Since the rumours of charges coming to Twitter set hold, people have (ironically) been tweeting strongly about their newly enlightened opinions of the infamous service.

Over one third of businesses have said that they would not pay for Twitter if it began charging, according to an online poll. Some 40 percent of followers are stating that the site should remain free to everyone as it always has, and 11 percent have pointed out that the site can purely make its money through advertising.

Sadly for Twitter, only 7 percent of followers in the poll have said that they would pay to monitor their name over Twitter, and 36 percent of those polled do not use Twitter and would not use Twitter as a marketing tool.

The commotion began with Twitter's co-founder saying in an interview with Bloomberg last week that the firm was planning to charge businesses to verify their accounts, in an attempt to reduce the increasing incidents of intensive cyber squatting on the site.

It is likely that Twitter will simply brush this off, with big named vendors such as Dell who will likely want to jump on the bandwagon in an effort to secure their brand... in a world that is evermore mad about "Tweeting".

Publication Date: 2009 Jul 1 PMID: 19570804Authors: Nishida, H. - Motoyama, T. - Yamamoto, S. - Aburatani, H. - Osada, H.Journal: BioinformaticsWe identified 6 499 428 mono- and 7 545 410 di-nucleosome positions of the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus, which was detected at high resolution based on the DNA sequence data obtained from both mono- and dinucleosomal DNA fragments. We show that the distribution of lengths of the mononucleosomal DNA fragments has two peaks at 134 nt and 149 nt, whereas the distribution of di-nucleosomal DNA fragment lengths has a single peak at 285 nt. Although the gene bodies of the active and inactive genes and the inactive gene promoters had the two peaks of the mono-nucleosomal DNA fragment lengths, the active gene promoter lost the longer peak at 149-nt. Our findings strongly suggest that the nucleosomes protecting longer DNA fragments against MNase at the promoters, thereby inhibiting high gene expression. CONTACT: hnishida@iu.a.u-tokyo.ac.jp SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.post to: CiteULike

Publication Date: 2009 Jul 1 PMID: 19571149Authors: Habas, C. - Kamdar, N. - Nguyen, D. - Prater, K. - Beckmann, C. F. - Menon, V. - Greicius, M. D.Journal: J NeurosciConvergent data from various scientific approaches strongly implicate cerebellar systems in nonmotor functions. The functional anatomy of these systems has been pieced together from disparate sources, such as animal studies, lesion studies in humans, and structural and functional imaging studies in humans. To better define this distinct functional anatomy, in the current study we delineate the role of the cerebellum in several nonmotor systems simultaneously and in the same subjects using resting state functional connectivity MRI. Independent component analysis was applied to resting state data from two independent datasets to identify common cerebellar contributions to several previously identified intrinsic connectivity networks (ICNs) involved in executive control, episodic memory/self-reflection, salience detection, and sensorimotor function. We found distinct cerebellar contributions to each of these ICNs. The neocerebellum participates in (1) the right and left executive control networks (especially crus I and II), (2) the salience network (lobule VI), and (3) the default-mode network (lobule IX). Little to no overlap was detected between these cerebellar regions and the sensorimotor cerebellum (lobules V-VI). Clusters were also located in pontine and dentate nuclei, prominent points of convergence for cerebellar input and output, respectively. The results suggest that the most phylogenetically recent part of the cerebellum, particularly crus I and II, make contributions to parallel cortico-cerebellar loops involved in executive control, salience detection, and episodic memory/self-reflection. The largest portions of the neocerebellum take part in the executive control network implicated in higher cognitive functions such as working memory.post to: CiteULike

Happy 4th of July, America. When was the last time that actually meant anything real?

Forgive me if i feel strongly about this, but it seems us Americans are only good at complaining, blaming others, and consuming. I am aware that many of us are patriotic Americans who take pride in their country, but how many of us actually do our part to make it better? We all consume irresponsibly, complain about the state of things, and blame "them" for all of our problems. Democrats and Republicans blame each other, but i'm an Independent, and although my views are very Left (Liberal) Libertarian, i put the blame on all of us, the citizens. Our apathy and inaction is what maintains the status quo. We as a nation have the potential to be so much greater than we are, and no single issue is as sad as the total of all that wasted potential. It seems we won't rise to action until things are bad enough that we can't tolerate it anymore. I, for one, refuse to conform to this mentality.

I will do everything in my power to make a difference because as Bill Clinton stated so eloquently at the funeral of Coretta Scott King, "the difficulty of success does not relieve one of the obligation to try". Those words have ever since resonated with me, and regardless of how you feel about Clinton, i hope they will do the same for you. People always argue that nobody cares, but this hyperbole needs to disappear. If everyone has the mindset that they can't influence change, then true change will never come. If most people are not going to take action, does that mean that nobody should? No, because the right thing to do is not what most people actually do, but what everyone should do. "Nobody cares" is a shameful denial of all the grassroots progress that has been made. "Nobody cares" is a pathetic excuse to shirk one's collective social responsibilities. "Nobody cares" is a weak will that ignores the efforts of all those who do care. We all have an obligation to do something, so for those of us who are already active, we should encourage others to care as well.

I propose that we don't just use July 4th as a day to spend time with family, grill some barbecue, and watch fireworks come nightfall, but that we give the day some true justice and do something meaningful with it. The Fourth of July should be a day on which we not only celebrate our independence, but also exercise it: embrace the principles that this country was founded on by putting our freedom of speech into action. This should be a day where we give back to our country, care about it, and help shape it. Democracy is participatory; it depends on us.

Today, as we're celebrating, let's reflect on the rights we take for granted, the ones that give us reason to celebrate the founding of our country. Think hard on your responsibility to be a part of this country that is your home. The greatness of this nation is in its limitless potential. When the next Independence Day comes around, let's act to protect and fulfill the purpose of those rights. We can gather together in every major city to rally for the causes we care most about, no matter what they are or what side we take, and grow stronger together. Join your favorite organization(s) in holding up signs, handing out informational materials, and simply discussing your views and ideas with others. Or create your own materials and head out on your own or with friends. By sharing knowledge and opinions, even conflicting views, we can reverse the dividing polarization that has separated and pulled us apart and we will reunite our states. Doesn't Independence Day deserve something like this?

I know this idea may sound crazy, even hopeless, but I know that it can make a difference-- that it should make a difference. We need this, an annual day of action to reaffirm our independence, to bring us together around all of our disagreements, to take control of our own country. What better day than the anniversary of our Declaration of Independence? Imagine it: the entire country coming together not just to celebrate its past, but also to improve its future; thousands of people in the streets connecting with others and sharing information on the causes that matter to them; activism on a scale we've never seen before; real change in the hands of the people; us taking genuine ownership of our own country. This is the perfect way to commemorate this day and honor the value behind it. Plus, we can still enjoy the fireworks come nightfall. Consider this a call to arms. Let's transform our Independence Day, together! Who's with me?

If you support the idea, please repost it somewhere else and start organizing! Post to (micro)blogs, forums, YouTube, flyers on the streets, or anywhere else. Contact any organizations or groups you care about and get them involved. So far, all i have is the Facebook event from which the idea originated. We should get this to go viral or something. If you have any ideas or suggestions on making this a more successful effort, please post in the comments. 

Select Wisely is a company that makes food allergy/sensitivity cards and medical emergency cards for travelers in a wide variety of languages so you don't need to worry about random shrimp or peanuts showing up in your food on a business trip to China. Reader Michael (commenter LetMeGetTheManager) ordered a set of cards, and was so delighted with their service that he just had to e-mail Consumerist.
Jim,

Thank you for sending the allergy translation cards I ordered, both the "Strongly Worded Peanuts" cards for China and Hong Kong, as well as the "List of Nuts" cards for China and Hong Kong. However, including cards that I did not order, but that would be extremely helpful for someone who is severely allergic to nuts, is a great example of a company going above and beyond what they normally do in business. With my allergy, which could easily lead to death in an instant, those emergency cards work out to be extremely helpful in the unfortunate event I need to use them.

I will let you know how these cards worked out upon returning from my trip.

Since Michael had ordered his cards as PDFs, it didn't require a lot of resources to enclose extra cards with his order, but it was still a thoughtful gesture and very useful to him!

It was the story of an e-mail heard around the world. You may remember Jérôme Bourreau-Guggenheim who expressed opposition in an e-mail to his member of parliament. That e-mail went back to his employer, TF1, who then promptly fired him because of his political views back in May. Now, Bourreau-Guggenheim is suing TF1 for discrimination.

His journey throughout all of this probably started off as a humble employee, working at Frances broadcaster, TF1. He probably had no idea that one day, he’d be the centre of a major political debate that the whole world is watching at the time.

Then, the HADOPI law debate came up. Three strikes and your out for copyright infringement online. At the time, the proposal would have no judicial oversight whatsoever – not to mention being forced to pay your subscription fee even though you have been, well, banned from the internet. You’re name would be added to a blacklist so you can’t subscribe with another provider and the amount of time you were disconnected, at the time, was still being determined.

Not surprisingly, the law was just about as controversial then as it is now. For Jérôme Bourreau-Guggenheim at the time, he wasn’t exactly too keen on the law either. So, while at work, he sent an e-mail to his member of parliament to express his personal opposition to the “three strikes” law. His member of parliament’s office, who also happened to be part of the governing party, UMP, then forwarded the e-mail to the minister of culture who then forwarded the e-mail to his employer, TF1. Bourreau-Guggenheim boss then hauled him into his office where he was showed a copy of his e-mail before he was fired for “strategic differences”

His story hit several major French newspapers. He went from just a side-line employee to a front-line borderline celebrity who is against the French three strikes law. The story has since caused political waves.

Now, it seems, a new development has happened in this case. French newspaper, Le Monde, is reporting (Google Translation) that Bourreau-Guggenheim is suing his former employer, TF1, for discrimination. His lawsuit is based on article 225-2 of the penal code which addresses “violations of human dignity”.

The punishment for such a violation is up to three years in prison and a 45,000 euro fine. That article specifically deals with an employment dismissal based on a political viewpoint.

Le Monde makes an additional interesting point:

By revealing the affair in its issue of May 7, Libération had quoted from the letter explicitly refers to mail sent to Ms. de Panafieu. Including this clarification: “This correspondence was received through the office of the Minister of Culture, which has posed address the same day the company TF1. A path to strong symbolic resonance, given the suspicions about the relationship between power and sarkozyste audiovisual group, whose main shareholder, Martin Bouygues, is the near the head of state.

Another part of the article says:

It is true that the case has already made much noise but it has needed to add: wrangling in the Assembly, where the former Minister of Culture, Christine Albanel, has been strongly implicated by the opposition; sanction against the member of his Cabinet who had transferred to the TF1 mail received from Ms. de Panafieu (Le Monde, 12 May).

Now committed criminal in a long process, Mr. Bourreau Guggenheim-must adapt to circumstances. To live this matter without further destroying his career. Say they have had “some contact with elected representatives of the opposition, which (l ‘) were invited to participate in debates on Hadopi”, the former part of TF1 should also “reassure (the) future employers” when is invited to an interview. TF1 who denounced “positions (…) radical expressed publicly,” he defends himself on these two points: “I am loyal, I have nothing being published at TF1. And I am not an extremist free download.”

At this point in time, it’s not hard to see this as a no win situation for the UMP of France, not to mention TF1 who is neck deep in this political fiasco as well. It would appear that Bourreau-Guggenheim has a number of additional options should things go sour for him including referring to the European Court of Human Rights. Though one can only imagine how much additional political damage that would cause for the government who is not only intending on pushing through the three strikes law at all cost, but also changing around the French court system and giving judges only approximately 5 minutes to rule on each disconnection.

This case about a French employee fired for opposing the three strikes law, unfortunately for TF1 and the UMP, isn’t going to go away any time soon.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Publication Date: 2009 Jul 1 PMID: 19571144Authors: Kim, Y. S. - Shin, J. H. - Hall, F. S. - Linden, D. J.Journal: J NeurosciBrief strong depolarization of cerebellar Purkinje cells produces a slow inward cation current. This current, called depolarization-induced slow current (DISC), is triggered by Ca influx in the Purkinje cell and is attenuated by a blocker of vesicular fusion. Previous work in other brain regions, such as the substantia nigra and ventral tegmental area, has shown that dopamine can be released from dendrites to produce paracrine and autocrine signaling. Here, we test the hypothesis that postsynaptic release of dopamine and autocrine activation of dopamine receptors is involved in DISC. Light immunohistochemistry showed that D(3) dopamine receptors, vesicular monoamine transporter type 2 (VMAT2), and dopamine plasma membrane transporters (DATs) were all expressed in cerebellar Purkinje cells. However, their expression was strongest in the gyrus region of cerebellar lobules IX and X. Comparison of DISC across lobules revealed that it was weak in the anterior portions of the cerebellum (lobules II, V, and VI) and strong in lobules IX and X. DISC was blocked by dopamine receptor antagonists (haloperidol, clozapine, eticlopride, and SCH23390). Likewise, DISC was strongly attenuated by inhibitors of VMAT (reserpine and tetrabenazine) and DAT (GBR12909 and rimcazole). These drugs did not produce DISC attenuation through blockade of depolarization-evoked Purkinje cell Ca transients. Purkinje cells in cerebellar slices derived from DAT-null mice expressed DISC, but this DISC ran down at a significantly higher rate than littermate controls. Together, these results suggest that strong Purkinje cell depolarization produces Ca-dependent release of vesicular postsynaptic dopamine that then excites Purkinje cells in an autocrine manner.post to: CiteULike

Why yes, I’ve finally gotten my hands on something current, and I’m gonna review it! At last, a post people will actually read! Doug Zawisza, CBR reviewer, gives this debut issue five stars, but pretty much everyone else on the internet has savaged it terribly. Which side will I fall on? And can I make it through the review without the apparently requisite “gay for justice” joke? Oops.

Cry “justice!” and let slip the dogs of war!

justice (jus?tice)
Noun.
1.         the quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness: to uphold the justice of a cause.
2.         rightfulness or lawfulness, as of a claim or title; justness of ground or reason: to complain with justice.
3.         the moral principle determining just conduct.
…
5.         the administering of deserved punishment or reward.
6.         the maintenance or administration of what is just by law, as by judicial or other proceedings: a court of justice.
…
Idioms
10.       bring to justice, to cause to come before a court for trial or to receive punishment for one’s misdeeds: The murderer was brought to justice.

The above are selections from Dictionary.com’s definition of the word “justice.” James Robinson and Mauro Cascioli’s Justice League: Cry for Justice, however, does not believe in the apparently narrow views of the American lexicon. The superheroes in this comic cry for a different sort of justice altogether, and I can’t say it’s one I particularly agree with or understand. What the four major characters here (Green Arrow doesn’t count; he’s just along for the ride) are seeking is something called vengeance, instead. I’ll spare you the dictionary entry for that one, you all know what it means. Perhaps the eventual theme of this mini-series will involve the heroes realizing they’ve missed the point of “justice,” and do something to correct that, but for now, this drive for so-called justice is just a peg on which to hang an empty garment bag.

Said garment bag looks really damn pretty from the outside, of course. Mauro Cascioli gorgeously renders the pages in what I imagine are digital paints– the luscious coloring gives the work here its power. You’ve never seen a more beautiful portrait of Killer Moth or of a crying gorilla. Really, you haven’t. Cascioli does his damndest to make a bunch of heroes standing around and glaring at one another interesting. His art is certainly the best thing about this comic.

On to the glaring. Hal “It’s my party and I’ll cry for justice if I want to” Jordan is pissy that some of his friends have been killed and wants to strike back at the villains responsible– and is it me, or is it silly that they refer to their enemies as “villains”? I mean, I guess they would, but it seems wrong they use the same terminology as the fans who read their comics. And so Hal and the Justice League have  a staring contest for a while until Hal declares he’s going to be “proactive,” a stance that will probably last– oh, what time is it now? “You want a League,” he says; “I want justice.” Green Arrow decides to tag along with him because of their hard-travelin’ heroes past (”Remember back in the day… when I lost my millions and became liberal…” Yes, he actually says that), because that’s just what pals who share the same color do, apparently.

Meanwhile, Ray Palmer and Ryan Choi, the Atoms, chase down Killer Moth to find out who killed one of Ray’s old friends, and so Ray, with a grimace and a “Welcome to pain,” tortures the crap out of poor Killer Moth to discover the truth. “Yeah… justice!” he says, shrinking his way out of the panel and into revenge. The most unfortunate part about this scene, however, are the captions. Me, I’m certainly not a fan of the first-person narrative caption, but these are the absolute worst I’ve ever seen, a ludicrous parody of the dueling captions in something like Superman/Batman, to the point where it appears as if Ray and Ryan can read each other’s internal monologues. “I am so not the Atom anymore.” “So says Ryan Choi. He is so the new Atom.” “So says Ray Palmer.” It’s caption after caption, word balloon after word balloon of guy love for two pages, as they tell each other how amazing they are over and over again. That is, until Palmer goes all grim-and-gritty. Here’s a guy whose power it is to shrink and hit people in the face (I was really confused until I remembered his costume only shows up when he is tiny) becoming a dark badass– or as Robinson describes it in the backmatter, “the ultimate survivor.” No thanks.

The next scene was the most confusing to me, as I’ve never encountered this blue Starman before, and wasn’t sure what was going on. The internet tells me he’s mad that his boyfriend is dead, and blows up a car because he is mad. And then he literally cries out, in his alien tongue, for justice! Okay then.

Now we move onto the bit that really ground my gears, where we are introduced to Emo Congorilla. Yes, Congo Bill is sad because all his ape friends are dead, even the babies, and his human body is (probably) dead, and he cries tears– of justice! Oh, and then Freedom Beast shows up just to bite it, because hey, there’s only so many superheroes in Africa that you can kill off, right? It’s page after page of overwrought captions and dialogue. “I am so sorry I wasn’t here to protect.” “–tried to be the hero you taught me to be.” “Something in the air.  Faint but– ‘A smell!’ Beat. ‘A trail!’ Beat.” It’s at this point that I gave up entirely, but thankfully, that was the last scene. Half the cast has yet to show up, and there’s only the barest hint of forward momentum.

Chris Sims calls the book “not very good,” but I’d word that a bit more strongly, myself. It’s more “actively bad.” The writing comes across as parodic when it’s instead trying to be deathly serious, but there’s only so many crying gorilla-men a guy can take. My favorite bit in the issue was the two-page Congorilla origin back-up, but that one was by Len Wein and Ardian Syaf. In a measly two pages, it evokes all the kooky courage and adventure of the Congo Bill concept, but it appears we won’t get to see any of that in James Robinson’s story. No, we will instead see– justice! Or rather, vengeance. A better title for this comic would really be “Vengeance League!” That’d probably sell even more copies.

A good comic? Cry me a river. Not recommended.

10 Comments

• At July 3, 2009, Debaser wrote:

  Robinson is just so much better than this, I don't know what he could've been thinking.

• At July 3, 2009, Michael P. wrote:

  Well, I'm at least glad to see that Robinson is apparently ignoring that stupid Remender arc on All-New Atom and ...

• At July 3, 2009, Greg Burgas wrote:

  I flipped through it but didn't read it, but I kind of wish I had, because it seems so, as ...

• At July 3, 2009, T. wrote:

  I saw the previous previews of the book and the scripting was cringeworthy, even for a Didio DC comic, where ...

• At July 3, 2009, Ian A. wrote:

  "He's a hero. I'm Ray Palmer. Welcome to pain."

  Ha ha ha!

  God, that is hilarious.

  And awful.

  Hilariously awful.

• At July 3, 2009, T. wrote:

  Strangely enough, this review made me want to read the book. It sounds bad enough to intrigue me.

• At July 3, 2009, The Dude wrote:

  I haven't read the book but I assume that the blue Starman you're mentioning is Mikaal Tomas. He was a ...

• At July 3, 2009, Bwhig wrote:

  Didn't Iron Man make the same exact speech saying, "why are we avenging when we should be attacking," in the ...

• At July 3, 2009, red Ricky wrote:

  Dammit!!! I ordered this book in advance 'cause of the pretty pictures and Captain Marvel Jr.; and now you ...

• At July 3, 2009, BMBG wrote:

  RE: Bwhig - Yup, exactly that. I'm guessing it wasn't DC's plan to do their version of Force Works? Because ...

What is really behind the mushrooming rate of mortgage foreclosures since 2007? The evidence from a huge national database containing millions of individual loans strongly suggests that the single most important factor is whether the homeowner has negative equity in a house -- that is, the balance of the mortgage is greater than the value of the house.     This means that most government policies being discussed to remedy woes in the housing market are misdirected.

Welcome to the two-hundred and fourteenth in a series of examinations of comic book legends and whether they are true or false. Click here for an archive of the previous two hundred and thirteen.

Comic Book Legends Revealed is now part of the larger Legends Revealed series, where I look into legends about the worlds of entertainment and sports, which you can check out here, at legendsrevealed.com. I’d especially recommend last week’s Movie Legends, for a piece about Waldo (of Where’s Waldo fame) popping up in Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto!

I presume Shelly did not like last week, and I don’t think she will be too pleased about this week, either!

Let’s begin!

COMIC LEGEND: John Severin was tricked into drawing the Rawhide Kid MAX mini-series not knowing what the content was.

STATUS: False

As you might recall, last week we discussed the Rawhide Kid mini-series that Marvel put out under its MAX imprint (their “mature readers only” line of comics). That’s the series that took a different look at the classic Marvel western hero and made him out to be a fairly flamboyant gay man (while maintaining his fighting skills).

The series was written by Ron Zimmerman and was drawn by John Severin, who was in his 80s when the mini-series came out. Severin had drawn Rawhide Kid stories when the character was NEW (before Marvel Comics was even known as Marvel Comics! It was still Atlas Comics when Severin started working there on the Western heroes). So it was a real coup to have one of the character’s early artists draw this new, fairly controversial mini-series.

In any event, writer Chuck Dixon made some comments at the time about the comic book. He said:

But am I to understand that John Powers Severin is drawing this wretched piece of exploitational trash? John objected to (but finally drew) a western story I wrote in which an unmarried couple were shown together in bed. (this was for the more adult-oriented ‘Savage Tales’ magazine.) Could he have willingly participated in this? I doubt it very strongly. I’ll bet he was handed a plot with no idea that the subject of the Rawhide Kid’s ’secret’ would be revealed in the dialogue.

Reader Gorpulon wanted to know if this was true (Gorpulon knew that Marvel denied it, but he was wondering Severin ever did).

First off, yeah, Marvel did, in fact, deny it, pretty emphatically, really.

Here’s Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada on the topic:

Every once in a while something so ridiculous comes out of a mouth of one of my fellow comicbook constituents that I just have to chime in and clear up some things. Now I realize that by me bringing this up more people will now have heard this comment than the few that actually did, but heck that’s okay.

[Quesada then repeats the above quote - BC]

Now let’s read this carefully because it’s troubling on many levels. First, let me say that I like Chuck, heck I hired him to work at Marvel Knights. I guess that’s why I’m so troubled by what he’s implying here. Must be that mix of sun and sigils.

1- That Senior Editor Axel Alonso is so unscrupulous, so underhanded that he would actually try to fool the great John Severin into doing this book. That he would lie to his talent about something so important to core of the story.

2- That as Editor in Chief, I would condone such behavior of any of my editors. That I would let my editor lie to a talent about what he or she was working on and not fire that editor on the spot.

3- That John Severin isn’t smart enough to know what he’s drawing or that he’s incredibly gullible.

Which is it? Quite frankly all of the insinuations here are pretty crappy and owing of an apology. Not to me, because at this point after hearing a rant like the one above, I could give a horse’s butt what Chuck thinks of me, but to Axel and John.

Just for the record, John was approached and told the idea for Rawhide before there was even a writer fully attached to the project. He has known from the very beginning and loved the idea from day one. According to Axel, he’s also loving all of the media attention the book is getting as well.

He also worked from full script.

Let’s take a look at some pages from Rawhide Kid #2…

Those pages sure look like Severin is in on the joke, no?

Luckily for us, in Comic Book Marketplace #98, Severin DID talk about the series…

Severin: It’s kind of weird. (laughs) I guess, yeah, I think the information is already out there. The Rawhide Kid is rather effeminate in this story. It may be quite a blow to some of the old fans of Rawhide Kid. But it’s a lot of fun and he’s still a tough hombre.

That interview was given before (or right around) the release of the first issue of the series, so it sure does not seem like Severin was unaware or what was going on, right?

I think Dixon’s point was mostly rhetorical, anyways – sort of a “He couldn’t know what was going on, because how could he have known and still done it?” type of thing.

Thanks to Gorpulon for the question, and thanks to Comic Book Marketplace (and John Severin) for the spot-on quote, and thanks to Rich Johnston for the other quotes!

COMIC LEGEND: EC Comics was told to change a black character to a white character or else violate the Comics Code.

STATUS: True

By the end of the 1955, Bill Gaines’ comic book company, EC Comics, was in pretty rough shape as a result of the 1954 creation of the Comics Code Authority.

Gaines firmly believed that the Code was designed, at least in part, to put his company out of business, as the Code had rules against titles with the words “horror” and “terror” in them, and rules about how large the word “crime” could be in a comic book title.

So within a year, sales of EC Comics had slumped dramatically.

The last traditional comic book produced by EC Comics was 1955’s Incredible Science Fiction (a series that had just begun a few months earlier, taking over from Weird-Science Fantasy) #33.

The last story in the issue, “Eye for an Eye,” had to pulled at the last minute due to objections by the Comics Code Authority.

So Gaines and editor Al Feldstein substituted a story that Feldstein had written (drawn by Joe Orlando) that had appeared in Weird Fantasy #18 in 1953.

The story, “Judgement Day,” was about an astronaut sent by the Earth to examine a planet to see if it was up to snuff and worthy of joining Earth’s “Galactic Republic.”

Well, the planet of robots was found wanting, due to its treatment of different colored robots.

Then, of course, the big “twist”…

When the issue first came out in 1953, it was heavily lauded, including the following missive from a certain Mr. Bradbury…

However, when Gaines and Feldstein went to put it in place of the pulled story, they were told no, the story violated the Comics Code.

Judge Charles Murphy (administrator of the Code) said that they would have to change the astronaut from black to white if they wanted it to be included.

After being told that, clearly, the color of the astronaut’s skin was practically the whole point of the story, Murphy backed down, but said that they would at least have to get rid of the perspiration on his skin.

Feldstein and Gaines both refused, and Gaines threatened a lawsuit and/or a press conference to shine a light on why exactly the story was objected to.

The story ran as is.

However, it was, as I mentioned, the last traditional comic book published by EC Comics.

It’s a damn fine comic book story, at that, so if you’re going to close out your comic book company with a story, that’s as good as any (EC, of course, kept going, just not as a traditional comic book company).

Thanks to Digby Diehl’s excllent book on EC Comics, Tales from the Crypt: The Official Archives for the information! Also thanks to cyberghostface for helping save me scanning time!

COMIC LEGEND: The address of Dr. Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum is of a building Roy Thomas lived in during the 1960s.

STATUS: True

Reader Stergios asked about a story he heard that:

[T]he mansion where Dr. Strange lives, his Sanctum Sanctorum is located at 177A Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village, New York City, New York, which in this universe was the actual address of the apartment building in which the series writer at that time actually lived.

And I have heard in other places that this address doesn’t really exist and is completely made up.

Where does this address come from? Was it Stan Lee’s at the time? Or was it some other writer?

First off, the history of Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum is pretty interesting.

It appears in the very first appearance of Doctor Strange in Strange Tales #110, including the funky window designs…

And the building as a whole appeared in Strange Tales #117…

But, similarly to Namor’s home of Atlantis (as I mentioned in this previous installment of Comic Book Legends Revealed), it was never actually called anything for years.

It was just “Doctor Strange’s Greenwich Village retreat/home”…

It was not until Strange Tales #132 that it was even referred to as a sanctum at ALL, let alone a Sanctum Sanctorum….

It was not until Roy Thomas was in charge of Doctor Strange that the place got its name and address, 177A Bleecker Street.

And yes, Stergios…

A. 177 Bleecker Street DOES exist (here it is)…

and

B. Roy Thomas lived there for a time (I believe he was rooming with Gary Friedrich, but it may have been someone else).

What I would like to know from you readers out there is what issue did the Sanctum Sanctorum officially get its name? And what was the first issue to feature the address? I believe it was courtesy of a telegram delivered to Strange, but I can’t recall of an issue outside of Doctor Strange #183 where he received a telegram (and that issue doesn’t have the address on the telegram). Help me out, folks! I’d also like to know exactly which comic book pro Thomas shared the apartment with, as well! Thanks!

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Thanks to the Grand Comic Book Database for this week’s covers! And thanks to Brandon Hanvey for the Comic Book Legends Revealed logo!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is cronb01@aol.com.

As you likely know by now, at the end of April, my book finally came out!

Here is the cover by artist Mickey Duzyj. I think he did a very nice job (click to enlarge)…

If you’d like to order it, you can use the following code if you’d like to send me a bit of a referral fee…

Was Superman a Spy?: And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed

See you next week!

3 Comments

• At July 3, 2009, Comic Book Legends Revealed #214 wrote:

  [...] here to read [...]

• At July 3, 2009, Chris Bloom wrote:

  I'm not homosexual, but that dialogue from RAWHIDE KID makes me embarrassed on their behalf. If that's the best ...

• At July 3, 2009, Manglr wrote:

  I'll point out that the "Judgement Day" issue was also covered pretty fully in the wonderful "Ten Cent Plague". ...

Publication Date: 2009 Jul 1 PMID: 19571129Authors: FitzGerald, T. H. - Seymour, B. - Dolan, R. J.Journal: J NeurosciThe human orbitofrontal cortex is strongly implicated in appetitive valuation. Whether its role extends to support comparative valuation necessary to explain probabilistic choice patterns for incommensurable goods is unknown. Using a binary choice paradigm, we derived the subjective values of different bundles of goods, under conditions of both gain and loss. We demonstrate that orbitofrontal activation reflects the difference in subjective value between available options, an effect evident across valuation for both gains and losses. In contrast, activation in dorsal striatum and supplementary motor areas reflects subjects' choice probabilities. These findings indicate that orbitofrontal cortex plays a pivotal role in valuation for incommensurable goods, a critical component process in human decision making.post to: CiteULike

Filed under: Apple, Security

Apple is apparently alerting ALI forum members that Learning Interchange account passwords have been compromised. In a message forwarded to us by several TUAW readers, Apple warns that members who commonly use the same credentials on multiple sites may be at risk. If you are an ALI account user, please consider updating any accounts that use identical credentials. Here is the Apple quote that was sent to us. We recently learned that the security of Apple Learning Interchange (ALI) members' names and passwords may have been compromised. These accounts are limited to accessing the ALI discussion board and do not contain sensitive information such as credit card or social security numbers.

While ALI member names and passwords are not linked to your Apple ID, our records indicate that your ALI member name and Apple ID are the same. For this reason we strongly recommend that you change your Apple ID password as well as any others that might have the same name and password combination.

At the time of posting, the ALI site (also linked to in the Source link) is unavailable. We do not have confirmation from Apple about this situation, although we have contacted them for a statement.

TUAWApple Learning Interchange: Security Compromise originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Apple, Security

Apple is apparently alerting ALI forum members that Learning Interchange account passwords have been compromised. In a message forwarded to us by several TUAW readers, Apple warns that members who commonly use the same credentials on multiple sites may be at risk. If you are an ALI account user, please consider updating any accounts that use identical credentials. Here is the Apple quote that was sent to us. We recently learned that the security of Apple Learning Interchange (ALI) members' names and passwords may have been compromised. These accounts are limited to accessing the ALI discussion board and do not contain sensitive information such as credit card or social security numbers.

While ALI member names and passwords are not linked to your Apple ID, our records indicate that your ALI member name and Apple ID are the same. For this reason we strongly recommend that you change your Apple ID password as well as any others that might have the same name and password combination.

At the time of posting, the ALI site (also linked to in the Source link) is unavailable. We do not have confirmation from Apple about this situation, although we have contacted them for a statement.

TUAWApple Learning Interchange: Security Compromise originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

['Diamond In The Rough' is a regularly scheduled GameSetWatch-exclusive opinion column by Tom Cross focusing on aspects of games that stand out, for reasons good and bad. This week, Tom continues his previous discussion of calls for video game design reform in the areas of narrative and story. In the latest instalment, he begins with a discussion of what "narrative" is.]

Narrative can’t help but have an internally coherent organizational logic (called “plot”). The important things about this logic are that it a) unfolds in time for a reader, that is, has a beginning, middle, and end, b) that the experience of reading is one of reading—of discovery and deciphering rather than production and self-creation, and c), that because of this, narratives appear for readers as pre-existing objects, things separate from a reader that demand to be seen and interpreted.

This last point is critical: narratives happen to readers, and speak of an intelligent, exterior design to readers. This is true even when we tell stories to ourselves (the principle on which psychoanalysis works)—we encounter a structure of meaning, or plot, outside ourselves, and re-narrate it to ourselves.

Narrative always comes first, and unless we’re very clear about what we mean by “story spaces” or “tools for making narrative,” it’s unclear how we might provide readers with tools, rather than pre-existing narratives, out of which they themselves will produce narratives, ex nihilo.

Narrative is, to borrow an academic jargon, always there already. It’s naïve to imagine for the sake of polemic that video games, just because they’re new media, are exempt from these rules about narrative, which are something like rules for human psychology. As Brooks argues, we’re just wired this way. We see narratives everywhere, and when we as authors (or, yes, video game designers) produce meaningful artifacts, whatever we call them, we can’t help but encode meaning in them that a reader is going to decipher.

Narrative Possibilities, Emergent Possibilities

It’s implausible to think that a game could ever exist where players could continually find a consistent, long-term level of narrative fascination without the aid of game-provided elements that are already narrative, elements that already have encoded in them some meaning that the reader has to interpret and put to work.

A game like Far Cry 2 is successful at playing with gamers’ expectations and goals because it has a strong back-story, varied narrative-based and setting-based game mechanics (the physicality of your character, your animations when healing wounds or taking pills, your connections to buddies) that allow players to create their own (hopefully meaningful) narratives within these game spaces.

To say that this is simply a “game space” is to deny the machinations of the designer (even in Gaynor’s ideal game world), their construction of a world, a chain of actors, and a set of rules and motivations that propel multiple narratives through that gamespace. Still, if this is what narrative is today in a video game, then what could it be? What could the future of narrative look like?

I’m not talking about a set of conversations that you can only have with a set number of people, which, when activated in the (always the same) correct order, leads to a reward of some kind of all-encompassing, culminating narrative climax, or that same climax mixed with or preceded by a difficult in-game dilemma. I’m also not referring to multiple chains of branching dialogue and story paths that ultimately lead to one of several conclusions. This may be the form that narrative takes in modern games, but it’s just a certain kind of narrative, not narrative.

When I talk about narrative, I’m referring to the product of an author, a collection of ideas, settings and characters (and their actions) that can be interpreted by the viewer or player as a set of related occurrences and human interactions. As a human being who watches events unfold around us, we understand the potential for actions, reactions, missed opportunities (and missed failures).

While games today have rigid narratives, it’s wrong to think that narrative itself is the problem. The error lies in thinking that because some elements of RPGs and open-world games today are or are parts of a narrative, they can never be sufficiently dynamic or flexibly organized enough to allow user interaction with them.

These interactions can produce an emergent narrative, which, on the above definition, is something too complex to have been completely foreseen and provided for by the designers, and was produced by the user’s interaction with the simulated gameworld. This isn’t just the privilege of some soon-to-be-developed toolset of the future; the tropes and technologies are already here.

How? A game could present multiple actors, and in-game entities that had their own goals, made decisions based on their own desires (as created by the designer), and thus affected their surroundings, and possibly the player. If the unit of simulation isn’t resources, vehicles, day-night cycles, but characters, agents with a scripted set of goals and behaviors relative to the gameworld and the other characters in the system, then it is possible to run a system whose compositional elements are narrative.

The possibility of creating such a system clarifies how much the vagueness of the idea of “story space” and “emergent narrative” depends on uncertainty about what narrative is. Saying that if we give users a good enough toolset, they’ll make their own stories, is as much to say, “we don’t know what story is, but we know that it’s out there.”

To return to Blade Runner: the game created a cast of actors who seemed to follow their own paths dictated by their own motivations. What is so impressive about this idea is that it allows for the “unique” gameplay moments that you’ll find in a game like Fallout 3 for Far Cry 2, but with the difference that those moments carry meaning in themselves that the reader has to decipher, rather than being opaque meetings of meaningless avatars in a simulated world that we naively imagine will “become meaningful” for a sufficiently imaginative reader.

It’s also worth noting that in that game, game spaces abounded. Every payoff for every interaction was determined by your investment in the game and your character, and your reasons for doing what you did, how you expected the game world to react. The fact that it could surprise you, did surprise you, shows that the game allowed for more “emergent” narratives than any recent game.

People like to say that the Fallouts, Far Crys, and GTAs of the world allow for unpredictable, unscripted, emergent narrative moments. In fact, those moments aren’t properly narrative, while Blade Runner was. Think of the kind of moment that people have in mind when talking about emergent narrative in those games.

If I kill a person who I was supposed to help, thus necessitating a firefight with their relatives or friends, then yes, it’s “emergent”—something unscripted and procedural happens and I participate. But it isn’t narrative except in a world where opaque, meaningless random occurrences between human-like entities, empty of content, can be called “narrative” because we’re imagining a user who, like a kid playing with dolls, fills in all the semantic gaps.

Nothing Emerges

And so what’s happened is not an “emergent narrative.” It’s emergent, and the narrative elements are stage dressing that, insofar as the event was unscripted, cease to matter. If in-game actors start killing each other but there’s no narrative armature for why that happens, then it’s beside the point that the agents happen to represent people, friends and relatives or whatever.

The new thing that’s happened with them happens in spite of and entirely separate from their status as characters, because they and the game world can’t speak meaningfully to us as readers about what’s happened. If we project meaning onto it, it’s separate from the meaning that was already coded into it (that the actors are characters in a story)—those elements become throwaway, even though the whole point of making them characters in the first place was, obviously, to create a meaningful world.

Unlike those games, Blade Runner attempted to simulate a game world that could quite happily continue to function without your input at each juncture, and a world in which “function” meant interaction between characters with goals, and “interaction” meant conversation and communicative action. Those things happened in the game, and it wasn’t supposed (impossibly) that the reader would bring it all from the outside. It was possible to miss events and characters, and thus have other events cut off from your purview.

This is not the same as saying “I had a different experience in Fallout 3 because I missed quests my friend did; we can now discuss our emergent gameplay experiences.” Fallout 3 and Far Cry 2 may provide users with hobbled narrative tools, but they do not provide actual independence. You may be able to “go anywhere and do anything” in these games, but what that actually means is “go into some areas, fight guys, and wait to activate missions and story segments.” A game that actually allowed for emergent narratives would need a game with strong narrative blocks (like Blade Runner) to keep the flow of events cohesive, in the face of the player’s actual freedom and independence.

In Fallout 3 quests will never start unless you start them. Alistair Tenpenny will sit on top his tower waiting for a supposedly inevitable nuclear explosion for the entire game, if you see fit. This is in no way interesting or fun, nor does it provide me with an exciting experience. In fact, knowing that Alistair waits atop his tower for me (and only me, no one else can do it, apparently) is unpleasant. Why doesn’t he go hire someone else? What if I then decided to kill that person, necessitating attacks against me by Alistair?

This is not a far-fetched notion, and games attempt to provide such branching story paths all of the time. The problem is that there is never a question of the world’s self-sufficiency or linear temporality. If I sit on my hands watching zebras frolicking, the Jackal and other warlords will stew in their bases, waiting for some brave mercenary to aid them.

This is where proponents of emergent narrative have a point—the narrative elements of these games are indeed too static. But to say that those games are static because they use narrative elements, and to imagine that there are non-narrative, “emergent” aspects to these systems waiting to be mined (and that can be divorced from the harmful aspects of “narrative”), is to mistake one problem for another, insufficient dynamism for something inherently wrong with narrative.

What is an Emergent Game?

It may be quite possible for me to, as Gaynor writes, find developers and games that create spaces to have exciting, new experiences. It’s recently become much easier to find them in fact, in the form of The Path. The Path clearly subscribes to the school of thought that desires emergent, unpredictable narrative experiences and creations (on the player’s and designer’s part). Yet Gaynor contends that such games “Provide people with new places in which to have new experiences, to give our audience the kind of agency and autonomy they might not have in their daily lives; to create worlds and invite people to play in them.”**

But does this sound like a space that can be differentiated from its user-created adventures? It may all be well and good to have exciting, unscripted firefights against mercs on a field in Far Cry 2, but I would strongly argue that such player generated narratives (maybe, in your mind you’re just trying to let off a bit of steam, hang out in the plains, when you get jumped by soldiers. Maybe you’re angry at one of these soldiers because they killed your buddy) are inextricable from (and thus highly dependent on) their structured, designer-produced settings and narratives.

In fact, insofar as they require the user to apply the backstory to them, as they surely do, they’re boring because they don’t have content of their own. And insofar as they relate to the broader narrative frame (as they often do despite themselves), they violate the dictum of story space as sole preserve for the appearance of that rare new species, “emergent narrative,” and smuggle narrative in the back door.

Furthermore, to say that a world – where you could do things (any things) and have those things be meaningful – could exist necessitates that the world be carefully, expansively designed, its players extensively fleshed out, embodied, and horribly, plotted. If a game, its world, and its denizens do not impose a logical set of responses upon your character due to your actions, then a player will always know the “gaminess” of their setting. In most games, gamers instantly (or quickly) recognize the systems of action, reward, repercussion, and recognize their place and weight within the game. It’s rare that you find a game that knows how to make players explore their worlds conceptually as well as physically, and even rarer are the games that get this right.

I find it hard to create “meaningful” moments or experiences in a game that so clearly accepts (uncritically) the standards of FPS design as does Far Cry 2. It’s telling that what “emergent” gameplay and narrative amount to in games is a different kind of enemy assault, a riotous, chaotic battlefield. It’s still the Bioshock problem, the “two people killed the enemies with different powers” fallacy of “choice” gaming.

What if your interface for the shooting itself changed? What if the terms by which you “won” or “lost” an encounter changed regularly? What if these stopped being the only possible outcomes? Instead, your goals changed from killing everyone to getting captured, or doing something outside of the shoot/be shot at paradigm. To move further outside the kill/die and win/lose video game rhetoric (to a more experiential model, say) is almost incomprehensible to games, designers, and gamers, and with the tools and examples we have today, I’m not surprised.

Gaynor’s argument assumes that a reactive, highly realized and modifiable world can elicit genuine emotional responses in me, possibly even responses I’m unfamiliar with. I don’t care how reactive your world is, I cannot be interested in the actions of my character if they are not couched in a broader human context and narrative. This is why so many games fail to elicit responses from gamers. Their characters, plot, and world are at once artificial, unbelievable, and uncomfortable in their own skin. They consistently fail to transparently direct and modify the world in a responsive, enjoyable way (for the player).

When I relate to fictions, to the actions of my avatar and the hidden or visible results of his actions, it’s because they take place within a recognizable, human spectrum of actions, existence and response. If there’s no reason for the queen dying after the king, after all, I’m not sure I care. And I don’t care to dream up a reason all on my own.

A Hopeless Cause

Much like in the blander shooters of today, all of the emergent gameplay and experience in the world can’t make up for badly realized characters and stories. Likewise (and far more importantly), the autonomy and ability of the game world to function, play out, and possibly self-terminate (in parts) is key to the realization of Gaynor’s ideal. I think you need a tangible thread of narrative force running through a world to make these things important, otherwise every happening has the potential to be “meaningful” to me.

This thread can exist anywhere, it can be different for every user, but it will exist, and it will not do so just because a user willed it into existence in the absence of coherent emotional and logical stimuli. This isn’t the case in real life, and it’s not the case for one individual. Yes, one potential gamer may find the relatable experiences of her in game character interesting, but there is a difference between one player and a community of players, and between interesting and engrossing.

Next week, I want to talk about how Gaynor’s goal is one that I appreciate, despite the impossibility or inadvisability of some of his prescriptions. As he hypothesizes: "Under the immersion model, instead of relying on an authored message encoded in a single traditional narrative stream, meaning arises from the content developers' ambient characterization of the gameworld itself and the non-player characters who inhabit it. Instead of gaining perspective by seeing specific events through the eyes of a particular character, the player gains perspective by himself inhabiting a world apart from his own daily experience and coming away with a sense of meaningful displacement."*

I think that this is quite possible, but that there are necessary designer-heavy elements that must inhabit this world, especially if the “sense of meaningful displacement” is to be achieved. I also think that these elements must inescapably answer to the broader rules and results of being part of narratives. To aid me in my discussion, I’ll bring up the notion of “Island-based” tabletop quest creation and modification, and the graphic adventure The Last Express.

* The Immersion Model of Meaning
Storymaking
** Being There
The Challenge of Non-Linearity
A Peek into Game Design

[Tom Cross writes for Gametopius and Popmatters, and blogs about video games at shouldntbegaming.wordpress.com. You can contact him at romain47 at gmail dot com.]

Today we come to our third reading in Jeremiah Burroughs' The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. If you have not yet started the book but would like to read along with us, you're not too late. We are only three chapters in and you can still easily catch up. Another couple of weeks and it may be difficult to catch up, so join in while you still can!

Summary This is going to be a bit of an abbreviated summary. We've got sick people in the home and I've got to split my day between work and doctoring (or, at least, running to the store to buy soda crackers and ginger ale).

Last week, in chapter two, Burroughs introduced "The Mystery of Contentment." The business of this book, he says, is to do just this--to open to you the art and mystery of contentment. The mystery is this: how can a person be content with his affliction and yet thoroughly sensible of it at the same time, so that he even endeavors to remove it. "How to join these two together: to be sensible of an affliction as much as a man or woman who is not content; I am sensible of it as fully as they, and I seek ways to be delivered from it as well as they, and yet still my heart abides content--this is, I say, a mystery, that is very hard for a carnal heart to understand." In the second chapter he provided seven "things for opening the mystery of contentment." This week he continued with six more.

First, he (the Christian) lives upon the dew of God's blessing. Like a person does not know what a grasshopper feeds upon (at least, he did not know back then), "in the same way a Christian can get food that the world does not know of; he is fed in a secret way by the dew of the blessing of God." In other words, a Christian receives contentment in a way that is a mystery to the unbeliever. Here Burroughs offers five considerations of why a Christian finds contentment in what he has even though it may be only very little: all that he has is an expression of God's love to him; what he has is sanctified to him for good; a gracious heart has what he has free of cost; what he has he has by right of Jesus Christ, by the purchase of Christ; and every bit of what he has is a down payment of sorts, a shadowing of the greater good that is to come. "Just as every affliction that the wicked have is but the beginning of sorrows, and forerunner of those eternal sorrows that they are likely to have hereafter in Hell, so every comfort you have is a forerunner of those eternal mercies you shall have with God in Heaven."

Second, in all the afflictions, all the evils that befall him, the Christian can see the love, and can enjoy the sweetness of love in his afflictions as well as his mercies. Or, to quote Jerome, "He is a happy man who is beaten when the stroke is a stroke of love."

Third, a godly man sees contentment as a mystery because just as he sees all his afflictions come from the same love that Jesus Christ did, so he sees them all sanctified in Jesus Christ, sanctified in a Mediator. The Christian can have all taken away from him and realize that Jesus, too, had no place to lay his head. He can be persecuted and realize that Jesus, too, was persecuted. And so "the exercising of faith on what Christ endured is the way to get contentment in the midst of our pains."

Fourth, a gracious heart has contentment by getting strength from Jesus Christ; he is able to bear his burden by getting strength from someone else. Through faith a Christian is able to gain the strength of Christ. And so "faith is the great grace that is to be acted under afflictions."

Fifth, a godly heart enjoys much of God in everything he has, and knows how to make up all wants in God himself. Here he uses an interesting and effective illustration that relies on pipes. "This indeed is an excellent art, to be able to draw from God what one had before in the creature. Christian, how did you enjoy comfort before? Was the creature anything to you but a conduit, a pipe, that conveyed God's goodness to you? 'The pipe is cut off,' says God, 'come to me, the fountain, and drink immediately.'" An extended quote will help, I think:

Now the Lord would not have the affections of his children to run waste; he does not care for other men's affections, but yours are precious, and God would not have them to run waste; therefore he has cut off your other pipes that your heart might flow wholly to him. If you have children, and because you let your servants perhaps feed them and give them things, you perceive that your servants are stealing away the hearts of your children, you would hardly be able to bear it; you would be ready to send away such a servant. When the servant is gone, the child is at a great loss, it has not got the nurse, but the father or mother intends by sending her away, that the affections of the child might run more strongly towards himself or herself, and what loss is it to the child that the affections that ran in a rough channel before towards the servant, run now towards the mother? So those affections that run towards the creature, God would have run towards himself, that so he may be all in all to you here in this world.

Finally, for this chapter, a gracious heart gets contentment from the Covenant that God has made with him. This section will receive more attention in the next chapter.

And so Burroughs continues to do what he does so well--sharing biblical wisdom in a pointed, relevant, compassionate way. He uses occasional illustrations but useful ones. And through it all, he is pastoral, constantly drawing the Christian's heart to the Savior. I continue to really enjoy this book.

Next Week For next week, simply read chapter 4. Then, on Thursday, swing back by this site and we can discuss the chapter together a little bit. Your Turn The purpose of this program is to read these classics together. So if there is something you'd like to share about what you read, please feel free to do so. You can leave a comment or a link to your blog and we'll make this a collaborative effort.
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