Chicken and kale -- no, not together...

Here's a quick dinner that I threw together yesterday after successful plumbing adventures and some unsuccessful shopping.

The kale recipe is a variation on something the lovely Carol saw in the paper: kale with cream. The recipe is all over the web but here's my variation.

• Strip the leaves off (⇒ discarding the stems)
  • 1 bunch of kale
  then steam the leaves for about 20 minutes or until tender.
• Combine in a bowl:
  • 1 Tbs stock
  • 1 Tbs butter or margarine
  • 1 Tbs milk (or soy milk)
  • a pinch of nutmeg
• When the kale is tender, drain it and add it, still hot, to the bowl.

The heat from the kale will melt the butter. You're done!

The original recipe (which makes way too much, unless you're feeding a family of eight herbivores) says to chop the kale. This is a waste of time IMO because the stuff is so soft after boiling/steaming. Oh, and the original recipe tells you to boil the kale, which takes a lot more water than steaming and probably loses more vitamins....

About the chicken. It seems to be an open secret that a chicken roasted with no seasoning whatsoever is still delicious. What I did last night was simplicity itself. I had a 4-pound chicken.

• Preheat oven to 400°F.
• Spray a roasting pan and rack with cooking spray.
• Discard the giblets.
• Remove the backbone (I used a Cutco® knife) or just cut down one side of the spine
• Flatten the bird onto the roasting rack (in the pan), skin side up. You'll break the breastbone.
• Discard wing-tips if you like.
• Place the rack in your preheated oven.
• After 30 minutes, cut the oven temp down to 350° and put a little aluminum foil over the breast.
• Start checking the temperature about 15 minutes later with an instant-read thermometer. You're done when the thigh reads 190°.

If your bird is smaller than 4 pounds you might want to reduce the times a bit. It's that simple.

The guys at Barron Park Supply rock! Also: Rohl U.1213 kitchen faucet demystified

When we re-did the kitchen in 2008, the lovely Carol chose a fancy faucet with three levers (for hot water, cold tap water, and filtered drinking water) and a sprayer. It's a "Rohl" U.1213 -- the spec sheet is at http://www.rohlhome.com/pdf/U1213LS.pdf ; I found it very handy to refer to the diagram.

Naturally, we had some problems. The first thing, which happened some time last year (but probably more than a year past the purchase date) is that the maximum flow rate dropped. You crank the faucet full-on but after a half-second or so it acted like you'd just turned it back down. The lovely Carol went to the retailer (Plumbing'n'Things in Redwood City), and they told me to wash the valves (9.13247 and 9.13249 in the diagram). "How do you get at them?" I asked. Turns out that you just pull out on the lever. It takes a little doing, but the handles come off.

That didn't do it, so they put me in touch with the manufacturer. I called the number (which escapes me now -- your retailer will have it) and the first thing the guy told me to do was... you guessed it: wash the valves. I told him I did that already, and I also mentioned that I was able to get full flow out of the sprayer (9.27434 or 9.27424). My speculation, which I shared with him, was that the valve that sends water to the sprayer (9.13157) -- that valve was going goofy on us. He concurred, and they shipped a new one at no charge.

I had a really hard time getting it properly installed. It seemed as though the pipe was just a little too narrow for the valve. H'm... maybe I should use some sort of lubricant? But I was out of time; I jammed it in as well as I could and reassembled the faucet. Turned the cold water on full -- yay! The only problem was that the sprayer was sort of half-hearted about doing its job. I mean, it did spray, just not with much enthusiasm. And whereas before the flow from the spigot would all but stop when I pushed the sprayer button, now it continued at about half-strength.

Well, I was mystified but I sure wasn't going to disassemble the thing yet again; I wanted to quit while I was ahead (getting full flow out of the spigot was #1; having the sprayer work 100% was a distant second). Anyway as preparation for "someday," I asked my contractor friend about what kind of grease (or ...?) to use inside the pipe and he suggested waterproof plumbing lube, which the guys at Barron Park Supply, 650-948-7160, might know about.

That was back in September. Fast forward to this week, when the lovely Carol informed me that the faucet was flopping around. I could see it, and knew exactly what the problem was: the mounting hardware, in particular the C-ring (or C-plate? it's part of 9.26400) was busted. Same drill -- visit the retailer, they passed on the manufacturer's number, I called them, they agreed to send me a warranty replacement part. (It's been over 18 months but they were very sweet about it.)

The part came yesterday, and since I was going to work on the faucet anyway, I figured why not see about getting the valve in "right" this time. And since I was going to visit Barron Park Supply anyway, why not try to find a replacement for the missing stopper control knob/rod from the bathroom sink? So off I went.

Now their website says they're in the San Antonio Shopping Center near Sears, so I parked in front of Sears. Our mini-poodle mix, "Popcorn," was in the car, so I left it in the shade. I walked around the back of Sears, and... no joy. Fortunately I had their phone number, and my cell phone. It turns out (I should have looked at a map first) they're a lot closer to the "Milk Pail" than they are to Sears. Anyway, I had the stopper control knob from the matching bathroom sink, and showed it to one of the guys (they're all guys) behind the counter. "I need one of these," I said.

"We don't have any," he replied. "You could order one. That looks like a Price-Pfister." That sounded good to me, and he pulled a book down from the shelf. I entertained myself with the news clippings on the wall, then looked around a bit. Eventually there was an empty spot at the counter so I positioned myself there. The first guy was taking a long time, and I wondered what was up, but fortunately I wasn't in a hurry.

But while I was waiting, another guy freed up, so I asked him about "waterproof plumbing lube." He pulled a package off the wall (I *never* would have found it!) and started describing some alternatives. I then told him what I was trying to do. It turns out that the stuff in the package would work, but it was $10; he found a smaller package, maybe a half-dozen capsules (small ones like Benadryl, not bigger ones like CONTAC) of silicone grease. Perfect.

While he was still talking, I saw the first guy reach up and grab a box of parts. He pulled out a knob/rod combination that looked quite a bit like mine. The rod had a bigger diameter, but I was overjoyed. "You are the man!" I told him. He gave me the original part numbers, in case I had to order them later.

Drove home without incident. Sure enough, the new rod doesn't fit into the hole in the faucet. Harrumpf. Looked for my reamer... where did it go? Oh well, one thing at a time. First, I crawled under the sink and installed the new "C" plate. It's shaped like a large letter "C" and went on like a champ. The original one was made of pot metal (I thought it was plastic but the parts were cold to the touch) but it looks like they're making them out of something stronger now.

Now for the sprayer valve. I undid a small hex screw at the rear of the faucet, and rotated the spout while trying to lift it. It took quite a bit of doing, but off it came. Was it ever full of junk! I had a hard time removing the valve (9.13157); eventually I hit on the idea of passing a common screwdriver blade through slits in the spout and prying the valve out gradually. It's not supposed to be this hard!

Following the advice of the Barron Park guys, I took an old toothbrush and some vinegar and tried to clean out the area the valve went into. After rinsing well several times, I declared victory and put a little of the silicone grease on the part of the valve that seemed to be hanging up. All looked good, so I tried inserting the valve.

No joy! How could this be? It just wasn't supposed to be this hard!

Here's the story: there's a part -- two actually -- that aren't on the diagram. Passing through the spout is a hose for the filtered drinking water. It mates with the aerator thingie at the business end of the spout -- 9.25553. The other end of the hose is connected to a piece of plastic that looks like a tripod. In short, this is how the filtered water gets out into the world. It turns out that this tripod-shaped plastic thingie was what was hanging the valve up as I tried to insert it.

The way around it? Pull the unnamed tripod-shaped piece of plastic part-way out of the spout's tubing, so that its legs can expand. Put the "top" end of the valve (9.13157) between the tripod legs so that when the tripod-thingy goes back into a narrower part of the spout, the valve will be embraced rather than rejected. Does that make sense? The tripod's legs have "toes" that point inward. If the tripod is placed first into the narrow part of the spout, the toes will reject anything bigger than a certain size (7mm? diameter?). Naturally, the top-end of the valve is bigger than that minimum size.

Therefore, what we must do is mate 9.13157 together with the tripod-shaped thingie, and then push the whole shebang into the narrow part of the tubing. And it works! Water full-blast when the hose button isn't depressed; respectable pressure from the hose when the button is depressed.

That was it! I love it when things work as they're supposed to.

More sloppy thinking -- that's what we need! Uh, waitaminute...

So I'm driving around, searching in vain for a kitchen drawer divider that isn't made in China, and I hear Daniel Dennett on NPR talking about how religion can encourage people to commit acts of violence.

Religion can encourage people to...? What kind of statement is that? Watching television can encourage people toward violence. Listening to politicians can encourage people toward violence. Certain kinds of pathogens can encourage people toward violence. So can depression and discouragement, alcohol, rugby, misinformation, etc.

The word "can" was inserted so they wouldn't be accused of being anti-religious, but I'll say it anyway. The "logic" went like this: every society has religion. Every society has violence. Therefore the connection between religion and violence is just as strong as the connection between food and violence. (Every society has food, every society has violence, therefore....) Right.

(I'll observe here that Mao and Stalin and the mass murderers of the Khmer Rouge were actually anti-religious. These clowns -- only they weren't funny at all -- committed some of the worst atrocities in recorded history, so maybe Dennett could tell me again why religion is the root of all violence? Someone at NPR?)

Goodness gracious, can't they come up with anything better than that? OK, I'll do it for them: the fact that people sometimes say things like "I hate them with perfect hatred" (from Psalm 139:22) related to some violent acts, or that people sometimes shout "Allahu Akbar" (Arabic for "God is great!") when committing violent acts -- that may be some sort of indicator, don't you think?

Let me knock that one down, too, since I set it up. In every society there are more-violent (a shorthand for "more-likely-to-become-violent" or "more-easily-pushed-into-violence") people and less-violent people. Religious societies have them, societies that with anti-religious laws have them. If Psalm 139 is a well-known text in a society, then the less-violent people will tend to draw comfort from the image of God as a loving presence, and the more-violent people will tend to use the hostile parts of the text as an excuse for their violent acts. If the Qur'an is a well-read book in a society, then less-violent people will focus on the image of Allah as the compassionate and merciful but more-violent people will copy other violent people who shouted something in Arabic before starting to kill.

In other words, "religious people are violent" or "religion stirs up violence" is just a bald assertion without proof; "Look at ________"! is no proof (see Stalin, Mao, et al).

What is proven, and I'll grant this, is that just because a society follows one religion or another does not mean that violence and hatred will be entirely eradicated in that society. But as the honest athiest Haidt observes in this article,

Religious believers give more money than secular folk to secular charities, and to their neighbors. They give more of their time, too, and of their blood. Even if you excuse secular liberals from charity because they vote for government welfare programs, it is awfully hard to explain why secular liberals give so little blood. The bottom line, Brooks concludes, is that all forms of giving go together, and all are greatly increased by religious participation and slightly increased by conservative ideology (after controlling for religiosity).

MORAL PSYCHOLOGY AND THE MISUNDERSTANDING OF RELIGION [9.22.07]
By Jonathan Haidt
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt07/haidt07_index.html

Oh, I see he quotes (and refutes) Dennett in that article. It's worth a read.

Happy Friday...

Last night, I told the lovely Carol that I would not make any effort to wake up Early today, as we had done earlier in the week (Monday it was spinning class at the "Y", and Thursday we returned there for swimming and weights). At some point she disconnected the "darth vader" machine and we slept somewhat like the couple on the right until about 6:30 or so, when we woke up and shared a few kisses. I checked up on a couple of things related to work (I made a small code submission last night), then headed for the kitchen. As I made up my oatmeal, I had this odd mental image of boasting about how rich I am. "I put brown sugar and milk on my oatmeal EVERY DAY!" I noticed that one of my socks had a ½" hole in the heel; I pitched it. Now some of you may be scandalized, since these socks are probably less than five years old, but I guess I'm a rich and irresponsible American. And I drive a new car -- it's not even 25 years old! Well, I do have some silly thoughts sometimes.

The lovely Carol was busy preparing for our church's women's retreat (which I'll survive somehow). I fed the dog and did some more work-related stuff on the computer while finishing my oatmeal. I wrote a short note describing an anomaly in our systems, and emailed it off. A quick look at the clock showed that I had time to empty the dishwasher.

I drove to the train station, and had enough time to drop the mail into a big blue box in Menlo Park before the train came. Transit all ran on time, and I got to the office a little after 9:00. There were no fire-trucks so I guess the toasters were behaving themselves; I opened the door and the aroma of bagels drew me in.

My buddy Greg called a little after lunch. Did I want to go for a walk? I certainly did! The sun was out, and we walked around the block -- I guess it's about a mile. When we got back, Kathy met us at the top of the staircase. "If we served bagels on Thursday morning, I wonder how many people wouldn't come in on Friday?" What a sneaky thought!

Someone came by looking for my office-mate; I pointed him toward where I thought Chris would be, then went to the break room for some coffee. Whoa, what happened to the sun? The next storm was headed in! Great timing Greg!

Encouraged by my boss, I took off at 4:30. Boy was it wet outside! Public transit was on time and I walked to the bank in the rain, depositing a check well before closing time. Walked back to the station and drove my 1986 Toyota (without the sticky accelerator problem) to the library to try to find Kugel's book. What do you know -- it was on the shelf! As I walked toward the checkout desk, I saw a copy of Miller's SEARCHING FOR GOD KNOWS WHAT on the free cart. Yippee!

But the blessings weren't over yet! I got home (it was still raining) and there on the porch was a box. Plumbing parts? YES! So I'll be able to stop the kitchen faucet from flopping around. The lovely Carol will be happy about that.

It made me think that I am indeed rich. Oh, yet another thing! The check I deposited? It's some unplanned income, of which we'll give away 10% or so. Some of that will likely go to Haiti. Some alumni association might get $20 or $50. The lovely Carol also had some charity in mind -- the good news is that we have enough in our "giving budget" to go more than one place. Yippee!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

About those quotations ...

Earlier I asked how the author of Hebrews knew that certain Old Testament passages referred to Christ. Some of the passages pretty much explain themselves -- since David wrote Psalm 110, according to the Lord Jesus himself:

He said to them, "How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him 'Lord'? For he says,

" 'The Lord said to my Lord:
      "Sit at my right hand
   until I put your enemies
      under your feet." '

Matthew 22:43-44

This one seems pretty plain -- who else could David possibly be writing about? Here, "my Lord" would have to be somebody with a position higher than David the King, and "The Lord" (in English Old Testaments this is usually rendered "The Lord said to my Lord") refers to God the covenant-maker and creator. Here "my Lord" pretty much has to be some sort of not-merely-human King.

Similar reasoning applies to Psalm 45:6-7: Although Psalm 45:1 says these verses are addressed to "the king", verses 6-7 are addressed to "God" (so we're not talking about King David or any of the other merely human kings -- not to mention that no merely human throne will last forever). And yet the passage also refers to "your God."

What about those other verses? And the larger question -- how should we read the Old Testament today? I don't have this 100% figured out, but I did find some articles from First Things magazine. One point to consider as we try to understand the Bible is our attitude toward the text. Creighton University Professor R.R. Reno wrote in "The Bible Inside and Out" (April 2008):

Modern scholars want to master the Bible. We can see this in their often smug conclusions. “Well,” we are told, “this or that biblical story is really about sustaining the ideology of the Jerusalem cult.” In contrast, religious readers want to be mastered.

(Professor Reno's article is a review of Professor James L. Kugel's 2007 book How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now; I plan to check it out from the local library.)

Indeed we do! It is not wrong to ask what actually happened in some historical setting, but it is also important to ask what a particular passage might mean to us -- which is not limited to what its original readers would have understood it to mean. Thus when Matthew describes the Holy Family's flight to Egypt and quotes Hosea 11:1, or Hebrews 1:5 quotes 2 Samuel 7:14 about Solomon, the New Testament authors aren't simply taking the words of Scripture as they would have been understood in their original (centuries-old) historical context. Rather, they were interpreting them allegorically. But as University of Virginia Professor Robert Louis Wilken writes:

Allegory fell on hard times in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Although the charm of beloved works of English literature such as Spenser's Faerie Queene and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress lies in the imaginative use of allegory, biblical scholars banished the term from their vocabulary.
...

The root meaning of allegory is that there is another sense, another meaning, besides the plain sense. Sarah and Hagar are not simply names of the wives of Abraham; they also signify two covenants, one associated with Sinai and the other with the Jerusalem above. The rock in the desert that Moses struck and from which water flowed is not simply a rock; it is also Christ.

Allegory is not distinctive to Christian exegesis of the Old Testament. It was used by Greek literary scholars in the ancient world to interpret the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, and it was employed by Jewish thinkers—for example, Philo of Alexandria—to interpret the Pentateuch.

Christian allegory has similarities to this kind of allegory, but what sets it apart is that it is centered on Christ. Allegory in Christian usage means interpreting the Old Testament as a book about Christ. St. Ambrose wrote: “The Lord Jesus came and what was old was made new.” Everything in the Scriptures is to be related to him. As a medieval commentator put it, “All of divine scripture is one book, and that one book is Christ, because all of divine scripture speaks of Christ, and all of divine scripture is fulfilled in Christ.”

Robert Louis Wilken, "How to Read the Bible"
First Things, March 2008

I hope you'll read the entire article, as it's currently online. Wilken's point is supported by the Apostle Paul: For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. (Romans 15:4).

Allegory, particularly the view that the entire Bible is about Christ, is still having a hard time. Professor Reno, as general editor of the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible, sought authors in theologians rather than Biblical scholars. A few remarks have come from these scholars:

In a review, Pauline Viviano denounced the “spurious typologies” in Peter Leithart’s commentary on 1 and 2 Kings, ending with the stern admonition that “commentaries on the Bible should be left to biblical scholars.” No trespassing!

Philip Cary’s commentary on Jonah apparently disturbed another biblical scholar, Barbara Green. “The book,” she wrote, “features Jesus on virtually every page.” Shocking, simply shocking. This clearly needs to be brought to the attention of the proper authorities.

R.R. Reno, "Recovering the Bible", First Things Online, February 2009

I don't want to sound overly pietistic, but for Christ's sake (literally!) let's please remember the point: Jesus Christ is the one hope of the world, and the Bible tells us about Him. As the Lord Jesus Christ himself said:

"You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you'll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me! And here I am, standing right before you, and you aren't willing to receive from me the life you say you want.

John 5:39-40, The Message

The Bible's main purpose is to tell us of Christ; it is not Christ's main purpose to tell us of the Bible. So let's seek him first, as he told us to.

Success and its pitfalls

We heard a great sermon today about the idol of success.

Two things stood out for me: one was the unconditional favor of our Lord. Now it's a spiritual cliché that "God loves you no matter what" or "God loves you unconditionally," but to think of God saying "My beloved son, in whom I am well pleased" before I did anything (or whether I accomplish anything ever at all) -- that's powerful. Likewise the idea that God God had something wonderful in mind when he thought you up.

The second thing that stood out was our foolish tendency to look to each other, rather than to the Lord, for our sense of success. It's not just wanting to feel successful that drives us; it's wanting somebody else to notice. And so among the (foolish) ways we try to feel good about ourselves is to compare the accomplishments of our kids. A truly over-the-top example can be seen in a video from "Goodness Gracious Me" where a "typical" (South) Asian father compares his son with "Mr. Anderson's son" or "Mr. Sena's son," etc.

US viewers, note that "A-levels" are similar to AP exams. You really only take one or two in a single day. Millwall is a professional soccer (or "football") team and Liverpool is one of the top pro soccer teams in England.

This father is rather exaggerated, but I the clip makes the very good point that our obsession with other people's kids is utter nonsense.

Ditto other people's careers, other people's houses, other people's cars, and so on.

To which of the angels did God ever say...?

The theme of Hebrews 1 seems to be that Jesus is greater than the angels, and here the author gives his main argument. It's a pretty good one, too.

The question, "To which of the angels did God ever say...?" appears twice in the chapter, once in verse 5 and again in verse 13, effectively bookending the passage. There are about a half-dozen quotes here; let's categorize them.

	Quotations addressed to...	Quotations simply about...
...the Son	(verse 5) "You are my son" - from Psalm 2:7 (verses 8-9) "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever" - from Psalm 45:6-7 (verses 10-12) "In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth" - from Psalm 102:25-27 (verse 13) "Sit at my right hand" - from Psalm 110:1	(verse 5) "I will be his father" - about Solomon, as a foreshadowing of Christ, from 2 Chronicles 7:14 (verse 6) "Let all God's angels worship him" - from Deuteronomy 32:43 (Septuagint version) (about both angels and the Son)
... angels	(none)	(verse 6) "Let all God's angels worship him" - from Deuteronomy 32:43 (Septuagint version) (about both angels and the Son) (verse 7) "He makes his angels winds, his servants flames of fire" from Psalm 104:4

I find these quotes fascinating. I'm sure I don't understand them 100%, but did you notice that the passages about the Son or addressed to the Son outnumber the quotes about angels? One could argue that the author of Hebrews is selecting quotes to make his point, but really, where in the Bible do you ever have God addressing an angel? We usually just hear about it second-hand.

So "God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth" for example (Luke 1:26). Or we just read, "But the Angel of the Lord called" (Genesis 22:11). True, God did speak directly to Satan (Job 1:7, 2:2-6) but that's not the kind of angel we're talking about here. In any case, the Bible doesn't talk a whole lot about angels, but there is a lot about Messiah, and there's a lot that God says to Messiah too.

Which brings up another point, viz., How does the author of Hebrews know that all these quotations are in fact talking about the Son? That is a huge question, because it underlies not only the book of Hebrews, but a lot of other parts of the New Testament. I'll make the observation for now that to a certain extent, the author of Hebrews reads the Old Testament the way the Lord Jesus Christ read the Old Testament. Consider verse 13, quoting Psalm 110:1. Jesus Christ himself also quotes this verse, identifying the addressee as the Christ (Matthew 22:41-44).

I know that's not an answer, because it just pushes the question one level back (How did Jesus himself identify the addressee as the Christ? Do you have to be God to know what the Old Testament means?) -- but I think it is humanly possible to get a pretty good idea of what these things mean. Not that I have it figured out though! More on this will come in later postings.