Collectable Obama

Last night I went to Walgreen's to pick up a couple of things. Prominently displayed in the front of the store was a stack of "Barack Obama Collectable Plates." (I didn't have a camera with me, but I've posted below an image of the plate we found at, believe it or not, http://www.barackobamacollectables.com/.)

I voted for Obama and am excited about his upcoming administration. I've also long turned up my nose at the word "collectable." I've always considered this a misspelling of the word "collectible," and I was bemused that a company had so blatantly incorporated an error not only in their product but in their very name.

But I was wrong about this. I've looked into it, and it seems that "collectable" is the only listing in the Oxford English Dictionary. "Collectible" appears but is not given its own entry; it is a variant spelling, notably common in the United States. Here's the entry:

Also (now chiefly U.S.) -ible. [f.

COLLECT v. + -ABLE.]

A. adj.

1. a. That may be collected.

1660 Eng. Monarchy the Freest State 6 Many other particulars, collectable out of..Magna charta. 1662 PETTY Taxes 45 Collectible by a very few hands. 1803 SOUTHEY Lett. (1856) I. 243, I am weaving into it all the collectable circumstances of the time and manners of the people. 1888 BRYCE Amer. Commw. I. I. xxiii. 333 A penalty collectible on summary Conviction.

b. Of souvenirs, objets d'art, bric-à-brac, etc.: worth collecting, sought after by collectors. Also transf., of the maker (artist, author, etc.) of such objects.

1888 P. FITZGERALD in Gent. Mag. Apr., Old play bills, like everything that is ‘collectable’..have now become objects of value and desire to the amateur. 1897 Daily News 10 July 8/3 There was no difficulty in pronouncing these [Jubilee] stamps ‘collectable’. 1961 J. DOUGLAS (title) Collectable things. Ibid. p. 39, I believe that one of these days collectors will wake up to the fact that the last hundred years has seen the making of more collectable bottles than at any other period of history. 1971 D. POTTER Brit. Eliz. Stamps iv. 56 The lines were placed down the vertical perforations, to either the right or to the left, producing two collectable varieties. 1978 Lancashire Life Sept. 90/2 Even now that she has become collectable she sells her pictures often at less than half the prices she has been offered. 1980 Daily Tel. 24 July 15/8 As well as being highly collectable..they make surprisingly roomy containers for all sorts of items.

2. That may be inferred, deducible. Obs.

1646 SIR T. BROWNE Pseud. Ep. II. i. 51 The difference of their concretion is..collectible from their dissolution. 1658 Hydriot. 2 Collectible from Scripture-Expression.

B. n. pl. (orig. U.S.) Things worth collecting, esp. rare, old, or interesting objects (not necessarily valuable or antique).

1955 W. H. BLUMENTHAL Bookmen's Bedlam 149 The range of collectibles is..endless. 1967 Boston Sunday Herald 30 Apr. (Show Guide) 16/3 Tradecards became collectibles during their time... Adults pasted them in albums. Boys and girls swapped them. 1969 Canad. Antiques Collector Oct. 5/2 The most popular collectibles are objects of pressed and art glass produced in Canada and the United States. 1974 Saturday (Charleston, S. Carolina) 20 Apr. 8-A/6 Collectibles such as old prints, books, magazines, manuscripts and items offering a chance for reminiscing for those who have fond memories of the..twenties and thirties. 1978 J. L. HENSLEY Killing in Gold xi. 152 My friends..like having some of their funds in good collectables. 1984 Buses Dec. 569/2 This is a full-time service catering for the best in transport collectables.

Doubtless, it is Democrats like me--who fret snobbishly about butt-ugly kitsch--that so encouraged Obama's opponenets to label him as a cold and proud arugula-eater. But we showed them. He is now featured on a popular line of collectables.

With a side of bacon

So, if you've been wondering what this blog would like with a side of bacon, click here.

You can add bacon to your website, too, thanks to bacolicio.us.

We got a video camera as a Xmas gift

Prayer for your commute

On my daily commutes, I listen to podcasts. One I have grown to rely on and really enjoy is called "Pray As You Go." The podcast is produced by a co-ed British Jesuit community and provides a 10 to 13 minute prayer service Monday through Friday. Each podcast starts with a musical selection that relates to the day's reading. The music varies from monastic chant to contemporary numbers to Taizé. Then a member of the community reads a selection from the day's lectionary readings. After that, another member leads you through a question-oriented time of reflection based on the text. The reading is read a second time, and you are then led into a time of intimate prayer and petition. The podcast ends with the Gloria.

I like this podcast for its consistency and also for the significant portions of time left in silence for personal prayer and thought. Find it online here.

Hamster on a Piano

This has been a few places on the internet, but just in case you missed it, here it is:

Definitions of "Health"

The fall semester has wrapped up. One of the classes I taught this time around was an elective at Eden Seminary entitled "Religion and Healing." As part of the class, I had students write definitions of various words at the beginning and then at the end of the term--one of these words was "health." I thought I would share here a couple of the stronger definitions as well as my favorite definition from the class.

Here's one from a third-year student:
Health involves a condition of wholeness and a sense of well being in a person as it relates to the physical body, the mind and thoughts of the person, the sense of spiritual and communal connectedness to God, and a sense of connectedness to communities built around their lives as well as the lives of others.
I liked this one for the emphasis on constructed communities and relationships.

Here's another pretty thorough one from another gifted third-year student:
Health is a condition or degree of well-being and freedom from suffering and pain. This may include emotional, physical, or mental. The person may be healthy in one area and yet unhealthy in another. It is also determined by the individual person's context and understanding of health for them. For some it may mean a sliding scale which can change quite rapidly determined by their own response to a particularity. It may also be related to their own expectations of what health means. Some people describe themselves as being unhealthy their entire lives when nothing ever appears to be "wrong" with them.
This one's good because it doesn't forget that health means, to some extent, absence of suffering. I also like how clear the definition is about individual expectations.

Finally, my favorite definition from a class member:
For us as Christians, health is an ongoing process which gives us energy and vitality to serve and love others.
This is a lovely way to think of health and reminds me of the charge many pastors give at the end of worship services: "Go in peace to love and serve the Lord." Unlike most of the class definitions, which aspired to be in some sense universal (even when they admitted the influences of context), this definition is clearly instrumental. As Christians, health is nothing but the freedom to love and serve.

I know you didn't take my course (lucky for you!), but would you like to hazard a definition of "health"?

The Brick Testament--Bible in Lego

Just in case you were wondering if the internet has everything, today I share a recent discovery: an online illustrated Bible made out of Legos. It's called the Brick Testament, and I wouldn't exactly say that it is for children.

Here's a scene from the gospel of Luke wherein Jesus exorcises the Gerasene demoniac:

More Kids Are Using Alternative Medicine

From the Huffington Post:

Just like their parents, kids are taking herbal supplements from fish oil to ginseng, a sign of just how mainstream alternative medicine has become. More than one in nine children and teens try those remedies and other nontraditional options, the government said Wednesday in its first national study of young people's use of these mostly unproven treatments.

Given that children are generally pretty healthy, the finding that so many use alternative medicine is "pretty amazing," said one of the study's authors, Richard Nahin of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. The sweeping study suggests about 2.8 million young people use supplements....(read more).

Sort of interesting news. But, kids have been taking these kinds of medicines for millennia.

CAKE

The Porpoise Driven Life

I found this video at a great blog I highly recommend, Religion in American History.

Whoever made this video nails it. Christians love schlock.

Why Obama matters to rural Guatemalans

Via Good Magazine, I saw a note about the impact of Obama's victory on rural indigenous in the highlands of Guatemala. To read it, click here.

Milestone

Big Baby D's first ride in a forward-facing car seat.
Two days 'til his first birthday!
Our little bundle of JOY.

Pumpkin Apple Bread

The semester is over (just about), and I'm busy grading papers. And since grading papers is the number one reason to do something else, I baked a couple loaves of pumpkin apple bread this morning--one for us and one for our wonderful neighbors. If you look in the picture, you can see the stack of papers (unfortunately only a small portion of the many yet to grade) and my red pen.

The recipe is from The Gourmet Cookbook.

PUMPKIN APPLE BREAD
For topping:
1 T. all-purpose flour
5 T. sugar
1 t. cinnamon
1 T. unsalted butter, softened

For bread:
3 c. all-purpose flour
3/4 t. salt
2 t. baking soda
1 1/2 t. cinnamon
1 t. grated nutmeg
1/4 t. ground cloves
1/4 t. ground allspice
1 (15 oz) can solid-pack pumpkin
3/4 c. vegetable oil
2 1/4 c. sugar
4 large eggs, slightly beaten
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and chopped (2 cups)

Make the topping:
Blend together flour, sugar, cinnamon, and butter in a small bowl with your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse meal.

Make the bread:
Preheat oven to 350 degree F. Butter two 9x5 loaf pans.
Sift together flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice into a medium bowl. Whisk together pumpkin, oil, sugar, and eggs in a large bowl Add flour mixture, stirring until well combined. Fold in apples.
Divide batter between buttered loaf pans. Sprinkle half of topping evenly over each loaf. Bake until a wooden pick inserted in center of bread comes out clean, 50 to 60 minutes.
Cool loaves in pans on a rack for 45 minutes, then turn out onto rack and cool completely, about 1 hour.

McCafe review

McDonald's has a new line of espresso beverages. I had a coupon for a free one, so I picked up a caramel latte this morning.

Pluses:

• it was hot;
• I think it had coffee in it.
  

Minuses:

• it was so sweet, especially the last few slurps, that my eyes crossed and I went into a diabetic coma;
  
• I had to go to McDonald's to get it.

Map of World Religions

I use the map below in my Religions of the World class. You may have seen it already since it's been on the internet for a while now. It's a little simplistic--as if a big band of color called "Islam" or "Christianity" can really sum up complex geopolitical realities--but all in all, fun to see all at once like this.

Kittens, a Slide, and Surf Rock

Breakfast with Santa in ESL

One of the most painful aspects of living in Belleville, Illinois, is that we are right next to East St. Louis. East St. Louis is one of the poorest municipalities in the state, and its population is almost all African American. The city is blighted and littered, the infrastructure of a formerly thriving city is in serious decay, and everyday there is more news of homicide or drug-related violence.

This is painful on its own, but when East St. Louis is compared to Belleville, its immediate neighbor to the east, the tremendous and crushing weight of America's problem with race is obvious. While Belleville is more and more racially integrated, the difference between these two largest cities in St. Clair county is nearly inexplicable. Belleville is tidy and quaint, trees line the streets, and there are many well-kept businesses.

This morning, at the invitation of a family acquaintance, we went to a "Breakfast with Santa" event at East St. Louis High School. The activities were in the school cafeteria: cookie decorating, ornament making, a magic show, face painting, a toy raffle, and, of course, photos with Santa Claus himself. Teenage girls, who were dressed up with felt reindeer antlers, escorted in St. Nick, clapping and stomping. When he came into the room, the Jackson Five's "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" was piped in over the loud speakers. There were probably 500 adults and children there enjoying the festivities, including our family, and Alex and I were the only white people.

Advent Conspiracy

Alex shared this with the Wednesday night group at church:



Check out their website.

The Ethics of American Youth

A report was widely publicized today about the "ethics" of American teens. Here are the core findings:

• 30% admitted to stealing from a store in the past year;
• 42% lie to save money;
• and a whopping 60% cheated on an exam.

For the first two categories, stealing and lying, there was a sizable difference between boys and girls with boys having stickier fingers and longer noses. However, boys and girls are equal cheaters.

While 26% admitted to lying on the survey itself, 93% of respondents were "satisfied with their personal ethics and character."

I think these results are a sign of something, but I'm not totally sure of what. Most of all, I think it is failure of society that we facilely consider "ethics" to be whether or not we follow the rules. If these teens break the rules of "Do not steal/lie/cheat" yet still are basically satisfied with their behavior, then this means that those rules as constituted in the survey are not part of the teens' moral narrative. It is our responsibility to buttress that narrative with the virtues we profess.

First Day of Forever

I heard a good sermon this morning while visiting a church in a town up the road. The preacher blithely reminded us that Christians live in time and out of time, both in this world of death and in a redeemed state where death has lost its sting. He said that one of the reasons we go to the Word is to live into tomorrow. In this, we are an Advent people even as we are an Easter people.

Afterward, a parishioner asked me what I thought the sermon was about. I said something like what I've written above. She said, "Huh. I thought it was like all his sermons--trying to get us to move this church out of downtown to the suburbs."

Yet I oppose everything.

The Rock and Roll Craft Show

One of the ways that we know that we are still hip is that we go to the Rock and Roll Craft Show. Nicely hand-crafted goods from the local crafty-DIY crowd are on display for a weekend in a local art space with live music.

Our two older kids, Tom and Lily, picked up some silk-screened t-shirts, and we got a Christmas gift or two for friends. Some of my favorite creations this year were a series of old-fashioned looking paintings of pastoral scenes upon which a new artist had painted a great big orange monster; a white ceramic serving platter with a well-executed black skull painted on the surface as decoration; hunting trophy magnets that featured the heads of plastic toy animals and Star Wars characters; and several very beautiful scarves.

Being in the neighborhood, we ate at Duff's, a family favorite.