I was really looking forward to reading this since I read an essay that Bart Ehrman wrote on the moment he lost his faith as a Born Again Christian.

I was pretty sure Professor Story would appreciate the argument, since I knew him as a good Christian scholar who obviously (like me) would never think there could be anything like a genuine error in the Bible. But at the end of my paper he made a simple one-line comment that for some reason went straight through me. He wrote: “Maybe Mark just made a mistake”.

This essay happens to be in the introduction of the book.

I was a little disappointed when I actually came to read Misquoting Jesus but that probably says more about my expectations than about the book itself. Last year I read the quite marvellous Who Wrote the Bible and I was expecting Erhman to do the same thing for the New Testament that Friedman did for the Old.

All the facts were there, and he did a bang up job of telling the story but, overall, I felt like he was trying too hard.

Where Friedman just told a fascinating story about a fascinating episode of our history, Erhman felt like he had an agenda - to persuade the people who believe that the bible is the literal Word of God that it was written by fallible humans with agendas of their own. Since I already believe it was written by fallible humans, the advocacy got in the way of my enjoyment and, since I already knew the broad thrust of the story, it didn’t go deep enough to quench my thirst for knowledge.

It was a good read for all that though. I firmly believe that if kids were taught the history of the bible in school, it would inoculate them from some of the weirder fantasies conjured up by the literalists and they could enjoy the text for the beautiful literature that it is (in parts).

Recommended!

For a long time, I have had a handful of questions that I kept handy in case I ran into a famous scientist but, one by one, I keep finding the answers to my questions. Questions like: “If the primates got wiped out, from which class would the next Intelligent Species to Dominate The World come?” (answer: Rodents. Thanks to Richard Dawkins in the Ancestors Tale - best book of the century so far).

My last remaining question was “How long would it take for all traces of humanity to disappear when we are gone?” so imagine my delight when I heard that someone had written a whole book on that very subject - The World Without Us by Alan Weisman.

The answer is quite encouraging. Much better than I had dared hope.

Starting with the example of what happens to a barn when you cut an 18 inch hole in the roof and then working up through a house with a loose shingle (once the water gets in, it’s all over) he talks us through the destruction of New York City (reverts to forest in a 100 years and then the next ice age removes all trace (but see below about bronze statues)).

Some of our artifacts - like Houston and all its refineries - will cause 100s of years of pain before fading into nothingness but, on the whole, he expects the world to recover quite well. All the rivers will revert to their original courses and all the forests will grow back. In many cases, the original species will also recover and much of our meddling (wheat, cows, maize, dogs) will get eaten or out-competed very quickly.

Cats (and a few ornamental shrubs) are a sad exception to this rule. Apparently they are responsible for an avian holocaust (second only to plate glass in their ability to take down whole species). I always suspected that cats were evil and now I have confirmation.

Some of the best chapters in the book are about some accidental experiments where humanity has temporarily left an area because of war (Cyprus, Korea’s DMZ) or disaster (Chernobyl) and in each case the native species returned very very quickly or lived on when the same species became almost extinct in other areas.

I also enjoyed the mystery of why all the North American mega fauna died out around the same time that men with spears were crossing the Bering Strait (coincidence or…?). Don’t worry though. They will grow back. Not exactly the same of course. Maybe there will be Sabre Toothed Sloths and Giant Ground Tigers instead of what we had before. Meanwhile, we can join the campaign to Bring Back the Elephants!

More depressing are the sections that enumerate our waste products that will stick around for a long time like plastics, tyres, U-235 and dioxins but, one day, some clever bacteria will figure out what to do with them (except the U-235. nature will just have to learn to tolerate that). It’s actually quite shocking what we are doing with plastics and nuclear waste. Before I read the book, it was shocking in an abstract, distant way but now the problem appears quite real and close at hand.

Some of our artifacts that will be around longest include Mount Rushmore, bronze sculpture and the Voyager probes (which will probably outlast the earth) but they are all fairly innocuous so I don’t resent them too much.

All in all, I found the book very uplifting and it almost wants me to hasten our demise so that nature can make a start on restoring some of the beauty that we have destroyed. Which is why I just signed up with the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement.

May we live long and die out!

By the time I was Dylan’s age, I had already gone through several heroes - Best, Presley, Nelson, Scott, Cook, Richard the Lionheart. By hero, I mean someone to look up to, to dream of being, to emulate, to inspire. As far as I know, my son has never had one (apart from me).

I was also heavily into music at an early age. I knew all the words to my Englebert Humperdink album when I was 4, was totally in love with Suzi Quatro at 9 and a big fan of Queen for a big chunk of my early life. My son is just now starting to get into music. Led Zep is an early favourite (Finally available on Rhapsody today! Hooray!).

I’d like to try a little parental manipulation and, Dear Readers, I’d like your help. I am going to give my offspring a list of 10-ish guitarists and 3 songs from each and have him rank them. I hope to encourage a little critical thinking and maybe one of them will inspire him to great things with that ax of his.

Here’s what I have so far (in no particular order). Help me out. Who am I missing?

• Mark Knopfler
  • Slow Train
  • Brothers in Arms
  • Private Investigations
• Jimi Hendrix
  • All Along the Watchtower
  • Voodoo Child
  • Hey Joe
  • Purple Haze
• Dave Gilmour
  • Wish You Were Here
  • Another Brick in the Wall (pt2)
  • Shine on your Crazy Diamond (pt1)
• Carlos Santana
  • Smooth
  • Black Magic Woman
  • Maria Maria
• Pete Townsend
  • Pinball Wizard
  • My Generation
  • The Real Me
• Eddie Van Halen
• Axel Rose
• Eric Clapton
  • Layla
  • Crossroads
  • Badge
• Jimmy Page
  • Stairway to Heaven
  • Babe, I’m gonna leave you
  • Battle of Evermore
  • Dazed and Confused
• Keith Richards
  • Honky Tonk Women
  • Brown Sugar
  • Satisfaction
• George Harrison
  • Something
  • Here Comes The Sun
• The Gypsy Kings
  • Djiobi Djioba
  • Baila me
  • Bem, Bem, Maria

I am not necessarily looking for the greatest guitarists or the greatest songs. They don’t even have to be guitarists I like (there are a few on the list already that I don’t like). I want variety more than anything.

When I have a list, I’ll put together a playlist for his mp3 player [you can listen to it here]. I’ll let you know how the rest goes.

Feel free to contribute your own rankings.

Things are moving along with the plan to bring the earthquakes back. In addition to the council meeting on Tuesday to (hopefully) approve the new stadium plans, the Quakes have hired a head coach.

As we mentioned, there’s also something else that will be happening on Tuesday. The San Jose Earthquakes will be holding a press conference to announce the hiring of a new head coach, and we have the inside scoop. So, in addition to coming out to support the stadium effort on Tuesday night, you’ll also be able to join your fellow Quakes fans in person to celebrate the hiring of Frank Yallop, a man who already owns two championship rings with the name “San Jose Earthquakes” on them.

http://www.soccersiliconvalley.com/

By the way, I have reserved the right to purchase 12 seasons tickets when they go on sale (any day now).

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a pool of tickets, 2 per family, that we could share?  6 of my reservations are already reserved. Let me know if you want one.

I vaguely remember that my first hamster, Uncle Muncher, was named after a cartoon character but I didn’t remember anything more than that until…

…through the magic of Google:

BOBO BUNNY (early ’70s)

Surreal fare for the under eights. Bobo of the title was a blue rabbit, who lived with his family of assorted brightly coloured and bizarrely named rabbits, like cousin Read-to-me and Aunty Shut-that-door. Our favourite was Uncle Muncher who was orange, and ate everything in sight (”Oh no, Uncle Muncher has eaten the front door.”). Other stories in the comic were Pinkie Puff the Magic Elephant, and ‘We All Live in a Big Yellow Caravan’, in which around 30 people lived in a caravan that was both big and yellow.

I consider it my duty to let my readers know what all the cool kids are doing and, today, the cool kids are doing this.

1. Go to Google Images
2. Search for your full name
3. See that very first picture? That’s you that is.

Here’s me:

Which, for some reason, reminds me of that thing where you take the name of your first pet and the first street you lived on to get your porn star name (Uncle Muncher Cray, if you were wondering). Such a disappointment… when I could have been a virtuoso violinist…

…or a baseball star…

…or even a mailman (Oh! The postman always gets the mail…)…

I am just glad I didn’t end up as this guy…

…who is probably the same guy who is wanted for stealing cars in Kentucky and made it so hard for me to get a driving license when I first came to the States.

Anyway, I haven’t googled myself for a while and, when I did, I came up with a New Rule:

When you google your own name, if you show up on the first page, your life is a success.

Yay! I Win!

I am only a little sad that some other Kevin Lawrence is the official Coach Kevin.