The Way Back

Workout notes 17 miles in 4:00:30; I modified my course by walking through Springdale. I took the river trail.

This walk had a bit of everything: 59 F with just a hint of sprinkles at the start; 79 F with 72 percent humidity at the end (and lots of sun, which baked the concrete in the downtown area).

Going out I saw lots of runners doing marathon training. Coming back: solo.

I did get growled at by one loose dog; the geese pretty much left me alone.

Along the riverfront I saw a replica of one of the old explorer ships (sailing ship) and I passed by some car festival where they had 1920’s type cars, sporty convertibles, fancy pick-ups, 1950’s type cars, etc.

I guzzled two 20 ounce bottles of liquid; the last 2.5 uphill miles took me 37 minutes. My left calf/behind the knee area ached a bit starting with the steep downhills in Springdale.

Links for the day:

From Get Fuzzy.

(larger)

Local: Religious Section editor of the Journal Star is leaving (with a contract buy-out). But check out what he says:

Which makes me wonder why I’m doing what I’m doing (or by the time you read this, why I have done what I have done) – taking a buyout.

As of this past Monday, my 29 years at the Journal Star ended.

But, open doors being what they are, I have decided to go through this one, trusting that this is what God wants me to do (uh-oh, I can see the comments on pjstar.com already piling up about “superstitious nonsense”; I’m sure it will somehow morph into a discussion of the separation of church and state or the Christian/Deist/secular/pagan origins of the nation).

Keep up the good work, comment writers! Seriously, I have to chuckle at those who think that some deity somehow mapped out their life in its entirety has has “plans” for them.

Now, let me tell you what I do think: I think that most of us have one kind of talent or another, and that many of us spend needless hours banging our heads against a wall attempting to do what we aren’t intended to do (e. g., this would be the case if I had quit full time work to take part-time work at a running shoe store with intentions of becoming a professional runner; it DID make sense for me to take time off to pursue the Ph. D. degree in mathematics as I was much more suited for that.).

And, there is nothing wrong with looking at a forced change as an opportunity and, say, using prayer and meditation to better see what opportunities are there instead of lamenting what one can’t change anyway.

But the idea that some deity has some road map for just “little old you” and will suspend physical laws along the way to help you out (miracles) is just insane; I’d call that big-time megalomania.

Ok, what did our founding fathers think? To hear the fundies go on and on, you’d think that our founding fathers were right wing Christians. Wrong.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-beliefs5-2008jul05,0,7730914.story

Jefferson Bible reveals Founding Father’s view of God, faith
He compiled the four Gospels into one text without miracles, ending with Jesus’ burial rather than the resurrection.

Making good on a promise to a friend to summarize his views on Christianity, Thomas Jefferson set to work with scissors, snipping out every miracle and inconsistency he could find in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Then, relying on a cut-and-paste technique, he reassembled the excerpts into what he believed was a more coherent narrative and pasted them onto blank paper — alongside translations in French, Greek and Latin.

In a letter sent from Monticello to John Adams in 1813, Jefferson said his “wee little book” of 46 pages was based on a lifetime of inquiry and reflection and contained “the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man.”

He called the book “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.” Friends dubbed it the Jefferson Bible. It remains perhaps the most comprehensive expression of what the nation’s third president and principal author of the Declaration of Independence found ethically interesting about the Gospels and their depiction of Jesus.

“I have performed the operation for my own use,” he continued, “by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter, which is evidently his and which is as easily distinguished as diamonds in a dunghill.”

The little leather-bound tome, several facsimiles of which are kept at the Huntington Library in San Marino, continues to fascinate scholars exploring the powerful and varied relationships between the Founding Fathers and the most sacred book of the Western World.

The big question now, said Lori Anne Ferrell, a professor of early modern history and literature at Claremont Graduate University, is this:

“Can you imagine the reaction if word got out that a president of the United States cut out Bible passages with scissors, glued them onto paper and said, ‘I only believe these parts?’ “

“He was a product of his age,” said Ferrell, whose upcoming book, “The Bible and the People,” includes a chapter on the Jefferson Bible. “Yet, he is the least likely person I’d want to pray with. He was more skeptical about religion than the other Founding Fathers.”

In Jefferson’s version of the Gospels, for example, Jesus is still wrapped in swaddling clothes after his birth in Bethlehem. But there’s no angel telling shepherds watching their flocks by night that a savior has been born. Jefferson retains Jesus’ crucifixion but ends the text with his burial, not with the resurrection.

Stripping miracles from the story of Jesus was among the ambitious projects of a man with a famously restless mind. At 71, he read Plato’s “Republic” in the original Greek and found it lackluster.

Ever the scientist, he inoculated his wife, children and many of his slaves against smallpox with fresh pus drawn from infected domestic farm animals, according to Robert C. Ritchie, W.M. Keck Foundation director of research at the Huntington Library.

“For a lot of people, taking scissors to the Bible would be such an act of desecration they wouldn’t do it,” Ritchie said. “Yet, it gives a reading into Jefferson’s take on the Bible, which was not as divine word put into print, but as a book that can be cut up.”

Go here for an online copy of the Jefferson Bible.

More links

3-quarks daily: Measure of America. Here they point us to a site that provides many different types of measures of America broken down by congressional district and by state. You get things like obesity levels, health indexes, educational levels, etc. You can even approximate your own index. I scored a 9.58 out of 10; I probably got marked down for my low salary and the fact I don’t get medical checkups as often as I should.

To see how the states stack up in picture form, check out this link.

Best 5 states overall: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, DC (ok, not a state), Maryland. Bottom 5: Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, West Virginia, Mississippi. (blue states at the top, red at the bottom! )

Ok, no more joking around. Seriously, check out the education levels (top to bottom) and life expectancy. Note that DC has the top educational levels (lawyers?) but also the worst life expectancy.

General:
Israeli historians attempt to write an accurate history of Israel’s birth as a modern nation. They pull no punches when they talk about the needless deaths that occurred due to misunderstandings and hatreds.

Bioko-primates: here is an article about these interesting primates.

Politics

An article in the German magazine Der Spiegel said that the Iraqi Prime Minister said that:

The quote, from Iraqi PM al-Maliki is:

“US presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.”

The Bush administration put this out in a press release for the general public; it had intended to be released to insiders only. Republicans were, well, troubled by this.

Via e-mail, a prominent Republican strategist who occasionally provides advice to the McCain campaign said, simply, “We’re fucked.”

That’s in response, in particular, to the news that Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki endorsed Obama’s timeline for getting US troops out of Iraq.

Of course, they tried to spin this “oh, it was a mistranslation”, etc.

Woo hoo, this is rich:

Along those lines, Dr. Ali al-Dabbagh, who the Times calls a spokesman for the Iraqi government, has released a statement saying that Prime Minister Maliki’s statement was “misunderstood and mistranslated” and “not conveyed accurately regarding the vision of Senator Barack Obama, U.S. presidential candidate, on the timeframe for U.S. forces withdrawal from Iraq.” But as the Times notes al Dabbagh did not specify what had been mistranslated.

Another interesting detail, noted by the Times. al-Dabbagh’s statement was released by CentCom. I do not know how often Iraqi government statements are released by CentCom.

So, the official Iraqi spokesman’s statement was released by U.S. Central Command?

UPDATE: Der Speiegel definitely stands firm (international version):

Obama is pleased, but McCain certainly is not. In an interview with SPIEGEL, Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki expressed support for Obama’s troop withdrawal plans. Despite a half-hearted retraction, the comments have stirred up the US presidential campaign. SPIEGEL stands by its version of the conversation….

In the interview, Maliki expressed support of Obama’s plan to withdraw US troops from Iraq within 16 months. “That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of changes.”

Maliki was quick to back away from an outright endorsement of Obama, saying “who they choose as their president is the Americans’ business.” But he then went on to say: “But it’s the business of Iraqis to say what they want. And that’s where the people and the government are in general agreement: The tenure of the coalition troops in Iraq should be limited.”

A Baghdad government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said in a statement that SPIEGEL had “misunderstood and mistranslated” the Iraqi prime minister, but didn’t point to where the misunderstanding or mistranslation might have occurred. Al-Dabbagh said Maliki’s comments “should not be understood as support to any US presidential candidates.” The statement was sent out by the press desk of the US-led Multinational Force in Iraq.

A number of media outlets likewise professed to being confused by the statement from Maliki’s office. The New York Times pointed out that al-Dabbagh’s statement “did not address a specific error.” CBS likewise expressed disbelief pointing out that Maliki mentions a timeframe for withdrawal three times in the interview and then asks, “how likely is it that SPIEGEL mistranslated three separate comments? The Atlantic Monthly was astonished by “how little effort was made” to make the Baghdad denial convincing. And the influential blog IraqSlogger also pointed out the lack of specifics in the government statement.

SPIEGEL sticks to its version of the conversation.

Oh yes, note that Afghanistan is indeed the front of our war with Al-Qeada, just as Obama said.

After intense U.S. assaults, al-Qaida may be considering shifting focus to its original home base in Afghanistan, where American casualties are running higher than in Iraq, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said Saturday.

“We do think that there is some assessment ongoing as to the continued viability of al-Qaida’s fight in Iraq,” Gen. David Petraeus told The Associated Press in an interview at his office at the U.S. Embassy.

Billy Jack (Tom Laughlin) talks about McCain and defends General Wes Clark. Note: McCain didn’t fly F-14 in combat; the plane wasn’t introduced until much later. He did regain his flight status and commanded an air training squadron; by this time the F-14 had been introduced.

Overall, Mr. Laughlin does a good job with this video.