Oh, I wasn't arguing that Augustine objected to such views, therefore they're out of bounds, but rather observing that they were soteriological views apparently broadly held among early Christians, such that Augustine felt he needed to spend a lot of effort opposing them, but even so without saying they were actually heretical. ETA: His counterarguments are also surprisingly weak. It's like he didn't have his heart in it.

During the first life of the thread, I'd noticed that several people objected to a structural approach on the grounds that it only applied to English. My two thoughts on that: (1) I'm teaching English grammar, so it doesn't strike me as a drawback that this approach teaches English grammar. (2) And I'm not convinced that such an approach is necessarily limited to a single language anyway. We use Artes Latinae for Latin, which uses an explicitly structural approach to teach Latin, in the course of which it teaches a great deal of English grammar via comparison and contrast. If you have a good grasp on the grammatical structure of two languages, why not teach both using an inflection/distribution method? (Then write it up as a curriculum and rake in the cash.) As far as the specific objection that third person singular verbs in English have the -s marker, all I can say is that that's never caused any confusion - I assume because it's obvious that it's not showing 'more than one.' Proper nouns are an interesting exception. But it's not a confusing exception, because of course it's not ungrammatical in English to say "three Queen Elizabeths" or "several Arthur Dents" in the way that it would be ungrammatical to say "*three withouts" or "*several hopefuls." They're clearly nouns, and make valid plural forms; they're just silly. (Of course, there are interesting cases where they do occur as plurals: "He's a better speaker than ten Bill Clintons," and the like. But I digress, and am hungry for brains. Probably because the children did away with them today, together with the last of my nerves.)

Interestingly (well, to me), I've been reading Augustine's City of God, and he devotes a substantial section to arguing gently against this position. Gently because, from what he says, apparently these were widespread views among mainstream Christians in the fourth century, and while Augustine disagreed with them, he didn't find them to be heretical.

And Belgian.

Yep. It's human nature. (And lest anyone should think me to be school name-dropping, I went to UT, where we talked about how we were right up there with Berkeley and Virginia.)

I always like to think of it as being like the way students at UC Berkeley would talk about how much better UCB really was than Stanford, while it would never have occurred to Stanford students to talk about the shortcomings of Berkeley. (They were too busy discussing how favorably they compared to Harvard.)

Otranto! Yes, hilarious! Crushed by a giant helmet....

Hey! I loved "Free to Be ... You and Me"! It had Harry Belafonte! And Tom Smothers!

What a lot of people here seem to be saying is that they read the other thread to be criticizing the taking of what are quite legitimate positions - within the context of the community's faith practices - and transferring them to children in simplistic and possibly damaging ways. You can't really say to a child "this tv show takes for granted and reinforces cultural norms that are opposed to our faith and so we won't have it on," and so some parents or communities think the way to bring it to a child's level is to say "this tv show is evil." When I posted in the thread, I was assuming this was the kind of thing people were getting at. I still hold what would be considered very liberal positions on environmentalism, but the 1970's Berkeley approach of telling small children they were at fault for the destruction of the environment was heavyhanded and inappropriate, and I don't mind mocking it. What I was reading mostly seemed to be "this is the crazy overdone way that living a holy life was presented to me as a child," and except where posters indicated otherwise, I tended to assume that the posters were still in the same faith traditions. YMMV.

Well, it's not clear to me that it would have a great effect on homeschoolers, but I think it's rash to say that the Supreme Court won't find for the publishers. I gather the 2nd and 9th federal circuits (the latter in Omega v. Costco) - that's New York and California, where copyright issues are very important - have both agreed that the First Sale Doctrine doesn't protect the reseller. Look at it from the point of view of an international publisher. You want to sell your books in the US, the Philippines, Canada, Mexico, wherever. You can't sell them at the same price in every country; they can't pay American prices in the Philippines, or Canadian prices in Mexico. But all an enterprising American has to do is buy up truckloads of your books in Manila, ship them to California, and make far more money than it cost to ship them. And under the First Sale doctrine, the publisher can't do anything. They've effectively lost their distribution rights because of the doctrine. So maybe it's not so straightforward.

Shady Pope Benedict, the Antichrist of Cool:

I think the guide is available online, though I don't have a link for it.

At Mass, you should be praying. Your prayers should serve to unite you with the Sacrifice being offered. Praying the Sorrowful Mysteries is a traditional, reverent, and appropriate way to do that. Yes, it has been stressed (even before the Mass was available in the vernacular) that the best way to unite yourself through prayer is to pray the Mass prayers. Even if you're not praying the exact words of the Mass, you can pray in words appropriate to the various parts of the liturgy, and people did this even before the use of hand missals became widespread. But the best method of prayer in the abstract doesn't make it the best method for every person in every time and place. Occasions when you might well pray your rosary could include: don't understand the language Mass is being offered in; unable because of circumstances to see or hear the liturgy well; having difficulties with distraction using other methods of prayer; too scandalized by the carryings-on in the liturgy to pray fruitfully in any other way ;) .

:lol::lol::lol: I'm sorry, I'm just gobsmacked that the B-52's made someone's Church Lady list! Oh no, they're living underground! Like a wild potato! The party is out of bounds!

Mmmm, is that red velvet? How does it go with a Shiner? You can invite me to your tailgate party if you're serving that.

Well, they're politicians, having their mouths open is how you know they're ly.... never mind, don't want to run afoul of moderator rules. :D Dang, we lost 48-45. Oh well. Cupcakes, anyone?

Two threads about the Hook 'em Horns sign! A clear portent that we are to defeat West Virginia tonight! Texas Fight! See how all parties unite to support the Longhorns. [

Hook 'em, Horns!!! Oh, sorry. Not quite of the same sort, but I remember back in elementary school in the mid-seventies, in Berkeley (right before we moved to Austin), we had these Q&A worksheets on pollution, littering, and the environment. There was a list of yes/no questions about things we did that hurt the environment, and I was pleased that I was answering them all "no." Because getting 100 on everything was very important to me. Then the last question: "Do you drink your milk with a plastic straw?" I was horrified. Of course I did. At the bottom of the page it said that if you answered any of the questions "yes," "YOU ARE PART OF THE POLLUTION PROBLEM." I never drank my lunch milk with a straw again. To this day I rarely put a straw in my glass. When I do, I feel guilty and transgressive.

Drums by James Boyd.

Cricket, chirping softly. Downside: This year, due to the last summer's drought and then a wet spring, the cricket population exploded. All summer I would wake up at night thinking my phone was ringing. Upside: I forgot to turn my phone off for Mass and when someone called me, of course I couldn't dig out my phone before it had rung several times. I mentioned the incident to a friend afterwards, and she had thought a cricket had just crawled into the church and started singing.

I'm so glad you explained that - I'd always wondered how a cup could be topologically equivalent to a doughnut, since the hole in the cup didn't go all the way through. Now I know!

Cat Fish Hermit crab (other)

Half Price Books nearby large university dh the math god

Not a crazy place, but well-hidden: between the bedcover and top sheet, wedged between them against the vertical edge of the mattress at the foot of the bed, such that the bulge it made wasn't readily visible between the mattress and bedframe.

Finished Book XIX of City of God. Only III to go! Not so much progress on Dead Souls, having misplaced it. Maybe I need to muck out the minivan. Now, droogie, did you read the American version with the last chapter removed, or the UK version with the more upbeat final chapter? I was so surprised when I read the missing last chapter - I think it was published in Rolling Stone when I was in college, but I could be misremembering. Love me some Borges! "The Library of Babel" makes a good readaloud at the right age. It's amazing what kids can get out of that story - it really opens up the imagination.