The dullest pencil . remembers better than the sharpest mind. My co-worker, and friend, Ted Cramer, says that all the time, and it is very true. We all like to think we can remember whatever it is we are supposed to remember without having to write it down. If we are honest with ourselves, we know better than that.
I have made enough trips to the grocery store at this point in my life to know that if I go, I better write down everything I need to pick up. Having a written list saves the embarrassment of needing to call my wife before I get in the checkout line to make sure I got everything, because I know I missed something (I hate that). Having a list is also the only absolutely, positively, 100% way to be sure I won t have to make a second trip (I really hate that). And so, I write things down because my forgetter works a whole lot better than my rememberer does.
Reading, Writing, and Algorithms
Scholars have long
debated how widespread literacy was among the Israelites of the seventh century B.C., during the last decades before the ancient kingdom of Judah fell to the Babylonians and its people went into exile. If this were known, it could help determine whether certain books in the Hebrew Bible, such as Deuteronomy, Judges, and Kings, which narrate the kingdom’s rise, were composed and possibly read by the broader populace during this period. Now, a team of researchers at Tel Aviv University, including a mathematician and a police investigator, studying 2,700-year-old Hebrew inscriptions have found evidence of a surprisingly high rate of literacy at the time.
Michael Brannigan: Giving the gift of mercy is a burden - and a liberation
Michael C. Brannigan
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This season of light comes with an extraordinarily heavy burden, one that is our choice to accept or not. Amidst the gift-giving, our most difficult though precious offering remains that of mercy. As in the following disturbing parable, this is no light task.
On Oct. 2, 2006, 32 year-old Charles Roberts IV, a local milk truck driver in the rural community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, entered the one-room Amish schoolhouse and at gunpoint ordered the adults and all boys to leave. He nailed the doors shut, bound up the ten young girls, ages 6 to 13, and made a last call to his wife. Just as police arrived, he shot the girls at close range and shot himself. 5 girls died and the other 5 were critically injured.