Started reading Margaret Atwood’s Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth yesterday. A Facebook friend recommended the movie based on it. I was surprised to find it sitting on the shelf at my local library.
I’m not particularly good at money. I pay my bills and all that. But there is a limit to how interested I am in the whole deal. And now it seems to be a serious blight on my country…. the whole money thing.
So maybe I can learn something from Atwood. I like her approach which is historical and philosophical and not practical.
I was amused in the second chapter when she launches into a discussion of memorizing the Lord’s prayer as a kid. She immediately focuses on the use of the word, debt, versus trespasses in the “forgive us our ________ as we forgive others their ___________.
Atwood, a Canadian, writes: “The word ‘debt’—blunt and to the point—was well fitted to the plain, grape-juice drinking United Church, and ‘trespasses” was an Anglican word, rustling and frilly, that would go well with wine-sipping for Communion and a more ornate theology.”
I remember when the new translation in the 1972 Book of Common Prayer (Episcopalian) settled on the word, sins, for this section, that I was uncomfortable with it. That is, until I picked up enough Greek to realize that it is indeed the word, sin, in the Greek.
Atwood goes further and says that in Aramaic (the other language that Jesus and the disciples spoke) the word used had both the meaning of “debt” and “sin.”
I did not know that.
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The Baloney Detection Kit: A 10-Point Checklist for Science Literacy | Brain Pickings
The 10 points:
How reliable is the source of the claim?
Does the source make similar claims?
Have the claims been verified by somebody else?
Does this fit with the way the world works?
Has anyone tried to disprove the claim?
Where does the preponderance of evidence point?
Is the claimant playing by the rules of science?
Is the claimant providing positive evidence?
Does the new theory account for as many phenomena as the old theory?
Are personal beliefs driving the claim?
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Expanding Darwin’s ideas to include survival importance of mothers and babies not just the guys.
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Health Law Hearings – Justices Plan Daily Tapes – NYTimes.com
Looks like the judiciary is attempting more transparency…. sure wish the executive branch was working more on this.
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The Curious Case of Trayvon Martin – NYTimes.com
Another tragic death: “Trayvon had a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea. Zimmerman had a 9 millimeter handgun.”
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The Good, Bad and Ugly of Capitalism – NYTimes.com
Debts? Trespasses? Sins? You decide.
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Eiko and Koma Talk About ‘Fragile,’ Their – NYTimes.com
These dancers use live music…. by Kronos
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Movies | Jennifer Lawrence: ‘Hunger Games’ important for ‘our generation’ | Seattle Times Newspaper
There are apparently going to be four movies of the trilogy. Good grief. According to this interview the three actors playing the lead roles had all read The Hunger Games before coming to this project. Go figure. I didn’t know actors read books. Cool.
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