Some Journey

Beware those fishy legumes

(from Jay Leno's Headlines)

It ain't purty

But it was edible. I made my very first loaf of bread ever this week, and I am happy to say it was edible. I also made some rolls which were gone in less than 15 minutes. I overheard Ethan say to Sam, "Come try one of these rolls. . .they're really good. . .and Mom made them!" (insert slight tone of disbelief)

Website Revamped

We have completely renovated our family homepage which had not been updated in several years. It should now function as an easy one stop information source for all our varied websites. In other words, for those of you who are tired of keeping up with my blog, multiply site, etc, etc, you can now just remember www.steveandwilla.com which has links to them all. Check it out and let me know what you think. There is also a direct link over in my "Links" section. Just click on "Our Home Page".

Huntsville Slideshow

Download file

Trying to figure out the easiest way to post slideshows. Here's a test show using yesterday's Huntsville trip photos. Please note that this is a rather large file. If you have dial-up, you prob want to skip it.

Field Trip

I spent today in Huntsville with Sam on the fourth grade field trip to the space museum. The above is my favorite pic of the day. More here:
http://www.ibachphotography.com/gallery/2863163

Newspeak and Doublethink

Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.

George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language", 1946

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. . .

Doublethink lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing them and to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies - all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. Ultimately it is by means of doublethink that the Party has been able - and may, for all we know, continue to be able for thousands of years - to arrest the course of history..."

from http://www.orwelltoday.com/doublethink.shtml

Scripture

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
"Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries[a] wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them 'Rabbi.' . . .

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

From Matthew 23

Dear Dan,

Everyone here is fine.

:)