posts from another era
Something that's bothered me for a long time and I have no idea how to construct grammatically is the first person plural possessive in English. Our is the way to do it with a pronoun, but what about no pronoun.
Jeff and my...
Jeff's and my...
Jeff's and my's....
Jeff and our...
Jeff and our's...
Does anyone know how to solve this conundrum?
There's a book case behind the reference section in the library at North Park that holds the yearbooks from classes past. As this has no interest to me, the top of the hobbit-sized shelf is where I float over to when I'm looking to put off the necessary reading at hand. See, it is here that the newest books that have come into this compendium of knowledge start and I oft find something to divert my attention from my task at hand.
This week there were a couple books that caught my eye and one that I thought would be interesting to walk through on the blog. David Murrow, a Presbyterian (USA) from Alaska, who has had his hand in producing anything from the Discovery Channel to Dr. Phil, has put out a book entitled Why Men Hate Going To Church. I'll be honest, I've never heard of the guy, but I thought his book would be an interesting read no matter. It seems to look at facts and statistics, rather than our inner drive as men-- at least that's the appearance.
Murrow says that he's often wondered about why men hate going to church. He's seen it in all denominations. Those that do attend he states are "passive, bored or uneasy" (vii). How was a faith that had been started by a Man and entrusted to 12 men, so lacking in men today? As he looked around for answers, he didn't find any at the local Christian bookstore, so he decided to write the book himself. He claims neither to be pastor nor theologian, just a regular guy in the pews who is struggling to find his place in church (viii).
Before we delve into Murrow's search for the answer, what is the consensus of why men don't go or hate going to church? What has been your experience with men and church?
Halloween has always been celebrated at our house ever since I was too young to remember. And aside from Christmas, our house was decorated more than any other holiday-- to the point that I can remember being scared to go in. Sometimes I still am.
But it wasn't the ghouls and goblins that treated us, rather it was because my dad was born a while ago today. Instead of birthday cake, we ate pumpkin pie and instead of "happy birthday" we played Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor. And we scared the pee out of not a few kids and even more moms.
So Happy Birthday Dad and Happy Halloween.
I'm to a point where I need to print some more of my photos. So in an act of shameless self-promotion, I extend this offering to you. Some of you have asked so, I'm not too ashamed.
4x6s will run at $3.
8x10s at $6.
Any bigger please inquire.
I haven't priced shipping so add a couple extra bucks for that. Try to let me know by Friday so I can place the order over the weekend-- drop me an email, send me a message over facebook, or whatever.
mark.grapengater [at] gmail.com
I find it interesting to see what people collect, catalog, and build a website to display their glorious collection. In that interest I have two sites I've been to and found interesting:
The first one comes from my dad and is dedicated to Penny Postcards. The post card was patented in 1861 by John P. Charlton of Philadelphia and for a while only the USPS could produce them. Wikipedia says the above, but then says that the first postcards in the US were made to advertise for the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Soon, though, the cards were able to be produced by anyone and this gave rise to the versions that we see today, although then the sold for only a penny-- thus, penny postcards. The site is arranged by state and has a pretty thorough collection. One of my favorites.
Our second site is Midwest 45s. Scott Harlow is a friend of mine at Grace and every Saturday morning he heads South to the old pawn shops on the South-side and digs around for Soul, Funk and Gospel 45s from Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Illinois. After he finds them he digitizes them onto his computer, puts up their album art and lets your ears pulsate to the long forgotten beats. He has quite a collection going on but of all that I've listened to, I really dig this one.
