I'm still alive. I just haven't been blogging!

I'm certain that my vast readership (the number has probably shrunk from 4 readers to 2) has been wondering what I've been doing, since I haven't blogged in such a looooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnggggggggg time. I'm still here. I've just been busy.

I've been:

1. Working on my dissertation project
2. Visiting with my son's family (last couple weeks of June)
3. Getting ready for Kim to go to Mexico for a year
4. Watching the Cubs get past the June Swoon, but suffering through one in July
5. Translating for hispanic DWI offenders
6. Doing some reading

On that last front, I've discovered a pretty good writer in the Christian fiction genre. I actually bought some of these books for Rose, basically because they were at reduced prices at our local Christian bookstore at the mall. She usually reads much more Christian fiction than I, but prefers Karen Kingsbury, Beverly Lewis, and similar writers. Eric Wilson does not fit that mold. I would describe him as a mix between Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker. I was probably persuaded to buy the discounted tome because Dekker gave an endorsement (much like I first found Dekker because of a Peretti endorsement.) By the way, Eric Wilson is the novelizer of the Sherwood Baptist Church screenplays, like Flywheel, Facing the Giants, and the upcoming Fireproof.

Another interesting book I've been reading is Jason L. Riley's Let The In: The Case for Open Borders--Six Common Arguments Against Immigration and Why They are Wrong. Riley is African American, conservative both economically an politically (he is on the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal), but differs drastically from the ultra-right wing radio and television populists, such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, and others on the immigration issue. Much of my real life is intertwined with hispanics, both documented and un-documented. What I have read so far makes sense to me.

Several years ago, when my good friend Doug Marks joined our faculty, I remember him commenting that today's students are not readers, but rather skimmers. That resonated with me at the time, because I remember asking students if they had read assigned portions of the textbook, and receiving the strange response, "That depends on what you mean by the word read." It's only gotten worse since then.

I've already admitted to you in this blog entry, that I read books. I also read online. There are a number of blogs that I check semi-frequently. One of them is by Douglas Groothuis, a professor at Denver Seminary. I just happened onto it this morning. He has a post that references an interesting article in today's New York Times: Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?

An article by Nicholas Carr in the current issue of The Atlantic is titled Is Google Making Us Stupid? addresses the same issue. And finally, I just picked up a book that I had requested from the local public library many weeks ago. I got an e-mail message from the library this week, and went by to pick it up. If I don't have time to read it, at least I'll skim through it (I have my moments when I can be very funny!). It is Mark Bauerlein's The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Ages Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future.

That's all for right now. It's time to wake Rose up. I spent a couple hours studying Romans 10, checked out the Groothuis blog, which prompted me to write these lines. Now it will be off to worship at College Heights, Sunday dinner with Kimberly at home (her last Sunday in the U.S.), and later on to hope that the Cubbies can begin to turn it around.

Peace to all!

DGF