J. Andrew Edwards

I’ve created multiple mixes of tunes, all at 170-180 bpm, and then rendered them into hour-long-or-so mp3 files. Can hardly run without them.

Recently had an annual checkup & the doc mentioned a particular line of medical research he'd been curious about. His words: "So I asked ChatGPT whether there's been anything published about...." Not Medline, not Embase, not PubMed, but Chat-frickin-GPT. And somehow THIS kid is the "real doctor."

Well my men's bracket has three of the Final Four correct, so at least that's going well. And this is despite losing a couple of my earliest picks based on disdain for particular publications by faculty members at certain institutions. (I now recognize that's not the best approach.)

How fitting that yesterday evening’s public disapproval of Vance at the Kennedy Center preceded a Shostakovich violin concerto.

Cool, many thanks for the clarification. I’m on the pub side of things, so it’s always helpful to hear library perspectives. (FWIW, Clarivate’s destruction of the DKBL by stuffing all that Alexander Street data into an incompatible ecosystem drives me to tears.)

Trying to follow you here--UTP is not following Clarivate's business model, which is good, but the problem is how UTP is positioning this decision? (Clarivate is indeed frustrating--they ruin just about everything they can get their hands on--I'm just not following re: UTP.)

I’m a big fan of Carol Gilligan et al. They don’t get enough credit among ethicists these days, but that was the tradition of ethics that I was taught in undergrad. Looking forward to Heather’s posts.

That’s over 6 percent of GDP. That’s one in five USAmerican workers suddenly losing median wage jobs ($50,000/yr). That’s not money saved; that’s a necessary and critical investment squandered. (2/2)

Setting aside all debates on whether this or that federal spending program is a legitimate use of funds (though those debates are not insignificant), I fail to see how suddenly taking $1.5T out of the economy doesn’t have drastic repercussions. (1/2)

With the world about to end at the hands of cartoonish Bond villains, it seems incongruous to make album recommendations. But do not go into the darkness without first listening to Bill Evans's The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961.

Served as guest preacher this morning, and managed to piss off only one person (that I can tell, anyway). Relieved that they didn’t try to throw me off a cliff, like the characters in the gospel lesson. Lectionary texts, FTW!

I’d been wondering how long until a concentration camp would be introduced—you know, a place to “deport” your enemies without actually setting them free. (I would have thought a bit longer than a week, though.)

It strikes me that this is exactly how he ran all of his business dealings: "Meh, I don't feel like paying this invoice." Only now the vendor is the American people.

The number of people who seriously answer this with "nominalism" or "voluntarism" rather than "colonialism" and "slavery" really confounds me. (And even more so when, confronted, that they blame the latter on the former.)

The phrase “capital crime” does a lot of heavy lifting in that executive order on restoring the death penalty. How long before we see its definition expanded as well? (How desperately I pray my fears are wrong.)

Yes! I'm just jumping into Act & Being now for precisely this reason. Barth and Bonhoeffer both had interesting developments and critiques of Lutheran/Heideggerian/scholastic construals of conscience, all of which are very different from how we often talk of conscience in present discourse.

Franklin Graham always reminds me that perhaps Donatism wasn't entirely a bad thing. I'm okay with rejecting the sacraments of those who've sold out their faith to the empire. Their prayers are invalid.

All those who bristled at leftist use of the words “Nazi” and “fascist” to describe this regime need to apologize. Turns out we were right all along.

And I remember it took Al Mohler less than a week to post the pettiest response imaginable (disregard the erroneous date stamp at the link; it was within days of JC's departure) religionnews.com/2000/01/01/c...

Community centers allowing alcohol would help, too. Our annual Burns Supper has no local options, though we have community centers galore.

Photo of book cover, The Name of this Band is R.E.M.: A Biography, by Peter Ames Carlin

I’ve been digging into late-70s, early-80s Athens. Great stuff.

So what has everyone been reading for fun this week?

I only ask that the coming apocalypse hold its horses (all four of them?) until after I can see Krypto the Superdog on IMAX this summer.

Thinking a general boycott of Amazon and FB/Insta January 1–6 might not be a bad idea.

And, just to clarify, my *primary* concern is for kids and their well-being, which is not served by this policy. But it *also* strikes me as ridiculous that, in order to placate those voters so easily manipulated by the “parental rights” slogan, now every fleeting nickname requires ten extra steps.

Just got a notice from the local school district that, thanks to a new policy (one, I might add, adopted under threat of loss of both state and federal funding), it’s now my responsibility to log into the LMS and approve any variant names or nicknames that our children choose to use. What nonsense.

Users can opt out, though it takes an extra step. www.biblegateway.com/legal/consent/

Editor smiling in front of UVA Press book display

All ready for AAR/SBL in San Diego! Exhibit hall opens tomorrow morning; if you’re here, stop by and say hi!

Check out Affinity Publisher. Low cost, no subscription. Not all the bells and whistles of InDesign, but perfect for DIY projects.