Peter Erb's upcoming visit

I'm very excited that my teacher, Peter Erb, will be coming here to give a series of lectures for ECM, the U of Lethbridge and Lethbridge College. When I went to WLU to do my MA I didn't know about Peter but five minutes into our first conversation and I knew I had found my teacher. He taught me to read carefully and introduced me to so much of the Christian tradition.

Here is a great article on his latest work on Christianity and murder mysteries. How wonderful to know that reading mysteries isn't a waste of time!

Here is his schedule here:

Sunday, November 16th
2:00 pm
Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd
2406 11 Avenue South
"Ecumencial gift exchanges: What Lutherans and Anglicans have to offer the Church at large -- a Roman Catholic perspective"

Monday, November 17th
7:30 pm
Lethbridge Public Library
"Christian Killers and Atheist Heroes: Religion and Detective Fiction 2008"

Tuesday, November 18th
12:15 pm
University of Lethbridge, Turcotte Hall 277
"Can Christians be Citizens?” A Victorian Debate in a Twenty-First Century Setting

Sponsored by Ecumenical Campus Ministry, the Office of the President, Lethbridge College, the Office of the President, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge Public Library and Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd

Economics - The Dismal Science

I've been thinking about my Dad today, how he served for five years in the Air Force despite being a pacifist. And then I read Patrick Deneen's great post on economics over at What I saw in America and heard echoes of my father speaking. Dad shared many of these criticisms of the discipline of economics and rarely went to meetings of economists. He thought it was a mistake to think economics was all about manipulating models as if it could be divorced from political life in the broadest sense. He would be one of those heterodox economists Deneen mentions.

Today was a great day

I was impressed by how gracious McCain was and blown away by Obama. And Roger Ebert nailed it. Read him here.

Happy Birthday Dad

Today would have been Dad's 70th birthday. I don't know which is harder to get my head around, that Dad isn't with us anymore or that he could have been 70. Here I am approaching 50 and my Dad still seemed to be in his 50s to me.