Holiday Sundry

Funny how “vacation” is. In one sense, I’ve had much more “free” time than when the semester was going, but I’ve posted much less. It’s not because I’ve fallen into a mode of laziness, sleeping in till noon, and playing computer games all the time. I think it’s more because I have so many goals for the break and am making so little progress on them that I don’t want to take any more time away. But here’s a few sundry items of interest.

The Washington Post has a decent article on how pictures lie. I really think that there’s an issue of ethics here that may need to be considered more carefully by the media in their coverage of politics.

The folly of Egyptian governing officials, and particularly of the head of their antiquities department, never fails to astonish me. Now they’re planning to “copyright” their ancient monuments. Stupid (also impossible and illegal). But any way they can get their hands on someone else’s money, they’ll give it a try. Someone ought to suggest they stop being a parasite nation. Having ancient remains that a nation can profit off of is a curse because it breeds laziness and dependency.

Ever heard of Guidestar? I hadn’t, but a lawyer recently told me about this website where you can see the 990s (tax returns) of non-profit organizations. That includes such interesting details as salaries of employees making over a certain amount annually. So before you sign over your estate to that non-profit organization that you love so much, you might want to check out how they spend their money. You have to register, but it’s free and easy. I took a look at how much DTS pays their big dogs. I-n-t-e-r-e-s-t-i-n-g. Actually, no criminal activity going on here, and nothing that even barely stands out from what other seminaries do, I’m sure.

My family is traveling tomorrow (Thursday) to Illinois, by land transport. We got our minivan back from the shop today, where they re-did everything that last week’s garage allegedly fixed. I paid twice to get it done right. Nothing like a warm feeling inside at Christmas time.

But we’re driving over 900 miles in an older vehicle that hasn’t yet earned my trust, in the winter season when I’m not a winter driver, at a distance that I haven’t driven in a long time. Look, if you drive that far from Jerusalem, you’re in Tehran. By lunchtime we’ll be in Baghdad. (UPDATE 12/28: We made it.)

On another matter, many years ago Kelli and I started writing Christmas letters to our friends. I don’t remember when and it doesn’t really matter, except to say this: we didn’t usually put IBEX students on our list because we weren’t really sure if they were more than students or not. Time helps to tell on things like this. But it occurs to me than we have probably failed to include some people who are very dear to us (or, more importantly, who care about details such as are contained in Christmas letters). A more diligent effort by myself would entail searching my brain, and scouring our lists, to determine who we should be writing. A less diligent effort, such as the one now in progress, is to suggest that if you would like to be included, you can let me know by email. This year I’ll just send you the letter by email, but next year, if we have your mailing address, we’ll send you a real one. With a photo of us looking good. If we have one.

That’s enough for now. I have to take a nap before playing a computer game.

Below are a couple of photos I took yesterday.