Photograph of the auteurs

Wim Wenders describes how he came to took a photograph of the Francis Ford Coppola family together with Akiro Kurosawa.  As a bonus, Wender’s feet themselves appear.  Even better, the photo is in black and white.

Top ten Historians

Michael Pitkowsky points to a discussion of the top ten historians.  I decided to write my own list of historians that have influenced my thinking, and came up with the following list of 20 (I couldn’t restrict myself to 10).  To avoid having this list become endless, I have only listed dead historians.  Here they are, sorted in terms of birth order:

• Herodotus (circa 485-425 BCE)
  • The Histories
• Thucydides (circa 460–395 BCE)
  • The Peloponnesian War
• Josephus (circa 37-100)
  • Jewish War
  • Antiquities of the Jews
• Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)
  • The Prince
  • Discourses on Livy
  • Florentine Histories
• Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)
  • Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
• Thomas Macaulay (1800-1859)
  • History of England
• Francis Parkman (1823-1893)
  • The Oregon Trail
  • France and England in North America
• Hubert Bancroft (1832-1918)
  • Native Races of the Pacific States
  • History of Central America
  • History of Mexico
  • History of the Northern Mexican States and Texas
  • History of Arizona and New Mexico
  • History of California
  • History of Nevada, Colorado and Wyoming
  • History of the North-West Coast
  • History of Oregon
  • History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana
  • History of British Columbia
  • History of Alaska
• W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963)
• Souls of Black Folk
• John Brown
• Black Reconstruction
• Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
  • History of Western Philosophy
• Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
  • Marlborough
  • History of the English-Speaking Peoples
  • The Second World War
• Charles Beard (1874-1948)
  • An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution
  • Rise of American Civilization
  • President Roosevelt and the Coming of War
• Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
  • Abraham Lincoln
• George Sansom (1883-1965)
  • History of Japan
• Samuel Eliot Morison (1887-1976)
• Oxford History of the United States
• Growth of the American Republic
• European Discovery of America
• Christopher Columbus
• History of United States Naval Operations in World War II
• W. K. C. Guthrie (1906-1981)
  • History of Greek Philosophy
• Barbara Tuchman (1912-1989)
  • Guns of August
  • Zimmerman Telegram
  • Distant Mirror
  • March of Folly
  • Stillwell and the American Experience in China
• Shelby Foote (1916-2005)
  • The Civil War
• Harry Hinsley (1918-1998)
• British Intelligence in the Second World War
• Codebreakers:  Inside Story of Bletchley Park
• Jaroslav Pelikan (1923-2006)
  • The Christian Tradition 

I can’t resist adding two more living historians:

• Jonathan Spence (1936-)
• The Search for Modern China
• Question of Hu
• God’s Chinese Son
• Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci
• Treason by the Book
• Gate of Heavenly Peace
• Emperor of China
• Death of Woman Wang
• Simon Schama (1945-)
• Embarrassment of Riches
• Citizens
• Landscape and History
• Rembrandt’s Eyes
• History of Britain
• Rough Crossings

Real sermons

Kevin Sam has written an important blog post on preparing sermons.  He calls to task the lazy religious leader:

Are you one of those people, after hearing a sermon, know that your pastor has not invested any deep thought and hard work into sermon preparation? . . . . As a layperson, I have experience this and asked myself: “Why do I want to come back to this church?” So I can relate to people who have been disappointed with church.

I am simply amazed when pastors brag about speaking extemporaneously, presumably regurgitating whatever they happened to read – perhaps on the Internet – in the last week.  It’s a bit hard for me to imagine how such a sermon could be a worthwhile experience – especially compared to the carefully given and practiced sermon.  (Which reminds me of the old joke about two people talking – one says:  “My rabbi is such a genius that he can give a full hour long sermon on just a single verse.”  The other says “Oh, that’s nothing.  My rabbi can talk for two hours about absolutely nothing.”)

Kevin asks about what sort of book makes sense for preparing sermons.  Here are some books that inspire me – they deal with giving sermons, but their utility for all sorts of presentations is clear.  Giving good sermons or other presentations is hard work, but it shows respect for one’s audience:

Aristotle’s Poetics

Of course, I need to begin by citing my hero:  Aristotle.  If one views a lecture or sermon as a performance, then questions of dramaturgy arise.  This is the classic exposition of the aesthetic quality of literature, and attentive readings can help a presenter raise his presentations from tedious recitations to works of art.

American Sermons:  The Pilgrims to Martin Luther King Jr.

The best way to prepare material is to see masterful examples of it prepared.  This book is a useful anthology.  Some other useful collections are of John Henry Newman, Louis Jacobs, Martin Luther King Jr., and Saperstein’s collections of Jewish sermons (1, 2).

Fred Craddock’s Preaching

Craddock is a genius of preaching – and it is well worth tracking down CDs or online MP3s of his sermons.  In this book, he gives all of his tips.  In this book he gives all of his tips.  Perhaps an even better book is his Overhearing the Gospel in which he analyzes Kierkegaard's style of exposition as a model of clarity.

The pope promises to Google next time

In his apology letter to bishops over reversing the excommunication of a Holocaust denier, the Pope promises to check on the Internet next time:

I have been told that consulting the information available on the internet would have made it possible to perceive the problem early on. I have learned the lesson that in the future in the Holy See we will have to pay greater attention to that source of news

Just in case a pontifical Google search turns up this blog entry:  I found your letter to be genuinely moving.  However, I am puzzled that in your upcoming May visit to Israel, you will reportedly refuse to enter the main Holocaust museum, over a dispute on a comment on the silence of Pius XII during the Holocaust.  I do not find this decision to be in the spirit of reconciliation that you proclaim in your letter.

Race

I recently had a nasty exchange on the blogosphere.  My correspondent took umbrage when I cited unflattering statistics about his church; I was offended by his use of demeaning “terms of endearment” that refer African-American women by stereotypes about weight and sexual habits.

It is easy to search all sorts of demographic information by zip code and congressional district.  My correspondent is educated, but he lives in a zip code that is clearly limited:  98% white, but only 11% with bachelor’s degrees (for residents over 25).  My zip code:  75% white and 77% with bachelor’s degrees (for residents over 25.)  His congressional district is among the top 5% whitest congressional districts, mine is among the bottom 10% whitest.

I think that this accounts for the difference in outlook.  In a racial monoculture that has less educational opportunity, different sensitivities apply – offensive remarks may seem like witty repartee.

Barack Obama’s celebrated speech on race included mention of “the old truism that the most segregated hour of American life occurs on Sunday morning.”  But at least where I live, that remark does not apply – with the exception of a few conservative Evangelical churches that address single ethnic or racial groups, churches and synagogues are fully integrated.

And that’s the way I like it.  I do believe that the “black church” and the “white church” and the “Asian church” and so on are aberrations – side effects of an unfortunate past that is rapidly becoming anachronistic.  We now know that race does not genetically exist – it is a purely social construct.

My America is like my President:  multi-racial.  And I hope that the America of the future will be post-racial.

Trevor Nunn’s King Lear (starring Ian McKellen)

The sold-out RSC 2007 King Lear (which also toured in New York and Los Angeles) received rave notices, particularly for the performance of Ian McKellan as Lear.  The work will be broadcast on PBS on March 25th (and on NHK and UK Channel 4 around the same date.)  If you want to watch it on your computer in a tiny little window, that will apparently also be an option.  The Folger Library also has a web page on this production.

The stage work had a brief nude scene which will reportedly cut from the televised version.

The production has already been released on DVD in the UK (currently only £13) and a US DVD release is likely in the works.

I don’t normally recommend people to watch television, but in this case, I may make an exception.

(HT:  Duane)

Harassment of Dead Sea Scroll Scholars Leads to Arrest of Professor's Son

From the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Harassment of Dead Sea Scroll Scholars Leads to Arrest of Professor's Son

By STEVE KOLOWICH

The son of a prominent Dead Sea Scrolls scholar was arrested on Thursday on charges of identity theft, criminal impersonation, and aggravated harassment relating to a complex online campaign designed to smear opponents of his father's theories.

The Manhattan district attorney's office alleged in a statement released on Thursday that Raphael Haim Golb, 49, son of Norman Golb, a professor of Jewish history and civilization at the University of Chicago, used dozens of Internet aliases to “influence and affect debate on the Dead Sea Scrolls” and “harass Dead Sea Scrolls scholars who disagree with his viewpoint.”

Raphael Golb’s alleged base of operations was the Bobst Library at New York University, one block away from his home. According to the district attorney's office, Mr. Golb acquired access to the university's computers by virtue of his status as an alumnus and a donor to the university's library fund.

The office contends that Mr. Golb impersonated and harassed Lawrence H. Schiffman, a professor of Hebrew and Judaic studies at New York University and a leading Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, by creating an e-mail account in Mr. Schiffman’s name and using it to send e-mail messages in which the sender admitted to plagiarism.

Mr. Golb also allegedly supplemented that campaign to discredit Mr. Schiffman by sending letters to university personnel accusing Mr. Schiffman of plagiarism, and by creating blogs that made similar accusations. Two blogs, each with a single entry, accuse Mr. Schiffman of plagiarizing articles written by Norman Golb in the 1980s.

Robert R. Cargill, an instructional technology coordinator at the University of California at Los Angeles's Center for Digital Humanities, has for the last two years been tracking the activity of an academic cyberbully who, writing under as many as 60 different aliases, has been waging a campaign to harass and defame opponents of Norman Golb’s theories about the origin of the 2,000-year-old scrolls.

He said that by tracking the Internet protocol addresses attached to a number of e-mail messages, blog posts, and other Web activities, he was able to conclude with reasonable certainty that the perpetrator was working from a series of computers at the Bobst Library. (An IP address is a unique number, assigned by Internet-service providers, that identifies every connection to the Internet.)

Mr. Cargill, who has carefully refrained from making any direct accusations against Raphael Golb or his father, Norman Golb, declined to say whether he had assisted the district attorney's investigation.

Mr. Cargill began tracking the cyberbully—whom he calls the “Puppet Master”—two years ago after he himself was targeted. At the time, he was a doctoral student at UCLA helping to produce a film about Khirbat Qumran—the site in present-day Israel where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered—and its inhabitants for an exhibit on the scrolls at the San Diego Natural History Museum.

Mr. Cargill said it was then that the aliases began attacking him and his film, both in e-mail messages to his superiors and on various Web forums, for failing to give credence to Norman Golb's long-held theory about the origin of the scrolls and how they came to Khirbat Qumran.

Some scholars, including Mr. Schiffman and Mr. Cargill, believe that the 2,000-year-old documents were assembled by inhabitants of Qumran. Mr. Kolb, however, holds that they originated in Jerusalem and were transported to Qumran later.

Risa Levitt Kohn, a professor of religious studies at San Diego State University who curated the San Diego show and several subsequent Dead Sea Scrolls exhibitions, said she too has been “under regular attack” by Internet aliases since then, both in Web forums and in e-mail messages addressed to her superiors.

“Sometimes the criticisms of me are straightforward and overt,” she told The Chronicle via e-mail, “and sometimes the letters appear reasonable but essentially demand that these individuals take note of previous exhibitions’ supposed ‘failings.’ Then they provide helpful suggestions to find solutions, almost always involving Norman Golb in one way or another.”

A number of other Dead Sea Scrolls scholars also said they have been harassed by mysterious Internet personas. Because the messages were written under aliases, they had little choice but to ignore them.

“This person has posted horrible stuff about me online,” said Jodi Magness, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “I don't even look anymore, it makes me too upset.”

Eric H. Cline, a professor of classics and Semitics at George Washington University, was another target of an anonymous critic. “People like my grandmother would call me up and say, ‘What's the matter, why are you ignoring that guy?’ ” he said.

During the time that these Internet aliases were attacking Mr. Cargill's film and Ms. Levitt Kohn's exhibition, Norman Golb sent letters—copies of which have been provided to The Chronicle by Mr. Cargill—to both the provost of UCLA and the president of the San Diego Natural History Museum, also criticizing the film and the exhibition.

The district attorney’s office would not comment on whether it is investigating Norman Golb in connection with the allegations it has levied against his son.

Raphael Golb is charged with one felony count of second-degree identity theft, plus four misdemeanor charges. If convicted of the felony count, he could face up to four years in prison. According to news reports, he did not have a lawyer as of Thursday evening and had not yet responded to the charges. An arraignment hearing is scheduled for today in Manhattan.

But Asashoryu does, in fact, look like Vaisravana

Form your own opinion here.

Mad Detective (movie of the month, February 2009)

The best movie I watched during February 2009 was Johnnie To’s amazing Mad Detective.  (My January entry was Man on a Wire.)  The movie’s plot is highly original – an insane detective (Bun) gives his boss a retirement present – his ear.  After being forced to retire, he is called in again to help with a murder spree using a stolen police gun.  “Don’t use logic to investigate – use your feelings!”   Bun freely hallucinates to find the true inner character of various persons – in the case where there are conflicting personalities, he sees multiple people.

The movie is visually striking, as the view switches between “Bun’s” schizophrenic views and the "natural” view.  The film further benefits from outstanding acting from Ching-Wan Lau, an eerie modernist soundtrack, and amazing Ka-Fai Wai script.  It is the most original mystery film I’ve seen since Memento.

The film is rather violent in parts, and is not appropriate for children.

David Foster Wallace

The New Yorker has published an extraordinarily painful biography-article on David Foster Wallace, a post-modern novelist who recently committed suicide.

Despite the pain of the article, I do recommend it – it is fascinating in it grimness, and briefly surveys Wallace’s completed and uncompleted works.