Recommendation Night

Tonight is recommendation night. I have three.

First, I watched a fascinating show last night about “Intelligent Design” titled “The Privileged Planet.” The quality was in keeping with much that I’ve seen on PBS’s Nova series, but the show actually aired on TBN. While I’m not a big fan of TBN’s production quality, I have to say that The Privileged Planet is a wonderful exception. I highly recommend it to ID proponents as well as ID opponents. In fact, I challenge Darwinists who might be reading this blog to link to the site, using the hyperlink above. I can’t say that it will change your mind, but if you are as open to challenging Darwinian assumptions as you claim to be, this is for you. You’ve got nothing to lose but one hour of your time and about seventeen bucks for the DVD.

Second, I received a wonderful comment from a fellow blogger named Scot Cunningham. Scot’s blog, “Unburned Pieces of the Mind,” is a delightful mix of his topical essays (his most recent is a powerful essay about Cindy Sheehan’s Texas protest) and personal reflections (there’s an especially good piece about his memories of walks with his grandmother) and occasional pieces from guest writers. By way of background and history, Scot holds a master’s degree in English and creative writing from Wichita State University and now lives in Belfast, Maine.

I think there must be something very refreshing about the salt air in Maine. Another exceptional writer, E.B. White, left the big city writing scene with New Yorker magazine to observe the world from his salt water farm in Maine. It was from that vantage point that he wrote a wonderful series of essays titled “One Man’s Meat.”

I highly recommend Scot’s work to you!

Last, but not least, let me commend the work of Clive Allen to you. Clive is a transplant to America, having lived a good part of his life in Africa and England. He has now settled down in Oklahoma, about a hundred or so miles south of me here in Emporia. His blog, titled “Gone Away,” highlights his substantial talents as a writer.

These have been very happy bits of serendipity for me. It’s difficult to find a lot of good writing on the blogosphere, so I consider myself very fortunate to have found two highly skilled craftsmen in the past month.

One last post script. Scot, if you get a chance to read this post, I encourage you to get in touch with Clive. He’s one of a group of folks who are working on a startup venture called “The Writer’s Blog Alliance, which is currently in beta testing.” I think that you’re the type of writer Clive and his crew are looking for. There’s a hyperlink to his site a couple of paragraphs above. I’m sure that Clive would be willing to answer any questions you might have.