Personal

  • Amber got very em­bar­rassed every time I sang, “This Christmas, baloo-bitty-boo” to the tune of the “Last Christmas” cho­rus.
  • Gave my tes­ti­mony to the dea­cons.
  • Dinner with Terry and Dante, the car­oled af­ter.
  • Tijerinas vis­ited for Christmas. The Space and Rocket Center were closed, so in­stead we went to Animal Trax, the ex­otic pet store.
  • Adopted a kit­ten: Arabella
  • Hosted a board game day on New Year’s Eve.

My Thoughts

  • Do Roman Catholics be­lieve we can only know ob­jec­tive truth through the pope, coun­cils, the mag­is­terium? If so, how can we make ob­jec­tive state­ments about those items on which the Church has not spo­ken? (How can you say Hamlet is ob­jec­tively bet­ter than Twilight with­out an au­thor­ity?)
  • What are your hid­den de­faults? You have a choice in many ar­eas of life that you never con­sider the op­tions. You don’t have to buy the cheap­est op­tion. You don’t have to send your chil­dren to gov­ern­ment school. You don’t have to buy your child a smart­phone.

Writing, Links, Podcasts

December 2022 Summary

Brian

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Playing with ChatGPT

Brian

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Notes

  • Ben De Bono
    • If your choice is be­tween two bad op­tions, there’s a third op­tion you haven’t yet con­sid­ered.
    • If you can get off pre­scrip­tion drugs, you should.
  • C. S. Lewis, Learning in War-Time
    • Why study lit­er­a­ture dur­ing World War 2? But hu­man­ity is never at peace. And spir­i­tual war­fare is con­stant.
    • Christians do the same ac­tions as non-Chris­tians, but to the glory of God.
  • Joffre Swait
    • Hold life lightly. Don’t dwell over­long on tragedy or peril.
  • Everlasting Education pod­cast Ep. 20
    • Classical ed­u­ca­tion is not a cur­ricu­lum, for­mula, se­ries of steps or stages. It is a ped­a­gogy and a pool of knowl­edge.
    • Trivium is meth­ods ap­plied to each sub­ject (BK: is that his­tor­i­cally clas­si­cal?)
    • Make stu­dents self-mo­ti­vated to learn
    • Mastery be­fore cre­ativ­ity
    • Study the whole, and the con­nec­tions be­tween parts of the whole.
  • Online Great Books pod­cast Ep. 159 Filling the Trough
    • Behaviorism: (BF Skinner) Carrot and stick, mea­sured goals, stu­dents are blank slates for teacher to write on. Done when the cor­rect be­hav­ior is reached. Most com­mon in mod­ern schools.
    • Cognitivism: ob­serv­ing cause and ef­fect in na­ture or the lab. Making mean­ing. Participating in learn­ing.
    • Constructivism: cre­ate mean­ing as a group, teacher is a “guide on the side” in­stead of a “sage on the stage”. Taken too far, leads to sub­jec­tivism.
  • The Literary Life Podcast: Witches, Wizards, and Magic
    • What is the dif­fer­ence be­tween magic and mir­a­cles? What magic is for­bid­den? (Divination)
    • If you can’t read sto­ries about sin­ners, you can’t read the Bible.
  • Doug Wilson: Every gov­ern­ment is a theoc­racy; every gov­ern­ment has a state re­li­gion. America’s is sec­u­lar­ism.
  • Ad Fontest pod­cast, Concerning Pipe-Weed
    • Alcohol and to­bacco should ac­com­pany and en­hance con­tem­pla­tion or con­ver­sa­tion, not be en­joyed solely for their plea­sure. Otherwise, they are mas­tur­ba­tory. (BK: not sure I agree with this but it’s an in­ter­est­ing thought. Would this in­clude solo video games, low­brow books, dessert?)
  • Scott Hahn: Roman Catholic church be­lieves vic­ar­i­ous sat­is­fac­tion in­stead of pe­nal sub­sti­tu­tion: Christ ful­filled the Law on the cross by lov­ing God with all his heart, soul, and strength, rather than tak­ing on sin and God’s wrath. Taking Eucharist is how you ful­fill the First Commandment and en­ter into Christ’s sat­is­fy­ing jus­tice. The Father did not put our sin on the Son and treat us as right­eous.
  • Peter Kreeft: The Brothers Karamazov and The Lord of the Rings are the two great­est nov­els ever writ­ten.

Quotes

  • “There, peep­ing among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the moun­tains, Sam saw a white star twin­kle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the for­saken land, and hope re­turned to him.For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and pass­ing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever be­yond its reach.” –J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
  • “So you were thrown away,” snapped Granny. “So what? She’s hardly more than a child, and chil­dren throw us all away sooner or later.” –Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites

Words

  • Wanderjahr: year spent by an ap­pren­tice trav­el­ling and prac­tic­ing be­fore en­ter­ing the pro­fes­sion of his trade