2010-03-26 0845: I exist now! At least I exist on Google Maps. That is to say, my neighborhood shows up on Google Maps. Until recently, my neighboorhood and its several streets were just a blank area; a few months ago, the streets appeared but with incorrect names (I figure from an earlier developer's plan).
2010-03-24 2015: Several weeks ago, I bought a copy of the St. Matthew Passion by J. S. Bach (BWV 244). In listening to this extraordinary music, which I had never heard before, I was surprised to hear a familiar melody. It was a hymn we had recently sung at church. The Episcopal hymnal has a number of hymns with music composed or adapted and harmonized by Bach, and after some hunting, I was able to find out that the hymn is number 168 in the hymnal, "O sacred head, sore wounded." Wikipedia tells me that this hymn is based on a medieval poem, and the melody was composed in 1600 by Hans Leo Hassler (originally for a secular love song whose title translates as "My heart is distracted by a gentle maid"). The hymn is also known as the Passion Chorale.
I should mention that the recording I got is the highly-regarded recording by the Gächinger Kantorei and the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, directed by Helmuth Rilling; with soloists Oelze, Danze, Schade, Goerne and Quasthoff. (This is Hänssler-Verlag CD 92.074, 1999; it was recorded in 1994.)
2010-03-23 2230: I finished a fine book: The Jews in the Time of Jesus, by Stephen M. Wylen (Paulist Press, 1996). The book is lucid and interesting. Wylen sketches the political history of Israel from the Exile to the time of Jesus, as the Macedonians, the Maccabees and then the Romans controlled the land of Israel. He gives a lot of interesting background on Judaism and how it developed, and he describes the source texts we have available about this era. These include the New Testament, books by Josephus, the Dead Sea Scrolls, various apocalyptic texts, and the Mishnah. He details the different political factions and religious sects active at the time of Jesus; who they were and what their interests were. These sects include the Pharisees, who survived the rebellion against Rome to become the founders of modern rabbinic Judaism. Another large group were the Hellenists, who lived as Greeks but who were Jewish believers; they disappear from history but it isn't clear if they became Jews or Christians. But they had a large influence on Judaism. For example, the modern Seder follows the form of a Greek symposium, a meal where the participants give speeches on a chosen subject and make toasts of wine. Wylen also places the early Christians in the context of first century Judaism, and explains what the "Gospel titles and types" (such as "Son of Man") applied to Jesus meant at that time. Finally, he explains why the Christian religion, which began as a Jewish sect, separated from Judaism to become an independent religion. At this point, the author affirms that both Christians and Jews have a role in God's plan; he naturally rejects the doctrine of supercessionism (where Christianity replaces Judaism).
One particular reason why I wanted to read this book was to learn what Jews at the time of Jesus believed about the Messiah—did any Jews expect a Messiah who did what Christians believe Jesus did, a Messiah whose mission was to suffer and die for the sins of the world, a Messiah who would become the Risen Christ? Wylen says directly that this doctrine did not exist in first century Judaism. But then he says something surprising: rather than weaken the Christian message, it strengthens it, because it shows that the Resurrection was unexpected. Therefore, the faith of Paul and the evangelists may be seen by Christian believers as a demonstration of the reality of the Risen Christ.
2010-03-23 2200: Today I mowed my lawn for the first time this year. It was a mild, sunny afternoon, and my lawn is getting green after our cold, snowy winter. I don't always look forward to yard work, but I'm glad it's getting warm. And I am glad when my lawn looks nice, which it does after it is mowed.
2010-03-23 1130: I noticed on the instructions for 1040 Schedule A for line 7 that a new motor vehicle can be a "motorcycle (defined below) with a gross vehicle weight rating of not more than 8,500 pounds." (A motorcycle is defined to be a "vehicle with motive power having a seat or saddle for the use of the rider and designed to travel on not more than three wheels in contact with the ground.")
2010-03-20 2315: I am very grateful that the Democrats have finally passed the health care reform legislation. I think this is going to be good for Democrats when they go up for re-election this November. I think opposition to the legislation is at a high water mark right now, and as the public gets used to the bill, Republican rhetoric will prove to be hyperbole; the Democrats will lose fewer seats than expected this fall.
I am surprised that the Democrats actually passed the legislation. When the Scott Brown election happened, I thought it was finished. I hoped that it would be possible to put together a much more modest reform. But the Republicans overplayed their hand; they expected that their adament opposition to reform would kill the legislation and damage the Democrats politically. They hoped that the Democrats would face the political consequences of supporting major social legislation without having anything to show for it. This prevented compromise and more modest reform. I think eventually passage of this legislation will be regarded as a historic political accomplishment: the Democrats had a bare 60-vote supermajority in the Senate when they passed it, which of course they lost before the final vote. LBJ passed the great social legislation of the mid 1960s with much larger supermajorities.
One important part of the new legislation may have a strong and positive effect on the economy: it will enable self-employed people to buy insurance in exchanges. This will enable people to start their own businesses without fear of losing health coverage. I've wondered through the debate on health care reform how many people with great ideas cannot realize them because they can't affort to give up their current jobs for fear of losing health coverage. So innovation might be an unexpected benefit of the new legislation.
2010-03-20 2315: This morning, I ran what I believe was the best 10K (6.2 mile) race I've ever run: a 52:37 time in the Rodes City Race. This is an 8:30 minute/mile pace, a pace I've never ran for that long. I think what enabled me to run so well was that I had a bowl of hot cereal early this morning, instead of running on an empty stomach (my usual habit for races).
The race was pleasant: it was mild (50 degrees perhaps) and sunny. The race began about 15 minutes after sunrise in downtown Louisville, and went through the Highlands, a wealthy neighborhood with many beautiful Victorian houses, before returning downtown. This might have been the eighth time I have run this race. It was a fine way of celebrating the first day of spring.
2010-03-14 0845: Happy Pi Day! An article on CNN, "On Pi Day, one number 'reeks of mystery'", has an interesting link, to a web site that lets you search the decimal digits of pi for your birthday or any other number. My birthday, "10041959", occurs at position 158,993,596 counting from the first digit after the decimal point (not counting the "3."). (According to the article, pi has now been computed to 2.7 trillion places.)
2010-03-13 2200: For the second Sunday of Lent, we sang a wonderful hymn by John Donne (1573-1631):
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(This is hymn 141 in the Episcopal Hymnal 1982; the music is a 17th century tune So giebst du nun, harmonized by J. S. Bach.)
Today, a small treasure arrived in the mail: the copy of the Verdi Requiem I ordered. This is the recording by Robert Shaw and the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, with soloists Dunn, Curry, Hadley and Plishka (Telarc 2CD-80152; recorded in 1987). This recording is superb; Telarc is known for its digital recordings, and the performances are of the highest artistic quality. The recording brought home to me the anguish and drama of the performance I saw by the Louisville Orchestra in January. One stanza particularly affects me:
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2010-03-13 2100: Last month, I finished reading a fine book: Earth: an Intimate History, by Richard Fortey. I wanted to read something that would provide an orientation to geology, for the sake of my planned work in volcano seismology, or at least be a good read about a topic I've always found interesting. Whether the book will be of particular help in that regard I cannot say, but it did prove to be very interesting and well-written. (I expected it to be good, having read his fine book Life.) Fortey takes his readers on a meandering tour of various places on Earth where important increases in geological understanding took place, particularly in regards to plate tectonics—how the movements of continents provided clear solutions to complex and confusing geological problems. These include the history and formation of what is now known to be the same mountain range: the Appalachians in North America and the Caledonians in Scotland and Scandinavia, which were split when the Atlantic divided the ancient supercontinent of Pangea. Fortey introduces critical new geological ideas in a disarmingly gentle way, showing a geological puzzle that seems rather modest until its true significance becomes clear.
Fortey opens his book with with a visit to Mount Vesuvius and its environs; there he pays homage to the Temple of Serapis, an ancient Roman ruin now believed to be a marketplace, but which now serves as a shrine to geologists. The marble columns show damage from marine animals, signifying that they had been immersed after their construction. But they are now again above sea level, showing the land itself had fallen and risen. The gradual processes that caused this served as inspiration for Charles Lyell; an engraving of the Temple appears in the frontispiece of his book Principles of Geology and is reproduced by Fortey in his book. Later in the book, Fortey visits another temple, a Hindu temple at Ellora in India, carved into basalt ("negative architecture"). This is in the Deccan Traps, an enormous basalt flood lava formation that formed at the time the non-avian dinosaurs became extinct. This tremendous volcanic event has been identified as a possible cause of that extinction.