Peace in the Post-Christian Era

I had picked this up from the library and found it to be a very relevant book given todays environment. The book is from the early '60s and the story of getting it published is as intriguing as the actual contents. The Catholic Church, at some levels, didn't want the book published since it was felt to be "too political"(!). The book itself focuses on the absurdity of pursuing "mutually assured destruction" in the nuclear context.

Good read and certainly nothing new other than the focus on peace in a Christian context.

More book reviews coming, I promise!

I have sooooo negligent in blogging, but with a toddler, time is tight

Are We Rome: Cullen Murphy

I had heard part of Cullen Murphy's interview on my local NPR affliate, KUOW. The show looked at various parllels that were explored in his book. The book was a quick read, maybe about 220 pages of actual text, versus about 20 pages of well researched and cited endnotes. The book explored various parallels such as the privatization of government functions, and thus equating that with a growing culture of corruption, as well the inability to field an army without resorting to recruiting less desirable folks and also lowering standards. The parallels are striking, but again we are comparing a Bronze Age civilization with a modern one. I learned quite a bit about ancient Roman history that I hadn't before. Plus it was neat to realize that Trier, a city in Germany that I had visited on a Roman ruin tour, was once a site of an imperial palace. Another interesting fact was how the number of shipwrecks decreased after a peak during the Roman empire thus signaling a decrease of trade after the "fall".

Fun quick read...

Bart Ehrman: Misquoting Jesus and Lost Christianities

I decided to combine these reviews since they are very related. Bart Ehrman is a Biblican scholar, a student of Bruce Metzger , and one whose path has taken him from Lutheran to born-again evangelical to agnostic. I came across "Misquoting Jesus" at an airport bookstore and found it quite interesting. Like most folks, I consider the Bible to have come together at discreet points of time. What I found was that not only was the Biblical canon not finalized until centuries after the death of Christ but also may have changed during transcription by semi-literate scribes throughout the ages. Plus the sources that the scribes would have used may have also been corrupted as well. The KJV was based on a fairly erroneous Greek documents for the New Testament. The book also dealt with textual criticism which was trying to arrive at "original" text of ancient documents. A very accessible book.

The second "Lost Christianities" looked at Early Christianity and the various sects that vied for control until the one that Bart refers to as "proto-orthodox" prevailed. Again, the monolithic image I held of a unified Christendom at the beginning was shattered with the accounts of various sects and denominations of followers of Christ. From those that ranged from those that simply viewed Jesus as the Jewish Messiah and thus followers of Jesus must also be Jesus to those that rejected Judasim entirely. What I found astounding was the realization that the acceptance of the Old Testament may have been to give Christianity legitimacy in the Roman Empire because of its claim to antiquity based on being an extension and perhaps fulfillment of Judaism!

An excellent pair of books, supplemented by "Lost Scriptures" , which included many of the Gnostic and other materials referenced...

Transforming MTB to Road Bike : Part 1

So the idea was to take a 1990/1991 Specialized Stumpjumper, with all original parts (except seat and pedals) and transform into a foul weather road bike. I was inspired by Brian DeSousa's MTB to Tour page but didn't find the pictures to be of good enough quality

Here is the beast at start

The first challenge was to find a stem and drop bars that would fit an old 1" threaded fork and the 25.4 mm clamp diameter. I decided to go with the Nitto drop bars (105) and the Dirt Drop stem

Nice detailing on their stem...

Mounting the bars was fairly easy

, an issue I had though was the original cable drop was actually a pulley brazed onto the riser portion of the original stem...



so I made a trek to Recycled Cycles and had some helpful assistance in picking the 50 cent part. After I had mounted the stem and bars, I got around to mounting up my brake levers. Since I am using cantilever brakes, I picked up some Shimano aero levers and used the Allen wrench to tighten up the hood/lever assembly. The rule of thumb I read was to use a straight edge from the bottom of the drop bar to where the lever ends.

That's it for now!

Bollywood + Barack = Insane

The insanity surrounding the Obama campaign is not abating...