Today I was reading an article by Time magazine. It was their cover story, 100 of most influential people in the world, categorized by politicians, scientists, entertainers, etc. Some of the people were obvious choices, but some of the people were amazingly missing. Now Time isn't known for being exactly unbiased politically, but I did find it interesting that Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Barack Obama, and Nancy Pelosi were all included, but not President Bush. Now who is really more influential, the guy who became president, or the guy who lost to him? The President of the United States, or the Speaker of the House? The man who is the country's leader, or two people who want to be the next leader? It is obvious that none of them are more influential than Bush, which means that the article is titled poorly. I found it interesting that the only conservative politician who they included was Conoleeza Rice. It was still an interesting article.


A few people who I was surprised to find included:
The guy who jumped into the subway to save a stranger, the Chinese man in charge of preparing Bejing for the Olympics, most of the entertainers, Raul Castro, the two guys who started YouTube

A few people who I definitely agreed should be there:
The Pope, Ayatolah Kahmeni, the President of Saudi Arabia, the dictator responisble for the Dafur crisis, Osama Bin Laden

A few people who I thought should have been included:
George Soros, Angelina Jolie, Billy Graham, President Bush, President Putin, Bill Gates, Bono.

So I played Settlers of Catan for the first time tonight. I had seen it played, but never played myself. There were two details that I didn't take into consideration when I first put down my pieces, so unless I had amazing fortune (which I didn't), I really didn't have a chance at winning. It's a fun game, but it really is based on your first placement. I have the basic version, which I've never played because it takes at least three people and Anna and I are only two. But tonight we played the Cities and Knights expansion, which I think I prefer because it is a little more complex. It was sorta an inlaw thing, but not really. It was me, Anna's brother (my brother-in-law), Anna's cousin's husband (my cousin-in-law?), and Anna's parents' exchange student (??). I think it is easier not to mess with the details and just say that they are all family.

I've been enjoying my summer so far. I'll probably have to begin work again sometime soon, but for now, I've really been happy to clean up the yard, really organize the house, take care of some paperwork, and read a lot. I've been going through almost a book each day (something I used to do as a kid every summer), but the next set of books are longer, so they will definitely take a while. I just finished Treasure Island, which I started earlier in the year. Yesterday it was Dragonsong. I've been working on Catch 22, but it is rather coarse and half way through, it just seems to be more of the same stuff as in the beginning. I don't have much motivation to finish it, but I think I will just to see if anything does change at the end. I also started The Eye of the World, but that's on CD, so I'll probably listen to it in my car whenever I drive around (which isn't a lot). I seem to be in a fantasy or scifi mood right now, so I'm thinking possibly Eragon, Dragonsinger, Ender's Game, Dune, and the other Harry Potter books. That should be enough to tire me with fantasy for a while. I also picked up Wicked at the library. I've heard mixed reviews (or rather second-hand mixed reviews), so I will give it a chance. We'll see.

Night Time

So on a whim I decided to go to the Rice Linguistics pages to see if they had any interesting programs that they were letting people use.  But as I scrolled down to the Linguistics classes, I remembered all the German, Spanish, Philosophy, Religion, Psychology classes that kept me so interested for four years.  I was (and still am to a degree) sad that I don't have such resources at my fingertips anymore.  It sometimes makes me wonder if I'm not falling behind (not that I was ever at the top of my class) while other people are doing research, publishing papers, climbing the ladder, and investing the funds.  But while I was reading in my Bible tonight, I came across 1 Chronicles 1:27 "But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong."  Somehow that encourages me to know that though my path may seem foolish at times, in the end, it is still the wiser choice.  Maybe this summer I'll see how much I can get for a buck fifty in late charges at the public library, as they put it so aptly in Good Will Hunting.  Any suggestions on where to begin?

Warning: tired rambling thoughts ahead. Proceed at your own risk.
I just finished watching Modern Times by Charlie Chaplain, which has sparked my imagination along two thought provoking and very divergent paths. Modern Times is a classic film, one which I would highly recommend. Number 81 on AFI's top 100 movies, in case you were wondering, although I would disagree with a lot of their picks. It shows The Tramp as he tries to cope with life in the Industrial Age. So here are some thoughts. Tell me what you think.

My first line of thinking was along the lines of education. By 'education' I don't mean what you learn in school. I mean what you have to know for people to think of you as learned or intelligent. At different points in time, people were expected to know French, German, Latin, Greek, the Bible, philosophy, or music. If you weren't well versed in these, you weren't well educated. But what are the things that you have to know now in order to be learned? Do you have to know algebra or calculus? Do you have to have seen at least 30 of AFI's top 100? Must you have seen the top 5 movies from the previous year? What if you've never seen Lost or CSI or The Price is Right? Are you educated if you know how many hours Paris Hilton spent in jail but can't find Kosovo on a map? What about the other way around? Is it more important to know the importance of 42 or of Ipse dixit? Is there really such a thing as 'educated' any more or was that really anything more than a wobbly image of a past age that has been propagated to make the past look more genteel than the present. What would make you call someone 'learned' or 'educated'?

My second line of reasoning was along the lines of the Industrial Age. The Industrial Age, the Modern Age, the Space Age, the Digital Age, the Information Age- progress and change have been amazing during the last hundred years. The world of today is amazingly different from that which are great great grandparents knew. So my question is what will the next Age be? The next two or three Ages that I see are the Communication Age (already in progress), the Delivery Age, and the Movement Age.
The Communication Age is the period of rapid progress in the field of long distance communication. I would identify the roots dating back to the time when long distance calling plans became ubiquitous. The end, I would predict, is when it is commonplace to be able to instantly communicate with nearly anyone worldwide. Cell phones are very common in Western countries, but until all cell phones have a satellite connection or more of a web/P2P communication strategy, there will still be some places too remote to connect.
Not surprisingly, the Delivery Age has its roots in Pizza and college dorm rooms. But it has now gotten to the point that because of the web and 411, we are annoyed if we cannot find a phone number within a matter of minutes. I would predict that the Delivery Age is when we have decided that it should be a given that people can deliver anything we want within a matter of minutes. Now there is Amazon, Ebay, and overnight shipping. Who knows how long it will be before FedEx or UPS will be able to move something from a warehouse across the country to your door within a single day. Maybe a few hours. It is mostly science fiction now, but instant transportation of goods may one day be unappreciated.
The third Age, that I would predict would be the Age of Movement. It is similar to the Age of Delivery, except rather than large corporations moving goods for our convenience, we would have the capability of transporting ourselves around the world with ease. Imagine living in your hometown, working in a New York high rise, going out to dinner at Goode Co. Barbecue in Houston, seeing a show in Portland, and then going to this great little coffee shop in San Francisco. Now imagine that this was a regular day. Travel as a word would become almost meaningless, because the movement over great distances would become as easy as over short ones.

What do you think?


In Other News...
I'm now officially done with my teaching for this year. I'm going to try to focus more on Wycliffe and actively preparing to leave. Of course, I don't know how money will all work out, but I'll figure that out later.

Ok, so I admit that I got a little distracted during my devotions tonight. I was reading the Bible at gospelcom.net and noticed an article about church signs that looked interesting. In it, there was a link to the crummy church signs blog. There are some amusing takes on some not so amusing signs. It does make me wonder how much we force ourselves to try to be clever. It is the same reason that I changed my random quote from a weekly thing to a whenever-I-feel-like-changing-it thing. I'd rather keep up something meaningful for a long time than feel pressured to change it and end up with something cheesy.

In Other News...
Almost, almost done with school for this year