King Arthur Movie Tristan

We are reading The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini in class. The story is very capturing and real right from the beggining. The first page introduce one of the main characters in away that gets you curious and makes you want to read more.
Just a short quote from the top of the first page in the book:
"I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975."
So far I have read a few chapters, and I am looking forwards to see how the story ends.

Amir struggles through the whole book, just to get his father’s recognition. Until the moment where Amir wins the Kite tournament. Amir has never felt worthy of being his son. As he says in the book, all he ever wanted is to to be approved by Baba. Amir believes that it is his fault that his mother died giving birth to him, and that Baba hates him for taking his wife away. Baba loved Amir’s mother very much.

For a couple of weeks after the tournament, Amir feels like his father's son. It is a bitter sweet feeling for Amir. He do have his father's recognition, but he has lost his best friend, Hassan.

One of the very strong realtionships that shines through Khaled Hosseini's writing, is friendship. There is a very strong linkning between Amir and Hassan. They grew up together and have played with eachother sience they where babies. Hassan is the one of them that would do anything for his friend, and he does. He always stand up for Amir, protect him against Assef and his gang. "For you a thounsand times over!" that's what Hassan repeatedly says to Amir. After they are separated as children, Amir returns to Afghanistan from America many years later, looking for redemption.

Photo from this site and Photo from this site.

Saw this by Andrew Brown on petitionary prayer ....

[...] The second question is whether prayer works on the pray-er as a form of pain relief. It obviously sometimes does and I can't imagine any remotely plausible way to run a controlled trial of these effects. Now, my Christian friends would object at this point that the point of prayer is not "pain relief" and that prayer does not deliver from anguish. I don't think it does. But it makes life capable of being borne, and that is sometimes the only possible step forward.

Nor, in the accounts I have, do people pray for the pain to stop. They pray not to be alone and abandoned within it. As Rowan Williams put it in his Times interview: "The point of praying is to open yourself up to God so God can do what he wants with you. You come with empty hands, as silent as you can be and say, 'Over to you'. So you could say the function was to make you the person God wants you to be – in the full awareness that that might not be quite the person you think you want to be."

This invites the obvious response from the Onion: "God answers prayers of paralysed little boy: 'No' says God." But I still think Williams is talking about something else here. And I will still light candles for my friends when I visit a cathedral, not because I think it will do any good, but because sometimes a futile gesture is the only kind you can make.

I have to disagree with the ABC when he says .... "The point of praying is to open yourself up to God so God can do what he wants with you. You come with empty hands, as silent as you can be and say, 'Over to you'. So you could say the function was to make you the person God wants you to be – in the full awareness that that might not be quite the person you think you want to be."

That doesn't describe my petitionary prayers at all :) Doubtless I'm less spiritually evolved than the Archbishop of Canterbury but I really try, even if it embarrasses me, to ask God for what I actually want - if you can't be transparent with someone who's omniscient (and someone who loves you) who can you be that with? And if it's all about "your will not mine" why make a petitionary prayer in the first place?

I like what Eugene McCarraher said Herbert McCabe said about petitionary prayer ... McCabe’s advice is to just go ahead and ask for what you really want—a good grade, money for the mortgage, Grandmom getting better, not drowning. You’re not fooling God by praying for things you don’t really desire but rather think you should desire. Maybe you should pray for those things—the Holy Spirit will lead you there eventually—but if you can’t even pray for the things you do want, how are you ever going to pray for the things you should want?

Here is the week 5 betting podcast, complete with everything you need to retire early.

Paulie Grouper is in the building.

Let us know how bad is was this week...

Twitter - @2ndnshort
E-Mail - 2ndnshort@gmail.com

I came upon this page today, World's Greatest Visual Artists, and spent too much time looking at sculpture and paintings :) Here are two sculptures from an artist on the list, Anna Hyatt Huntington ....


- Mother Bear and Cubs


- Joan of Arc

Now that the season is fully underway we can start to look at the Heisman race.

1.) Denard Robinson QB, Michigan

Denard is a very special athlete, he is not the greatest passer in the world but he does enough with his arm, and more than makes up for it with his feet. So far this season big blue has struggled on defense (see giving up 37 to UMass) but have put up enough points to get away with it. Denard does everything on offense for Michigan and leads the NCAA in rushing yards even after missing 3/4 of their game against BGSU.

Stats: Passing 57-80 731 Yards 4 TD's 1 INT, Rush 79 Carries 688 Yards 6 TD's

2.) Terrelle Pryor QB, Ohio State

Terrelle like Denard is a dual threat QB and is freakishly athletic. Pryor can get it done passing or running, and has used both of them as they have been rolling so far this year. Ohio State looks really good as the second ranked team in the country and with Pryor behind the wheel they look tough to beat.

Stats: Passing 71-107 939 Yards 10 TD's 2 INT, Rush 43 Carries 269 Yards 3 TD's

3.) Kellen Moore QB, Boise State

Not to take anything away from Kellen but to compare him to the previous fellows on the ground is not fair, but through the air is a different story. Kellen Moore is the unquestioned leaded of the Broncos and has them firing on all cylinders coming out of the gate this season. He has Boise State right where they need to be at 3-0 and has them looking very good through the toughest part of their schedule. If they go undeafeated he has a legit shot to win this thing.

Stats: Passing 62-95 873 Yards 8 TD's 1 INT

4.) Andrew Luck QB, Stanford

Right now Andrew Luck is the best QB in college football, a couple of other guys are close, but right now Luck is the top dog. Andrew is a big dude, and has a rocket cannon arm, he is exactly what NFL scouts look for. Luck pilots an undefeated Stanford team that will face it's toughest test in Oregon this weekend. If luck comes out on top he might shoot up this board.

Stats: Passing 64-102 912 Yards 11 TD's 2 INT's

5.) Patrick Peterson CB/KR, LSU

Like Suh and Berry last year Peterson is the defensive guy highest on the board this season. Peterson has all of the tools that will one day land him a job in the NFL, but for now he is a force for LSU. Peterson is absolutely lock down on the outside, and kicking to him is a really dumb idea. Paterson does everything for LSU and although they are down this year Peterson is way up.

Stats: 11 Tackles 2 INT's 14 Punt Returns 253 Yards and 2 TD's

Just FYI we did not forget about the defending champ Mark Ingram, he is still a beast. But due to the fact that he has missed time this year we are keeping him off the list until he runs all over Florida this weekend. Then you will see him again.

HIGHLIGHTS!!!







Andrew Luck and Kellen Moore were left out for obvious reasons...both monster studs though...

Never seen anything like this before. QB throws a pick on the two point conversion, not game deciding but I guess a momentum shift from what it sounds like. The play is dead as soon as the interception but the DB's still run it out 10 yards or so, the whistle blows and the play is over. But one of the DB's is still running towards the QB (who is not a happy camper) like he is going to block him...well that didn't work out to well for the DB...



#dudegotflippedprettybadly #qbrevenge #fakeextrapoint

Just stumbled across this gem, it's one of the NFL's greatest ever Barry Sanders. Sanders was probably the quickest running back that ever lived, I remember watching him and wondering how he ever got tackled.



#shifty #yikes #alsoridiculouslyfast

Neither the heart cut by a piece of glass

in a wasteland of thorns

nor the atrocious waters seen in the corners

of certain houses, waters like eyelids and eyes

can capture your waist in my hands

when my heart lifts its oaks

towards your unbreakable thread of snow.



Nocturnal sugar, spirit

of the crowns,

ransomed

human blood, your kisses

send into exile

and a stroke of water, with remnants of the sea,

neats on the silences that wait for you

surrounding the worn chairs, wearing out doors.



Nights with bright spindles,

divided, material, nothing

but voice, nothing but

naked every day.



Over your breasts of motionless current,

over your legs of firmness and water,

over the permanence and the pride

of your naked hair

I want to be, my love, now that the tears are

thrown

into the raucous baskets where they accumulate,

I want to be, my love, alone with a syllable

of mangled silver, alone with a tip

of your breast of snow.



-Pablo Neruda






--------------------


Yet another wonderful poem by Neruda. I think my favorite lines are

over the permanence and the pride

of your naked hair

I want to be, my love, now that the tears are

thrown

into the raucous baskets where they accumulate

It's both passionate and beautiful. I like the imagery he is creating.

Reading his work you get the feeling that he loved a woman with all his heart and soul.

Profile: Justin Blackmon WR Oklahoma State #81, Sophomore

If you have not heard of this kid yet, it's not your fault. Justin Blackmon is only a Sophomore and just started to make an impact this year.

He red shirted his first year (probably because they were loaded), and last season only caught 20 passes for 260 yards. This year is a horse of a different color; to say he started off hot would an understatement.

Through three games Blackmon has caught 24 passes for 431 yards and 8 TD's. So he has already crushed all of his stats from last year, and has only played in three games.

Throwback clip from a Texas High School game here. This play would of worked fine if the WR blocked, but WR's don't block...nice catch tho.

PS how many divisions of football do they have in Texas...9-5A powerhouse???...what the hell does that mean, is 1-1A the best or is 10-10A better? None of this makes sense. Divisions should go 1-10 best teams are in 1 and the worst in 10...BAM problem solved.


(bigdaddydog1)

Spellbound - James Richardson

And what of the child Bad Magic
clanged shut in a bluebird,
who sat half-lit in the re-leafing arbor,
listening for his old name in the family hubbub,
who meant to cry out ... but seedflash, hammer of wings ...
couldn't hold to his dream,
small and quick as a spark, of having been
a child once? Who couldn't see into those windows,
quick as sparks, where slowly they still played,
who meant ... but shrill, but two flights twined
outflinging ... And sometimes in the clatter
of coffee on the lawn, their voices lowering
and slowed (that he could not tell
from landslide, from preliminary thunder),
they would seem to speak of him
something ... but it was years
and he meant, but too-swift heart,
flit like forget and South like a soft downstairs,
and something sang him something flew him away ...

All That Died in the Cat-Punctured Mouse - Dean Young

was needless to the eternal mouse
who gigantically stands over me
as I drop his used-tea-bag body into the trash,
even the trash standing over itself
with stink by the end of the week
suggesting a thing of beauty may linger
not eternally in the mind but it's not
beauty's fault, it is the mind's.
The mind is made of milk
and refrigeration has its limits.
So while in Italy, see as many Caravaggios
as you can and I will look here in my bushes
and grocery store. I will go through my closet.
It is shadow that brings forth grace
he would have agreed with Leonardo,
some things are truest only glimpsed
although reflectology can reveal
how a ruffian becomes a cherub,
the eyes that were once open half-closed,
a hand now lifted to a cheek.
Still as sugar is the house, distant
stays the sea, the eternal part of my friend
must be needed elsewhere which may account
for my continued grief. Come back
it's silly to plead yet the moon comes back
and it is everything to me, the springtime
crickets, the cheese steaks of Philadelphia,
my brain inside a bell until static overwhelms
the broadcast like a fire alarm a history class
and no one runs or screams,
having been so well drilled.

Really Random Tuesday is hosted by Suko.




Happy Tuesday everyone. This past week was a busy and interesting one. We had back-to-school night for both the children last week. This being our first time going to a high school for one of our children's back to school night. Our son is in his freshman year. We took his schedule and visited each class, met the teachers and got to look around the school. Of course, I was waiting to see what his English teacher had to say, that being my favorite subject :)



They are currently reading The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck.



Also on their reading list for this year is Romeo and Juliet, The Odyssey, The Pearl and All Quiet on the Western Front. *sigh* Going to his high school and walking down those hallways brought back some memories.



Our daughter is in the 5th grade. Her teacher requires the children read 30 minutes everyday, and the parents have to initial a log confirming the reading has been done. She's currently into the Goosebumps books.









On a different note, I've actually been very busy crocheting lately. I tend to crochet more during the fall and winter months. It's very relaxing and I always enjoy picking up my hook and yarn and creating something.





I made this scarf for myself, green is one of my favorite colors. I recently grabbed that copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, the cover caught my eye right away and it's a classic I've been meaning to read for a while.








I had some purple cotton yarn lying around and whipped up a hat.









These have a flower on one side.












Enjoy your Tuesday. What are you up to today?

My air conditioner/heater broke down a couple of weeks ago. I had thought it was the best time for it to do so, as this time of year is neither hot nor cold, but for the last few days we've been having a heat wave - today it's 102 degrees - and I think my brain is becoming denatured from the heat. Anyway, it's too hot to write a detailed post, but here are some tidbits:

- an article at Thinking Faith by Jesuit astronomer Guy Consolmagno .... Couldn’t God have designed a gentler universe?

- an article at Christianity Today on the book To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. Here's just the beginning of the article ......

Hunter, professor of religion, culture, and social theory at the University of Virginia, is author of "Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America and The Death of Character: On the Moral Education of America's Children".

"To Change the World" comprises three essays. The first examines the common view of "culture as ideas," espoused by thinkers like Chuck Colson, and the corrective view of "culture as artifacts," as recently argued by Andy Crouch in Culture Making. Both views, argues Hunter, are characterized by idealism, individualism, and pietism.

Hunter develops an alternative view of culture, one that assigns roles not only to ideas and artifacts but also to "elites, networks, technology, and new institutions." American Christians—mainline Protestant, Catholic, and evangelical—will not and cannot change the world through evangelism, political action, and social reform because of the working theory that undergirds their strategies. This theory says that "the essence of culture is found in the hearts and minds of individuals—in what are typically called 'values.' " According to Hunter, social science and history prove that many popular ideas, such as "transformed people transform cultures" (Colson) and "in one generation, you change the whole culture" (James Dobson), are "deeply flawed."

The second essay argues that "the public witness of the church today has become a political witness." Hunter critiques the political theologies of the Christian Right, Christian Left, and neo-Anabaptists, showing that unlikely bedfellows—James Dobson, Jim Wallis, and Stanley Hauerwas—are all "functional Nietzscheans" insofar as their resentment fuels a will to power, which perpetuates rather than heals "the dark nihilisms of the modern age."

The third essay offers a different paradigm for cultural engagement, one Hunter calls "faithful presence." Faithful presence is not about changing culture, let alone the world, but instead emphasizes cooperation between individuals and institutions in order to make disciples and serve the common good. "If there are benevolent consequences of our engagement with the world," Hunter writes, "it is precisely because it is not rooted in a desire to change the world for the better but rather because it is an expression of a desire to honor the creator of all goodness, beauty, and truth, a manifestation of our loving obedience to God, and a fulfillment of God's command to love our neighbor." ......

- A few days ago an interview with Rowan Williams was published by The Times (subscription only) which touched on gay bishops in the C of E. Here's a bit about it from Ekklesia .....

Archbishop of Canterbury fails to bridge gay row gap

[...] It is Dr Williams' comments on gay clergy and bishops which have drawn instant attention from reporters and commentators, however.

He declared: "There’s no problem about a gay person who’s a bishop... It’s about the fact that there are traditionally, historically, standards that the clergy are expected to observe. So there’s always a question about the personal life of the clergy.”

Asked what is wrong with a gay bishop having a partner, the Archbishop replies: “I think because the scriptural and traditional approach to this doesn’t give much ground for being positive about it. The Church at the moment doesn’t quite know what to make of it...”

In the past, before assuming his key role within the Established Church, Dr Williams, as a pastor and acdemic, had affirmed gay relationships both pastorally and academically.

But he sees his priority now as holding the Church of England and the Anglican Communion - with its warring factions - together.

Responding to his latest remarks, gay human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell accused him of being inconsistent and hypocritical, while the hardline group Anglican Mainstream strongly objected to any gay bishops.

In its own leading article, The Times newspaper challenges the idea that the church has no room for reform or change on traditional, scriptural grounds - which has been the basis of the argument for welcoming gay people advanced by a growing number of evangelicals in recent years.

The paper declared: "In seeking a settlement within Anglicanism, Dr Williams risks diminishing its prophetic voice. If he were to worry less about politics, he might find the resources to strengthen Anglicanism and find spiritual fulfilment of his own. For with his profound theological insight, Dr Williams is better placed than anyone to, in the words of Matthew’s Gospel, discern the signs of the times." .....

- I can' remember if I mentioned this before, but those who are interested in learning more about Ignatian spirituality can read a online book about it - What Is Ignatian Spirituality? by David L. Flemming SJ.

Don't know how I missed this, but I did. Here is the Million Dollar Hair Man Troy Polamalu guessing the snap count exactly and leaping over the o-line. Pretty swagged...


(brku789)

http://www.prlog.org/10957992-scrappers-have-proven-to-be-world-famous-via-the-underground-clown.html

OK, so I have seen a lot of crazy football videos in my time, so many that while searching for the "wake up with hits" I usually find myself in a deep dark corner of the internet looking for something new. Here to help us all today is Marky Thompkins.

Now this is no traditional hurdle here, this is a full on guy standing straight up jump right over him for a touchdown so nasty they have to penalize you for it hurdle.

Just take a look at the ridiculousness of this play...he walks on the dudes back after jumping over him...and the kid he hurdles is a normal size dude were not talking about him hurdling Kenny Powers buddy, were talking a real human...


(mrheavydutyone)

By deep dark corners I mean this video has 704 views right now, but it was just on deadspin so look for that to go up...