Social Stream | Chris Aldrich

Watched Lecture 4 of 24: Augustine's Pagan and Christian Audience by Charles Mathewes from The City of God (Books That Matter) | The Great Courses

Before delving into the text of The City of God, Professor Mathewes sets the stage with some context about the many audiences that Augustine was writing for, as well as the arguments against Christians that he was confronting. See how Augustine co-opted Roman notions of city" and "glory" and applied them to his divine purpose."

A fascinating lecture about the word City of the title and the first word of the book with a tad about the rest of the first sentence!

Watched Lecture 3 of 24: The Sack of Rome, 410 A.D. by Charles Mathewes from The City of God (Books That Matter) | The Great Courses

While Roman elites viewed the sack of Rome as a turning point that changed the world forever, the event itself lasted only three days and served more as a catalyst for change than a cataclysm in its own right. In this lecture, you'll find out why the sack was so monumental, and how it inspired Augustine to write The City of God.

Sack of Rome as a context for the book.

Watched Lecture 18: Arguing with Paul? by Dale B. Martin from RLST 152: Introduction to the New Testament History and Literature

Early Christianity presents us with a wide diversity in attitudes towards the law. There were also many different Christologies circulating in different communities. The book of James presents one unique perspective. It seems to be written in the tradition of Jewish wisdom literature in its presentation of sayings and its concern for the poor. James also presents a view of works and faith that seems to oppose Pauline teaching. However, the terms "faith" and "works" function differently in Paul's writings and in the book of James

00:00 - Chapter 1. Diversity in Early Christianity: Attitudes towards the Jewish Law

03:57 - Chapter 2. Diversity in Early Christianity: Christology

21:03 - Chapter 3. James as Jewish Wisdom Literature

27:47 - Chapter 4. Faith and Works in James in Comparison to Paul

Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://open.yale.edu/courses

Interesting to think about how much of our culture is built on the writings of the rich and privileged and the compounding effect it has had over the millennia.

Watched Lecture 17: Paul's Disciples by Dale B. Martin from RLST 152: Introduction to the New Testament History and Literature

Introduction to New Testament (RLST 152) In ancient times, documents that were falsely attributed to an author, called pseudepigrapha, were a common phenomen...
In ancient times, documents that were falsely attributed to an author, called pseudepigrapha, were a common phenomenon. Both the Letters to the Colossians and Ephesians are most likely pseudonymous works attributed to the Apostle Paul. The writer of Colossians assures his readers that they already possess all the benefits of salvation and do not need to observe rules concerning feast days, Sabbaths, and worship of the angels. Ephesians seems somewhat based on Colossians, although it reads more like an ethical or moral treatise. Both letters differ from Pauline Christology in their realized eschatology and high Christology.

00:00 - Chapter 1. Ancient Pseudepigraphy

10:42 - Chapter 2. The Pseudepigraphic Letters to the Colossians and Ephesians

22:21 - Chapter 3. The Occasion of the Writing of Colossians

37:15 - Chapter 4. The Letter to the Ephesians as Treatise

42:26 - Chapter 5. Major Differences between Colossians and Ephesians and Pauline Christianity

Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://open.yale.edu/courses

Also as I’m looking at the evolution of the early Christian church, many of the changes from the teachings of Jesus and the re-framing by Paul and then other subsequent writers and church elders seemed to work to re-entrench the patriarchy and give power back to the wealthy and powerful. Jesus and Paul seemed to have a much more egalitarian outlook which was walked by by later writings.

This may be harder to “prove” to present-day Christians because most don’t view the bible from a historical perspective. Too many modern Christians seem to take too much of Colossians and Ephesians to heart in terms of gender roles. I might suggest that much of the gender toxicity that we’ve seen in Western history may be attributed to these two pseudepigraphical books.

Watched The Reason Paul Schneider Left Parks And Rec After Season 2 from YouTube

The Reason Paul Schneider Left Parks And Rec After Season 2
We all remember Parks and Recreation season 2: Leslie was trying to fix the pit. Andy and April began their triumphant weirdo love story. Chris Traeger and Ben Wyatt joined the merry band of civil servants. But do you remember Mark Brendanawicz?

Paul Schneider played Mark, the Pawnee, Indiana city planner who was a relatively central character on Parks and Recreation's first season and who had a scrapped romance subplot with Amy Poehler's Leslie Knope. In the second season, Mark's purpose began to flounder despite a second, and ultimately crumbled, romance with Rashida Jones' Ann Perkins. During the Parks and Rec season 2 finale, Mark announced he was leaving city government for a job with a private-sector construction company...

...which earned him a new nickname from Leslie, "Mark Brendanaquits”, and he was never heard from again. Chris and Ben's entrance into Parks and Recreation as guest characters on season 2 proved to be the perfect gift in disguise to slip Mark's departure past everyone with few questions asked.

Looking back, there are some mysteries left unsolved. Why have Mark leave at all, and why did Paul Schneider exit Parks and Recreation and never return?

In short, Paul Schneider left Parks and Recreation because he felt sidelined. Several years after the fact, the actor opened up about his Parks departure in an interview with Screen Crush, revealing that he felt he'd been at a creative crossroads with the series' writers after Mark's character was altered from the first season. The early episodes of Parks and Rec are rougher and feature more tension and disdain between the characters, just like its predecessor, The Office. Mark Brendanawicz's character is a relic of that previous style, and he was reportedly an even less likable character in earlier versions of Parks and Recreation. A shift in emotional perspective came about as the series continued on, and while it worked out well for many principal characters, it didn't for Mark. Keep watching the video to see the reason Paul Schneider left Parks and Rec after season 2.

I vaguely remember him from the beginning, but mostly I remember Leslie continually badmouthing Mark Brendanawicz in later seasons. It seemed relatively obvious to me that he would leave given his minimal interaction on the show from the beginning of the series to the end of the first season. These sorts of situations are never fun for the agents/managers, particularly if the writing staff and producers aren’t sure what they’re doing or where the show is going.

Incidentally, for those who are interested, here’s the outline of how I posted my #PressEDConf20 presentation to Twitter today using my WordPress website. It could be its own presentation.

Watched Lecture 3 of 36: Introduction to the Subjunctive Mood by Hans-Friedrich Mueller from Latin 101: Learning a Classical Language | The Great Courses

See how the long vowel a" is the key to the present subjunctive mood in verbs such as pono (I place). The subjunctive expresses doubt or potential, and you explore its use by the poet Catullus in one of the most famous love poems to survive from the ancient world."

“Linguam Latīnam discunt, ut in Rōmā antīquā vīvant.” They learn the Latin language, so that they may live in ancient Rome. Intellectually that is. As a way to forget about the present troubles, which is actually a pretty good reason to learn Latin.

How did he know!?!

Notes on my wiki.