Kushana's Bible Question Page

My Good Enough Blog

Kushana Torumekia — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 19:38:00 GMT

According to me helper, a homework cheating site pronounces my blog "good enough" and asks me to write for them.

No, no thanks -- slightly more upscale venues have me on a deadline, at the moment.

/K. wipes tears of laugher from her eyes

Well, at least I am doing something right.

-Kushana

Bast Reigned Longer Than Suspected

Kushana Torumekia — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 19:23:00 GMT

A new, relatively late, temple reverencing the cat goddess found in Alexandria:

http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/33666/archeologists-unearth-temple-of-queen-berenike/

More coverage: http://dougneeper.com/2010/02/01/antiquity-more-info-about-queens-berenikes-temple/

A bit of trivia on Queen Berenice: http://www.space.com/spacewatch/coma_berenices_020419.html

-Kushana

Tutankhamun: Not Murdered

Kushana Torumekia — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 19:16:00 GMT

Sorry, James Patterson -- the cause of death now seems to be malaria and complications of a broken bone:

http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20100216/ML.Egypt.King.Tut/

-Kushana

Excuse Me, My Cell Phone Is Ringing

Kushana Torumekia — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:49:00 GMT

I have recently been reading the new book by the author of Blink. In it the author argues that 10,000 hours of practice in one skill before early adulthood is necessary for world-class mastery of that skill. That is, name the best athlete, the best artist, the best musician – the best at any human endeavor that requires focus, practice, and skill – then (he argues) that person likely had 10,000 hours of practice by the age of 20. (10,000 hours of practice after adulthood evidently is not adequate in the author’s mind.)

All of the figures he uses in his case studies came of age in the era before video games, the internet, and smart phones. (I have just been watching Frontline about the effects of technology and multitasking and doing a lot of nodding in agreement.) Mind, there have always been distractions and reasons not to apply oneself ... and there is something a bit abnormal in putting so much - into just one thing - so young. However, now I am worried: if the author is even half right where will our next generation of highly accomplished cultural figures come from? If you put 10,000 hours into a video game or online chatting or email (I have done some of all three and can speak somewhat to their charms) what have you learned that is portable – that is eternal? That will contribute to human civilization in 1,000 years?

(This is what I get for studying the humanities.)

I remember when I entered High School, one teacher gave us A Talk on how we should not be talking so much on the telephone, on putting off social activities in favor of our studies, on turning off the radio and studying in a quiet room with a bright light, a clean desk, and a hard straight-backed chair (rather than on a made bed or in an easy chair in the living room.) High School was the big leagues, the foundation of our future, and deserved a new care and seriousness &c.

I think teachers have always fought to make teenagers (and all students) apply themselves with due diligence but the skill of learning how to do one thing at a time has served me well. (Indeed there are entire contemplative traditions devoted to this as a science.) I do not think that skill will ever go out of fashion, and I think the ability to think about (and write or design or build or enact) complex things, at length, continuously, over a long period of time also will never go out of fashion.

I remember being a teenager and thinking I could do two things at once – and the discovery that, no, when I only did one thing with all my attention I truly did better at whatever I meant to do (with practice) -- and it truly got easier. Unlike the thought in the technology-saturated schools profiled on Frontline, I think kids have no trouble learning to do five things at once (or to do a little bit of five different things and think they are doing each competently – it is easy to lie to ourselves (see the Mythbusters episode of cell phones and driving)) – but I wish to teach them to do one thing at a time. They may forget all of the Four Noble Truths, all of the Five Pillars of Islam, the name of every character in the Bhagavad Gita, and the names of any of the four Gospels ... and they may (by some miracle) live in a world where no knowledge of any religion is necessary ... but if they can do one thing, in one sitting, for a minimum of two or three continuous, undistracted hours at a time (especially as part of the same endeavor carried over weeks and years) then I have done the least of my job.

(On Frontline one of the proponents of new technology argued that books have been the way we did things (replacing the oral culture of memorization and reciting) 'for a couple of centuries'. I winced for his teachers: try tens of centuries. (A bit longer (in the West) if you mean writing as primarily as governmental record keeping, a bit shorter if you mean writing as a transmitter of religion, culture, and literature. For most of that time oral and visual culture did most of the heavy lifting: universal literacy is a very recent innovation. As someone who spends most of her time trying to trace the history of people who could not write (or were not important enough for bigwigs to write about) I worry our new digital era will be just as ephemeral as the old oral culture often was. What modern microserfs blog may be just as gone in 2,000 years as the opinions, ideas, and dreams of the Emperor Augustus' unlettered slaves. I don't like that: preserved, decipherable writing is too important to history.)

-Kushana, who, after watching Frontline, has a great wish to read a moderately long book in one sitting. Or I have not memorized a poem in a long time ... perhaps I should begin to work on one. I have had - for years - a list that I have meant to memorize ....

The Nazca Lines

Kushana Torumekia — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 04:15:00 GMT

This episode on the Nazca Lines is a good introduction to ideas beyond UFOs (or ancient helium balloons):
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/solving-history/episode-guide/solving-history.html

Excellent coverage of looting (grave robbing) ... and anyone willing to take a hallucinogen in the name of history whose side effects may include nausea and death gets a tip of the floppy sun-repelling dig hat from me.

Further sense: http://pseudoarchaeology.org/b01-johnson.html

-Kushana

Article Cricical of Wheaton College Nixed

Kushana Torumekia — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 20:01:00 GMT

<:od>Here is the article and an account of what happened:
http://whitherwheaton.org/

This is Wheaton College:
http://www.wheaton.edu/

Here is their statement of faith:
http://www.wheaton.edu/welcome/aboutus_community.html

(Think for a moment what impact this might have on a professor teaching at Wheaton. What to do, for example, when teaching a class on II Timothy -- which most historians think Paul did not write. (The vocabulary and grammar are not Paul's, the ideas are not Paul's, and the issues at stake did not arise until long after the apostle was dead. Nor was there yet a New Testament -- the word translated as "scripture" in 2 Tim means "written things". There was no agreement in early Christian circles on what works were sacred and which were not -- for at least two more centuries many works circulated under the names of apostles and heroes from the Hebrew Bible in Jewish and early Christian communities.) Also, are there other college subjects that might be affected by adherence to this statement? (For example, might a Scriptural view of the nature of mankind alter which theories are taught in a Psychology class?))

Books & Culture, the magazine that accepted, then rejected, the article:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/

(I do not like any kind of "correctness" -- old or young, political or theological to be pressed upon teachers and professors. Theoretical and political fashions will pass and in this world students cannot live out their lives wrapped in the bubble of one way of thinking: they will encounter other points of view (many of which have nothing to do with their home country's politics, culture, or religion) and they will have to be prepared for this experience. No form of limited vision can do so.)

-Kushana

Aid to Haiti

Kushana Torumekia — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 02:48:00 GMT

Text “Haiti” to 90999 to send a $10 donation to the Red Cross:

To help, people can make an unrestricted donation to the International Response Fund at www.redcross.org or by calling 1-800-REDCROSS (1-800-733-2767). The public can also help by texting “Haiti” to 90999 to send a $10 donation to the Red Cross, through an effort backed by the U.S. State Department. Funds will go to support American Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti.
http://tinyurl.com/yeszc49

Or donate to the charity or aid organization of your choice (see sidebar at left):
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/13/haiti.aid.response/index.html

-Kushana

The Archaeology of Slavery

Kushana Torumekia — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 07:34:00 GMT

img style="border:none;" src='http://images.talkr.com/images/speaker_20.gif' alt='Listen to this article' border='0' /> Listen to this article

I recently watched this program on the archaeology of slavery. Harriott Lomax's comments on history as giving voice to the voiceless struck me as a fine summary of archaeology: http://www.pbs.org/saf/1301/features/lives.htm

-Kushana

A New Class of Links

Kushana Torumekia — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 01:34:00 GMT

Well, I must be doing something right: the online homework forgers have found this site.

Do not let someone else write your homework. Do not copy your sources word-for word. Do your own thinking and your own writing: once you have a job the consequences for plagiarism are far more severe than a bad grade.

(/Kushana goes back to blocking homework forgers and talking to her helper.)

________________________________________________________________________________

The last half of this past year has ushered in many changes and an avalanche of paperwork from seveal sources. I have though often about what I would rather being doing with my own time; I even missed the end of the Palm Tree Garden forums (although their website will continue.) Even the most casual writing for a weblog takes time, work, and revision (and invisible consultations with my assistants.) I was so snowed under that many of my ideas this Summer and Fall did not even make it to the note-next-to-the-computer stage. I think I have molified the senders-of-paperwork and I look forward to the new year being different from the prior one.

-Kushana

Water Found on the Moon

Kushana Torumekia — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:27:00 GMT

Kushana's Bible Question Page

My Good Enough Blog

Bast Reigned Longer Than Suspected

Tutankhamun: Not Murdered

Excuse Me, My Cell Phone Is Ringing

The Nazca Lines

Article Cricical of Wheaton College Nixed

Aid to Haiti

The Archaeology of Slavery

A New Class of Links

Water Found on the Moon

Nobel Prize in Medicine

Stonehenges Invisible Twins

To My American Readers

Newly Discovered Bar Cochba Coins

Free Books

Murmuring Books

Away

A Little Birdie Told Me

Someone Running On My Grave?

The Bible: To Hot for Television?

Should You Buy That Oil Lamp Souvenier?

Students Insult Latin

Art Nouveau Nefertiti

The Oldest Monotheists?

Was There A Skeleton Found With The Nag Hammadi Library?

Waiting For Summer

Repost: Education Must Be Free?

Reading and Theory

Fountain Pen Friday

Now With Facebook

Work on the Western Wall

When History Washes Away

Learning Biblical Languages

Fountain Pen Friday

The Prisoner

Opening the Doors of the Ivory Tower

Gobekli Tepe

Zed the Mammoth

Charles Darwin

Old Syriac Bible Seized in Cyprus

British Hobbyists Do the Right Thing

The Mammoths of San Diego

Sometimes Doing Nothing Can Make Things Go Faster

Library Thing

Mailbag: Gideon Bibles

Gnostic Gems