Dr. Jim's WebLog

My oldest daughter has asked for a list of books I've enjoyed. There are so many, but here is a sampling:
The entire Master and Commander series by Patrick OBrian. 20 books about two great characters in turn of the 19th century England on the high seas as they battle Napolean, the Spanish, and of course the terrible Colonists in the War of 1812. They are wonderful books. The second is slightly weaker but then they kick back in.
Next, the Narnia books by C. S. Lewis. These are of course excellent children's books and would be terrific for bedtime reading out loud, but I read them recently and enjoyed them thoroughly.
Then there is the Marine Corps series by W. E. B. Griffin. Testosterone exudes from the pages as Marines rescue the South Pacific and Korea in this series, starting in the late 30's in China. The writing is not English teacher tight but the history is terrific and the characters interested me. My folks tell me the stories ring true (they were alive during WWII) and they have enjoyed Griffin's other books as well. There are a bunch of them.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon, is one of the most interesting and quirky books I've read in a while. It is a first person account from a teenager with either Autism or Asperger's syndrome. The author MUST have known someone with this problem. The boy has a very logical mind and is a math whiz, but at the same time will not hug anyone and has a phobic reaction to the color brown. A wonderful read!

More later...

Isn't it amazing? When we in the US have a natural disaster, there are six deaths and a special interest story about the rescue of a family pet. When there is a natural disaster in India or Southeast Asia, the deaths number in the tens of thousands immediately, with who knows how many from Cholera, Typhoid, malnutrition, etc. What do we do?

We can contribute to relief organizations. Hugh Hewitt has links to World Vision, which is a good group. A physician I know has worked with World Relief and has good things to say about them as well.

Consider it! We in the United States are blessed beyond all imagining. We are well taken care of.

All of my girls are home for the Christmas holiday. It's so much fun to see them growing up into fine young women. Soon the two older ones will be heading back to school and I will miss them.

Katie gave me a signed C. S. Lewis book of letters to Malcolm. I love C. S. Lewis' writing. I think I've said before that it is at least partially responsible for my being able to be a Christian. So my plan is to work my way through some of his works and post some thoughts here. Since my first exposure was to The Screwtape Letters, that's where I'll start.

This is a short book of 31 or so letters from Screwtape, the undersecretary of a department in the Lowerarchy of Hell, to his young nephew Wormwood. Screwtape is tutoring Wormwood on the fine points of tempting a particular young man ("his patient") toward hell and away from the enemy. We find out that the Enemy is actually God.

With amazing insight, Lewis explores human foibles from the point of view of someone who wants to exploit them. From talking with some acquaintances who have read the book, it doesn't much matter if you are christian or not. One ex-christian Buddhist, one ex-Jewish Buddhist, and a currently Jewish friend have all praised this book for its look into human nature.

But for now, it's time to wrap up the Pathology department and go home to my family.

On the cover of the NEJM...
Back at Duke Med School in the seventies, they did a big production show at the end of each school year with a band (variously called The Electrolyte Orchestra and the Ileo-Tibial Band, click links for references) and actors. One of the songs was a take-off on "The Cover of the Rolling Stone" which was a popular song back then. The NEJM is the New England Journal of Medicine, sort of like Time among newsmagazines.

Anyway, your blogger got an article in the NEJM!!! Since I'm in private practice where we don't publish much, this is even better. I joined the Gynecologic Oncology Group years ago at the urging of one of our surgeons and he got me put on as Study Pathologist. So 14 years later, I've reached the "pinnacle of academic publications." I guess that Duke MD and PhD came in handy for something, after all.

Newspeak, er Newsweek and the "Historical" Jesus

Hugh Hewitt has challenged us to respond to Newsweek's latest salvo in the culture wars. By coincidence, I've been working through The Case for Christ, which gives a fairly detailed and quite readable analysis of Christianity.

Newsweek: Yet almost nothing in Luke's story stands up to close historical scrutiny;
Case: "The general consensus of both liberal and conservative scholars is that Luke is very accurate as a historian."(John McRay, archeologist.)

Newsweek: Augustus conducted no global census
Case: Romans did do censuses. Page 101, quote from a governmental order dated 104 AD:
Gaius Vibius Maximus, Prefect of Egypt...time has come fro the house to house census...compel... to return to their own homes...
Quirinius may have been governor twice; there is a coin with his name on it that places him around 11 BC.

Newsweek: Enraged and jealous, Herod orders a massacre of all the male children in Bethlehem—thus connecting Jesus' birth with the first Passover, when God spared Israel's sons from the same bloody decree by Pharaoh. (History records no such Herodian slaughter, though Herod was an undeniably cruel ruler.)
Case: "Bethlehem was probably no bigger than Nazareth, so how many babies of that age would there be in a village of five hundred or six hundred people? Not thousands, not hundreds, although certainly a few...Herod was a bloodthirsty king: he killed members of his own family...the fact that he killed some babies in Bethlehem is not going to captivate the attention of people in the Roman world..just wasn't much of a story back then." Plausible? Unfortunately, yes.

A couple of modern examples: the Rwanda genocide and the tragedy in the Sudan. Tens to hundreds of thousands of people dying, and world leaders lead a campaign of silence, refusing to use the word "genocide" because it might oblige them to do something.

Other interesting sources: Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis, a short readable development of the basics of christianity. He was not a "one toothed redneck" from the backwoods of a red state--he was an Oxford professor who started out a good atheist and became a Christian. He was just what I needed; I started out an atheist as well and gradually became a Christian, too. His works have consistently buttressed my faith. I also loved The Screwtape Letters, either the book or even better the book on tape narrated by John Cleese. Superb.

Want some modern scholarship? Read First Things, a monthly journal of christian thought (mostly Catholic, but with Evangelical, Jewish, other writings as well.) Warning: it can be a stretch for your mind if you're not used to thinking. Start with The Public Square and gradually work your way into the main articles. I have an MD and a PhD from Duke and scored 1540 on the old SAT so I'm not dumb but some of the articles make me wonder! Or from the Evangelical side, a similar journal on line is Credenda.

What about Dan Rather? Well, the Blogs brought him down by attacking his story on factual grounds. Sure, there were also some juicy ad hominem attacks but the text analysis was the key. Why don't those of you who know what you're looking at do the same for the Newsweek story? Roberts and Mohler have started the stampede; how about the rest of you guys?

I have to go to sleep now; blogging is fun but I feel a moral obligation to be sharp tomorrow while looking down the microscope, diagnosing disease for my patients. Just don't let these Newsweekers with their cleverly written propaganda undercut your faith. Those of us who grew up in postmodern times have inherited an "intellectual tradition" that softens the mind, blurs the line between story and truth (witness the success of The Davinci Code), and makes us susceptible to these guys. Seek out more information. Hugh refers to some real experts who blow rather large holes in Newsweek, far better than I can with my relative lack of theological training.