Minor Wisdom

Boggle

Here's an addictive time waster: online Boggle. Warning: Once you start, it's hard to stop.

Follow your money

Would you like to give a donation to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, and know exactly how the money is spent and who has been helped? If so, then visit Real Live Preacher, click on "Support RLP with Paypal," and make a note in the comment that you want the money to help families in need. RLP describes his program here; he summarizes income and expenses to date here; and he gives more details here on where the money's going.

Links for hurricane claimants

If you suffered losses caused by Katrina or Rita, here are two web pages with useful information:

• The FEMA web site allows you to apply for FEMA benefits on line.
• The Hurricane Insurance Information Center is a web site created by the U.S. insurance industry, offering information and advice for those with insurance claims.

I've used the FEMA web site myself to apply for benefits. I've since received two checks from FEMA. If you've been displaced or if a hurricane has otherwise cost you money, go ahead and apply—it can't hurt.

Anarchy and the UN

This week's Darfur report lambasts the UN and all its members, who, despite pious language, have done nothing to stop the bloodshed in Darfur.

Pitcher and pizza

KipEsquire has an interesting post on plain language. His topic is teaching economics, but the lesson applies to legal instruction and writing too. He advocates the "pitcher and pie" principle:

[I]f I can't explain an economic, financial or legal concept to you over a pitcher of beer and a pizza pie, then I've failed as a teacher.

This principle applies to lawyers, because each lawyer, whether advising the client or advocating the client's cause, is a teacher.

(Thanks to Mike, who emailed me about this item.)

Sometimes a wind swath is just a wind swath

Via Snopes.com, here is the National Hurricane Center's chart of Katrina's wind swath. Which I guess makes New Orleans the world's largest wet spot.

Christianity v. Christendom

If you like iconoclasts, then you'll like this essay by Søren Kierkegaard, in which distinguishes between Christianity (what I'd call spirituality) and Christendom (what I'd call religion).

Good guys, bad guys

In oldtime westerns and modern Stephen King novels, it's easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys. In real life though, the classification becomes more difficult. Consider these two Katrina-related items:

• Incredulous reports that as floodwaters rose in New Orleans, Orleans Parish sheriff's deputies left some prisoners to drown in their cells. (Via Crime & Federalism.)

• Times-Picayune editorial writer Jarvis DeBerry tells the story of thieves who commandeered a U.S. Postal Service truck; stole food, water, and other items, and delivered them to Lafon Nursing Home.

Country stars

Tonight may be my last night out in the sticks. For the last couple of weeks, my wife and I have lived in two rooms of a big, old, newly renovated house in the middle of nowhere—halfway between St. Francisville, LA and Woodville, MS. For food and supplies, we've driven "into town," i.e. St. Francisville, 12 miles away. Today I closed a lease on a condo in Baton Rouge, near LSU. That will be my Not New Orleans home until I can move back to my real home on Magazine Street.

So tonight is my last chance to see country stars. It's a clear, moonless night. So a few minutes ago, after my wife and our housemates retired, I turned off the lights up front, went out on the front steps, started looking up, and waited for my eyes to adjust.

I wasn't disappointed. At first, I saw a few dozen stars. The longer I waited, the more my eyes adjusted, the more stars I saw. After a few minutes, hundreds were visible.

If you've spent your life in the city, you may not know what I'm talking about. You may not know why it was such a big promise when God told Abraham that his descendents would be numerous as the stars in the sky. Because when you look up at night in the city, you see few stars. Out here, on a clear moonless night, you can see literally thousands of stars.

If, like me, you're a city boy (or girl) and you find yourself in the middle of nowhere on a clear, moonless night, do yourself a favor: go out into the dark, give your eyes time to adjust to the darkness, and look up. You'll see something that you can't see in the light-polluted city. And it will be breathtaking.

A house, a home

This one is for all displaced persons, including those displaced by Katrina or Rita: by Flannery O'Connor, from a letter written 24 Aug. 1957:

If you pass down Peachtree [Street] you will probably see that my poor uncle is houseless. The Bell House is going to be bulldozed, beginning Monday. He loves every rotten plank in it. He brought all the furniture out of it—large monstrosities—and it is arriving here this afternoon in a van and he has been bringing out pieces of junk for the last six months and depositing them in the back hall. Everything sacred. It's just about as poignant to be torn away from a house as a person ...