Mark Byron

The Crazy World of... Rolando McClain?

Baltimore draftee Arthur Brown had a namesake who was an off-the-wall singer in the hippie era; his nom-de-guerre was The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.

Looks like the younger AB moved up on the Raven's depth chart after free agent pickup Rolando McClain retired admidst coming in a close second to Titus Young in freestyle rap-sheet padding.

Pollen Nation

I don't think AAA has "pollen-covered and slippery" in their traffic-report jargon, but it would work today. The trees are in bloom in early May and that means pollen getting washed onto the pavement during a good soaking rain like we're having today.

I just got back from giving Eileen a ride to work and the road was frequently covered in yellow pollen that looked like someone had a truck full of Indian rice (heavy on the turmeric) and was shoveling it out onto the street sporadically. A few pieces of that good naan bread would have been nice, but it wasn't on the agenda.

Wheeler Road looked like it was ready to call itself Pollen Nation.

Facepalming Detroit's Problems

Here's a shot of Detroit's emergency manager Kevyn Orr that speaks a thousand words;

Well, let's add a few more words to flesh it out-

Detroit’s emergency manager says the city is bleeding much more red ink than originally thought. That’s what Kevyn Orr told WWJ City Beat Reporter Vickie Thomas in an exclusive one-on-one interview. “The situation is severe,” Orr said. “It’s worse that we originally thought. It ain’t good.”

No kiddin', Sherlock.

Edifier du Jour: Galatians 3:15-18(NIV)

¹⁵ Brothers and sisters, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case. ¹⁶ The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ. ¹⁷ What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. ¹⁸ For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on the promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.

This might be one where Greek and English differ. "He went and bought seed at the grain elevator" isn't referring to a single seed, but likely bags-full of thousands of seeds.

Genesis 12:7 is what the footnote sites here, "The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” The offspring here is footnooted as "seed"; offspring leans towards the plural, so the translator may be disagreeing with Paul.

So does the NASB, which is usually deemed a better word-for-word translation than the NIV; which leans for thought-for-thought ("dynamic equivilence" is the $5 term there). The NASB has God down as saying “To your descendants I will give this land.” Plural, calling question to Paul's exegesis.

However, which of the three had a direct conversation with the speaker: the NIV crew, the NASB crew or Paul?

Semantics aside, Paul's main point is that later contracts can't cancel out earlier ones unless both parties agree. God has a covenant with Abraham to bless the world through his seed, and that predates the deal God made with Israel in Sinai.

So, when we look at the New Testament replacing the Old in releasing us from the sacrificial minutia of the Mosaic law, God's merely going back to the original deal where Isaac had a very close shave on the mountaintop.