5.31.2005
5.29.2005
On Revenge of the Sith
IMHO, Episode III is a pretty good movie. I saw it yesterday for the second time. I liked it more and not less upon second viewing. With Episode I, I really liked it upon first viewing, and then greatedly tired of it by fifth viewing. With Episode II, I never got beyond second viewing and the disappointments that brought. Revenge of the Sith, however, does deliver very well in the long second hour from the unmasking of Palpatine to the final duel between Anakin and Obei-wan. Very satisfying, for me, was how Episode III explains how the Jedi were purged and so realizes the "history" recounted by Kenobi to Luke in Episode IV. Honestly, at the end of the final duel, my eyes were beginning to burn. Coming out of the theatre, I felt a little of what I remember feeling coming out of Empire, a prescence I hadn't felt for a long time towards a Star Wars film: horror and pity.
The best line in the film is probably ". . . my little green friend."
Really, Episode III makes I and even II actually better films and makes the whole cycle greater than the sume of its parts. Especially in Episode III, we see people saying the same things or doing similar things to different people in different roles, so as to create a high degree of foreshadowing. Yoda says thing that would later be said by the Emperor, Anakin does things that would later be done by Luke, and Obei-wan does the same things twice towards different people in ways that mean opposite things. Whereas in other movies this would be banal ("Haven't we seen that before in another movie?), here, in the Lucas cycle, we are still watching what is, on many levels, same work. The director get away with what would otherwise be at worst plagarism or at best recycling.
A superb article comparing Wagner's Ring and Lucas' Star Wars may be found here. This is absolutely must reading for anyone who wants to understand the comp lit angles and "drama and society" implications of Star Wars.
IMHO, Episode III is a pretty good movie. I saw it yesterday for the second time. I liked it more and not less upon second viewing. With Episode I, I really liked it upon first viewing, and then greatedly tired of it by fifth viewing. With Episode II, I never got beyond second viewing and the disappointments that brought. Revenge of the Sith, however, does deliver very well in the long second hour from the unmasking of Palpatine to the final duel between Anakin and Obei-wan. Very satisfying, for me, was how Episode III explains how the Jedi were purged and so realizes the "history" recounted by Kenobi to Luke in Episode IV. Honestly, at the end of the final duel, my eyes were beginning to burn. Coming out of the theatre, I felt a little of what I remember feeling coming out of Empire, a prescence I hadn't felt for a long time towards a Star Wars film: horror and pity.
The best line in the film is probably ". . . my little green friend."
Really, Episode III makes I and even II actually better films and makes the whole cycle greater than the sume of its parts. Especially in Episode III, we see people saying the same things or doing similar things to different people in different roles, so as to create a high degree of foreshadowing. Yoda says thing that would later be said by the Emperor, Anakin does things that would later be done by Luke, and Obei-wan does the same things twice towards different people in ways that mean opposite things. Whereas in other movies this would be banal ("Haven't we seen that before in another movie?), here, in the Lucas cycle, we are still watching what is, on many levels, same work. The director get away with what would otherwise be at worst plagarism or at best recycling.
A superb article comparing Wagner's Ring and Lucas' Star Wars may be found here. This is absolutely must reading for anyone who wants to understand the comp lit angles and "drama and society" implications of Star Wars.
Doings and things
Haven't been blogging much lately.
Went on a business trip with my dad the other week. Because of a license issue, I rented and drove the car. Poetic justice? Perhaps.
Been reading Confucius reallly slowly, and like a Strassian. Everyone should read Confucius. There are so many parallels, and crucial differences with, Socrates and Christ.
My wife sat through a seminar this weekend for RSA on the "Rhetoric of Scientific Revolutions." This means that she now knows much more about Mr. Kuhn than I do.
Smoked a pipe last night, for the first time since I've been married and it tasted, nostaligically, like law school.
Why did I go to law school? LOL
I wonder what every became of some of those Pi Phis.
Went to Pittsburgh last Friday (before this past Friday) and visited the Carnegie Museum. Also visited two wonderful bookshops in Oakland, right around the Carnegie and U Pitt: Caliban's and Townsend. Got a beautiful copy of Orlando Furioso at Townsend--the kind of edition you only find only once every few years.
Ratzinger wants to mend the schism of 1054?
Haven't been blogging much lately.
Went on a business trip with my dad the other week. Because of a license issue, I rented and drove the car. Poetic justice? Perhaps.
Been reading Confucius reallly slowly, and like a Strassian. Everyone should read Confucius. There are so many parallels, and crucial differences with, Socrates and Christ.
My wife sat through a seminar this weekend for RSA on the "Rhetoric of Scientific Revolutions." This means that she now knows much more about Mr. Kuhn than I do.
Smoked a pipe last night, for the first time since I've been married and it tasted, nostaligically, like law school.
Why did I go to law school? LOL
I wonder what every became of some of those Pi Phis.
Went to Pittsburgh last Friday (before this past Friday) and visited the Carnegie Museum. Also visited two wonderful bookshops in Oakland, right around the Carnegie and U Pitt: Caliban's and Townsend. Got a beautiful copy of Orlando Furioso at Townsend--the kind of edition you only find only once every few years.
Ratzinger wants to mend the schism of 1054?
5.04.2005
4.19.2005
4.17.2005
4.09.2005
4.01.2005
3.31.2005
John of Salisbury on Time
Who is so unworthy as one who insults the Creator by squandering time, that which is handed out in sparing quantities for use in life and which alone cannot be restored -- its reclamation requiring someone to pay out, in the currency of life, interest and penalties at an usurious rate?
Policraticus, I.1 (Cary J. Nederman, trans.).
Who is so unworthy as one who insults the Creator by squandering time, that which is handed out in sparing quantities for use in life and which alone cannot be restored -- its reclamation requiring someone to pay out, in the currency of life, interest and penalties at an usurious rate?
Policraticus, I.1 (Cary J. Nederman, trans.).
Akron and Canton from Space
My brother Daniel introduced me to a website where I found even more cool earth images.
This is North Canton. You can see I-77 running down left side, and the North Canton Strip off to the left of the interstate, with the Canton mall just to the south.
This is central Akron. You can see the I-77/I-76/Route 8 central interchange near the center of the image, with downtown Akron just to the north and west, and the Cuyahoga River gorge just a little further north. Up along Route 8, you can also see Howe Ave. and the Chapel Hill Mall.
My brother Daniel introduced me to a website where I found even more cool earth images.
This is North Canton. You can see I-77 running down left side, and the North Canton Strip off to the left of the interstate, with the Canton mall just to the south.
This is central Akron. You can see the I-77/I-76/Route 8 central interchange near the center of the image, with downtown Akron just to the north and west, and the Cuyahoga River gorge just a little further north. Up along Route 8, you can also see Howe Ave. and the Chapel Hill Mall.
The Associated Press on Christians, God's Law, and Terri Schaivo.
An AP article caught my attention has particularly misleading and downright anti-Christian:
Some Christian conservatives and others who want to prolong Schiavo's life do not see why her husband gets to decide her fate. But the role of the spouse as next of kin and decision-maker has deep roots in both civil and biblical law.
"It's odd that conservative Christians would be making this claim," said Christopher Schroeder, director of the public law program at Duke University. "You can find biblical passages that say once you have a union like this, the union's all that matters. The parents drop out of the picture." . . . .
The practice of giving the spouse decision-making authority stretches back to English common law, when a woman basically became a non-person when she married, said Herma Hill Kay, an expert on marriage law at the University of California at Berkeley. Of course, she said, the laws giving one spouse direction over the other's affairs are now gender-neutral.
"Marriage is viewed as a consensual contract entered into by people who have legal capacity to marry, to in effect forsake all other bonds and cleave only to the other person, to take the words from most marriage ceremonies," Kay said.
Clark and other protesters have accused Michael Schiavo of violating "God's law" by withholding nourishment from his wife and by having had two children over the years with the girlfriend with whom he lives.
But the legal tradition now separating Terri Schiavo from her parents' presumed protection also has a foundation in biblical law. In Genesis 2:24, it reads: "Therefore, a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh."
I understand that the way that the English legal tradition has evolved has had the effect of inverting the Roman idea that the wife was still under under the patria potestas of her father, so that the family is seen as essentially nuclear by means of marriage, rather than essentially communitarian because of marriage. I get this. Yet to make the argument, by ignoring the issue of Michael Schaivo's open adultery, that spousal guardianship is a sort of absolute legal value in vacuo is intellectually dishonest. And to try to point to Christians as ignoring God's law on this point is superficial to the point of parody. But to quote Genesis 2:24 as somehow in support of Michael Schaivo is perverse to the point of callous. It is perhaps the most tragic part of this entire matter.
May Terri Schaivo rest in peace.
An AP article caught my attention has particularly misleading and downright anti-Christian:
Some Christian conservatives and others who want to prolong Schiavo's life do not see why her husband gets to decide her fate. But the role of the spouse as next of kin and decision-maker has deep roots in both civil and biblical law.
"It's odd that conservative Christians would be making this claim," said Christopher Schroeder, director of the public law program at Duke University. "You can find biblical passages that say once you have a union like this, the union's all that matters. The parents drop out of the picture." . . . .
The practice of giving the spouse decision-making authority stretches back to English common law, when a woman basically became a non-person when she married, said Herma Hill Kay, an expert on marriage law at the University of California at Berkeley. Of course, she said, the laws giving one spouse direction over the other's affairs are now gender-neutral.
"Marriage is viewed as a consensual contract entered into by people who have legal capacity to marry, to in effect forsake all other bonds and cleave only to the other person, to take the words from most marriage ceremonies," Kay said.
Clark and other protesters have accused Michael Schiavo of violating "God's law" by withholding nourishment from his wife and by having had two children over the years with the girlfriend with whom he lives.
But the legal tradition now separating Terri Schiavo from her parents' presumed protection also has a foundation in biblical law. In Genesis 2:24, it reads: "Therefore, a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh."
I understand that the way that the English legal tradition has evolved has had the effect of inverting the Roman idea that the wife was still under under the patria potestas of her father, so that the family is seen as essentially nuclear by means of marriage, rather than essentially communitarian because of marriage. I get this. Yet to make the argument, by ignoring the issue of Michael Schaivo's open adultery, that spousal guardianship is a sort of absolute legal value in vacuo is intellectually dishonest. And to try to point to Christians as ignoring God's law on this point is superficial to the point of parody. But to quote Genesis 2:24 as somehow in support of Michael Schaivo is perverse to the point of callous. It is perhaps the most tragic part of this entire matter.
May Terri Schaivo rest in peace.
3.29.2005
Liberty Fund, of all publishers, is releasing what appears to be a three-volume, 1300 page edition of Hugo Grotius' epic tome, De Iure Belli ac Pacis.
Glory Hallelujah! This has been a long time in coming.
Glory Hallelujah! This has been a long time in coming.
3.28.2005
I rewatched the Passion last night with my brother and sister-in-law. Upon second viewing, I was struck by how very powerful is Gibson's treatment of the moments in which Christ is nailed to the cross. At first, I tried to turn away and avert my eyes, reluctant to see the acute depiction of the visceral. Then the intercutting back to John 14-16 jerked me back to the moments being depicted. The juxtaposition of the Upper Room discourse and actual Crucifixion held me, gripped me, riveted me, until I was ashamed that I had tried to turn away.
I was also struck by how icon-like Gibson made Caviezel's Christ in death. He really does look rather like a Byzantine icon painting.
I was also struck by how icon-like Gibson made Caviezel's Christ in death. He really does look rather like a Byzantine icon painting.
3.26.2005
Cloudy Titan drifting past the rings
Distant Iapetus
Cassini snapped this shot of Iapetus sometime last week from about a million miles away. Iapetus is the outermost large moon of Saturn, and very mysterious. Not only is does it have 10:1 brightness differences from region to region, but is also extremely irregular in topography, fro a moon of its size.
Distant Iapetus
Cassini snapped this shot of Iapetus sometime last week from about a million miles away. Iapetus is the outermost large moon of Saturn, and very mysterious. Not only is does it have 10:1 brightness differences from region to region, but is also extremely irregular in topography, fro a moon of its size.
3.24.2005
Cassini's second flyby of Enceladus
Cassini flew by Enceladus for a second time on March 9th, and returned these closeup shots
Cassini flew by Enceladus for a second time on March 9th, and returned these closeup shots
Apparently, soft tissue has been found in some Tyrannosaurus rex bones. See the NT Times treatment and the CNN writeup.
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