The Brothers Karamazov, ★★★★★

Having just read the Brothers Karamazov, I found this film to be quite rewarding. This is 12 – 45 minute episodes, I presume made for television. Spectacular is an understatement. The acting, the filming, and the script writing were all superb. For the script writer, reducing a lengthy novel and yet retaining the substance of the book would have been challenging and yet done flawlessly in this series. The filming is most outstanding, with the beauty of old Russia coming out with each scene. There was no hint of soap opera or cheap acting in this film, and all the actors were very convincing in their roles. Too bad they couldn’t be included in the choice for the countless Hollywood screen awards, since this film would definitely win. The subtitles often had misspellings, and grammatical errors were rampant, yet it was still easy to figure out what was being said. If one loves Dostoevski, then this movie (series) is an absolute must.

The Intolerance of Tolerance, by D.A. Carson ★★★★

It takes no brilliance to figure out what this book is about, and Carson does a masterful job of showing how the new definition of tolerance is truly anything but tolerant.Carson starts by showing that tolerance has changed meaning. The historical meaning of tolerance was to endure, bear, or put up with the differing beliefs of others. The new definition means to accept as equally right or true the differing positions of others. Carson shows how this change has evolved historically, and what it has meant in the destruction of morality, public discourse, and the very fabric of society. Finally, he offers a Christian response in ten points, several including using the new “intolerance” as an opportunity for evangelism, remaining entirely civil in public discourse, and finally, being willing to suffer while trusting God for standing up for the truth. The book is a thought-provoking read, and shows a cultural grasp of what Christians might expect if they wish to engage the world in the public square. I’ve always enjoyed the books of DA Carson that I’ve read, and this text certainly maintains his high standard as a premier Christian author.

Great American Art: The Broadway Musical, by Bill Messenger (Teaching Company) ★★★

Bill Messenger did another Teaching Company series on the history of jazz, which I liked considerably. Though I was not terribly interested in the broadway musical (far preferring “classical” music), I thought this would be an interesting series to hear out. Messenger starts with the minstrel format, showing how it was a parody of a parody of whites imitating negroes imitating whites. This evolved eventually into ragtime, vaudeville and tin pan alley, now considered to define American music. Eventually, through the work of various greats as Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein, the full-blown American musical emerged. Messenger follows the broadway musical all the way up to the turn of the century, showing how the genre has changed over time. He offers many musical examples, often performing himself on the piano. This is a fun and informative series, even for a person not terribly interested in Broadway.

My fascination with writing is provoked by seeing others writing and getting published. Particularly, I noted that brother Dennis used to have an ACC Journal, edited by him and Jim Fodor, and eventually Joe Haring. These journals came out during the years 1983-1987 at a time when I was living in Chicago and enduring residency and doing my Ph.D. work. Dennis had attempted to reform the AC Church to thinking more about their doctrine and belief systems. These Journals have been recently scanned and posted on the internet, with only 1 issue missing. In the long run, I’m not sure if the publication did any good, but I’d have to allow the editors to speak for that. Dennis no longer belongs to the ACC and lives out of country. Joe Haring is dead, and Jim Fodor now teaches at a Papist college, with a belief system that I’d identify as theologically liberal (i.e., non-Christian). Many of the other authors no longer belong to the ACC, or have moved on in life. Maybe they were writing to themselves?

Which leads to the question as to why we write? Perhaps most writing is writing to the self. Perhaps it is a clarification of the mind, an organization of thoughts, a systemization of concepts, a way to pass time. I wonder of all that is written, how much is actually read. Anything longer than what I have written up to this point tends to be passed over, as the contemporary mind cannot tolerate an attention span greater than about 30 seconds. because it is easier for anybody to write and publish to the world, we are barraged with massive volumes of “important” script that we could not possibly have the time to read, even should we be able to read for 24 hours/day and live as long as Methuselah. This constrains me to write less, write pithy, write summaries of thought rather than volumes of detail. Anything more than what can be read in several minutes will be a matter of writing to the self.

So, I will read much, and write little.

Classics of Russian Literature, by Irwin Weill (Teaching Company) ★★★★

I originally started to listen to this series several years ago, and found it to be somewhat boring. I made it through about 4 lectures. Recently, I devoted myself to reading Dostoevsky, and returned to this series. Having read some Russian literature, Weill began to make sense, and I found the series to be considerably more enjoyable. Weill’s attention is definitely directed toward Pushkin, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy. He spends several lectures apiece on 20th century writers, though Solzhenitzen is given only one lecture. Many of the 20th century authors were quite appealing after Weill’s discussion, but the particular book or play was either unavailable on Amazon.com or moderately expensive, and not available for Kindle. This was a touch frustrating. In all, Weill presents an appealing presentation for delving in the Russian Literature, and an excellent summary for the person versed in the Russian author.

Crime and Punishment (Film) ★★★★★

This is a Russian adaption of the Dostoevsky novel by the same name, made for television, and in 8 episodes. Having just read the novel, I was quite curious about seeing how a Russian filmmaker would render the novel. This series stuck very close to the book, and minimal artistic license seemed to have been exercised. The sets and acting were for the most part superbly accomplished. There were only a few rare scenes where the acting was slightly “soap opera-ish”. Raskalnikov was totally superb in his acting. The filming was superb. On Amazon.com the only real complaints were about the subtitle translation. True, there were frequent misspelled words and grammatical errors but these were never so egregious that one could not immediately figure out what was said. For those who love Dostoevsky, this is a MUST have. Do NOT get Hollywood versions of the Dostoevsky novels, as they have been best performed in the mother land. If you must have the movie in English and don’t know how to read subtitles, then you shouldn’t be watching movies at all but going to English school. Betsy and I are now working through Brothers Karamozov and soon the Idiot, both also made for television, the Brothers Karamozov (soon to be reviewed) is equally superlative in its production and accuracy to the novel. Nothing is better than reading the novels themselves, as Dostoevsky’s writing style and the minor nuances of his text could never completely put on film. I would highly recommend reading these Dostoevsky novels before ever watching the films.

Sermons on Romans, DM Lloyd-Jones ★★★★

Lloyd Jones would spend Friday evenings at church slowly working through the book of Romans in an expository fashion. This took him a number of years to accomplish, preaching a total of 353 sermons in the series. This makes for a total of 290 hours and 20 minutes of sermon. Lloyd Jones numbers among the great preachers of all time, preaching in a conservative fashion from the Reformed perspective. In most cases he is fairly conventional, though at times he does bring objections to the most eminent Reformed theologians. In particular, his perspective on Romans 7 is unique, in that he holds this chapter as speaking of the non-converted sinner under conviction of sin. So, it is neither the non-converted person you would find on the street, nor the converted. His perspective on what Paul meant by “Israel” and the “Jew” are also somewhat at odds with convention, though he is quite firmly not a British-Israelite. Altogether, it is solid teaching and very informative. These sermons were listened to by me over the last several years while I was riding the bicycle on the trainer in the garage. As you might detect, I worked out a lot.

The discussion immediately began to focus on critical aspects of relations between physicians and nurses and techs at GSH. There was a prevailing notion that the old behaviors and attitudes of surgeons would no longer be tolerated, as it was destroying the ability of nurses and techs to work constructively and contribute to the well-being of patients. Surgeons, so it is said, do not listen, and operate under behavior patterns that assure that mistakes will happen. Procedural techniques to fix this problem include creating pauses before cases, and having debriefings after cases. During regular operations, hostile relations will be sought to be removed in order to allow the free interchange of information among all parties involved in patient care.

There is much good to this model. It realizes that the surgeon is not God and cannot have command of all aspects of things in the operating room or on the patient floors. It appreciated that various other disciplines such as nursing, dietary, physical therapy and others have contributions that should be considered in the physician decision making process. This model realizes that when there is a breakdown in comfort among various groups interacting in a hospital, mistakes are going to be made that were otherwise preventable. I raise absolutely no objection to these ideals, and feel that GSH needs to recruit assistance from outside themselves to correct these relational issues. Yet, there is something missing from the discussion noted by the surgeons but nobody else. To that I will address.

The grass was never greener in the past. Yet, it seems like the hospital is now trying to fix something that they spent the last twenty years destroying. I am not sure that the airline industry and the plethora of consultants have a grasp as to what is really broken. I recall the years when I would make rounds twice a day. During these rounds, I was usually accompanied by either the patient’s nurse or the charge nurse. Ideas were exchanged, thoughts on patient care discussed, and then some social exchange occurred. I knew the name of all the nurses on the surgical floor, as well as their hobbies, family situation, and length of time that the nurse had been at GSH. None of this occurs anymore. It’s not just the nurses’ fault. With declining reimbursement, I had to be busier to maintain a solvent practice, meaning that more surgical cases had to be performed, leaving me less time for other things. Tension between family, hobbies and work usually meant that compromises had to occur at work. About ten years ago, I stopped doing evening rounds. About that time, nurses also stopped rounding with the doctors. Because the hospital had to cut back on employee costs, nursing aides were the first to go. This meant that nurses had no time to round. Then, electronic medical records came into being, which meant that nurses had not only less time with the physician, but also less time with the patient.

Meanwhile, inappropriate behaviors by physicians had become of increasing importance to hospitals. All it takes is one mean-spirited, demanding physician in a bad mood, or, perhaps a kind but incompetent physician in any mood, to make life miserable for everybody in the operating room and on the ward. Oddly, throughout the 20 years of my time at GSH, there has ALWAYS been one or two physicians under extreme fire from administration. Somehow, when one naughty physician is appropriately silenced or removed from staff, another physician rose to take their place. Often, this was a physician who may have had just slightly inappropriate behavior in the past, but then received the spotlight, which assured that the intensity of maladaptive behaviors would increase. The physician might have been sent to anger management training (no comment on that, watch the movie Anger Management!), or worse yet, sent to Seattle for psychological investigation and therapy. Should a hospital need to appropriately remove a physician from staff, lawsuits could be expected, unless the hospital had adequate documentation to support their claims of persistent and enduring physician misbehavior. Thus, the evolution of incident reports. Incident reports are written now for every possible behavior that might be interpreted as maladaptive, including walking onto the wards with crossed eyes. Any joke, any statement, any reference that might be overheard and misinterpreted by the hearer would lead to an incident report. When a real incident occurs, then the hospital will enquire of all employees as to comments or statements that might have been uttered by the doctor producing the incident. These are all kept in files outside of the purview of the physician. Oddly, the only person in this grand production that was not writing incident reports was the physician, regardless of the misbehavior of the employee toward that physician.

Not surprisingly, the ultimate result of this has been a widening rift between physicians and the hospital. Those physicians who are most dependent on the hospital, the surgical specialties and OB/Gyn, have had the hardest time adapting. Surgeons have complained bitterly in the past about the widening rift between the surgeon and the hospital employees, but this has fallen on deaf ears. Thus, when the hospital shows an interest in correcting the alienation of surgeons with the rest of the hospital community, it represents a favorable move that hopefully is not too late in coming.

I had mentioned that surgeons and surgical subspecialties have been defined as having the greatest behavior problems at the hospital. What is it that is different about surgeons that makes them bad boys? Is it that it takes a certain greater amount of ego and ambition to be a surgeon than other specialties of medicine? Only a select few wanted to go into surgery in the past, since the training was extreme, and the risks that the surgeon would take were extreme. I saw many bright young doctor drop out of surgical residency in order to go into a specialty that possessed a tincture of sanity. The few that survived residency often went into fellowships, which were even more demanding on the person. After about 5-9 years of abuse in the training program, the young surgeon would be spit out onto the community in order to practice their trade. Their ability to do brutal things to a patient and yet have them survive could for the most part be attributed to ingrained habits, routines, and developed skills that occur automatically. Success in the operating room is possible when the techs and nurses mesh with the particular style of the surgeon. Of course, this is far more critical for large, complex cases than for small routine procedures. The stakes on complex surgeries tend to be huge, and the ultimate responsibility rests upon the surgeon to get the patient through. It is known that post-operative care is just as critical as the intra-operative care, and so similar demands are placed on the nurses and ancillary personnel on the floor to perform commensurate with the expectations of the surgeon.

What happens when the system breaks down? Complications occur, patients die, and fingers get pointed in all directions as to responsibility. Physicians become angry, nurses and techs become frightened or despondent, and further disruption of the system into a fatal spiral occurs. The hospital responds with checklists and policies. Niceness is enforced. Feel-good sessions are enacted. The root problem is ignored.

The surgeon used to be considered as captain of the ship. The airline pilots who were consulting for GSH acknowledged the importance of having a captain on an airplane. The pilot of the airplane has sole responsibility, and is allowed the final decision for matters of concern that occur on an airplane in flight. Because of the breakdown in relations between surgeons and nurses/techs, there is no captain of the ship in a hospital. Decisions are made my meetings and multiple consults. Everybody deserves an equal say in the decisions. If a nurse or other employee feels the physician to be in error, they have the hospital support to correct that decision and change the physician’s order or not fill the doctor’s order. This has happened to me many times, and has happened many times to other physicians that I know of. To respond in an emotional manner would generate an anger management recommendation to the doctor.

The airline equivalent is appropriate here. In order to keep things totally safe, we should spend the rest of our life taxiing our airplanes around on the tarmac. The stewardess (now called flight attendant) would have a chance to drive the plane on the tarmac once in a while. Everybody will feel warm and fuzzy.

It is hard to compare the world of the airline pilot and that of the surgeon. The example of following protocols is often given of Captain Scully landing the AirWest plane in the Hudson. It was a tremendous decision. Oddly, he didn’t call a case management conference. He didn’t hold a discussion of options. He didn’t worry about offending the co-pilot, who happening to be flying the plane at the time. He immediately took total control of the plane. He would have not tolerated a stewardess protesting his decision, and might have even acted in anger if the stewardess had the audacity to do such a thing. Surgery is always operating under an adverse event. Things are never normal, which is the reason for surgery. Much is not predictable. The human body is not a finely tuned aircraft whose every part and function is known. If we really had to compare the airline and health care industry, then we should force the Airline industry to operate mainly in inclement weather, with a 30% unreliability placed into all the instruments. The pilot could never totally trust his instruments. I really don’t think we’d see the same industry-wide track record for the airline industry. We might see more pilots forced into anger management classes for failing to respond  properly to extreme stress.

Physicians used to be the orienting factor for quality health care. Many of the great clinics, such as the Mayo Clinic, Oschner Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Virginia Mason Clinic, and others were created around a single surgeon who attracted patients. These physicians set the tone of excellence for the entire clinic. Today, hospital advertising tends to promote first class facilities, and techniques such as laser surgery or robotic surgery. Doctor names are rarely ever mentioned. When doctors are illustrated, it is typically a room with either a team of physicians and nurses and ancillary people, or a group of physicians together. In a sense, this is understandable. But, it is like advertising an orchestra while focusing on the second violins and never mentioning the conductor. The second violins are vital, but nobody really cares who is playing second violin if the conductor is von Karajan.

The old paradigm of private practice medicine tended to keep the physician stable in the community. Now, physicians tend to be employed by hospitals or large physician groups, and their life situation tend to be far more mobile. As an example, hospitalists have been at GSH for at least 7-10 years, with 10-15 physicians in the group, yet only three of the hospitalists now at GSH have been at GSH for over 2 years. It becomes hard to build functional teams when most of the physicians and employees on the team are transient. Worse, without the stable physician base, it can be challenging for hospitals to promote physicians on their team. Thus, the public focus is on things that do not promote quality, such as new hospital buildings, new computer informatics systems, and new gizmos in the operating room.

My solution to this whole problem was somewhat novel, and required a Sabbatical to realize. After returning from Sabbatical in 2009, I decided that the safest solution was to never, ever do a complex case again. My patient outcomes at GSH historically have been superlative for thoracic cases, hepato-biliary and pancreatic surgery, gastric and esophageal surgery, and complex oncologic cases. Regardless, with a system that I viewed as broken, I was uncomfortable having my patient risk the hospital experience under my responsibility. I do not feel that the hospital has yet allowed surgeons to be the lead driving force for quality improvement. Therefore, I have advised complex surgical cases go to the university for their surgical treatment.

The system is broken between physicians and the hospital and its employees, and I’m delighted to see the hospital taking a preliminary move toward identifying the problem and trying to fix it. I do NOT want to be misinterpreted as implying that this is a problem limited to my hospital. It is a problem that exists in most hospitals in the US, and represents the changing culture of health care. For my hospital, it is most vital that they respond quickly to an ever deteriorating condition of dysfunctional relationships. Thus, my strong support for bringing in an outside agency to help restore a workable dynamic in the hospital.

Understanding Photography Field Guide by Bryan Peterson ★★★★★

This is a great little book that I mostly skim-read. Peterson writes well, and covers a plethora of subjects in the small soft bound book. There are several things that make this book a good read. First, the book is loaded with little gems to make your photography easier and better. It is not a comprehensive manual on how to take special types of shots, but simply offers the best advice for just about any circumstance, whether it be macro photography, night photography, people pictures, etc., etc. The second thing I really appreciated with the book is how Peterson would often show a very bland shot, and then show the same shot taken with a few tweaks that turn the scene into a phenomenal photograph. He tells you exactly what he does, giving all the camera setting information for you to know the precise conditions of the photo. It is a fun read, not the best book for a photography novice, but a very helpful read for a middle of the road photographer.

The Emerald Forest ★

This movie is supposedly based on a true story and is presented by various eco-environmental groups as a moving and compelling argument to save the rain forests. Because of its high reviews on Amazon.com, I decided it demanded a re-watch, having seen it many years ago. The story is quite simple. A young engineer in charge of building a dam in the Amazon basin is out with his family near the construction site, when the young (about 7 year old) son is taken captive by a tribe which was isolated from civilization. This boy grows up in that tribe and becomes a leader. Ten years later, the father eventually finds his son, but is caught in the cross-fire of inter-tribal warfare. The raiding tribe has made contact with civilization and has procured machine guns, and thus have hauled off the young ladies of the tribe to be prostitutes. Meanwhile, son  weds a young tribal lady, only to find her as a captive of the warring tribe. Using his now alienated father for assistance, the girls are rescued and son decides to stay primitive rather than go back to his roots. Upset with the dam that father has built, son calls on the frogs to make it rain, and a heavy rain coupled with new sympathies of father, father dynamites the dam and the progress of man is halted.

While this movie is reportedly based on a true story, it is quite clear that much of the events are fictitious. Hollywood needed to make a statement, and didn’t seem to be concerned about truth. Thus, when they made statements at the end lamenting the loss of the primitive savage and rain forest, they give numbers that any credible thinker would question. The filmography of the movie was okay, but not great. It is clear that the film crew had three or four locations at most. But, what about the movie? Why would it get such a low rating from me? This movie would be best thought of as a merger of Al Gore in Inconvenient Truth and Brooke Shields in The Blue Lagoon, with a story line written by Margaret Mead. The script writer had tried to develop the innocent savage theme of Margaret Mead, perhaps not realizing that most of what Margaret Mead wrote about her adventures to the South Pacific were a total fiction, and should have been condemned to the genre of the Harlequin Romances rather than credible science. Unfortunately, Mead was devoured by the non-critical ideologues of academia and was sold as an argument against civilization and for the peace-loving, amoral primitive man, not driven by money, greed or passions. This movie makes light of the alternate belief structure of the primitive Amazonian. They are able to call on the frogs to make rain, without explanation as to how they might have the power to do this.This leads to a beautiful non-sequitor, in which we should not destroy rain forest because if we were sensitive to “Mother Earth”, we could pray to frogs who would help us destroy the advance of modern technology. The movie leaves out that these primitives live in constant fear of the spirit world, which is an ugly taskmaster, and not the benevolent loving God of the Judeo-Christian faith. A favorite scene of the movie was the swimming hole, where the naked young Amazonian men would meet the equally naked young Amazonian women. It was a mixture of the opening scenes from Margaret Mead’s “Coming of Age in Samoa” and various scenes from the Blue Lagoon–entirely fictitious and entirely wishful for free-love without bounds or constraints or defined morality. If only the scriptwriters could actually live in one of these communities for a while to see that the female always takes a seriously subservient mode to the man. But, academic fictions contribute to even more fictions, and the most gullible among us, the Academics, sell this trash to us without any thought as to its truth content.

The movie poorly asks the question as to which culture or civilization is best. Is it the primitive native of the rainforest, or is it the so-called civilized man? The referential framework for making this judgement in the movie is the question of who treats the earth the best, and clearly, the primitive native wins out. But, that is not really a fair question, since it is not the primitive native making this assertion, but rather, it is the civilized man using the technology and knowledge that is despised to fight technology and “knowledge”. It suggests that there is a primitive knowledge that is lost (note the very last statement of the movie!), but the movie makes clear that what is lost is a “knowledge” of the spirit world, a world that most modern man choses to believe does not exist, but those that are of a Christian heritage would ascribe to the demonic world whose torments are best to be delivered from.

Regarding the concern that anthropologists have to preserve primitive cultures, that is a total hypocrisy, since they wish to have access to these cultures, but nobody else. After all, if a primitive culture exists that you don’t know exists, it doesn’t matter whether or not they exist. Yet, the obsession with preserving primitive culture as a reference point for where modern culture has gone wrong fails. Margaret Mead used several isolated cultures in Samoa and New Guineas to build an argument for feminism and sexual liberation, an argument that is specious at best by denying what we see in man every day as a depraved person. We build utopian or mythical worlds to escape what we see is evil in our own culture, yet fail to grasp that we are chasing nothing but a fantastical creation of our mind devoid of reality.

In conclusion, the movie is inconsistent and ambiguous enough to make any decisions regarding either cultural judgments or environmental concerns. The movie offers no greater reference point for making any further judgements, either regarding morality or culture. Thus, one must turn elsewhere for these decisions. It is no wonder that The Emerald Forest has not had a lasting impact, and no wonder that the environmental movement and anthropology comes across as a touch insincere.

Understanding the World’s Greatest Structures: Science and Innovation from Antiquity to Modernity, by Stephen Ressler (Teaching Company) ★★★★

This is a fascinating tour of structures mostly built within the last 100-200 years throughout the world, with an orientation around first bridges, and then buildings. Ressler is a civil engineer, and so the orientation of the course was entirely around the design and mechanical features of bridges and buildings that have allowed for their great length or height. It is a most fascinating story of design failures, learning curves, and serendipitous success.  Ressler is reasonably non-technical, though I wish he would have included at least one lecture on the real mathematics of design–not all of us are science dummies. Ressler has an interesting style of teaching, but most effective. His personality struck both Betsy and myself as a cross between a close friend R.B. and Mr. Know-it-All Bullwinkle Moose. Both Betsy and I enjoyed this lecture set tremendously both because of the topic and the teacher, and recommend it to our friends.

Schubert: The Complete Songs, with Graham Johnson ★★★★★

This is a fairly lengthy work of 40 CDs representing the complete songs of Franz Schubert. The common aspect of the Hyperion production is the pianist, Graham Johnson. The vocalists are a broad assortment, many quite well known names, but all being superb in their delivery. The recordings are also completely top-notch. The length makes this a little challenging to listen to all at once, and this is my second time straight through. The brilliance of Schubert as a song writer is reflected strongly in this production. The song cycles, especially Schwanengesang, are superlative. The entire cost of this set is a royal bargain, worth any classical collection.

Zemlinsky: Complete Choral Works and Orchestral Songs, conducted by James Conlon with the Kölner Philharmoniker ★★★★

Zemlinksy was an Viennese contemporary with Mahler, Strauss, and Schoenberg, and acquainted with all of those. Being mixed Jewish, Muslim and Catholic, he eventually emigrated to NY City in 1938. Unfortunately, his life was always spent in the shadow of his better known contemporaries. His music resembles a merger of Mahler and Strauss. The EMI performance here is apparently a reissue, as EMI seems to be the only record company that has produced Zemlinsky’s works in depth. He is a worthy composer and most of his works do not deserve the obscurity that they have received. This album will definitely be enjoyed by those who enjoy choral works from the turn of the 20th century Viennese genre.

Trumpet Concertos by Haydn, Hummel, Neruda, and Weber, by Niklas Eklund ★★★★★

These are four  baroque and classical trumpet concertos, with only the piece by Dedrich Weber being written for a valved trumpet. These are played by Eklun on a modern valved trumpet. Eklund has a few legendary trumpeters to compete with, the most recent being the masterful performances of Wynton Marsalis. Yet, Eklund holds his own, have a fluid, very non-brassy tone to his instrument that is most pleasurable to listen to. To put it bluntly, Eklund’s performance is quite stupendous. Naxos offers very affordable recordings, and these are most worthy of a classical collection.

The Emperor of All Maladies, A biography of Cancer, by Siddhartha Mukherjee ★★★★★

After having been in the cancer field for over 25 years, this book still was able to provide insights and stories in the “war” against cancer that I was quite unaware of. Dr. Mukherjee starts with a review of the most primitive and ancient treatments for cancer, which typically were to do nothing, or even worse, to attempt to do something. He does a masterful job of describing how the nature of cancer slowly has come to be understood over time. Mukherjee elaborates on the earliest attempts at surgery, followed by attempts with radiation and then chemotherapy for cancer. Occasional serendipitous successes often led to either skepticism or unbridled optimism regarding possible cancer cures. Mukherjee paints a masterful picture of interacting actors in the scene, including physicians attempting against the advice of colleagues in the first chemotherapy trials, colleagues outright rejecting too aggressive of researchers, drug companies hesitant to engage in the development of expensive new drugs, and public opinion spinners all interacting to generate the interest and then funds to permit cancer research to occur. Mukherjee, being a medical oncologist, definitely provides a serious bias towards the defeat of cancer through finding just the right chemicals, receptor blockers, and pathway interrupters. Though he writes with a conservative tone, one is still left with the idea that all we need is a short amount of time and another godzillion dollars and cancer will be in the past tense for everybody. I heard that statement at a major medical meeting from the head of the NCI in 2008, alleging that with the current progress, we would not see a cancer death after the year 2012–that leaves 9 months for them to find a cure.

I appreciate how Mukherjee refrains from being totally inclusive and chasing every possible storyline, but selects out the main channels, such as the driving forces for the development of the NCI and American Cancer Society, while omitting the development of such groups as the Susan Komen breast cancer story. He’s honest in noting that for the most part, we still remain in the primitive stages of finding the solution to cancer. His stories orient around the Sidney Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, and that is understandable. He beautifully paints a personal face to oncologic care through his stories of patients, both under his care and other physicians. This book can be understood by both physicians and lay alike, and a most worthy read.

The Cathedral, by Dr. William Cook (Teaching Company Series) ★★★★

This is a series of 24 1/2 hour lectures offered by the Teaching Company in the video format only. Cook provides an informative 24 sessions, progressing from the Roman to Romanesque to Gothic to modern architecture of the cathedral. Cook’s main focus was on the superficial architectural design, and on the artwork, consisting of the design work, statues, and stained glass seen throughout European cathedrals. Him greatest emphasis was on the Gothic cathedrals of France, and he chooses to elaborate on the greatest of the French cathedrals, leaving the cathedrals of England, Germany, Spain, and eastern Europe only superficial touches. Though I find that he spends too much time elaborating on cathedral art, he is quite effective at generating an interest in paying more attention to portals and stain glass. I wish he would have spoken more about the general structure of the cathedral,  rather than limiting the interest solely to the main chapel. He also spent very little time elaborating the means of cathedral design and construction. The Teaching Company series on Understanding the World’s Greatest Structures seems to complement well this course, and Betsy and I are currently watching that series.

The 30 Greatest Orchestral Works, by Robert Greenberg (The Teaching Company Audio) ★★★★

Greeenberg reviews thirty of the greatest pieces in the orchestral repertoire from Bach to Shostakovich. Each piece includes a biographical review of the composer, the nature of the composition, the compositional style, and then what makes it great. It is a whirlwind tour that covers the most relevant pieces. The last lecture on the ones that got away leaves one feeling that probably far more than thirty pieces still could have been included. Greenberg ends with a statement about how we need to support modern composers by listening to their music, noting that the very odd compositional years of the 80′s are long gone, and that composers are again writing quite sensible pieces. Perhaps the best thing Greenberg  could do is to do a series on contemporary classical music, giving us an argument as to why we should listen to modern pieces,  showing us what’s out there, and showing us why those pieces make them worthy of our attention.

Life Together, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer  ★★★

The House of the Dead, by Fyodor Dostoevsky ★★★★

This book was written soon after Dostoevsky finished a three year term in a Siberian prison for his alleged revolutionary activities. The story is written from the viewpoint of a nobleman for whom you are never told his crime, and owes the state 10 years of hard labor. Much of the book is oriented around the first few weeks in the prison, the description of the prison hospital, the celebration of Christmas, and various prisoner stories describing events in prison or the crime that bought their prison sentence. It is a dark read, though with jocular moments, and a prelude to the even darker writings of prison life by Alexander Solzhenitsin. The book does end well, with a brief description of the release of the story-teller from prison, though that was preceded by the tale of an attempted escape. Dostoevsky excels in his ability to do  character descriptions.

Again, this Mobile Reference version is filled with multiple typographical errors from the scanning of the originals. Usually, one may figure out the proper intended word, but sometimes it was not possible. I would discourage anybody from purchasing this set. It might be cheap, but you get what you pay for.

Experiencing Hubble: Understanding the Greatest Images of the Universe, by David Meyer ★★★★

This brief Teaching Company series of 12 lectures takes one on a tour some of the most impressive images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. In this series, David Meyer, one of the managing astronomers for the telescope, provides the scientific insights and explanations as to the significance of the Hubble images. Thus, they are far more than just beautiful photographs. Meyer explains first the politics of the Hubble Telescope, and how one gets a chance as an astronomer to use this telescope. He explains how the Hubble has shown certain things such as the formation of stars, the colliding of galaxies, and even the most distant reaches of the universe. Meyers maintains a teaching level that is not too complicated, such that most could follow what he has to say, and yet maintain ones interest. In conjunction with other astronomy courses, this course serves as a fitting introduction into a small category of astronomy, that of the advances which the Hubble telescope has provided to us.

Redemption Accomplished and Applied, by John Murray ★★★★★

The is a wonderful little book written on the doctrine of redemption. In the first section on redemption accomplished, John Murray covers the act of God redeeming us, explaining why Christ needed to die, the nature of what it accomplished, and for whom Christ died. The second section of redemption applied covers the items in the “ordo salutis”, including calling, regeneration, faith, repentance, justification, adoption, sanctification, perseverance, union with Christ, and glorification. John Murray gives brief answers to false teachings, but mostly sticks with expounding on the doctrines in their positive aspects. It is not a simple read in that every sentence is loaded, but it is a book that anybody could pick up and understand. It’s one of the better summaries of the doctrines of grace that I have encountered. Murray is deeply Reformed in his thinking, and these doctrines could be summarized as the core of Reformed thinking.

The Gambler, by Fyodor Dostoevsky ★★★★
This is one of Dostoevsky’s shorter novels, and follows a young student from Russia tutoring children of a Russian General while living in a small gambling town in Germany. The student inadvertently gets the gambling bug when asked to make bets at the local casino by a lady friend of his. This leads to a disasterous episode in the students’ life, characterized by moments of extreme wealth and extreme poverty leading to a short episode in prison. The extreme wealth dissipates quickly through either inability to control the irresistable gambling urge, or by squandering the wealth rapidly on friends and careless living. Perhaps Dostoevsky was writing this partially autobiographically, since he also had a period of compulsive gambling, which he managed to kick. The book generally has a dark, somber tone to it, though a middle section where rich grandmamma comes to visit and suddenly gets caught in the gambling craze offers a comic interlude.
I read this book on Kindle. I have seen the opera The Gambler (Der Spieler) by Prokofiev in the distant past, and so will have to dig the disc out of the memory vaults and watch it again. The book can easily be read in several nights, and doesn’t have periods of lengthy dialogue or monologue that are typical of the longer Dostoevsky novels. This edition of the works of Dostoevsky is VERY poorly edited, with numerous spelling mistakes. They obviously quick scanned a text, and offered no proof-reading. You get what you pay for. The edition itself should be only 1 star.

The Junction Boys, starring Tom Berenger ★★★★

This movie was recommended to me by a doctor friend of mine, who was one of the star players for one of the winning seasons of the LSU football team. This movie presents a brief episode in the life of coach Bear Bryant, one of the winningest coaches of all time. Bear already had many successful seasons with Kentucky, and was recruited to coach the Texas A&M team. He started by forming a 10 day boot camp for the players at a place just outside of Junction, Texas. During the next 10 days, he thoughtlessly drove many players to total despair, having 2/3 of the team walk out on him. He did some exceedingly foolish things, such as deprive the players of any fluid replacement in spite of 114 degree Texas heat, causing some star players to collapse of heat stroke and exhaustion. Players remained in practice with acute lumbar fractures and other serious injuries. The final toll was his only loosing season of 1-9 wins-losses. The redemption of the movie was a brief 5 minute scene of the Junction Boy reunion at the practice camp, where he apologized for his total stupidity. The players who stuck with Bear had some sense that they benefited from this hell-hole experience and appreciated their time with coach Bryant. This is akin to kidnapped captives or abused children having a psychological affinity to their oppressor — in some ways it is a sick sort of devotion to an equally sick person. Sadly, even in the year that the Junction Boys camp took place, it was quite well known that fluid replacement was imperative for best performance in heat, and that over-practice can be as harmful as no practice at all. For coach Bryant to learn that at the cost of many young aspiring football players is nothing but a shame. There was a beautiful quote in the movie, when coach Bryant was explaining to a parent whose son was thrown off the team because he had a heat stroke that football was “war”, the parent, who was missing his left arm and spent two years with bilateral hip fractures and recently lost arm in a Japanese prison camp, responded “You don’t need to tell me what war is like, as I know it all too well. Football is not war, football is a sport” (rough quote as I remember it). This quote summarizes the theme that makes the movie worth watching. It is a good movie, very well done, but also a reminder for sports players to never forget that their sport is nothing but a sport.

Enjoy Every Sandwich; Living each day as if it were your last, by Lee Lipsenthal, MD ★

I read books or watch movies given to me by friends with great reluctance. Unless I’ve known you a long time, I typically find that the differences in world-view or likes tend to not mesh. This is an example of a book given to me by a friend who felt that it was most significant in his life. He felt this to be a great gift as well as source for meaningful conversation the next time we meet. It was a great gift, though I truly found that I could not connect with the book. Here is why.

Enjoy Every Sandwich is the autobiography of Dr. Lipsenthal, focusing mostly on the last two years of his life, when, at age 51, he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, went through typical cancer treatment with the addition of some New-age medicine, only to die slightly more than two years later. Lipsenthal candidly expresses his thoughts from the last two years of life, and his desire to enjoy life to its fullest is appreciated.

Where Lipsenthal fails is in his ability to understand fully the nature of his experience. He describes his “battle” against cancer as his war on cancer, and his dying as simply fulfilling the Kübler-Ross stages of dying. The war metaphor for cancer I find especially troubling. We never speak of the war on flu, or appendicitis, or diabetes, or dental caries, and when the war metaphor is used, such as in political campaigns or the war on drugs, it is usually by a government entity trying to dupe the public into cooperating with their silly nonsense of creating a straw enemy that trillions of dollars could be wasted in order to “fight”. It’s as though Adolph Hitler and adenocarcinoma of the esophagus were comparable entities. Regarding the Kübler-Ross stages, that is total nonsense. The emotions that a person experiences when dying are multiple and far more expansive that Kübler-Ross describes, and the variability in the order of progression (stages) is as multiple as the Betz cells in her brain, though they might be few.

What I found even more disturbing with this book is the authors’ absolute obsession with himself. He is one of the most self-absorbed narcissists that I have ever read. There is no dimensionality in his life, and the cancer doesn’t make him progress as a person. Such moments as when he threatens to leave his wife if she didn’t start connecting with his alternative medicine – New age medicine thinking was typical of his overwhelming self-importance. All that really mattered was himself. Lipsenthal doesn’t end life with notions of higher aspirations, or the feeling that the impact of his life gave others a fuller meaning, other than dragging his family and friends into the inexorable hell-hole spiral where he was headed. Following Buddhist thinking, he could give no meaning to his pain and suffering, and thus had to form a “universe” in which the pain he was experiencing was not actually real or of value. Then I think about the person Lipsenthal, he is exactly the person I would avoid, and choose not to befriend. His inspiration comes from rock music, sports, and himself. His world had no meaning and had no dimension outside of himself.

Yet, it is his advice on health care alternatives which are the most disturbing to me. Lipsenthal generates an amalgam of native American spiritism, Buddhism and spiritism, new-Age thought, mysticism, and Wiccan thought into a form of “spirituality”. True, Christian religion was mentioned, but his thoughts on Jesus and advice from scripture were most in line with what the Scripture uses to describe Satan and his lies. Indeed, Lipsenthals paranormal mystical experiences prove only that there is something out there beyond what science itself can discover. It fails to show that there are contesting “spirits” in this spiritual world, good and evil, and that evil is a true oncologic entity, not just something that the Buddhist can wish away into non-existence. Lipsenthal is most worried about happiness, which only makes sense if you conclude that there is no such thing as truth, true meaning, redemption, or morality. His second to last chapter is on love describes a love that is alien to my thought on true self-sacrificial love, as well-described in I Corinthians 13. His love is a narcissistic love, a love for self, and the warm fuzzy feeling that perhaps others also love him, and that he loves them in return.

I remain at a total loss as to how mankind can give up the eternal truths of the Holy Scriptures, and buy the rubbish of the new spirituality. In a sense it is no wonder, because Scriptures remove your focus from yourself and places it on God alone. Christ makes impossible demands on you, yet gives you the strength to live right, and forgiveness through his death (substitutionary atonement) to allow the triune God to treat you as though you did nothing wrong in His eyes. All that you must do is believe in Him. So simple. So true. But, it is so contrary to our very human nature that wishes to do the work for our personal salvation, to merit God, to become intrinsically good, to be a “self-made” person, and to honor ones self as god. For the Christian, our duty is to glorify God and enjoy Him. We give Him glory in our health and also in our sickness, as we trust Him as an all-loving God, the embodiment and ontological definition of true love. Though He has ordained all that comes to pass, we find meaning in our lives by orienting our lives, and the lives of those we come into contact with, in a worshipful relationship with our creator God. Sickness and death are a great evil, but God uses the evil that comes upon us in a meaningful way. Life in its totality becomes a joyous experience  as we live it coram deo. I  offer only one alternative author, C.S. Lewis, in his two books A Grief Observed and Surprised by Joy, autobiographical accounts that give an alternative view of the world, our existence in it, and suffering. As a cancer doctor, I can give countless examples of seeing both miserable deaths and meaningful deaths. Of the meaningful deaths, the death of a Christian holding fast remains the most overwhelming. Lipsenthal has offered a cheap imitation to the truly significant life. I pray that readers would find the shallowness of his thinking and discover the true riches of life and death as found in Christ alone.

Odds and Ends (February to March 2012) Mostly trip reports…

The year actually started out with a bicycle ride with me and Patrick. Look at the kid. He’s awesome!

Betsy and I celebrated her birthday in early February with a trip to the Oregon Coast. We dropped by Portland on the way, and when visiting brother Gaylon, noted some highly suspicious activity around Gaylon’s pad. We suspect that they were looking for space aliens. Oder? The photo is above.

We then headed to the coast. Betsy got a surprise in the hotel room, where she had balloons, cake and champagne waiting…

The coast photography didn’t turn out the best, but I’ve included a few shots…

Tillamook Cheese Factory

Making and Packaging the Cheese

Getting photographs

Gosh!!!!

Last Thursday (08MAR2012) I finally decided to do an outside ride since the weather was fantastic. I rode from home up to the Rainier National Park entrance at Carbon River, about 112 km and 985 meters of climbing. It took about 5 hours. It was very windy, and I was in snow at the end of the ride…

Carbon River entrance of Mt. Rainier National Park 08MAR2012

So, I bid you auf Wiedersehen.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, by Peter Leithart ★★★

Fyodor Dostoevsky was read on Kindle. This book is a biography written as a fictional novel. Peter Leithart desired to hold relative historical accuracy, and did this by including numerous references to particular  Dostoevsky quotes. The style of historical presentation is through a fictitious dialogue, and thus one wasn’t sure exactly what was fiction and what was truth about Dostoevsky may have actually said and did. It is not a bad way to present a complex historical character, yet one was always left wondering where Leithart was actually quoting Dostoevsky, and where he was taking artistic license. This book works best if one is quite familiar with the life and writings of Dostoevsky. Since I have just started reading his works (Crime and Punishment, and Brothers Karamazov so far), I can grasp stories taken from those novels, but left clueless during the book dialogues that reflect other works. Leithart leaves Dostoevsky as a most fascinating, and in ways most admirable character in spite of his numerous flaws. This book is best read after the reader has gained moderate familiarity with the works of Dostoevsky. The dialogues will explain the thinking and philosophy of Dostoevsky, and this is most interesting, because that is how Dostoevsky presents concepts in his novels–through the dialogue of different characters.

The God of Miracles, by C. John Collins ★★★★★

The subtitle to this book is “An exegetical examination of God’s action in the world. Collins, in this book, attempts to form a Biblical basis for God’s interaction with the world, and to describe the nature of possible interactions with the world. To accomplish this end, Collins presents the three leading camps of thought that describe the nature of God’s ongoing interactions with his creation. They are providentialism, supernaturalism, and occasionalism. Collins begins by describing what we would consider to be unorthodox views of Gods interaction with the world, such as with Deism, which simply put, states that God puts the world into motion and then leaves it alone. Thus, miracles and supernatural interactions with the world do not and cannot exist, according to the Deist. To summarize the three “orthodox” stances, providentialism holds God to have created the world with such intricacy that unusual events are built into the creation and no event violates the natural laws that God built into the world; supernaturalism believes that God created the world with intrinsic laws that govern its normal behavior, yet God interacts with the system and is not bound by the normal laws that govern the system; occasionalism holds that there are no automatic laws that govern the behavior of the universe, but that God is active at every moment in its operation, so that unusual occurrences (miracles) are simply a part of the normal behavior of God in the universe.

The remainder of the book provides arguments for and against each position. First, Collins defines terms such as nature, miracle, and causation. Then, he explores Scripture to see where instances in support of each of these three stances might occur. Collins summarizes with a leading toward supernaturalism. The last chapter of this book discusses primarily the issue of intelligent design and how it fits into Christian thinking about the creation and sustenance of the world.

This book was written before “Science & Faith” but is supposed to be an academic attempt as the same subject matter as Science & Faith. I actually found this book easier to read, and provided better pause for reflection than the Science & Faith text. Both texts are complementary with minimal duplication in discussion, and thus both books are strongly recommended by me. I realize that Collins has come under attack from both the liberals and the 7-day creationists for his stances. I find Collins 100% committed to Scripture, and no way diverting away from proper exegesis of the text. He provides an excellent defense against those who truly deviate from a strong respect for the Scripture as God-breath words, an example being the theistic evolutionists. I would hope the reader maintains a critical but unbiased mind in reading his texts.

Espionage and Covert Operations (Teaching Company), by Vejas Liulevicius ★★★★

This is an enjoyable set of 14 – 1/2 hour lectures on the history of spying from earliest records until the year 2011. There is much to like about these lectures. Liulevicius is quite entertaining as a speaker, and covers the topic of spying fairly broadly, from episodes of international intrigue, to states spying on their own citizens, and ending the series offers a solemn warning about care with the state spying on you. What I find intriguing is how often spy craft gets it wrong, often leading to worse consequences than if there were no spies, a recent example being intelligence evidence for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The few spying successes were found in WWII with the code-breaking of the German and Japanese communication signals. Our eagerness to maintain an international spy network has been troubled by numerous moles, leading to probably more deaths from spy activity than lives saved. Interestingly, misinformation given to spies has been quite effective at creating international pandemonium, and when international news alleges certain things, a strong aura of disbelief is healthy. I had wished that Liulevicius had spent more time talking about actual spy craft, perhaps even just a lecture on the nature of actually being a spy. One lecture did delve into spies in the literature and movies, and interestingly, many of these books, such as the books by Ian Fleming and LeCarre, were written by ex-spies. So, enjoy these at your own risk.

Ron Paul

Today was Caucus day, and I went very reluctantly. Believe it or not, Ron Paul showed up in Puyallup. Betsy and I got to shake his hands, hear him speak, and cheer him on. The caucus was the most attended ever, and I think that Ron Paul supporters had a lot to do with it, even though few knew that he would be in Puyallup. In all, the 25th district gave Ron a very strong showing!  Here are a few photos of the meeting…

They expected only 750 caucus members, and over 2000 showed. This was the largest ever, spirited on by strong Ron Paul supporters, few of knew he would be here.

Ron was able to give a short speech. He is quite articulate without notes or reader board.

Dr. Bruce Romig and Dr. Ron Paul

My friend Wally Nash was there. Wally tends to make good decisions, but he's for one of those other characters that remind me of Barry Obama.

This afternoon we’ll go to the post-caucus party. Rooting on Ron!

Bach’s B-minor Mass, Herbert Blomstedt conducting Gewandhausorchester und Gewandhauskammerchor ★★★★★

This is an all-adult performance (no child-musicians) on modern instruments. It is held in the choir loft of the Thomaskirche, facing the altar and grave of JS Bach. Having been in that church a number of times, I’m not sure how they fit everybody in. The acoustics were superb, and performance was most delightful. Blomstedt is a very engaging conductor. He tends to manifest a very friendly face to the musicians, frequently smiling and interacting with the musicians with his eyes and hands, while singing along with the music. The musicians seem to respond in kind to him, maintaining a dynamic spirit that promotes the spirit of the piece. As an example, when the credo speaks of the crucifixion and burial of Christ, the music is quite solemn and hushed. This immediately transforms into a most joyous explosion of the trumpets, orchestra and musicians when singing of Christ rising from the grave, and Blomstedt makes it happen perfectly. This performance is not with a large choir and orchestra, but reflects perfectly the spirit of Bach in Bach’s home. I’m sure that Bach gave a smile in the grave.

B minor mass, performed by the Neubeuern Choral Society, Enoch zu Guttenberg conducting ★★★★

This is a difficult piece to critic. There is so much good and bad about it. The performance itself was very good. The singers were very well organized. The orchestra and soloists performed flawlessly. Guttenberg conducted with intense spirit. I was surprised at how young many of the singers and musicians were. Though there were a few older people in the performance, it was mostly younger people. The choir itself was much larger than the orchestra and placed behind the orchestra, which was an average size for a Bach performance. The entire production occurred in a small narrow church, so that it seemed that the distance between the conductor and last row of the choir was quite great.

Things that bothered me were several. The recording itself did not do justice to the performance, coming across as a bit flat. You really didn’t have the feel like you were recording in a church. The conductor recently appeared to have left upper extremity surgery, and his arm was in a sling and cast, making it very distractive. The biggest flaw of the recording was the camerawork, which was constantly straying to painting and fixtures on the wall of the church. It was quite annoying. The camerawork and audio recording gets a 1 star for failing to make you feel present at a performance. Other than that, it is a worthy recording to have in ones collection.

Bach Messe in H-moll with Janowitz, Topper, Laubenthal and Prey, Conducted by Karl Richter, Münchener Bach Chor ★★★★

I have always liked Karl Richter, and his renditions of many of the Bach cantatas are absolutely first class. Interestingly, this performance, held in a large baroque styled church in 1969, seemed to be a bit flat. Except for Hermann Prey, none of the soloists seemed really moved by what they were singing, and the entire performance limped. The quality of performance was exemplary, and the performance occurred without a flaw. Even the cameraman seemed to be bored, with him rarely holding onto the performers, but focusing on the ceiling or drifting around the walls and lattice ornaments of the church. It would have been more enjoyable to simply listen to the performance, and not watch it on the DVD.

Bach h-moll Messe with Thomanerchor Leipzig, Cantor George Biller and Gewandhousorchester Leipzig ★★★

This performance had a number of distinct differences from the performances above. The choir was a boy’s choir. The alto solo was a male alto. There were added pieces in latin, some of which were sung by the cantor. The performance was quite decent, and stupendous for the boys. My problems with this production were several. First, I really don’t like boy’s choirs, except as a curiosity. Second, I find male altos to be especially harsh on the ear, even though this alto was not bad at all. Thirdly, the camera seemed to find particular fascination with the newly remodeled roof of the Thomaskirche. A nice touch was the camera panning in on Bach’s grave at the very beginning and very end of the performance.  All things considered, it was a rather impressive performance for the Knabenchor. This was a nice change from the typical performance of the B-Minor mass.

God and Time, Edited by Gregory Ganssle, with input from Paul Helm, Alan Padgett, William Lane Craig, and Nicholas Woltersdorff ★★★★

This book was a most fascinating read, though there were a few parts where the argument was not properly followed. Ganssle had assembled a very capable set of Christian scholars, all of them notably orthodox, yet all taking different views on the nature of time, and God’s relation to time. They vary from Helm claiming that God is entirely outside of time, to Woltersdorff, who asserts that God is a creature of time, with Padgett and Craig taking middle views, claiming that God in various ways inserted himself in time, or became a creature of time only during the creation episode, and otherwise is a timeless being. There are two main camps of thought regarding time. The A-series camp claims that time is “tensed”, or process theory of time, and God participates in time, though possibly not in the same manner in which we experience time. The B-series camp claims that time lacks true tenses, or, is “tenseless”, or static, and that God exists entirely outside of time. The B-series adherent would claim that for God, all moments in time in creation exist equally, thus, a million years ago is as real and “present” to God as “now” and as a million years from now. Arguments from each of the discussants point out the problems and tensions that occur with each view. I tend toward the most traditional formulation, as propounded by Paul Helm. I found it fascinating that the two most Reformed scholars (Helm and Woltersdorff) had the most opposite views – I would have thought otherwise.

I find that the greatest challenge is to comprehend the possibility of anything existing outside of space and time. As Emmanuel Kant correctly identified, it is impossible for the constructs of our mind to think outside of space and time. A similar puzzle in understanding God is to try to understand the nature of the trinity. Any explanation of the trinity falls short. Time is a concept with similar problems. Did God create time? Is time intrinsically tied to our concept of space? How can a God that is timeless interact with people that know nothing but existence in time? How do thought processes occur outside of time? Or, does God think? Does he have emotion? What exactly do we really mean by the impassibility of God? If God is the fullness of emotion, how does emotion happen in a timeless environment? How did the timeless being interact in time? How could the incarnation occur if God is timeless? Does a “piece” of Him enter time? Why would a God beyond time care for such insignificant “timed” creatures? Are you really forced to adhere to the concept that creation has no beginning or end if God is timeless and “events” thus do not occur with him?  Contrary, if God himself is characteristically in time, how does he know the future, and all things? Does time then become a “being” or entity that even God is subject to? I don’t think so. But, such questions are beyond comprehension and explanation to me, similar to trying to understand the trinity. After reading this book, I will leave the concept of time and space to remain an inexplainable mystery, not worth philosophizing over. I am left in ultimate awe, and will spend eternity in amazement over the goodness of God, the “other” beyond time and space who cared for us miserable sinners. Soli Deo Gloria.

My old list of every-morning internet news pages has changed. I rarely ever read World Net Daily any more. The only columnists that I read regularly are Pat Buchanan, Judge Napolitano, and occasionally George Will. My favorite internet sites for news are…

1. http://www.drudgereport.com/
2. http://patriot-newswire.com/
3. http://www.infowars.com/
4. http://townhall.com/
5. http://www.newsmax.com/
6. http://www.spiegel.de/
7. http://www.bild.de/
I skim through World Magazine every other week, and Bicycle Magazine once monthly. A friend subscribed me for a year last year to National Review, which I enjoyed reading, though I had some problems with its Neo-Con and Papist orientation. My current reads, of which you will be seeing reviews, include God & Time – Four Views, and Dostoevsky by Peter Leithart (Kindle edition).

My reading list this year is….

Kindle – wise

The Gambler – Dostoevsky
The House of the Dead – Dostoevsky
The Idiot – Dostoevsky
Gulag Archipelago –  Solzhenitzyn
In the First Circle – Solzhenitzyn
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich – Shirer
The Prince – Machiavelli
Babbitt – Sinclair Lewis
Affirming the Apostles Creed – JI Packer
History of the Christian Church – Schaff (read once already)
Devotional Treasures from the Holy Land – Delaney
Systematic Theology – Charles Hodge
Durch die Wüste – Karl May
Kinder und Hausmarchen – Grimm und Hauff (read once already)

Hard Books

The God of Miracles – Jack Collins
Enjoy every Sandwich – Lipsenthal
The Emperor of all Maladies
Cutting for Stone
Life Together – Bonhoeffer
The Revelation of God – Jensen
The Person of Christ – MacLeod
Collected Writings on Scripture – Carson
Christ of the Covenants – OP Robertson (read once already)
Mein Kampf – Hitler
Die Deutschen – Guido Knopf
Redemption Accomplished and Applied – Murray
The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination – Boettner
Historical Theology – Cunningham
Several Photography How-To Books
The Systematic Theologies of
Horton
Turretin
Bavinck
Shedd
Dabney
Reymond
Erickson (maybe???)

There are other books on the shelves, but, that’s enough for now. I think it will take me about 3 years to get through all these texts, but then I’ll probably add on another dozen or more in the next year.

A Prophet ont he Run: A Devotional Commentary on the Book of Jonah, by Baruch Maoz ★★★★★

Rev. Maoz is a Reformed pastor in Israel, growing up in USA but moving to Israel fairly early in life. This book is a set of sermons that he gave to his congregation in Israel and later translated from Hebrew into English.

I rarely ever read devotionals. Streams in the Desert, Our Daily Bread, and others are contentless pep-talks that get me nowhere. This book is totally different. Maoz does not labor over speculations or technical details, but simply expounds on the word before him. He doesn’t explain the chiastic structure of the book or delve into the factual basis of the whale but simply assumes it to be true. He doesn’t speculate on the change of appearance of Jonah while living inside a whale and how that might have affected the Ninevite audience. Moaz does spend much time at simply looking at the text and elaborating on what is speaking in the book of Jonah. Though I’ve had pastors preach on Jonah, I’ve never had them find the goldmines of truth in Jonah as Maoz is able to do. Maoz is able to show how Jonah closely matches our own personal lives of trying to give God instruction, and define who he should be merciful to. He shows the overwhelming graciousness of God, with both Jonah and Ninevites, in that neither of them desired God’s will, yet both in God’s sovereign grace were drawn to him.

After each chapter, Maoz includes a prayer, summary of the chapter, and then questions for reflection on the material just read. This short book shows how one can take an academic approach to the Scriptures, and yet glean a massive harvest of personal instruction for our daily lives. It is a pity that there are so few expositors of Maoz’s ability. I will soon be working on his book about Malachi, and hope that he translates many of his other sermons on books of Scripture.

The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Translated b y Andrew McAndrews ★★★★★

This book was read on the Kindle, downloaded from Amazon.com. The Brothers Karamazov is the tale of three brothers and their eccentric father, living in a small town in Russia. Each of the three brothers turned out to be somewhat different from the others, and the first 1/3 of the book is a character development of each of the brothers in turn as well as the father. The second third of the book details events which lead up to the murder of the father, and the dilemma of deciding who did it. The final third is a detail of the courtroom drama and conviction of one of the brothers. The book has many long sections of prolonged narrative and tends to move very slowly, yet constantly manages to keep you on the edge of your chair. Dostoyevsky is a true master of suspense and development of the characters in his books. He spends much time describing the smallest, insignificant details, many of which become important much later in the novel. It’s a dark novel, and seems to be somewhat autobiographical. Dostoyevsky does not spare describing the human condition. The novel itself receives 5 stars.

The Kindle edition receives only 1 star. Oddly, the bargain basement Kindle version of this novel (which I have in the Complete Works of Dostoyevsky on Kindle) is better indexed than this version was. The individual sections (books) were indexed, but not the 10-14 chapters in each section. Kindle has the tendency of occasionally jump randomly to another portion of the book, and returning to where you were reading can be a challenge. Oddly, Kindle does not have a “reset the synch” function for the farthest page read, and so to re-synch will often put you in the last pages of the book, rather than where you were last reading. I’m not entirely convinced that the Kindle is ideal for book reading, save for when traveling.

I will now be reading “The Gambler” and “The Idiot”, after which I’ll retreat to the more somber works of Solzhenitsyn, “In the First Circle” and “The Gulag Archipelago” as well as Shirers’ “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”. This is my novel reading schedule for the next several months. You’ll have to wait for reviews for the  more serious reading that I do. I welcome reading recommendations.

Keeping Score – Shostakovich Symphony #5 with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony ★★★★

Besides Bach, Shostakovich is one of the truly great composers to ever have lived. His was a life like Bach’s that was filled with tormentors and critics that had no appreciation for the greatness of the person. This film is one of the “Keeping Score” series where the director of the San Francisco Symphony engages in an educational forum that briefly describes the life of Shostakovich, while doing a quick analysis of the 5th symphony. It is quite educational, and even if one doesn’t like Shostakovich, they would find this film to be  informative. The DVD actually consists of two parts, the first being an analysis of the piece, and the second  being a live performance in London of the 5th symphony. Together they help to give a person a starting understanding of person of Shostakovich and the style of his compositions. The film is definitely intended for musical beginners, though anybody will get value out of seeing Thomas’ interpretation one of the great symphonies of all time, Shostakovich’s fifth.

Conagher, starring Sam Elliott, based on a book by Louis L’Amour ★★★★★

Betsy and I have watched a number of westerns recently, including True Grit (3 stars), High Noon (4 stars), Once Upon a Time in the West (1 star), Magnificent Seven (2 stars), and the Wild Bunch (1 star).  These films will not be reviewed by me. Several (the 1 star films) were so bad we could barely endure the entire films. Even True Grit had terrible acting, and no real moral punch to it. Sorry, but John Wayne is not the best cowboy. Conagher was completely different. Sam Elliott was a soft spoken, but very well acted cowboy who minds his own business, and keeps his promises even at the risk of his life. This gets him in jeopardy with a band of cattle rustlers after the cattle Conagher is guarding. Meanwhile, a young family moves into a lone house not far removed from Conagher, but the husband perishes in an attempt to get cattle for starting a ranch. Eventually Conagher endears himself to the husbandless/fatherless family, and …, well, watch the movie. This movie was likable because it did not create a fictional west. There were bad guys and good guys. The indians were not painted as tree hugging earth loving pacifists, but for the feared savages that settlers in real life knew them to be. Conagher did not have the miraculous art of killing 12 people with 8 bullets while shooting from the hip. He mostly behaved like a normal person would and should behave. The filming was nice with superb scenes. No “in your face” shots, or prolonged emotional drama. The action was a bit slow, but that helped paint the realism of the film. All together, this made a true-to-life but suspenseful drama, well worth watching.

History of the United States (Teaching Company Series), by Allen Guelzo, Gary Gallagher, and Patrick Allitt ★★★★

It is impossible in the course of 84 – 1/2 hour lectures to give a detailed history of the United States. Yet, Guelzo, Gallagher and Allitt do a fine job of reviewing the high points of the American experience. Starting from its discovery by the Europeans and settlement, all the way to early George W. Bush, these three lectures provide a delightful summary of the last few hundred years of the United States. It is entertaining, and gives their perspective, typically respectfully, of their view of the American experiment. I don’t always agree with their analysis and conclusions, but that doesn’t distract from their ability to give a fairly balanced discussion of America throughout the years. The most contemporary discussions on matters such as the new world order, environmentalism, women’s rights movements, etc. did not deserve full 1/2 hour lectures, but are too charged of topics to glance over briefly. All in all, the lecture series works well as all the instructors are masters at the art of teaching.

Jimmy_OBama

Hit on Jimmy OBama to play…

You may wonder what films we’ve been watching the last month. I got the Clint Eastwood collection for Christmas, and with some added additional Eastwood films (such as the No Name Spaghetti Westerns), worked through most of the filmography of Clint Eastwood. Clint primarily portrayed two characters, the first being the silent cowboy who shows up from nowhere and disappears into the sunset. In the meantime, he could shoot a handgun with precise accuracy and immense speed, thus terminating all opponents. His western films would be labeled revisionist, in that the good guys were the indians and the outlaws, and the bad guys were the government officials. Older westerns would have a moral theme, but revisionist westerns remain morally ambiguous. Thus, John Wayne would typically refuse to star in Eastwood’s films as an objection to the revisionist genre (although John Wayne rarely portrayed a morally pure character himself).

The other character of Clint is the quiet cop or detective who bucks authority, somehow seems to have the criminal figured out beforehand, usually has incompetent bosses and political figures telling him what to do, and Clint eventually solving the issue by working around the authority, usually terminating the criminals.

A lesser character of Clint seen is later years is the cranky old man, who knows better, but has to put up with the younger crowd. Such movies as Million Dollar Man and Gran Torino fit this category. Clint often has religious scenes, usually Catholic, many of them with him contending with the priest, or going against the advice of the priest. In a very strong way, Eastwood suggests that being mister tough guy and standing up for yourself is the most important thing in life. All of his movies, regardless of his role, portray this character and theme. Sadly, as good as many of Clint’s films are, they all fail to offer any suggestion of a higher morality or virtue. It is just another form of Nietzsche’s Übermensch. Hitler would have loved Clint’s films.

I find that except for the spaghetti westerns and Dirty Harry series, Clint’s early films are generally quite bad. There is a significant improvement in the quality of his later films, though even then a moderate number are not worth watching a second time.

These films are reviewed mostly in the order in which they were watched, which was in alphabetical order. The chronological order would have been a more natural way to watch his films, but the alphabetical order allowed for a better mix-up of Clint’s films. Because of the length of this post, it is given in three sections.

Absolute Power ★★★★★

This is one of Eastwood’s later films, and is a mishmash of the Nixon scandal mixed with the scandals of the Clinton administration.  The president is observed by a break-in artist (Clint Eastwood) in a rape/murder, which is covered up by the secret service. Realizing that he (Clint) cannot go to the police to report the crime, he then devises the means of bringing down the president. The action is fast and suspenseful, and the plot is unpredictable but a touch realistic.

Any Which Way You Can ★

Clint Eastwood is a retired prize fighter, now pursued by the syndicate to do one last fight, against his own personal will. He, his orangutan, and girl friend eventually resolve matters. This is supposed to be a comedy, but we didn’t find it to be very funny, and really didn’t have any significant plot or objective.

Bird ★

Clint Eastwood does not star in this film. It is supposed to be a biographical sketch of Charlie Parker, one of the great Jazz saxophonists of the past. The action is very slow moving, and is constantly taking chronological jumps as Charlie relives his past before committing suicide. Betsy and I were unable to endure more than 40 minutes of this film.

Blood Work ★★★★

Clint Eastwood as aging FBI officer has a massive heart attack while chasing a man and requires a heart transplant. He eventually learns that the heart came from a murder victim, whose sister is now asking Clint to solve the case. The plot is great with multiple unexpected turns until the case is solved.

Bridges of Madison County ★★

The Red Green Show once commented that the Bridges of Madison County failed as a movie since nobody was killed, and none of the bridges were blown up. There is truth to that statement. The only reason this movie received two stars is that the acting by both Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep was superb. Two middle aged people are going through the remains of their just-deceased mother, and discover that many years ago she had an affair. This affair is the main body of film, which occurred when a photographer (Clint) stops at a farmhouse asking directions to a bridge. The remainder of the family is off to the Illinois State Fair, and so she then spends the next four days in an increasing relation with him and they separate for good. Many parts of the film go so slow that we had to fast forward them. It was torture to watch this film. The message of the film unavoidably states that anything is okay as long as nobody finds out. The higher values of truth and purity are forgotten.  This is not a film worth watching.

Bronco Billy ★★

Clint Eastwood stars in Bronco Billy, the ex-convict who is now head of a roving circus cowboy show. It’s a rather lame film, with various characters getting in trouble with themselves and the law, mixed in with a somewhat spastic rich lady whose husband runs off on her, and she is left to live with the low lives of the circus until she realizes that they have something she doesn’t have with her wealth.

Changeling ★★★★★

This is the last film Clint Eastwood produced, and he does not star in the film. Supposedly, this film is based off of a true event. Angela Jolie is a single mother with a 9 yo son in 1928 Los Angeles. The son is kidnapped, leading Angela to seek for the child using the LAPD. A child is produced, which is very clearly not the son, even though the LAPD insists that it is. When Angela pushes the issue, she is committed to an insane asylum. Through the work of a Presbyterian pastor who was fighting corruption in the police system, she is released, and eventually a reasonable clue is found as to what happened to her son. This movie is unusual for Clint Eastwood, in that Eastwood’s characters are usually police that take the law in their own hands since the city and courts are incapable of that function. The roles are here reversed, where the police are found to be too aggressive. The common theme in Clint’s movies is the ultimate corruption in government, and this point is well made in this movie. It is only wishful thinking to imagine that matters aren’t any better nowadays – just different.

City Heat ★★

Burt Reynolds is a private detective, and Clint a police lieutenant, Clint rescuing Burt from various entanglements of the syndicate, in a film set within big city gangster town of the prohibition 20’s. Clint definitely proves a better actor than Burt in this otherwise very mediocre film.

Coogan’s Bluff ★★

Clint Eastwood is an Arizona cop sent to NY to return a criminal that he caught (how he got to NY wasn’t explained) to bring back to Arizona for trial. In the process, the NY police give him great grief, the criminal gets away, and Clint goes on a lengthy manhunt process independent of the NY detective agency. Clint tends to sexually attack every female that comes into his presence, which I guess makes him cool.

Beguiled ★★

Clint Eastwood is now a wounded union soldier, who ends up in a private girls school at the end of the civil war. The head mistress ends up keeping him and nursing him back to health, all the while preparing him to be picked up by confederate soldiers to be hauled off to prison to die. Meanwhile, he falls in love with a number of the girls in the school, and is caught making love to one of the older students. This leads to a series of tragedies since he was caught, ultimately leading to his demise. Poor Clint.

Dead Pool ★★★★★

Clint stars in the last of the Dirty Harry series, and this film is at his mature best. Lists of celebrities were published with wagers as to the greatest number of people who would be dead in a given span of time. Started as an innocent game, it turned bad when it was realized that somebody was individually picking off characters on the list. Dirty Harry happens to be on the list, and proceeds to eventually find the killer and terminate him. A second story line is Clint having to contend with the press, including an obnoxious female.

Dirty Harry ★★★★★

This is the first Dirty Harry film with Clint Eastwood. A sniper if knocking off people in the city of San Francisco, with a monetary ransom to have the killing stopped.  The killer and Clint interact, and then is released on legal technicalities. The killer then frames Clint for police brutality. Eventually the killer hijacks a school bus with children, only to be rescued by the ever-resourceful Dirty Harry.

Eiger Sanction could have done better on the plot, with Clint acting as a retired hitman, called back into duty to the service of his country to knock off several killers involved in an international spy ring. Strangely, Clint needs to perform this action while climbing the north face of the Eiger. Clint eventually discovers that he was deceived but comes out in the best. The most spectacular part of this film with the video of the Eiger climb, which unfortunately led to the death of a climber assisting in the filming.

Enforcer ★★★★

This is the third Dirty film. Dirty Harry is teamed up with a female that he considers incompetent in an effort by the city to make the police force more diverse. This episode, they have to fight a militant revolutionary gang, that leads them all over the city and even out to Alcatraz, Clint also having to do battle with the SF mayor, until he is required to rescue him from the gang.

Escape from Alcatraz ★★★★★

One of Clint’s better films, illustrating a breakout from Alcatraz. The head jailor is in best form, as Patrick McGoohan (Secret Agent/The Prisoner). The acting is superb, the story line is superb, the description of the very inhuman life in prison is notable, and you end up cheering for the prisoners that got away.

Every Which Way But Loose ★

This film was absolutely awful. It is a prequel/sequel to Any Which Way You Can, with Clint acting as a prize street fighter. The entire film was nothing but casual sex (not seen visually), bad language, beer drinking, indiscriminate violence, but worse of all, country-western music. Clint falls in love with a country western singer who doesn’t let on that she has no interest in him, until he’s chased her all over the country. A sick motorcycle gang, renegade policeman, and others are after Clint. Ho-hum.

Few Dollars More ★★★★

Clint Eastwood starred in a number of spaghetti westerns in the late 1960’s, this being one of them, and also included in the “Man with No Name” trilogy, which includes “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”, and “Fist full of Dollars”. Here he teams up with Van Cleef as bounty hunters after the big nasty gang located along the border of the US and Mexico. Van Cleef has some awesome acting very much the equal of Clint, and a young Klaus Kinski shows up in this movie. The biggest winner in the Trilogy is the music of Ennio Morricone, who deserves an Oscar of his own for the genius of the accompanying music.

Firefox ★★★

Clint is a retired fighter pilot jock, called back from retirement to assist in the theft of a highly secretive high-tech stealth airplane of the Soviets (pre-1990). The graphics are good, the plot is suspenseful, the action is quite exciting, the acting is somewhat mediocre, and the reality of the plot is marginal, making the film a three-star. Though Clint does a better “top-gun” than Tom Cruise, between playing secret agent man, top-gun, and himself, he fails.

Fistful of Dollars ★★★★

Another of the spaghetti westerns, and the first of the No Name trilogy with music by Morricone.   Clint is a Whitey that rides into town along the Mexican border to find a feud between two clans is leading to the death of the town. By pitting the clans against each other, he manages to eliminate both clans. There is a wonderful mix of suspense and humor in this movie that makes up for an otherwise short story line.

Gauntlet ★★★★

Clint is a policeman in Phoenix sent to go up to Las Vegas in order to pick up a criminal to be delivered for testimony in court back in Phoenix. It ends up that both the police chief in Phoenix and the mob set him and his prisoner (Sondra Locke) up to be eliminated. There is much shooting and tough guy action as Clint and Sondra work their way back to Phoenix to establish real justice with the police chief. Much of the story line is not terribly believable, such as a bus driving through many streets of firearm, and Clint on a motorcycle escaping by bare centimeters firing from a sharpshooter in a helicoptor. But, things get blown up, so the movie is worth watching.

Good, Bad, and the Ugly ★★★★★

This is one of Eastwood’s best films, a spaghetti western and last of the “Man with no Name” trilogy, staged during the time of the civil war, where three gents, one being Clint, and another Van Cleef, are in search of buried gold. The tales of finding the clues to the location of the gold, the interactions of “the good, the bad, and the ugly” characters create suspense in a film that is entertaining even after watching a number of times.

Gran Torino ★★★★★

Betsy and I had low hopes at the start of this movie, thinking it was going to be just another Clint Eastwood “adoration of the fictitious self” movies. It looked like he was going to racing cars, or something of that sort. It instead turned out to be something quite other. Clint is a just widowed old man who had a heroic war past, but now sits on his porch drinking beer and smoking cigarettes and watching the neighborhood being taken over by foreigners. The next door neighbors are Hmong people. Slowly, he gets to know them, and eventually comes to their rescue by offering himself up totally for them. There are Catholic religious references throughout the film which suggests that Clint has no idea about true faith, but that doesn’t denegrate from this film, which actually suggests a moral lesson. I particularly liked the Clint character, a gnarly old man, similar to a few that I know.

Hang Em High ★★★★

Clint is a ex-lawman now rancher that was lynched and hung, only to rescued by a lawman in the Oklahoma territory. He is now out to get the nine men that lynched him, after he is re-made a lawman. Seeing much injustice in the system, including a couple of kids caught cattle rustling and hung, he finds it hard to adjust to his role in the system. He eventually gets most of the lynchers, but only after they shoot him up. The action line is very irregular, and incomplete, in that he doesn’t get all nine players. Also, there is a lengthy hanging scene where hymns were sung and the preacher active, all of which seemed to make mockery of religion, without realizing that that religion is what instilled a sense of justice to begin with.

Heartbreak Ridge ★★

Clint is an non-cooperative drill sergeant with war experience now assigned to a young group of Marines in boot camp. He establishes his presence going against authority, and eventually proves himself in the Grenada invasion. If Clint is supposed to be the Marine role model of the tough – guy, he fails miserably.

High Plains Drifter ★★★

Clint is now a no-name cowboy, that rides into a lonely town in the early west where the people refuse to defend themselves from roving gangs. An old gang is supposed to return to town, and they pay Clint to defend the town. For inexplicable reasons, he has flashbacks of a previous episode when the town allowed their sheriff to be whipped to death without lifting a finger. Clint gets even by knocking off the gang, but also by knocking off the town. Ho-hum.

Joe Kidd ★★

Just another Clint western, with him as a good-bad guy Joe Kidd, who is supposed to help a dishonest wealthy man knock off a renegade Mexican who seems to be doing nothing more than trying to honestly defend his land. Eventually Clint takes the side of the Mexican and helps knock off the rich dude and his henchmen.

Honkytonk Man ★

This is probably the worst Clint Eastwood movie of the bunch, with nothing good to say about it. Clint is a country singer in the depression 1930’s of Oklahoma. He wants to go to Nashville to sing in the grand ole Opry and takes along his nephew and uncle. On the way, he teaches his 11 yo nephew to drive, since he is too drunk to get behind the wheel. He then teaches his nephew to drink, steal, and visit whore houses. The movie has no redeeming moral lessons, and worst of all, the viewer has to be tortured with country music, even worse from Clint himself. Don’t waste your time on this film.

In the Line of Fire ★★★★

One of the late films of Clint, he is a secret service agent protecting the president. He is being tracked by an ex-CIA agent who plans on assassinating the president. In his typical role, Clint is the outsider who figures out eventually who the killer is and manages to stop the assassination by jumping in the line of fire. Though many of the elements of the movie are predictable, it does make suspense and is well filmed and acted.

Invictus ★★★★★

Clint directed but did not star in this film. The stars were Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, both of whom had superb acting. This movie was based on a real historical event, though the details I’m sure were Hollywood fictions. It is the story of Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, being released from prison and becoming president of the country, but being able to set aside the long-standing grievances of the past, using Rugby to spirit the nation into breaking down the racial divide. The movie is quite moving, and wonderfully enacted by Eastwood’s direction.

Kelly’s Heroes ★★★

This is a WWII not to be taken seriously, with many anachronistic elements, like Don Sutherland playing a 1960’s hippy. Actually, Don Sutherland was probably the funniest actor in the movie. A small group of GI’s discover that the Germans have a load of gold in a bank 30 miles across the front line. They work out an effort to retrieve this gold without their commanders knowing what was happening. The film had too many unreal aspects, such as an unorganized group simply breaking through the German offensive line, and a pile of gold sitting around practically unguarded. How they got a number of well known actors to participate in the movie is a mystery to me. It was pretty bad, but at times, funny.

Letters from Iwo Jima ★★★★

This is a story of the Iwo Jima from the viewpoint of the Japanese, and mostly from the eyes of a young kid who was a baker in Japan, but pulled away against his will to fight in the war. He remained one of the few survivors of the bloodbath. The movie was mostly in Japanese with under-titles. The filming was excellent. Clint directs but has no acting in this film. One wishes he would have cameoed himself like Alfred Hitchcock used to do.

Magnum Force ★★★★

Clint stars in the second Dirty Harry film in Magnum force. Clint is out to solve the mystery of a rash of assassinations of prime crime suspects that defy conviction. He eventually resolves that it is a group of four rookie cops led by in boss the lieutenant. There is lots of fast action and stunts making it enjoyable to watch, but is typical Dirty Harry.

Apparently this movie is based on a book relating a true story of a murder in Savannah, Georgia. Clint directs but does not show in the film – his daughter does some acting in the film. A upcoming extremely wealthy young man is convicted of murdering his employee. Much of the film takes place in the trial, where truths about the wealthy person are exploited, but eventually exonerating the man of murder save for self-defense. Many other themes are woven through the book includes a voodoo practitioner, a transvestite, wealthy society women and haute society life in Savannah. It gave one a good feel for the superficiality of life in the South, where appearances were more important than reality. I presume that unless one has read the book, the movie tends to drag a bit. The directing is superb, but many scenes did not contribute to the flow of the movie, though probably made sense in the book itself, such as the graveyard scenes. Many of Clint’s later movies are better than this one.

Million Dollar Baby ★★★

Clint runs a boxing center, and trains the pro boxers. He has a girl pestering him to have him become her trainer, which he initially refuses to do. She goes on to great success, only to have an attack from the rear by her opponent long after the bell rings, rendering her quadraplegic. She eventually gets Clint to pull the plug on her since she doesn’t wish to live. The movie has lots of slow action, and unnecessary scenes, making it drag, and a terrible moral ending that suggests that killing (euthanasia) is occasionally ok. Otherwise, it wasn’t a bad movie. The acting is superb, including that of Clint, Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman. The movie does an excellent job of portraying the agony of one who makes decisions against his better judgment and then has to live with the consequences of those decisions.

Mystic River ★★

Three childhood friends eventually grow up and go their separate ways. One of them has a child that was murdered, another was the suspected murderer, and the last is the detective trying to solve the case. The movie begins in a very slow and confusing fashion, and we almost turned it off out of boredom. The movie does a good job of psychoanalyzing the effects of child abuse and broken relationships, yet never offers ultimate redemption for any of the characters.

Outlaw Josey Wales ★★★★★

This was a western starring Clint that is truly a decent film. Clint is a farmer in Missouri whose farm is overrun and family slain by renegade union men just after the civil war. Clint seeks justice, but finds that the Union remains deceptive and corrupt. Plus, the union now has a price on his head. Running from bounty hunters and ex-outlaw partner, he is continually placed into tight situations where he narrowly escapes, but befriended by indians and settlers who also are fighting for existence in a land without justice.

Paint Your Wagon ★★★

This is a fairly lame musical, even having to bear with Clint singing. He doesn’t do too bad. The cinematography and scene setups are awesome, but then, beaucoup bucks were spent to make this film. The scene is the Sacramento area during the gold-rush, when Clint and Lee Marvin stake out a profitable region yielding much gold. They also end up with the same wife, purchased off of some Mormons. The story leaves much to be desired. Worth watching once.

Pale Rider ★★★★

The scene is in the gold rush basin of central California, and a downstream mining company is harassing the upstream settlers to leave. Clint comes into town as a preacher man, and eventually settles matters, when the mining company decides to hire a gang of renegade sheriffs to remove Clint from the scene. All are exterminated, and Clint goes riding into the sunset. Actually, this is a rather well done film, with good acting, and a good flow of action.

Perfect World ★★★

A couple of jail breakers kidnap a young boy, Philip. Kevin Costner, one of the jail breakers, kills his partner, and then runs off with the kid. A massive police search is done, with Costner adequately evading capture while creating havoc and murders along their path. Costner is the main star, engaging in conversation with the kid, learning that he had a “deprived” childhood, since his mom was a JW and would not let the kid celebrate halloween or Christmas, etc. So, Costner endears himself to the child, painting a fantasy world to him.  Eventually, Costner is wounded by Philip, and then is cornered by the police, with Clint in charge. Costner is again shot against Clint’s instructions, and the child goes home with mommy. The worst part of this film is that it painted fantasies that children should experience or else they would be “deprived”. The kid was a good actor.

Pink Cadillac ★★★

Clint fills the bounty hunter role in the 1960‘s of seeking out a lady who skipped out on paying her bail bonds. This leads him into getting entangled with a gang of outlaw soldier of fortune dudes hiding out in the Sierras with the kidnapped child of the lady. They eventually get the baby back. The movie had much humor giving it 3 stars, but the typical worn-out Clint dodging bullets, driving recklessly, and managing an uncontrollable female all at the same time.

Play Misty for Me ★★★★★

This movie is “Fatal Attraction” before that movie ever came out. It is a suspenseful psycho-thriller of a lady who falls in love with a disc jockey, and then pursues him relentlessly to her ultimate demise. Clint is quite young at the time, and I’m told this is his first movie that he directed. He definitely ran a low budget but brilliant directing and acting created a masterpiece.

Rookie ★★★★★

While not within the Dirty Harry series, this film fits the Dirty Harry tradition, with Clint playing an aging cop, and Charlie Sheen as the rookie. In a break with Dirty Harry tradition, the rookie doesn’t get knocked off, but becomes a Clint Eastwood clone. The action is great, and Charlie does a superb job of acting his role. Clint and Charlie are cops in LA snaking out auto thieves, and stumble across a ring of thieves. At first, Charlie makes a series of rookie mistakes, but learns quickly in order to get the bad guy.

Space Cowboys ★★★

Clint becomes a space shuttle pilot in this episode. He happens to be the sole designer of a guidance system for satellites, that is now long outdated. It just happens that the Soviets stole his guidance system plans and used them in a supposed communications satellite of their own. This guidance system has gone haywire and the satellite in orbiting on a crash course with earth. For some unknown reason, the Soviets call on the US to repair their satellite. And, it happens that Clint and his three pilot buddies have a grudge with NASA being “dissed” 40 years previously. So, they train, struggle through bureaucratic baloney and finally make the flight. In space, they discover that the satellite is not a communications satellite but loaded with six nuclear rockets aimed at the US, which explains why the soviets wished to have it fixed. They finally send it to the moon, but, people die and Clint flies the space shuttle home to Florida without a scratch. The graphics were nice in this film, the the story was just to hokey to be reasonable.

Sudden Impact ★★★★★

This is the fourth Dirty Harry film. It seems like the later Dirty Harry films are better than the first. Clint is trying to solve the mystery of a series of killings, which are occurring from a lady (Sondra Locke) who was gang-raped. She is out to do justice. Eventually the killers are knocked off, and Sondra not identified as the killer except by Dirty Harry, who lets it all slide.

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot ★

Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges play Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, two criminals seeking for their next heist, when old ex-partners of Clint’s enter the scene and complicate matters. They eventually stage a heist of a bank vault, find previous heist money, and only Clint ends of getting away and surviving. Not exactly a thrilling film, with even a worse message.

Tightrope ★★★★

Tightrope has Clint has a detective on the murder squad in New Orleans. He is tracking down serial rape-murders, where the murderer has a past history with Clint and thus is trying to pursue the females that come into Clint’s life. The film starts with a lot of inappropriate nudity from the rape-murder scenes, but evolves into a very intense psycho-thriller. Good acting from both Clint and Clint’s daughter Alison.

True Crime ★★★★

Clint is an aging reporter working for the newspaper in Oakland. He’s troubled by a past of heavy alcohol use, and a present life of cheating on his wife through liaisons with a coworker’s wife. Then he smells out that a black man is wrongly convicted of a murder that he didn’t do, but the execution is scheduled for 12 hours from now. In the course of 12 hours, he proceeds to solve the mystery of the killer, and save the man from execution. It is a good story line, which isn’t helped by painting the main hero (Clint) as a drunken, philandering godless man.

Two Mules for Sara ★★★

Clint is wandering through Mexico, when he runs across a nun named Sara (Shirley McClaine) who is being raped by three gringos. He frees her, then they begin a collaboration to help throw out the Mexican resistance throw the French out of Mexico. This they accomplish though with the inclusion of a number of side events, such as Clint being shot in the chest with an arrow or when Clint discovers that the nun is actually a prostitute. The movie makes for light entertainment but is not your best western.

Unforgiven ★★★★★

Outside of his No Name Trilogy, this is Clint’s best western. He is a “retired” gunman and reformed by his now dead wife. A young kid comes to his place seeking bounty money paid by a group of whores in town to seek revenge on two cowboys who cut up one of the girls. Clint, the boy, and his “partner” head off to find the two cowboys. A secondary theme is a renegade sheriff in town who tends to do more harm to innocent people than to criminals, and making law only to protect himself. Clint and the kid eventually get the two cowboys, but return to town to find that the sheriff killed the “partner” for no good reason. Clint eventually gets revenge on the sheriff, and then moves himself and kids out to San Francisco.

Where Eagles Dare ★★★★★

Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton are the two main stars in this film. They are a part of a covert operation to bring back a General held captive in Schloss Adler (supposedly Kehlsteinhaus – Hilter’s hideout in the Bavarian Alps). Between incredible cinematography, stunts, superb acting, a fast paced story line, and a highly unpredictable outcome, the film deserves five stars. It’s most serious problem is that it has an unbelievable story line, with Richard and Clint singlehandedly resisting and knocking off squadrons of German soldiers without getting hardly a scratch. If that can be forgiven, the film becomes quite awesome to watch – one of Eastwood’s better films.

White Hunter, Black Heart ★★★

Clint Eastwood plays a rough, eccentric Hollywood director working on a film in Africa. He arrives before the producer, and decides to go on an elephant hunt. He can’t get the elephant hunt out of his head until the black guide is killed by the elephant Clint was trying to hunt. The movie portrays Clint as a worst possible movie director, irresponsible, inattentive to the producer, and irresponsible for other people’s lives. The movie left you hating the Clint character. Not a bad film.

Science and Faith, by C. John Collins ★★★★★

This book must not be confused with the book “The Language of Science and Faith” by Francis S. Collins, a book that would not even be worthy of one star even though written by a highly “eminent” scientist. Jack Collins here produces a lay language masterpiece, originally intended to help homeschool parents discuss issues of science, creation, geology, evolutionary biology, the social sciences, the question of miracles, etc., from a biblical Christian perspective. Jack is completely effective, while not betraying the faith as Francis S.C. has done. This book supplements other books by Jack Collins, including “The God of Miracles” which is supposedly a more technical version of this text, as well as texts that I have previously reviewed on this site. Jack Collins has a masters in electrical engineering from MIT, as well as numerous other degrees, and now teaches Hebrew at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis. I happen to know him on an acquaintance basis.

Collins tackles a formidable enterprise in his endeavor to show that the Christian faith and much of what we learn as science are not in opposition with each other. The first two chapters of the book are a basic philosophical discussion of the intention of the book. Collins then undertakes to discuss the creation narratives with a scientific perspective, especially addressing his preference for viewing the days of creation as days in God’s time, not ours. He has a chapter discussing the problem of man’s fallenness in observing the world. He discusses the issues of God’s providence and miracles in the face of the post-Hume worldview of the impossibility of miracles. He even includes a chapter on environmentalism and how Christians should view the world. Subsequent chapters deal with the age of the earth (he is in the “old-earth” camp), evolution and the development of animals. Two chapters are devoted to the defense of intelligent design. He concludes with thoughts on the social sciences. Finally, the book is ended with a discussion of the culture wars and our approach to the sciences. Though the entire book was excellent, the last two chapters were the best, and it is worth sticking with Collins to the end of the book. He especially notes how Christians have been in bitter attack against each other over minor differences in their view of the entire creation scenario.  About the only thing I wished he would have discussed would have been flood theories, the tower of Babel incident (especially since Collins is a philologist), and some of the other Biblical miracles that often come under attack by the scientific community (eg., Jonah surviving being eaten by a big fish). This book is one of the must-reads for anybody strongly engaged in the sciences to help form a Christian basis for their scientific thinking.

The Joy of Bach, featuring Brian Blessed ★★★

This short movie is a wonderful tribute to the greatest musician of all time, our own Johann Sebastian Bach. The movie is an amalgam of Blessed reenacting fictitious though highly possibly true scenes from the life of JS Bach, and modern day performances of Bach. The modern day performances were both done in standard orchestral classical style, though the emphasis was on how musicians have incorporated Bach into the most unique circumstances, such as performances on steel drums, guitars, Moog synthesizers, and you name it. Blessed effectively communicates that the music of Bach is so great, that it continues to live today regardless of how it is played. Perhaps there is no other composer that has ever or will ever achieve this distinction to the extent that has happened with Bach. This movie can inspire even those who dislike the music of Bach.

Ives: The Symphonies, performed by Dohnanyi, Marriner and Mehta ★★★

These are reasonable performances of Charles Ives, a early 20th century American composer (1874-1954). Ives uses much American folk tune and American hymn motifs in his writing. Together, he makes for very poorly convincing symphonies. His are symphonies that I would never use for my “Desert Island Collection” or attend in formal concert. I’ll settle on listening to these symphonies from time to time simply to stay knowledgeable in American music. They are not enjoyable. Better classical music in the 20th century is Russian and German.  The English speaking world flunks in the classical music realm.

Historical Theology, by Gregg Allison ★★★

Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology text is deficit of any historical context. This is a serious deficit to an otherwise excellent systematic theology textbook, and Allison attempts to provide in this text what Grudem left out. Each chapter is arranged topically following the chapters in Grudem. This creates a textbook of historical theology that has strengths but also serious weaknesses. Oftentimes, a theological discussion demands the environment of multiple topics, such as the Christological controversies of the 2-4th centuries which cannot be discussed void of the trinitarian controversies. This leaves  a text that is only half complete. Allison’s text would not be good for a neophyte in historical theology, as he would loose the entire nature of many controversies. For this reason, JND Kelly’s text for early church theological developments, or  Schaff’s History do a far better job of giving the reader a flavor as to the content of  the historical debates. Allison’s text would work better if designed as an advanced text, but this would mean a very large section for each of the topics covered, accompanied by a large amount of repetition. Many areas are woefully incomplete, such as a very poor discussion of subordinationism, the iconoclastic controversy, and the rise of covenant theology, just to name a few. The text has strengths in that it is easily readable, and could act as a jumping off point for further reading. As a primary historical theology text, others do better when they stick to a chronological discussion rather than a topical agenda.

Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky ★★★★★

It’s been quite a few years since I’ve actually sat down to read a novel, and I’m not exactly sure why I chose Dostoevsky or this book, but I’m grateful that I did. This book was read on the Kindle. It is the story of a student-intellectual self-driven to poverty, and then committing a double murder. Most of the book engages in his thoughts and actions in the weeks after the incident until he finally breaks down to turn himself in. The book moves quite slowly most the time, with the necessity of reading through quite lengthy dialogues and monologues. Yet, there is a sublime virtue in this book that truly makes it a great novel. Dostoevsky is a complete master of the art of describing pathos. One reads in a cold sweat. One feels guilty even though not the criminal. The reader experiences the anger, depression, the dilutions, the decisional uncertainty of the characters. In most novels, you are a fly on the wall, watching the scene. In Dostoevsky, you are the character, you are in the brain of the character speaking.

Dostoevsky had an interesting upbringing, being born in Moscow in 1821, and dying in 1881. His parents died (perhaps his father was murdered) when he was young, and he scraped for himself. He almost was executed as a political criminal, spent 4 years in a prison camp in Siberia where he became a devout Christian, and spent the rest of his life writing novels in the realist mode, describing the true Russia of the time. Dostoevsky artfully brings up topics of the basis for morality, the existence of God, and the Christian faith. The point of sanity in the sea of insanity through this novel is the few characters with a Christian faith, such as Sonya. Raskolnikov’s sanity exists only in the last paragraphs of the book as he inquires of the Christian faith. The book ends as though there would be sequel.

I’ll be reading much more Dostoevsky in the months ahead. I’m now working on The Brothers Karazamov and will then attack others, so sit tight.

Oceanography, Teaching Company Course, by Harold Tobin ★★★★

Tobin is a superb teacher, and except for his habit of excessively rolling and waving his hands, has a wonderful skill of conveying his knowledge and interest in oceanography. I appreciated the way he made oceanography quite personal, explaining how he developed an interest in the subject, and how the study of the ocean still drives him. I certainly learned more in this course than in many of the other science courses from the Teaching Company. My major complaint with the course material is the occasional excess preoccupation in some topics that were only peripheral to oceanography. It was not necessary to spend a whole lecture on plate tectonics, or on cosmology, as it didn’t contribute to the understanding of the ocean beyond what a brief mention would have accomplished and referral to other Teaching Company series. I appreciated the lecture on ocean ecology and pollution, but there was excess time spent on global warming and its effect on the ocean in several other lectures. Save for the criticisms, this was a valuable series and spurred increased interest in being more observant at the ocean, and considering our human impact on the sea.

2011 has been a good year. My surgical practice has slowed down a bit, and I am giving Obama just a little less support than in years past. I have not done as many bicycle rides as I wished. Betsy and I have been able to spend more time together, and that has been most enjoyable. One particular highlight of the year has been our trip to Europe, having Betsy meet Katja und Hannes for the first time, and getting to see Italy. It’s always a treat to touch base with Onkel Herbert. Russ Anderson has been very special this year in providing a real friend to go bicycling with. The elaboration of those trips last year can be found on the various blog posts in feuchtblog.net.

Betsy and I are thinking about next year. I will be going to about four surgical conferences, including the Miami Breast conference with Betsy and Society of Surgical Oncology meeting with Dr. Tate in Orlando, both in March. I’d like to go to the American Society of Breast Surgeons meeting in Phoenix in late April. Betsy and I also plan to go to the American College of Surgeons meeting in Chicago in October.  We anticipate a trip to Germany and Switzerland in early June, hopefully where I could do some bicycle riding with Russ and Carsten (and maybe Peter?), as well as seeing Katja and Hannes, Herbert, Hille (Herbert’s sister), Marike (student in Bonn whom we met in Cameroon, Udo Middelmann in Switzerland (Francis Schaeffer’s son-in-law) and our good friends Mike (and Carolyn) who is doing a year teaching Sabbatical in Lausanne, Switzerland. That might be a little too packed of an agenda, but… In November, Betsy and I are seriously planning a trip to Egypt, Jordan and Israel. We’ll do the tour sort of thing. I’ve never been to the Holy Land, but have always wished to go. If you are interested, come along with. We will be going with the Rev. Dr. John (http://www.biblicalisraeltours.com/), who I found after a long internet search.

I continue to ride my bike. Yesterday was enjoyable in taking Patrick for his first long bicycle ride. He did about 8 miles. Not bad for an 8 yo kid on a 20 inch bicycle. It got rather cold at the end, the sun going down about 15 minutes before the end of our ride. Typically, I’ll ride the trainer. It’s one of my bicycles hooked up to a virtual reality trainer (Tacx). I’ll usually have iTunes going. This last year, I’ve been working through the series on Romans by Martyn Lloyd-Jones while training. I am now down to about 97 more 50 minute sermons out of 353 sermons. That’s a lot of sermons on Romans, and tends to be repetitive. You’ll get a review on that series once I’m done with it.

While sitting at my computer, I listen to music. My iTunes has a total of 721 gBytes of music and lectures, etc. One may wonder what I do with so much music. Well, I listen to it. It’s mostly classical, a total of 359 gBytes, or 175 days of constant listening. Making a smart playlist, I started working through everything a little over a year ago. I’m now down to 94 days, or 196 gBytes of classical music left. Right now, I’m listening to a little known piano concerto by Mendelssohn, which is actually quite good and doesn’t deserve obscurity — a trait true of much of classical music.

I continue to read every moment possible. Currently I am working through Gregg Allison’s Historical Theology, and am about 1/2 way through. I am reading Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevski on the Kindle. I have a massive lineup of books remaining on my shelves and in the Kindle store that I must read. I’ll need to quit medicine just to get my reading done. For time with Betsy, we’ll usually watch things like Teaching Company series together, and are currently working on a series about Oceanography. We are becoming adept at speaking about the pelagic vs. neridic realms of the ocean, knowing the difference between plankton and nekton, etc., etc., as well as understanding the various forces that make the ocean a wonderful world. For a lighter note, Betsy and I will watch movies. We have just started the films of Clint Eastwood, a total of about 40 that we’ll be seeing. Reviews for those films will have to wait! We still don’t have television, and I refuse to pay for cable. When we must watch something, we’ll watch it over the internet if it’s available.

I will be turning 58 in 2012. I’m not sure how much longer I will want to continue practicing medicine. It’s a serious love-hate relationship. I love the practice of surgery, but it’s everything else that one needs to put up with. Government has taken complete control of medicine, and turned it into an uncaring prohibitively expensive beast. Desperately needed tort reform is now a long-gone wish. As one pundit commented, “America is no longer governed by the rule of law, but by the rule of lawyers”. Such a statement could not be closer to the truth. Political processes are always preempted by court decisions. Democratic or Republic behavior no longer exists in the USA. We are governed by the tyranny of the courts. It wouldn’t be so bad if lawyers were behaved. Unfortunately, lawyers have devolved into a subhuman species. It’s hard to know what to compare them to, but the cyclops  is most fitting. Cyclops have only one eye, are monsters seeking to destroy anything alive that is not one of their own, will act even more intentionally and violently when their one eye is put out, a threat to anything else in existence. That’s the good part about what I have to say about lawyers. Don’t get me going on their bad side.

Those of us that work in the public realm have occasions from time to time with lawyers. Much of this we are not allowed to openly discuss for privacy concerns, and so will discretely tailor my statements. Physicians are advised to avoid a jury trial as much as possible, as juries tend to ignore the facts and are easily swayed by emotion. There is no rule of law in the courtroom. The selection of juries has become a joke. It used to be a trial by your peers or neighbors. Now, it is a trial before the a highly selected group of individuals based on the bias of the judge, people who would rather be anywhere than setting on a jury or people who are so worthless in society they have nothing better in life to do. The instructions to the jury often counter the constitution, which is why I will not set on a jury. I’ve written more on this elsewhere. The prevailing consensus among Joe Public is that justice no longer exists, and that is for the most part true. Why do we do everything to avoid the courts? If our neighbor sues us for using the wrong type of fertilizer that gives him asthma attacks, the costs in court will be prohibitive, it will be unbearable stress, and a flip of the coin will determine which way the judge may lean, even after hours of defending your case. It’s too easy to create a case, as you have little to loose in the process. Lawyers will determine the case based on their merit, which means, if it is possible for the lawyer to make a good profit off of a case. In the end, the plaintiff and defendant lawyers win, and the plaintiff and defendant loose. I’ve seen so many people destroy their lives by taking someone else to court, get lost in a long court trial, and even if they win the trial, much of the money ends up squandered or in the hands of the lawyers. Nobody but the lawyers win. We were taught well as kids to never sue, and for the most part, that remains true. There are three prongs to the solution. 1. Go back to the European court process where the looser pays all court costs. 2. Use Biblical law, which truly punishes offenses to others and demands restitution or death penalty in serious cases. There is no prison term in Biblical law. If you are a violent murderer, you die. If you stole, you repay. If your debt is too great, you become an indentured servant (slave) for 7 years to the person you owe to. Bankruptcy would not be tolerated, and Donald Trump would be picking cotton for the next 30 years. 3. Return to a Christian society that thinks in a Judeo-Christian fashion and holds Christian morality as the highest of all possible goods. Unfortunately, this isn’t going to happen, even if every non-Christian were immediately terminated. So, we tolerate matters, try to keep our nose clean by living morally, and if one must suffer for doing good, they will get their blessing and reward in the end. It is good that for a Christian, this short life is not the totality of existence.

So, I wish you all a happy New Year.  Keep looking up, and keep  your stick on the ice.

Hope. It is one of the three Christian virtues. Faith, hope, and love. Just as we don’t wish to ever cause another person to loose love or faith (in Christ), we never wish to cause a person to lose hope. But, hope in what? I am on rare occasion accused of causing my patients to lose hope. Generally, I try to tell the patient the exact truth. If I don’t, they’ll get it over the internet. I feel that integrity is a foremost virtue for a physician. I have heard many doctors argue otherwise. Dr. Lauren Pancratz argues vehemently that if a lie (deviation from the whole truth) contributes to the betterment of a patient, then we should lie to our patient. I disagree entirely. Truth must be presented graciously and skillfully, but it must be presented all the same.

I see many patients that come from other doctors, mostly medical oncologists, who were never told the significance of their cancer. For many medical oncologists, hope  in “the system” must be preserved. Perhaps much of this is self-serving. I find that only 5% of patients do not wish to know the truth of their condition. Most patients welcome it, often are relieved and are happy that they can better understand their condition and make long-term plans with better knowledge of their condition.

There is a balance that physicians struggle with. If there is a reasonable expectation that the health care system can significantly improve their condition, then I will strive to be positive, even if the short term outcome is expected to be dismal. In one sense, there is always hope, but that hope depends on the objectives of the physician/patient encounter. If the expectation is to prolong life no matter how miserable that life might be, the treatment options are going to be different than if the objective is to simply offer comfort measures. Both contain hope that the therapy will work, but the outcome expectations are different. Thus, in a real sense, hope is never lost.

The source for hope is my greatest concern. Patients usually do well or do poorly in spite of me. Health care professionals have less control of a situation than they would like to believe. To trust that the health care profession will provide health is a mis-direction of one’s trust. It is always a pleasure when a patient comes to me, realizing that only God can give them hope, and trust in Him is of greatest value. It is a pity that so many devout Christians have a seriously displaced hope, trusting entirely in the physician, and not seeing that even the best physicians have feet of clay. Balance is important. To ignore the physicians that God provides is unwise. To expect that physicians always know best is also unwise. Many Christians run to Hookey-Pookey medicine (Chiropractors/Naturopaths) feeling that they are more “natural” or “christian” than mainline medical practice — that is also highly unwise.

We don’t want our patients to loose hope. We wish for them to have the correct source for their hope. We wish them to have realistic expectations. We wish them never to give up. We wish them to be able to change expectations when the facts suggest it. Mostly we wish them to maintain the three Christian virtues, faith, hope and love, up to the very last breath that they take.

Here is a book that I’ve suggested others read, yet have not (until now) read the book. It is the second book which I read on a Kindle.

This book is a truncated autobiography of Chuck Colson, known of Watergate fame. It details his rise to power within the Republican organization through low-handed politicking. Eventually, he was chosen to be one of the special consuls for Richard Nixon. He served through Nixon’s first term, and then intended to go back to his law practice when the Watergate scandal hit the fans across the country. During the time between Nixon’s second term and the Watergate scandal, pressure on Colson eventually led him to seek counsel from a friend when he became a Christian. Colson eventually was convicted, and served 7 months in federal prison, before getting released to then focus on prison ministries.

There are many aspects of this book that can be addressed. Certainly, Colson offers his own running commentary on his view of Nixon, Watergate and crisis that occurred. Much of the book is Colson coming to know himself, and realizing that he had a tendency to take control of matters. His fall from (political) grace forced a rethink of his own political arrogance. In this regard, Colson was truly moving. Colson’s change of heart to truly desire God’s will is none other than miraculous, and a testimony that we all must take to heart.

Colson always professed innocence in the Watergate events. I tend to find his testimony as believable. Apparently, he had no clue as to what happened. Colson ended up being the first person to plead guilty, which he did because he felt he did obstruct matters of investigation of the Watergate event, done mostly to protect the president. Oddly, Daniel Ellsberg, who was giving away top secret state information got off scott free.

It is a little bothersome that by the end of the book, Colson ends up as a pentecostal. I certainly hope his thinking has matured a bit since his release from prison. He also tended toward social do-goodism, defending prisoners against an unjust prison system. Sadly, this has two sides, since too often punishment in prison is not commensurate with the crime committed. Colson has a tendency to focus on wrongful imprisonment, when typical imprisonment for many is only too kind. Colson does make a good argument against the explosion of the prison system in our country, yet offers too few of suggestions as to how to really fix that.

Being a lawyer, Colson goes way too soft on addressing the problem of law and justice in our country. He tends to suggest that there are a few bad lawyers that ruin the soup. In reality, the entire legal system is rotten to the core, and Colson simply won’t admit it. His own conviction was based on the most eminent lawyers in the land, who did NOT make the judgment against Colson based on either evidence or due process of law, but rather out of pressure from a small but very vocal public sentiment. Unfortunately, with the  loss of constitutionalism in our court system, we can only expect this to get worse with time.

I agree with Colson in that the prison system is way overused, and tends to serve contrary to its mission, which is to reform the inmates. Supposing that Colson was truly guilty of his crimes, the best punishment would have been 39 lashings, total disbarment, and obligatory public service of 7 years duration at minimum wage and no diminishment of sentence based on good behavior, though extension of sentence based on bad behavior could be enforced.

Colson was kind on the news media. The Watergate scandal was essentially a creation of the news media. Ellsberg should have been behind bars and is not, thanks to the liberal press. It is no wonder that the large news services are dying. I’ll shed no tears for CNN or MSNBC. Colson was kind on liberals. He tended to feel that anybody that called themselves brother were acceptable. Yet, content of belief does matter. I hope Colson has learned this since his conversion. Those belief structures will order our thinking as well as behavior. For Colson to find vehement enemies that suddenly become best friends once discovered that they are Christians is a terrible witness of the “worst enemy-best friend” people, regardless of how “spiritual” they conducted themselves.

So, I truly enjoyed reading the book, but gave the book only three stars for lacking the depth it could have had. Colson is a delightful writer, but I do not intend to read any more of his books, which I understand are quite a few at this time. I am most delighted at his conversion to the Christian faith, and see in Colson’s story a common tale that reflects God calling us to Him, and NOT us accepting Him. I wish that Colson could have seen that in his conversion. I’m glad that God saves us in spite of ourselves, and Colson stands as a most visible example of this truth among every one of us that call ourselves Christian.