Christian ethics in time of political turmoil
- When a man’s ways please the LORD, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. — Proverbs 16:7
- You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. — Isaiah 26:3
- But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. — Luke 6:27-28
- But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. — James 3:17
astronomical drawings
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astronomical drawings from the NYPL[/caption]
errors that can't be corrected
In my previous post I linked to my review in First Things of Vodolazkin’s novel Laurus, which bears the title “Russian Brahmin.” But when I first saw the review online, I was appalled to see the the title “Russian Brahman” — and I discovered that, at some point after I last saw the text, someone had gone through the article and where I had written “Brahmin” changed it to “Brahman.”
In the review I claim that Vodolazkin’s hero goes through something very similar to the four ashrama, or life-stages, that a Brahmin seeking enlightenment might pass through. This has absolutely nothing to do with Brahman, except insofar as anyone seeking enlightenment will be indirectly contemplating Brahman.
My friends at FT corrected the text on the website within five minutes of my pointing it out. But in the print edition the error will last as long as even one copy remains legible. Stupid Gutenberg galaxy.
At the moment, my editors at FT do not know who made the change, but clearly it was made by someone who, with no knowledge of Hinduism, decided I had made an error. I cannot tell you how delighted I will be to receive, over the next few months, emails and tweets explaining to me that “Actually, Brahman means…” This post is for the authors of those emails and tweets.
recent publications
I’ve had a few articles and reviews come out so far this year, and for the handful of people who might be interested, here’s a list:
- "Miss Marple and the Problem of Modern Identity," in The New Atlantis
- "Where Individuals Come From" (review of Siedentop's The Invention of the Individual), Books and Culture
- "The Extremes of the New Sensibility" (review of Cotkin's Feast of Excess), The Wall Street Journal — paywalled
- "The Counter-Desecration Phrasebook" (review of Macfarlane's Landmarks)
- "Roger Scruton vs. the New Left" (review of Scruton's Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left), The American Conservative — paywalled
- "Russian Brahmin" (review of Vodolazkin’s novel Laurus), in First Things — paywalled
Dan Treier on tragedy and wisdom
My friend Dan Treier has written a long, thoughtful, sober, and wise post on what Wheaton College — and other Christian institutions — can learn from the Larycia Hawkins debacle. I hope some of the people, both inside and outside the college, who right from the beginning of the controversy, when little was known about what was actually happening, shouted their judgments and demands from the rooftops will read and heed.
slowing down the Warriors
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via warriorsworld.com[/caption]
Of all the things that separate pickup basketball from basketball played at a very high level — as it is played in the NBA and in the best college programs — probably the most dramatic is help defense. When you’re playing pickup ball you guard your guy, and that’s about it. If you happen to be able to sneak up behind someone else to steal the ball, or come over to block a shot, that’s awesome — but it’s not expected. Your job is to guard your guy. But at the higher levels of the game defenders are always helping one another, and in general it’s fair to say that the better a defense is overall, the better it will be at helping.
However, when you’re playing the Golden State Warriors it may be that help defense … well, that it just doesn’t work.
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via warriorsworld.com[/caption]
By definition, if you help one of your teammates defend his guy, you leave your guy open. And if another teammate jumps over to pick up your guy, then his guy is open. Help defense is predicted on the belief that it’s possible for such rotation to be quicker and more intelligent than the offensive response to it — that the offensive players will be slow to move the ball, or will make an inaccurate pass, or will run out of time on the shot clock. And often that’s just how it works out.
Just not when you’re playing the Warriors.
So what if it turns out that the best way to play the Warriors is to play as you do in a pickup game? — just guard your guy. Don’t help out, don’t switch unless you absolutely have to, go over the top of every single screen.
But then they’ll drive past me!
Yes, they will.
And then they might get an easy shot!
Yes, that’s likely, though you will get some help if they get close to the basket from your big men, just as happens in a pickup game.
But what they won’t get is open 3-point shots — the kinds of shots they make more frequently than any team in the history of basketball, the kinds of shots that can very quickly turn a tie game into a double-digit lead for GSW. The Warriors as a team shoot 42% from 3-point range, which is the equivalent of shooting 63% from 2-point range. If you can cut down dramatically on their 3-point attempts — and contest the ones they do take, which you can do more easily because you’re still guarding your guy — and simply keep them under 60% from 2-point range … you’ll have a chance. It just might work. Better than conventional defensive strategies are working, anyway.
Of course, this would take a coaching staff bold enough to take the risk of abandoning a universally-practiced system of defense, and a team smart enough to break its old habits, and a group of big men disciplined enough to avoid fouling people shooting layups. In other words, it would take the Spurs, who, after all, have a history of abandoning universal practices.
I love watching the Warriors, but it would make me very happy if Pop were cooking up something like this in his South Texas basketball laboratory.
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via cleveland.com[/caption]
