33 Things: This Week's Amusing & Intriguing Links

1. On Writing a Book That Doesn’t Totally Suck:

Writing a book is like giving birth to a snarling 8 headed monster. It’s so much more than sitting down in front of your laptop and typing. It’s more like a war, as your own words and ideas battle you and each other. In writing your hopes, dreams, fears and inadequacies are exposed. You learn what it is you most want in life and how incompetent you are to actually achieve it.

2. When even Cliff’s Notes are too long….

3. How well do you know the 90 year old Ray Bradbury?

4. How idea-rich your writing is when you’re young is inversely correlated to how likely you are to develop Alzheimer’s. At least, if you’re a nun.

5. Look ma, no cabinet!

6. When chemistry teachers tell you not to scale up, listen.

7. The Velveteen Rabbit and saying goodbye

8. Mars Rover Opportunity keeps on trucking

9. God and Woman at Harvard

10. “In a sleep so deep not even whales could reach her dreams”

11. Ancient and Modern Nation Building: The Biblical Model for the American Experience

12. Should Courts or Ethics Committees Decide “Futile” Cases?

13. My Life, My Death, My Choice: Responding to Final Exit BillBoards

14. And the Disussion Continues: R.R. Reno’s Take on building the Mosque

15. Fire Tornado. Seriously.

16. Seafood: What to eat, what not to eat

17. Bon Voyage. When you get there, send me a postcarden:

18. Headline of the week: German student attacks Hell’s Angels with puppy

19. On the weakness of the Theologians:

“…as a general rule, you should try to show kindness to theologians. Not because they are necessarily exemplary personalities. Not because they necessarily know what they’re talking about. Not because they are necessarily people of great faith. Instead, you should show them kindness because their faith is so weak and so vulnerable; because they are burdened by the difficulty of God; because they are driven to think about God the way some people are driven to drink. You should take care of your theologians the way you would care for the widow and the orphan.”

20. The individual is the collective:

“The person who fights tooth and nail for individualism is actually not an individualist. In fact, the person who has to fight to be different never gets to experience what they want. Fighting is reacting and reacting is not choosing.”

21. Attention, gamers: Dominion Prosperity preview is teh r0XX0rz