Lift Up Your Hearts!

... When you're doing a crossword puzzle, the clue is "big name in chips," and you immediately think "Intel."

The answer was "Wise."

I've mentioned Steph Shaw before, when I wrote about Kevin Michael Johnson's Kickstarter campaign (successfully completed; The Raid is moving forward). 

Now Steph has her own Kickstarter project:  creating a full-length album of her new songs.

I've teamed up with producer Sean McClowry here in NYC & we've narrowed down our fav songs for my record. I'm excited to be bringing you all some new music.

The songs are all written.
Producer is on board.
What next?

Well, the cool thing about this project is that, since I'm an independent artist, I basically have total creative freedom -- no record label peeking over my shoulder. However, that also means that it's up to me to come up with the funds to take this on.

Go Steph!

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen (Penguin, New York, 2001)

For now, I can't do any better than to refer you to Janet's review of Getting Things Done.  I found it a difficult book to read, even unpleasant, because it's not well written, and makes my mind feel like a hamster on a wheel:  running a lot but not getting anywhere.

But if Allen's book is disappointing, his ideas still inspire me—even if I did have to come at the ideas the wrong way around, from what other people have said about them.  Most inspirational was seeing Janet's version of the system in action, though I know I would have gotten more out of her explanations—and maybe out of the book—if I'd attempted to implement some of the ideas myself, first.

The book wasn't nearly as much fun to read as Don Aslett's books on controlling clutter, but I think they have a lot in common.  Getting Things Done is a lot about controlling the clutter in our minds.

"What's the next action?"  The answer to Allen's favorite question is, "Implementation."  But that's not really an answer, since "implementation" isn't a discrete action, but a mammoth project.  I hope to accomplish some baby steps this week, and—eventually—report back on the results.

Catching up a bit, since I missed July 4:

Happy Independence Day

to my country, and

Happy Schweizer Bundesfeier

(Fête nationale Suisse, Festa nazionale svizzera, and Fiasta naziunala Svizra)

to my country-in-law!

I was a Brownie, then a Girl Scout as a child.  Even then I was somewhat disenchanted, as I knew—thanks to my father's experience as a Scoutmaster for the Boy Scouts—how much more interesting the program, the experiences, and the skills learned would have been if only I'd had that Y chromosome.

Nonetheless, we had a good time, thanks to my father, who took us mountain climbing and taught us to build fires and tie knots, just as he had his Boy Scouts, and to a renegade leader who battled the Girl Scout bureaucrats for the right to take our troop on a tour of Europe.

By the time our own girls were of age, however, the Girl Scout program had, in my opinion, degenerated much further, becoming more "relevant," more "modern"—and even less fun.  What worked for us was the YMCA Indian Princess/Indian Guide program with its regular campouts and greater freedom to customize the local tribe's activities.

If we had young children now, I don't know what we'd do; the Y program has changed, whether for better or worse I know not.  But I do know what we would NOT do:  subject our girls to the new Girl Scouts.

Two years shy of their 100th birthday, the Girl Scouts are going through a midlife crisis of sorts, rethinking everything except their cookie recipes. 

Struggling to maintain its relevance after years of declining membership, the organization is rolling out a rebranding campaign — for the first time in 30 years — throughout the country this month, trying to shed the quaint image of crafts and campfire songs and reposition itself as an agent of change for girls.

This fall, the Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas ... plans to introduce a new initiative, called Gamma Sigma. ... “Gamma Sigma suggests a club with sororitylike traditions like pinning and candlelight ceremonies that appeal to girls,” said Ann Maria Chavez, the council’s chief executive.

Traditional badges are out. Gamma Sigma will have speakers, workshops and experiences intended to bolster girls’ self-esteem and decision-making, Ms. Chavez said.

Can you say, "B-O-R-I-N-G"?

At least they're not messing with my Thin Mints.

Common Sense 101: Lessons from G. K. Chesterton by Dale Ahlquist (Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2006)

I tried to take a shortcut.  With only three days before leaving the J&S Library behind, I chose this instead of a book by Chesterton himself.  Although somewhat unsatisfactory, it was probably the right thing to do:  The summary has left me thirsting for the Real Thing.

Many times throughout the book I found myself wanting to say to the author—as I wanted to say to the editor of Chesterton's Eugenics and Other Evils, which I reviewed in January—"Enough of what you think Chesterton is saying; I want to hear more of what he has to say!"  But Chesterton can be tough sledding at first, so reading a historical and contextual introduction is not a bad idea.  Dale Ahlquist is the president of the American Chesterton Society, which might be another good place to begin.

Although there is much I could quote from Common Sense 101, I'll refrain until I have the direct words from one Ahlquist would freely admit is the better writer.  Instead, I'll include a Christmas poem, not by Chesterton, but by his wife, Frances Blogg^* Chesterton.

How far is it to Bethlehem?
    Not very far.
Shall we find the stable-room
    Lit by a star?

Can we see the little Child?
    Is He within?
If we lift the wooden latch,
    May we go in?

May we stroke the creatures there —
    Ox, ass, or sheep?
May we peep like them and see
    Jesus asleep?

If we touch His tiny hand,
    Will He awake?
Will He know we've come so far
    Just for His sake?

Great kings have precious gifts,
    And we have naught;
Little smiles and little tears
    Are all we brought.

For all weary children
    Mary must weep;
Here, on His bed of straw,
    Sleep, children, sleep.

God, in His mother's arms,
    Babes in the byre,
Sleep, as they sleep who find
    Their heart's desire.

One of the fun things about spending foreign money is that it doesn't feel like real spending.  It feels like play money, Monopoly money.  I don't know at what point I crossed the line, but I'm definitely past that.  Swiss francs are now real money, and I look at the green American paper in my wallet and think, "What is this?  Do people actually accept this as payment?"  No doubt that will not last long, once I am home, but it's a weird feeling.

I've long been in favor of following the lead of the many countries that have replaced their lower-denomination bills with coins.  Now that I've worked with such a system for over a month, here are some observations:

• The lowest Swiss bill is the 10-franc note.  There are 5-, 2-, 1-, and 1/2-franc coins.  Practically speaking, this means I can no longer ignore coins.  In America, when I get change back from a purchase, I usually dump the coins in my wallet without checking them, as no error can cost me more than a dollar.  Here, where the change might be worth nearly ten dollars, it's worth at least a quick glance.  I was quite proud of myself when I noted in one transaction that the cashier had mistakenly given me a 2-franc coin instead of a 5-franc coin.
• I had to train myself to make a point of using coins.  Using bills all the time results in a heavy wallet; once I discovered I had over Fr. 40- in change!  Once you get used to the idea of not ignoring change, however, it's not a problem to keep the quantity down to something reasonable.
• The lowest denomination coin is the 5-rappen piece.  This is a good practice; I see no need for the U. S. to continue to mint cents, other than to feed those fun machines at tourist sites that make elongates.  The existence of those machines is to my mind the only compelling reason for keeping the cent.
• I've gotten quite good at paying with change, but still have trouble distinguishing the 1-franc coin from the 20-rappen piece, and the 1/2-franc coin from the 10-rappen piece, when they are jumbled up in my wallet.  I have to look at the number on the coin to be certain, and I find that annoying.
• Swiss merchants don't blink when you hand them a 100-franc bill; in the U. S. I don't like carrying $100 bills because clerks suspect them of being counterfeit, and even if convinced a bill is real, will grumble if your purchase is small.
• Paying with cash is much more common in Switzerland than in the U. S.  Debit cards are handy, though, when buying train tickets; trying to convince the automatic ticket machine to accept your bills (or coins) can sometimes be a problem.
• A common debit card is the Post-Finance card. Once you get over the shock of thinking of a bank and the post office being the same organization, you begin to wonder if the system works because the former subsidizes the latter.  (I have no idea if it does; the thought just occurred to me as a possible explanation for the mysterious combination of banking and postal services.  I know that combination is not just in Switzerland, but I haven't researched how it might have come about.)
• Nearly all shopping is done with Swiss francs, but I've noticed that in shops catering specifically to tourists they will sometimes give the price in Euros as well.

Shopping here is as fun as shopping gets because (1) I can walk where I need to go, (2) it's usually not urgent, but part of the process of exploring the city, (3) there's still a challenge in paying with the right change instead of merely handing over a large bill, and (4) there's always the thrill of trying to get by without English.  The last is much easier than I had imagined.  Knowing a few words of German—notably "please," "thank you," "where is?" and "I'm sorry, but I don't understand German"—goes a long way.  It's also a great help that the cash registers display the total price, so I don't have to try to understand rapid-fire cashier language.  I'm happy to report that I have managed totally in a combination of German, Swiss German, and gestures—except for one of my trips to the tea shop, where the clerk spoke in English because I had filled out a form with my U.S. address.  My proudest moment was asking, "Wo sind die Stilleinlagen?" and making myself understood with no need for repetition or gestures (the latter being a very good thing).

Covenant and Communion:  The Biblical Theology of Pope Benedict XVI by Scott W. Hahn (Brazos Press, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2009)

I read this book quickly, because it's a book to be read slowly.  I should have guessed from the names on the dust jacket quotes—names like David L. Jeffrey, Hans Boersma, and Tremper Longman—that Covenant and Communion would be more like a book from a seminary library than the local Christian bookstore.  There's a lot of heavy theology here, and I currently have neither the time nor the inclination to do it justice.  However, that didn't stop the text from grabbing me occasionally and slowing me down enough to pull a few quotes.  Quotation marks set off Pope Benedict's actual words.

The church is the living voice, the viva vox, of the Word of God....  Scripture is at the center of the Church's tradition, but tradition is properly understood as the whole of "the responsive Word of the Church"—a living dialogue in which the Church constantly listens to the Word addressed to her and responds to the claims the Word makes on her through her preaching, teaching, doctrine, and liturgy.   More than that, tradition is a participation in the power of God promised to the Church by Christ.  It is nothing other than the fulfillment of Christ's promise to be with his Church in the Spirit until the end of the age....  Tradition, then, is nothing less than Christ's living and saving and interpretive presence in the Church.

It is important to keep in mind...that revelation for Benedict is not limited to the written word of Scripture.

"A God who cannot intervene in history and reveal himself is not the God of the Bible."

The Christian faith is not faith in a series of propositions but faith in a historical person.

What is important for us is to recognize that Benedict's theology and exegesis presume as absolutely vital the unity of salvation history—reflected in the unity of the Old and New Testaments—and the principle that Jesus Christ is both the culmination of that history and the interpretive key of God's revelation in the Scriptures.

As the words of Scripture, by their very nature, must admit of more than their literal meaning, the same is true of the historical events recorded in Scripture....  Thus while the events recorded in the Bible are factual, their meanings far transcend "historical facticity" because God in his Spirit is their author.  Indeed, because God is acting in the biblical narrative, "...the events carry within themselves a surplus meaning...giving them significance for all time and for all men."

Benedict rejects as unbiblical the sharp dialectic between Law and Gospel introduced by Martin Luther....  Benedict establishes from his close readings of the texts "the inner continuity and coherence of Law and Gospel" and the "deep unity between the good news of Jesus and the message of Sinai."  The hinge on which this unity depends is...the figure of Jesus Christ.

"The church is there, not for her own sake, but for mankind." 

"We can see in [Acts 2:42] a sketch of the primitive Christian service of worship, which starts with the teaching of the apostles, that is, with the proclamation and hearing of the faith of the Church, of the Word of God that is alive in her and that thus becomes the basis for liturgical and living fellowship:  it reaches a climax in the eucharistic encounter with the Lord, who gives himself to us as bread, and resounds in songs of praise.  The Church is adoration."

Benedict demonstrates that the New Testament portrait of Jesus is that of a person in constant prayer.  The prayer of Jesus is not abstract or monologic.  Rather, the prayer of Jesus is an intimate, intense, and sustained dialogue with the God he calls "Father." The Church's earliest confessions and hymns, which profess faith in Jesus as the Son of God, only confirm the witness of the apostles and the testimony of the Scriptures—that Jesus lived in unbroken "primal conversation with the Father."

The Father that Jesus prayed to was "the God of the fathers," the patriarchs of Israel, and Jesus prayed as a child of these patriarchs, as a son of Abraham.  He was part of this ancient family, this people of God.  This, too, is vital to Benedict's theological understanding.  Jesus prayed with his people, in conversation with the Scriptures of Israel, as is vividly depicted in the Transfiguration, where he talks personally with Moses and the prophet Elijah.

We can speak to God bcause God has spoken to us—because he has come to us as a Word and because in his inmost life in the Trinity he is a relationship.  The prayer of Jesus reveals that the heart of the Trinity is a familial, filial relationship of love.  God in his inner essence is a dialogue of love, and our prayer, both corporately in the liturgy and privately, is a participation in this filial and familial dialogue.

[The Lord's Prayer] illuminates this point.  Even when the believer prays the "Our Father" privately, he or she prays as a member of the family of God.  It is never my Father.  The prayer of Jesus is always personal and simultaneously the prayer of one who knows himself to be part of a family.  "Prayer is always praying with someone," in the communion of the Church, in the body of Christ, in the family of God.

As our prayer is never alone, neither is it something we can do of our own initiative.  Prayer and worship are our response to the God who has first spoken to us.  God's Word to us is a gift, the gift of himself; it is the opportunity to participate in his familial dialogue of love.

"What had always been intended and could never be achieved in the Old Testament sacrifices is incorporated in [Christ].  God does not desire the sacrifice of animals; everything belongs to him.  And he does not desire human sacrifice, for he has created man for living.  God desires something more:  he desires love, which transforms man and through which he becomes capable of relating to God, giving himself up to God.  Now, all those thousands of sacrifices that were always presented to God in the Temple at Jerusalem and all the sacrifices performed in the whole course of history, all this vain and eternal striving to bring ourselves up to God, can be seen as unnecessary and yet, at the same time, as being like windows that allow us, so to speak, a glimpse of the real thing, like preliminary attempts at what has now been achieved.  What they signified—giving to God, union with God—comes to pass in Jesus Christ, in him who gives God nothing but himself and, thereby, us in him."

The Liturgy of the Word in the Mass presumes the unity of salvation history and in fact tracks and unfolds that history, beginning with readings from the Law and the prophets, a song from the psalms, and then readings from the Gospels and the apostolic writings.  Yet it is a mistake to regard the Scriptures used in the liturgy as historical readings or even ethical lessons.  They are the Word of God, the voice of revelation that speaks to us in the present with creative and life-changing power.

Divine worship implies that we ourselves have become beings of the Word, that we conform ourselves to the creative Intellect.  But once more it is clear that we cannot do this of ourselves, and thus everything seems to end again in futility—until the day when the Word comes, the true, the Son, when he becomes flesh and draws us to himself in the exodus of the cross.  This true sacrifice, which transforms us all into sacrifice, that is to say, unites us to God, makes of us beings conformed to God, is indeed fixed and founded on an historical event, but is not situated as a thing in the past behind us—on the contrary, it becomes contemporary and accessible to us in the community of the believing and praying Church, in its sacrament:  that is what is meant by the "sacrifice of the Mass."

"Just reading [Scripture[ does not mean necessarily that we have truly understood the Word of God.  The danger is that we only see the human words and do not find the true actor within, the Holy Spirit.  We do not find the Word in the words.... We stop at the human words, words from the past, history of he past, and we do not discover the present in the past, the Holy Spirit who speaks to us today in the words from the past.  In this way we do not enter the interior movement of the Word, which in human words conceals and which opens the divine words.  We must always look for the Word within the words."

As one whose religious beliefs and experiences have been either atheistic or Protestant, I found it startling to read arguments about where Luther went wrong.  That's not at all the focus of the book, but the few instances caught me by surprise.  However, Pope Benedict's focus on Christ, his obvious knowledge of the Bible, and the marriage of his impressive intellect with his strong faith, make Covenant and Communion a book worthy of serious Protestant attention.  It's probably not a good place for an atheist to begin, unless he's seeking evidence that intellectual, rational, academic thought is not incompatible with Christian faith.

While Joseph was undergoing a secular baptism of sorts at the American Embassy in Bern, Grandma had no official business other than to receive the diaper bag when it was rejected at the door for possible terrorist connections.^*

After a little exploration, the weather—along with the uncertainty of when the party might be over—turned the waiting time over to Li'l Writer Guy, who discovered that a Swiss café is a delightful place to work.

Fr. 4.- may seem high for a cup of tea, but I figure it as:  cup of tea with cookie, Fr. 2-; quiet place to work, Fr. 2-; shelter from the pouring rain, Priceless.  A great bargain.

Living with other people for several weeks is a good way to experience new foods and new food combinations.  If those other people happen to live in another country, the opportunities multiply.  And if they also subscribe to a local organic farm's weekly vegetable delivery, well...you get to try Swiss chard.  Verdict?  Not bad, though I think I'll like it better mixed with other things, such as in an omelet or on a pizza.  It's related to beets, but I find the taste more like spinach.  As it was with Heather and Jon's Community-Supported Agriculture farm in Pittsburgh, the weekly vegetable lottery is fun to play, and Stephan (like Jon) is particularly good at figuring out how to make good use of fennel, fresh tarragon, and eggplant as well as potatoes, lettuce, and zucchini.

What's a visit to Switzerland without trying a new variety of chocolate?  When Stephan brought home a bar of dark Ovomaltine, I was at first skeptical.

I remember the Ovaltine drink (name changed in the English-speaking world thanks to a typo) from my childhood, and not pleasantly.  It was touted as a healthy alternative to chocolate milk; perhaps that was the reason we viewed it with suspicion.

This is not your father's Ovaltine.  Well, maybe it is, and maybe I would actually have liked it as a child had I not thought of it in the same category as spinach and beets while expecting it to taste like chocolate milk.  I don't know.  Whatever.  This is a delightful form of chocolate, which the Swiss do very, very well:  smooth, a little bit crunchy, a little bit malty, a lot yummy.

The good news, for those who support the Nestlé boycott because of the company's aggressive marketing of infant formula in third world countries, is that Ovomaltine, still made here in Switzerland, is Nestlé-free.  The bad news is that if you want to try this delicious chocolate, you need to ask me to bring some back for you, as Nestlé owns the rights in the United States.  So place your orders now.

There's no adjustment needed when it comes to Swiss bread, the only difficulty being deciding which of the dozens of tempting breads to buy.  Butter, on the other hand, is unsalted here.  At home I've always found unsalted butter unpalatable, and I'm not sure what to make of the fact that I happily eat it on my good Swiss bread every morning.  Either my tastes have changed, or Swiss bread is saltier than I'm used to.

Speaking of unpalatable, that's how I usually find any milk with cream content greater than skim, which I believe is 0.5%.  Raw milk is an exception, but I can rarely get that.  Here, unless one is willing to drink the ultra high temperature pasteurized milk, the lowest fat content is 2.5%.  Needless to say, I haven't been drinking much milk here, except when the temperatures were cold enough to warrant fixing some hot cocoa, which is improved by higher-fat milk.  I do find, however, that the 2.5% here tastes better than 1% back home.  Sadly, we should be able to get great raw milk straight from the cow here—or at least straight from the dairy farm on the hill, which is close enough to smell when the wind is in the right direction—but we can't.  It's legal to sell raw milk in Switzerland; the problem has something to do with the price-support system, under which the farm is not allowed to sell directly to the public.  :(

Eggs, on the other hand, are amazing here.  Fresh, free-range, organic if that's your desire—with the most lovely, inviting, delicious bright-orange yolks, a sign that the eggs are from chickens that really did range freely enough to eat grass and bugs—which is not true of many eggs that claim that label in the U. S.  And here's a surprise:  eggs are not refrigerated here.  Not in the store, and not at home.  They sit out on the shelves or on the counter, even in our recent heat wave with temperatures rivaling Florida's.  So far, we're all alive and well.

I love the kefir that is sold in American grocery stores, both the sweetened fruit version and the plain.  What I've found here, however, has a slightly different taste, and a texture like a cross between yoghurt and cottage cheese.  It will be interesting to see what the product will be like when I make my own from the kefir grains waiting patiently in our freezer.

If Switzerland is known for any food more than chocolate, it is cheese, and cheese shopping is even more complicated than buying bread.  I have a lot to learn here, and I haven't been adventuresome.  Prices here tend to be high in general, but good cheese is an exception.  Gruyère is a staple, rather than the luxury I'm accustomed to.  On the other hand, if you can find cheddar at all, the price is outlandish for a rather mediocre product.  Asiago, too, is vastly different from at home:  it's good, but a rather bland, mild cheese, instead of the sharp, flavorful variety I love.

Grocery shopping is a different experience.  European refrigerators (and cupboards, and kitchens) seem to be generally smaller than Amrican ones; Janet and Stephan's refrigerator is not that unusual in being the same size as the dorm fridge I had in college.  This promotes a "shop frequently, buy fresh, use it quickly" philosophy that I can learn from.  I don't know how onerous this might be if we were not in the city, but as it is, it is easy to pick up a few things at the store on the way home from work, or when doing other errands.  Since I like to take a walk every day anyway, I often stop by Migros or Coop then.  A grocery trip isn't such a big, scary deal if it's not an hour-long, major provisioning expedition. On the other hand, this practice contributes to inefficiency, greater use of packaging materials, and higher prices, since one routinely buys a liter of milk instead of a gallon, and a kilo of flour instead of five pounds.

I  think the grocery cart system in Basel is great:  In order to extract your cart from the lineup, you deposit a two-franc piece (about $2); it is returned to you when you return the cart.  In the end it costs nothing, but effectively promotes responsible cart use.

Restaurants are a lot more fun here now that smoking is banned.  Not perfect, since it is still allowed in bars, and in our favorite place for Rösti, zum alten Stöckli, smoke from the bar rises to the the restaurant, which is upstairs.  Nonetheless, it's a great improvement.  Another improvement to restaurant meals is knowing how to order something to drink.  I can order schwarzer Tee (black tea)—though not iced tea, which would have been lovely when the temperature hit 36 (98).  (Iced anything is hard to come by; I still find the sight of a large Coke with no ice odd.)  I can order Apfelsaft (apple juice).  But the greatest improvement is being able to order my usual American restaurant drink:  plain tap water. Order water here, and you'll probably get fizzy mineral water.  Order plain water, and it will be the same, only not fizzy.  The magic word is Hahnewasser (Swiss German; in high German, Hahnenwasser).  I find the regular Swiss tap water—the kind that pours freely from fountains throughout the city—superior to anything I've bought in a bottle.  The trick to avoiding dirty looks from the waiter is to spend sufficient money on the rest of the meal.

Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card (Tor, New York, 1991)

Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card (Tor, New York, 1991)

The short story version of Ender's Game was written back in 1977—more than 30 years ago—and even the novel is 25 years old.  That was right when my reading interests veered sharply from science fiction to children and education, so I missed Orson Scott Card entirely until now.  Extended visits for the birthing of grandchildren put me in contact with other people's libraries:  it was at the birth of another grandchild that I discovered The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and finally learned the significance of 42.

Both Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead are riveting stories.  Although the author feels the latter to be more important, and indeed chose to expand the original short story of Ender's Game only because he needed a prelude to Speaker for the Dead, I liked the former much better.

Card claims Isaac Asimov as his inspiration, but I detect more than a few traces of Robert Heinlein.  The respect for the abilities of children, the school settings, and the military motifs in Ender's Game remind me of much of what I liked best from Heinlein, notably Space Cadet, Tunnel in the Sky, and especially, Starship Troopers.  (I've not seen the movie version of ST, but it doesn't surprise me to hear that you shouldn't judge the book by the film.)  The amalgam of humanist and New Age worldviews at the end of Ender's Game and throughout Speaker for the Dead remind me of Heinlein's works that I did not like, such as Stranger in a Strange Land.  Like Heinlein, Card is a better storyteller than philosopher.

That Ender's Game must have had a special hold on me will be obvious to those who know how much I dislike both the boarding school genre (the early Harry Potter stories won me over in spite of their setting, not because of it) and reading about battles and military strategies (I haven't yet made it past the beginning of The Iliad).  The hook was Card's obvious (personal?) knowledge of the problems of bright children in a world that is more likely to abuse or exploit than to understand, help, or befriend them.  Adding boarding school woes—of the sort that made C. S. Lewis write, "If the parents in each generation knew what really goes on at their sons' schools, the history of education would be very different"—exaggerates the problem, but sometimes a situation must be overstated to be noticed.

I like books that inspire me, and Ender's Game does—much more so than Speaker for the Dead, which I'm sure was intended to be the more inspirational.  Knowing little about leadership, as a subject, I found Card's treatment of it fascinating, and even the game-playing and battle-winning strategies were educational.  Perhaps what affected me most was Ender's skill at turning everything that happened to him into something that made him stronger and better, and the way he patiently endured pain as long as it enabled him to learn.

We interrupt the writing of my review of Ender's Game to alert you to the fact that Janet has now posted Joseph's birth story.  I'll add some comments later.

As I've said before, Isaac Asimov has long been one of my favorite authors, from science fiction (of course) to science fact to history to mystery.  But his fantasy falls flat, at least if judged by Magic: The Final Fantasy Collection, which I finished reading today.

Asimov is fond of quoting Arthur C. Clarke's assertion that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic; this may go far to explaining why I find his fantasy unsatisfactory.  He is all-rational,^* to the extent that even his demons and his dragons seem mundane.  There is no magic in his magic.  Some of the tales are good stories, but they lack the sparkle, the wonder, the life of a good fantasy.

Interestingly, Asimov had great respect for J.R.R. Tolkien as a writer and read The Lord of the Rings at least five times.  Since I consider Tolkien to be a master at the elements that I find lacking in Asimov's fantasy stories, I wonder if those aspects of the LOTR, which in my opinion make it the monumental work that it is, were invisible to him.

Perhaps they were; certainly there is enough depth to the story to attract people on many different levels, as the makers of the movie version proved.  Or...perhaps...he did catch a glimpse of the book's magic, which continued to draw him back, though he didn't know why.

The title isn't quite true, but it gets past the censors.

Joseph is the non-spitting-est baby I've ever met.  I never think of using a burp cloth, and although when I packed for this trip I took into consideration that my clothes would be subject to much baby spit-up, it simply hasn't happened.

It was a good choice of shirts, however.

Joseph had awakened after a three-hour nap, and was not surprisingly in need of a change.  Joseph finds a diaper change to be very inspirational.

Have you heard of the volcanoes that, instead of erupting straight up in the air, blow their lava out a side vent?  Bright yellow lava, hitting Grandma straight in the face, and adding a contrasting golden spray to the dark blue Carnegie Mellon t-shirt. 

No problem.  We're signed up for laundry on Thursday.