:-D

What a glorious day in basketball!
Both Indiana (formerly #15) and UNC scored somewhat major victories. North Carolina's was a solid pounding of the higher-ranked NC State, while IU narrowly edged out the foul Ohio State Buckeyes (formerly #18) by breaking a score tied at 79 with less than a minute on the clock. After trailing OSU the entire first half and even suffering a 17-point deficit - the highest yet for the season - the Hoosiers stepped up their game with a string of 3-pointers. There was a total of something like ten lead changes and one small break came near the end when OSU MVP Terence Dials fouled out. Dad started playing "Taps" for the Hoosiers with nine minutes and change left to play, but his team pulled through, despite Coach Davis's fumbles, including an early, momentum-shattering (accidental?) Time-Out. As usual, Marco Killingsworth was the player of the game, leaving little room to wonder why three of my non-Hoosier fan friends included him on their lists of the top five NCAA players this season. Kentucky fell to unranked Kansas (Rock, Chalk, Jayhawk U! Woo!) as well, parelleling Illinois' (formerly #6) humiliation at Iowa. With the Fightin' Illini a considerably less intimidating threat, Indiana may have the means to take the Big Ten this year. Now all that remains is to rename the arena KNIGHT Arena and to reinstate The General as coach. Davis' attidtude has been developing into a primadonna complex, complete with little tantrums on the floor, disputes with the refs, and a constant glower. Now, if he had coached teams like the 1975 and 1976 Hoosiers or won as many championships as Bobby Knight, his hissy fits could be overlooked or at least completely hidden by those pretty crimson banners that get hung from the rafters when the team dominates a season. But the simple facts are these: 1) Indiana, as a classically and consistently (until Davis took the helm) excellent basketball school, is a destination coaching job: once there, there's no reason to move. 2) Davis claims to be a strong Christian, but his actions on the court are anything but Christlike. 3) Davis isn't Bobby Knight. Texas Tech will never be a program to compare to Indiana's glory days with Knight as head coach, with arguaby two of the best teams ever produced in college basketball, multiple championships, and many many many close calls when they couldn't quite make it to the Big Dance. Anyway, let's hope this streak of glory for IU and UNC last; those who laughed at me for sticking to my teams can either eat their words or shove them where the sun don't shine; take your pick.

Abstraction

Yeah, in honor of Texas :-)
WARNING: this entry is definitely written from the perspective of someone extremely far on the religious right, so don't get all pissy when the G-word (God, and not as a swear word) is mentioned or the Bible is listed as a moral authority.
It is common among members of the religious right and other traditionalist movements to discredit abstract art as an extension of postmodernist relativistic thought. Its merit is not recognized in the canon of Conservatism, tes this may be a shameful incident of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Man's ability to create art is one facet of the image of god in which the human race was made; therefore art is not merely aesthetically beautiful but a manifestation of the Divine within us. In seeing the value of art, its definition must be kept to a somewhat narrow understanding while the product of that definition is organic from culture to culture. Any work done with the elements of art (line, shape, color, etc.) in mind is art. This definiteion also applies to music and its elements (tone, rhythm, meter, etc.) as a form of artistic expression as well. Absract art is that which uses as its content only the elements of art rather than a form found in nature or its representations, which does not preclude patterns or designs inspired by nature. Biblically, mandates against recreating God's handiwork as decorations of the Temple and the Second Commandmentprovide for art which is not a direct depiction of nature. In fact, in practicing the creation of an abstract piece may be the only way in which humanity fully reflects the creativity of deity: even when constructing works of fantasy we merely cobble together fragments of Creation to design creatures that are a remix of the originals. In abstraction, however, any form may be imagined and not limited by natural laws and the finity of man. Rather than decrying modern art as a postmodernist trend signifying the abolition of absolute values in beauty and truth, Christians should ponder the potential cultural relevance of a Renaissanceof ancient Jewish artistic guidelines. Historically, abstract art has always had significance: Biblical Jews used only abstrat forms in art; Turks and Persians have always used similarly unrepresentational designs in their carpets - which nobody wuld exclude as a true form of art; the 20th Century ushered in modern art. This is not to say that religious icons smeared in waste are masterpieces, for art may also be defined as beauty for beauty's own sak, and the defamation of a valued and revered image is diametrically in opposition to such lofty and pure ideals. In many cases, such as forms of folk art, form does follow function as in vases, quilts, etc., wherein the aesthetic value of an object is a reflection of its function. Here the line between utility and beauty is greyed, but this is no indication of any corruption of either purpose but a mingling of the results. Some argue the value of the work of Jackson Pollock and John Cage; Pollock seems more like an exercise in physics and Cage as... nothing. These are the examples of when the definition of art is stretched too far to gain any true understanding of beauty, but there are certainly instances in which the idea of a "picture" can be forsaken and the result still be edifying.

P.S. odd lapse in the politicizing... I'll be back to normal next time, seriously. Sorry - keep reading.