Link Policy
Links are one of the currencies of the internet, and regardless of whether articulated or not most people have some sort of perspective on how links should be distributed. Many sites have hundreds of outgoing links–veritable stacks of categorized blogrolls–while other sites carefully jockey their page-ranking to work out “link-exchanges” with complimentary sites that have a similar or better rank. You’ll find others who link to all their favorite sites, including huge sites that everyone knows about. My policy so far has fit none of the molds above, and was bordering on complete incoherency. I have never liked the idea of having a huge blogroll, because the truly important links tend to get lost in the crowd. I also don’t like...
RE: Thoughts on Islam and Christianity
It must be Debate About Islam Week. Another Timothy has posted some provocative thoughts on Islam and Christianity, as the title accurately alludes. I posted an extremely long response in his comments section, which you may be interested in viewing. Feel free to add your thoughts as well. Here’s a brief taste of the discussion. He wrote: …Most Christians tend to know virtually nothing about the Qur’an! And yet seem to have the freedom to comment on it regularly. I often wonder: if Christians so often get upset about ignorant things said about the Bible (that mostly can only be attributed to lack of knowledge), how is it then that we are astonishingly quick to make the same mistake? And then my response: The more people who commit questionable...
Islamic Theocracies
What comes to mind when you think of Egypt? Pyramids and sand? Perhaps you think of hieroglyphics or the ancient exodus of Israel, but now you can add another bullet point to your associative memory list: a Theocratic judicial system. See Blogger Gets 4 Years for Insulting Islam. Judge Ayman al-Akazi issued the verdict in a brief, five-minute session in a court in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria. He sentenced Nabil to three years in prison for insulting Islam and the prophet and inciting sectarian strife and another year for insulting President Hosni Mubarak… …Seconds after he was loaded into the truck and the door closed, an Associated Press reporter heard the sound of a slap from inside the vehicle and a shriek of pain from...
On the Destruction of Man
How is a man destroyed? Is it through a grievous defect of character? Is it through a series of uncontrollable circumstances that place him in an impossible situation? Is it through a man’s own cultivated perversion? Are these destroyed men dealt a bad hand from Fate herself? Or are they twisted sociopaths who get their due? I’ve been thinking about those questions thanks to The Brothers Karamazov. Looking at Dmitri, especially, I wonder how he could get so carried away about Grushenka and how he could be driven to shed blood, and here is the key part: I wonder how different Dmitri and I are. In looking at Dostoyevsky’s characters it seems to me that even the worst protagonists maintain their humanity. In looking at...
Photography Section – NOW LIVE
I am proud to announce that the Photography section of this blog is officially up and running. It has its own dedicated RSS feeds and has dedicated Categories as well. There are a few things I will undoubtedly tweak, but for the most part I am quite satisfied. The design aspect was most gratifying as I was able to expand and customize the functionality for photoblog use but was also able to maintain symmetry with this part of my site. One small thing to note is that the Photography Category in this section does not currently lead to the primary Photography section as there are several photographs that were posted on Infinite Regression, which now may be found here in the archives. However I may upload larger versions of those pictures to the Photography...