Lift Up Your Hearts!

A long time ago, in a Presbyterian church far, far away....

One Sunday, when our family was working the sound booth, the pastor was expounding on the beliefs of John Calvin and of Charles Hodge. Our young children, safely hidden from congregational eyes, were sprawled out of sight, half dozing, as they awaited the end of the sermon.

But they weren't sleeping, as evidence by they rapidity with which they shot up, eyes wide open, when the pastor raised his voice in the triumphant proclamation,

I stand with Calvin and Hodge!

Suddenly the sermon, and their pastor, had become a lot more interesting.

I found it odd that the congregation did not laugh. Maybe, because they were familiar with Charles Hodge, they were less susceptible to mis-hearing the name.

At the beginning of the Gospel reading in church last Sunday, the congregation didn't laugh either. But I know that I heard what I heard, because Porter did, too, and laughed along with me. Quietly—I like to think subtly—but we did laugh. Wouldn't you if this were the image that came into your mind?

The reader really did put an extra "D" in Luke 17:12.

It's time for another in my series of YouTube channel discoveries. I resent the amount of time it takes to get information out of the video/podcast format, but it's so popular these days that it has become a major source for interesting and helpful information. So I'm unapologetically recommending another video channel: Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying's DarkHorse Podcast. That link is to their podcast website, but I usually watch it via their two YouTube channels: Full Podcasts, and Clips. Full podcasts are long. Very long. They would be great on a car journey, not so much in everyday life, unless you have a lot of work to do that doesn't require much thinking. I can fix dinner while listening to a podcast, but I sure can't write a blog post. Clips, on the other hand, are much shorter (maybe five to twenty minutes). Focussing on clips means I miss good insights, but giving in to Fear of Missing Out is a pathway to madness.

I've mentioned Bret and Heather before, in my Independence Hall Speech post, so it's about time I gave them their due. I must also give due credit to the good friend who introduced me to DarkHorse, as well as to Viva Frei, and remained patient with me even though it was at least a year later before I finally got around to checking them out.  Thank you, wise friend.  (There's but an infinitesimal chance he'll actually see that, but still, credit where credit is due.)

By way of introduction, the following quotes are from their DarkHorse Podcast website:

In weekly livestreams of the DarkHorse podcast, Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying explore a wide range of topics, all investigated with an evolutionary lens. From the evolution of consciousness to the evolution of disease, from cultural critique to the virtues of spending time outside, we have open-ended conversations that reveal not just how to think scientifically, but how to disagree with respect and love.

We are scientists who hope to bring scientific thinking, and its insights, to everyone. Too often, the trappings of science are used to exclude those without credentials, degrees, or authority. But science belongs to us all, and its tools should be shared as widely as possible. DarkHorse is a place where scientific concepts, and a scientific way of thinking, are made accessible, without diminishing their power.

We are politically liberal, former college professors, and evolutionary biologists. Among our audience are conservatives, people without college educations, and religious folk. We treat everyone with respect, and do not look down on those with whom we disagree.

Needless to say, I often disagree with them—sometimes strongly—but more often I find their insights at least reasonable. And it is always interesting to listen in on their conversations. I take great pleasure in hearing smart people interact with each other—assuming they're polite, which Bret and Heather always are. It's also particularly satisfying in the rare circumstances when I find I know something that these highly intelligent people, with much greater knowledge than I, don't. I love living in Florida, at least in its current free-state situation, but I've never gotten over the loss of the intellectual stimulation that came with having the University of Rochester within walking distance.

I find DarkHorse so diverse and absorbing that it's really hard to limit myself to three examples here. But you can always check it out for yourself. Here are a couple of hints: Bret and Heather's speech is measured enough that I can hear it at 1.5x speed, and Porter can manage 2x. I prefer not to speed it up, but it is a time saver. An ever greater help with the full podcasts is that, once the livestream is over and the video is set on YouTube, you can hover your mouse over places along the progress bar and see where a particular subject begins and ends. I sure wish more long videos would provide that information.

Warning: Objectionable language occurs, though rarely, in the DarkHorse Podcasts.

Multi-age education (11 minutes)

When science is not science (9 minutes) 

Wikipedia redefines recession (19 minutes)

I'll close with some advice from their website, which makes me smile every time I read it.

Be good to the ones you love,
Eat good food, and
Get outside.

Sometimes, you just have to make a meme.  It's so much more fun than getting angry about the relentless and ubiquitous anti-meat propaganda these days.

Thanksgiving has apparently come early to Florida.

We awoke to the news that Interstate 4 just north of us was shut down when a semi loaded with frozen turkeys caught fire. (You can see pictures at that link.)

According to news reports, no one was injured. Except the turkeys.

I've heard of some strange ways of cooking a Thanksgiving turkey, including smoking, deep-frying, and my brother-in-law's favorite turkey-in-the-trash-can method.

But roasting them in a tractor-trailer, followed by steaming after the fire department arrives? That's a new one.

You know how after you've watched a video on YouTube, it goes on to show you some other video it thinks you might like? Usually it's off base, but the first video below so entranced me that I went on to watch the next two in the series. Erik Singer is a dialect coach, and his tour of accents across America is entertaining and fascinating. Even if he ignores most of Florida, and you have to endure some awkward and annoying "politically correct" speech along the way.

Part 1 (22 minutes)

Part 2 (14 minutes)

Part 3 (11 minutes)

Enjoy!

[This post was originally entitled, "Camouflage"; I've now changed that to make it part of my "YouTube Channel Discoveries" series.]

Here's another YouTube channel we've been enjoying: Chris Cappy's Task and Purpose. How on earth could I enjoy videos about military tactics, strategy, history, and weapons? Here's a quote from the channel's About section:

Chris Cappy the host is a former us army infantryman and Iraq Veteran. This YouTube channel is a forum for all things military. From historical information to the latest news on weapons programs. We discuss all these details from the veteran's perspective. The first priority with our videos is to be entertaining.

I guess it's the last sentence. Chris Cappy is knowledgeable and entertaining. He may bill himself as "your average infantryman," but he's not your average military college professor droning on in the front of an auditorium filled with bored students.

The video that hooked me is the one below, How Camouflage Evolved (15 minutes). I'm certain we have grandchildren who would find it as enjoyable as I did.

A friend, who has been experiencing the dating scene, offered the following warning.  I just fancied it up a bit.

Brandon Sanderson, in addition to taking obvious pleasure in his work, appears to have discovered why it's so much fun to be rich. I don't mean super-rich—I'm sure that comes with 'way too much responsibility to be really enjoyable. Net worth calculations can be tricky, but the best I can find online is that Sanderson is worth somewhere between four and eight million dollars. If Elon Musk's net worth of more than 270 billion dollars (as of 3/26/22) were a one-liter bottle of liquid, Sanderson's would be about half a drop.

That being said, Sanderson has enough money to do random fun things with it. With five days to go on his most recent Kickstarter project, (now finished) his support level was over $34 million and still counting rapidly. It hardly needs to be said that the money is not profit, but will go towards the project it is funding. Still, the response prodded him to consider how he might give back a bit to the Kickstarter community.

He and his staff decided to take a look at the Kickstarter projects in the Publishing category, and to back them all, excepting only those which might violate his conscience or Kickstarter policies. That ended up being over 300 projects, several of which he highlighted as projects his own fans might like to look into. Occasionally, if the project was near the end of its campaign and seemed to be struggling, they made sure the project reached its goal.

Watching the YouTube video of the process (best done at double speed), I could feel the joy Sanderson and the team were feeling in helping out other writers. I know some find his personality abrasive, but I like his enthusiasm.

I only hope that he's inspired to do something like this when my nephew is ready to publish his first fantasy novel!

How does this guy know what's going on in my brain? Maybe it's Google's fault.

It was years ago that I learned to understand the way my brain works using the image of Li'l Writer Guy. That is still 100% true, but there's more to it. Recently I discovered this video ("Me and My ADHD," 4.5 minutes).

I don't have ADHD, but there's more to life than diagnoses. I think many of us will identify with this kind of distractability.

Speaking of ADHD, here's another one by the same folks (under 4 minutes). Just for fun.

I've backed a few Kickstarter projects in my time, at the intersection of an interesting concept, a person or cause I'd like to support, and an affordable price. That's how my beloved Green Ember books began, though they've since moved on to more standard publishing.

That's not a one-way street. Brandon Sanderson—my eldest grandson's favorite author, whose books are prized by several others in our family, including me—has a current Kickstarter project going, even though he's multi, multi-published in the ordinary way.

But I don't think I'll be backing this one.

First, the lowest tier of support is $40, which is not exorbitant considering you get four e-books at that level, and $10 is a pretty standard price for his books on Kindle. But I can easily wait for a sale. I'm a fan, but nowhere near a FAN fan.

More importantly, Sanderson hardly needs my support. Even after deciding not to back the project, I've been checking in occasionally on the Kickstarter page for the amusement of watching the numbers climb. When I was a young child, I loved to watch the numbers grow on the gas pump as the tank filled, and I always rooted for a new record high. My parents didn't quite share my enthusiasm.

Sanderson's project is now the number one Kickstarter project of all time, and that by a huge margin.

I thought a million dollars was an ambitious goal, but apparently it had reached ten million before the first day was over.

Eighteen days into the campaign, I captured the following screenshot:

It will be much higher by the time I hit, "Publish." The pace has slowed a bit, but you can still watch the numbers grow in real time, even if it's now more of a 1950's gas pump pace than 2022.

More than 17,000 people have backed this project at the highest ($500) level.

How's that for an author most of you have never heard of?

A lot of other subjects have been taking up my mind space, and my blog space, for a long time, so I was delighted when a friend shared this bit of mathematical fun with me. (22 minutes)

It's amazing how uplifting a little light and beauty can be when the world has gone mad. Take a few minutes and get 2022 off to a pleasant start with the latest two episodes of Chateau  Love.

The December 27 episode (21 minutes) features a private tour of the Christmas decorations at Château Gaillard Amboise (not to be confused with the Château Gaillard built by Richard the Lionheart). This castle is historical as well as beautiful, and I felt as if I were walking through a famous European museum.  Unfortunately, YouTube is not allowing me to embed this video, but you can watch it directly on YouTube here.

For New Year's Eve, the show is twice as long (41 minutes) but much more personal, including a flashback visit to Tuscany, with a guest appearance of Vivienne's sister Ashley. Visit a magical European Christmas market and accompany Vivienne and Simon as they shop, create, and decorate in preparation for Christmas at their own château. Best of all, Vivienne's amazing artistry shines in this episode. Christmas decorations from citrus slices. Stunning hand-painted bird plates. Amazing food, artistic table settings, and indescribably beautiful decorations gilding an already beautiful home.

I was swept right back to our own magical Easter visit, nearly 15 years ago, to Simon and Vivienne's previous French château.

Easter  2007

I hope you enjoy this delightful break from all the troubles of the world, and head into 2022 with a lighter heart.

I like to cook. Really, I do. This happened overnight.

My grandson persuaded me to take this personality type quiz because his own results matched so perfectly with his personality that he had his family rolling on the floor when he read it out loud.  My own results (INFJ-T) were less spectacular: right on in places, but far enough off in others to make me wonder if it's really much better than a horoscope.  But some of the questions were hard to answer, so I think I'll play with it and see if I can do better.

Speaking of better, my grandson then suggested I try Brandon Sanderson's Knights Radiant Order Quiz.  My results from this one were much more impressive.

I am a Truthwatcher. 

If you click on this link and scroll down a bit, you'll see the characteristics of a Truthwatcher, which as far as I'm concerned are pretty accurate.  For example,

These make their opinions known loudly and forcefully, particularly if they think someone in power is abusing that power or lying about fundamental truths. ... They generally prefer to write their opinions rather than speak them.

Truthwatcher was my grandson's second guess as to what my results would be.  His first was Edgedancer.

Truthwatcher and Edgedancer were the top two in my results, and pretty close at that. Considering that I also see myself as more of a mixture of Truthwatcher and Edgedancer, I think his Perspicacity rating is pretty good.

Now I just have to read the books.

Point 1: What is the good of euphemisms? They enable us to express something without resorting to offensive words (whatever the offense may be). That's better for the ears and hearts of the listeners, certainly. But does it do anything for the speakers? If I say "darn" instead of "damn," what do I gain? Is the attitude of my heart any better for it? I think that's a good question to ponder.

Point 2: As I've said many times, of presidents from both parties: our chief executive deserves respectful treatment by virtue of the office he holds—not to mention as a human being. Chanting "F--- Joe Biden" like a football cheer is puerile at best. Moreover, it's probably worse than useless, venting people's frustrations without driving them to work toward changing the policies they hate. If I were President Biden, I would hear those chants and think, "As long as they're shouting and not actively working for my opponents, I'm okay with that."

That said, I have to admit that I find the whole "Let's Go, Brandon!" story hilarious. And maybe even a little useful.

Good humor can be an effective antidote to hate, and it's hard to say, "Let's Go, Brandon!" without smiling.