Baba O'House

You really have to love YouTube (well, aside from the massive number of blatant copyright infringements its caused and/or enabled). I mean, where else could you find a video that combines The Who and House?

Hello, I Must Be Going...

As many of you know, I will be leaving New York City in a few weeks (Check here for the reasons why). Next Sunday, 6 May 07, a few friends and I are getting together for a going-away-party type thing in Queens, since this will be my penultimate weekend in NYC. As part of our festivities we will be attending the weekly Open Mic Night at the Vox Pop coffee-house in Brooklyn @ 7:00 pm. Admission is free, but there is a 2 drink minimum. The mic in question is open to "poets, musicians, comedians, and artists!" We've been before and had a wonderful time. Consider this an open invitation to join us! Even if you don't take the stage yourself, you'll have the chance to see us embarrass ourselves publicly (Which sadly isn't a rare event!!)



I hope to see you there!

20 Days and counting...

Didn't I just unpack all of this stuff? oy...

In Theory...

"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; In practice, there is."

- Chuck Reid

Cowards are Nice

"You know why people are nice to other people?"

"Oh, I know this one: Because people are good, decent and caring. Either that, or people are cowards. If I'm mean to you, then you'll be mean to me - mutually assured destruction."

- Doctors James Wilson and Greg House (House, MD: Acceptance)

via HouseFans.net

"Jesus Family Tomb" ID Refuted

I found an interesting article about the so-called "Jesus Family Tomb" and James Cameron's documentary about it over at the Jerusalem Post site. Apparently, in addition to the widely noted criticism of scholars and theological concerns voiced by Christian groups, some of the experts involved in the documentary are calling some of the claims in the film into question:

Several prominent scholars who were interviewed in a bitterly contested documentary that suggests that Jesus and his family members were buried in a nondescript ancient Jerusalem burial cave have now revised their conclusions, including the statistician who claimed that the odds were 600:1 in favor of the tomb being the family burial cave of Jesus of Nazareth...
The dramatic clarifications, compiled by epigrapher Stephen Pfann of the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem in a paper titled "Cracks in the Foundation: How the Lost Tomb of Jesus story is losing its scholarly support," come two months after the screening of The Lost Tomb of Christ that attracted widespread public interest, despite the concomitant scholarly ridicule.

...

Some of the scholars who were interviewed for and appeared in the film are questioning some of its basic claims.

The most startling change of opinion featured in the 16-page paper is that of University of Toronto statistician Professor Andrey Feuerverger, who stated those 600 to one odds in the film. Feuerverger now says that these referred to the probability of a cluster of such names appearing together... Israeli archeologists have said that the similarity of the names found inscribed on the ossuaries in the cave to the members of Jesus's family was coincidental, since many of those names were commonplace in the first century CE... Shimon Gibson, who was part of the team that excavated the tomb two and half decades ago and who appeared in the film, is quoted in Pfann's report as saying he doubted the site was the tomb of Jesus and his family.

...

In the film, renowned epigrapher Prof. Frank Moore Cross, professor emeritus of Hebrew and oriental languages at Harvard University, is seen reading one of the ossuaries and stating that he has "no real doubt" that it reads "Jesus son of Joseph." But according to Pfann, Cross said in an e-mail that he was skeptical about the film's claims, not because of a misreading of the ossuary, but because of the ubiquity of Biblical names in that period in Jerusalem.

"It has been reckoned that 25 percent of feminine names in this period were Maria/Miriam, etc. - that is, variants of 'Mary.' So the cited statistics are unpersuasive. You know the saying: lies, damned lies, and statistics," Cross is quoted as saying

...

Furthermore, Pfann also says that a specialist in ancient apocryphal text, Professor Francois Bovon, who is quoted in the film as saying the enigmatic ossuary inscription "Mariamne" is the same woman known as Mary Magdalene - one of the filmmakers' critical arguments - issued a disclaimer stating that he did not believe that "Mariamne" stood for Mary of Magdalene at all.

Read the full story HERE.

I can't say that I'm at all surprised by this turn of events. Just sad that the refutations likely won't get the same publicity as the misinformation spread by Cameron's documentary. But such is life, I suppose...

RIP Kurt Vonnegut, Jr

Sad news today. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., one of the greatest (and most cynical) American satirical writers since Mark Twain, died today at the age of 84.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
1922-2007

Layla and Majnun

In an attempt to keep some of my sanity (shut up!) I've been making an effort to do some reading for pleasure outside of my classroom studies. Recently I've been reading from Nizami's The Story of Layla and Majnun, which relates the legendary Arabic story of a boy named Qays who falls madly in love with a beautiful girl named Layla. And while Layla returns his love she is forbidden to be with him by her family. Unable to have Layla and unable (or unwilling) to let go of his love for her Qays in driven insane and becomes known as Majnun (madman). It is a brilliantly poetic story of a heartbreaking unrequited love which helped inspire Eric Clapton's "Layla" from the Derek and the Dominoes Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs album (Clapton also set one of Nizami's verses to music as the song "I Am Yours" on the same album).



Many of the passages are incredibly moving and/or beautiful, especially for anyone who has found themselves in similar situations. I found the description of Qays love at first site to be particularly worth repeating:

"Whose heart would not have been filled with longing at the sight of this girl? But young Qays felt even more. He was drowned in the ocean of love before he knew there was such a thing. He had already given his heart to Layla before he understood what he was giving away... "

There are many more memorable passages, which I may share at a later date.

What Makes Him Tick?

"I loathe the expression 'What makes him tick.' It is the American mind, looking for simple and singular solution, that uses the foolish expression. A person not only ticks, he also chimes and strikes the hour, falls and breaks and has to be put together again, and sometimes stops like an electric clock in a thunderstorm."

- James Thurber (1894 - 1961)

Its Never Too Late...

"It is never too late to be what you might have been."

- George Eliot (1819 - 1880)