Today choir members form 10 different congregations gathered at Trinity Cathedral to sing in the 28 annual diocesan choir festival. Under the direction of guest conduction Dr. Jeffery Benson, we preformed Like as the Hart by Herbert Howells. If you are not familiar with this piece, please go listen to it.

I find this piece a deep and deeply moving anthem that captures some of the very essence of what it means to be human and in relation with God. Not everyone there today shares my opinion. I must admit I was surprised to have a number of brief exchanged with people who found Howles (and the Stanford Canticle settings in G which we also sang) to be stodgy and uninspiring. They suggested that something newer, peppier and more exciting would have been more to there liking. Fine, I cannot argue with taste, and not everything my choir sings speaks to me. I sing it anyway because that is...

Below you will find my public PGP Key. This key can be used to send me private encrypted messages by e-mail. You should of course verify that the key belongs to the person you think it does before you use it, but the more widely distributed public keys are the harder it is for someone to use a fake one.

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One of societies great unsolved problems is how to evaluate human potential. This post will mostly deal with college admissions, but job searches, electoral politics, and credit scores all have similar problems.

This post was inspired by an article in the on the NBC News website about changes in the SAT test. The SATs were originally conceived of as a way to have a universal measure of how successful a college applicant was likely to be. The value of grades and the quality of education in different districts varied greatly, and there was a desire on the part of University admissions boards to have a universal test that would level the playing field for all applicants.

As recently as the early 90’s when I took the SATs (760 math, 480 verbal) the common wisdom was that one could not study for the SATs. First Kaplan and soon a raft of other companies were in the process of putting the...

A parable

Imagine for a moment that you and I were on a road trip together. As I’m driving along you notice the fuel gauge is getting low and suggest that we pull over and get some gas. In response I say to you, “We don’t want to slow down now we’re doing 60 MPH. Look at that Speedometer will you.”

Perhaps a little perplexed, you watch as we fly right by a gas station and keep heading down the road. A little while later, there is another opportunity to fill up, but when you mention it, I get this look of consternation and you begin to feel a little concerned as I point out to you that we are now doing 70. “Don’t worry about that silly gas gauge,” I say. “This thing has plenty of horse power”

But things really get dicey when the fuel low light on the dash comes on. Again you express significant concern that we might run out of fuel. “Look,” I reply. “The purpose of a car is...