For a few days, I'll be at the Seminary of the Southwest acting as an external consultant in a review of faculty for promotion. The weather is spectacular, and the hospitality wonderful. Once I can recover from a 7.30am flight, I'll enjoy the visit and be useful for colleagues. Here's a life-size statue of Barbara Jordan at the airport.

Durer's woodcuts of the Apocalypse (1498)

According to the NY Times, the National Gallery of Art has bought a set of 16 woodcuts of the Apocalypse made in 1498. “Only three other sets exist in the United States,” said Peter Parshall, curator of old master prints at the museum. “This is to printmaking what the Sistine Chapel is to the history of mural painting,” Mr. Parshall said.

Hospice Chaplains

“We are there to be there. That is the point. It is my job to stay when there is no answer.” The Rev. Kei Okada, hospice chaplain interviewed for an article in the NY Times on Hospice Chaplains.

Having returned safely from Michigan in the face of an incoming Nor'wester, and with the air turning cold, I'm grateful for everyone I've met over the past few days and thankful for the opportunities.

Google settlement with authors

The Google settlement with authors which must be approved by a federal judge before it takes effect, includes money for now and the prospect of money for later. There'll be at least $45 million for authors and publishers whose in-copyright books and other copyrighted texts have been scanned without permission. If your book was scanned and you own all the rights, you'll get a small share of this, at least $60, depending on how many rightsholders file claims. Far more interesting for most of us and the ambitious part of our proposal is the prospect for future revenues. Rightsholders will receive a share of revenues from institutional subscriptions to the collection of books made available through Google Book Search under the settlement, as well as from sales of online consumer access to the books. They will also be paid for printouts at public libraries, as well as for other uses.

The settlement of the lawsuits, which were filed in 2005, did not resolve the question of whether Google’s unauthorized scanning of copyrighted books was permissible under copyright law.

Third International Congress on Islamic Feminism, Oct 24-27, 2008

The Third International Congress on Islamic Feminism recently met in Barcelona. Here is the BBC report from the event. Asma Barlas of Pakistan says:

I have a friend who has been studying the interface between what he calls the Persian models and the Arabist models of Islam in the subcontinent and surprise, surprise: the Arabist models are misogynistic, authoritarian, unitarian and the Persian models are much more plural and tolerant.

This is a fight on two fronts - on the one hand we are struggling against the kinds of oppression dominant in Muslim patriarch societies and, on the other, Western perceptions of Islam as necessarily monolithic, and confusing the ideals of Islam with the reality of Muslim lives.

If we read the Koran as a totality rather than pulling out random verses or half a line, that opens all kinds of possibilities for sexual equality.

Norani Othman from Malaysia says,

Perhaps the only distinctive difference peculiar to Muslim feminists is that we are caught in the cross-currents of modernisation and a changing society, due to a modern economy on the one hand and the global resurgence of political Islam on the other.

Political Islam wants to impose a world view about the gender order that is not consistent with the realities and the lived experiences of Muslim men and women in contemporary society.

In these days when distorted views of Islam are being distributed in swing states, its good to be reminded of what Islamic women are actually saying.

Holy Family by Tiepolo

It is raining in Grand Rapids as I visit the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum. And its good weather for a visit to GRAM to look at "The Legacy of Mabel Perkins" consisting of prints she bequeathed to the gallery including "The Holy Family in a Boat" by Tiepolo. In March 2008, the $75 million, 125,000-square-foot building became the first art museum in the country to receive a LEED Gold certification from the US Green Building Council in Washington. (LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and En­­viron­­mental Design, is considered the benchmark for green construction.)

Hitherto unrecognized in the Church of St John and St Mary Magdalene in Goldthorpe (also unnoticed by Pevsner) are two 15th C Sienese panels. They have now been identified as works of Sano di Pietro of Siena (1405-81), a pupil of Sassetta. Dating from the mid 15th century, the two gold ground panels depict an unidentified saint (possibly St James) and San Bernardino. They presumably originally formed part of a large altarpiece in a Tuscan church.

How the panels arrived at Goldthorpe remains a mystery. The most likely explanation is that they came from Lord Halifax, who paid for the building of the church in 1916. He may have acquired the Sienese paintings on a grand tour or they could have come from the family’s seat, nearby Hickleton Hall.

Paul and Sophie Auster at 192 Books

Went to hear Paul Auster and daughter Sophie give a book reading at 192 Books last night. It was done very well.

They acted out "the shocking yet tender resolution scene from Auster’s Man in the Dark. Set within a political fantasy, a 72-year old man’s live unravels one sleepless night as he’s prodded by his granddaughter’s questions about his relationships with his late wife and his daughter, who is sleeping upstairs."

Here's a video of such a reading.

Pew Study shows networked families are more in touch

Here are the details from the Pew Research Center.
Some features:

Technology is enabling new forms of family connectedness that revolve around remote cell phone interactions and communal internet experiences.

Although some commentators have expressed fears that technology pulls families apart, this survey finds that couples use their phones to connect and coordinate their lives, especially if they have children at home. American spouses often go their separate ways during the day, but remain connected by cell phones and to some extent by internet communications. When they return home, they often have shared moments of exploration and entertainment on the internet.

A majority of adults say technology allows their family life today to be as close, or closer, than their families were when they grew up.

While new communication technologies have increased the amount of time some people spend at the office or working from home, few people see them as having a negative impact on family closeness.

Indeed, 25% of our survey respondents feel that their family today is now closer than their family when they were growing up thanks to the use of the internet and cell phones, while just 11% say their family today is not as close as families in the past. A majority of adults downplay the impact of technology entirely: 60% feel that new technologies have not made their family any more or less close than families in the past.

This is true of my experience as well.

After a day's work of theological reflection, I went for an evening walk with my binocs and saw an unidentifiable hummingbird and several Acorn Woodpeckers. According to sources, the Acorn Woodpecker range is Southern Oregon south through California. The bird stores nuts in individually drilled holes in trees called granaries. The acorns are jammed in so tight that even squirrels can’t pry them out. Some of these granary trees have up to 50,000 holes drilled by extended woodpecker families.

Acorns seem to be emergency provisions; on mild winter days these birds catch flying insects.

Breeding groups may contain as many as 7 male breeders and 3 females. All breeding males can mate with any and all of the female breeders of the group.

A group of acorn woodpeckers are collectively known as a "bushel" of woodpeckers.

More information here.