the familiar red irises in the unfamiliar eyes. What the Hell—? He only made it one step before the rope still tied around his waist snagged on the tree branch it was looped over. His key ring was still in his hand, the small flashlight still lit, and he lifted it towards Dominic’s face. The light washed over Emily’s brother, glinting off his pale hair and illuminating the dark spots under his eyes. Dominic blinked, raising a hand to shield them.

“Wow, that’s a bright LED, Ryan,” Dominic said. “But I think we need to figure out what happened to Red-eyes.”

Ryan kept his flashlight on Dominic for a few moments longer, staring at his eyes, but they didn’t look red now, just a pale brown no more unusual than Ryan’s own eye color. He clicked his flashlight off, wondering if it had been a trick of the light. Maybe, but he knew there was more to Red-Eyes than the big guy who had chased them. When he had died, the eyes had lost their red tinge. If that shadow-thing had left him then, it could have found a home somewhere else. In someone else’s body.

“C’mon, Ryan,” Emily said, heading towards the pit. She got on her hands and knees at the edge, poking her head over the side and pointing her flashlight into it. Ryan fumbled at the knots in the rope tied around him, finding it even more difficult to untie than to tie with his clumsy right hand, then hurried to follow her, placing himself between Dominic and Emily. He watched as she swung her flashlight over the sandy floor. It reflected from the pool, cast shadows behind the fallen bricks, and brought out specks of light among the sand. It did not show Red-eyes.

“Give me that,” Ryan said, kneeling by her side. When Emily handed him the flashlight, he swung it over the well’s bottom, then its walls, passing again and again across the spot when Red-eyes should have been. Damn it, where is he? “I… I don’t know what happened. He was down there a second ago. He was dead! How could he…?” Ryan shook his head, driving visions of a zombie Red-eyes out of his mind again. “Do you have the mirror?” he asked.

Emily sank back on her knees, digging into her purse. Dominic shined the flashlight onto it to help, while Ryan kept an eye on him. If he does anything suspicious… Ryan didn’t know what he would do in that case, but he’d think of something. “Here,” she said, pulling out the hand mirror.

Ryan took it, and after some effort juggling mirror and flashlight, and even then he didn’t trust his right hand’s grasp on the mirror, he managed to find the beam’s area of illumination in the mirror’s reflection. He scanned it across the well again, trying to move mirror and flashlight in concert, but he kept losing the beam in the mirror, so it took five minutes before he was satisfied that he had searched the pit as well as he could. Nothing but bricks and sand and water. “I don’t know how he vanished. He was down there and he was dead. I checked!”

“Well, um,” Dominic said, “you did just fall into a pit. Are you sure you didn’t, you know, bump your head on the way down?”

“I’m sure!” Ryan said, coming to his feet much too quickly as he rounded on Dominic. He tottered and for a moment thought he would go over the edge again, but he managed to catch his balance by grabbing the lapels of Dominic’s trenchcoat. Then he snatched his hands back as if burned. Was that just a hint of a smile he had seen on Dominic’s face? “I’m not crazy. I know what I saw, and it was as real as anything else on this insane trip!”

“Okay, okay,” Dominic said, raising his hands. “I’m not calling you crazy. It’s no harder to believe than anything else that’s happened. I just think that since we don’t have a body, maybe we shouldn’t assume it’s over just yet.”

“Yeah, you’re right about that,” Ryan said. “Especially not with that—” He stopped, realizing that he hadn’t told either of them about the shadow-thing he had seen before. Maybe he should. It was on the tip of his tongue to do so, but he had seen Dominic’s eyes turn red just a moment ago. And he had seen that mocking smile. Maybe he’d tell Emily when they were alone, but he didn’t want to let Dominic know what he knew or thought he knew. “Well, if we don’t want his zombie to show up while we’re standing over this pit talking about it, we should go. Emily, did you want me to drive?”

“Ryan, I’m not going to ask you to drive after you just fell down a well! I’ll drive. You just relax, okay?” she said.

“If you insist,” he said, standing up and brushing his knees off. He was about to hand her flashlight and mirror back when he found himself caught in another hug.

“I’m glad you’re all right, Ryan,” she said, kissing his cheek.

He was glad she couldn’t see how red he was turning in the darkness, but he hugged her back. “Thanks,” he said awkwardly, at a loss for what else to say.

Once she had let go, Dominic clapped him on the shoulder and Ryan flinched. All he said was “I’m glad you’re okay too, but don’t expect a kiss from me.”

“Thank God for small favors,” Ryan said.



Ryan scratched at the cut on his right arm, worried about how much it was bothering him. What the Hell was wrong with it? It was just a scratch, but the prickling was disturbing. Most of the time it felt like the pins and needles that occurred when one’s limbs came back to life after falling asleep, but every now and then it became stronger, less like needles than bee stings, hundreds of them all along his arm. And on top of that, his hand had begun to feel weak and numb, so he could barely manage to make a fist. He wanted to ask a doctor about it, but he wasn’t certain modern medicine could do much. He was starting to believe that the scratch had been poisoned by the shadow-thing, and he doubted any hospital had an antivenin for that. He’d be panicking over it, if he weren’t more worried by the possibility that the shadow-thing had taken up residence in Dominic. Maybe if he could figure out a way to deal with that, he would also be rid of the poison.

He settled back in his seat, glad that Emily was driving. Dominic was snoring in the backseat again. The smooth rumble of the car was lulling, and a car’s vents were blowing warm air in his face. He wished that he could fall asleep himself, and get some relief from his aching head and burning eyes, but he felt an itch between his shoulder blades every time he thought about Dominic behind him. Was he really asleep? If Ryan nodded off, would he try something? Ryan kept finding himself looking over his shoulder at Dominic, who had his hands stuck in the pockets of his trenchcoat, his mouth gaping open and his head tilted back onto the seat’s headrest, so that Ryan had a great view of his nostrils. He certainly looked harmless that way, without even his sunglasses; although with his eyes closed, Ryan couldn’t see the irises. The sunglasses hadn’t bothered him at first, as Dominic’s explanation had made sense, but they were beginning to now. If his irises really were red sometimes, the glasses hid that pretty effectively. And in that dream, Red-eyes had been wearing sunglasses too. And a trenchcoat, although at least Dominic’s wasn’t black. Maybe he’d been under the shadow-thing’s influence even before Ryan met him.

He should bring it up with Emily. He would have to, if he could figure out how to begin. “Emily, I think your brother is possessed” just didn’t broach the subject delicately, and he had no idea how to do better. He needed to try a different tack, and there were things he wanted to know anyway.

“Emily, why was your brother in Atlanta?”

“Huh?” she said, glancing at him. “I thought I told you. He went to college there and he was visiting friends, I think.”

“But doesn’t it seem strange that he was there just when we arrived?”

“Sure, but Dom has the gift of punctuality.”

“Which means?”

“Dom explained it to me once, but I’m still not sure whether he was joking or not. You see, the Bible contains these lists of spiritual gifts, things like prophecy, or teaching, or generosity. It’s how God helps his people to do his will. However, the lists the Bible gives aren’t really exhaustive, at least Dom doesn’t think so, so there are other gifts which aren’t listed. Most Christians think that spiritual gifts are all about the stuff that they’re good at, so if they’re good at teaching, they figure they must have the gift of teaching, and if they’re good at administering, they have the gift of administration, or whatever. Dom thinks that’s part of the tendency to water down the gifts, to treat them like they’re nothing more than skills that can be learned—”

“Emily, could you please get to the point?” Ryan said, letting some of his impatience seep through.

“I’m trying, Ryan, but there’s a lot to explain. So anyway, Dom says the point of spiritual gifts is that they’re not just skills, but supernatural empowering by God. They’re things that people just can’t do on their own. He thinks a lot of Christians make the mistake of thinking that God can only use them for what they’re good at, rather than making them good at the things he wants to use them for. So when Dom was wondering what gift he might have, he considered what sorts of things he did which he just knew he couldn’t have done on his own, and he realized that he was always on time.”

“That’s it? He’s always on time? How’s that supernatural?”

“Not just on time to things he tries to be at, Ryan. What he means is that he always shows up when he’s needed, even when he doesn’t mean or expect to be there. He’s just there whether he wants to be or not. Things like showing up in Atlanta just when we needed him.”

“Really?” Ryan asked. He had thought Emily’s view of things was bizarre, but now it looked like Dominic was just as bad. “It just sounds like he’s lucky or something.”

“No, no. A gift isn’t luck; it doesn’t make your life easier. It makes it harder, usually. When you have a gift, it means that you’re supposed to do things with it, and you don’t always do what you should do, or it’s not even clear what you should do. Sometimes you just fumble around trying, and sometimes you—” She paused a moment. Her voice was strained, as if she were holding back tears. “Sometimes you know exactly what you should do, but it’s hard. You hesitate, even turn your back on it, because it’s just easier that way. You forget… that the gift isn’t for your sake, it’s given to you so you can share it with others.”

Ryan cleared his throat. “Are we still talking about Dominic?”

She blinked a couple of times. “I guess we both have personal experience failing to use our gifts properly.”

Ryan just looked at the floor. This was emotional for her, maybe personal in some way he didn’t understand. That didn’t stop the cynical part of him from mocking it. Her whole family thinks they’re chosen by God or something. Her with her visions, and Dominic with his… punctuality, of all things! How do you even know that you’re always there when you’re needed? If you weren’t there, you wouldn’t know that you’d be able to help. He forced those thoughts back into the snide part of his mind, not wanting to hurt her with his unwanted rationality. Besides, he had other questions for right now. “Okay, so he showed up there because he was supposed to. Have you, um, noticed him acting odd lately?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Just… have you?”

“Well, no odder than either of us. I’ve only known you for a day, though, so I guess I don’t know what would be odd for you.”

“But Dominic’s acting like he always does?”

“I guess. I mean, he’s never been in this situation before, so I don’t know what ‘usual’ is when he’s helping us run from a psychotic mutant demon.”

Ryan sighed. He wasn’t getting anywhere. He had to tell her, but he didn’t want to tell her right now, where Dominic might overhear. If the shadow-thing was in him, Ryan didn’t want it to find out that he suspected Dominic, and if it wasn’t, no reason to make Emily’s brother think he was paranoid. He probably was paranoid, at that, but that didn’t make him wrong. Ryan looked out the window, watching the mile markers go by. There wasn’t much traffic, and they had finally left behind the last of the rain. It should be an easy drive from here. A sign showed the distance to Columbia as only 47 miles. “Less than an hour,” he whispered, hoping that nothing would happen before they got there. Or after.

---

This chapter is 2,291 words long, bringing the total length of the novella to 32,632 words.

This is a repost of the post I wrote on Good Friday last year. As this is the most solemn of Christian Holy Days, it will be the only post today.

As you probably know, today is Good Friday. It is not a day of celebration, but of solemn remembrance of Jesus's suffering and death, so it is appropriate to ask why this day is called "Good." The first thing to remember is that Jesus's death was not an accident. He went to the cross willingly, knowing what was coming. As Jesus himself said:

"I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father."

(John 10:14-18)

Furthermore, his death has a purpose, and indeed had a purpose hundreds of years before it happened:

Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away; And as for His generation, who considered That He was cut off out of the land of the living For the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due? His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.

(Isaiah 53:1-9)

His death was not a meaningless tragedy, but a purposeful sacrifice on our behalf. There was more to his sacrifice than the physical sacrifice, however. He suffered our punishment, not just death, but abandonment by God.

About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

(Matthew 27:46)

Christians believe that these words are not merely a cry of desperation, quoting Psalm 22:1, but that it is the literal truth that Jesus was abandoned by God, who turned his face from his own Son when he became sin for our sake. In so doing he not only made forgiveness possible, he made it possible for us to be a part of the relationship he and the Father once shared and would share again:

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

(John 1:12-13)

So, while this is a day to mourn what Jesus suffered, to mourn that our condition made it necessary for him to suffer in this way, Good Friday is good because the greatest good came out of Jesus's death. This is what redemption is all about, when God makes what is bad, even evil, good, by buying it back and making it his own again. I'll conclude with Matthew's account of Jesus's death, part of which I've already quoted:

Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And some of those who were standing there, when they heard it, began saying, "This man is calling for Elijah." Immediately one of them ran, and taking a sponge, he filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed, and gave Him a drink. But the rest of them said, "Let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him." And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook and the rocks were split. The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many. Now the centurion, and those who were with him keeping guard over Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the things that were happening, became very frightened and said, "Truly this was the Son of God!"

(Matthew 27:45-54)

It is an occasion for solemnity, but also an occasion to remember that God brings good out of evil.

This topic has come up in a webcomic forum I read because of what's currently happening in College Roomies from Hell!!! Joe, who is possessed by the Devil himself, is torturing, perhaps killing, Dave's pet cat. This caused an unusual amount of distress among the readers. It's not the first time there's been violence in CRFH, of course. Important characters have been shot, drowned, and tortured at various times in the past, but for some reason, people seem to have more empathy for Chester than for Dave, Mike, and Roger. That's not really what I want to go into here, though. The question that's come up is whether anything's off-limits in fiction. If I write a story, are there some things I shouldn't write about? Generally that means sex and violence, but no one's bothered by the vanilla versions of those any more. What if I write about rape, the torture and murder of children, about sadomasochism? Have I gone too far? Can I not write about these things?

Generally speaking, I'm not ruling out including such things in my stories. The rule I follow is that such things can be included, unpleasant though they are, if they are important to advancing the story and they are handled carefully. I wouldn't dream of glamourizing such crimes, and detailed descriptions tend to make me sick to my stomach when I read them, so I don't know if I could write them even if I wanted to. I wouldn't include these things in a story just to have them in there, nor would I write a story that centered around these actions. However, my stories often include evil people who do evil things. And if one of my evil characters encounters a situation where it would be in character to torture a child, he's not going to turn away because I hate that he's doing it. Evil people do evil things in real life too, and we dare not forget that. Saddam's Baathists tortured children in Iraq, and it's happening somewhere else in the world right now. I fear that our tendency to water down evil, to forget just how bad it can be, to just assume that there are some lines people will not cross, weakens our resolve when it comes to fighting evil. Thus we romanticize the wicked, treating them either as misunderstood and noble, or as foolish and pitiable, when what we really need to do is stop them. Perhaps they can be saved--God can save the worst of us--but for God's sake, don't let them hurt anyone else first.

Okaaay, I drifted a bit off-topic, but that's the reason that I don't rule out including those things in my stories. Now, if you've read any of my writings, I think you know that I tend to handle these things with a light touch, so, yes, it happens, it may happen in my stories, but I won't be wallowing in the gory details.

Mark Steyn weighs in on Terri Schiavo, and the broader question of what her death by judicial order means:

But, on reflection, if the Islamists are banal in portraying the next world purely in terms of sensual self-gratification, we're just as reductive in measuring this one the same way. America this Holy Week is following the frenzied efforts to halt the court-enforced starvation of a brain-damaged woman for no reason other than that her continued existence is an inconvenience to her husband. In Britain, two doctors escape prosecution for aborting an otherwise healthy baby with a treatable cleft palate because the authorities are satisfied they acted "in good faith". You can read similar stories in almost any corner of the developed world, except perhaps the Netherlands, where discretionary euthanasia is so advanced it's news if the kid makes it out of the maternity ward. As the New York Times reported the other day: "Babies born into what is certain to be a brief life of grievous suffering should have their lives ended by physicians under strict guidelines, according to two doctors in the Netherlands.

"The doctors, Eduard Verhagen and Pieter J. J. Sauer of the University Medical Center in Groningen, in an essay in today's New England Journal of Medicine, said they had developed guidelines, known as the Groningen protocol."

Ah, the protocols of the elders of science. Odd the way scientists have such little regard for scientific progress. It's highly likely that many birth defects - not just the bilateral cleft lips - will be treatable and correctible in the next decade or two. But once you start weighing the relative values of individual lives, there's no end to it. Much of that derives from the way abortion has redefined life - as a "choice", an option.

In practice, a culture that thinks Terri Schiavo's life in Florida or the cleft-lipped baby's in Herefordshire has no value winds up ascribing no value to life in general. Hence, the shrivelled fertility rates in Europe and in blue-state America: John Kerry won the 16 states with the lowest birth rates; George W Bush took 25 of the 26 states with the highest.

Read the whole thing. And worry.

I received an interesting comment last night. I responded to it in my comments, but after some thought, I decided to put it on the main page as well. Here is what TrueViews said:

It amazes me how so many people in this country are unwilling to face death with courage. In a ways, many people fight to keep Terri alive because the protestors themselves have such issues with dying. I actually gave too much credit to those using religious reasons for keeping Terri alive. It is a major part of most religions to live for the day that you die. It is arrogant of ANYONE to decide for Terri whether or not it's time to die. While not all doctors agree on whether or not Terri will recover, they ALL agree that she is in pain. Have any of you considered what would happen if Terri were to recover? Do you understand the additional pain she will have to suffer due to the fact that her muscles are in atrophy from the last 15 years of inactivity? She will have to endure intense physical therapy. PLUS....no one every TRULY recovers from brain damage. ONCE IT IS SUSTAINED, it is a permanent, irreversible reality that the victim has to live with for the rest of her life. And yes, I do consider people who suffer from brain damage VICTIMS. YOU don't live with brain damage, SHE does. IS THIS THE WAY ANYONE WOULD WANT TO LIVE?! I'm not saying they you have to be completely ok with letting her die. Dying is a painful process for EVERYONE involved. BUT that is part of the lives that we have been blessed with. I AM saying that everyone has to able to admit that if Terri were to die right now, her pain and state of mental disability would be washed away and replaced with peace of being finally released from her damaged, physical body. Yes, she has to endure dying of starvation, but that is MOMENTARY compared to the last 15 years and MORE if her feeding tube is reinserted. Instead of being there for her as she journeys on the path towards His light, we're holding her back in her broken body, not only expecting her to deal with her current pain and suffering, but also expecting her to deal with even more pain and suffering IF (AND IT'S ONLY AND IF) she were to recover. You are blinding yourselves to what death really is. So many of you see dying as some horrible thing. It's not a horrible thing to die. It's a horrible thing to put OTHERS through a torture device you ALL KNOW NOTHING ABOUT.

This is the response that I gave:

Curious. So are you saying that even if she could recover, could learn to walk and speak again, it'd still be better to put her to death? Because it would be hard? Because life would never be as good as it was before? Does this apply to everyone who's had a crippling injury? Or just those brain damaged?

If you're right and it's arrogant to make the decision for her, how is it less arrogant to decide that she would rather die than it is to decide that she would rather live? Is this because you would rather die in this situation? How do you know, if you haven't been in it? Why don't you ask someone who has lived through it? This woman, for instance. I can't say that Terri would make the same decision. We can't ask her. Her husband says she would choose to die, based on a chance remark he remembers her making years before this happened, but if, as you're saying, we don't know without going through it ourselves, then her opinion before she ended up in this state doesn't count.

My religion instructs me that no one has the authority to end an innocent life. That is God's prerogative, and it is arrogant of me to say that any life is no longer worth living. I dare not even say that about my own life. That would be telling God that I am useless, when I know that God does the most amazing things through the people everyone believes to be useless.

I wish I could have corrected the typos in my comment section, as I did here.

Nick Queen has another crop of Christian bloggers up, this time with Cognitively Dissonant, Espresso Roast, and The Christian Soldier being highlighted. I took the time to look over each of them, and they're all worth reading. Not all of these blogs are prolific, but they all have interesting things to say.

I bought a copy of The Incredibles, and got a chance to watch it today. It was a lot of fun. I saw it in theaters the day it came out and really enjoyed it, and it's one of the few movies I would have been willing to pay money to see in theaters again. I never did get a chance though. In any case, you can read my initial review here.

Andrew McCarthy has a very good article on the matter, pointing out what the law passed by Congress did and did not do:

Finally, the bill passed early Monday morning is a strange reflection of our times. It basically says: You have to stop starving and dehydrating Terri Schiavo until we can figure out whether any federal rights have been violated. That's a bit like saying: You need to stop clubbing me until I can figure out whether my head hurts.

Right-to-die folks will use the bill's internal logic to their advantage. They will say that, notwithstanding the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, whatever the U.S. constitutional "right to life" may be, it does not include the right not to be tortured by slow starvation/dehydration. After all, they will rationally argue, if those amendments did include such a right, there would have been no reason for Congress to refer the matter to a federal court — Congress could simply have said that the state is not permitted to starve and dehydrate a person who is not clinically dead.

That is to say, the bill does not communicate any sense of the Congress that torture by starvation/dehydration is itself a constitutional violation. Since no one disputes that Terri was being starved/dehydrated, the right to die people will say: Surely Congress did not refer the case to a federal judge to determine whether starvation/hydration was ongoing, and surely if Congress thought starvation/dehydration violated the constitution it would have said so. Thus, so the argument will conclude, what Congress must have meant is that the federal court is limited to analyzing the state court proceedings themselves to weigh whether some federal law violation has occurred. If that is the route the federal court takes — essentially, that it is limited to deciding whether the state proceedings satisfied minimal threshold of constitutional due process, which tends not to be rigorous — it will be much more difficult to reverse the Florida outcome.

Who let the courts have this much power in the first place? At this point, there may be nothing more that can be done.

I haven't written a lot about Terri Schiavo. My knowledge of the case is fairly limited, based on what I've read on other blogs and a few news articles. If you want to know what's up with this, then I can recommend you get more information from La Shawn Barber, Captain's Quarters, Doc Rampage, or Imago Dei.

I do know that Terri is not brain dead, as Serge of Imago Dei kindly defined the term for me at one point, and it cannot at all be applied to the case of someone who is responsive, even if sporadically. And a few hours of observation is hardly adequate to determine whether someone is ever responsive, which is why I find this so repulsive:

Brian Schiavo, Michael's brother, said he spent Sunday afternoon with his brother and Terri at the hospice, but Terri did not move or make any noises. "Anybody that thinks that she talks and responds, they need to have a mental health examination," he said.

If you look at some of the pictures associated with the article she certainly looks responsive, even if she is severely brain damaged. Early Monday morning, a law was passed which allowed a federal court to make a ruling on the matter, but the court so petitioned adjourned Monday afternoon without making a decision. This was not a good sign, as Terri was currently starving to death, and a judge who did not immediately move to preserve her life wasn't too concerned that her death might render the case moot. Thus it wasn't surprising when earlier today the judge ruled against reinserting the feeding tube. I do not know what can be done now.

With the facts of the case so depressing, it's easier to discuss principles. Joe Gandelman challenged conservatives to say why having Congress pass a law to protect Terri doesn't go against conservative principles of small government and states' rights. Well, to put my answer simply, I don't see why I should care if it's unconservative. My conservative principles are not the driving force in my life. I'm a conservative for reasons of practicality--conservatism works when it comes to enforcing and defending the social issues I care about, which are primarily individual rights and the common welfare. And the one issue that I care most about is the right to live, and the assurance that no one is allowed to take that right from another person without due process of the law. I do not believe that due process was followed in Terri's case, and if conservative principles cannot prevent that, then they have failed and it's time to consider other principles. I don't really think that conservative principles have failed, but that the system does need to be fixed. The problem is that the efforts by the duly elected representatives of the people to do so are continually stymied by the courts. (A law passed by Florida's legislature was declared unconstitutional.) I do not trust the courts of this country, and I fear that it will be impossible to undo the damage that they are doing. We won't be able to undo Terri's death.

Update: La Shawn Barber has a new post up outlining the case and saying something similar to what I said:

Despite liberals’ lament that the rule of law is being trampled on, an unjust law is no law at all. A law that deprives the innocent of life should be no more enforceable than one legalizing human bondage.

Alas, she also thinks that at this point, the debate is academic, and that Terri's fate has already been decided.

I will be hosting the fifteenth Storyblogging Carnival on March 28th. If you have a story on your blog that you'd like to submit to the Carnival, please e-mail me at dscrank-at-alum.mit.edu (or post in my comments), including the following information:

• Name of your blog
• URL of your blog
• Title of the story
• URL for the blog entry where the story is posted
• (OPTIONAL) Author's name
• (OPTIONAL) A suggested rating for adult content (G, PG, PG-13, R)
• A word count
• A short blurb describing the story

The post may be of any age, from a week old to years old. The submission deadline is 11:59 PM Eastern time on Saturday, March 26th. More detailed information follows:

1. The story or excerpt submitted must be posted on-line as a blog entry, and while fiction is preferred, non-fiction storytelling is acceptable.
2. The story can be any length, but the Carnival will list them in order of length, from shortest to longest, and include a word count for each one.
3. You may either send a complete story, a story in progress, or a lengthy excerpt. By lengthy excerpt, I mean that it should be a significant portion of the story, at least 10% of the whole thing. You should indicate the word count for both the excerpt and the complete story in the submission, and you should say how the reader can find more of the story in the post itself.
4. If the story spans multiple posts, each post should contain a link to the beginning of the story, and a link to the next post. You may submit the whole story, the first post, or, if you've previously submitted earlier posts to the Carnival, the next post which you have not submitted. Please indicate the length of the entire story, as well as the portion which you are submitting.
5. The host has sole discretion to decide whether the story will be included or not, or whether to indicate that the story has pornographic or graphically violent content. The ratings for the story will be decided by the host. I expect I'll be pretty lenient on that sort of thing, but I have some limits, and others may draw the line elsewhere. Aside from noting potentially offensive content, while I may say nice things about stories I like, I won't be panning anyone's work. I expect other hosts to be similarly polite.
6. The story may be the blogger's own or posted with permission, but if it is not his own work he should gain permission from the author before submitting to the Carnival.

If you'd like to be added to the e-mail list, please let me know. Also, feel free to advertise the carnival on your own blog. Finally, let me know if you want to host a carnival in the future.

I've been on this new blog since July, but I've realized that I never gave a full review of blogging with Powerblogs. I thought I'd do this now, prompted by the fact that Donald Sensing of One Hand Clapping is considering switching to it. What initially drew me to Powerblogs was that they were willing to transfer all my old posts to the new blog, and, if I wanted it, they'd transfer the old style as well. It takes them a week or two to do that, depending on what else they're busy with, so I had that time to play with the blog and by the time I was finished, I didn't need them to transfer the style. The organization of the blog's stylesheets made it pretty easy to set up the blog's look and feel exactly how I wanted it. They charge a bit extra, $50, to do the old post transfer, although there's now an option to do the transfer yourself. I haven't had a reason to try it. The normal price for hosting is $5 a month, although there are higher levels for blogs that get more throughput and storage space. The old post transfer worked well, but one problem is that the links between posts weren't updated. If you go to my pre-transfer posts (for example), and click on a link to an older post, you'll end up at my old blog. That isn't a big problem, since my old blog is still up and running, but if you're transferring your URL address to a new location, all those links will become defunct. I keep meaning to update them, but it'll be a lot of work to do so.

The interface is powerful, although there are a few points where it would be easier to use. One of the things I like are the buttons that let you quickly link to recent posts. What I don't like, which may be a peculiarity of my web browser (I use Netscape 7.2), is that every time I use that button, or any of the buttons that insert HTML code, I scroll to the top of the post I'm writing, which can be a long way with some of my posts. Post writing is not WYSIWYG, and it helps to know your HTML.

I particularly like some of the special features. Powerblogs is always adding features, and they are very well handled. It didn't have Categories when I first joined, but they work quite well now. But everybody has that. What I really like is post chaining, one of the more brilliant things I've seen. I tend to write series of posts, and originally developed an Old Post/New Post scheme to connect the series together. At the top of a post would be a line starting with Old Post:, which linked to old posts in the series, and at the bottom would be the New Post: line, which linked to later posts in the series. I still use this scheme occasionally, especially when I think someone shouldn't read the current post before reading the older ones, but not often. It's easier to use post chaining, which connects posts in a series together automatically, putting the full list at the bottom of each post in the series. And best of all, you can display the whole series on one page, in chronological order, as opposed to the normal reverse chronological order common in blogs. (I included links to a couple of examples.) But my favorite feature is post scheduling, which I use all the time. Due to the simple problem that I can't blog from work (or, more accurately, really, really shouldn't), I write all my posts the day before, then schedule them to go up at pre-determined times during the day. So if you notice I'm always a day behind on the news, that's why. I've also used it when I know I won't be blogging for a while, scheduling posts to go up while I'm gone, just so the blog isn't abandoned.

Finally, the best thing about Powerblogs is their customer service. If I run into a problem and e-mail them, I get a response right away, and it's usually fixed in a few hours. More than once, I've asked about a feature that I thought would be really helpful, and it's added within a couple of weeks. They even read my blog and notice some of the nitpicky things I mention, and letting me know when they've fixed them. I get regular e-mails asking me how things are going. Now, if I got the traffic of Dean Esmay or Joe Gandelman, maybe I'd expect this kind of service, but I'm a lower tier blogger. I get 100-200 visits a day, most of them from Google searches (I have no idea why, but Google loves me). I have a lot of respect for folks who give this kind of customer service to someone like me.

Update: I've added a link to Powerblogs' website, since Doc asked about it in the comments.

I'm a bit behind schedule like this. Heh, I was behind schedule last week too, but that was mostly because I set the date wrong in the post scheduling. Anyway, I'll put this where it belongs in the archives later--last post Saturday night, same as always.

Sluggy Freelance — Lots of Z-Com filler and very few regular comics. In the regular ones, Bun-bun and Calix reach an agreement surprisingly easily, due to the fact that they have different goals. Bun-bun just wants out, while Calix just wants his village back. Now, if Calix can just do his job without goofing up, maybe they can both get what they want. The Bikini Suicide Frisbee Days comic was fun, too, even if there was a slight glitch.

Day by Day — Damon meets Jan's dad. He seems to view them as a couple, which Damon is surprisingly comfortable with.

Scary Go Round — Amy's boyfriend dumped her, which Shelley is just as happy about. While Amy considers joining a nunnery, she's just a little too wild for the normal kind, and the mother superior recommends a Satanic nunnery. Cartoonist John Allison has curious ideas about religious orders. Anyway, they decide to head out to Bulgaria for a vacation. Mr. Allison also has curious ideas about vacations.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Roger and Margaret are having a moment. Well, if apologizing for killing someone's mother and having him say he accepts the apology but can't stop hating you counts as a moment. At least Roger isn't biting her head off. It's much better than the moment Dave is having with Joe. Even if Joe's not Satan, it's clear he wants Margaret, which frankly Dave wouldn't be too upset about if Joe weren't such an evil creep with a proclivity for possession. It's when Satan takes over that it turns into a real nightmare. With Dave tied down and his eyes taped over, things are not looking good.

General Protection Fault — Planning weddings is tough. Unless you do it like my sisters did--at our parents' house, with just friends in attendance, for under $1,000 apiece. Nick and Ki briefly consider skipping the whole wedding thing and just eloping (another economical way to go), but decide that they just can't do that to their friends and family.

Schlock Mercenary — Deus ex Machina it is! A Battleplate arrives to save Tagon's Toughs, which would be good if they knew whether it was on their side or not.

As I mentioned earlier, I've been trying to catch up on the writing I missed out on last weekend, and as a consequence of that, the blogging's been kind of slow. However, the writing has gone pretty well, producing 1,000 words a day for the first three days of this week. If I can write a 1,000 words tonight, I'll have reached my goal. Each of those 1,000 words has turned out to be a scene from Eyes in the Shadow. I didn't write them in chronological order, nor did I write any transitions, so I'm not sure how I'll fit them back into the story, but I was happy with how each of the scenes turned out. If I manage to write 1,000 words tonight, I'll have most of the material written for the next three chapters. And yes, they'll be pretty short chapters, but not that short--there's some other stuff I've already written for Chapter 10. Anyway, Eyes in the Shadow is moving along surprisingly well as I bring it towards the conclusion.

Once again, it's the day after my Bible Study, so instead of trying to produce all sorts of wonderful posts, I'll just direct you somewhere else. For example, the latest Christian Carnival is up at ChristWeb, and there you can find all sorts of wonderful posts.

I recently finished Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I came away from it with an impression very similar to how I came away from Bram Stoker's Dracula: wow, that was less exciting than I thought it would be. First of all, none of the Hollywood versions that I've seen are anywhere close to the original. Igor? He doesn't exist. A lightning strike to bring the monster to life? No, there's no electricity involved at all. Viktor Frankenstein as the cruel and charismatic mad scientist? Nah, like all Romantic characters, he's sensitive and kind of whiney, given to stress-related delirium. The spooky castle with its vast, menacing lab? No, Viktor put his monster together in his apartment while still a student. As for the monster himself--first of all, he's not made from human flesh sewn together, as is the case in most versions of the movie. Viktor Frankenstein constructed him from scratch, building him larger than life because of the difficulty of creating the finer components on the normal scale. And far from an inarticulate brute, he's an intelligent being, probably smarter than the average human, with a great capacity for love and kindness.

Unfortunately, he faces rejection at every turn. Frankenstein's initial project to build him is a mad fit of brilliance, which he regrets the moment the monster opens his eyes. This happens, by the way, very early in the book. Frankenstein flees from the thing he's created, and by the time he returns home, the creature has run off. When next we see the monster, he's articulate and learned, but despises his creator for abandoning him, and the human race for fearing and hating him. Although the monster does great evil, we are moved to pity him, as we are moved to pity Viktor, who suffers greatly at his hands.

If you read this book, expect the same themes and style that you see from most Romantic authors. The great evil of society, the emotional self-involvement, the conceit of each chapter being a letter or journal entry, and much more time thinking and talking than actually doing. I know, it sounds like I'm panning this classic. I don't think it's a bad story, but keep in mind that this is a Romantic novel, not a modern horror novel, and you'll be better prepared for what it actually is.

It's not a direct Instalanche, but Glenn linked to the King of Fools' Carnival of Carnivals last night, granting the King of Fools an Instalanche and us the spillover effects. Not bad. Thanks, King of Fools, for your continued support. And thanks, Glenn, for recognizing his efforts.